Oil

Oil









Fletcher's feet pounded over the whining treadmill. For days worth of hours now he had been attempting to shed away the intense horror that he was going through with exercise, but no amount of running could wipe away what was happening to him. Each footstep thudded and throbbed against the revolving metal belt, each breath rasped from his lungs as though they were punctured and threatening to kill him, but death was the least of his concerns. Fletcher was moribund, apathic and unpredictable. If he were not void of emotions at this stage, he would have been frightened at what he was capable of. Instead, he only wondered.

The treadmill died off, its moaning fading under the persistent motorway outside the window. Eleven o’clock in the evening and it was still going strong, its cars seemingly driving around in a circuit with no real destination, just determined to keep on going. Fletcher opened the window to allow the smell of sweat and failure out, and the engines in. From his hilltop house, he could see just about all of the city during the day; at night, only the yellows of the road and the occasional insomniac’s bedroom light. However, the city was blind to his plight, their ears deaf. He had long since given up crying out to the busy road. He draped a yellowing towel over his shoulders and made his way to the fridge.

The neglected light fitting emitted no fluorescence. It was only grills of amber from the outside world, gently pulsing like a cooling oven, that barely allowed Fletcher to see what he was doing. He made his way to the fridge, its surface now a long way from white, now a spectrum of grubby fingerprints. It’s contents left much to desire; there was more spread across the fridge’s door than there was inside it, and the carcass smell would have turned any normal man against the idea of eating no matter how hungry he was. Nevertheless, Fletcher reached across the blackened shelve and retrieved a battered bottle of mustard, which he squeezed into his mouth. He left the kitchen for the living room.

Fletcher stepped over a carpet of trash, over old food packaging, crunched up paper, glistening gatherings of fungus, and broken technology he had long forgotten how to use. He switched on the television, bathing himself in its white glow, and sat on the floor to finish his mustard; but the set only screamed at him, its image a mess of static and white noise, its voice oppressive and demanding. Occasionally, through the snow, a face emerged, a random face that would remind him of something that he had long forgotten, like a rationing of lost memories. For instance, the other day, a sour face emerged from the storm, its expressions in a knot of rage. After a moment of brain racking, Fletcher realised that he was looking at Mr MacDonald, his old high school teacher, raging because Fletcher and his friends had destroyed his precious Sedan, caving in its front windscreen with a blow from a heavy pipe, taking out its headlights with the heels of their shoes. Fletcher had laughed loudly at the memory, tossing his head back and slapping the floor.

Fletcher acknowledged the new form excitedly, ready to continue his game; but there was no familiarity here, not even a face, just a strangeness. He found himself looking at a silhouette with a personality, emitting sadness somehow, emptiness, without the use of facial expressions - then it was lost to the storm. Emptying the last of the mustard onto his tongue, Fletcher had thought nothing big of this disappointing image, turned from the television and tossed the bottle across the room where it landed in a stinking bucket of his own urine.

He took to his feet again, made his way back to the window, and gazed out at the distant night. Cars still glazed past in a smear of headlights, their engines greedily consuming petrol and pissing the by-product out of their exhaust pipes. Horns barked, speaking for their owners, arguing for them. Perhaps, if he were fortunate, Fletcher would be able to see a car crash, hear the crunching of metal, of bone, the screams of the wounded. Behind him, the treadmill made a click as it settled, as though reminding him that it were still there. It was funny, most electronics in this house did not work, most of them long dead, others almost there; however, the treadmill was still in full working order, its stainless steel support poles still glinting proudly, its control panel still pristine, responding fluently to every command he gave.

From the doorway of the kitchen, which was the closest room to entranceway, Fletcher could see the front door; or rather, where the front door had once been. Instead, in its place, an angry mash of crushed flesh and bone filled the gap where expensive oak had once graced, so thick and jutting that there was no chance of escaping, as though as many bodies as possible had been jammed in there on purpose by a machine to keep him at bay. The things were pressed so tightly together that it was almost impossible to identify human features from it, aside from the occasional limb that stuck out obviously, but he eventually did begin to notice things after hours of studying; here and there, a rack of teeth, a withered eye, a tousle of hair, crumpled fingers, an anus. Wrinkled skin broke open occasionally, revealing muscle and red tissue underneath; but for some obscure reason, the thing never rotted, let alone attract flies.

