My grandmother was always a loving and caring person. Well, at least until she came back from that hiking trip she took with the senior centre. After that, she cursed all the time, got mad at me and forgot a whole lot. Sometimes she just forgot what day of the week it was, but more and more often she didn’t know who I was. Or who she was herself. I was lucky that on one of her good days I was able to persuade her to go with me to her doctor.
Doctor Marvez diagnosed her with advanced dementia and advised her to move to a nursing home or some other facility because soon I would not be able to take good enough care of her. And how he was to be proved right.
I thanked him, but didn’t tell him that we couldn’t afford a place in a nursing home. We could barely pay for our small flat. My grandmother had practically no income at all and what I earned delivering pizzas wasn’t the world either. There were no other family members who could help us. They were either already dead or left us years ago. Damn drugs. And so it was up to me to do my best to take care of grandmother, even if it wasn’t easy. This woman had raised me when my drug-addicted mother could not. I owed her that.
„I made you some soup, Grandma. Are you hungry?“
„Hungry…? Yes, thank you, good man.“
She must have thought I was her waiter. She sat in her favourite armchair and I brought her the soup on a tray.
„Thank you very much. I don’t have any money with me, but my husband will tip you in a minute.“
„Sure thing, thank you very much lady!“
I read on the internet that sometimes it’s just best to play along. It was easier that way for the sufferers and also for us relatives. Instead of eating the soup, she just stared at it for a few minutes. Then a fly sat down on the edge of the plate and flew away shortly afterwards. That had somehow caught her attention. She followed the fly with her eyes, which was more interested in her soup than she was. Finally, it sat down again at the edge of the plate and probably wanted to eat its fill of soup.
But it didn’t happen, because grandma grabbed the fly with lightning speed and precision and stuffed it into her mouth. It was disgusting to watch, but at least she got some protein. About a week after she ate a fly for the first time, things got really strange. I woke up in the middle of the night because the neighbours were fighting again.
Or beating each other up, who knows. If I was going to be awake, I thought, I might as well have a sip of milk. So I walked over to the tiny kitchen. I know you don’t do that, especially if you don’t live alone, but I just drank from the carton instead of grabbing a glass. While I was drinking I looked around the kitchen a bit and thanks to the moonlight I could see that something was sitting on the table.
I spat out the milk and almost had a heart attack when I saw it was my grandma. She was just sitting there, arms wrapped around her knees and… smiling. Her mouth was so wide open that her smile no longer looked human. And she didn’t move an inch, not a muscle twitched. She didn’t even blink.
„Oh, grandma! Please go back to bed! You can’t stay here all night…“
Slowly she turned her head in my direction, staring me straight in the eye now, still with that inhuman grin. I sprinted out of the kitchen, into my room and closed the door behind me, the milk carton still in my hand. I knew it was childish, the poor woman was just sick, but that wide mouth scared the hell out of me. I didn’t come out of my room until it was really light, which was around 10 o’clock.
And then only because I had to pee so badly. Slowly and very carefully I looked around the corner into the kitchen and was very relieved when I saw that grandma was no longer sitting on the table. After I had gone to the toilet, I looked to see where Grandma was. I found her in her bed. Judging by the smell, she had boiled herself. I cleaned her and her bed. The rest of the day she was as lethargic as usual. She seemed to have no memory of what had happened last night.
Nothing strange happened over the next few days. Well, it was more the things that didn’t happen that made my fear of her grow and grow. For example, she stopped eating, completely. Sometimes she would stare into space for hours without blinking once. At some point, I also stopped talking to her. I was too afraid of a reaction I might not like. 8 days after our meeting in the kitchen, things finally got out of hand. We were in the small living room watching TV when she started making strange clicking noises with her mouth.
The noises sounded so inhuman, I didn’t even know how she was making them. My fear of her gave way somewhat to a greater fear that she might have a stroke and die. I went over to her and grabbed her shoulder to see if she was okay. She jerked her head towards me and stared at me with eyes that somehow no longer looked human. It looked as if there were several smaller pairs of eyes hidden in her eyes. I was so scared and confused that I couldn’t defend myself when she bit my arm. The bite was really deep and hurt like hell. Panic-stricken, I tried to free my arm, but her jaw had really dug into my forearm and I couldn’t get it free. It was necessary to hit her in the face with my fist to free myself. Another thing I was not very proud of.
After that day, the thought of just running away and starting over on my own was constantly in my mind. I had no money for a clinic or a nursing home, and I wasn’t even sure she belonged there anymore, so I had to leave her here. For about two days after the bite, I had a high fever and felt absolutely drained. I hoarded water bottles in my room and locked the door. Only when I really had to go to the toilet urgently did I go out. That’s how scared I was.
During those two days, I didn’t see or hear her. When I finally felt a little better, I packed my backpack. Just in case I needed it. And my goodness, I was going to need it very soon. After packing it, I thought it would be best to see if my grandmother was still alive.
Her door was closed. Cautiously I opened it and looked into the room. I couldn’t see anything because the light was off and the windows must have been covered with excrement. But through the light coming in through the open door I saw… something. In the corner where her bed was, there was now a large… I don’t know what it was. The closest thing I could have called it was a cocoon. As I pointed my smartphone at the structure of cobwebs to see it better, I saw 6 little eyes staring directly into my own.I ran out of her room, pounded her door shut and grabbed my backpack.
Even when I was already on the street and running towards the bus stop, I kept looking over my shoulder every few seconds. I took the bus to the next town and rented a shabby hotel room there. That was all I could afford. It was a week before I regretted my decision.
This was the woman who had raised me and she was still in that flat. What if it wasn’t her that was changing, but something inside her that was changing her? Something that had been slowly eating away at her brain since she’d been on that walk. I decided to go back and put her out of her misery, because she didn’t deserve such a life. When I arrived, I carefully opened the door, which was unlocked. She was not in the hallway. Nor in the kitchen.
Nor in my room or the bathroom or the living room. I knew what that meant. I opened the door to her room and held the large torch pointed at the place where the cocoon had been a week ago. What I saw there was even more disturbing than what I saw last time.
The cocoon was open. And in front of it and next to it was… slime. And skin. I guess. Whatever came out of that cocoon, and it wasn’t my grandma, it was gone. I wanted to go back to the hotel, but I had forgotten where it was. I’ve been forgetting a lot of things lately. And my arm hurt so much. Did something bite me? Now i need to stop writing. The Man in my Head calls me. May God help us all.