Trembling With Fear 4-2-23

Creature, by Alli Drust

I open the window and let him crawl inside. It’s the only entrance he will use, even if he has to immediately take the stairs down to the lounge on all fours. He smells of leaves and mulch, and other parts of the world I’ve left behind. He used to scare me, but not anymore. How could he, when there are so many other things for me to fear?

Like the sky. A colossal eye, peering down at me all hours of the day and night, unblinking and unrelenting. The only source of relief is a roof over my head, solid and unbroken by skylights or leaks. I don’t understand how everyone else can bear it, being watched like that. I’d take his teeth and claws, translucent yellow with dirt caught in the cracks, over the outdoors any day. 

I left out a plate of crackers for him tonight. There were some slices of cheese, too, but I ate those a few hours ago. He wouldn’t have liked them anyway. I try a new food each time I order from the grocery, but I’ve never seen him eat. I’m not offended. I’ll get it right one of these days. 

I know he’s capable of eating. Once he came with a dark smudge on his cheek, a streak right towards the edge of his mouth. Maybe it’s a private thing for him, something he can only do alone.  

If I’m right then his resistance is impressive. He must be hungry, judging by the way his bones protrude through his skin. I can count every rib, every vertebra, and yet his energy never falters. He maintains the same steady, deliberate speed in all his actions. The length of his limbs suggests he was built for speed, but if he is capable of it, I have never seen him indulge. 

I’m not sure how I know he’s coming tonight. A feeling, replacing the constant sensation of being observed. I feel safer in my cocoon of a house tonight, like the roof is solid, the space between the atoms of each shingle reduced. I only ever get that feeling on nights when he comes. If I’m expecting a grocery delivery, or one of the few friends who still come to chat through the door, I experience the opposite. As if the ceiling might split open like a cracked melon and let in the sunlight, the clouds, the blue. The thought of being seen makes me want to vomit. And yet I still must drag myself to the front door. Still steal the groceries off the porch. Still throw out bulging black garbage bags when they can’t hold any more. 

“I missed you,” I say once he’s settled in my recliner. He tilts his head in my direction, almost like he’s looking at me. I know he’s not, though. He has no eyes. He is incapable of watching. I can’t say the same. I have perfect vision, and though I’ve considered doing away with my eyes, every time I raise a sharp object to jab them out, prepare to douse them with scalding liquid that will render them useless, I’m reminded that I am first and foremost a coward. I fear the pain. I fear death. I fear being unable to take care of myself. So, my eyes stay in my skull, and I remain complicit in the horror of witnessing. 

His eyeless presence is my only relief. It’s been almost a week since his last visit, and I’ve felt my stress ratcheting up and up over the intervening days. I broke down and called Meg to tell her how worried I was that he wouldn’t come back. I’m sure she thinks I made him up, or that he’s some kind of animal. She told me to stop being weird and get a boyfriend. As if I want that. As if I could want that. Boyfriends, girlfriends, friends, even, belong to the outside world. 

I didn’t bother trying to explain it to her again. She doesn’t understand the appeal of a wild thing, so strange that there isn’t even a name for what he is. I want what he has, to be unknowable, even as I strive to understand him. 

All Meg cares about is why. Why am I fascinated by what she thinks is an animal? Why am I so afraid all the time? Must there be a why? 

I learned a long time ago that it is asking too much to be allowed to live as I choose, as I need, unchallenged. No one is capable of that degree of acceptance. 

No one, except for him.

I lean closer to him in the darkness, leaning on the arm of the couch. I could reach out and touch him, finally discover the texture of that naked, creased skin. It would prove he was real, that he is truly here with me once again, but I resist, unwilling to startle him. To lose him. I seek another form of reassurance.

“Did you miss me?” 

Nothing happens. I want to kick myself. I’ve gone too far, I’ve ruined it. But then he unfolds one long forelimb. I can’t call it an arm because I’ve seen him use it to walk as well as grasp. It’s long and thin, with too many joints. He taps once on the coffee table with a curved talon. Yes. 

I smile. He bares his teeth, opening his maw that’s torn at the edges to show me teeth all the way to the back of his throat. Each one is sharper and more serrated than the last. It surprised me, the first time I saw them, but I know now he is the only thing in the world that would never hurt me. I am safe. 

We sit in silence. I close my eyes and listen to the sharp rasp of his breath, coupled with my near silent inhalation. I never thought I could be this happy with anyone, anything. It’s like he can turn the galactic eye of the universe away, masking my existence in the shadow of his own. With him around, I am unperceivable. 

When he gets up to go, I follow him to the door. It makes me shake, being that close to the outside, but it’s worth it to get those few extra seconds together. I don’t want him to go, but it’s unfair to try to hold him here. I’ve tried asking, begging, pleading with him to stay but he always finds a way out. If I won’t let him out the door then he’ll open a window, or contort his lanky body into impossible shapes to fit through the chimney flue. Just like I can’t bear the outside, he can’t stand to stay indoors. We are opposites, drawn together despite our differences. Doomed to be parted, but impossible to permanently separate. I hope. 

He stops at the edge of the porch as I watch from the doorstep. The sight of the street makes me feel weak and lightheaded. I make myself smile again, telling him it’s okay, I’ll be fine on my own. This should be his cue to depart, to shamble across the lawn and disappear into Mrs. Stoker’s rose garden. But tonight, he hesitates. His face opens in a mockery of my smile, allowing a thin string of saliva to escape down his chin.

And then he extends a hand that isn’t a hand.