If I were to tell you I’m a big fan of tea, I’m sure you’d have a very specific image of me. And I wouldn’t blame you, the vast majority of the time if the first thing someone tells you about themselves is tea related, they are going to be a little, too, into tea.
Me though, I don’t know, I’m not a “tea guy”, I just prefer the atmosphere of a tea house to a coffee shop. And for reasons I don’t really want to discuss, I spend a lot of my time in places made for quick meals.
Rick, by the way.
Another city, another sunset behind another small town skyline, another bad taste in my mouth from another job. The monotony only broken up by stops like this.
The place has character, especially for Who-Gives-A-Shit Michigan. Tasteful rose paint and dark oak trim makes the tea house look like a rustic cottage. The windows are tinted and the interior, warmly lit.
I find myself a booth, and take a seat on an overstuffed leather cushion. The table is immaculate, and the smell of fresh baked goods is thick enough it drowns out the lingering scent of gasoline and smoke from my nostrils.
I predict beautiful tea and ugly prices, and when I’m brought a menu, I’m not disappointed. The waitress seemed to linger for a moment, expectant. I assume the place has a small circle of regulars, and pay it no mind.
If I was a “Tea guy” I’d bore the hell out of you with a rant about the selection. But thankfully for you folks, I’m not the type to overshare. Bad for business.
For those of you in the know though, just a beautiful selection of northern England’s finest, with a few blends I’ve never heard of from Holland.
I decide to throw caution to the wind and order one of the Dutch blends with the vowel ridden names, and a watercress sandwich.
Coffee is black sludge to keep you going, tea is an experience. The dark, fragrant blend I’m brought brings to mind memories of early childhood mornings. Funny how smell works.
I take my time, the brews and baked goods clearing my mind, letting me relax and focus on the next leg of my journey.
But as caffeine tends to do, eventually nature called.
The bathroom would have been at home in any grandmother’s house. Soft pastel colors, clean white porcelain, and limitless knick knacks, sprays, and magazines.
I turn off the polished brass faucet, and turn to leave, I know something is wrong the second my hand touches the knob. No give at all, my suspicions are confirmed as I try to turn it, it doesn’t move a centimeter.
I chuckle, I can’t think of the last time a door was much of an issue for me.
The knob wasn’t any model I’ve seen before, and the more I look the more I don’t like what I see.
“Fuck me” I mumble, looking for a set of hinges. I find none.
I slam on the door, screaming, as obvious as the situation is becoming it makes no sense.
After fifteen minutes of kicking and screaming that should have alerted every hipster and old lady in the place, there isn’t so much a knock from the other side of the door.
“Soundproof, awesome. “ I say, inspecting the lavatory.
Air duct, under a decorative cover is grated, the grate welded to a plate in the ceiling. Any object of size is cleverly affixed to the floor with hidden bolts or welds, the small lamps are hardwired into the wall, which is industrial cement under it’s flower printed wallpaper.
This place was made to keep people.
What, is obvious, why is immediately eating away at me.
There are dozens of reasons someone may want me to be in this kind of a situation. But this place wasn’t just made, and even if it was, no one is going to build a covert prison cell, on the off chance I wandered in. That’s comic book shit. They’d send some tweaker with a pawn shop pistol.
The prospect that this is just something I stumbled into, doesn’t provide me much comfort. I’ve been around the block a few times, but something like this, it’s well out of my wheelhouse.
After a couple of hours I notice the silence, the pure, uncanny lack of noise. The place was nearly full when I came in, tea house or no, I should be hearing the sounds of commerce outside.
If you are reading this, you’re likely the kind of person that doesn’t have to ditch your phone much, and probably asking why I wasn’t calling 911. Unfortunately my life has lead me down a different path, and I find myself unfortunately between phones. Thankfully I’ve always been partial to a wristwatch, so I at least can mark the passage of time.
I assume I’m being recorded, and spend the first twenty four hours talking to whoever may be listening. Dropping names, making offers, anything I can do to get some kind of response.
Nothing.
Fear and panic begin to set in on the second day, hunger starts to tear at my stomach, and a sense of powerlessness and isolation sets in.
By day three my body is cramped and aching, my sleep coming on a hard cement floor disguised as tile. My brain is fogged from lack of food and proper rest, my mouth tastes of the gritty tap water, and I realise, no one is going to be looking for me.
Had this been before a job, I could be guaranteed the client would come searching, looking to take their payment out of my ass. And with the types of folks that employ me, it’d likely have been within hours.
