Chapter Text
-Statement begins-
So, hello. Sorry if it takes me a bit to write this out. I’m still practicing being left handed. Of all the troubles I’ve faced, I can almost convince myself that this is the most trivial of it.
About 2 years ago, I moved into my first home, near Stratford. It was small, but I’ve always favored being by myself and never had an issue living on my own since having nightmarish uni roommates.
The house had a decent living room, small kitchen, one bedroom, one bathroom, and a basement. It reminded me of my previous flat a bit, especially once I decorated it proper. I hadn’t actually really needed the space in the basement, at least for the moment, so it was left mostly bare ever since I’d arrived at the home. Regardless, it was perfect for me. Cafes just down the street, a remote job, no roommates to argue with. I even got a cat, just in case I felt too lonely. She was a fat, older tabby cat named Penelope.
Most days she bathed in the sunlight by the back door, and at night she’d curl next to my side and purr softly. I loved my little flower. It was normal like that for quite some time. I’d take walks frequently to make sure I didn’t become a hermit. I even got to meet two of my neighbours; an older couple, retired for many years. The husband had worked as a butcher, the wife taught pottery and wrote books. They spoke softly and were always very kind.
Mrs. Nesbury, as I came to know her, quilted rather often. She gave me a purple and blue checkered quilt as a moving gift after I’d been there a few months. I had dinner with them a number of times as well.
One night, I saw a picture of a young girl on the mantle and asked about her. Mrs. Nesbury said it was their daughter; she’d passed away when she was still young from a rare bone disease, and she’d have been about my age were she still alive. An awkward feeling creeped into the room then, as I got the feeling the kindly couple simply needed someone to take care of. Still, they were pleasant company and I never felt anything malicious from them.
Late last April, Mr. Nesbury passed away suddenly, and Mrs. Nesbury’s demeanor drastically changed; she became very isolated and cold. She invited me to the funeral, which I ended up going to. I felt I owed it to them at least. I could feel a very heavy pressure in the room, and became hyper aware of the fact that it was only me, Mrs. Nesbury, and the priest there. Her face was blank the entire service; she never cried, she never even twitched. When it was over and he was buried, she turned and walked straight past me to her car. I stopped going over for dinners after that, and one day she came up and said she was moving. Her expression was empty, like all the warmth had seeped from her face and all that was left was a hollow shell. Her voice had dulled to a low, wavering monotone thin as paper, like she was reading from a script she barely understood. I watched her over the next few days, hauling boxes with a stiffness in her limbs that didn’t match her age so much as it mimicked the jerky movements of a puppet tugged by tangled strings. She walked with a limp now, favoring her left leg. I tried not to stare, but there was something swelling under her thigh. A bulge that shifted when she moved, like it was alive and impatient. One morning I woke up and saw all her stuff was gone, along with the sale sign. The house was just as cold and vacant as she had been.
Life returned to normal afterwards, albeit a little more dull now that I didn’t have neighbours I actually liked. I held that quilt close to me most nights, swearing I could smell the faintest hints of Mrs. Nesbury’s flowery perfume. Penelope loved the quilt as well, sleeping on it nearly all day. I remember one evening I got tired of the pet hair and went to wash it. It didn’t smell terrible, but I didn’t want it to get worse. I admired the stitching in the washroom. It wasn’t actually straight like normal, but weaved and bent at odd angles, curling around itself in small designs that reminded me of spirals. It looked a little strange, but clearly intentional. Once I put it through the wash, Penelope started to hiss at it. She wouldn’t come near my bed if I slept with it. I could still smell the perfume even after washing it. Eventually I decided I’d rather have my cat with me than another blanket, so I retired the quilt to one of the downstairs shelves. Penelope was on my bed when I came back, and wouldn’t stop staring into the hallway even when I patted the space next to me for cuddles. That night I awoke from a nightmare I do not remember, other than an intense wave of nausea and the smell of meat.
