In Utero
A horror short story
Clove kept tapping her foot against the cold stone of the harbour, her arms crossed at the chest. The blue pencil skirt and a simple white blouse she wore were not enough to keep her warm. A man stood next to her. He kept checking the watch on his wrist, sometimes sighing with a glance in her direction. She was not taking the hint, perhaps even on purpose. It was night time, with no stars in sight, and they were the only ones at the dock.
“Think I see it,” he said.
A small speck of light appeared on the horizon, barely visible through the thick fog sprawling above water. The ship cut through the water with a quiet slowness, and reached the dock with a thud.
“See you on the other side,” he said. “Goodbye, love.”
She did not grace him with a farewell—a punishment she saw fit for having to do this against her will. The captain, a man in his 60s with a rough beard and a pristine hat sitting on his weary head, came down to give her a silent nod as she boarded. Besides Clove and the captain, the ship was empty. She looked around to determine the best seating, and spotted a red velvet seat in the center of the hall, as if it was waiting just for her. She plopped into it and ran her hands over the soft material. The ship docked again, this time with a heavier sound. The captain appeared in the waiting room.
“We have arrived,” he said.
“Already?”
The captain brushed the brim of his hat and led her to the dock. He held her hand as she stepped down the ship. She turned to nod at the man and thank him, but she was greeted by murky water instead.
There were dozens of buildings with multiple one-room apartments scattered all over the island. All rooms were fitted with a double glass door that spanned the entire outside wall. Many of the rooms already housed occupants, mostly one person per room. Everyone's activities were on full display to anyone nearby. One large ball room was situated in the center of the island, where dozens of men and women danced together but never fully embraced. Their feet were bloodied and their faces were grimacing, but they did not rest or complain. Among them was a black silhouette of an animal with long thin legs. It moved it’s head slowly from side to side in silent observation of the people below, it's ear occasionally twitching from the loud music. Clove stared at the solid black visual noise that has come to life. The shifting sketched flesh slowly hypnotised her mind, until it's head turned and a red grin spawned at the mouth.
Her blood ran cold. There were no visible eyes, but she felt it's bloodthirsty gaze on her skin, like prey about to be devoured. All she wanted was to run as fast as her legs allowed, but fear overtook her system, and she froze. The dancing people noticed her staring, and stared back at her, their eyes crying black tears. They mouthed words at her, to run, to hide, to save herself. The silhouette’s grin widened even further, and it made a step toward Clove, right through a couple of dancers as if made out of air. Her knees were about to give in, when small ratlike humans appeared around her and brought her back to her wits with ankle bites and pinches, and ushered her along to her designated room. Saliva coated in stars dripped from the creature’s teeth, and it disappeared, and all the dancers fell to the floor.
The room was small and made yellow by the old ceiling light. An uncomfortable bed overlooked the glass door. On the other side, a small desk was leaned against the wall, and only had a dusty switch and a plastic case with pills in it. A flimsy clothing rack was between the desk and the bathroom door frame, but there was no door. The bathroom consisted of a pristine toilet, a small sink, and a one-way window with the view of the street, with a deep sill.
With a quick jerk of the head, she downed the pills then sat on the bed and stared at the scratched popcorn wallpaper for days. She thought she had become liquid, like a gelatin ooze which seeped into the lining of the hard mattress. It was far too warm. The room had effectively become a pot of bone broth sitting on low fire for hours. Clove hated it. She wished for anything else but turning into a congealed mass of flesh soup.
And a knock on the door was a wish fulfilled. An older woman with blonde hair stood in the hall wearing a baby blue hospital gown that reached down to her ankles. Her fingers kept touching each other and her otherwise kind eyes glanced down the hall between words.“You are new here,” she said. “Can I come in?”
Clove moved to the side. The woman sat on the messy bed and sighed.
“My name’s Lorraine, I am your neighbour to the right,” she introduced herself. Clove could only look at her extended hand, as her own was heavy as lead. There were several colourful rings adorning the fingers. Some were ancient and thin, some were new and polished, but all were far too small for her.
“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked, “a husband? Someone who loves you?”
“I think so, yes,” Clove answered, and cleared her throat.
Lorraine leaned forward for a whisper. “Do you still remember him?”
Clove thought for a long time. The smell and the voice and the skin all lived in her memory, but not his face. Not anymore, at least. Perhaps the voice was a bit deeper than she recalled. What was he wearing at the harbour again?