Fletcher had given up trying to work out why such a horrific thing had manifested before him and who could have been responsible for such a bizarre and demented act, for his screams for help and mercy had gone to deaf ears, his attempts to chisel away the wall only revealed more impassable flesh, a torso perhaps, a forehead. Fletcher had decided that forces beyond his comprehension were at work here, forces determined to keep him caged and starving like a neglected pet. Even the windows were impassable; the glass somehow unbreakable, the hinges not allowing them to open for more than a few inches as though taunting him. He sighed; his resources were dwindling, if you even wanted to call them that. No solid food remained, only condiments, and the taps spouted forth a thick oil that reeked of decay and stung the eyes. Fletcher had been running his tongue around the inside of the fridge and freezer for hydration, ignoring the sickly traces of rotten food that stabbed at his taste buds, all in the name of survival.

Back in the living room, while the television still hissed angrily, the white figure of the anonymous man flickered patiently again, emitting a white light that engulfed the room. Fletcher sat down before the man, before the face that he did not recognise at all. “What do you want!” he cried, unnerved by the stranger’s presence behind the screen.

Then suddenly, a vague odour of memory, held back by some mental restraint, something familiar about the man, underneath the darkness of Fletcher’s own mind. He knew the man held some kind of special significance, but what was it? How did he know him, and what did he want? Was the man responsible for what had happened to Fletcher? Was he aware of what was happening to him? Fletcher racked his brain, but to no avail. He felt frustrated, though a little intrigued by the game’s new rules.

The phone screamed, as it had done every day for the two weeks of his imprisonment, its shrill outbursts piercing and brazen, demanding to be answered. Fletcher was broken from his thoughts. He snapped the receiver from its cradle, eager to silence its cries, and placed the thing to his ear. “Hello?” he asked, his voice impatient, knowing full well what was to come.

“Fletcher?”

“Speaking.”

“Fletcher, this is Stephenson. Sorry to bother you, but I still haven’t gotten that doctor’s line you promised. Any chance of handing it in anytime soon?”

“I told you, Mr Stephenson.” Fletched replied, sighing. He glanced over to the television, but the figure was gone, and so was any trace of who he may have been. “I’m trapped in my apartment. I can’t get out, and nobody seems to hear me banging on the walls or shouting out the window. I keep telling you to phone the police, because I can’t seem to make any outgoing calls, but you never do, you just ignore me every time as though you‘re hearing something else, or someone else, so I wont bother this time.”

“Okay, Fletcher, I knew there would be a reason. Sorry to bother your recovery process. All of us in the office are looking forward to seeing you again once you’re all mended up.”

“See? You old bastard! You old bloody bastard!”

“I passed a get well card around the office and made everyone sign it. I posted it this morning. You‘ll be getting it soon.”

“Yeah, yeah. Yadda, yadda.”

“Goodbye, Fletcher. Hope to see you soon.”

“Christ…”

Click. No dialling tone, which was funny because that would suggest that Fletcher would have no phone line at all. Still, he let this slip, it wasn’t the only out-of-the-ordinary thing that had been going on in this flat as of late. He placed the receiver on its cradle and made his way to the toilet; downstairs and to the right. The fleshy doorway seemed to throb as he passed.

Making his way down the old stairs into the blinking light of the basement, Fletcher stormed passed the forgotten kitchen appliances. To his left, a large cupboard beckoned to him, daring him to open it. He ignored it, storming past, and made his way to the small room by the furthest wall. It was rare that Fletcher used the toilet instead of just urinating over the garbage and across the walls; there was no real point in following the laws of society since he wasn’t going to be alive for much longer. In fact, he kind of relished the fact that he was no longer constrained in that way, and took pride in himself when sending an amber arc reeling across the room. Emptying his bladder in the porcelain bowl, he glanced at the bathtub to see how it was doing. The black oil, dripping gradually but determinedly from the tap, was still only about two inches high, the base of the bathtub invisible under its colour, the surface pulsing like a heartbeat with every drip. He had tried to dip a hand into the mess once, to pull the plug that he had left in long ago, but had lost the top half of his left hand instead as it scolded and burned through him, twisting and blackening the flesh, sealing shut the noodles and spaghetti that hung from the loose end and leaving a steaming charcoal stump. It was strange, Fletcher thought, that the substance would burn through his skin and bone, but not the porcelain of the bath, or even the rubber plug. He would even go as far as to say that the oil might have only burned him because he had tried to empty the bath, to send the throbbing mass gurgling back down the plughole, because it had thought of him as a threat. Now why had he thought that?

