(NOTE: Holly Hills has been delayed, re-wrote and rebuilt from the ground up a few times over the last month. The reason for that is super simple-both I and my collaborator Adam are Working Joes who got bills to pay. Unfortunately, Real Life has a bad tendency of eating away the few hours before sleep takes us that we can create. As such, Holly Hills is radically different than it was going to be-and as of right now, an “incomplete” tale. Think of this as a stepping stone into the ongoing narrative of “weird” that takes place here at the blog. I would like to personally thank Adam for both designing Gris the Gremlin and doing art for this story. Adam is an amazing story teller and artist, and you can find his twitter here. Follow him and give him all your freaking money. I would also like to thank my absolutely fantastic editor Jaz, who you can follow here. Jaz came in at the ninth hour to help bless this mess with a solid closer, and helped me keep my sanity. Follow her, listen to her incredible audio content and give her all your freaking money too.
Love you all deviants. Thank you for your patience.-J)
The man on the television, he’s always smiling.
It’s okay.
I’m always smiling too.
Everyone here does.
With a clean, creased suit and tie? He looks so regal behind the desk. The sheet of paper in his hands is held firm as he stares directly at the camera.
“Gonna be a real scorcher out there today folks! A balmy 68 degrees with a light breeze, haha!”
His laugh, no matter how many times I’ve heard it, brings one of my own. I try not to think too hard about it. When I do, I wonder why his laughter makes me want to laugh. What triggers something so close to a reflex. It’s more than the laugh you give your friends when they tell a joke. Not quite forced. Prompted.
He lays the paper down, and gives the camera a two finger salute.
“Have another great day out there in the hills, folks! Remember-in Holly Hills, every day is a holly day!”
I lift the remote, and press a button. The screen goes dark, the cathode rays behind it’s glass curling back into a slumber. I sit in the recliner, and just stare at it. From beyond the bay window, I can hear a push-mower going. The warble of a cardinal. But here, in the now, all I can hear is the dull hum of the set before me. It reverberates with such intensity that the entire room seems to hum and shake at the edges.
I close my eyes, and rub my fingers against my temple. Somewhere behind me comes the soft padded step of my wife. I’m still rubbing the hum out of my skull as her hands slip around my neck. Her lips press to the top of my head, the bristle of my crew cut laid flat against her warmth. She laughs-and I laugh too.
I don’t have to look up to know she’s smiling.
“Bad news day, honey?” she says. Her head drops from atop mine, her lips inches from my ear. “You don’t have to turn on the set you know,”
Meredith, the way she talked?
It was like honey to a sore throat. It poured deep into the bottom of who you were and clung there. Right up until you start hacking again, back arched as amber, sticky sweet phlegm passed your lips.
At least the humming was gone. I grinned, my lips moving before the command even left my brain.
“I’m fine love,” I said. “I’m always fine,
I turned to face her at last. Eyes green as still water met mine, peering bright from a thin, tanned face. She had her hair up today, tendrils of curls erupting from the knot. She still had on her yellow kitchen gloves as she lifted my chin and kissed me. She was so warm then-and it was a warmth she gifted, just like her words.
It buried deep.
It clung in the center of your chest.
“Well, I could make you better than fine-if you’d like,” she said as her lips peeled from mine.
Both of us were still smiling right until I gave an answer.
“I uh-I think I’m going to go for a walk actually,”
Her smile, it’s so full of teeth. Ringed in red and full. I wondered if it had always been that way-or if was the frequency at which she frowned now that made it so apparent. She pulled away like static electricity had hit her.
“O-oh, alright. Well that’s-”
“I’ll be back before dinner, okay?” I said, rising at last from the recliner. I turned, my loafers smacking against the carpet as I made my way towards the door.
She said nothing behind me.
There had come a point she always did, or cheerfully told me goodbye.
But without the hum of the TV set.
Without the sound of the mower outside.
The only thing to bid me goodbye was the slam of our front door. The shuffle and scrape of my heels against a cement path that leads towards the road.
I looked up the street, and down. I gazed at tens of houses, each with the same lawn. The same bushes. Similar paint jobs that varied in shades rather than colors.
It didn’t make a difference which way I went.
It never did.
Given a block or two, the scenery became an indistinct blur. All these houses and yards, wallpaper with curb appeal. If I went left, if I went right, the block eventually circled back to our place. I’d started keeping track of the house numbers. Otherwise, I’d get lost for hours at a time. Meredith, she would get so worried. The first time it happened it was this joke. But the second, the third?
