The zipper was gone.
I felt along the cat’s underbelly even more frantically, but there was nothing but thick white fur. It hissed at my rough touch, and jumped off my lap. It trotted back to the doorway, and vanished around the corner as Tommy chuckled. “It’s such a fickle thing,” he sighed. “I remember when I first got it—”his smile twitched like a flickering light, “Well, maybe I don’t remember it so well—“
Tap
Tap
Tap
Tommy and I’s heads snapped upwards. Three precise knocks once more, coming from the ceiling. Just as it had once before.
Tommy looked at me, and I stared back. We maintained eye contact for a few heart beats. His smile was barely pasted on. His forehead shone with sweat and I could hear his shallow breathing. When he spoke, he did so through his gritted teeth.
“Must be the cat,” he just barely uttered.
I didn’t answer. Part of me was just paralyzed by sheer anxiety. Another, more dominant part, could only think of where those knocks were emanating from. Somehow, I knew.
The knocks were coming from the room behind the Blue Door.
Tommy rose to his feet, no doubt expecting to once again make a quick exit, to go off to wherever he had gone before. But this time, I stood as well. “What’s in there?” I asked, with as much confidence as I could muster.
Tommy froze. “In where?”
I squeezed both fists at my sides. “The room behind the Blue Door.”
Tommy let out a sound like a long, painful wheeze. “Nettles.”
The name wasn’t familiar, and yet, it strangely was. It was like the sweet smell that pervaded the entire house—the more I smelled it, the more I recognized it, the more I hated it. The moment I heard that name, I had this feeling. It was just on the cusp of nostalgia. But intensely, unabashedly frightening. Enough to chill my blood as it flowed through my veins. Tommy’s teeth were clenched so tight I thought they might crack. A vein in his forehead stood out, engorged and throbbing with his too-fast heartbeat. As I watched, a shudder ran through him.
No, not a shudder. Not a cringe of fear, the likes of which I had felt multiple times since arriving at the McAfee house. This was different. His entire being suddenly began to vibrate, and continued to do so, at a higher and higher velocity. Bits of spittle sprayed from his lips, still stuck in that terrible grimace. I thought he might be having some sort of stroke. But before I could take a step, whether forward or back, he stopped.
He was breathing heavily through his nose, a drip of snot working its way towards his mouth. He stared at me with his too-blue, bloodshot eyes. Then, he spoke.
“Where’s Heather?”
I blinked. The cat, the zipper, Tommy, the Blue Room, that disgusting sweet smell. All of it had been making my head and stomach turn so violently that I had completely forgotten about Heather. Heather, who had gone to investigate the Blue Room, and had yet to return.
Heather, who had gone somewhere she clearly was not supposed to go, in the McAfee house.
Slowly, I turned my head up, towards the ceiling above.
Tommy stared at me for a moment. Then, he let out a low, animalistic hiss. Before I knew what was happening, he had rounded the corner of the doorway.
I followed him. Tommy and I were sprinting to the room across the hall. To the kitchen.
We got there at about the same time. I looked around for the stairwell. Even though I had only just been in the room, I still had trouble finding it. Not finding it, really. Just seeing it.
But Tommy saw it right away, and like Heather had pointed it out to me, I could see that Tommy had seen it. We both ran to the bottom of the steps, and gazed up.
There it was. The dark, dark stair well, and at the top, a beacon of light: that pleasant, welcoming Blue Door.
And the rusted old padlock, hanging open on the handle.
Tommy took the first step, but the rest were a jumble of our limbs clawing our ways to the top. Although athletic, Tommy was still around fifty years old. I got there first.
“Don’t.”
My hand was on door knob. Tommy was one step from me.
I opened the Blue Door.
I knew what he would look like before I saw Him. And even now, I’m not sure I ever saw Him.
For such a bright Blue Door, the room behind it was infinitely dark.
And I can’t tell you what was inside. Because truly, I can’t remember.
Something like a lavender smudge in the center of a red-threaded sofa. And a smell so sweet I could taste it.
And then I was out.
I was sitting on that same sofa, in Tommy McAfee’s living room. The pale purring cat was on my lap. Tommy McAfee saw in the armchair across from me. Heather sat on my left.
