Welcome to the fiction section this site called Dragon Street Dreams with stories from the archives of my friend Cliff Almas. Enjoy!
Welcome to the fiction section this site called Dragon Street Dreams with stories from the archives of my friend Cliff Almas. Enjoy!
His name was Cracken and he looked just like Miles Davis.
The same bulging, veined forehead and sunken reptilian eyes. The same quick darting movement of tongue-tip to lips and hood like mat of hair.
I've always loved the music of Miles Davis. And I've always been repelled by that cobra like head and face.
In all honesty, if I wasn't having serious trouble making the rent I wouldn't even have considered him as a roommate.
It's strange how a statement like that requires almost instant clarification. Perhaps it's just some last vestige of politically correct white liberal guilt, to wit: It wasn't because he was black.
I was because he made my flesh crawl.
But he didn't even blink those hooded eyes when I demanded a damage deposit and two months rent in advance (at least in part because I'd hoped he'd refuse) and when he peeled the bills of a roll that could have choked a horse - well let's just say that little inner voice you should always listen to got drowned out in a tidal wave of greed.
All he had with him was two suitcases (just another item on the hit parade of second thoughts) and when he moved in I didn't see him for a week.
I heard him though.
Late one night I was battling the most recent bout of my recurrent insomnia, sitting up in bed reading a book when I heard him come in.
Now I'm no snoop, it just so happened that his room was next door and my beds up against a shared wall, I just happened to turn my head so that my ear was against the wall. Completely innocent.
I didn't hear anything at first and I was starting to get a crick in my neck before I did. When I did though I forgot all about my neck.
He was chanting.
I couldn't clearly hear any words (not that I was trying to of course) but it was definitely chanting, low and guttural. I felt the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, something that I thought only happened in books.
I listened for what I thought was hours; he never seemed to take a breath. After a long time I could almost, but not quite, make out the words. Something like Dragon, he repeated that a lot and something else, a word like a sneeze - Thoo-Loo?
He repeated that word a lot. I liked the sound of it less each time I heard it.
After a while the chanting stopped.
And quite a long while after that I got to sleep.
You'd think after a night like that I'd be kicking him out at the first opportunity. It wasn't that simple.
I'd already spent the two months rent and damage deposit on beer and pizza. I was stuck with the guy for another three months at least.
The thing was, in most ways Cracken was the perfect roommate. He was quiet and unobtrusive, he certainly paid on time and he didn't play his music loud. Even the chanting wasn't that bad, after a few nights I even got used to it.
And anyway if it was some kind of religious thing I didn't want to discriminate against the guy because of it.
So things went on like that for a couple of weeks, our schedules seemed exactly opposite, I saw him twice, each time just the back of his head disappearing into his room.
And then last night I came home to find a seafood feast on the dining room table.
Cracken came out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel and smiled while I did my second double take of the last couple of minutes.
I mean sure, I hadn't seen the guy in weeks but he looked a lot different then the way I remembered him. His eyes were completely round with almost no whites - just huge dark pupils, the bones of his face were a lot more �reptilian then I remembered and when he smiled the darting tongue between those sharp teeth was a disturbing shape.
"Hello Henry." He hissed, and if you want to know how he hissed words with no 'esses' in them, you're not the only one.
"I wass hoping you'd arrive ssoon, we have not sseen much of each other ssince I moved in and I thought we might dine together."
The last thing I wanted to do was sit across from those eyes and teeth, but I didn't want to be rude and hey, a free meal's a free meal.
I pulled out the chair furthest from Cracken and sat down gingerly. He was already spooning big helpings of everything on the table onto my plate.
I've never been a big fan of seafood - it's always seemed a bit too much like dining on alien lifeforms for my taste but I had to admit everything smelled great. Yeah, maybe it was all a bit heavy on the claw and tentacle motif but I've seen worse looking meals in Greek restaurants and it tasted great, even if there was sort of an oily aftertaste to some of the dishes.
We talked a bit during dinner, nothing major. I asked him what he did for a living; he smiled slightly and said 'Marine futures.'
We finished dinner and bid each other friendly good nights.
And this morning he was gone.
I sat on the couch chewing my thumbnail, my skin felt dry, itchy. The TV was on but I wasn't watching.
After about an hour I got up and went to his door.
There was a sort of salty, musky tang in the hallway and his door looked damp. The door-handle felt slimy and cold but it opened easily. The room was completely dark, not even a dim radiance from the curtained windows. My hand traced the wall, blindly reaching for the light switch, the wall was wet.
Some insane part of my mind moaned over my lost damage deposit. I put my hand over my mouth to suppress and equally insane giggle. The smell of seawater was overpowering.
My scrabbling fingers finally found the light switch and with a sigh of relief I switched it on.
I took it all in, in one instant of harsh-lit relief. I took a couple numb steps forward and stared dully at the black oilcloth smelling, brackish water. The bed had been negligently shoved into the corner. It was covered in mold and as far as I could tell, it hadn't been slept in.
Ever.
With a kind of horrified fascination I stepped over to the tank and leaned over to look in, the water was thick and green and I couldn't see the bottom.
Then the light bulb blew the wiring simply unable to take the drenching moisture any longer.
And in the first shocking instant of total blackness before my eyes adjusted enough to see in the dim light of the half open door, something shifted in the murky water.
Water splashed on the floor where I'd been standing but I was already running for the door. I slipped once and nearly crashed into that slimy floor, but in a maneuver that made every tendon in my body go 'twang' I kept my feet and went through the door at a dead run.
I tried to leave.
I got three blocks, but the sunlight was agony on my eyes and even my skin seemed to be sizzling. I had to get out of the light. I staggered home with my arm over my eyes moving like a blind drunk.
When I got back the door to the room was closed again.
I've been sitting here in front of the mirror writing this all down for hours now. Every once in a while as night fell and the painful radiance seeping through the blinds faded I would look up in the mirror.
Charting the progress.
Was my forehead always that protuberant? Were my eyes always that sunken? I'm sure the webbing between my fingers was never that long and thick, it makes writing very difficult.
The whole apartment smells like a fish yard now.
I've got a gun, It's a little target pistol I picked up on a whim a year ago and never took down off the shelf. I just now loaded it and spun the cylinder, just like in the movies. It was easy.
It might not be necessary. I hope to God it isn't, but I keep remembering that oily aftertaste of last night's dinner and I'll never forget the thrashing sound from the tank in that room.
So I sit and watch the mirror.
Was my skin always that greenish colour?