She had nearly screamed at me. She didn’t, but there was a razor blade in the honey jar. I swore it wouldn’t happen again.
So far, I’ve done okay.
Right, left.
It made no difference aside from the numbers-and Bob, our neighbor. Bob was like the houses, the hum and the man on the TV. Always in a crisp suit. Not quite black, more the color of shadow. No matter how many times we met on our walks, he just seemed to pop from a hedge. From the dark corners of yards that seemed to sprout beneath the afternoon sun.
Bob, he always smiled too. With a clean shave and careful comb over. He was a little older. By how much, I couldn’t say. Meredith knew him, but whenever I asked how they met she kept changing the answer.
“Oh, it was bridge over at the rec center,” she said once as she made a casserole. “Oh, at the library,” she said, stirring batter for a cake. I’d long since stopped asking.
I just kept walking. Even as Bob’s loafers came into view beside my own.
“Why, hey there pal!” he said. His voice even and joyful. I gave a grunt, and pushed my feet a little faster. Bob kept up without so much as breaking a sweat.
“Sure is a great day out isn’t it? Why, the newsie said it was gonna be-”
“-sixty eight,” I interjected.
Bob laughs. I return it. It rings hollow from both of our throats, some generic canned noise like you would hear on Leave it to Dhamer! Or The Beverly Hills Have Eyes. I come to a stop at a four way, and turn to Bob. His smile is so wide it’s pinched in the corners. Laugh lines, I’d heard them called.
I wondered if Bob winced at all when he looked in the mirror. If he had spent hours tracing them, just as I had. If he wracked his mind wondering how many days he had-
“Out for another stroll pal? Sure is a good time for it. How’s Meri?” he says, his hands clasped at his hips.
“She’s fine,” I parrot out.
“Oh, that’s good! Say, what about you though champ? Are you okay? You’ve been real-”
“Yeah, I’m fine. She’s fine, everything’s fine Bob,” I say.
My laugh lines whine in agony as my lips turn up.
Bob laughs.
So do I.
“Golly, that’s good to hear. You know if you ever aren’t, you can come to me right? Why, I’ll make it all good again, sport!” he says. Bob takes a step forward and raises his hand. It meets my shoulder and gives a squeeze. He pats my shoulder, and takes a step past me. He glances left, then right. He turns to me, that same smile on his face.
“Oh geez buddy, I think we’re lost. Do you-”
“Yeah Bob. Just follow me,” I say before he can finish.
Once upon a time, I’d winced at how rude it felt doing that.
Left, right.
It didn’t matter anymore.
@@@
I see her glance from the window as Bob and I make it back. He tries to say something, but I just give him a wave as I approach the door. Inches from the handle, I glance back.
The street, with the constant drone of a distant lawnmower, is empty. The sun hangs right where it was before. Regardless of where I look, every house sits straight as a piano key. With the curtains drawn and the cathode rays of sets within. Blues, whites and grays dance along identical bay windows down the block. I turn back to the door, the handle’s copper cold to the touch as I step inside.
Meredith, honey curls at her shoulders now, stands in the hallway. The gloves are gone, replaced by a pink apron fringed with white lace. “Kiss the Cook?” is embroidered across the front in white thread. I couldn’t recall her buying it. I thought her mother gave it to her once, but like all the other hums droning in my head the idea of Meredith having family always grew so loud.
She smiles, and wipes her hands away on her apron.
“Well look at you! Have a good walk?” she says.
I take my suit jacket off, and toss it on a nearby hook.
“Yeah, it was great,” I say back. Another instinctual phrasing. Meaningless noise that drones from within to out. I turn towards Meredith, with her red-ringed smile over perfect white teeth.
I think of the street for a fraction of a second before I smile too. She giggles, and steps forward to wrap her hands around my neck. The way she squeezes me when I get home, it’s like she’s terrified I’ll never make it back. I just let my arms hang at my side until she pulls away. She trails a finger along my jaw and gives me a chaste kiss.
“Dinner is ready-I hope you’re hungry,”
“Yeah. Sure,” I say.
She turns on her heel, and I shuffle in step behind her. The smell, it’s so familiar that I don’t even notice it at first. Like the street and her smile-it had grown into an invisible detail, a little thing we take for granted until our attention is directed. The table was set with a pot roast, cut identical to the one from a few days ago. Served on the same plates in the same place as the day before.
I sit down without saying a word. Meredith cuts a slab of meat, and places it on my plate. She giggles, and sits beside me to the right. Just as she always had. Would.