I was breathing heavily and sweating. Heather was looking at me, concerned, and saying something. Tommy watched me, and sipped his coffee.
“Sam?”
“What?”
Heather frowned deeper. “Are you okay?”
I sat up, my arms weak and shaking. The cat stared at me with its blank eyes.
“What happened?” I asked blearily. I felt sick.
Tommy set his cup and its saucer on the side table next to him. “I think you might have fallen asleep. I don’t blame you. That sofa is really quite comfortable.” He smiled wide. “And the cat makes such a good blanket.”
I looked at the cat, and it stared back. I didn’t even want to reach for its stomach, to feel for what I feared was there. Instead, I pushed it off of my lap and onto the floor.
It landed on its feet, then turned so it faced me. Just to stare.
“Sam, that was kind of mean,” Heather said teasingly. She leaned down to stroke the cat’s head. It began to purr, but didn’t remove its gaze from me.
I nervously looked at the painting that still hung on the wall. My eyes settled on the figure that sat, so near where I sat. “Heather... what happened?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, still half bent over petting the cat.
“In the room behind the Blue Door.”
She faltered for only a fraction of a second before answering.
“What Blue Door?”
It was enough to draw my attention over to her. Her form bent forwards, fingertips to waxy pale fur. Her shirt pulled down just slightly in the back where she folded. I could see the very top of her back, and the tip of which I at first thought was a tattoo.
But I knew better now.
Heather had a zipper, too.
I had been halfway back to Habitsville when I realized I had taken the cat. Everything had happened so fast. When I saw what was on Heather’s back, I got up to leave. Tommy tried to stop me, but he couldn’t.
The cat sat in the passenger seat on the way back. Watching me. I had to pull over and throw up by the side of the road at one point. That sweet smell was still so potent, even miles from the house. I can still smell it a bit now, even as I write this.
Yes, I checked the cats stomach. After I vomited on the roadside, I looked. Nothing. No zipper.
I drove back to the office.
I carried the cat inside, because I wasn’t sure what else to do with it. I couldn’t leave it in the car in the middle of July. I didn’t know how I was going to tell my boss what had happened. That I didn’t get the full story, or even if I did, it wasn’t one that anyone wanted. That I had left Heather behind.
But when I walked in, there she was.
Heather was sitting at my desk. It was late now, so no one else was around. She stood up as she saw me walk into the room.
“Hey,” she said casually. “What’s with the cat?”
I knew I must have looked like a wreck, all sweating and shaky, dried throw-up on my shirt. I set the cat down on the desk nearest to me, and it stayed. Then, I walked right up to Heather, turned her around, and looked down the back of her shirt.
“Sam, what the hell?” she yelled, whirling back around and smacking my hands away. But I had already seen what I was looking for. There was nothing on Heather’s back.
“Sorry...” I muttered. “I thought I saw something.”
She frowned at me, but quickly was distracted by the cat I had placed on the table. She moved over to it and started stroking its head. I could hear its purr start up again, and it made my stomach turn.
“So where have you been?”
I blinked. “What?”
She kept looking at the cat, smiling softly at it as it nudged her hand. “You haven’t been to the office in a few days. Did you take time off to adopt a cat?” She laughed.
I felt the vomit rising again in my chest, but I forced it back down. “A few days? You haven’t seen me in a few days?”
She shook her head. “Nope.” She picked up the purring cat and cradled it in her arms like a baby. “But I’m glad I caught you before I left. This cat is so sweet.” She kissed it on the head.
“I have to go.”
I drove home. I don’t know what happened that day. If I imagined everything, if Heather was lying. Or maybe she just couldn’t remember, just like Tommy couldn’t remember 1980.
I was jealous of them. I wanted to forget. More than forget, I wanted to erase. Even if I couldn’t remember what I saw behind the Blue Door, the feeling was still there. The smell of the hydrangeas. The oil painting, the lilac smudge. The hot and cold feeling of a metal zipper on a cat’s warm stomach.
Nettles.
I didn’t find out what happened to those kids for those three days in 1980. Or, worse, maybe I did.
My name is Samuel Singer, and I’ve seen something I shouldn’t have.
---
Credits
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