In a dim hotel room, Hunter sat at a battered wooden table with a vague sense that something was wrong.
The room itself looked the same as it always did. Its weathered decor implied that it’d been abandoned sometime in the eighties, yet if one ignored the peeling wallpaper and water-stained ceiling, it could nevertheless be considered livable. There was none of the dust and detritus that decaying places tended to collect, the bedding on the old queen looked new, and there was even a little plastic vase of fresh white flowers on the table.
Next to the vase was a King James Bible with a worn leather cover, and scattered around were pages that’d been torn from it. Some had been rolled up like cigarettes or shredded into scraps, and others were folded into clumsy bits of origami. Hunter had never been sure if the Bible was there because American hotels were obnoxious like that, or if Raphael had left it on purpose just to be an ass. Either way, it was the only thing in the room he had to read, so despite his boredom he’d been careful not to destroy it too quickly.
The flimsy plastic chair he was in was not comfortable, but he hadn’t moved from it in a long time. In fact, beyond drumming his fingers and bouncing his legs, nowadays he rarely moved at all. When he’d initially arrived he’d tried to break up the monotony by exercising or stretching, but after the first few weeks the itchy restlessness he’d suffered had transformed into a sluggish despair, and now doing anything at all felt like trying to swim through molasses.
Thunder rumbled outside, its volume suppressed by the bricked up windows. Across the room, a hulking black television set sitting on an old VCR was the only source of light. On the screen, clips of music from a Superstars of the 80’s CD infomercial played one after another, and Phil Collins sang:
“She seems to have an invisible touch, yeah. She reaches in and grabs right hold of your heart…”
Hunter, who had heard this infomercial so many times that he now thought of it less as a mashup and more as its own song, tapped his fingers and absently sang along. He’d always wondered if someone put a clip from Genesis right next to a clip from Phil Collins’ solo work just to be cheeky, but he didn’t think about it too much because Wham!’s ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’ would be after that, and he was fond of that song in part because Raphael hated it.
“It takes control and slowly tears you apart—”
Phil and Hunter were abruptly interrupted by three jarring siren blasts, followed by a long high-pitched tone.
“The National Weather Service has issued a severe thunderstorm warning until 9 A.M. for the following Counties: Bronx County, Kings County, Nassau County…”
Without thinking, he mouthed along to the announcement as well. That stiff, digitally generated tone was also one he was familiar with, although he wasn’t sure why he seemed to know exactly what it was going to announce before the words even appeared on the screen.
He anxiously chewed on his lower lip, tasting blood. The feeling that something was wrong returned again, but he still couldn’t figure out what it was.
Outside more peals of thunder rolled and, so muffled he almost couldn’t hear it, heavy rain began to fall.
The TV was on a chest of drawers that had been shoved up against the far wall by the door, and beneath it the red numbers of the VCR’s digital clock displayed the time. Hunter had memorized its programming schedule and thus, seeing that it now read 4 A.M., he knew that the infomercial had finished during the interruption, which meant he’d missed out on Wham!, and also…
With a soft sigh of resignation, he turned his head and looked away. Three more blasts signaled the end of the alert, and then static burst to garbled life on the monitor, its visual frenzy as bright and grating as the noise it made.
He hated TV static. He knew it was stupid, especially since he had no trouble watching regular stuff, but he couldn’t control the feeling. It used to make him so upset he could barely breathe, but now that he’d been forced to endure it for a couple months, that distress had mostly eroded away into annoyance.
Still, he’d have just turned the damn thing off if he could’ve. The problem was, anything heavy enough to be worth throwing had been nailed down, and he couldn’t reach the TV himself on account of the chain.
One end of it was fixed to a steel plate bolted into the floor, and the other was attached to a handcuff he was wearing.
It clinked as he reached for the Bible, and he opened it and tore out a page at random, unable to repress a flood of frustrated resentment. Those inhumane bastards refused to let him have any kind of tobacco, and now every time he picked up a piece of paper his first thought inevitably was, ‘Goddamn, I wish I could smoke this,’ followed by intense disappointment that he couldn’t.
