CHAPTER EIGHT

Now, with a mouthful of medicine, the being controlling my body reached out for a well-hidden, long since discarded bottle of water. To the untrained eye, the tepid bottle of liquid would have appeared camouflaged amongst the disheveled wreck of various toiletries scattered across my bathroom counter; however, this being and I—we shared the same mind and he knew exactly where to look.

In his haste to acquire the item, in a body he was still learning to control, he accidentally knocked over a capped aspirin container, causing it to tumble into the sink below. Without much consideration for the fallen bottle of headache pills, he then grabbed hold of the water, while allowing the container of aspirin to roll back and forth, at the bottom of the sink, until the drain plug finally held it in place.

As if he was taking a shot of something much stronger, he then threw the water down my throat and forced me to swallow. Pausing only for a moment, he took another mouthful of sleeping pills and repeated the process. He then did it again. Another mouthful of pills, another shot of water. And again. And again.

I don’t remember exactly how many times he repeated this process but I know we voided the contents of the container. Upon ingesting the final dose, he arrogantly chucked the weightless bottle to the side. It’s strange but, at that moment, I actually felt emancipated—as though I had instantaneously shed all the encumbering worries, trepidations and anxieties that weighed down my poisoned soul. I felt so good, in fact, that I didn’t even mind it when he opened up that aspirin bottle, at the bottom of the sink, and started the process all over again.

Although I myself controlled nothing, the level of freedom I began to feel was intoxicating and I was actually glad I had submitted to whatever was happening to me. I didn’t want that liberating sensation to end and therein was the irony, which, even as I continued to choke down pills, was not lost on me. I knew what prolonging this escapade would likely mean for my future (or lack thereof) but I didn’t care.

A strange calm was washing over me, as he polished off that bottle of aspirin and tossed it aside, like he had just done with the empty bottle of sleeping pills. I was convinced that this would be the story of my death, which, whether I liked it or not, would be forever tied to the story of my life. I imagined various people in my life relaying the details to others and discussing it amongst themselves. It wasn’t the story I wanted to leave behind but I, like so many others, had no control over that. I simply accepted it.

Throwing open the medicine cabinet door, he then began looking for our next consumable. He found a few remaining allergy pills so down they went. He found a small leftover amount of cold medicine too and decided to take that as well.

With the water bottle now empty, he carelessly dropped it, placed both of my hands on the counter and leaned forward, until, once again, my face was only a few inches from the medicine cabinet mirror. He then forced me to peer into it, as if he expected some sort of revelation that never manifested.

I always hated the mirror; it was an irrefutable reminder of time lost. The young, handsome, twenty-something man I fooled myself into believing I still was, had been snuffed out long ago and here was the evidence, staring right back at me. I hoped it wouldn’t be the last thing I ever saw. I would have preferred just about anything else but he kept me standing there for several minutes, until my body began to metabolize the chemicals in my stomach, making me woozy in the process.

Suddenly, the proper amount of light and color returned to the room and I regained control over my body. After a few random movements to confirm I was once again in charge of myself, I extended my pointer finger and began raising it toward my open mouth. I stopped before I inserted it, though, and froze.

I don’t know why I ultimately decided to drop my arm back to my side but I did. I could try and rationalize that I didn’t know how to make myself throw up or that I knew it was already too late but there was something more to my decision—something I can’t explain. I just didn’t feel like struggling anymore. I had accepted my fate and trying to undo it seemed pointless and counterintuitive.

As I stood there contemplating my life, my thoughts swiftly turned to Blue and I was overcome with shame. He was standing in the doorway, staring at me. His tail was between his legs, which I took to mean he was frightened from hearing me chuck empty pill bottles across the room. Even in his timid posture, however, the dog displayed an unmistakable speck of optimism on his face.

“Who’s gonna take care of you?” I asked him, half expecting him to respond, as Cinnamon would have. Determined to leave my friend in a situation where he could survive without me, I walked briskly toward the kitchen, with Blue in tow, eagerly following, only inches behind me. On my way there, as I neared the front door, I passed my jogging shoes and the small puddle of water that had formed beneath them. With my hands on my hips, I stopped and stared in disbelief at the physical confirmation that those shoes had clearly been in the snow last night.

As I spun around to think, I noticed that a pile of mail I didn’t remember retrieving had been placed on my coffee table as well. Thumbing through the stack of personalized envelopes and ambiguously-addressed advertisements, with the hope that doing so would jog my memory, I saw nothing else that lent me any clues as how this pile of papers came to rest on my coffee table.