Back to the treadmill. Fletcher ran so hard it looked as though he were fleeing on the spot, although really he were punishing himself. The pain came in waves of exhaustion. Punishment, yes, penance. The treadmill never faltered, ever keen to inflict its misery. An hour later, Fletcher emerged from it soaking, his feet throbbing and bleeding where his sneakers’ cuffs had cut into them.

The living room again, the television; the figure, a little clearer now. Staring, angrily, though there was a hint of sadness behind the hazy eyes. The static increased for a moment, as though its pain were momentarily increased, its plight worsened for just a moment. Who the hell was this man? Fletcher approached the screen, essentially nose-to-nose with the character, trying to take a peek behind the figure’s eyes, to see inside his mind and perhaps work out who he was faced with. A new image flashed for a moment, an old cupboard, the one that he kept in the basement, teasing him with a glimpse, leaving its contents to his imagination. Suddenly, a wave of gloom rippled through his body, riding though his veins and arteries and shrivelling his organs with its ice presence. Fletcher was no longer sure he wanted to reveal who the man was, the thought of unwrapping his identity unnerved him, like the unravelling of an unbearable wound; perhaps the figure had been blocked from his mind for a reason; a dark, dark reason, his mind protecting him from himself.

Then empty static, hissing and whistling alone; the figure no longer there, a memory, something to ponder on as Fletcher fought for sleep once again. To the bedroom he went, the clocks pointing at three o’clock in the morning, his eyelids painfully heavy, but not in the world going to close without a fight. Wide-eyed, he lay under scraps of newspaper and an old coat, fully-clothed, beside the bed, waiting for the shadows to come, to play their cruel games, to toy with him. And then there they were, not a moment late, their spindly arms shooting across the walls and criss-crossing and twisting and snapping and changing direction like running ink on a vibrating surface. It was a bad acid trip, though without the drug, and it really was there. By the time Fletcher’s vision began to darken with the coming of sleep, the shadows had tired of harassing him, slinking and spindling their way from the room, leaving him be.

The next day the road began early, roaring and tooting and skidding through the window. Fletcher uncurled himself from his foetal position and kicked away his blanket of junk. He yawned, stretched his arms loudly and headed for the kitchen. In the hallway, the phone rang. Fletcher answered with his good hand. A woman's voice was at the other end.

"Hello, Fletcher. Is Sarah there?"

"Sarah? Who's Sarah?"

"Damn! I always seem to just miss her."

"What are you talking about? Sarah? Who is this?"

"It's okay, Fletcher, I'll call back."

"Wait!"

Slam! Fletcher sighed and turned from the phone. Who was Sarah? The name rung a bell, but a very distant one at that. He entered the kitchen. A stray cat sat on the window ledge at the other side of the glass, brazen in its liberty, uncaring and ignorant to Fletcher’s plight. Fletcher froze at the sight of it. Food. With gnarled fingers, he snuck towards the creature under the cover of dim, but before he reached it, the thing shot ahead as though it had been kicked, as though it had suddenly caught a glimpse of Fletcher’s intentions, at the darkness in his mind. Disappointed, he turned from the window, fetched himself an old sachet of ketchup, and headed for the treadmill again, the name ‘Sarah’ heavy on his mind.

The treadmill lashed at him, its belt rushing excitedly, faster and more keen than usual. As Fletcher struggled to keep up with the sentient machine, the cuts around his ankles were opened and enlarged, and crimson seeped over onto the machine belt. Cars sped past the window, zipping past selfishly. Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. It seemed that every moment that he did not know who this woman was, the treadmill would keep him prisoner like the house had, and his pain would continue. Beaten and dribbling over the belt, Fletcher turned the machine off and dismounted. He made his way towards the living room. It was then, as the grumble of the highway died away behind him, that the static from the living room became apparent.

Fletcher entered. The figure was there again, waiting for him, gazing with those eyes; blaming, hurt, longing. They caught Fletcher off guard, pierced him and cut him right to the bone, their sharpness acting as a trigger, a key to the memories that had been locked away, the memories that now spilled like a tsunami of pain and anguish, a miasma of agony. Fletcher had been trying to ignore the man, to ignore the incident, to keep it from his mind, but there was nothing he could do this time; the darkness had been released, and now it shot round his body like a torrent of coldness, of anguish and gloom.

