“Adam just take the blankets off your bed and wash them, your room smells like a foot.” I leaned against the door frame and stared at my brother who was playing Xbox at his desk, trying to ignore me. I threw my hands up. “Fine whatever. You can be disgusting if you want to.”
I closed the door, walking back into the livingroom. Being the oldest sucked i was 17 and he was 15, he never listened to me. Mom was cleaning the bookshelf and glanced over at me, a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, “His friends are going to stop coming over, no one wants to hang out in a shoe.” The rag in her hand swiped back and forth and she stopped to shake dust bunny off her arm.
“He’s making the whole house stink, it’s not just his blankets, the house smells rotten!” It had been months of this, I had even sneaked in to his room to try to figure out what the smell was and I couldn’t, he was nasty and it was seeping everywhere.
“I know, it’s driving me insane too, Samantha, I don’t know what to do with your brother sometimes.” She looked up at the top of the shelf with a grimace and snagged a little ceramic cat and handed it to me so she could dust where it had been. As she looked back up, her eyes scanned the wall and she froze.
“Mom? Whats-“ I couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out as she dropped the rag and her hand blindly snagged my forearm, a signal to be silent I recognized from some ancient part of my brain, the part that survived thousands of years of evolution.
Her eyes were locked on a square vent on the wall, the one that had the big grate you could see into. Her hand was a vice and I felt my heart slam in my chest. I leaned over to look past her and felt a scream start to build where my lungs used to be.
A man was looking back at me with wild eyes from the back of the vent. He was balding and in his 50’s, and his eyes were almost bulging out of his face his skin was so sunken. I felt my own skin start to crawl as I realized there was discarded food and wrappers in the vent, and my brain flew around my skull to put the pieces together without me.
I backed away slowly and my mom let go of my arm and didn’t move, her eyes on the intruder. I moved out of sight and slid my phone out of my pocket, tapping in 911. With a beep my screen went black. A little battery flashed on the screen and I felt panic start to set in. Adam.
I moved quickly down the hall, looking back at mom, who I could still see was staring at the vent, locked into a staring contest with the man. I quickly shoved Adam’s door open and looked up at the ceiling. The light there was huge, one of those 3x4 lights that should be in a kitchen, but wasn’t. The back was missing. How had I not noticed? The light wasn’t bouncing off of a white back, it was just disappearing into the attic above it.
Adam spun on me, “Would you just get out I will wash my blankets in a minute but I keep telling you the smell isn’t me..” He took his headphones off as he saw my face and I put a finger to my lips. “What’s going on?”
I gave a stern shake to my finger and looked back at the light and Adam stood up. I heard it then, a heavy thud and scrape as the man moved through the ceiling. Mom quietly ran through the hall toward us and as she did, I could see his silhouette above the frosted glass of the light, leaning down until his eyes came into focus.
I don’t remember how he did it but I do know I’ve never seen anyone move like that. Like a spider but faster. He told us he knew we needed a daddy. Sometimes he comes in and tells us about his last family. It’s been a few weeks now, and when I look at Adam, he’s not moving anymore. Mom stopped moving a few days ago. I’m so hungry but I can’t get loose. I’ve tried. I’m tired of trying.