A knock followed. Punctuating the shrill mechanical sound of the doorbell. It would be heard from outside, there was no need to knock, it was obviously working. Whomever had their finger pressed against the small white button on the other side of the door was either paying no heed to the sound, or merely chose to augment it. One knock first, then brrrrrrng. Now two knocks.
brrrrrrng
A frenzy of knocking.
“For chrissakes,” Adam moaned, forcing his eyelids apart. Sleep kept them momentarily.
The doorbell again, more knocking.
“Adam, are you in there?” The voice from beyond the door was muffled but recognisable. He had heard it
twice
once before.
Adam moaned inwardly and forced himself to sit up, reaching for his chair and pulling it beside the bed before pushing himself up from the ivy and on to the chair in one well versed swoop. The chair coughed noisily as his weight bore down on it and the wrought iron framework creaked slightly. He glanced briefly at his prosthetics and decided against it. He didn’t know what time it was, but he was bloody tired and once he had seen his visitor away, he would be going back to bed. Sleep could claim him once more and for however long it wished, he had no urge to fight it again today.
He wheeled himself over the uneven and sodden floor, covered in earth and vegetation, through into the living room, moving toward the front door that almost seemed to vibrate with the force of the fist bearing down upon it from the other side. His dream was all but forgotten, the harried knocking and ringing sending it clean from his mind as soon as he awoke, yet tendrils of
ivy
clung on to him nonetheless.
He dragged them with him from the bed.
Wait. This isn’t as before.
The sun outside barely penetrated the thick vegetation on the windows. Vegetation which had forced it’s way into the room and wound around the rest of the flat. The wall that separated his apartment from his neighbours
oh god there was so much flesh
was covered in cracks that more vegetation had pushed it’s way through from next door. Dark liquid seeped from every hole, solidifying before it had a chance to reach the door. The whole apartment smelled of dark rot with a cloying underlying sweetness. He had time to check what he wore, to make sure he was presentable. A t-shirt, covered in stains. His boxer shorts similarly gross.
He shrugged to himself.
You’ll do.
The jar of black was still in the hall, yet it was in pieces. The black substance had worked it’s way across the floor and it stuck to the wheels of his chair like tar. If he looked closely, he could see small white bodies lazily wriggling in amongst it. He didn’t know what they were and he didn’t think he did wish to know. He moved his chair forward another wheel rotation to bring him up to the door and realised that he had now got some of the black substance up to his hands. He brought it close to his nose and
no chance you’re not doing that again, why do you have to sniff everything
opened the door.
“Hello Mr Campion! I trust you are well? You look well.”
The tall man and the short plump woman were standing just beyond the threshold. The woman still looked as though she was just about to be placed in her coffin for an open casket ceremony. She had her hands behind her back and an expression on her face that should have been next to the definition for happiness but there were a few things wrong with it. Adam didn’t wish to dwell too much on that visage. It was the man he was interested in.
“You live downstairs,” he said.
The tall man smiled and performed a little bow that may have appeared comical coming from someone other than him but, again, was just creepy, actually. He reminded Adam of a spider in human form. His limbs were all just a little too long, his fingers almost spindly. His eyes were deep in his sockets and he looked like
he was at the end of stage four cancer
he was very ill indeed.
“That I do. You’ve got me bang to rights guv.” He glanced sideways at the woman beside him, emitting a small titter that sounded like a moth caught in a jar. She also laughed, a most unpleasant sound. Adam wanted them away.
“Okay, well thanks for helping me the other day, but you can both leave now I’m busy.”
The tall man frowned and once again exchanged a glance with his partner.
He put his hands up in a mock gesture of surrender. “I am sure I know naught of what you speak,” he said, frowning. “I am here representing the Maringian Agency once more Mr Campion.”
“I don’t have it yet. I’m still working. I’ll have it for you very soon. I just need to -”
The woman shushed him as though he was a child, putting a plump finger to her bow-like lips. When she moved it away Adam could see that the tip was stained red from her heavy lipstick. She still had one hand behind her back and now removed it, pushing it’s contents towards him. It was a large folder, brown in colour and tied with string.
“We have you covered Mr Campion. We are not here in a retrieval capacity, but rather that of the delivery of…this.”
“And what is, this,” Adam nodded to the folder that the woman was now pushing towards him, but made no moves to take it from her.
