My Last Abduction

nebua

They come for me in broad daylight.

Over the last few years, they had removed nine toes, 12 teeth, one finger, and three feet of my large intestine. There are no scars. They leave no other evidence. They take what they want and leave me with less and less each time. Every visit diminishes me.

People can’t see them. Dogs can, though. Cats, too. Maybe birds. They’ll howl or hiss or fly away, but that won’t deter the visit. From what I’ve learned, nothing will.

My right thumb was taken four days ago. I was walking to the supermarket when I felt the telltale prickles of static electricity cascading down the back of my head and neck. Pigeons in the area began to screech. The sense of weightlessness I’d grown to know and dread swept over me, and as I was lifted into the clear sky, I saw my replacement continue his walk. He always continues exactly where I’d left off.

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We’re All Smiling

pillow

The overly-wide, grinning mouth is a horror cliche. It’s a trope, albeit a successful one, that’s wormed its way into scary stories from around the world. So ubiquitous is its inclusion that it’s taken on a legendary status; it feels like something that’s always been around to scare people. Right?

In 1844, one of the first serial killers in Connecticut began a rampage. Little was known about the killer, save for their signature technique of disfiguration. While the victims were alive, they amputated their cheeks. When the bodies were eventually found, their toothy, skeletal smiles became fodder for nightmares, rumors, and legends. The killer was never captured.

Starting in 2012, local Connecticut message boards and forums started to feature messages and questions about ghosts.

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Body Cast

huntsman

(Horror stories about spiders.)

My therapist suggested I write this out. I guess reliving that night and putting my experiences on paper will help me get over the trauma.

A few years ago, I was in a motorcycle wreck. Broke my left tibia and fibula, shattered my right patella, got a greenstick fracture of my left femur, multiple fractures in my pelvis, breaks in almost all my ribs, and two broken collarbones. I was immobilized from the shoulders down by a heavy body cast. They told me I was lucky.

My wife, Violet, was supportive and nurturing. She never once complained about having to care for me. She cooked all my meals, kept me company, and emptied my bedpan without grimacing. About two weeks into my convalescence, Jenna called us, bawling, because her college roommate died. Vi had to leave immediately and be there for her. Vi’s sister, Kathy, was going to take care of me.

When I woke up the following morning, Vi was off to get Jenna. Kathy was there, cheerfully making breakfast and talking up a storm as she helped me with my more embarrassing biological needs. Like her sister, she never made me feel ashamed. She left around 11 that night and told me she’d be back at dawn.

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Maria’s Extra-Credit Assignment

slug

When I was in college, I dated a biologist named Maria. Well, a biology undergraduate. She was a lot of fun, albeit slightly odd. Being a bit odd myself, we hit it off right away. Our first date lasted almost 12 hours – the entirety of which was spent talking as we sipped terrible coffee in a 24-hour diner.

Maria told me she wanted to focus on entomology after undergrad, then started to regale me with passionate stories about the local banana slug.

I was familiar with the banana slug. Everyone on campus was. They have an unfortunate habit of falling out of trees and landing on the heads of unsuspecting students and faculty. Being around 8” long and remarkably disgusting, having one plop on one’s head is pretty close to a living nightmare. My first month on campus, one missed me by inches and splattered on the concrete. I was picking slug out from between my shoelaces for a week.

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My cellar door is breathing.

scary-basement

We’d been finding paint chips and broken bits of plaster on the carpet near the cellar door. I’d vacuum them up, but each morning they’d be back. At first, I thought it had to be from mice or termites burrowing into the wall. We’ve had mice in the basement since we moved in, but they’d never been seen anywhere else in the house. Despite that, I looked for evidence that they could’ve made the mess, but I couldn’t find any. There wasn’t anything out of sort whatsoever, aside from what we’d find in the mornings.

Larry didn’t think much of it. He mentioned something about a construction site a mile or so away where they’d been blasting out rock. Apparently the shockwaves they produce can form cracks on walls and ceilings. Just cosmetic issues, he assured me. Nothing structural. But neither of us could remember hearing any blasting – especially in the middle of the night.

My guess was whatever had been making our cellar warmer than usual over the last few weeks was to be blamed. Neither Larry nor I could figure out why that was happening, either, but we both assumed there was something with the furnace. The HVAC technician couldn’t find anything wrong, but even he admitted it was strange that the basement was a full 30 degrees warmer than the temperature set on the thermostat.

So, with the working belief that the paint and plaster chips were from the expansion and contraction of the doorway, we went on caring about more important things and hoped the heat issue would fix itself.

Last week, I was getting home late after a red-eye flight back from my sister’s. Larry was dead asleep when I walked in the house at 4:30am, and I was so sleep deprived I couldn’t believe I hadn’t killed myself driving home. After I put my stuff down and was getting ready to head upstairs, I saw something that, at the time, I was certain was the result of my exhaustion: the cellar door and the surrounding frame were moving in and out.