He resisted the urge to roll it into another empty cigarette and smoothed it out instead. He was pretty shit at origami, but he had to do something with his hands or he’d start picking at the scabs around the handcuff again. His left thumb was still sore and bruised from the last time he’d dislocated it, and he didn’t need an infection on top of that. Although, if he got one, and the damn thing rotted off, wouldn’t that save him a lot of trouble…?
In a moment of serendipity, some of the text on the torn page caught his eye.
“‘And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off?’” he said, letting out a bitter laugh. “What if I don’t have anything to cut with, huh? Didn’t think of that, didya Jesus? Didn’t even guess which hand right! Some prophet you are.”
He hadn’t always talked to himself out loud, but he’d found that, after a certain amount of time alone, he could no longer seem to stop himself.
“That bastard won’t even let me have shoelaces, you think he’d leave a knife? This is why Elijah gets a seat saved and you don’t,” he continued muttering, neatly folding the paper over to make a square, then wetting the edge with his tongue and tearing it off. Holding the paper up, he casually reread it and went, “Oh, wait, you were talking about adultery or some shit? Sorry, Jesus, that’s my bad. Fuck, my kingdom for a pocket knife! No, wait, I think that one’s Shakespeare…”
He paused and regarded his current collection of ugly stars, frogs, cranes, and one particularly pathetic unicorn. Some looked better than others, but most were a mess because he couldn’t quite recall how to make them and had to go through a great deal of trial and error. Wracking his brain for anything else he could half-remember, he decided to try making a fox.
“I swear half of these start the same… if I accidentally make a frog again, don’t judge me,” he said to the piece of paper, only to get distracted by an itch from his beard. “Nevermind, fuck the pocket knife, my horse for a razor… no, kingdom, I meant kingdom, who trades a horse for a razor? What a rotten deal…”
Raph had offered to shave him once, and the punch he’d thrown in response was how he’d injured his right hand as well. Now he had so much medical tape on both of them that he was struggling to make the smaller folds.
The fact was, he’d have escaped ages ago if the boys had been kind enough to use a normal handcuff, but no, they knew him well enough to go with something custom made. None of his usual tricks worked on it and, try as he might, he didn’t have the tools to pick the lock itself.
The other problem was his big damn hands. Dislocating anything did bobkes1nothing because there were still a bunch of other bones left in the way, which meant the only other option he had to fit it through would be to… to…
Hunter paused again, brow furrowing as he turned his head towards the blocked windows. The sound of static from the TV almost drowned out the frantic gurgling of the overwhelmed rain pipes outside, but he could still hear them if he listened closely. As he looked back down at the fox he was making, he was struck with a dizzying sense of déjà vu.
He felt like he was solving a puzzle he’d already solved before. The answer was just out of reach, not because he didn’t know it, but because he couldn’t quite get a good look at it…
No, it was more like something was standing in its way.
A prickling feeling rushed across his skin, raising all the little hairs on his body as it froze him in place.
Everything about this room was familiar, down to the words on the paper he was folding.
Everything, including the subtle feeling that he wasn’t alone.
One of the many reasons he hated TV static was because he always got the feeling that something was watching and whispering to him through it, but he’d always chalked that up to lingering guilt from his childhood. It was a suspicion he was so used to ignoring that, even as his disquiet had grown, he’d dismissed the possibility without even noticing he’d done so.
With that in mind, he forced himself to finally look back at the TV and realized that feeling wasn’t coming from the static at all.
It was coming from the thing crouched behind the television.
He couldn’t explain how he knew it was there, because he couldn’t see it, but he knew, and he was just as sure that it was staring back at him.
Acting on instinct, he casually glanced at the digital clock on the VCR and said aloud as though he’d only been checking the time, “4:09, huh…?”
Then he turned his attention back to the fox in progress, calmly folding it as he began whistling bits of the earlier infomercial.