Almost 3 months after Mrs. Nesbury moved, I began to notice a peculiar smell lingering all around. It would disappear when I went outside, so I knew it had to be something within the home. I tried changing Penelope’s litter at first, which ended up masking part of the smell, but there was a lingering presence of something. It was sickly sweet, clung to my throat as I breathed, but would come and go frequently. I began to feel particularly anxious around nighttime, and had an overwhelming sensation that someone, or something, else was in my house. I would hear noises from the basement, scratching and knocking up the stairs and against the door. Look, I’ve never been a ghost person in my life okay? I don’t believe in supernatural things, so I tried to rationalize that I must have a pest and called a company to come and do a sweep of the house. They did find some mice droppings, but they were old and the mice were likely dead by now. They couldn’t find any dead mice, but they told me the smell could be from them dying inside the walls. Sure it wasn’t the best news, but my mind had been searching for any solution to the oddity and by this point I’d take any explanation I could.
The pest remover placed a few traps down around the wall just in case, then he left. I remember when I went to shake his hand, his skin felt loose. I thought for sure I was going crazy, but I swear I felt his finger joints move when I grabbed it. It felt like all the bones in his hand were twisting and distorting, just right behind the skin. The man smiled, then walked back upstairs and left. I stood in the basement a bit longer, processing all of it, when I noticed a strange mark on the floor. In the corner, where he’d put some of the traps, was a circular patch of something darker than the concrete floor. It seemed almost viscous, and had a shine to it like a rock held up to the sun. I didn’t want anything to do with it. I got a faint whiff of that same smell, that same sickly bitterness and I ran upstairs. Penelope stared at me as I slammed the basement door behind me and slumped onto the ground. She curled into my lap, and rubbed her face against my hands and my nose until my face was puffy and I was sneezing. I didn’t do much the rest of that day, just tried to forget about it mostly. I did everything I could to put it out of my mind and pretend like everything was normal. That was the night. When that thing took my sweet Penelope away from me.
I woke up around 3 in the morning. The smell hit me first; so heavy my eyes burned, so thick my body retched my dinner onto the ground, and so pungent I could taste the cloying putrescine that filled the room — like rot had learned how to breathe, how to crawl into my throat and whisper its wet secrets from behind my teeth. I covered my mouth with my hand, desperately trying to hold in more vomit as I fell off my bed and onto the floor. My mind raced, trying to figure out where the hell it could be coming from.
Penelope hadn’t been in bed with me, and worry began to creep into my mind about what that could mean. I picked a shirt up off the ground and held it to my mouth and nose. It barely helped, and I still gagged on the stench radiating through my home. Pulling myself up from the floor, I walked over to my bedroom door and froze; the basement door was wide open, and a harsh light poured from it. It was a sickly yellow, and made me feel queasy looking at it. Between the gap of the frame and the basement door, I saw something shine, then heard the stairs creak. Fighting the urge to run, I walked to the door cautiously, peering into other rooms occasionally to see if I could spot Penelope. Why had the basement door even been open? Why was the light on? I was sure I turned it off and shut the door. I know I did. There began a slowly growing buzzing sound building as I moved throughout my house, almost like being outside at night in the summer. The buzzing grew stronger and stronger, so strong until it was the only thing I could hear. I tried to speak, scream, anything just to cut through the drone skewering into my skull, but there was nothing. I slapped my palms against my ears in a vain attempt to block the whirring, curled in a ball of pain at the top of my stairs.
My head throbbed incessantly as I reached out towards the wall, misjudging how close I was to the stairs. I tumbled down them hard, my foot catching underneath my other and jamming my right hand under me. I felt a sudden sharp pain shoot through my arm, and I could feel my heartbeat pulsing through my broken wrist. I writhed there on the floor as the buzzing continued, clutching my wrist and weeping into the hard concrete floor. In my daze, I glanced around the room before my eyes fell upon the corner of the basement, exactly where I’d seen the dark patch. Thousands of flies now buzzed and danced around where the patch had been. I could hardly adjust my eyes to them; there were so many it was like staring at TV static.
I forced myself up and tried to regain some composure. The buzzing started to fade, and I watched as the flies sunk into the floor, revealing a mess of pulpy, dripping flesh with a dark hole in the center. The pit was no wider than my shoulders. The rim was bright red, shiny and wet. Sharp white protrusions lined the edge, jutting out at awkward angles. They looked like bones jabbed inside a tube of blood and meat. The bones curved upwards, like two hands reaching towards the ceiling. I grabbed a torch off one of the nearby storage racks and pointed it into the hole.
