If you want to keep you and the ones closest to you safe, prepare your own food…
As someone nearing 30, it is becoming increasingly harder to have time to keep your friendships alive and well. Making a new friend can feel like trying to start a fire. In the beginning, if you are not consistently stoking the flame while giving it time to breathe, then in a blink of an eye it can go out and all the effort you just put in was for nothing.
But if you’re lucky, you can find friends that you share such a bond with, months or years can pass and every time you see them it’s like you pick up right where you left off. For the past 15 years, Ben has been that friend to me. He’s helped me out of some of the worst and darkest points of my life, and any story I have worth telling involves him by my side. This is no exception.
It had been close to five months since the last time Ben and I were able to carve out any time to get together. But he happened to call me yesterday, saying he was in town visiting his sister and wanted to know if I was free. Normally Fridays would be dinner with my girlfriend and her family, but she was covering a shift at work this particular evening, so I told him to roll on over whenever.
When he got there, you could swear it was a couple of high schoolers when one’s parents went out of town. We had an air of giddiness to us, being way too loud in our excitement. We got through the necessary catch-up topics, and quickly settled into the living room, getting a fire going and riffing with each other while going through every streaming service you can name looking for the perfect thing to put on and not pay attention to at all. We settled on Carpenter’s The Thing.
Once that started, I pulled out a wooden box where I store some herbal enhancements, and Ben got out his phone and put in a food order. Usually that’s another process that takes a while to decide, but after a moment Ben simply said, “Wings are on the way!”
We smoked and laughed as the movie went on, grabbing our attention when those lovely practical effects were being displayed. It wasn’t long before we both were calling out “Foooooood!” as an attempt to summon our delivery. Finally, there was a strong one two three knock at the front door. I went from my laid-out position on the couch and climbed over the back for a more direct route to the front door behind it, and to try to get a laugh out of Ben. It didn’t work, and I immediately felt a twinge in my lower back I knew would bother me all weekend.
I got to the door and swung it open, my eyes trained on my door mat where I always find my food deliveries, but instead, I saw a pair of snow-crusted boots. My eyeline raised up as my mind got ready to interact with another person. The man was large. I couldn’t quite make out his build because of how many layers it looked like he had on. Multiple thick jackets, and he had the hoods from all of them up on his head, along with an N95 mask… and sunglasses. At 8pm. We both stood frozen for a moment. I could hear the faint crackling from the fireplace as we stared at each other. Finally, I saw the plastic bag in his hand, somewhat obscured behind the ends of his jackets.
“Hey mate.” I finally was able to squeeze out with a nervous breath. “Got an order of wings there?”
The lunk stood there in silence.
The seconds dragged on, as I started to feel more and more uneasy. “Do you… need a signature or something?” I asked, trying to treat the situation like nothing was off. No response again. I could see his sunglasses fogging with every deep breath he took. I called out Ben’s name, hoping to get some backup. I shot my eyes in Ben’s direction and as soon as I did, the large figure’s hand raised towards me quickly in my peripherals. I looked back to see the plastic bag swinging into my lower chest and him beginning to release his grip on it. I cradled my arms to keep the contents from spilling out, and before I even processed what was happening fully, the man already had his back to me and was walking down the front steps. As his loud footfalls faded out, Ben’s faded in as he approached me at the door.
“You got it, man?” He asked, looking at my bearhug grip on the bag.
“Yeah, I… Yeah, sorry, that was just a weird interaction.”
“Well, your eyes are as red as the hot sauce on these bad boys, he was probably messing with you.” He took the bag from me and went back to the living room.
I closed the door and locked it, looking out the peephole one last time. I turned away and felt the twinge in my back again. I sat down slowly on the couch and shoved a pillow behind me for support. Ben noticed my slowed movements, and chuckled. He pointed to an effects heavy shot of the movie. “This shit’s nothing. Getting old is the true terror of life” I laughed and managed to return to the moment. We started pulling the boxes of various wing flavors and lined them on the coffee table. Ben took his phone out to get a photo of all the open boxes with the wood crackling in the fireplace below the tv in the background.