“Eat up honey! If you clear your plate, I’ve a special surprise for you,” she says. Another giggle escapes her throat, right on queue.
I cut and stab and shove. The meat rolls over my tongue, all texture. There’s a flavor if I focus, but like the smell, I knew it too well to care anymore. I chew, I swallow. Eventually the plate is clear. My wife picks it up with a twirl and places it in the sink. There’s a clink, then a scuff of keel on tile. Her fingers are at my chin again, the tips trailing over the dimple as her fingers raise my face to hers.
I don’t even notice the smile anymore.
Somewhere, a television is humming. Every second it grows a decibel louder as Meredith brings her face close, every honeyed phrase doing all it can to drown out the rest.
“Ready for desert?” she says.
When she kisses me, that’s when it hits me. The smell of the pot roast, one I’d tried so hard to ignore.
It smells like rot.
@@@
“And remember! In Holly Hills, every day is a holly day!”
The smiling man on the TV ends the broadcast again. If it wasn’t for how animated his hands are I’d swear it was the same one I saw the day before. The set flicks off and I sit there, just as I had yesterday.
The hum, it’s back. Like my entire skull is vibrating. Meredith is in the kitchen again, making another fucking potroast. I don’t even tell her goodbye. I don’t bother with the coat. I slam the door behind me and make my way to the curb. I stand there, my fingers sinking into the palm of my hand so hard I feel the skin give.
Even the pain can’t take the buzz away. Even the seep of blood into my nails can’t stop the shakes at the edge of my eyes. Everything wobbles and writhes as the buzz slides octaves higher. I cinch my eyes shut as I double over. I scrape at my temples, and try to find something to drown out the questions that always arise in the din.
How long have we been here?
When did we move to Holly Hills?
Why?
Someone on the block, over the roar of a distant lawn mower and the warble of a single bird, they’re screaming. They’re wailing so hard their throat cracks on this perfect sixty-eight degree day. It’s only as my own throat goes raw I realize it’s me.
How fucking long have we been in Holly H-
“Oh, geez sport! You sure do look out of sorts! Is everything okay?”
The scream dies in my throat. The hum likewise goes to rest, somewhere right behind my eyes. My lids lift, and I feel myself shudder as I look up at Bob. With his off-black suit, Bob stands a few feet from me in the middle of the road. I almost tell him to get the fuck out of the lanes, but then I remember there aren’t any cars in Holly Hills.
That there wasn’t anywhere to go, or anything to do.
“The fuck do you want, Bob?” I say, my vocal chords scratching against one another. I feel phlegm building in the back of my throat. I hack, and the spittle meets the pavement with a thick splatter.
The words, the blood, the shit exiting my body-none of it can wipe the smile from Bob’s face. He just goes right on with that stupid grin as he steps forward. He opens his suit jacket, and reaches within. The metal flask he pulls out is dull and metallic, ancient as the television in my living room. When he uncorks it, the smell is pungent.
Like a pot roast.
He reaches up and takes a half-second swig from it. He winces, and extends it towards me. “Ya’ know buddy, when I’m feeling really not-my-self? Like my upstairs is seeking rent from my down stairs? This right here, it makes it all better pal! Why don’t you be a chum and drink some? I won’t tell Meredith, promise!”
He says all this through teeth that glint all too bright. I side step him, and decide to start down the block. Backwards. Because I started to realize, I didn’t really know Bob. As a person, sure. But beyond that?
“I’m-I’m going for a walk man, okay? Just-you stay right there, and I’ll-”
But Bob doesn’t listen. He turns on his heel, the flask still extended in his grip. He takes long steps, so I start running. Houses pass in an indecipherable goulash of the same. All the while, Bob calls in such an even tone from over my shoulder.
“Oh, come now. Be a good sport. Let me make it alright again,”
My legs pump until they’re stupid tangles of muscle. Pulleys and cables off track, too worthless to function. There’s a cramp in my stomach, one that nearly cracks my head atop the pavement as I fall forward. My hand shoots out at the last minute. Every finger tip is bright red as the concrete meets the bare flesh of my cuts.
I don’t have to wait for his polished black loafers to come into view.
“Oh buddy, you’ve got it bad don’t you? Why, I’d be willing to bet that head of yours is absolutely throbbing! That hum gets pretty gosh-darn loud sometimes, don’t it pal?”
