I stood in front of Carlos’s door, hesitating to knock. About a week ago, I stepped in to help a guy who lives around the corner from me. He was temporarily blinded by a man with supernatural powers who had also kidnapped Carlos’ family. I don’t even really know Carlos. When I told my fiancee what I was thinking of doing, she reminded me that as noble as it is to help people, you can’t save everyone. She’s right of course. But I still wanted to help Carlos.
He answered within ten seconds of my knocking. From the way he looked at me, I could see that his vision had returned. “Come on in,” he said.
Nothing had changed in his apartment from the previous night. He sat down at the kitchen table and resumed eating his poppy seed bagel with cream cheese. “You eat?” he said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Want some coffee?” he said.
“Okay,” I said.
He fetched me some coffee. Because I had just brushed my teeth, it tasted weird, but I feel like when you’re a guest in someone’s house, you should accept food or drink if they offer it to you. I can’t tell if that’s just good manners or if it means I need to be a little more willing to say no.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Good,” I said. “Your eyes, are they…”
He nodded. “Still a little blurry. Maybe I’ll need glasses. At least I can see again.”
“That’s good,” I said, and looked around the kitchen. “You like sports?” I asked.
“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to,” said Carlos. Wow, and I thought my small talk skills were improving.
He finished eating and we went out to his car. I would have to drive, as his vision had not fully returned. It was a blue Honda Civic. I asked him who we were going to see. All he would say was that his friend knew he was coming.
As we drove, Carlos played reggae music on the stereo. I didn’t recognize the artist, so I asked him about it. It was somebody I had never heard of. This time, my attempts at conversation went a little more smoothly. Hip hop is my favorite genre. I don’t know why, but I pictured that being Carlos’ thing too. But now I have a few new artists to check out.
The building Carlos led me to was right in the heart of the downtown area. His friend must be doing well for himself to afford a spot like this. We buzzed the door, his friend let us in, and we took the elevator up to the eighth floor. I still knew nothing about this friend, but I noticed that Carlos had gotten chattier. He asked me what I did for fun, if I was in a relationship, all of that basic getting-to-know-you stuff. Carlos, for his part, was single, liked Star Wars, and wanted a job where he could work with animals. I think knowing this about him helped me breathe a little deeper.
Carlos’ friend was a tall Hispanic guy named Ren. His apartment was large and spotless and he asked us to take our shoes off before coming in. I noted a top of the line stand mixer, blender, and espresso machine in his kitchen. He offered us coffee, but Carlos declined for both of us. Good thing, too. Two cups of coffee and I always have to shit.
Carlos and I sat in his living room facing him. “So?” said Ren.
“Ivan,” said Carlos.
Ren’s hand went to his face. His shoulders slumped. “I thought he would leave you alone, buddy. I really thought it would work.”
“It’s cool, man,” said Carlos. “It’s not your fault.”
“You thought what would work?” I asked.
“The spell,” said Ren. “I cast a protection spell on his family. Ivan got through it. He doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. Nobody just takes all that power. It always takes something back from you.”
“So what are we gonna do?” I asked.
“I was hoping there was an easy way out of this,” said Ren.
“Well, if you want the best result, it’s never going to be easy,” I said.
“Truth bomb,” said Carlos.
“Okay, let me get dressed,” said Ren, who was wearing a navy blue bathrobe. “We’re going to get his family back.”
“Should we all put our hands in the center?” I asked.
Ren smiled. “Back in a minute, boss.”
While he was changing, Carlos filled me in on a few details. Ivan’s magic gave him the power to shrink people. Very likely, he had Carlos’s family kept inside a terrarium or some other space like they were his pets. I wondered if there was any plumbing inside the terrarium, or if they had to just go to the bathroom in the corner. Maybe not the most important question, but nobody wants to be without running water for too long.
Ren returned dressed in a T-shirt and khakis and carrying three long purple gloves. He tossed one to Carlos and to me, then started to put one on his left hand. “What is this?” I asked.
“You sure you want to do this?” asked Carlos. “You can go home. But after this, there’s no going back.”
“Ivan is dangerous,” I said. “If he gets what he wants from you, he’ll come for the rest of the neighborhood. I like my neighborhood. It’s a good place to live.”
“Okay,” said Carlos, and nodded to the glove in my lap. He and Ren were already wearing theirs. I put mine on. It fit tight, like an exam glove but slid onto my hand as if it had been waiting for me. Whatever material it was made out of was smooth and silky.
Ren put his gloved hand out. Carlos did the same. I followed suit, like we were a sports team before the big game. Then I blinked. That’s all, but in an instant I was in the warehouse where I work. My supervisor walked by and asked me how my day off was. I checked my phone. My phone said it was Monday. I had taken the day off to meet with Carlos and Ren on Sunday. But I was wearing everything that I had been on Sunday, including the purple glove. My supervisor made eye contact with me and asked if I needed to get some coffee before starting work. She did not seem to notice the glove. What was going on here?
The phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number but I picked up. The person on the other end identified himself as Ren and explained that it was actually Monday, and that breaking into Ivan’s condo was not a matter of physically forcing our way in. “You have to form a gate,” he said. “In order to do that, you have to start from the place where you’re most comfortable.”
I looked around. The place where I am most comfortable is my workplace. “Is it actually Monday?” I asked. I was in the breakroom now. There was nobody else here yet. “I just lost 24 hours?”
“You didn’t lose it,” said Ren. “You just needed that long to get into the right headspace. Look around. Is everything the same?”
I was about to answer yes but then I looked at the wall. There was something funny there. I peered closer and realized, with a sinking feeling, that the wall was now made out of teeth. Just like the inside of Carlos’s closet. Ivan wanted to consume this warehouse just like he was going to consume Carlos’s apartment. His power extended to the warehouse now, somehow.
“Oh my God,” I said. “The wall, it’s–”
“It won’t happen all at once,” said Ren. “Right now, you’re the only one who can see it. The glove is what does it. But if we don’t stop Ivan, the whole warehouse will turn to…teeth.”
“And me?” I said.
“Go about your day,” said Ren. “Look for anything else unusual. I work from home. Call me when you have the chance.” He hung up. It was time for me to start work anyway, so I just walked back into the warehouse proper and asked my supervisor what she needed me to do today. The walls of the warehouse were not teeth yet. But more of the place would be soon, I was sure.
I tried to go about my day as normally as possible, texting Ren whenever I had a free moment. Carlos was at his grandmother’s house in Santa Fe. I guess that is where he feels most at home. Good thing Ivan hadn’t gotten her. Except that the walls there were turning to teeth, as was the wallpaper in Ren’s apartment. Ren told me that by trying to break into Ivan’s condo, we were also making ourselves vulnerable to his own power. I told him I still didn’t understand how we were “breaking into” anywhere.
“I need you to do something,” he texted me late in the day. “We need to find out where the focal point is. It’s not in my place and it’s not in Carlos’ grandma’s house. He’s checked every room there. So it has to be somewhere at the warehouse. Can you check every room?”
I couldn’t check every room, because some of the rooms were offices and it would look suspicious if I walked into the owner’s office when he wasn’t there. But Ren told me that didn’t matter, as what I was looking for was a tear in reality. Something way more glaring than the walls turning into teeth. “You can’t miss it,” said Carlos. “Just walk through the place and look.”
There is one room in the warehouse where I can’t go, and that’s the owner’s personal bathroom. That one has a combination lock on the door. There was also a janitor’s closet that I occasionally have to enter to fetch a mop or something. So I opened the janitor’s closet.
Believe it or not, it had been a normal day of work. I had had to find somewhere besides the breakroom to eat my lunch, but other than that, the only thing that was out of the ordinary was that when the UPS guy came to pick up our packages for the day, I noticed that his normally spiky hair looked more like porcupine quills. When I told him to wait for a minute because we still had one order for the day, all of his quills stood on end. He leaned in close and I could see that there were tiny bits of what looked like skin hanging from the quills. “Don’t tell me what to do, boy,” he said, and winked. I’ve never liked him anyway.
Oh right, the janitor’s closet. Inside, I found that the top right corner of the room was no longer a corner, but a black hole with a jagged green border. A brown, feminine hand reached out through the hole but did not move. It looked like it was made out of wax. The darkness beyond was so thick that I could not see anything past the forearm. I could not tell if it was attached to a body. When I tried to pull on the arm, I heard a cry of pain.
“Leave me,” said a woman’s voice from the hole. “I can’t get out yet.”
“Are you Carlos’ mother?” I asked.
“Si,” she said.
“Where are you?”
“In Ivan’s condo,” she said. “I can move over here. But I can also see you. And feel you when you touch my hand. It’s really weird.”
“Where is he keeping you?” I asked.
“In a dollhouse,” she said. “He made us tiny. It’s terrible. I have to go to the bathroom in a tiny bucket in the corner.”
“I’m sorry, Ren’s calling me,” I said. “I’ll get you out.”
I had to leave her there. It was the end of the day. Ren told me that we could try to get her out on Thursday. “Just keep going about your day,” he said. “I’ll come by on Thursday. Carlos is going to help from his end. We’ll pull his mother out through the hole in the ceiling.”
“You can’t just walk into the warehouse,” I said. “They’ll notice you. It’s just people who work here and customers who can be in here.”
“Then I’ll be a customer,” he said, and hung up.
I tried to push through the next couple days. It was very weird. The UPS guy was getting pushier and pushier, leaving earlier and earlier every day, whether or not all of the packages were ready. My supervisor kept calling his supervisor to complain, but nothing changed. Everyone noticed that he was rude. The walls of the warehouse were turning to teeth as well. It was deeply unsettling, making it hard for me to sleep at night. The glove wouldn’t come off, although it seemed to stay clean anyway.
