Alex led the girl by hand. Along countless sidewalks and bustling city streets, they wove among a slow stampede of oblivious, disinterested pedestrians. Soon, the two of them would be alone. He led her by the hand. And he led her calmly, despite the urgent swell of anticipation and fighting a desire to sprint the remaining distance, to drag her there and alarm the unwitting girl into frightened resistance. But somehow, Alex managed to keep his cool. And the girl followed.
He wondered how she would taste.
Three prior failed attempts born from his growing desperation had raised a question pondered often. Was this how serial killers began? By suppressing some dark impulse every hour of every day until that first fateful moment of weakness? She squeezed his hand and her skin was clammy. In her touch, he felt the girl's mix of uncertainty and anxiety and lust, felt her need for reassurance. He squeezed back, wondering how hard it would be to commit murder if it came to that.
Maybe this time would be different. Maybe his mother was right and there was someone for everyone in the world. Maybe his someone was this mousy girl following him so gullibly to what Alex hoped was the moment he’d dreamt of every day and night for perhaps all the seventeen painfully lonely years of his miserable life. Maybe she was his someone.
Or maybe not.
They rounded a corner and the apartment building came into view. And a hot flush of eagerness washed over him anew. They were close, now. So close. Only this time, he’d be careful. The unsuspecting girl would give him his fantasy and she’d never know the truth. No harm, no foul, right? Well, not likely. But with every new day he cared a little less. Still, Alex prayed he wouldn’t become that sort of monster. He didn’t want to kill her.
At midafternoon, the freaks were already out. Alex led his--what was she, prey?--past them and up the steps, hoping to reach the door without drawing much attention from the three deviants loitering as usual around the building front. They looked twenty-something, two males flanking a female, all decked in gothic blacks and reds, hair dyed a variety of unnatural colors, and gaudy with piercings and jewelry. The three seemed content to pose as outcasts, while Alex had been utterly exhausted by efforts to perfect his "all-American boy next door" appearance.
He despised them.
They called the female freak Kat. She couldn't speak. And judging by appearance, Alex figured that might be a good thing. After all, what could such an abrasive and self-imposed outcast have to say that was worth hearing anyway? Alex's mother speculated Kat could be a prostitute or maybe a drug dealer, because so many strangers came and went from her apartment at all hours. And her two male cohorts, strangely reptilian but in no explainable way, might be pimps or bodyguards. Kat watched him now. He felt her eyes on him. She always watched him, always unsmiling, expressionless. Could it be she somehow saw beneath his skin and perceived his ugly little secret? No, not likely. Because if Kat had known Alex’s secret, she wouldn't be just standing there. She'd be running.
"Is this where you live?"
The girl. How could he have forgotten her, even for an instant?
He turned to regard the slender, stringy-haired creature by his side. This one could be pretty with the slightest of effort, but she’d opted instead for ratty jeans, a concert T-shirt, and an oversized army jacket. This one had entirely too much disregard for her outer self and how she was perceived. Then again, it made what he was about to do a little easier. Alex couldn't remember the girl's name, and that helped too.
He replied with a smile, "Yeah, we just moved here a few months ago. C'mon inside. I've got something to sh--"
But then the door swung out just as he reached for it, and a familiar elderly figure stepped directly into their path. "Afternoon, Alex. How's your folks?"
Alex eyed the aged but ever smiling and entirely too friendly building superintendent, swallowing a sudden acidic bubbling of panic. He then committed every taut and trembling fiber of himself to projecting an illusion of casual boredom, even borrowing from Kat’s own emotionless gaze in passing as he did so.
“Hello, Mr. Gretsky. Uh, Mom’s fine. Frank’s okay too, I guess.
He wished the super hadn't seen him with this girl. So many witnesses complicated things. But Alex was too close to back out now. The porch punks weren't a problem, and he could worry about Gresky later. So Alex hurried her past the old man and across the apartment foyer, while muttering over his shoulder, "I've gotta go take care of some stuff, so ... um ... see ya." And his silent prayers were answered as they shuffled inside without another word from Gresky, who surely watched them walk down the hall and turn out of sight.