I came across flyers for stores I didn’t want to visit and bills from companies I didn’t want to pay but it did me no good. I just stood there frozen, holding that stack of papers, which claimed to prove my existence. For several seconds I stood like that—until Blue’s well-intentioned growl reminded me he was in the kitchen waiting for me.

Eventually, I dropped the stack back onto the coffee table and entered the kitchen, empty-handed. Once I did, I slid open the back door just enough to accommodate the dog’s need to come in and out as he pleased. Apparently satisfied with this development, Blue barreled past me, into the world beyond my door.

Next, I filled not one but two oversized dog bowls full of water and placed them on the floor. Finally, I filled his food bowl and left the bag sealed but out in the open, where he would get to it. Blue was a good dog and I knew he wouldn’t tear the bag open unless of course he was starving and I was too… well, “dead” to feed him.

About the time I finished arranging everything for my dog, I started to slip into an even drowsier state. Apparently, pills take effect much quicker when one consumes an entire smorgasbord of them.

With unconsciousness on the imminent horizon, I decided I had better trudge back down the hall and into the bathroom, where my pillow was crumpled up, in the corner of the tub. Laboring quite a bit more than I expected to, in so short a time, I reached the door and made my way inside. Standing there, I noticed that I had started to perspire.

I turned the cold faucet handle as far as it would go and, upon doing so, cool water began to flow out of the nozzle. Using my cupped hands, I then brought a handful of the cool liquid to my face, to try and make myself more comfortable. After I removed my hands from my face, however, I noticed they were stained red.

Horrified, I saw that a thick red liquid was now pouring out of the faucet. By all accounts, it appeared to be blood so I shut the sink off, grabbed a towel and hurriedly wiped the red from my hands and face. That’s when I heard a concerned feminine voice broadcast itself from somewhere within my phone. “James,” it happily exclaimed, “I’m so glad I found you!”

Still holding the bloodstained towel in my hand, I paused and turned my head toward the voice, coming from the phone on my counter. Bewildered over the whole situation, I began to ask myself how or when I had even dialed a number. Unsure of where to start, I simply stammered, “Whaa? Um… Hello?”

“Hello, yes. Do you not hear me?” it quickly retorted.

At this juncture, I had all but forgotten about the towel. Like a zombie who had just turned and, in the process, lost the majority of his motor functions, I dropped it onto the floor and just stared the phone, propped up against the wall. I stood motionless, still unsure of what was happening. After a moment of silence, my inquisitive nature got the better of me and I cautiously stepped toward the counter, onto which the device had been left—in its familiar, stationary position.

Towering over it now, I inspected it from above. Other than the voice that had only moments ago echoed through its cold, glassy surface, it elicited every indication of dormancy. This seemingly innocuous gadget, however, gave me an eerie feeling and I sensed a clandestine purpose emanating from somewhere within it.

***

I spent most of my adult life skeptical of ghosts and spirts but, since first meeting that homicidal wraith and then taking a romp through the psychotropic bedevilment of last evening, I no longer knew what to believe. I therefore utilized a bit more caution than I normally would have, as I slowly extended my left arm, with the intent of seizing that easily recognizable instrument of communication, to inspect it more closely.

Without warning, I watched, in disbelief, as this hitherto jejune amalgamation of metal, glass and plastic began to transmute itself from that familiar, six-ounce rectangular-shaped tool that fit so snugly in my pocket, into something else altogether. I stood paralyzed, gawking as it sprouted what would soon become four fully-functional appendages out of both its right- and left-hand sides. In less than a second’s time, it willed a total of eight green, plasticky legs to burst out from within itself, creating loud, cracking pops, as they erupted into the room.

My hand alarmingly shot back and covered my gaping mouth, while I instinctively backed into the wall. My eyes were transfixed on the eight new, twelve-inch protuberances that were slowly flailing about, in the air. Before I could make a decision on what to do next, these new limbs began to crack once again—all in quick succession—as they bent and formed what seemed to be knees.

The phone then flipped itself over and, on each side of its body, its stem-like legs cracked and bent in two distinct directions. The four legs that were closest to me fractured in the middle, and bent toward me, while the other four legs—the “back” legs—bent the opposite way, toward the wall behind the sink. The feet followed next; at the bottom of each leg, where the plastic touched the counter and the back wall respectively, eight nubby feet appeared after more shrill-sounding cracking and popping.

I shuddered at what happened next. Those eight nubs planted themselves firmly onto the closest surface (wall or counter) and, with the assistance of each leg’s bending knees, lifted the phone into the air, thus giving it an arachnid-like appearance. Literal chills shot through me and I even gasped in horror, as it adeptly utilized its new legs to quickly retreat several inches up the wall, just as a silverfish would do, once it realized a potential predator had spotted it.