Thursday came. Somehow, Carlos, Ren, and I were going to pull Carlos’ mother out of Ivan’s condo through a hole in the ceiling of my warehouse. Typing that makes sense only if I rethink my ideas of physical space and how distance works. This whole experience has been mind-expanding, but not in a good way. Once or twice I peeked into the janitor’s closet to see if the Carlos’ mother’s arm was still there. It was, still looking waxy for some reason.
On Thursday, my supervisor told us a new customer would come to take a tour of the warehouse. I shouldn’t have been surprised when Ren walked in the door that afternoon, but I damn near dropped my coffee. It was my third cup of the day. I’d had to start drinking a lot of it because sleeping was getting difficult.
“How did–” I began when I got him alone.
“I just set up a fake website, fake profile, told them I was interested in buying from them,” said Ren. “You’d be surprised how easy it is if you know your way around.”
“So what do we do?” I asked.
“Wait until the end of the day,” he said. “After the UPS guy leaves. That’s the part where you just sweep and take out the trash, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“Just meet me in the janitor’s closet,” he said. “I’m supposed to meet with your boss later. I’ll just tell him I have to go to the bathroom. It won’t take long.” I was about to ask him what “it” was, but then my supervisor called out for me.
The UPS guy left even earlier than normal. He was making weird jokes the whole time. I think he liked seeing us scramble around trying to get every order boxed up before he left. This, even more than the walls turning to teeth, told me that reality was not operating by the usual rules. Normally, my supervisor would never have allowed this. She would complain or told UPS to send us another driver or something. But instead we all just went along with it. I purposely went just a little slower than everyone else and I think the driver noticed.
After he left I made for the janitor’s closet. The door was locked. I knocked, feeling somewhat silly. But Ren opened it and motioned me inside. We were still wearing our purple gloves. I needed to ask him what the hell these things even were. They looked like something out of a kids’ TV show.
“How does this work?” I asked. Carlos’ mother’s hand was still frozen in that position. She said she was ready for us.
“We just pull,” said Ren. “It needs all three of us at once. Carlos is gonna push from his end.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
Ren looked at me as if the answer was obvious. “His grandma’s house,” he said. Of course.
We were about to grab Carlos’ mother’s hand when the door opened behind us. I expected to see somebody looking for a mop, but it was the UPS guy. His eyes were bloodshot, his skin was grey, and the quills on his head stood out like he was ready to shoot them at someone.
“Sup, Ren,” he said.
“Sup,” said Ren. He stepped in front of me. The closet was tiny, barely large enough for me to stand behind him. I grabbed Carlos’ mother’s hand, not sure how much of this she could hear, but determined to help her if I could.
The UPS guy moved quickly. So did Ren. Quills shot from the UPS guy’s head. A few hit the walls and ceiling. Most landed in Ren’s body. But he threw something in the UPS guy’s face. I couldn’t tell what it was, but his hands went to his eyes and Ren gave him a stepping stool kick that launched him into the far wall. Then he turned to me and grabbed Carlos’ mother’s arm. “Now,” he said.
We pulled. It only took a few seconds. She slid through like she was being reborn and landed in my arms. Her hair was auburn and she wore thick glasses. The UPS guy was recovering, but Ren twisted his arm and pinned him against the wall like cops do when they’re arresting someone. I peeked out of the closet. Nobody else in the building had taken notice of this. Reality was shifting. I noticed that the inside handle of the janitor’s closet door had now turned to teeth.
Ren marched the UPS guy out of the building. He had quills sticking out of his chest and face but somehow powered through the pain. I waited with Carlos’ mother until I was pretty sure everyone had left, then led her out of the building. Normally, I ride my bike to work, but I figured I should ride the bus with her instead. I’ll come back to get my bike some other time.
That was yesterday. Carlos and I talked this morning. His mother managed to convince her boss to let her come back to work. He claims she just told him exactly what happened and he accepted her excuse for not reporting to work for a week. That is a very open-minded boss. Ren managed to get himself to a friend who is skilled at removing human porcupine quills. That must be a very specialized field.
Except it’s not over. Carlos’ brothers and sisters are still in Ivan’s dollhouse. We have to get them back next week, and I don’t know if Ren will be at full capacity for that. What’s more, Ivan knows what we’re doing. He might come for me when I’m not at work. Or the UPS guy could try something again.
I’m sitting on my couch typing this and trying to stay in the present. I spent today processing what happened. Tonight I’ll order some food and watch something, maybe an old Bruce Lee movie. I checked my whole house (except for my roommate’s room) to see if anything was turning to teeth, but Carlos assures me that’s not necessary. He told me to try to enjoy my weekend and we would talk again soon. It’s hard knowing that the rest of his family are still prisoners, but we won this battle, anyway.
I saw Carlos’ mother this afternoon. She’s staying in the apartment alone for now. I guess the teeth in the closet don’t bother her all that much. She says her favorite thing about being back is getting to use a real bathroom again. Sometimes it’s the simple things.