Gorging Out

I decided to move my car, so I drove up into Sally’s neighborhood and parked a block away. Then I walked by her building, doubled back, and went in. Through the slots in the mailbox I could see the top of an envelope. I walked, quietly, on the rims of my soles, to her door. I bent down to check under the mat, but stopped. The door was slightly ajar. From inside came a funny rustling noise, mixed with what sounded like creaking bedsprings. Very carefully, with my foot, I edged the door open just a little more. Whatever was going on in there, it was happening in the dark. The noise kept right on. It came to me now what it was. Someone was in there, in bed with Sally. With any luck, it would be Fritz. Slowly I pushed the door open and stepped inside. The noise stopped. As my eyes got used to the dark, I could see a figure, standing at the back door. Without turning, it calmly undid the chain, opened the door, and left. There was someone else in the room, sitting on the sofa. Only the head and shoulders were distinct. I waited for whoever it was to turn on the light or at least say something, but they just sat there, facing me. “Sally?” I said, and turned on the light myself. It was Sally, all right. She was looking at me, but what she saw, I couldn’t say. Her tongue was sticking out; she must have bitten it, because a string of bloody saliva had dribbled down her chin. Her arms were at her side, and from her feet to her waist she was encased in a huge black plastic bag, like for industrial trash; the empty lower end of it stretched another three or four feet out onto the rug in front of her. She wore one curious adornment. There was a black belt, pulled far beyond the last notch, around her neck. I turned the light back off. That was a strange moment in my life. I’d stepped right into the vortex of a crime, yet I remained calm. Maybe it was all the inadvertent sex I’d had in the last two days that made me ready for anything. I feared neither for my own safety nor that I’d be discovered. It was so quiet in there. Besides, people in apartments never come out short of a fire. Even if there are screams in the night, and crashing objects, it’s only because people with four hundred square feet between them learn to hate each other. I stood very still, waiting for the figure to put in another appearance. I had a clear look through the side window at the outside steps to the basement. Pretty soon I could see the top of the basement door open and then close, and very slowly, the figure came up the stairs. At the top it stopped, peered through the window into the room, and then moved along the side of the building toward the sidewalk, skirting the arc of light from the street lamp. During the second it faced in my direction I could see that it had on a ski mask, dark blue or black except for white circles around the eyes and mouth, and a triangle at the nose. It looked like a skull. Then it turned and walked rapidly away. I slipped out without shutting the door and headed down the walk after it. When I’d come to within half a block it turned and looked at me. I stopped. The thing in front of me was faceless and spooky. I imagined for a moment that my cousin had caught a terrible disfiguring disease, that he’d become a beast, that the mask hid a face beyond reconstruction. “Fritz,” I said, “I’ve come to talk to you. If you want, I’ll even help you.” I took a step forward. It shook its head and backed off. “Please,” I said, very calmly, “just stop. It’ll only take a minute.” But it just kept backing away from me, shaking its head, like it couldn’t speak. Finally it turned around and walked rapidly away. “You bastard,” I said, “you’re not putting me through any more shit.” As soon as I’d said that, it took off. The fucking thing was fast as hell. Before I even got started it was twenty yards up on me. For the first block it stuck to the front lawns, keeping off the icy walks and staying away from the street lights. When it got down to Stewart Avenue, it veered right out into the road and headed towards the graveyard. By now we were both in the street, where there wasn’t any ice and the running was free and easy. I really opened up. After two blocks like that I’d closed in to about thirty feet. I grabbed a chunk of ice off the top of a drift in hopes of getting close enough for a shot at the back of its head. Just as it got to the graveyard it hopped the wall and headed off through the tombstones, down towards the gate at the bottom of the hill. There were so many trees and monuments in there that I had a hard time keeping sight of it. By the time I got to the gate, it was gone.