"What's your name?" Lorraine asked.
"Clove."
Lorraine's face scrunched. "That's a weird name. Did you just make that up?"
Clove shook her head. She would've gotten impatient with such intrusive questions had she not been watching the small shadows that came in with Lorraine darting around the room. She could never seem to catch them, her eyes were far too slow, and she didn’t really want to bring it up as it may cause awkwardness.
“How long have I been here?” Clove asked, and immediately swallowed spit which painfully accumulated in her cheeks. Much to her surprise, her voice was raspy and broken. She had not spoken in a long time, though she stepped off that ship just yesterday. Or maybe it was last week. Not terribly long, surely, as the administration barely took notice of her residence. There wasn't even any paperwork to fill in, no check-in at the reception or a check-up with the doctor. Only prescription pills at the desk, like a welcome gift.
Instead of answering, Lorraine offered a smile emanating a pity reserved for children who did not know better.
"Have you been clicking the switch?" she asked, and straightened her posture to look at the top of the desk. Clove nodded, but the switch was off.
"No you have not been doing that, were you not told about this? Let me do it right now, or we are both in trouble. Oh, I see. You ate the pills. The pills that were on the desk, that they gave you. That’s good!”
At this point, Lorraine had already gotten off the bed and was now kneeling in front of the bathroom. Clove deemed her far too enthusiastic and chatty and active for her liking. All she wanted was a nap.
The wrinkles on Lorraine's face showed through with worry. The women shared a long, uncomfortable look, neither breaking the moment. Clove’s hands started feeling sweaty. The room was getting a bit too warm.
"You haven't the slightest clue what this place is," Lorraine said. "Here, maybe I can show you."
She stood back up and helped Clove to the bathroom. She swiped away the dust gathered on the window sill with her forearm and propped Clove's elbows up. With their noses and cheeks pressed against the stained window, they smudged the condensation gathered on the glass.
"See that?"
Mousy black creatures, woven from the fabric of night itself and with glowing eyes, scurried about the wet street. Some carried plastic cases on their backs, a few were directing others, and most ran in groups, seamlessly blending into the walls and morphing out of the grey brick, as if they've done it a thousand times before. Clove rubbed her tired eyes. She'd been seeing them as quick little shadows all over, but never quite catching a direct look until now. Small pearls of sweat started forming on her forehead, and she felt as if someone had sat on her chest. She yearned for a deep breath, but the stuffy air was far too hot. Only when her hands trembled did Lorraine notice.
"It's fine, it's fine, just... Hm, it's normal. This is normal around here. You'll get used to it. Listen, I have to go now, okay? They'll probably try to get to you, so don't open the door for anyone. Especially not Him. Just, no one, okay? I'll see you again."
And with the promise, Lorraine left the room. Clove was alone again, more alone than before. That woman's visit only made things worse. She went back to the rough bed, and laid down in hopes of falling asleep, but it proved to be impossible. Tossing and turning and sweating, she never quite felt like this. Like a curious child witnessing the ocean's blue nothingness for the first time. Though the room was small and cramped, the terrifying vastness oppressed her soul. Soul? Since she got here, she has not felt a soul. This body did not belong to her at all. Her mind was overtaken, seized by an entity she could not even properly name or directly look at. Pathetic, utterly pathetic and weak.
Wet tippy taps ran down the hall, stopped right outside her room for a minute, then walked away, then came back. Since Lorraine left, twice now did a heavy pair of hooves hit the wooden floor and walk with a cocky stride to her door, but none of them ever knocked. At some point, the sounds blurred into background, like a cooling fan on a warm August night. Clove would die for a fan right now.
When Clove woke up, it was still night. Despite sleeping a long time, she still felt tired. The refilled plastic pill case was waiting for her on the desk. This time, she decided not to take the colourful pills as they made her groggy. But she did remember to press the switch. A small light turned on, blinking randomly at first and then steadying the pace into an uninterrupted stream of white light. And Clove felt better, more conscious of herself. She could feel her skin, she felt inside her skin, and the texture of the warm window sill she leaned on again. It was dawn, but there was only darkness outside. The sky was without a moon, without stars or satellites. The darting shadows appeared less often than before, or her mind had just gotten used to them. Hard to be aware of them all the time. Far too many of them.