The sides of the pit were layered in chunks of rotting, sweating, yellowing meat. I could see outlines of human forms pressed against the walls, writhing and desperately shouting muffled moans out of the hole. The tube of rot blew hot air in my face the longer I stared in desolate horror, as if it were alive and breathing, digesting what must’ve been hundreds of people along its grotesque walls. The smell swam through my nose and wrapped around my taste buds. I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and between the smell and my injuries I could barely even think at all. Shining my light back inside the hole, I caught a glimpse of fur floating gently downwards. I gasped and leaned closer trying to spot it again.
I don’t remember much from me falling. I remember suddenly my torch disappeared, and I was plummeting in total darkness. I felt limbs smack against my body as I fell, hands reaching out, desperately trying to grab me. An explosion of blood, a tearing sound, and a flash of something sharp and white and I felt a pressure release where my right hand had been. Then I was standing in a large, open space. It was still pitch black, but the smell was ever present. The floor was squishy under my bare feet. It felt like I was walking across skin. A cacophony of inhuman moans and yelps surrounded me. I reached for my wrist when I didn’t feel any pain, and felt nothing but air. The floor beneath me shifted, and I felt something moving underneath it the same way it’d felt when I shook the pest man’s hand. I heard flesh squelching, and looked down to see a pair of eyes staring back up at me. They glowed in the darkness, like the reflection of a cats. More eyes opened then, slowly blinking and adjusting their focus to me. They lined the floor, peered down from the ceiling and along the walls.
I don’t know how long I stood there, frozen in absolute horror. The thing beneath me pulsed like it had a heartbeat. My feet began to sink slowly into the ground, like quicksand made of skin. I didn’t fight it; I had no will left to fight with. It enveloped me completely, pressing against my body so tight I couldn’t move any part of me. My breathing became a rasp as I felt bodies physically pressing my chest and back, keeping my lungs from expanding properly. Each inhale tasted like blood and mold and something faintly floral, something warm and sweet and wrong. The pressure deepened, layers folding over me again and again. I could feel the texture change as it compacted, skin sliding against skin, raw and unfinished, like being wrapped in meat that hadn’t quite remembered how to die. Something shifted at my feet. Then again, higher. Hands. Not mine, but human. They slid across my thighs, over my hips, my arms, as if checking each joint for looseness, testing the give in my ligaments. I closed my eyes tight, trying to numb all my sensations.
I awoke on my basement floor. Mrs. Nesbury leaned over me, phone in hand. I heard her talking to someone, though I can’t remember what she said as I faded in and out. I think she said something about “not being the right one.” The next time I gained consciousness I was in a hospital bed. After a while of vitals and checking my wounds, I asked a nurse what happened. She said I was found by EMTs at the bottom of my stairs after a neighbor called about hearing shouts. My right hand was severed, and I was bleeding from the head. She told me the police wanted to speak with me after I’d rested a little. The cops both looked at me like I was crazy when I talked to them about everything I'd seen. I kept catching them glancing at each other, and I eventually stopped trying to convince them of what I’d experienced. They left the room shortly after, saying they’d look into the situation. I knew nothing would come of it.
Since then I’ve been living back at home with my parents. Penelope is still gone, and some days I still catch a whiff of rot that twists my stomach into a corkscrew. I feel a lingering sensation; that being is still out there. I was supposed to die that night, and I think something saved me from it. I pray for any poor soul who ends up in my situation.
-Statement ends-
Follow up
Well this wholly freaked me out. John scoffed about 8 times while reading it. Honestly, kind of a low number for him. As for me, it is creepy but I may side with him on it. It just seems so extreme and I mean, she did fall down the stairs. We’re looking at a serious case for brain injury. The severed hand is the most unexplainable, but looking at police records they believe it was a break in that went wrong. Why Ms. Wallace doesn’t remember any of that I can’t say.
I’m also interested in this Mrs. Nesbury character. There is a record of her living across the street, and an obituary for her husband in the local newspaper, but she hasn’t been seen since apparently moving out. Regardless, to the pile it goes.
End follow up