But as is, a private person such as myself, has no deus ex machina on it’s way.
Day three teaches me something about mints.
The stale, clumped bowl sat on a small shelf at the bottom of the over-the-john cabinet. A thin layer of dust coated them, making me assume they were some form of decorative soap, instead of ancient, likely turned pastel mints.
I was desperate enough to eat them, figuring any calories would be better than none.
Friends of mine in prison could have told me this was a bad idea. Toothpaste ulcers are a known thing. See, mint, especially cheap menthol based flavoring on an empty, let alone malnourished stomach is just about the worst thing you can do.
I enter day four puking blood and yellow bile.
I wipe my mouth and stop dead on my trip to the low pressure faucet to wash out my mouth.
Those mints, the same ones that had burned through the remnants of my stomach lining, undisturbed layer of dust and all, were back.
This was impossible, at no point was I asleep, or anywhere more than a foot or two away from the bowl.
I close my eyes, shake my head and wash out my mouth, putting this bit of information on the back burner for now.
Day 4, as I feel my tartar coated teeth start to ache, I realise I need to make a plan. I start this by going over every inch of the bathroom again, trying to find any flaw, or object I can use to make an escape. I keep my focus thinking of the long conversation I’m going to have with whoever put me in this shitty saw knock off.
I peel back every bit of wallpaper I can, I rummage through every cabinet, I claw and pry every surface where it is even a remote possibility.
By the time I nearly collapse, my rapidly thinning form soaked in sweat, I’ve found something. But the objects in question just confuse me further.
A 1930’s style straight razor, yellowed pearl handle, a magazine from around the same time written in a Cyrillic language I can’t even begin to guess at, a rusted old fountain pen, And a worn leather bound journal.
What made these things stand out were small numbers, hidden on each. The razor, had a 1 etched into the back end of the blade, hidden by the handle, the magazine was issue #2, the fountain pen had a year embossed on it’s oxidized surface, the only legible number being 3, and within a swirling, looping pattern burned into the leather of the journal, a 4 could be made out.
My mind quickly concocts a scenario, some idiot obsessed with escape rooms maybe, I’m sure there is some obtuse way I’m intended to use these things to get myself out.
That being said, I’m not the guy you want to piss off and give a razor to. At first I latch onto this vicious truth as a torch against the dismal fatality of my situation, but then I begin to think about the mints.
Someone had to replace them, that means someone has to come in. I turn the blade in my hand, fear and anger turning my brain into a derailed train of revenge and uncertainty.
I dump the mints into the toilet and flush, their long since expired colors running the instant they touch the water, blending together and turning it an unhealthy brown. A few hours later I feign sleep, my breathing low and shallow, waiting to hear that first footstep.
I’m hurting, no where near full strength, but I almost pity whatever unlucky bastard walks through that door.
I don’t hear the click of the doorknob, or the first footstep, but I feel a cold gust of air blow into the bathroom. It’s strangely stale and dry.
But I’m up in a flash, malnourished muscles screaming in protest, threatening to pull and cramp.
He’s a big guy, 230 at least, short, but with a workers build to him. He’s standing between the door and the bathroom counter, I’d prefer to just run, but there is no way I’m getting out there without going through him.
His brown suit is old, and his long greying hair is greasy and matted, , I grin as I grab his shoulder and spin him toward me.
I slam the man up against the cement wall, a death grip on his oily feeling suit, the razor is under his chin, but as I see his face I freeze.
It’s a twisted, sunken, fun house mirror mockery of the human form. A leering, joweled, pig eyed abomination. It stares at me, the hatred in those tiny orbs chills me to the bone.
But I’ve been scared before, this guy can be a sideshow freak all he wants, he’s still going to bleed.
I swipe the razor in an arc that should have left him clutching his ruined neck on the tile floor, but the blade passes through the man’s body as if it were made of smoke.
The laugh, it sounded like a chorus of dying rabbits, like human screams drawn from memory.
I’m tossed like a toy into the far wall, I see out the door for the first time in days, and what is out there, it isn’t the tea room, it looks more like a bedroom.
The thing looms at the far end of the tiny room, with every passing second shadows deepen, the air seems to take on a weight, and this creature, this ghost like thing seems taller, more imposing.
My heart is pumping too fast, I begin to see black spots along the edge of my vision, my nutrient devoid blood doing it’s best to keep me going.
It’s rictus grin stretches, the spectre retrieves the razor from the floor, looking longingly at it.
