Masika sat in her apartment, cowed by the gloom and dirty-gray walls. That old fashioned clock in the kitchen was ticking so loudly it scraped at her nerves. Her fingers itched to rip it down. Her toes curled into the fabric of her couch. She pondered the problem, biting the nail of her thumb, all the way down to the nub.
Time crawled. The muted television cast an eerie glow across the musty room. The air conditioner stalled out with a clang. The air vents sighed one last time. Masika heard a scratching noise coming from deep in their bowels. It grew louder and louder, getting closer. Her heart leapt, fright tickling at the back of her throat. Something was up there, dragging its weight around.
Hysteria grabbed hold. She snatched her phone from the coffee table. Her fingers hovered over three little digits but no, couldn’t call. She wasn’t supposed to call them anymore. She hit the speed-dial instead.
When she spoke her voice was a tremulous and hesitant whisper. “Aidah, maybe we didn’t run far enough?”
“What? God... what time is it?” Her sleepy sister fumbled with the phone on the other end.
“These things,” Masika sobbed wildly. “They’ll come crawling out of the walls, right? Right?”
“Masika?” The voice on the other end queried sleepily. “Did you hear me?”
“Oh god, not again--”
“How can you say that? Our mother and father both--”
“I’m not doing this with you again! Every night--every night. Please... Just stop. Nothing is going to happen to us. I’m safe. You’re safe. The Everglades are a long way off from the Serengeti, okay? Go to sleep already!”
There was a click. The line went dead, buzzed with a reproachful sort of finality. “Stupid. Bitch.” Masika growled. She slammed the phone down into the cradle. “Stupid! Stupid...”
She grabbed the whole thing and hurled it across the room. Still tethered to the wall, it sprang halfway back toward her. Impatience and desperation gave way to a defensive sort of rage. “I’m not a liar!” She hissed vehemently to the empty room. “And I’m not crazy--I’m not!”
She was not the girl who cried wolf! She had always told the truth the whole truth and--
She suddenly realized that the dragging noise had stopped. She could hear breathing, a series of asthmatic whuffs that matched the mocking cadence of the kitchen clock. She could feel the intensity of its stare. It made her skin scrawl. Her nervous fingers scratched at her arm, ragged nails tearing into the skin and becoming bloody.
Would tonight be the night? The night it would come out, that thing--and toy with her brains and eat her face raw? Her eyes darted to the door. She should run. Every cell in her body screamed at her to run. Freedom was only a few paces away but she was paralyzed and then her absolute, worst fear was realized. Her teary eyes fixed on the vent-screws. They squeaked as invisible fingers loosened them. One by one, they fell to the carpeted ground. The dust-laden cover followed with a soft thud. She screamed and screamed and screamed but there was no sound.
The thing that crawled out dropped to the ground and landed on two feet, was as nimble as a cat on a tightrope. It was dark and hirsute, hunched over like a failed facsimile of a primitive man. Its red, swirling eyes bored into hers. It lifted an abnormally long finger to its lips.
“Shhhh,” it mouthed, though no sound came out.
Something in the air had devoured all sound. Masika’s screams, the TV, that annoying clock; their voices had all been stolen. The only sounds that could be heard was her stuttering heart and the beastly creature’s irregular breath. It crouched there in the corner, watching her--watching her avidly. Its eyes were hypnotic and slyly malevolent. Bone eater. Face stealer. Skin dancer. Words that Masika barely remembered were bubbling up to the surface of her consciousness. What was that? What was it again? Something the cave men dreamed up and then forgot. No one even told stories about it anymore. From somewhere deep inside, some frantic voice was screeching.
Don’t look away! Don’t close your eyes. It’s waiting. It’s just waiting for you to--
It moved. In a flash, it was beside her. It crouched by the couch, sniffing at her with an almost child-like curiosity. It stank of rot and paste, mingled with dead leaves and cat piss. It had sharp talons for fingernails. They click-clicked against each other as it grabbed on and clambered up onto the couch, beside her. She wanted to scream, to run-- scamper away like the scared rabbit she’d become. The thing blocking her path to the door looked at her pointedly, shaking its head. If she ran, she’d be dead--painfully, painfully dead but if she didn’t... if she didn’t...
Masika shrank back, whimpering again as it edged closer and closer. Her screams and then the sickening sounds of cracking bones that filled the air--that ravenous chomping and the intermittent swallowing were all absorbed by the strange bubble of silence that blanketed her apartment.
Morning came and cops were crowding Masika’s doorway. The man from two-twelve was being hauled away in a body-bag. His girlfriend, a bedraggled and blond thing was on the ground by the doorway in handcuffs, bloody and bawling. She was a black-eyed and hung-over mess. Masika stepped outside, closing her door carefully on the ghastly pile of skin and bones on the living room floor, behind her. Her jeans and black tank-top were clean and she smelled like she’d just stepped out of the shower. Her thick braids were tied back into a bunch at the base of her neck. She seemed ordinary and ignorant, questioned only for the sake of due diligence.
“No, nothing,” she told the one who asked if she’d heard anything during the night. “These walls are pretty thick,” she added with a slight smile.
She was smiling widely as she got into her car and drove to Starbucks to meet up with her sister. She found Aidah waiting, smiled at the dreamy eyed gazelle's medical scrubs; her afro caged into a tidy bubble. She was waiting for Masika in a quiet corner, hunched remorsefully over her coffee and cake under a framed print of Picasso’s Two Saltimbanques. How perfect was that?
Masika hugged her, just a bit to tightly--squeezed hard enough and long enough to make Aida think something might be wrong. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Masika whispered. “I can’t begin to tell you just how glad I am, to have finally, finally found you.”
Aidah backed away jerkily but then she laughed, feeling inordinately foolish. “I was worried,” she blurted out. “Last night you sounded so...”
Masika smiled sympathetically. “I know, I know. Sorry about that.” Her hand reached out, covered Aidah’s trembling fingers on the table. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Aidah fought it wildly, the skin-crawling urge to yank her hand away from under her sister’s. “What?”
“I mean,” Masika drawled, with a sanguine smile. “I think I’m all better now. I don’t know. I just feel like a brand new woman.”
Aidah cleared her throat, untangling their hands. “That’s good,” she murmured, fighting back a sudden barrage of hysterical tears. “I’m so relieved, so... g-glad for you.”
She raised her coffee-cup and nodded shakily at the Evil Thing wearing her sister’s skin. Eyes darting about frantically, she scrambled around in her mind for an excuse to leave, while sipping her muddy pumpkin brew with all the nonchalance she could muster.