#
"You don't live down here, do you?" the girl asked, after they'd doubled back and sneaked down a narrow side stairwell. They were descending into gradual darkness, and he felt her grip loosen. She was having second thoughts. She was about to panic.
But Alex smiled up at her and winked, as if addressing a comically childish question. "Of course I don't live down here, silly. I live upstairs, but my mom and step-dweeb are there now, and we wouldn't have any privacy."
"Well," the girl squinted into the shadows below, "where are we going, then? Where's the lights?" There was doubt in her voice.
"We're not supposed to be down here, so I can't turn on the lights till we get inside the room." He squeezed her hand again. "Don't worry."
She squeezed back.
The door at the bottom of the stairs was locked, but Alex had planned for this. He gave a shoulder nudge and it swung open a few inches, only on the hinged side. Because the hinge pins were missing. Then, he slid the door sideways out of its frame, granting them access to what wonders lay beyond.
The soft red glow of an emergency exit sign hinted at a laundry room beyond. With them both now past the threshold, Alex slid the door back into place and left the girl standing alone as he ventured among a clutter of abandoned washers and driers.
"These lights don't work," she said nervously. "Hey, where are you going?"
"Power to the lights is off down here, but don't worry." Alex fished a lighter from his front pocket and lit a candle on one of the machines. Then he lit another, and still another. She watched in silence as he lit up a dozen candles throughout the room, providing an even spread of cozy, flickering glow across most of it--most of it. He noticed the sheen of sweat on his own forearm and ran a sleeve over his brow. So close now.
"This laundry room was an afterthought," he explained, retrieving a pair of peach-flavored wine coolers from a newly converted washing machine ice chest. Alex hated wine coolers.
"They didn't think about handicap accessibility till someone threatened lawsuit." He twisted the caps off and handed over a bottle. The girl would think it romantic. That was a helpful notion, but the alcohol also made things easier.
"Since our slumlord property owner didn't want to spend any money on it, and didn't want to pay a lawsuit, they just slapped a lock on the door, so nobody gets to use the room. Problem solved." He took a sip from his bottle, pretending to enjoy the manufactured sickly-sweet taste. And she tipped back a sip of her own.
Then, he closed the space between them and whispered in her ear, "Well, nobody but us." He kissed the girl's peach-flavored lips. She kissed him back.
#
After her first bottle, Alex had maneuvered them behind an island of washers, where his sleeping bag was already spread out on the floor. According to plan. The candlelight couldn't reach them there, so they sat together in a pocket of darkness, two silhouettes talking and drinking and kissing.
After her second bottle--the girl hadn't noticed Alex was still nursing his first--they had lain down together atop the sleeping bag, where the kissing persisted and his hands began to wander. She didn't stop him.
A third wine cooler would have helped, but his patience was spent. No more waiting.
It was time.
Alex slowly moved down along the length of her body. She tensed, but the girl didn't resist as he spread apart her jacket front and slid her T-shirt up to reveal the pale heaving goosepimpled flesh of her belly. How would she taste? The constant battle for self-control had brought him to this moment. But now there was only pure, concentrated, overwhelming desire eclipsing all further caution or concern.
It was time.
The inexperienced young girl beneath him, still discovering her own newfound sexuality and emotions, couldn't possibly understand. Nobody could understand his craving. How could anyone human fathom the rich depth of this ... miracle, this ... communion? Poised above her eager body in the dark, Alex feverishly wondered how she would taste. It was time to find out. It was time to taste her.
It was time to touch her.
She ran both hands encouragingly through his hair. But that wouldn’t do. He moved gently but insistently, pushing away the girl’s hands while kissing her exposed belly. She moaned in the darkness. He could hear the excitement in her every breath. She wanted him. He told himself, as he drew his head back, that she wanted this.
