The smell of tobacco comforts me. I’ve saved loads of money by not spending it on a boyfriend, or a pet, or anything that would rely on me, so I’ll allow small luxuries. Taxis weren’t more than a few minutes away around here, so the luxury of lighting a cig, and sucking it down to the filter in one go was a pure unnecessary indulgence. My reward.
An Accord rolled up to meet me. Apparently I was lucky, because the app announced that it was to be one of their good cars.
‘’This for Sow-risse?’’ the driver asked. I cringed; I never wore my work name tag. I gave up trying to teach people how to say Saoirse ages ago. I flicked the stub out onto the wet tarmac, the lit end bouncing satisfyingly in the dark, winking small embers. It made me think of bonfire night, I smiled to myself like a knob as I clambered in.
‘’Yeah, that’s me.’’ I buckled into the close company of a complete stranger and an unfamiliar air freshener. Everything was tinted blue from the driver’s phone.
As I started to ask if it was alright to put my earbuds in, he interrupted me, wanting to confirm my destination. Unless my ugly little flat had grown legs and fucked off, yeah, it was still where I left it. I stuck my music on and begged God that he wasn’t one of those mental taxi drivers that decide to talk to you at 5 in the fucking morning.
My flat’s about a 17-minute drive; just enough time to make a dramatic music video in my head. The windscreen wipers flecked away thin dashes of rain. I watched them race each other across and down the glass and leaned my head against it. Streetlamps trailed ghostly light streaks cutting through the dark. In my fantasy music video, Man A folded his arms around Girl B just as Toyah belted the next verse: “Remove the thorn from the lion’s paw, hear my words, “Pain no more!”
The tires squealed as we swerved violently to one side. My teeth clacked together as my skull bounced and struck the window. I jerked my head back up; my pupils spasmed, contracting open-close, open-close. The car whirred, sliding on the wet road, my driver thrashing frantically to get the car back under control. Out in the dark, I saw a gash of an open mouth winking back at me. Something eye-like glistened, bulbous, embedded in a broad, silicone-slick human torso so close I saw fine hairs. There was the dull thump of a body hitting something hard.
I didn’t think anything of it in those first moments, a hypnic jerk. Painful and unusual, but I was still alive. I was calm, whatever. You’ve been to a fishmonger, right? It’s easy to see dead bodies. On ice, under glass—to be observed with vague interest and slight disgust, the same with roadkill. This thing, though… it had been breathing, moving. It had been close. Light had bounced off it. A blur of pale skin, a fist-sized eye nestled under the collarbone. No more than the thump of a bag hitting the floor and it was over, gone.
‘’What the fuck?!’’ the driver exclaimed. The car was now stationary, the streetlamps stoic and still. ‘’Did you see that?! What the fuck?!” Jolted back to life, I whipped back to squint out the back window. The wet black road unspooling shakily, eaten up by the dark. We were now driving away. Nothing.
“What the fuck?” I whisper back. Nothing else to reach for; only the driver’s panic and my throbbing skull felt real. A stocky, rectangular afterimage torso floated ghostlike against the car’s interior.
‘’Is he still back there?!’’ the driver gasped, white-knuckled hands gripping the wheel, his eyes darting to me. He was sweating, breathing hard. The ropey muscles in his neck contracted as he swallowed. I checked again, my clammy palms sticking to the seat covers.
“No.” My eye drifted, and I blinked hard to try and make it stop. “No. He’s gone.” He shook his head, jaw clenched so hard his teeth squeaked. He was summoning the strength to write the whole thing off.
We drove home like we were supposed to. The Accord cruised down the country roads as if nothing happened. It was hard to know what to do—there was no fantasy music video I could muster to clear the disembodied torso we may or may not have hit. We sat in awkward silence, hot AC air blasting until we stopped at our destination: a squat grey block of flats, sticking out in the car park—a grossly oversized concrete headstone. Outside, the few barely lit windows of my block swam; silhouetted shapes slid in and out of the dim frame.
I thanked the driver as I stepped out the car, the uneven pavement crunching, real and cold and rough. He said nothing, his attention dead-bolt on the dashboard of his car. I pushed the door shut a touch too hard, and the Accord skulked away as if scolded. The air outside the car was heavy, pressing into my ears, a dull ringing that came as part of the sudden silence. At night, shadows always become more dense, eating up the rationed light. You want to keep your eyes on them, as if they might get up and rush toward you without it. The atmosphere turned oppressive and itchy.
I traced the driveway out with my flats, tripping up on the way to the front door. My legs were numb—phantom limbs made real, like they were fence spokes wedged into a body. An involuntary movement from my eye blurred the walkway as I dug around in my coat pocket, fumbling for my house keys. The black gulf of gravel beneath was a blank canvas where I painted images of that thing slamming against the window. I felt eyes boring into the back of my head. It felt impossible. I uselessly, stupidly, batted my keys against the door. Every second repeated. Stuck in this time loop, the night around me panned forever, just emptiness, widening out over and over, populated only by two parties: me, and the thing I couldn’t see.
Something took divine pity on me and with my hands shaking, the key rattled in. Dull city light pollution coming through the open door and the faint green beacon glow of an alarm LED was the only thing keeping full dark at bay. Slippery pamphlets littered the floor near an overflowing communal mailbox. Everything became an obstacle, tiny dangers being tacked on and tallied against me. What might happen if I slipped? Performing perfectly was the only thing that would get me from the door to my flat in one piece. I was sure.
The air pressure swallowed me whole, unending ringing in my ears. The hallway felt both impossibly expansive and claustrophobically close. The building was breathing down my neck. I had to get into my flat. I had to get home. The stairs ascended on a hairpin turn, and every time I rounded a corner, I felt the simultaneous urge to run or stay still, a sick lurch in my stomach and adrenaline wracking my nerves. By some strange cheapskate landlord logic the top floor had an alcove, a weird corner which meant that all the flats on the right side of the block were off in their own section. My flat was one of them. Not even the dim city light pollution penetrated this corner of the building. Anything could be lying there, crumpled, broken, quietly waiting for me.
The top of the stairs loomed close, and the black pit I had entered was filled with a new presence—a pregnant, alert wholeness. I had to will myself to move, eyes darting to some imaginary danger. It didn’t matter; it really didn’t. There was nothing there. I didn’t care; it wasn’t real. I’m winding myself up. It wasn’t real. I clamped my hand on the bannister and made a point of staring dead ahead. I opened my eyelids burningly wide, straining for a hint of something, someone. Each measured blink was gummy on my dry pupils. Nothing in front of me but paint and plaster. Every cell of my body begged for the torso-thing to lunge out of the dark and slam my skull to the wall or rush up from behind, grab my hair, and drag me backwards, my head pinging down the steps as I’m lugged outside. All of me knew that it wouldn’t, couldn’t do that. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real. Every fibre of my being screamed to move, but I stood exactly where I was, shaking with anger and fear, furious at everything and about ready to kill this thing—no matter what it might have been. My eyes, pulsing, stretched open and searing at their edges; I heaved.
Nothing, everywhere.
Featured Image Credit: Pexels / Joanne Adela
CO-AUTHORED BY DAVID MAY