Her eyes focused back to the street, and she saw it again. The strangely tall animal, with large horns protruding out of it's small skull and the tallest legs imaginable, strolling down with a pride and ease of a predator, looking through the glass doors of each room to check on the residents. It stopped right at Clove’s room. As it noticed the empty room, the ratlike creatures appeared and offered papers, but the dark creature dismissed them with a stomp and fragmented into a million drops, then materialised right in front of the bathroom window. There was only black visual noise where the creature's face would have been. It was ever-shifting and unpleasant to the eye, and the same grin cracked open, baring teeth in a jittery manner. The red grin of bloodlust.
Clove staggered back into the bathroom and against the wall, and as she pulled away, an imprint of an enormous wing formed in the steamy window, right above and to the left of her nose and cheek. The detail of each feather, down to the finest lines, was preserved. Right through it, the creature's tongue slid vertically on the glass outside.
Lorraine burst into the bathroom, threw herself on the ground and pulled Clove down. Her hand fastened around the mouth of the mortified woman. Lorraine tried to calm her silently, rocking back and forth in a predictable rhythm. The beast licked it's red teeth, and carried on with the stroll.
“Perhaps you are still lucid, still there. Give me your hand. Listen, this is of great importance. This place is not what you thought it would be, this is not a safe house, though it may feel that way to you. You've only been here, what, half a year? ... This place is haunted, the staff came straight from the depths of hell, did you see them? Did you see the dark animal? Did you see He was darker than the night itself? Did He also grin at you? Avoid Him, Clove, avoid Him, for His name is," and her voice came down to a hushed whisper, "His name is Death."
Lorraine squeezed Clove’s shoulder with a mother’s gentle touch, then dug her nails deep into the bare skin when she saw the wing print on the fogged window.
“It is too late,” she muttered, “I am done.”
The kind eyes became sorrow itself, the steadfast assurance became sweaty trembling, and Lorraine hurried to the door whilst trying to swallow pebbles. As if she had time. As if mercy would be shown, if only she could outrun the arbiter. She slammed the door behind her and ran down the hallway, and right after a stampede of tippy taps followed.
Clove was alone once again. She crawled out from the hot bathroom, and helped herself up using the shoddy desk, only to fall on her knees again. The goal was the bed, just to lay in bed, yet there were the dreaded steps outside her room. Hooves hitting the hardwood floor, passing the door and walking away, and she jumped as a scream from the otherworld echoed through the building, through the island. Her shaking hand barely reached the pill case. It would have been easier if she took them. None of this would have happened. The hooves made their way back to the end of the hallway and disappeared, and wet tippy taps of the smallest shadows ran up and down in a frenzy. Clove clenched her fist. She was tired, and tired of being scared and warm all the time. She got on the ground and slowly creaked the door open. To her immediate left, just behind a corner, a lifeless hand laid on the floor, a hand with rings drained from all color. Beneath it, a message was left written in black blood.
WE ARE
SO SORRY
Clove closed the door. She crawled into bed and cried for months.
“Male clothes?”
A man’s voice boomed through the corridor. Squeaky wheels of a giant yellow container never broke the pace until they reached Clove's room. The man knocked on the door, and opened it slightly ajar, peaking through the gap. He was hit by a wave of intense heat and smell of sweat.
“Any male clothes?” he asked in a whisper.
Clove was still in bed, facing the wall. She turned to look at the ceiling, just enough not to view him directly.
“I’m the only woman here."
The man shrugged his shoulders. He pointed at the light switch with a raised eyebrow before closing the door. Clove sighed a heavy breath, stood up from her despair and pressed the switch. A white plastic tub appeared on the desk, in it a white dog taking a bubble bath.
“Malteser?” she guessed.
The dog showed teeth through a forced smile, and the wall right behind it crumbled down to dust, revealing the bathroom. Voices appeared from the walls, becoming louder, and louder, chanting and giggling and cooing. Wrapped in a pure white blanket, a newborn showed up in Clove’s hands. At first the skull was there, and layers of tendons, muscles, fat and skin came on top of each other in perfect symphony. The eternal darkness was no more.
“It is time,” the baby spoke.
Clove walked right through the glass door into the blue dawn with her head held high. Cold morning air filled her heavy lungs. The wings burst open in painful waves from her back through the blouse, and finally spread apart with dignity. The baby’s mushed face relaxed. She hunched over and held it tighter, closer, to her chest and onto her heart. Their heartbeats synced and together they took flight into the bright.
This story was originally a dream, or rather a nightmare, so excuse the edginess.