I choke back the vomit rising in my throat as the noise flares for a moment. The hum, it’s so loud now that I can hear it reverberating in my ear drums. I cinch my eyes shut, and try to gulp down air. My back meets the pavement as every part of me jiggles in turn to the rhythm of this horrible fucking world.
When I open my eyes, it’s then I realize there was no sun here. Just ambient light. No blinding orb, just a faint glow from behind the clouds. How the hell did we-
“Yeah, that old hum! Haha, it sure does love just cropping up at the worst times, doesn’t it? Why, seems like you’ve had issues with it a lot here lately, sport! But you know what I say? Drown it out,” he says.
Bob kneels down, and his fingers meet my chin. The moment they make contact the hum reaches a crescendo. Gone are the dull throbs against my temple, the jittering noise inside my skull. Here and now there is nothing but his touch. The hum fills my body, and everything pulses against it’s undulations.
Bob’s fingers, they’re so cold. Not warm like Meredith’s. So cold and tacky and not-
“Tip that bottle any further and my friend here will take no small amount of delight in making you howl,”
Like that, Bob’s fingers pull away. The hum, every vibration of it ceases as footsteps clap against the sidewalk. The distant mowing, the ambient night sounds hesitate to take the stage as Bob scuttles back and lets loose a curse.
Inch by inch, I will my body to rise. To meet the voice that could demand so much silence. Through the aches and pain, the tug of muscles too tired to work, I lift my chest. I cradle my head in my hand. It’s then I realize I’ve broken a sweat, that the ache in my stomach still claws away.
They pale in comparison to the curiosity that fills my vision.
Bob and Merideth. People shaped, people natured. But in practice anything but. My mind couldn’t form links beyond the obvious with them. In this moment, every single moment comes into question. Every dinner, every walk. How often I had repeated them every single day in an endless loop. One that had happened so long that it became a slurry of seconds varying only by shades.
The man in front of Bob and I though isn’t like that. Not because of his slumped posture or the bags under his eyes. Not from the cigarette at his lips. The thing at his side-a cat, they’re called cats-was plump and black. It’s fur gave a shimmer in the evening light. It’s eyes, wide and yellow, stared at Bob. Unblinking, unmoving. None of these details were what caught the words in my throat. Not a single scrap of the exhausted man seemed odd in any fashion.
It was the fact he existed at all here in Holly Hills that made him so extraordinary.
There comes a hiss over my shoulder as Bob’s shadow falls at my side. He steps forward, and I turn to watch him twist the cap back upon his flask. He tucks it into his coat, his entire face twisted into a scowl as he regards the man.
“Oh, bloody hell. This is poaching, god damn it! This is my claim, you old-” started Bob.
“Good to see you as well,” said the man. He took a long drag from his cigarette, the gold-piped coat around him shifting as he tucked his hands away. His eyes came to rest on me, and the cat at his side slunk forward. I watched as Bob stood still, his eyes taking in every single motion of the animal. It waddled side to side, its flabby belly shaking left and right. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as it rubbed it’s head against me and began to purr. The man gave a throaty chuckle as Bob jumped back.
“Is that-” said Bob.
“In the flesh. Fur, I should say,” said the man. “But yes. That’s him. So-care to tell me why you’re torturing this poor bastard?”
Bob snarled as he turned to the man, and it was then I saw it. At the edge of his face, the skin began to curl. The smile he wore-that we all wore-tore into his cheeks. It seemed to spread, like paper being torn slow.
“Just business, and business is booming innit it? That’s why you’re here, right?” said Bob, but his voice emerged as a rasp. Not the usual alto that had joined me on countless evenings. Always offering to make everything right.
The cat chirped as it climbed atop my legs. Bob staggered another step back, and the man stepped forward. Claws pierced my slacks as the animal began to knead my thigh. I glanced up at the man. He tilted his head as he took another drag, and dropped the smoke to the ground. He stamped it out beneath the heel of a thick soled boot, and said “Well? Are you going to pet him or not?”
“Don’t you-I mean,” rasped Bob. I turned to face him, the gash on his face even wider now. As his lips moved, I could see countless teeth. Too many, even for a mouth that size. “-I mean surely he’ll-”
“Nothing of the sort. We’re not here on business,” said the man.
Both of us turned to face him as the cat came to rest on my lap. It purred once more, it’s eyes falling low as it curled into a ball. Bob-or whatever he was-snorted. He shuffled forward, his back hunched and head cocked. His skin had been peach colored moments before. Now it had the withering look of ash. He gave a shudder, snickering as his ears grew and flapped against his head. They came to sharp points that extended inches from either side of his temples.