I shook my head to get my senses back, but the door and frame still moved in a slow, deliberate pattern. Tiny flecks of plaster fell with each contraction. I walked up to the door and put my hand on it. I still wasn’t trusting my eyes and knew that touch would confirm or deny what I was seeing. As I expected, the second I touched the door, the movement stopped. I went upstairs and slept for 10 hours.

Larry was at work when I woke up. He was pulling a double that day, and I likely wouldn’t see him again until the next morning. After I showered and went downstairs, I found quite a bit more plaster and paint on the floor than usual. The memory of what I thought I’d seen the night before came back, and I experienced an involuntary twinge of fear. It made me feel a bit silly – almost like how I’d felt when I was a little girl and still afraid of the dark.

I brought out the vacuum and started to clean up the mess. When I was running the vacuum over the carpet right next to the cellar, I felt hot air rushing out of the cracks on the sides and bottom of the door. Not warm. Hot. I shut off the vacuum and listened. Aside from the gentle rush of hot air, there was nothing.

I tentatively touched the doorknob, ready to pull back if it was too hot. It wasn’t. It was very warm, but not hot. The fear came again as I knew I was about to open the door and go downstairs. I didn’t want to. The child me wouldn’t have. But I’m 52 years old. This is our house, and we’ve lived here for 26 years. We know it inside and out. There was nothing to be afraid of.

The fear remained. I opened the door and was hit in the face with a rush of hot, wet air.

While the temperature wasn’t unendurable, it was entirely unpleasant. My plan was to rush downstairs to make sure nothing was on fire, then run back up and call the HVAC man for an emergency visit, no matter the cost. I tiptoed down the old, wooden steps and entered the basement.

The wind rushing up the stairs faded as I got closer to the bottom. All that remained was humid, oppressive air. I began sweating immediately, and I walked across the room toward the furnace. It wasn’t even on. I touched it, and while warm, it wasn’t close to the temperature of the room.

Condensation was covering the tiny windows at the top of the walls. And there was an odor. It was heavy and thick and reminded me of vomit. I felt my stomach churning as my mission now became finding the source of the smell. Whatever it was, it had to go.

It didn’t take long.

On the other side of the furnace, up against the wall, was a pile of dead mice. Tens of them. Maybe 50. They were hideously decayed and dripping with dark yellow slime. I gagged so hard I felt my eyes bulge and I pulled my shirt over my nose and mouth. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t noticed them before, and I was miserable about the prospect of cleaning them up. But it had to be done.

I ran upstairs, grabbed a bucket, some kitchen gloves, and a bottle of bleach. Back in the stifling basement, I grabbed the vermin as quickly as I could, threw them all in the bucket, threw the gloves on top, and poured bleach over the whole area. I’d come back later and scrub the remaining slime and bleach and sloughed fur off the floor. I just couldn’t take any more at the moment.

I grabbed the bucket and headed back upstairs. I could’ve sworn I saw the cellar doorway widening and narrowing as I went, accompanied by waxing and waning gusts of hot air on my skin. My fear and disgust were bordering on terror as I burst through the doorway into the cheery living room.

I stood in the center of the living room, watching the doorway. It wasn’t moving. The bucket of dead vermin smelled incomprehensibly putrid. I went out the back door and was ready to throw the whole thing way out back where the property met the woods, when I stopped. There was smoke coming from the gloves on top of the mice. Another smell joined that of the putrefying rodents: burning rubber. I upended the bucket into the brush. I saw that the parts of the gloves that had touched the mice were bubbling and burning away.

As soon as I got back inside, I called the HVAC guy. He said he was booked solid all day and any work after 6pm would be at double the usual rate. I told him I didn’t care. I needed the furnace fixed. I needed whatever it was leaking removed. I couldn’t have our home in the shape it was in anymore.

The HVAC guy arrived around 7. I felt bad to be pulling him away from dinner with his family, so I made him a sandwich and some macaroni and cheese. He appreciated it, and brought the plate downstairs with him so he could eat while he worked. I wasn’t exactly sure how anyone could eat under conditions like I’d seen that afternoon, but I didn’t bother arguing. I left him to his work and went next door to see my elderly neighbor.

We got to talking, and it was almost 10 by the time I realized the HVAC technician was still working. I wished Gladys a good night and went home. The tech’s van was still in the driveway.

I walked inside and headed to the cellar door. Plaster and dried paint chips littered the carpet and were being blown across the room by the steady breeze coming up the staircase. Three deep cracks in the door frame and ceiling had appeared.

