A Fly in the Soup

A fly in the soup
A horror story

I’ve been thinking this over for quite some time, and I still can’t explain exactly what happened or what I saw. I can’t remember parts and pieces, and sometimes my notes don’t match my memories. I’m not sure why.

I don’t know the exact date he showed up, but I know there was snow on the ground. I remember because he had it all over his boots when he walked in, and it made the floor wet when it melted. It was mid-January, if I had to guess, and I was sitting in the den. I was minding my own business and reading the paper or something when there was a knock at the door.

I answered it to find this really big guy standing there in the doorway, as big as two of me. He had those little, round, black sunglasses that seal at the edges, the ones that villains wear in the movies, and a big floppy black hat. I couldn’t make much of his face at first because he had a black cloth wrapped around his mouth. It was probably for the best. For him, I mean, because I probably wouldn’t have let him in if I had seen what was underneath. He was also wearing a trench coat, which should have been a red flag, but didn’t seem too unusual for the weather.

I suppose he let himself in, if we’re being technical. He did say he needed directions. He stepped inside, and that was that.

He used to sit in the foyer for hours, watching nothing, just kind of twiddling his creepy little thumbs, like he was waiting for something. You could tell, even through his gloves, that something wasn’t right with those thumbs.

I stayed in the den for a few hours before confronting him. I tried the police, of course, but they never picked up the call. He would sit there and watch as I tried and tried to call. I had to go upstairs to the bathroom eventually, of course, and when I came back down, the phone line was cut. The door lock was jammed, too, but there he was, right where I left him, staring off into space through his weird little glasses.

The first time he spoke to me, it was to ask for a cup of tea. I told him I didn’t have any, and he seemed contented. He just exhaled and turned back to the wall. The second time he spoke, it was to ask for some water. I refused at first, but then he started shouting. He shouted and screamed like some kind of inhuman child. It was bone chilling. I brought him the water.

That was the first time he took the rags off of his mouth. He unfurled it slowly, not really noticing me at all, and… I can’t be sure what I saw. Imagine a butterfly sitting on a flower to feed. It extends its mouth-tube into the flower, right? Then it curls back up into a coil? Imagine the little mouth-tube, only made of flesh and bone. Naturally, I screamed when I saw it, and I ran upstairs once more. He didn’t seem too perturbed.

Later on, around a week later, he became more autonomous. I found him sitting in the den one morning, watching the fire. “Good morning,” He said to me. I remember that. Of all the things to say: “Good morning.”

I watched the fire too that morning. I hadn’t started a fire the day before, which meant it must have been him. He was burning books, I think. I don’t know where he got them, though, because they weren’t mine. I don’t think they were mine…

Anyway, I had to eat, too, to I smashed the upstairs window and climbed down the side of the house. I ran to the store, and I told them to call the police for me. They did, of course, but they never came. I bought groceries anyway, and went home to find him, sleeping for the first time in weeks, on the kitchen table. He looked dead. His arms and legs were straight at his sides, and he was hardly breathing. I didn’t want to wake him, because this was a nice break, but I desperately needed to see his eyes. I snuck up to him. I plucked them off. There was nothing underneath, just yellowed skin hardened into patches. I nearly screamed, but stopped myself. I set the glasses on the table and put the groceries in their place.

I tried to show the man to a friend of mine once. I went out the window again and brought her in. She thought I was crazy, naturally.

Naturally.

He wasn’t there. He was totally gone, every trace of him. She cried when I insisted, told me I had lost it. I sent her out, told her to call the police and wait for them to show up. They never did.

I walked downstairs the next day. He was there, in the den. “Good morning,” He said again. He was holding an empty teacup, and there was a plate of cookies and jam on the side table. I didn’t say anything, and I watched the fire. I was crying, naturally.

The first body showed up two months after he showed up. It was hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen by a kite-string. I know it was a kite-string, because the kite was torn up on the ground at its feet. You would think something like that would have been hanging by the neck, but it wasn’t. It was hanging by its thumbs, which were blue like grapes. I was almost not surprised. I cried then, too. I don’t think I screamed.

I was afraid to ask him about the body, naturally. He offered no explanation. He sipped his tea with his mouth-tube. I’m not really sure where he got the tea, either.

He became very talkative after the first body. He told me lots of things, but none of them really made much sense. They seemed like broken facts, like they could have been true if he had changed the wording or the tone. Things like, “To wind a clock, go west to the spring, and break it.” He said that to me in conversation, once; I remember that.

The second body was in my bathtub. I did scream when I found it, because it was in much worse condition than the first one. There was no water in the tub like you might expect. The body was male. It lay reclined against the back wall, like it had fallen asleep that way, except it was missing several fingers and toes, and appeared to have bled out through its nose.

I asked him about it. I tried to ask as casually as possible, just in case. “So, if I may ask, what’s happening up in my tub?”

He looked in my direction for a moment, evidently surprised that I had been so bold. “Like a cat,” He said, “Like a cat.” Naturally.