Well, fuck.
He repressed a shiver, unsure of what the hell he was supposed to do now.
Terrified that if he looked again whatever it was might come at him, he forced himself to keep his eyes down and listened hard instead. Amid the roar of white noise, he realized he could faintly hear something else, as though words from another channel were only half coming through.
[ That… ffzhkjh… whatshf… hsskfh… hsksd… useless… ]
Smoothing out the finished fox, he focused on the signal like he was tuning a mental radio. Although it did not sound like any language he recognized, the longer he listened the more clearly it came through, and the more he could understand.
[ … Fshhafter all this khkhtime, hold… a little longer… Ha… ]
Something about the voice was familiar, but he couldn’t recall who it reminded him of.
[ Howhkh long hasfhshh it been now? Only a fool shfh believe… Nobodshshy is coming… ]
Were the words coming from the TV, or was the thing behind it talking to itself?
What the fuck could it be?
How could any of this possibly be happening?
This had to be a dream, right?
Gritting his teeth, he tried to force himself to wake up, but it was to no avail. All he managed to do was split the cut on his lip back open, and he found himself wondering how a dream could possibly be this detailed.
Everything he was experiencing, from the faint vibrations of the lightning strikes to the smell of mildew in the air, from the pain in his hands to the legible words on the paper he was holding, felt real.
But what else could it be? Involuntary childhood fears were one thing, actually believing in monsters was another.
Then he felt something invisible brush up against his leg, and his whole body stiffened.
Nevermind! He believed, he believed!
It must have moved across the room too quietly for him to hear, and now it was right in front of him. He still couldn’t exactly see it, but he could sense a kind of distortion from where he thought it was.
[ Do you have any idea how long it took to squeeze that much of myself through? ]
He could feel it was looking at him, but the question sounded rhetorical so he kept his mouth shut. It must not have realized he could hear it yet, and he was grateful for that, but since he was still tied to that stupid chain, he wasn’t sure what the fuck he’d do if it did catch on. His skin broke out in a cold sweat, and his palms became so damp that a corner of the fox tore.
[ All undone in an instant, because you had to go and get yourself caught, you blithering idiot. ]
At this, he felt something lightly hit the back of his head.
Had… had this fucking thing just smacked him!?
[ If I hadn’t hidden from that damn beast you’d be dead, you know. ]
Wait, if it’s standing in front of me, but hitting me from behind, then… just how long is its body?
Oh God, he wished he could take back that thought the moment he had it because whatever it was decided to give him an answer by grabbing onto his calf with what felt like dozens of sharp little pincers.
What he assumed was the front of it coiled up in his lap, and it draped the rest of itself down one of his legs and across his foot.
Luckily he was still too terrified to move, and the only sound that managed to escape him was a strangled gasp of air that he turned into a cough.
Okay, that settled it.
This wasn’t a dream, this was a nightmare, it had to be a nightmare because if it wasn’t and it was real he was going to start screaming and never stop.
[ How unfortunate… If you didn’t have Ianthe’s body, it would have been fun to watch him kill you. ]
Wait, Ianthe? Who was Ianthe—?
Oh. Oh.
A veil in his mind lifted, and all the years he’d lived since this room came back to him.
He finally recognized the thing sitting in his lap.
It was a lot smaller than the last time he’d seen it.
[ She was supposed to come back… why hasn’t she come back? ]
The demon continued whining to itself. As it did, something sharp lightly scraped the side of Hunter’s abdomen, and he was unable to stop himself from flinching.
He froze again, convinced he’d given himself away, but thankfully it seemed too preoccupied to notice.
[ Did I do something wrong…? No, it must be because of you. You shouldn’t be here, you ruined everything… ]
It poked at his side again, and he wondered, What the hell is it trying to do?
He really, really didn’t want to fight this thing again. Even if the demon was smaller now it’d still kicked his ass back in the Library and he was not keen to go through that a second time.