Sarah was his wife, or had been. He was alone now, letting her slip from his grasp, her tender fingers gnarling into something evil and hag-like, twisting around the handle of a pistol, pointing at herself, at him, doing a circuit of the room; he long blonde hair, now knotted and browned, flakes and saliva hanging from it like wet webbing. And it had been his fault, Fletcher’s, his greed and selfishness had driven her to her climatic bang. As she sailed backwards, the pistol toppling from her delicate fingers, her amber hair trailing like a tail of fire, tracing her path as she crumpled to the floor, her mind dead and spread over the bedroom curtains, Fletcher had frozen, disbelieving, refusing to face what had happened.

The static roared on, its tale just beginning. Babbling and salivating, Fletcher passed out, and in his dark dreams the story of how he had ended up lying before the corpse of his wife was told again.


* * * *


Paul had been around again, him and Fletcher drinking as usual as they watched the game and talked about manly things that disgusted but amused Sarah at the same time. It always amazed her how different her husband acted when in the presence of another fellow male. Waving goodbye, she left the men to themselves, climbed into the Vauxhall, and made her way under the torrid heat to her best friend Susan’s, where they would no doubt engage in more civil conversations and activities, followed by a bottle of wine each and a soppy videotape. Sarah had known Susan since her third year of secondary school, and, as Fletcher speculated, was uncannily like her in every way: the same taste in movies, music, food, and even men; Susan’s husband shared the same black mop of hair, the same brown eyes, and the same love of self-improvement as Fletcher. Every time she visited her old friend, Sarah found herself getting a little excited; in her four years of marriage, it was one of the only things she still enjoyed doing without her husband.

The drive there went relatively smoothly, the sun caressing her gently, prompting her to retrieve her sunglasses from the glove compartment. Sarah hoped that her husband was enjoying himself, even though she knew for a fact that he was; he always did when Paul was round. Fletcher had always jokingly called her a worrier, though added that the fact that she was always concerned about him was lovely, but she ought to think about herself more often. Sarah smiled. She most definitely would try tonight, she really was in the mood. Grudgingly, she pushed the husband that she loved from her head and focused on herself and the night.

However, as she pulled up under the myriad of leaves, the weather taking a sudden turn for the worst, Sarah discovered a note on the door. Reading it, Sarah felt her heart nip. The note explained that Susan’s father had taken a heart attack, and that she was sorry but she was on her way to the hospital to see him, the night was off. Sarah, a little shocked, pitying her friend, a little disappointed at the night being cancelled, hopped in her car and began her journey home. Fletcher ruled her thoughts once more.

A few meters down the road she came across a payphone. Sarah decided that she ought to tell Fletcher that she were coming back, but that he didn’t need to worry because she would stay out of their way all night. She pulled up beside the phone and called home. It rang out. She tried again, but again to no avail. Disappointed, she hoped back into the Sedan and drove off.

The rest of the drive back proved to be frustrating, her being stuck behind a spectacular car crash, its metal and glass spread across the road like the blood and gore of society, an ambulance, fire engine and two police cars surrounding it like some kind of keen audience. And as though waiting behind a flashing police light for an hour wasn’t bad enough, it was about to get better.

The sun emerged again, burning with increased intensity; the car turned into a sweaty oven. Sarah sighed, and considered reaching into the glove-compartment to retrieve her copy of Lord of the Flies. Ten minutes passed. Just as she decided that that was what she was going to do, there was a sudden wailing of a woman, shrill and distraught as though just woken up from some trance. Sarah watched open-mouthed as the firemen tore through the metal with their tools, showering the road in sparks and fragments of metal, and a woman was cut free, screaming and glistening with ruby, minutes later followed by the limp and twisted body of a male, dribbling over the tarmac, his legs splintered and hanging like a torso on a butcher’s window. A geyser of vomit hurled up through Sarah’s oesophagus, burning her throat and bursting through her lips with unstoppable force, parting them forcefully with a groan as it emerging spectacularly into the air. Luckily, the window had been open, it being a sweaty day, and with a quick turn of her head, Sarah’s lunch was channelled splattering onto the road rather than the seats. Her eyes soaking and red, she turned from the scene, her head spinning. A moment later, a policeman approached her with a handful of paper towels and a packet of tissues, leading her away from the horror.

The police officer had approached Sarah to calm her down, but had realised that the woman was calm enough, tranquil almost, sedated. With vacant eyes, she gazed over the road towards the wreckage as it was towed from the road. Every now and then she trembled, as though fighting to come back to reality. The officer pointed to the roadside payphone and asked if she wanted to call a loved one. Sarah said she did, and the officer lead her to the phone. Punching in her home number, she was met with unanswered ringing. She called again; still no response. Disappointed, she was lead back to her car by the officer as the glass was swept from the road.