I try to push past the fear, get to my feet, maybe make a run to the door, but there is a burst of pain in my chest, broken ribs, for sure. The pain and shock makes me fall flat on my face, I try desperately to get up but I can’t manage to do it.
I feel grateful as the darkness overtakes my vision knowing whatever this man, or thing, has planned for me, it’s better I don’t see it coming.
I wake up to a headache brought on by hunger and dehydration, the bathroom is immaculate again, but the lights are lower, and there is a weight, a palpable sense of wrong in the air.
Then I hear it
“I can’t… “ it’s a thin voice, female, young, she says more but no matter how hard I listen to the sourceless voice “I can’t” is all I can make out.
It repeats at erratic intervals, seeming to come from random points in the room.
I drink, but the tepid water sits like a rock in my stomach, and as I watch the thin trickle in the dim light, I notice it’s color is off, slightly rust tinted.
I attempt to use the toilet, and find it no longer flushes. My grin laugh seems to echo in the tiny chamber.
I have a hard time accepting something I’m sure you guys understood a few minutes ago. I try any way I can to convince myself this is all smoke and mirrors, but the weight of being in the middle of some kind of supernatural cluster fuck smothers me.
I search the bathroom again, everything seems to be a little more worn, but everything seems the same, with the exception of the razor being missing.
I hear a scratching inside of the sink cabinet, small and quick, like something wants to get out.
I gag, hot, acidic bile fills my mouth, as I try and wash it out, I see a small black, almost insect like claw protruding from the faucet. It bends upwards, tapping along the brass, extending itself about six inches before retracting inward.
I decide I’d rather taste puke.
I know I can’t have much time left, every movement sends bolts of pain through me, and if I don’t get these ribs patched up there is a real chance of a punctured lung. Not to mention the fact that I’m going on nearly a week without food.
If this is all random chaos, I’m screwed either way, but I try to press on with the only clue I have.
I begin to flip through the magazine, trying to find any scrap of text I can read, I’d done this a dozen times already the day before, but I need something to keep my mind off the horrors that seem to be waiting just beyond every crevice and shadow in this place.
Then I see it, something that wasn’t there yesterday, an article in plain english ‘ Poltergeist and sacrifice’ by a woman named Laura Set.
“… Poltergeist activity is often misconstrued as being caused by a particularly vengeful or evil spirit.
While there are some similarities to a haunting, Poltergeist activity has a differing source, and therefore a different method of appeasement.
Most often a Poltergeist manifestation is caused, not by an individual spirit, but by the combined spiritual weight of an event. A true case of the total being greater than the sum of it’s parts.
The negative energy, individual souls, and history of the location, through as of yet unknown means, combine to create something more akin to a minor God than a powerful spirit.
And as such, traditional methods of removal such as those offered by various religious and mystic organizations are ineffective.
The only true way to keep manifestation at bay, is via a complicated form of sacrifice, often recreating key parts of the event that triggered the manifestation.
Sacrifices can run the gamut from trivial to lethal, but as seen, repercussions of an unchecked manifestation will seldom not be worth the cost… ”
There was more to the article, but as I finished it, the lights began to flicker and dim, and the magazine began to crumble in my hands.
“I can’t eat… “ I hear the voice clearer now, I still can’t make out all of what she is saying, but she sounds, closer.
The room is no longer silent, the scratching and tapping from the sink is more rapid, more purposeful, I can hear faint music outside of the room, an old phonograph I think. The hellish orange strobe of the lights turns shadows into looming creatures.
I can’t tell what’s starvation induced hallucination and what’s some kind of force I’ll never understand. I’m rattled, and unhinged, I scream at the girl to shut up, but of course she doesn’t listen.
I think about praying, but me and the guy upstairs haven’t been on good terms in a long time. I see movement on the ceiling, I feel the humidity rise , and get the sense of something unstoppable starting to gain steam.
My mind wants to think of nothing but the things in the shadows, I feel something thin and rubbery caress my cheek in a moment of darkness and force myself to think about the pen.
In a eureka moment I try to jam the nib into my arm, but it passes through, mockingly. But in the flashes of orange light, I see something.
The corner of the counter is cracked and rotten now, caked with rust colored half congealed blood. Jagged splinters stick out like grasping fingers and I laugh a sick chortle as I realise what I have to do.
I slam my forearm into the serrated corner, screaming in pain, the sound an echo of my fraying sanity. The wood and steel tear a massive piece out of me, my starvation thinned flesh splitting like an overripe pear.
And for a moment, I see it. Just a flash.
A trapped little girl, an evil old man. Long before they became gears in this horror producing machine.
