I'm really irritated with myself for being so slow with this story. I mean, come on, how annoying is that having to wait forever for an author to update a story you're reading? So my goal is to finish up Slim this week. ^.^ So far one person has guessed one of my reoccurring nightmares: vomiting.
Chapter 11
Yasu nearly tripped over more books in his hurry to the small hallway. I heard him curse as the first door he opened turned out to be the bathroom, then his call for Lin.
Meanwhile, I stared at the wall of windows. It didn't seem like such a cool idea now to live with an entire side of your home made of glass, though how was I to expect that anything, supernatural or otherwise, would be able to make it to the twenty-fourth story?
And then it was there, as though it had been the whole time and I simply had to turn my head the right way to see it; long arms slithering against the window like the underbellies of slugs, and the great maw pressed up to the glass, all dark red flesh, black gums, and serrated, alien teeth, set within a human torso. It's flesh was a patchwork of black and pale skin, intermingled with hunks of charred flesh.
I recoiled back against Naru, my own scream piercing through my skull, though it couldn't have been very loud since I had so little breath to begin with. At the same moment, Ayako cried out and a soft roar, like a loud sigh, came from the kitchen.
Naru all but caged me into the sofa with his limbs.
"Where?" he asked, and the air pushed out from him in steady waves, brushing over me.
But I couldn't speak. My lungs seemed to have forgotten how to breathe in.
For watching the teeth grinding against the window, I realized they weren't teeth, but the jagged edges of a split open rib cage, somehow half healed into something resembling a mouth. The pair of slitted eyes I had seen before perched above the maw were actually two spots in the charred flesh where the collarbone showed through. A purple-brown stomach and liver licked against the glass like some sick version of a tongue.
And it wanted me. I could feel it, just as I had in my dream, that desperate hunger of a predator.
My lungs snapped back open in a gasp. I tasted smoke.
Ayako was furiously slapping at something with a rag.
"Idiot!" cried Yui. I couldn't see him, my eyes riveted on the malformed thing slobbering on the window, but I heard him tromp into the kitchen and switch on the faucet.
"What are you seeing, Mai?" Naru asked, more firmly.
There was no way to describe it. The way its arms slunk and stuck to the window, stretching as though made of rubber, I couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the bones within and how they had change with the twisted version of healing that had occurred to the torso.
"It wants to eat me," I heard myself squeak.
More slapping of a rag, this time it was wet.
"Lin, it's here."
"Your kitchen is on fire-"
A pop-crack-and a spidery line appeared from one corner of a window to the other. Yasu let out a little cry.
And Lin was back around the sofa between me and the creature, two fingers raised to his mouth. With the majority of its body hiddem from me, I somehow lost sight of its arms, as though I had shifted the wrong way again, and the gray-light coming through the glass filled in around Lin.
Lin whistled. I cringed, my feverish head protesting against the noise. My heart had abandoned beating to fly up somewhere in my throat, humming like a bird.
"It's going to eat me!"
"Mai, Lin kept it out all night. You'll be fine."
"Literally eat me," I insisted, my view blurring and my head spinning. I had ducked my head down and all I could see was the dark leather of Naru's sofa and his sleeve. I couldn't breathe.
It's mangled ribbed teeth wanted to tear me apart. My flesh would pool around its organs, soaking its innards with my blood. It wanted that. It yearned, desperately, with a soul deep lust thick enough for me to smell, to devour me in its twisted, malformed way.
A space of time moved past without me noticing. A few minutes, most likely, but what felt like days, with Naru over me protectively and white streaks of shiki occasionally flashing just out of the range of my sight. I kept tasting the smoke, a sharp, tangy kind, like what you get when leftover food on the burner catches fire.
When the heat of Naru's body moved off me, I curled in on myself, finding myself vulnerable and revealed.
"Mai-chan, it's okay. I got some seals up on the walls, nothing's coming in."
Takigawa had returned. Big, familiar hands fluttered over my shoulders, attempting to coax my arms from my legs.
I could still feel Naru behind me, but he had sat up.
"Mai," he said. "Is it gone? Can you see it?"
I turned my head towards the window, more out of reflex than actually desire. Takigawa's brotherly face filled my vision, a few days worth of dark stubble on his chin contrasting with his lighter colored hair. About his head, almost like a halo, was the gray light, and beyond it, what little of the window I could see. I sort of...moved my vision without moving my head, though I could have, I couldn't tell, and then I could see it. The hands, spread-eagle like deformed spiders, flinching back from the glass.
"It's still there," I managed. "But I don't think it can get in." I turned my attention back to Takigawa and the hands disappeared. It had hurt my head worse than ever to look at the thing. I met the monk's eyes, counted the furrows in his still young brow, and without warning, became overwhelmed with tears. "I'm never going to be able to leave this house again."
"Now, that's not true," said Takigawa, one of those big hands ruffling in my hair, but softly so as to not tug the tangles. "I'm here now, and I won't leave until it's gone too. You're friends aren't going to let you down, so you just focus on getting better, alright?"
"It's going to eat me," I sobbed.