Sarah began to come to her senses, blinking and appearing as though there were someone occupying her body again, as though she were behind the controls once more. She asked the officer what had happened, how had the cars crashed so badly. “A boy racer.” the officer replied angrily. “Another damn boy racer. Flying round this road like it was his own private racecourse, and now he’s gone and ended what was once a great marriage. She had only said ‘I do’ four months ago, and now she’s going to have to lose her leg. Her husband’s dead, killed instantly by the collision. She’s never going to be the same again.” The officer sighed. “That little son of a bitch. After all that he took away, he’s pretty much unscathed. I hope rots in jail for the rest of his life.”

Sarah calmed down enough for the officer to allow her to drive home. An hour later she pulled up at her driveway. As she entered through the front door, her home had been unnaturally cold, the atmosphere somewhat bleak. A vague odour teased her nostrils, one that she was familiar with, though unsure how. Entering the living room, she was greeted by an empty sofa, its pillows strewn across the floor amongst toppled beer bottles. Picking them up, she decided that the men must have gone to the shop to get more alcohol, it looked as though they had finished what they had anyway. Sitting where they had once sat, Sarah began to tremble, and images of the broken man flooded her mind, forcing up more vomit, though this time over her skirt. Reeking, she began to sob, her eyes and throat stinging, her body quivering uncontrollably. Dark thoughts came over her like a blinding fog, and for a moment she lost herself to them, consumed by their ugliness. Shaking her head, she found herself back in the house, her body numb, her ears ringing like a pair of alarm clocks. God, she wanted her husband.

Suddenly, a bang. From upstairs, on the floor. Something falling from where it sat, knocked over by accident by a drunken movement no doubt. Fletcher was still home! He was showing something to Paul, no doubt. Relieved, and a little excited, Sarah threw herself to her feet and clattered over the tiled flooring to the staircase to be swept up in the arms of her husband. She bounded up the stairs to the doorway at the top, bursting into the room with her arms outstretched, ready to be embraced and showered in affection and warmth. Her outstretched arms dropped; her face too.

Fletcher and Paul spun around in horror, their bare torsos glistening under the dimmed lights that the ceiling offered, the twisted covers mercifully covering up what lay lower. Sarah stood gob smacked, her body now shooting with a natural morphine, watching the scene from several steps behind herself, realising exactly what the familiar smell was: the smell of sex, once erotic and passionate; now intrusive and oppressive, a horror. Fletcher, in utter disbelief, reached out with a single, shaking hand. “I… I don’t know what to say. I was going to tell you…”

The room spun, the floor dropped. Sarah held onto the bedroom cabinet, her perspective spiralling, a corona of light and blurring shapes and lies. Fletcher moved from the bed to help her, leaving the censorship of the duvet, revealing a twitching form; a withered animal, dying and shamed. “No!” Sarah shouted, holding out an arm of authority, of independence, beginning from that moment on. “Don’t touch me. Don’t come near me.” Fletcher froze, still outstretched, unfazed over his naked body; both present parties familiar with it anyway. He watched as his wife turned from him, her shoulders heaving with great sobs and moans. Letting out an inhuman moan, like that of a dying animal, or a copulating one, she slid open the top drawer of the cabinet and reached for the revolver that had been ironically purchased to protect her family. She turned the barrel to her husband, and pointed it right between his eyes. He gasped and staggered backwards, raising his hands, although he didn’t know why, she could see from where she was that he wasn’t armed. It was then that Fletcher noticed the madness in his wife’s eyes, the inhumanity, and the vomit down her dress.

“What happened to you, Sarah? Why do you have sick on you? Baby, what’s wrong?” No response from his wife, just more vague stares; she was looking through him, at his mind, a thousand miles away from the room. “Sarah,” he trembled, “please put the gun down. I know you’re upset, but let’s talk through this. There’s no reason for the gun.”

Sarah said nothing, just continued pointing. There was a shuffling to the left; Paul was trying to worm his trousers back on, trying to preserve what dignity he had left. Sarah clocked him, and he froze, one foot in his trousers, the other not-quite. She swung the barrel of the gun towards him, and he let out a gasp. “Sarah?” A burst of noise, a flailing of limbs. Sent reeling across the bed, his trousers hanging from one leg, he began to stain the peach sheets instantly from the hole in his chest. As he clawed at the duvet, leaving chalk-lines of crimson, seemingly oblivious to the outside world, only aware of the pain and the shock, Sarah shot again, busting open his head. He splashed over, silent.