When I snap out of it, the room is dark, the sounds of formless things all around me, for a brief second or two one of the lights produces a dim glow before going out.
My left hand isn’t working, must have hit a tendon or nerve, I uncap the pen with my teeth, holding it under the torn limb. The blood seems to give the pen weight well beyond its few millilitres.
“I can’t eat, I need… “ the girl says, her voice seems right next to me now.
In another dim flash of a dying blub I see a twisted mass of clicking tendrils scraping my blood and flesh, greedily from the counter. I hear laughter, real, and followed with hot, reeking breath, I turn to see a leering, faceless grin, illuminated and formed out of the wall.
The room feels more claustrophobic by the second, the things I can see in the sparse, dull, orange flashes of light seem to focus on me.
Tendrils, like heavy smoke begin to wind around my leg, a hand, massive and not quite human grasps my shoulder, I feel swarmed by things I can neither fathom nor see.
I steady my breathing, and wait, I know I’ll have to write something, but what?
The dull orange glow, like a dying candle gives the barest of light. I flip through the journal, seeing nothing but blank pages. I clench the pen in my teeth hard enough to crack one of my molars.
The glow dies, and my heart sinks, but as I flip a page, I feel something. Some indent.
The hand pushes down on my shoulder as the tendrils begin pulling me toward the sink. I have no strength to fight, it’s taking everything in me to keep conscious.
I see the cavern of pitch black I’m being dragged toward as the light pulses, the glow barely able to pierce the gloom. This place has turned into a senseless hellscape, but I see it.
I can trace the outline with my hand, as if someone has pressed too hard with a pen, see the indented words and begin to trace over them with the pen.
“I’m sorry”
I have to roll over my damaged arm, tearing out a page and slipping it under the door. Something inside the limb snaps and I feel a deep pain shoot up to my elbow.
For a moment, I’m sure I guessed wrong, my foot inches from the onyx fanged Maw the sink cabinet has became.
But then then din of the hellscape switches off, I no longer feel the unholy press of whatever unnatural things were slipping from the cracks in reality.
I’m standing in a void, still, calm as death. In every direction but one, is nothing but endless nothing.
The bathroom mirror floats, fixed in space, I feel myself drawn to it, in awe of it.
I see the girl for the second time, and I am overwhelmed with sadness.
She’s a flickering, pale thing, her body is broken, the victim of the kind of violence the worst person I know wouldn’t even think about.
“ I can’t eat, I need… “ I hear, the voice is soft this time, almost sweet.
Of all the wounds on the girl, the one that stands out the most is her destroyed wreck of a mouth. I feel mad for her, despite my situation.
I hear her crying now, and the situation starts to come together. The starvation, the entrapment, the torture, they fit together like the combination to a safe.
I see the forms of dozens of people to either side of her as she closes the distance. She’s right in front of me now.
When I finally hear her clearly, it sounds, different. Like I’m hearing a recording of an event.
“I can’t eat, I need teeth. “ I hear as her dead eyes hold me in a trance.
She raises one hand, the cold, dead flesh gently resting on my cheek.
It passes through the cheek harmlessly, but as it makes contact with my teeth I feel the worst pain I have experienced. A pain so severe, as to overshadow the mind fuck itself. A pain I wake up most nights in a cold sweat about to this day.
She scoops them out like gutting a pumpkin, I can’t beg, or pull away, I can’t even scream, even as each inch of movement has me internally begging for death.
There isn’t any blood, in fact, if I didn’t know any better, I wouldn’t even know I ever had teeth. But as the apparition stages at them, greedily, that’s cold comfort.
The girl walks away, and after a few paces, reality comes crashing back down around me.
I’m on my side, my arm has stopped bleeding, but the flesh looks like melted way, fused and bubbled. As the door opens, I have enough strength to stand, but I’m not sure how long it’ll last.
There’s a half dozen people outside of the door, in front of me is a well kept man in his 50’s, in what looks to be his Sunday best.
“Thank you. “ he says, handing me a comically small towel, for the amount of filth and blood I’m covered in.
I can do nothing more than glare at the group as I leave, holding onto the wall for support.
I got out of that town and went dark for a while, mostly getting used to the lifestyle changes a week or so of malnutrition and torture caused. But that brings me to why I decided to, pun intended, spill the tea here.
I’ve got a question.
Do I keep myself hidden? Take this as a win, and never look back? Or, do I maybe try and get a little, non divine retribution?
Don’t know how possible that would be, but I guess that’s where you all come in. Let me know what you think.