"I bet you'd taste like strawberries," said Naru, his dry tone almost surprising me, but not as much as Takigawa's bark of laughter, which shattered the threatening gloom like glass.
"You would know, wouldn't you, Naru?"
"Just because you dragged me to a bar does not give you license to crack innuendoes at me."
"Yeah. Getting married does. You're all grown up! Innuendoes are part of the deal."
Naru snorted, which turned into a cough. As it dragged on, his shuddering behind me managed to draw away the worst of my terror as my concern left me and turned to him.
Takigawa's smile melted back to a frown. "You sound awful."
"Hey, Captain Obvious," said Ayako from behind us. "Come check this out."
Takigawa stood and walked around. When Monk made a little noise of surprise, Naru scrambled over me and to the floor.
"What is it?" he asked, wobbling as he stood. Lin caught him by one arm, half of his attention still to the window.
"That random fire that started up where I was warming up your tea," said Ayako. "Come look at the burn marks. Wouldn't a stove fire just, you know, burn sort of in a circle from the burner?"
"It's all in a straight line," said Takigawa, sounding more awed than impressed. "Going towards the couch."
Naru made his way to the kitchen to see for himself. I didn't bother moving. I felt too heavy, too achy, too tired and bare and scared. I just wanted to curl up in the bathtub, like you're suppose to in the case of a tornado, and wait out the storm.
"I don't know of any spirit that can have something to do with water and fire. It's just an impossibility, one always cancels out the other," said Takigawa.
"Never say never," said Ayako.
"This obviously isn't an ordinary spirit. I would find this a lot more interesting if it weren't for the circumstances," said Naru. "I-" A cough broke him off, growing into a deep, chest thrumming bark.
"Alright, get to bed before you die," said Yasu. "Both of you. Probably best for you to get away from the window and the water. The bedroom just has a small window, right? If fire cancels out water based spirits, maybe we could, I don't know, set up a candle in it."
A stunned silence followed this.
Yasu sighed. "Really? My amazing intellect catches you off guard after all these years?"
"I'm just surprised I hadn't thought of that," said Takigawa.
"Fire..." murmured Naru hoarsely, probably remembering at least part of the dreams I had had.
The part of my brain not cowering in an imaginary tub in a locked, dark bathroom started spinning along the same train of thought he must have found. In almost each case where we had encountered the spirit, there had been fire.
Stay out of the water...
It was almost a whisper now, or rather, I could barely hear it above the racket my headache was giving me. My ears had started to ring.
"No candle," said Lin dryly.
"How come? It's a good idea?" said Ayako.
"Those two were nearly killed by a fire at the hotel, and their ambulance also went up in flames," said Lin. "It isn't exactly friendly, is it?"
"Kind of hard for fire to be cuddly," said Takigawa, sounding a little miffed, but he had reappeared in my vision and crouched down to me. "Need some help?"
I just blinked through the tears at him. Oh man, I felt awful.
His expression twisted with pity. "Poor Mai-chan."
Takigawa easily scooped me up from the sofa, blanket and all, and cradled me against his chest as he carried me back into the bedroom. I dozed off nearly as soon as I hit the mattress and was awoken by Ayako handing me a cold glass.
"Wow, you fell asleep sitting straight up. Here, the tea I promised."
I inhaled it hungrily, nearly dozing off again part way through like an infant with a bottle. She took the glass from me and I wiggled down into a more comfortable lying position. Under the blankets I brushed against Naru's arms and one snaked over my waist and pulled me close.
"So cute," said Ayako.
I drifted. The cool aftertaste of tea blocked out the tang of smoke. Rain pattered against the bedroom window.
My face pressed against my father's shoulder. His jacket had that loud material that rustled a lot when moved. The smell of smoke stung, forcing me to arch back. I didn't want to. Daddy's shoulder was soft, and I liked hugging him.
"You stink." Like our clothes always did after we went camping. My chest clenched. "You went camping without me?" Roasted marshmallows without me? Oh, not marshmallows! If he said yes, I was going to cry. I'd have to cry.
"Of course not," he said. I couldn't quite make out his voice. The words were more of an impression on my mind rather than actual thoughts.
And he didn't sound right. It made my stomach hurt more. Had I upset him by asking?
His mouth moved-a mouth I couldn't make out. He wasn't talking to me anymore. Mom had his attention, drawn to him by the bad something in his voice too.
"...there was a little girl, just like her...I tried...I tried..."
His arms suddenly crushed me too him, but they shook worse than when he had first pick me up. But I hadn't been heavy, he told me, but did he lie to save my feelings?
"...It wasn't...her fault..."
Mom's words went high and almost squeaky, like they did when she was about to cry. I was put down on the carpet, comforted that I had at least not missed out on marshmallows, but hurting with confusion. Mom wasn't the one crying. Daddy was. Daddy didn't cry, and the hand he put to his face had stripes of black on them. Soot?
Mom led him to the bathroom. My yellow-swirl marble was stepped into the carpet in his passing.
Yet the impressions across my thoughts continued as though my father stood before me still.
I had only meant to burn him. He had to be burned. Burned off the face of the earth. But dear God, I had only meant for him!