Fletcher stood shaking, his withered manhood quivering too, his eyes bulging and almost as mad as his wife’s. She turned to him, to finish the job, he thought, and cowered in the corner as she aimed at his back. “Don’t!” he screamed, scrabbling at the wall like an insect. “Sarah! Don’t!”

Silence. No gunshots. No nothing. He paused his feeble moans for mercy and slowly turned to his wife again, and seen something quite horrifying.

She stood, the gun still in her hand, staring at the wall. Devoid of all emotions, apathic and empty, she tilted her head as though trying to get a better look at the wall, at its mundane colour that she had never liked, at the monotonous pattern that ran along its entire length. A single strand of saliva ran from her chin to her bare neck, connecting with the continent of vomit that spread across her dress and torso. “Fletcher…” she spoke with wild eyes, the eyes of emptiness, those of a doll rather than a human. “Fletcher…”

She raised the pistol, pressed it to her own temple, and shot.


* * * *


The television flew backwards, its screen crumpling inwards under Fletcher’s roaring blow, leaving a trail of glass and powder as it sailed through the air. Electricity lashed defensively from its interior now that it was exposed, flashing aggressively as though threatened. The box crumpled against the floor, vomiting its insides in a crunch of glass and wiring. Smoke seeped out the back, signifying the machine’s death.

Fletcher grabbed his hair and tugged at it, his face tight and reddening, building up, ready to explode. Meltdown. A nuclear one. Fletcher fought to stay upright, to keep the world from being a spinning mess of colours, a kaleidoscope of light and sickness, and he failed. He collapsed kicking, lashing out at what had once been his furniture, kicking up the carpet and revealing the blackened and foul wood underneath, alive with scrabbling insects, now fleeing for cover from the raging giant.

The truth was out, released from its chained box inside Fletcher’s head, the protection his own brain offered now obsolete. His wife had caught him with his new ‘friend’, the one she had been happy about and had honestly liked, unlike those other louts he had grown up beside, though thankfully lost contact with. In fact, she had praised him, congratulating her husband on finally making friends with a good man when, in fact, Paul had met her husband in a bar, The Triffid, and had identified him for what he was, knowing full well that he was going to sleep with him. Fletcher, subconsciously there in the hope of being approached, had been shocked at the brazenness of the man, and as a result, had been unnerved, though a little excited; his urges and feelings for other men had been becoming unbearable, and the chains that held him in place were coming loose, as though centuries of rusting and wear had left them on their last legs, and that a single wrong move or thrust of passion would sent chain links reeling through the air in a frenzy of sexuality.

Rejecting the man’s sexual approaches, Fletcher had welcomed his friendship. They talked for hours on that first day that they had met, and drank gallons. After a single night with the man, Fletcher felt the first flutters of lust for the man, and promptly pushed them away. After making a call to his wife from the bar phone, Fletcher had made to leave, telling Paul that it had been a pleasant evening, but Paul stopped him, grabbing his arm and staring into his eyes with furious passion and a boyish grin. Fletcher was sucked into Paul’s blue eyes, mesmerised by his boyish charm, and captured by his arrogant confidence. The two men had kissed then, passionately and unashamed. Fletcher had pulled away after a moment, his eyes wide with shock, unable to believe what he had done, and taking backwards steps towards the doorway. “I’m sorry.” he had gasped. “I’m married. I love my wife. I can’t do this.”

“Sure you can’t.” Paul had smirked as Fletcher stumbled from the building.

That night Fletcher and his wife had made love. Usually, their sex was routine, the same experience ever since they had gotten married, a constant. However, on the night that Fletcher had come home from The Triffid, their love had been unbelievable: passionate and wild, loud and brazen, nothing like it had ever been before; the entire time Fletcher imagining that it was Paul that lay naked under his body rather than his wife. As he fell asleep, it was Paul that he imagined that lay on his chest, stroking him as his heart slowly settled down with gentle fingers.

The next day Fletcher had returned to The Triffid in his best shirt. The bar had been empty, vast and cold. Later, as his leg twitched impatiently, and after four pint glasses had been emptied down Fletcher’s throat, Paul had finally finished watching him from his car and entered through the swing doors. He took a seat next to Fletcher and smirked. “Did you miss me?”