Sure, it was currently scaring the piss out of him, but that was still better than getting his sense of self disintegrated and bleeding out of his damn skin. Maybe if he just ignored it, it would get bored and go away?
He felt a sharp pain in his side, followed by a spreading, tingling numbness.
Oh, God.
No. Absolutely not.
Had this fucking thing just bitten him!?
“You little shit!” he roared, caution forgotten as he rose to his feet and grabbed it with both hands. With one violent tug he tore most of it off of himself and raised it into the air above his head.
[ What—how—!? ]
“That’s it! That’s enough! I’ve fucking had it with you, with this fucking place!”
He swung it down, slamming it into the floor like a battle rope, only to find himself stumbling back in surprise when pain burst in his own head.
[ Stop that! ]
He ignored it, and it must have been too stunned to fight back properly because he managed to raise it up again before it began to thrash violently. It got a hold of his left arm, and those sharp little legs it had stabbed into him. Blood bloomed under his white sleeve as dozens of puncture wounds appeared as if by magic, and his grip momentarily weakened.
It took this chance to try and tear itself from his grasp, and he had to twist violently to keep his grip. The motion agitated that tingling place where it’d bitten him earlier, but instead of pain he only felt a cold numbness, and he realized with a distant horror that there were other places on his body that felt the same way.
This wasn’t the first time it’d bitten him, it was the first time he’d noticed.
“Fuck you!” he howled, throwing it down again. This time he braced for the shared pain, so when it hit him he was able to shake it off faster than the demon could.
Hauling it back up and onto the table, he grabbed the long chain attached to his wrist and wrapped the demon up in its slack. The result was what looked like a strange floating metal knot, and though he didn’t get all of it, he still managed to pin down what he was pretty sure was its head.
[ Are you stupid!? ]
It hissed at him like a snake, and he felt the length he hadn’t captured dig its legs deeper into his arm. Too enraged to care, he ignored this and pressed down on it with his body weight.
[ You can’t hurt me without hurting yourself! ]
“Ah? Ahaha, ahahah, is that it?” he asked, grinning with an expression of sarcastic pity as he glared down at it. He’d been wondering when it was going to fuck him up like before, but it turned out it couldn’t?
“You didn’t do your homework, did you sweetheart? Do you even realize where you are?”
[ No, I… ]
He found something very funny in its hesitation and began to laugh, and once he started he found that he couldn’t seem to stop.
All the stress and fear he’d endured in the last two days, coupled with this damn dream forcing him to relive one of the worst times of his life, finally built enough pressure to make him snap.
He was furious, yes, but now on top of that he felt a delirious, detached kind of glee, as though he’d finally figured out the punchline to the joke the universe had made him into, and it was fucking hilarious.
He couldn’t see its expression, but he guessed from the demon’s silence as his laughter died down that it must be a little shocked.
“Sorry, sorry, ahhhhaha… I don’t think I’m okay,” he said, giving the demon an apologetic smile, “Hey, why don’t we try to make this more fun? Oh! I know, do you like riddles?”
[ No! Of course not, nobody likes riddles! ]
“What? That’s not true, lots of people like riddles,” Hunter insisted, a genuine feeling of offense somehow getting through the rest of his chaotic emotions. “Come on, answer a riddle and I’ll let you go.”
[ What is wrong with you!? Release me or I’ll kill you! ]
“What’s wrong with me?” he spat, the edges of his grin twitching, “I came back from the dead just to get kicked around by gods and demons and psychopaths and you have the gall to ask what’s wrong with me!?”
He picked it up just enough to slam it back down on the table again and snarled, “Well it’s my turn now, you wormy little prick! Stab me all you want, I’m not letting you go until you play along!”
A part of him was aware that he was in a weird dream-slash-memory arguing with a demon about riddles, and that this entire scenario was as dangerous as it was absurd, but for some reason he couldn’t explain, making this happen was a hill he was ready to die on.
[ … Fine. ]
“What was that?”