I called down to the technician and asked how it was going. He didn’t reply. I called again, louder. Nothing. That same fear welled up in me again. I looked around. This time, the cheery living room was dark. The windows showed nothing but blackness and the distorted reflection of diffuse kitchen light and the harsh illumination from the tech’s lamps in the basement.

I called a third time. He didn’t respond, but I jumped when a loud, splintering crack rang out right next to me as another fissure appeared in the door frame. I could’ve sworn I saw the frame move right before it happened.

My fourth and final call went unanswered. For the second time that day, I knew I’d go down the stairs. My 52 year-old body carried my frightened, 8 year-old mind down the steps. I felt hot, sticky air on my face.

The moment I reached the bottom, the smell hit me. It was just like it’d been with the mice, only heavier. I spoke the tech’s name, rather than calling it. My voice was small and weak and I realized, as I walked toward where he’d been working, I was shaking.

I reached the furnace and headed around to the other side. The smell was so strong, my eyes had started to water. But even through my bleary, tear-filled eyes, I could see the technician’s clothes and shoes. They were covered in the same yellow slime and smoked weakly as whatever was burning them ate its way through. The man who owned the clothes was nowhere to be found.

I ran upstairs and called the police, fully aware that the doorway was moving in and out as I ascended the staircase, feeling cool air against my face, followed by hot air against my back. I left the house and waited with Gladys for them to arrive.

It’s been five days and the technician has not been recovered. There’s been a town-wide search for him, and his wife and daughters have appeared on television begging for him to come home. Larry and I have allowed the police to search the house while we stay at a hotel. I’ve refused to go back until everything is resolved.

It wasn’t the terrifying strangeness of the cellar that has kept me out of our house. It wasn’t the still-missing man who came to fix our furnace. It was something else. It was the result of the chemical analysis of the substance on the HVAC man’s clothes and the mice I’d taken from the basement. Normally, we wouldn’t have been given that information, but Larry’s brother is a cop. He told us what it was, and now I know I’ll never set foot in that house again as long as I live.

Stomach acid.

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Just Swell

hair

“It’s just an ingrown hair!,” my sister insisted. Then it encysted. Three weeks later, she was in the hospital having a pint of sludge sucked out of her armpit. If she’d lanced it early and not left it alone, she could’ve saved herself a lot of pain and suffering.

It was that memory from a decade ago that made me pay very close attention to the swelling right where the corner of my lower jaw met my neck. It’d always been a sensitive spot for me. Whenever I shaved, that one area invariably ended up being a swollen mess of ingrown hairs. It was miserable.

I had a system that helped a bit: cleansing the area before and after shaving, shaving with brand-new blades, and making sure to shave in the direction the hair grew. It brought my outbreaks down from every time to every other time; not much, but better than nothing. When the most recent swelling showed up, I didn’t think much of it and treated it like any other ingrown hair. But it got worse.

Remembering Lynn’s nightmarish experience in the hospital, I wanted to take action quickly. I went to the drugstore and bought a package of lancing needles. Back at home, I swabbed the area with rubbing alcohol and poked the needle into the area of the swelling. It bled quite a bit, but the swelling didn’t diminish. I squeezed hard and pushed the needle a little deeper. More blood, and a little bit of other fluid.

When I let go, it hurt more than it had, but the swelling appeared to have gone down a little bit. When I shone my bright desk lamp against the skin, I could see a few thick, black hairs trapped under the surface. I imagined how they were growing in backwards; twisting and weaving their way along the underside of my neck as my immune system attacked them. The thought turned my stomach. I took a few Advil and went to bed.

I woke up in pain. The swelling had gotten significantly worse and my throat had started to hurt on that side. I ran my fingertips over the bulge and felt the swollen follicles. I turned on the shower and brought a couple lancing needles with me.

I poked and squeezed and expelled what had to have been a cup of blood and yellowish-orange fluid. I looked at the mess on the shower floor and told myself that if it didn’t get better in a couple days, I’d have to go to the hospital. Just like Lynn. She’d never let me live it down after the way I’d teased her after her own issue.

The thought of Lynn’s smirk compelled me to do two things: one, I promised myself I wouldn’t tell her about what happened, and two, I’d do everything in my power to make sure I fixed the problem before I needed to go to the hospital. My neck throbbed as if it were agreeing with me.

Feeling the hairs still lurking under my skin, I wiped the fog off the mirror and examined myself. The swelling was the size of a baseball. Swallowing was intensely painful. I was determined to get this fixed.

I remembered Lynn had told me that when she went to the hospital, they had to do more than just stick the thing with a needle and drain it. The cyst had been too deep for that. They needed to make an incision and hold it open for all the muck to come out.

I checked my needle supply. There were a ton left. Knowing they were the only sterile things in the house, I decided they’d have to do. I doused the area in rubbing alcohol, then began dragging the needle across the swollen lump.