Fletcher and Paul’s relationship began under the nose of Sarah as she tip-toed around them on their nights out and during their football matches. She was happy for her husband, as he never really kept his friends for long, and this one had beaten the previous record with four months, which, unknown to her, had meant four months of infidelity. They had spoken of her, Fletcher and Paul, spoken of what they would tell her, and how. Fletcher had not wanted to hurt the woman, had wanted to keep her pain to a minimum; Paul hadn’t given a shit. However, nothing ever surfaced; the two men had just continued with their affair, both secretly satisfied with the excitement of sneaking around.

And now this. The only two people that Fletcher had ever loved had been taken from him within minutes of another, from the same gun. When Sarah had crumpled to the floor, Fletcher hadn’t been sure which person to run to and sob over. In the end he hadn’t picked either, just sat where he was, naked and foetal, staring blankly at the wall.

A sound took Fletcher from his distress, a low beckoning that made his heart stop for a moment, and when his blackened organ started again it was as though it were flooding with freezing cold water rather than blood. He slowly got to his feet, the sound more apparent now that he was listening, like a wasp’s nest trapped within a wall, or a pathetic animal growling out its last breath somewhere in the woods. Entering the corridor, he took a look down its length and, horrified, realised where the sound was coming from; the doorway, the mass of flesh, bodies still jammed tight, except now they were moaning! And was that a slight movement Fletcher could see? The flutter of a weak muscle, the pumping of a vein, as though the corpses were not corpses at all, but barely conscious bodies attempting to free themselves from the horrific jam that they were suffering from, but having no strength to do so, just barely enough to groan in agony and horror.

Fletcher fell back, sickened, though there was no food in his stomach to vomit up. Wide-eyed, he turned from the twisted image and gazed down the stairs to the basement, where he noticed another sound, though this one more familiar. It was the sound of running water, or rather, a more thick liquid. Climbing down the stairs, he could not make out the familiar shade of his carpet, the ugly lemon that Sarah had picked mercilessly. In its place, a blackness, glistening and pulsing, and worst of all, rising. Now, a few stairs up, Fletcher could see the roaring bathtub, both of its taps puking foul oil and roaring in pain; the bathtub unable to contain such volume, now coated in black, spilling over its sides. And also, the cupboard which had emitted such gloom, that he had avoided for two weeks of darkness, the one that had flashed upon the television screen for just a moment, that was there too. The thing lurched forward as though it were in agony, carried by the oil, and Fletcher jumped, for a moment fearing that it were sentient, and coming to get him. There was a crack of wood, and the doors swung open, revealing the fleshy contents within, but Fletcher refused to see them, just turned and fled for the ground level. He turned when he reached the top and gazed down. His mouth dropped in horror, and his heart began to clang violently at what he saw.

The oil was at his heels, seemingly spurred on by the excitement of the chase, staining the wood of the old stairs, infecting it with its disease. Fletcher stumbled in horror, almost tumbling forward and reeling down the stairs into the thick mud as it rushed forward to greet him, to catch him. Within its surface, twisted and leering faces swam, hungry for his presence, desperate for him to join them. He grabbed the door and slammed it shut, blacking out the faces, the oil less than two steps from ground level. He ran to the living room where the television still lay, tendrils of smoke still leaking from it, and grabbed a handful of old towels. There wasn’t much space under the doorway, but the ink still bled through, bubbling and eating away at the carpet greedily. Fletcher crammed the flimsy towels under the door, and watched in horror as they were quickly consumed, becoming frail, blackened crisps of what they once were. The oak began to heave, oil dribbling down its frame, the weight becoming too much for it. Fletcher took a few steps back, then broke off into a hasty retreat to the bottom of the staircase.

The door began to quiver, like an overused muscle before it keels out, the black having its way with it from the inside, weakening it, eating away at it. Then it caved it as though it were made of soggy cardboard, a tsunami of oil and darkened faces rushing out over the hallway like vomit, what was left of the door disappearing under its darkness. The oil rushed towards the stairway, bubbling and laughing, and Fletcher leapt up it, heading to the bedroom. Into the living room, the ink poured. The broken furniture was swallowed whole, the fizzing television silenced as the faces fed. The windows, luckily shut, did not leak black blood; the oil pressed against them, contained, quarantined. But if they had been open, what would have happened then? Oil would have spilled down the sides of the house, yes, but there was so much of it coming from the basement that it would not have hindered its progress too much, just perhaps slowed it down.