“Oh? That’s not the case then? How very odd of you to join us. This is a private party, warlock,”
Bob’s voice was no longer his. It came out in a deep clawing bass that bounced from my ear canal inside my skull.
Just like the hum itself.
The man rested his eyes on Bob, and raised a hand to his chin. His fingers scratched at days old stubble as his shoulders rolled. He laughed with such exhaustion it sounded hollow.
“Odd is rich from you,” he said. He dropped his hand, and reached the lapels of his coat. When it emerged again, it was with a silver envelope. A thick red seal lay emblazoned face up. He leaned forward, and extended it towards Bob.
“What can you tell me about-” he started, only for Bob to snatch the envelope away with a long fingered hand. Bob ripped the envelope away. It met the ground as he flitted through several yellowed papers. Syllables came distorted from his lips-but then he crumpled the papers in a fury that made me jump.
The cat stirred within my lap, and lifted it’s head. By reflex, my palm meets it’s back. I stroke it’s fur, and try to think of the last time I’d done something like that.
“Ohhhhh-hohoh, no you don’t,” said Bob as he jabbed a clawed finger at the stanger. “Not in all the hells are you going to drag me into this. Not my circus, not my clowns,”
“Crows, gremlin. They’re very clearly crows,”
“I don’t care if they’re bloody scarlet fucking maccaws,” sneered Bob. He crumbles the papers up and tosses them to the ground. “I know you fucking magicians and your questions. It’s never the single thing, izzit? Nooooo, you assholes and your grudges, you turn the rest of us into cheap fucking props! I don’t give a shit if it’s crows or ravens or fucking cats. Not. My. Concern,”
Bob leans forward, the jagged seam of his mouth seeming to grow far too long. The teeth within are a mangle of broken ivory. My bladder tightens at the sight. But the stranger just smiles.The man snorts, and crosses his arms. His eyes rest on Bob for a long moment before he speaks.
“Mistakes made in passion often have to answer to the cold morning of logic. I ask you-is that a logical response?” he says at last.
“Oh, but it is,” snaps Bob back. He stamps his foot onto the papers, grinding them beneath his heel as he snarls back at the man. “I’m a businessman, and you? You’re just a-”
“What the fuck is going on?”
The words pass my lips before I even register them. My hand caresses the back of the cat as both men turn their eyes towards me. The stranger turns, and snaps his fingers. Another cigarette appears between his thumb and index. He jabs it between his lips, and snaps his fingers once more.
A blue flame erupts from the tips of his hand. He holds it close, and smoke plumes from his nose. He shakes his hand, and arches his brow as he looks towards Bob.
“Do you want to tell him, or should I?” he says.
Bob frowns, his once straight teeth twisted into a cacophony of knives. He shakes his head and sends his pointed ears flapping against his temples.
“Oh, fine, fine. But I had a contract with this one-and I don’t do refunds,” he sputters as he marches towards me.
“I’m assuming so-given their species,” says the stranger. Bob-or what I’ve called Bob for however long-gives a dry, rasping laugh that sends a chill down my spine.
“Aye, those squids? Now they honor their words. Alright fleshy-on your feet,” he says. Bob extends a clawed hand towards me. The cat in my lap, it rises and hisses at him. It’s tail nearly smacks me in the face as it does. Bob leers at it, and snaps his head back to the stranger.
“Are you going to tell him to stand down, or-”
“Or nothing. He’s royalty. I’m just a member of the peasantry,” says the man. He smirks, and rolls his shoulders. “I say our friend here is the one that has to ask, don’t you?”
Bob rolls his eyes as his hands meet his hip. He foot beats a steady rhythm on the pavement as he says, “Well? Does his majesty and his chosen pet care to join us?”
“Uh, which of us is the pet?” I ask.
Bob hangs his head as the stranger erupts into laughter. The cat in my lap nips my finger gently, and I look down towards it. It blinks once, then gives a soft purr as it leaps from my legs. I push myself off the pavement and knock it’s dander away. Bob sighs, and cuts his eyes between the stranger and I.
“Well? Can we get on with it now? I’d like to get back to keeping my clientele happy. This one has a bit of a short temper,”
The stranger smirks, and bends down to meet the cat. It rubs against his leg as his hand strokes it from tip to tail.
“Sure enough. You’ve a space, I assume?”
Bob bursts into a greasy laugh and lifts his palm. He twirls on his heel, then comes to a stop facing the man again.