“We have been tasked with passing this to you, so that you may continue. You can then pay what you owe, and we’ll all be square.” He smiled benevolently at Adam, leaning in closer. He stunk of stale tobacco and his eyes were yellowed. He winked, slowly, before drawing back again. Not before Adam caught sight of something moving underneath his skin.
The folder was pushed towards him again. The woman now taking a step forward. Something was on her hairline, a small black speck. Adam’s eyes were drawn to it.
“I’m not in the habit of taking things from strangers,” he said warily, eyes not leaving the small black speck that seemed now to elongate slightly, moving down the plump woman’s forehead. It looked like
I bet if I were to stand up, lean in to her and give it a big old lick it would taste like
the ‘honey’ that Denys had passed him. That now seemed to grow and take on it’s own malevolent form in the hall alcove.
It was running from her scalp. Another droplet joined it.
“Ah, but we’re not strangers!” The smile grew even wider. Adam thought if it grew any wider it would fall off his face. “You know me, I live downstairs!”
“I wouldn’t say I know you.”
“Just fucking take it," he snarled, leaning in with such speed and ferocity that Adam started back, nearly pushing his chair over backwards, his heart missing one or multiple beats. The man’s face was a mask of rage, yellowed spittle flayed from between his teeth, covering Adam’s face and t-shirt.
Then, almost as though it had never happened, he was standing back, smiling benevolently.
“Please,” he said. “We have other things to attend to. Your neighbours are also behind, and we need to discuss repayment terms.”
The woman now threw the folder into Adam’s lap, and it was all he could do to wrap his arms around it before withdrawing back inside. He shut the door as quickly as he could, wishing to look upon these two no more than he had to. The last sight of them was of them both leaning in towards the door, right arms up and fingers open, waving slowly. The black stuff now covered more than a third of the woman’s face.
He was back in his living room, the folder on the table amongst all the drawings and paintings he had been making. An empty bottle of whisky lay on the floor amongst the empty beer cans. A plate with the remnants of some door he must have cooked himself, but had no recollection of doing, was fuzzy with mould in the centre of the sofa. The whole room was filled with an unearthly green light, little from the windows, mainly from the overhead light, the bulb scorching the vegetation that attempted to grow upon it. Ivy hung in long tendrils, nearly reaching his head. It grew from somewhere behind the couch and drew itself over the cushions and down into the bowels of the furniture. It had even managed to grow over some of the drawings he had discarded there earlier. How much earlier he didn’t know.
Story of your fucking life. Do you know anything?
He shrugged at his own inner voice. No. That was the answer to that one. Correct. Take a sweetie from the jar and sit the fuck back down.
Already sitting down pal old pal. Careful you don’t sit too far down. That’s only one step from the slip slide down town.
One step? I can’t fucking walk.
Oh sure, you can, you just choose not to. Pop your dancing legs on pal old pal and come with me. We’ll paint the town green and still be back in time for the sweetie jar. We’ll take all those fucking sweeties and slide over each other till we’re sucking our own dicks beneath the ground.
Adam shook the voice from his head. There was a lazy deep buzzing sound from somewhere, and he guessed the kitchen. The door was shut and there was a thick line of what looked like moss along the bottom between the wood and the carpet. He didn’t want to go in to the kitchen. Then again, looking around, he didn’t see that he had to.
He had everything here.
On the table, along with his artwork and manuscript, next to where he had dumped the folder, was the two bottles of vodka and the three remaining beer cans. There was also, he was surprised to notice, both of the phones sitting there and what appeared to be a new jar. Filled with amber. More honey. From Denys? There was a small note underneath, scrawled in a nearly illegible script.
Mr Adam, to sweeten the taste.
It was no coincidence that it had been placed in front of the vodka.
There was a glass left over from the whisky. A little dirty but the alcohol would kill anything, he supposed. It was good at that. He poured a generous measure of the vodka and unscrewed the jar. It must have been fresh, but he still didn’t know where
bodies full of holes small bodies crawling across the surface meat on ropes thrust against the wall again and again naked scarred flesh and a litany of filth I nearly couldn’t stop myself from laughing yet all I could think of was how she could eat so much of that boreholed flesh some of it wrapped in what is that a uniform from somewhere but oh god how sweet that honey would taste now that I know where
it came from.
He stirred it in with the end of his brush, not caring for the small flakes of paint that now floated on the surface of the pale yellow liquid.
He tentatively took a sip and then gulped it down. Relishing the sweet fire in his belly.
Pulling himself fully up to the desk now, Adam opened the folder and took out what was within.
The rest of the manuscript.
It was time to finish it.
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