Without forming any discernible words, I cried out in dismay.

“I’m really sorry!” my phone belted out, from against the wall to which it was sticking.

Not knowing what to say next, I tried to think of a way to quickly and succinctly articulate my dismay, my frustration, my fear and my overwhelmed and beguiled mind. I didn’t even know where to start so, instead, I just shouted some particularly nasty obscenities into the ether.

“This form—is it… Does it frighten you?” the creature asked. Just then, as I heard those words, did I begin to take notice of the calm and strangely soothing female voice that spoke them. Something about that voice… It was understanding somehow. It was instructional yet patient and empathetic—the kind of voice I would expect from a teacher or counselor of sorts.

For a moment, that voice disarmed me. With my angst temporarily halted, my brain began to gradually function once more, allowing me to better examine the situation; however, I was far from achieving a true sense of relaxed comfortability. Even so, I was grateful that the voice addressing me was able to somewhat soothe my mind, even if ever so slightly.

My knees and elbows were slightly bent but locked in place. My entire body was as stiff as a rusted door hinge and, until now, I hadn’t dared to move it for fear it might break. That voice though—that voice made me think I should try.

It took deliberate focus but I was eventually able to cautiously unlock my left arm and hold it out, toward my phone, pantomiming that same “stop” posture I had seen cops and crossing guards give so many times before. I assumed this stance, as a meager and ineffectual means of protecting myself, should this creature decide to lunge at me. With my arm now mostly extended, and my mind still transfixed on that voice, I began to crack open my mouth to speak.

I don’t remember what I intended to say but whatever it was abruptly rushed out of my head, creating a vacancy for everything except fear. Instead of engaging in discourse, I howled, as this cellular anomaly scuttled further up the wall, away from my outstretched arm.

I could feel it: the panic attack. The thirty-second warning bell had gone off. I knew that, in a matter of mere moments, I would either be psychologically overwhelmed or passed out completely. I had to get out of that room! I didn’t know how far I’d get before my affliction overcame me but I didn’t care.

In an apologetic tone that failed to settle me this time, the plastic monstrosity before me bleated out, “I really am sorry and I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go through all of this again. I kind of sens—”

And with that, I pivoted around, into an explosive, crouched stance—not unlike the one I had adopted when I need to change directions, while running back and forth sprints, as a kid. This abrupt action would have given a split-second indication, to the creature across from me, that I intended on running out of the room so I moved as quickly as I could, in order to preemptively circumvent the abnormality on my wall from trying to stop me.

Out of my periphery, as I initiated a purposeful stride I had hoped would carry me to safety, I saw the creature scamper off the wall and onto the sink, where it reached out, with a few of its legs, and yelled “Waaait,” in a worried tone. I was in no mood to listen though. Driven by instinct, I plunged through the doorway with equal parts desperation and determination.

***

My left leg was the first part of my body to pass through the archway that separated the bathroom from the hallway. I was mid-stride, several inches off the ground, as I waited expectantly for my shoe to touch the cheap laminate floor in the hallway outside. That never happened, though, and I was both as confused as I was terrified when it continued down, well beyond where I had expected the floor to be. As my leg continued downward, through the floor, so too did the rest of my body, as if I had just blindly run off the edge of a cliff.

I passed through the floor, which seemed to be nothing more than a hologram. First my shoe, then my leg and finally my entire body fell through that mirage, creating the kind of ripples one would expect to see in a lake or a pond and, as I fell into the blackness below me, my body twisted so that I was facing the doorway from whence I had entered this world.

After falling for what I surmised was only a few feet, my descent slowed considerably and I began to feel like I was hovering weightlessly in the space below my floor. The reverberations caused by the ripples of my plunge were now moving violently through the floor, wall and ceiling of the trailer above me. Eventually, they became so extreme that the building itself seemed to melt completely away. Only the archway of the door remained now—its white, glowing trim juxtaposed against the otherwise black and empty void where I now floated aimlessly.

Coming from the doorway, I could see the light from the bathroom cutting into the otherwise all-encompassing darkness. I could also hear a garbled voice, calling for me. It seemed worried. It sounded like the creature who had possessed my phone but the voice was being drowned out by static—the kind I used to hear when I would turn on an old tube TV to a station it couldn’t receive. “White snow,” we used to call it.

The utter absurdity of the situation had caused a temporary delay in the countdown to my impending panic attack. Such was the intensity of what had just transpired that my mind had completely glossed over the feelings of dread that had nearly overtaken me, just moments ago. I was, therefore, confused but somehow comforted as well.