“Take your pick. Any of them will do,”
The stranger narrows his focus, and glares.
“You honestly mean to tell me they’re all empty? That’s a bit sloppy. I expected better from you Gris,”
At the mention of that name, Bob’s shoulders slump. His ears droop, and I watch as his hands give a slight tremble. They meet his sides, hiding away inside his pockets as he kicks at the pavement.
“Heh-well, we’ve all our cons. And you know the difference between a con man and a magician, don’t you?” he says to the man.
But the stranger, he’s not listening. He’s walking towards one of the indistinct houses off to the side. His hand meets the door knob, and I watch as he gives it a twist. As he goes to pull it away, the entire door comes with it. It curls and bends as it moves, like it was made of paper. Beyond it, within the home lay nothing but a black void.
“A conman, we’re surviving. But a magician? Oh, your lot just thinks they are. But on a long enough time line, ya’ fall. One by one. Like worms in the mouths of birds. Innit right, boy-o?”
The man stops. I watch as his shoulders hitch just a moment, straight as the road I laid on. He tilts his head towards Bob, and raises his hand. His fingers begin to curl, popping audibly before holding a pose.
Like he was about to snap his fingers.
I don’t know why. I don’t know what about that terrified Bob so much. But he started yelling towards the man, his clawed hands patting the air as he stepped towards him.
“Hey! Hey now, I didn’t mean it! Hah, how long have you known me, Jacky? I always did you a good turn. Why, you’re quite quick with the barbs as well, aren’t you? Last I checked you were. No-no need to get violent, is there?” he says, every syllable more broken than the one before.
Each like the popping hiss of static in my ear, only for that familiar hum to burst through. I grit my teeth as my hands rise to my temples. I try to suppress the scream, but it still escapes. It rolls from the back of my throat as the noise builds into an assault on my ear canals.
Then it simply stops.
My scream dies with it, and I glance up towards the men once more. Bob’s eyes are wide, his nostrils flaring as he watches me. The other man, his hand rests at his side now. He shakes his head and turns back towards the darkness of the door.
“Sloppy,” says the man. He steps inside, and leaves not a single trace behind. Bob gives a sigh as he walks towards the black rectangle, and turns on his heel. He eyes the cat and I, and jerks his head towards the hole.
“Well, come the fuck on then. Not like that bastard left us much choice,” he says. He turns and steps into the darkened door frame. Like the stranger, he’s gone in seconds. I stare down at the cat, it’s massive yellow eyes meeting mine. It turns it’s head, it’s pointed ears twitching as it watches me. Then it gives a chirp as it bolts towards the door frame.
The street is quiet and empty. Not even the faint call of a lawn mower can be heard. There’s nothing, absolutely nothing-and it’s absolutely fucking suffocating. I rise off the pavement, and look left. Right. It’s when I walk towards the door I realize there’s only one true way.
Through.
@@@
He writhes in his sleep.
It’s slow at first-the twitch of a finger. The splay of a hand, it’s useless clasping. “Little nothings,” the gremlin had said. “Oh, he’s just acting it out,” the fanged thing had told me.
But I knew better.
For no one knew my love like I did. Not the gremlin that sold him to me. Not the pulsing, glowing young that stretched his stomach until it was translucent.
None but I could feel the palpitations of his heart rising against my suckered tendrils. The spasming of his legs as he longed to run from that place.
Today? Today was the worst it had been.
So I clutched him tighter. I wriggled my way into his brain, right through his nose. I probed into the depths of his thoughts as no one else could. I wanted to calm him. I wanted to take him back. When he started to gag, his tongue swollen and lolling from his lips, I wondered if it was time. Our young, they were so close. So ready to join us. His throat pitched, and I listened to the delightful sound of his retching.
Past his lips came not an egg, nor the pink fleshy tendrils of our joyous offspring.
Instead came a fat, black wad of fur.
“The honeymoon, it won’t be forever,” the Gremlin had said. “He’ll have to wake at some point. Either that, or someone else will jerk him towards it. Pocket dimensions, dreams? They’re not so different miss,”
I’d ignored him. With his kind, it was all such babble. But the words that came after that spiel, I recalled all too well.
“Contract, no contract-this mess is as vast as it is open. I can only account for so much in those quiet places. Can you?”
I’ve heard stories of fear in the hearts of humans. How it can change every aspect of them. A fine evolutionary vintage that I thought I’d never sample.
But at that moment? With my suckers massaging the frontal lobe of my husband?
I felt the pinpricks of it begin.