He seemed rather comfortable with me and my home after a certain point. He even made me breakfast one day. I didn’t eat it, of course, I’m not crazy. He didn’t appear too concerned about it, though, and sipped his tea, sipped his tea.

He talked about politics for a while, but it was no one I’d ever heard of. I remember the name, “Affedizan Paulini”, coming up quite a lot. Apparently, he liked his policies. He kept saying so, anyway.

One morning, he was sitting in the sunroom, staring at some crows in the yard. There was a pitcher on the table. It was full of ladybugs and water, and ice. He had his glasses off, had them sitting on the table next to him. I sat at the table with him and watched him for a moment before he turned. “Look,” He instructed, and he pointed at the crows, “Look.” I did, and I was unimpressed. They were undoubtedly crows.

He offered me a glass of his ladybug-water. I could smell it; it was awfully strong. I turned it down and considered throwing up, because I felt like I needed to, but I had grown used to the feeling at this point. He kept flicking his mouth tube in, out. In, out. The water level went down little by little until it was just the bugs, and then he ate them one by one. I went into the kitchen and vomited into the sink.

That was the day before the third body. My memory turns a little fuzzy at this point, because I think when he killed the third one, he turned on the gas lines as well. The third guy was messy, I think, kind of splayed out on the living room floor. The carpet was red, and so was his shirt, but I would imagine there was a lot of blood.

I started to get woozy after this, so I wrote to try to keep track of what was happening. I couldn’t find the gas lines to turn them off; that’s the first thing written in here. I knew what he was doing, so I broke all the windows to clean the air, but it didn’t help. He boarded them back up every so often, you know.

I wrote here that he started breaking my lamps and screaming, but I know that isn’t what happened. He was breaking my lamps, but I remember his silence. I remember him standing there, holding the lamps in his arms like babies, and then slamming them on the ground. He was looking at me, sort of. Through me, more like. I think the screaming was in my head.

I also wrote about a fourth body, one that looked a lot like me. This was later on. I think, now, that it was probably my own reflection, but I wouldn’t have known. I called the police again after that on the phone with no connection.

It started to get hot after a certain point. I think he sealed the windows with plastic wrap, because I wrote some fragmentary parts about a flapping. It was the plastic in the wind; I’m sure of it.

Every time I saw him during the gas times- that’s what I call them, the gas times- it was only for a few short minutes every day. He would talk and talk and talk, and I think I tried to write down everything he said. Here, it says, “And I was really mad because the waiter brought me that dirty damned water, and I told him to bring the good stuff,” Then it gets illegible for a while. Near the end of the page, it says, “The fly in the soup,” in all capital letters. God only knows what that means.

My house was a maze, then. I kept getting lost. Look, here I tried to draw a map. This isn’t my house at all… Eventually, I ran out of food, or air.

My writing stops here, and I think that was when I passed out.

I woke up days later, I think. I could tell, because my mouth was dry and my stomach was screaming. He was there, in a big, brown armchair. His gloves were off for the first time. I was right about his thumbs; he didn’t have any. He did have what looked like long, thick hairs where his fingers ought to have been, which he was rubbing together, making a soft sound. He had his pitcher of that ladybug-sludge. “Good morning,” He said to me. I remember thinking how absurd that was, again.

The fourth and fifth, or perhaps, the fifth and sixth bodies (If I am to be believed) were on either side of me, sitting in chairs. Their faces were all blue, and I threw up again. I looked at him, and for the first time, I yelled at him for everything, for all he had done. He didn’t seem too worried. In, out. In, out. I could smell the ladybugs over my vomit.

I still don’t know where that was, where we were, exactly. We were in a cave, I think, but the walls were concrete. Only the roof was stone, really. There was a fire burning. He wasn’t burning books now, but bones. I don’t know where the bones came from.

Eventually, he did speak to me. He told me only that he was not really sorry, then reaffirmed that it was, “Like a cat.” He thanked me, as well, and told me that I had been a huge help.

I realize now what he meant by the cat thing. You know how cats drag in dead mice? I think the bodies were gifts, like he was saying thank you for whatever it was I had done for him.

Anyway. He stood up from his place. He had wings now, of a sort. They were floppy, and wet, and looked like they were made of skin stretched over a skeleton. The yellowed patches where his eyes should have been split open, and revealed what lay behind. White as starlight, those eyes, and just as bright. They blinded me, and I suppose I must have passed out again.

I woke up on the floor of the den, covered in blood. I don’t think it was my blood.

After that, it took me a few hours to get out of the house. I was disoriented, naturally. It smelled like soil, and death, even though, apparently, he took the bodies with him to wherever he went.

I ran straight here, so I suppose that catches you up to where we are now. I suppose if you go to my address, everything will be fine and new again, and you’ll call some doctor on me. I swear on my mother’s grave all I have told you is true. I have to go, now. I think he’s still around. If you see him, tell him hello from me.