The voice that would have been calming to me, had it been attached to a different body, was now indiscernible amongst the distortion that surrounded it and so, while floating in a world that—by all accounts—seemed to be deficient in gravity, I somehow managed to twist my body away from that doorway, toward the perpetual darkness below me.

In that direction, darkness shrouded everything. The lost city of Atlantis, in all its grandeur, could have been only a few feet from where I was floating but I wouldn’t have been able to see any of it. When looking downward, as I currently was, I couldn’t even see my own hand in front of my face.

At that moment, I remembered the miniature flashlight attached to my key chain. Given the far superior flashlight function on my phone, that three-inch, light-generating tube was a gift I thought I’d never need but, to be fair, I hadn’t anticipated fleeing from my shape-shifting, sentient phone and falling through my floor, into the abyss, either.

Anxiously, I reached into my front pocket, acquired the device and then twisted the tip of it into the “on” position. Though it did provide a miniscule amount of illumination, it told me nothing about the size of the space I was inhabiting, for it was only able to pierce a few feet into the darkness, before its light ultimately tapered off into nothing.

I’ve read stories about cave divers and how, after they swim down and reach certain cave floors, they’ll sometimes discover small openings—openings barely large enough for humans to pass through—which they somehow manage to squeeze by, in an effort to delve further into the cave’s hidden chambers. Many times, I’ve heard divers describe those areas below the cave’s first floor as being filled with utter darkness. They’ll say that their flashlights provide the only light, in any direction, and that, when they’re in those secret chambers, they get the sense that they’re almost floating in infinite space. Finally, I had some semblance of what they meant.

Still, this was not “total” darkness. I at least had my little key chain flashlight, as well as the light source above me. It was coming from the doorway through which I had just passed.

That inauspicious archway above me—it now existed as the only remnant of my otherwise dissolved trailer, where my possessed, spider-like phone was waiting for me. The light spilling out of that doorway was faint but consistent. It seemed to stretch on, traveling in a tight, mathematically-straight line that evenly decreased in size, until it came to a focal point and formed a small rectangular shape, which seemed to be just in front of me.

From where I floated, I had presumed that small rectangle—the only other discernible shape in any direction—was only a few inches tall; however, when I reached out to grab it, I realized the singular light source, in an otherwise lightless universe, had compromised my depth perception and that this small rectangular light was actually much further across from the place where I was levitating freely. Through logical deduction, I postulated that it was likely much larger too.

Subsisting within the darkness, there was only the doorway above me, the beam of light spilling out of it and the path it illuminated, toward the mysterious rectangular object far off in the distance. Determined to reach it, I began to emulate the motions of a swimming frog and grew alarmed when my efforts didn’t propel me forward. Instead, I thrashed about, in a stationary position.

It was then that I inexplicably began slowly and uncontrollably drifting back toward the doorway above me, as if I had been caught in some sort of invisible tractor beam. As I ascended, my body was slowly pulled—feet first—into the light the doorway was casting. When I was fully immersed in the light and I was close enough that it seemed I was only moments away from being pulled back through the portal disguising itself as my bathroom doorframe, however, I made my move.

Without much effort, I positioned my leg so that my shoe was on a collision course with the outside of the doorframe. Seconds later, when it made contact, I bent my knee and kicked off against that white wooden frame, like an untethered astronaut kicking away from the outside of his ship, as if he was on a suicide mission. Having thus jettisoned myself away from that door, I found I was drifting toward the distant, illuminated, rectangular object, which I hoped would offer me salvation.

I was now traveling toward my destination, in the middle of an illuminated pathway that existed between where I had been and where I was heading. Though it was through the deliberate efforts of my one-legged lunge that I was currently propelling myself forward, along that pathway, I couldn’t help but feel like I was somehow escaping, or possibly even altering, my destiny. It was both enthralling and worrisome, at the same time.

Once again, the auditory distortion returned and I could hear an obscured voice behind me, yelling a warning about something; however, the further I progressed, the less audible it became until, finally, I heard nothing at all. When the voice finally cut out completely, it left me in total silence. At that point, I turned back, to look upon the archway once more, but, to my amazement, there was now a giant, snug-fitting mirror inside of it. It fit so well, in fact, that it was almost as though it had been fashioned for the specific purpose of filling up the white doorway.

While the old doorway had been generating the light, it seemed that the mirror, which took its place, was simply reflecting it. As I came to realize that, my determination to reach the mysterious object, at the other end of the light tunnel, only increased.