I reached in to grab my first wing, and as I pulled it up, I noticed it gave a little and flopped to one side. I brought it closer and saw the wing bones were broken inside. I could feel the internal grind of the jagged bone pieces against each other.
“Well, that one’s a loser.” I said, throwing it back in the box, and going for another. But when I grabbed the second one, it was broken too. The uneasiness began to bubble inside me again. I looked over at Ben, who was bending a drumette back and forth. It was quickly clear that every single bone we had been given had been snapped. Some were done so roughly we could tell exactly where they were gripping it when it happened. We both sat back from the couch, reiterating to each other every few moments how batshit this was. We thought about who to call. What would we even say? How would anything be resolved? After a while. we came to the conclusion that the wing place would blame the delivery service, and vice versa. This was something that simply happened to us, and we were going to have to live with the mystery of wing night.
There was a moment of quiet while we both processed. The fire continued its ambient crackle. Then I could feel Ben looking at me, and finally he said,
“You know what the worst part of this whole thing is?
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow.
“The fucker forgot my soda…”
I managed to get out a quick exhale chuckle before there was a small explosion in my fireplace. The noise was deep and jolting. Sparks filled every square inch of the chute. As we both turned to see, multiple flaming embers shot out and tumbled past the tile surrounding the fireplace right onto the carpet, as a sizzling noise grew from the fireplace and smoke began accumulating quickly.
I shot up and ran over to begin putting out the tiny fires, grabbing a throw pillow on the way. As I smothered one of the flames, completely panicked, more and more smoke was spilling out into the living room. My headspace was so frazzled, and I’d wished I would have waited to eat before smoking. As the final carpet fire was put out, I turned my attention to the fireplace to deal with the smoke. Reaching in, I yanked on the lever hard to make sure the damper was fully open, accidentally grazing the iron bar of the wood rack pulling my hand out. I closed the glass doors attached to help guide more of the smoke up the chimney. I looked up and saw the wall already coated in a thick black layer of soot, as well as the glass of the large hanging clock mounted above. At this point I begin to realize Ben has been talking this whole time, his questions beginning to register on a slow delay. Asking about a fire extinguisher, if he should call someone, what in the ever-loving fuck was going on. All great questions.
I managed to take my first real breath in a good couple minutes. My hands still pressed against the glass doors of the fireplace, like that was helping at all. The smoke was becoming less intense, and I looked at the few remaining embers inside. There were big clumps of ash that looked… wet. I wiped the glass to see more of the interior, and as I looked, I saw a glint of green in the back, behind one of the now extinguished logs. I opened it back up and leaned in closer. It took a bad amount of time to process. It was such an image of things that didn’t go together, like a cactus floating in the ocean, nuzzled in between a log and the back of the chimney, was a can of soda, split open. So many questions flooded my mind, but one thing was clear.
We were in danger.
I didn’t know where to begin speaking after so much had just happened, so I simply began saying “We need to go.” as I got to my feet and turned toward Ben. He was already standing, and his shadow, which stood over a foot taller, was behind the couch. Its hoods were still up, sunglasses still on. I was once again trying to fathom how to convey enough information quickly enough in order to help my friend. The terror in my eyes must have been a start, because Ben began to turn and look behind him.
“Wait-” I managed to spit out, and the shadow man shot his arms out and wrapped them around Ben, ripping him off his feet and over the back of the couch. They took down the end table with a lamp on it as they tumbled out of my view. I heard the lamp shatter and one of the table legs snap as they crashed with a thud. The room was significantly darker in an instant. I took a step forward and my foot caught the hanging rack for all the fireplace tools. It began to topple, and I reactively went to catch it-not the most important task in retrospect. But as I stabilized it, the fire poker did glimmer with an almost cinematic gleam. I wrapped my soot covered fingers around the handle and looked back towards the couch, flinching immediately. The shadow man was standing in the same position as he was before, behind the couch. But no Ben. His wide chest puffed and deflated in a quick rhythm. The sunglasses fully fogged from the face mask. I gripped the poker tighter, trying to steady my breathing.
“B-Ben!” I cried out to him, needing to hear his voice.
Nothing.