It bled, but not a crazy amount. When I felt the needle getting dull, I opened a fresh one and continued. The discomfort was significant, but not agonizing. Having relief from the pressure was almost enough to overcome the pain.

When I was about three-quarters of an inch in, the pain became severe. I gritted my teeth as I pulled the needle across the flesh, waiting for the rush of gray-white pus from the cyst created by that horrible ingrown hair. After another few millimeters, the needle struck something firm. Finally. I poked and prodded at it, and that same yellowish-orange fluid started to leak out.

With a rush of confidence brought on by the intense desire to get this all over with, I reached in with my thumb and forefinger, pulled, and squeezed. An explosion of agony made the world grow white, then gray. I felt something dangling against the skin of my neck, and I passed out for a minute. Fleeting lucidity returned and I used it to dial 911 before passing out again. I woke up in the hospital.

It turned out I did, indeed, have some seriously-ingrown hairs. My doctor said they were some of the worst he’d ever seen; he even recommended that I grow a beard so I wouldn’t have to deal with them so frequently. But the ingrown hair wasn’t why I was in the hospital.

The good Lord saw it fit to give me a throat infection right around the same time that ingrown hair had gotten inflamed. The lump, while partly from the hair, was a swollen gland. In my search for the infected root of the ingrown hair, I’d carved the lymph node out of my neck and squeezed it until it ruptured.

No way I’m telling Lynn about this. No way in hell.

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Soft Teeth

soft teeth

I remember the man with the soft teeth. He’d come into my room at night and bite me over and over. The bites didn’t hurt and they left no marks. All I felt was pressure.

The first time I saw his face, I was terrified. His eyes were different. Instead of two eye sockets, he had nine. They were clustered in front of his face and up his forehead like a honeycomb. Two on top, four in the middle, three on the bottom. The sockets didn’t house eyeballs. There was a single, thin eyestalk growing from the center of each hole. Each stalk swayed in front of his face like long grass in the breeze.

When he’d visit me, I’d lose the ability to move or scream. All I could do was watch. After a week of visits and my parents not believing a word that came out of my mouth, I thought sleeping with the light on might keep him away. That was the night he started biting my face.

The man would always move slowly and with great care. Every motion seemed calculated and precise; I didn’t know what he was doing, but I had no doubt he did.

The first time he got close, I saw the inside of his mouth. Like his eyes, his teeth were unlike any I’d seen. There were three rows of bulbous growths pushing from an array of holes in his gum line. They looked as soft as they felt. Each one was covered in fine, downy hairs. They reminded me of the fat bodies of moths.

He’d open my mouth with his index finger and thumb. Then he’d close in. I felt his eyestalks brushing against my face and forehead and eyes as he pressed his upper teeth against my lower ones. He’d close his mouth around my chin, locking my lower jaw in his mouth.

It was uncomfortable, but it didn’t hurt. He would stay there for ten minutes at a time, gradually modulating the pressure of his jaw against mine.

On the last night he visited me, he performed the same steps. Once my jaw was in his mouth, though, he applied more pressure than he’d used in the past. His eyestalks straightened out and felt like firm cables against my face. As the pressure increased, I felt his teeth start to burst against my own. One by one, the thick, insectile bodies inside his mouth succumbed to the pressure and coated my tongue and gums with thick, bitter paste. I felt his tongue, which had never been involved in our interactions before, extending over my teeth and massaging the paste into my gums. I tried to retch, but even that had been taken from me.

The man did the same with my upper teeth and palate. When he left and I could move again, I rushed to the bathroom, threw up, and brushed my teeth more times than I could count. I never saw the man again.

It’s been 25 years. I’ve been plagued by dental issues my entire adult life. Every visit brings worse news; it’s gotten to the point where I’m dealing with irreversible bone loss. Eventually, my teeth will fall out. The foundation to which they’re attached is simply deteriorating. It’s not uncommon, but it’s rare for someone my age who is otherwise in perfect health.

As if on cue, the day after my most recent trip to the dentist, I lost my first tooth. I’d felt it loosening and the dentist said it was only a matter of time. And more will follow. I scheduled an appointment to see him in three months. It was as frequently as my insurance would allow. More of my teeth started to wiggle when I poked at them with my tongue. I started to accept their fate.

Recently, my resignation has developed flickers of fear and disbelief. The tooth that fell out started to grow back. I’d never heard of such a thing. But I can see something grayish-white pushing through the raw socket. When I touch it with my tongue, it’s soft. And I can feel my tongue brushing against it, almost as if it has nerves of its own.

I’m trying not to think back to the memories of the man in my room, but it’s impossible not to. Not when more of my teeth grow looser by the day. And especially not when I have seven painful spots near my eyes and forehead that feel softer than they should.

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