If only it were true.
Then, still teasing her flesh with one hand, Alex carefully gripped his lower jaw with the other. And he pulled. The jaw unhinged with a wet click. She didn't seem to notice, still squirming eagerly beneath him. In that lone shadowy space behind the island of washing machines, Alex expected the girl wouldn't be able to see him undress.
Because he'd planned it that way.
The sensation of his unhinging was much like flipping an auditorium light switch in the middle of a movie. His senses dulled; the world faded to drab shades of gray in all its sights and smells and sounds and textures. For a brief, thoroughly lackluster moment, his life was without purpose or significance, unworthy of such tired efforts to continue on. Then he spasmed. His body seemed to deflate. Alex continued caressing the girl, hoping she wouldn't notice his sluggishness, hoping she wouldn't notice his enormously gaping mouth … and the black, multi-tentacled thing emerging from it.
But this was more than a thing, because whatever the extending, writhing creature might be, it was also Alex. He slithered out of his body--his shell--like a snake shedding its skin, releasing just enough of himself, a thick and rubbery arm-like appendage with several tentacle fingers, to cautiously close the distance between himself and the girl.
Alex didn’t understand what he was, always feared wandering too far from himself might make it impossible to return again and resume his outward illusion of normalcy. He imagined this must be a rite of passage for most monsters, this fearful and gradual discovery of their monstrous limits.
And the very instant his inner form extended out into open air, Alex found himself hurled into the opposite sensory extreme. There were no ears along his mucousy black surface, yet he could hear the girl's heavy breathing, her heart pounding, even the thunderous coursing of blood through her veins. There were no eyes, yet he could somehow see the tiny hairs of her navel, even in the dark. He could smell her musky excitement, too. It was intoxicating. And as his black tendril tips made the softest of contact, Alex felt the rising heat of her silky skin. Then finally, that raw intimacy he'd craved for so, so long. Finally, Alex tasted her.
A variety of flavors tantalized him all at once. He tasted the salt and soap and perfume on her flesh, even the coppery hint of blood pulsing beneath. Her body was delicious and he wanted to taste more, to explore every inch.
How this expelled inner self craved her, each and every translucent black multi-sensory strand reaching, stretching, aching to hear and see and smell and touch the girl by this inexplicable means, but mostly wanting to taste her. His whole being was saturated with a raging flood of stimulation. He was dazzled and delighted at once. He couldn't think straight, couldn't think beyond this moment, this girl. She overwhelmed him with so many sensations, drowning him in herself. In an instant, she became his whole life, his universe. How he worshipped her.
Then it ended. With a scream.
In his current form, the tiny burst of light was almost blinding. After so much planning and precaution, he'd made one critical mistake: leaving the lighter for her to find. The girl had grown alarmed or suspicious, or maybe just curious. Whatever the case, she'd found his lighter. Then, with a flick of her thumb, their shadowy recess was illuminated and Alex exposed for the monster he was. She saw his true form probing at her flesh with quivering excitement. And the nameless girl had screamed.
She scrambled away from Alex, kicking and thrashing and shrieking all the while. A foot connected with his shoulder and the jarring force expelled him even further from the gaping jawed portal of his human form. Alex was exposed and terrified, but also enraged. He hated the rejection and repulsion, hated her for being afraid. In that moment, he hated the whole human race. But even then, there was a hesitation. Was it really in his nature? Did he really have it in him to … to kill her?
Struggling back inside his shell, Alex grabbed one of the washing machines and attempted pulling himself upright. His hands were weak and rubbery, deflated, as was most of his body during these outings. He'd never been so far outside before and didn't know how long it would take to return.
Then, through the sensory haze of returning, Alex heard the laundry room door slide free from its frame. She would escape while he could hardly stand, much less give chase. He should have fastened the door better and trapped her there. He should have. But now, it was too late.