The two of us once again in a staring match with each other. I could feel the fear inside of me bubbling and churning, looking at the evil in front of me. I knew what was at stake, and slowly I felt my body churn the fear into adrenaline as my heart pounded faster and faster. I raised the fire poker up, ready to swing with everything I had.
“I will beat you to fucking death, GET OUT!” I screamed as gutturally as I could.
Another big breath coated the frames with a fresh layer of fog. It began dissipating as we stood in our respective corners. Further it sank down, like a tide leaving the shore. As the final bit of fog evaporated off, he gripped the back of the couch and swung his legs over. Traversing the couch like a small incline, he was over and nearing me after what seemed like three steps, and he didn’t make a fucking sound doing it.
I swung the poker at him but was already reaching to intercept. He got his hand on it and pulled the fire poker toward him more, making me lose my footing. I stumbled forward and his other hand clamped around my throat. He continued his forward momentum and lifted me up by the throat and slammed me against the wall above the fireplace. My feet swung back and shattered the glass. I swung at him and his arm pinning me, but it didn’t seem to be affecting him in the slightest. His grip was tightening and after a couple of seconds my vision was already beginning to tunnel. My foot swung back again and bumped into the iron rack, the burn sending a shock of searing pain up my leg.
Both my hands were on his at this point, pulling as hard as I could. It seemed to be the only thing keeping my neck from disintegrating. The two black soulless lenses staring at me. I could see the reflection of my own murder happen in those lenses. But I also saw the clock above me. If I was going to try anything, I needed to release some of the pressure on my neck. I closed my eyes and sure wanted to take a deep breath but had to skip that step. I moved my foot back trying to locate the end of the iron rod pointed up. I singed my heel a couple more times on the side before angling correctly and getting a circular burn on the bottom of my heel. I hovered my foot above the rod trying not to lose it. I tried to get a little more adrenaline churning in order to help me the rest of the way, then drove my foot down onto the rod and pressed up with everything I had left. My vision was approaching a pinhole, but I felt his grip loosen slightly as I slid up a couple inches, hearing the searing sizzle of my foot cooking on the rack. I shot my hands up and grasped for the clock, ripping it down over his head. I began to feel myself drop to the floor as he stumbled back. I was in a freefall for a while. Then I heard the loud sound of the tile in front of the fireplace cracking as my skull hit it.
Then everything went dark.
.
.
.
When I took my first breath in, it felt like swallowing magma. My eyes were puffy, and my head felt like I was still falling. My ears were in agony with a piercing ring. A ring that slowly seemed to have a rhythm to it. My eyes finally inched open, and the room had a dark orange glow to it. A few more seconds went by, and the realization of the fire alarm finally snapped. I rolled over onto my side in pain because you know… my back still hurts from my couch roll. My head is spinning with every inch of progress I make, and every gasp I manage to muster is smoke filled and heavy. I crawled along the carpet trying to stay below the smoke. The curtains were engulfed in flame, and I could already see through the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. More and more I crawled, still playing catch up in my mind. As I got to the couch, i saw a pair of legs on the ground behind it. I keep going forward and after a few more feet i was able to reach out and grab ben’s pant leg. He was unconscious, and not answering my demonic throat calls. I pulled myself more forward and got towards him. I start reaching up to check his pulse, my head still feeling like it was on a roller coaster. As my fingers pressed into his neck, I once again felt the sensation of internal bone shards grinding against one another. His chest didn’t move, his heart wouldn’t beat. My friend was dead.
Once the firefighters arrived, they found me a few feet further, unconscious again. I remember trying to pull Ben with me, but the smoke got too thick, and everything went dark again. I woke up next in a hospital bed. Fractured skull, 2nd degrees on my foot and my windpipe is in pretty bad shape. Which didn’t mix well with the thousands of questions I’ve been asked over the past few hours. One of my nurses was finally able to kick everyone out so I could get some rest. But I needed to get all this down first. To get my thoughts ordered and focused, but more importantly, to tell you all about Ben. There’s already so much I need to talk to him about, so much I wished we had talked about. I know this time of year can get hectic and stressful but leave this with the encouragement to make that call, or send that text.
You never know how much time you have with friends.