[ I said fine, just ask me the damn riddle! ]
“Oh, okay. Uh, let me think of one…”
[ All that and you don’t even have one prepared!? ]
“No, I got it! What in this building is hollow but heavy, can be heard but not seen, and carries the elixir of life?”
There was a moment of silence as the demon tried to figure out what in the dark room could possibly fit that criteria.
[ Is it… some kind of food? ]
“Seriously, that’s your guess?” Hunter asked, his voice laden with disappointment. “What kind of dybbuk are you? Are you even trying?”
[ You know what? I think I’d rather just kill you. ]
The segment of the demon holding his arm suddenly extended and wrapped itself twice around his torso and chest. He had just a moment to feel surprised before it began to squeeze.
“You ungrateful little punk… been waiting my whole life for an excuse to do a ‘Riddles in the Dark’ and you can’t even get past a single one,” he hissed out, gasping at the pain from those stabbing little legs and the slowly increasing pressure. “I can’t believe I was gonna let you be Bilbo.”
[ You’re insane, and an idiot, and I want you to know that just before you die, I’m going to eat what’s left of you. ]
Hmm.
If he died in this dream, would he actually die? If that was the case, why hadn’t it done that before when he’d been throwing it around? He knew the demon was weaker now, but how weak must it be to put up with that sort of humiliation, even for a little while?
Also, wouldn’t that kill Ianthe’s body too? He was new to necromancy, but he was pretty sure that a body without a soul couldn’t last.
He looked down and saw that, in addition to being constricted, his torso was bleeding quite a lot, the blood looking almost black in the dim, flickering light of the staticky television. He also noticed that, in the scuffle, the origami fox he’d been playing with earlier had fallen, and now it lay on the floor out of reach.
But if this was a dream, did that distance really matter?
Thunder struck outside, and as the sound faded, he felt a piece of paper appear beneath his palm.
“Heh… hehheh…”
[ Will you just shut up and die!? ]
“Do you think Ianthe will thank you if I do?”
The increasing pressure paused as the demon hesitated.
“If she comes back to a corpse, will she be happy?”
[ … ]
The only response was a sullen silence and the continued crackle of static in the background. Nevertheless, he felt the pressure loosen, and the demon abruptly went back to its original size. More than that, it seemed even weaker than before, now unable to even hold tightly to his left arm.
“You haven’t thought any of this through either, have you? You’re as shit at this as I am.”
[ Fuck you. ]
“By the way, the answer was ‘the pipes.’”
[ What? ]
“The water pipes in the walls.”
Back when this memory had been a reality, there hadn't been anything obvious he could use to get out of the cuff. For a long time he’d assumed escape was hopeless, but then that big storm came, and as he sat there listening to the water rush through the drain pipes outside he thought, if he at least had one of those, maybe he could break that stupid TV—
And then he’d remembered that the room he was trapped in, as shitty as it was, still had running water. That if the pipes behind the drywall in the bathroom were old enough, they might be made of metal.
As if summoned by the thought, a loud rushing and gurgling noise came from the bathroom, and water began to seep out from under the door and across the carpet. He hadn’t meant to make that happen, but since it just confirmed his earlier experiment with the fox, he extended his right hand and imagined a pipe falling into it.
He was rewarded with a cold, familiar weight.
His original decision to use it hadn’t been an easy one, but now?
Now he just didn’t care anymore.
If everything and everyone else was going to hurt him, what the hell did it matter if he hurt himself too?
[ What are you doing with that? ]
“Hold still,” he whispered, pressing the demon down against the table with his left hand and raising the pipe with the other, “I’m gonna show you how I got my hand to fit through that cuff.”
[ No—! ]
He swung the pipe down, bracing himself for the pain, but just before it could hit he was interrupted by something rough and slimy sliding across his chin. Whatever it was, it smelled like a fish market on a hot day, and the combination of sensations was so disgusting that it jolted him awake.
He opened his eyes, and staring back at him was the biggest housecat he’d ever seen.