After tremendous effort, Alex stood, his tentacled self still wriggling back inside the safety of the shell. Progress was slow. He could hear the girl's frantic footsteps racing away up the stairway to freedom. Yet in all his worry, he’d failed to notice others had entered the room.
"Hello again, Alex."
They startled him, four figures standing near the doorway, Mr. Gresky ahead of the rest. Alex's legs gave out and he dropped behind the washing machines again. But they’d already seen him. The real Alex. The monster. Still retracting. Still weak. And terrified.
All thoughts of catching the girl were lost. There was only one thing to do now. He had to run. He had to get away from them, away from this place. He had to get far, far away.
From everyone.
"There’s no need to hide, Alex. We know." The old man’s voice was calm. Eerily calm. Mr. Gresky, the nosy and overly friendly building super.
Alex said nothing, hellbent solely on his return to normal and nearly there. If they only waited long enough, maybe he could make a run for it. He was so, so close.
"I’d just like to know just one thing," the calm voice continued. "What were you planning to do about the girl, Alex? Once she found out, what were you planning to do?"
What was he planning to do? As he struggled, it occurred he’d never really had a plan so much as a place. In his desperation, blindly obsessed with all-consuming need, there had never really been a plan. Like those three times before, three past horrific failures when he’d just closed his eyes and wished the girls away, prayed they’d run away and never return. So far, it seemed luck had been on his side. But what if this one didn’t just go away? What if he had to deal with her? Alex was a monster, but was he a murderer? Deep down, he’d always known the answer. And now he wanted to scream all his loneliness and pain at Gresky, at the world, but the re-entry wasn’t yet complete. And no, the answer had never been murder. Deep down, Alex always knew another unspoken word for his situation.
Suicide.
Almost there. Then he’d slip past and up the stairs in a flash. Just let that old man keep chattering away. Escape was so close now, and all Alex could think about. The strange collective appearance of Gresky and that freakish mute Kat with her two goth punk friends hadn’t even crossed his mind.
Then the talking stopped. All was silent, so Alex took a quick peek to make sure Gresky and the others weren't closing in. A single tendril wriggled itself back inside his mouth as he peered around the side, surprised to discover everyone gone. Everyone except Kat, who’d quietly crossed the room and now stood nearly within reach.
Alex jumped in surprise, falling back to the floor, then came up on his elbows, watching with dread as Kat so casually rounded the washer and stooped over him, her expression blank as always, unreadable as always.
Then she opened her mouth to speak. Only Kat didn't speak. Kat couldn't speak. Instead, her jaw unhinged and dropped several inches. Her eyes rolled back, face deflating, body sagging. Then a long, black, multi-tentacled appendage snaked its way from her gaping mouth, lazily stretching outward. Reaching for Alex. Reaching to touch him. Wanting to taste him.
And for the second time that afternoon, Alex opened up.
This contact was beyond anything he’d ever dreamed. It was electric and immediate. As soon as they touched, Kat took his breath away--did they even breathe in this form? The graceful movement of her smooth, glistening tendrils; her gentle caresses along his surface; her exquisite flavors; all of this made him swell and shimmer with delight.
And he heard her, too, heard Kat's voice sigh like a cool whispering breeze. She spoke without words. She spoke in emotions and intent. She spoke in memories. Each caress was an exchange of sensations, a wondrous sharing of thoughts and experiences, all unfiltered and honest and pure. Alex never knew it before, but this was what he'd craved all along, something as essential as food or water. And without it, he’d been withering away inside, slowly dying. But now here it was at last, this priceless gift from the most unexpected person, this gift of intimacy.
A gift of touch.
Following Kat's lead, Alex stepped--or slithered--completely outside the safety of his shell. And for the first time in his life, Alex was free.
#
Three boys in their late teens hustled across the busy street, then strutted purposefully toward the apartment building. Gresky watched from the top step as they approached. He knew their type well enough. Not bad kids, just confused. And perhaps a little too self-important. He smiled and nodded as the leader looked up.