The mash of bodies in the doorway wailed together, a chorus of muffled screams as they were consumed by the blackness, as though they were not several entities, but one. As the last of them disappeared under the ink, the moaning was snuffed out, and their fates remained ambiguous. Upstairs, Fletcher cowered in fear as the oil snuck its way up behind the bedroom door, bubbling distantly. Desperately, he scanned the room for something to stop the oil, and settled on the bedroom cabinet. He gripped it with trembling hands and dragged it over to the doorway, tearing up the carpet in the process and revealing more scampering bugs. Satisfied that the cabinet was enough to keep the doorway at bay, he waited on the bed, the dribbling growing louder and more furious as it pushed against the door.

A creak, a groan, the wood fought hard, but it was clear it would not hold. Beads of ink dribbled down the sides of the doorway, bordering the frame. Fletcher’s heart pounded, the sweat rolled over his face and coated his shirt. He was finished, cornered like a pathetic animal, caught in a trap, starving and awaiting death. The blackness urged onwards, and the wood moaned on, a single bead of inky sweat rolling from a newly-burnt pore on its front. Then the wood began to scream, loud, agonising, as unbearable as listening to an animal dying in pain. With a final, shrill roar it burst open and the cabinet was knocked backwards under the force of the sneering black tide that followed eagerly. The top drawer shot open, its contents revealed, and for a moment Fletcher was treated to a glimpse at one of its contents: the pistol his wife had taken her and Paul’s lives with, still glimmering brazenly as though proud of the deaths it had been responsible for.

Fletcher leapt forward over the ink and reached into the cabinet as it floated atop of the oil, bobbing sadly as it was slowly eaten. He retrieved the gun, and sat back on the bed, almost triumphantly, as the oil crept under him. Feeding himself the barrel of the gun, Fletcher bit down hard and screamed with all his might.

But he just couldn’t do it; he just couldn’t take his own life. He screamed and bit down again, this time more determinedly and violently, but still to no avail. Fletcher just didn’t have it in him. He let his gun-hand drop to his side and sighed. There was a creak, and the bed suddenly dropped at the bottom end, its support poles eaten by the oil. Fletcher cried out and hopped to his feet as the muck began to ascend the mattress towards him like a black tide, the faces warped and stretched as they approached hungrily.

He raised the gun one final time. This time he did not back out. The gun cried out triumphantly as it took its third life, and the lifeless and burst body of Fletcher Allen tumbled headfirst off the bed where the faces rushed to engulf him victoriously.


* * * *


Detective Andrews, aged and tired, stood over the messy scene, over the gnarled corpse of Fletcher and the pistol that lay loosely in his hands. Around him, several crime scene analysts dashed around like disturbed insects, taking photos, bagging at least one of everything in the room, mainly keeping silent and to themselves. He sighed; another suicide, the fifth in four months. If this death wasn’t so blatantly self-inflicted, he might have gotten suspicious. He squinted his eyes at the pillow, at a small shape that lay coated in a ruby layer, invisible to the eyes of the other policemen until now. His frown relaxed; it was only a tooth. A young police officer, Richards, emerged from the doorway, stepping over the tipped cabinet, its drawers wrenched open, its contents now spread across the carpet.

“They’ve found two more bodies, detective.” the young officer said, staring at the punctured head of Fletcher, and the lashings of carmine that splashed around it. “In the basement cupboard, a male and a female. The male was naked and shot twice. They’ve been dead for about two weeks the doctor says.”

“Well, that explains all four of the bullets.” Andrews, still gazing down at the body, sighed again and found himself wanting a cigarette, even though it had been two years since he had smoked his last one. Once a smoker, always a smoker, he thought. He turned from Fletcher and nodded to the young policeman. “Suicide. He came home early and caught his wife and her lover in the act. He killed them, then hid the bodies in the basement. He became a recluse, phoned in sick from work for two weeks, claiming he had a broken leg, promising to get his doctor’s line in ASAP. He never left, not even to get food. Everything even remotely edible has been eaten in this house, and even some things that weren’t. He never answered the door either.” Andrews stood for a moment, thoughtful, then he continued. “The guilt was too much. At first he couldn’t stand going out into the public, then he couldn’t stand being alive. He shot himself with the same gun he used to shoot his wife and her boyfriend with.”

The boy stood for a moment, staring at the detective. Then he laughed, shaking his head. “You’re like Sherlock Holmes, you know that?”

Andrews looks down at the burst head of Fletcher, at the crimson pool around him, and at the revolver, speckled with ruby. “Yeah.” he said, clearing his throat. “I guess I am, kid.”






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