While I helplessly drifted toward that tiny white rectangle, I could see it gradually beginning to take shape. Slowly but surely, it began to resemble yet another mirror, inside of another white, human-sized archway. Eventually, when I got close enough that there could be no doubt that I had correctly identified the peculiar mirror, I was able to see my own reflection advancing toward itself.

Somehow, my body came to an unexpected halt when I was just inches away from my reflection, inside the eight-foot-tall mirror, which, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be an identical clone of the one from which I had just pushed away. It made no logical sense but somehow these two mirrors—the new one in front of me and the old one behind me—were reflecting a trail of light between themselves, with no discernible source to be found.

For a moment, I stared at myself, floating in the silent and slightly chilly nothingness that surrounded me. Then, although it should have been far behind me, where I left it, I watched the mirror I had escaped suddenly materialize only twenty yards behind me, thus granting me the ability to stare at my reflection’s reflection.

These two mirrors pointing at each other had somehow captured not only my own reflection but also the only light in the otherwise pitch-black abyss. I tried to imagine how this could be possible, while they cast my corporeal form back onto itself in perpetuity—creating an infinite loop of identical dimensions whose existence all depended on the survival of my own.

Unable to look away, I kept my gaze focused on the mirror in front of me. Without warning, I watched it crack and splinter in such a way that caused it to form a pattern resembling a spider web—the kind one might expect to see when someone’s head slams into a windshield from inside a car. It stayed that way for a couple seconds only and then flashed a much brighter light that momentarily blinded me.

A few seconds later, when I could see again, I found myself hovering outside the doorway to my bathroom—though, when I somewhat timidly peered inside and transfixed my gaze toward the sink, I could tell this version of the room was slightly different than the one I had just escaped. There sat my seemingly inert phone, propped up against the wall, amongst some soap, my toothbrush and a gaggle of other insignificant toiletries. Below all of that, there was a curious pile of disheveled and discarded pages strewn about the floor. Blue ink covered all of the pages that weren’t turned upside down but, from my vantage point, I wasn’t able to read any of them.

Other than the pages and the lifeless phone on the counter, the room looked much like the one I had just left. Unsure of what to do next, as I floated there, amongst the nothingness, I continued to stare at the scene that had been laid out before me, until my heart unexpectedly sank into my stomach. It did so to warn me I wasn’t alone.

Just then, some undetectable, covert force ripped my shower curtain clean off of its rungs and that’s when I saw my extradimensional stalker—standing there inside the tub. Luckily, however, from what I could tell, he did not seem to see me. It appeared as though he had previously entered into some sort of dormant state and, for that, I was extremely thankful.

He didn’t move. He simply stood there, with toxic black smoke billowing off of his lowered head, while it filled up the room, in the process. In truth, he didn’t seem to be aware of anything at all and, as I floated there, I hoped his meditative state would continue. With nowhere else to go, I had to simply hope that he wouldn’t sense my presence and suddenly awaken.

After hovering there for a minute or so, without any noticeable changes in his condition, I grew a bit more emboldened. I waved my left hand at him but I thankfully received no response at all. In my mind, his inaction seemed to insinuate stability in his latency and that allowed my muscles to relax and my constitution to loosen. That was a mistake.

The moment I let my guard down, blood began to drip upward from the specter’s head. It didn’t simply fall out of view though; instead, it trickled upward, to the top of the doorway separating me and that room, and it began to gather there. Fearing his hibernation was coming to an end, I tried to turn myself away to escape but, for reasons I can’t explain, I just flailed about, unable to turn my body and retreat.

I was, however, able to at least spin my head around and, when I did, I saw that the mirror behind me had been steadily moving forward. I knew this must have been true because now, it was almost close enough to touch. “Almost,” but not quite.

Through the reflection of the mirror behind me, I could see steady drips of blood were still collecting on the ceiling, inside of the doorway in front of me. Then, as if a dam had broken, that slow dribble of life-sustaining fluid suddenly cascaded into a violent and gushing deluge and, before long, there was a river of red flowing from the creature’s head. Flowing upside down, it took no time at all before it began to envelop the doorway from the top down.

In a panic, I abandoned the mirror behind me and spun my head forward just in time to see a black, smoky tentacle reach for me, through a waterfall of blood. I was sure it was going to pull me through the blood-soaked archway, toward my death. At that moment, the slug in my head began to break through my skin but I covered him with my left hand and tried to force him back into my head. Just before that tentacle reached me, a green, plastic-like leg shot out from behind me, grabbed hold of my shirt collar and yanked me back, through the mirror behind me.