"Afternoon, boys. Can I help you?" He heard the front door open and close behind him, then Kat was there, assuming her usual spot on the stairs alongside her two friends, who also watched the three young men with mild indifference.
The leader’s eyes darted to Kat, whose group appeared maybe five years older than his own and seemed slightly reptilian, although not in any specific way. From the sidewalk, he addressed Gresky. “We're looking for a kid called Alex. You seen him?" His companions stood silent.
"Ah," Mr. Gresky replied with his customary congenial grin. "You’re friends of his, then?" An angry glint in the leader's eyes suggested otherwise, and that one opened his mouth to confirm it but didn’t get the chance. "Well,” said Gresky, “the boy's parents are cleaning him up just now. They’ve decided not to take him to the hospital."
"What?" Obviously, this was surprising news, and the leader's fiery eyes dulled.
Kat regarded the exchange with some interest. She was particularly interested in one of the two silent boys, the taller one. He’d been aware of her staring, and shifted nervously, refusing to meet her gaze. He didn't seem to want to be there anymore.
"I don't know how much you heard, but I walked in on their little comedy of errors. That Alex made a terrible mess, and my maintenance man wasn't thrilled to clean it up. Said 'Get that pup to clean up his own damned mess!' But that wouldn't do. I believe Alex won’t be out of bed for a day or two. Serves him right, one might say. All part of growing up, one might say."
"What?" The leader repeated, still confused.
"Seems Alex and his friend acquired alcoholic beverages and overindulged themselves. I walked in just as he upchucked everywhere. And what a horrid sight! It must have startled that poor little girl. She let out one yelp and then off she dashed without so much as a ‘hello’ or ‘good-bye.’ Probably best to inform her parents of this kid silliness, drinking under age and all. I don't suppose you know the girl, do you? I haven't seen her around here before."
The leader pondered this new information for a moment. "No,” he lied. “We don't know the girl.”
Gresky figured this was probably an older brother. "Well," he continued, "if you're concerned about the boy Alex, he should be okay after a spot of rest. But we were worried in the beginning, though. I mean, he could hardly raise a finger when I found him. Or stand himself up."
Kat continued eyeing the taller one. She had a way of staring hard at people, as though peering beneath the skin and directly at the soul. Her stare made the boy uncomfortable. It always made people uncomfortable. But this was part of Kat's peculiar talent for spotting others like herself and like her two friends. Others like Alex. Or like Gresky himself. And apparently, one of these three could now be counted among their kind too.
He watched the boys turn to leave, having dispelled their quest for revenge, though the apartment superintendent was certain he'd see the tall one again someday. They always found their way back to Kat. That’s just how it worked. Because despite herself, that girl had an uncanny knack for finding lost souls. And then bringing them out of their shells.
As she’d done with Alex.
Gresky peered down the street, watching the throngs of people scurrying back and forth like ants toward their individual destinations, all of them tragically incomplete, all of them lonely. He watched until a misty sadness blurred his view.
They had forgotten.
Somewhere along the thousands of years of their time here, people had forgotten who they were. On the inside. This supreme act of intimacy--the baring and sharing of one’s soul--was lost to all but a blessed few. Now he watched the world, and sighed.
So many trapped and lonely souls.
They’d forgotten how to reach out.
They’d forgotten how to touch.
End
Bio: Jon Rollins is a writer hobbyist, short story enthusiast, and editor for Wicked Works Magazine. His written works have appeared in Down In The Dirt Magazine, DailyScienceFiction.com, Abyss & Apex Magazine, and a book of spooky road trip tales called Bumps In The Road, among others. He resides in Louisiana, but occasionally hops on his motorcycle and rides off in search of the highway’s end. He also vacations in the Twilight Zone, where he one day hopes to retire. Look for him there and in future publications.
©2020 wickedworksmag.com - All rights reserved.
