All of this happened because I wanted to impress my girlfriend’s older brother. I knew that the reservations were last minute, that I should’ve planned things better–but it was a busy week, okay? My workdays flowed by slow and thick as molasses; the last thing I felt like doing when I got home was to scroll through online rentals.
Besides, the place looked fine. I could feel Lara and her brother Enrique’s eyes on me, impatient and judgmental, as I did a cursory click through. Stucco walls, badly painted; big airy rooms full of outdated furniture; gravel and cactuses in the “garden.”
It wasn’t exactly hip, but it was walking distance from the beach, and the price was reasonable. In fact, I was downright lucky to find anything this late in the game. Spring break was about to start and the only other options left were either literal roach motels or elite resorts where a month’s salary couldn’t buy a single night.
Lara sighed, and I booked the place.
Later, in the bathroom, I realized I rushed so much that I hadn’t even checked the guest reviews. Suddenly worried, I went back to my booking app and scanned them for any red flags: this was going to be my first vacation with my girlfriend Lara, her brother Enrique, and Enrique’s wife Sol. I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I breathed a sigh of relief: all 5- and 4-star reviews. In fact, there was only a single 1-star review, and it was only a single word:
“Sticky,” it read. I had no idea what that meant, but it was a pretty old comment–whatever had been ‘sticky’ was probably fixed or cleaned up by now. I hoped. Enrique was a chef and he hated dirty kitchens, and Sol had a phobia of cockroaches…
I told myself to quit worrying. Even the most perfect place was bound to have one bad review, right?
A six-hour drive after work brought us to the coast. It was twilight already, and the place wasn’t exactly easy to find. In fact, the property owner included directions from the highway, since most GPS systems seemed to get it wrong. It was a good thing that they did, too: all of those resort-town streets started to look the same after awhile, and my phone couldn’t find the address.
Fortunately, with the anonymous owner’s directions in hand, I could still pretend that everything was under control. We arrived on time and I realized that despite a tense start, we’d all gotten along pretty well–especially considering a long car ride and flaky air-conditioning. It made me look at Lara and Enrique in a different way. This could be my family one day, I thought, and I was surprised by how comfortable I felt with the idea.
Even so, I made a point of going into our rental house before the others. That way I figured I could fix or at least cover up anything that looked particularly ugly.
I needn’t have worried. The place looked just like the pictures…looking back, maybe that should’ve been the first warning that something was wrong. Even the most honest owners used ‘the angles’ and touched-up photos to make their property stand out. But here, from the ugly orange curtains to the unfinished walls and the dead flowers in their terracotta vase, everything was exactly the same.
Noise from the kitchen made me forget my worries. Enrique was already there, slicing cucumbers and tomatoes for a late dinner. “I can’t believe you found a place this big on such short notice!”
Lara squeezed my hand and led me to the bedroom she’d chosen for us. It was far from Enrique and Sol’s, which I appreciated for obvious reasons. I drummed my fingers nervously on the door, hoping that no one else would come down the hall to glimpse what my girlfriend was doing on the bed. As I did, I realized that there seemed to be a kind of (“sticky”) film, like a layer of something on the wood. Gross. I wiped my hands on my pants and closed the door.
“Dinner’s ready!” Enrique shouted about fifteen minutes later. Lara and I stumbled out of the room, fixing our buttons and trying to act like we’d been unpacking. “Has anyone seen Sol?”
I hadn’t. Last I’d seen, she’d been out with the luggage. I should’ve checked on her earlier, I realized, but it had been hard to get out of bed. And not just because of Lara, either. It was literally hard to push ourselves out of the mattress. It kept sagging, pulling us into itself…if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought it was holding on.
While Lara and Enrique set the table, I went out front to look for Sol. I found her on the front stoop staring out at the night, her back to me. She was looking at something across the street.
“Isn’t that odd?” she whispered without turning around. I saw what she meant right away.
The house on the other side of the street was a mirror image of this one. Less perfect, maybe, less like the photos–but still eerily similar. I wondered if they both had the same owner. I turned to go inside.
“Could you help me?” Sol grabbed my shoulder. “It’s embarrassing but…it’s like I stepped in glue or something. I can’t lift up my feet.” Sure enough, no amount of effort could pry Sol’s flip-flops from the concrete. Maybe she had stepped in glue. In the end, we just left them there–whatever it was, we’d handle it better after a meal and a rest.
In addition to tomato-cucumber-feta salad, there was curried chicken, wine, and sourdough bread from Enrique’s restaurant: the perfect finish to a long day. At least, it should have been. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that greasy film on the door. How–just for an instant–it seemed to have trapped my fingers. And the bed…the problem was, now I was feeling everywhere.
On the plates. The table. The wine glasses.
Even my bare feet. I quickly folded them under me and sat cross-legged on my stool.
What could it be? Some kind of disinfectant that wasn’t wiped off properly? The residue from a bug bomb or spilled oil? What? Lara kicked me under the table, and I realized Sol had asked me a question. Did I want more wine? Absolutely. If I got a good buzz going, maybe I could enjoy myself and forget about–
“Ey, cuidado!” Enrique laughed. “I’m cutting you off, lil sis!” He’d just caught Lara, who’d almost fallen when she stood up to use the bathroom.
“It’s not me!” she blushed “…that chair didn’t want to let go.”
So I wasn’t the only one. At least I knew I wasn’t going crazy. There was only one thing to do: tomorrow I’d wake up before the rest of them. I’d dig out some cleaning supplies from under the sink and give everything a good wipe-down–
“Hmm-mm.” Enrique grunted. “Hmph.” At first, I couldn’t tell what was wrong. Then I realized: Enrique’s forearm was stuck to the table. He was one of those men who leaned forward when he spoke, so he’d probably been sitting like that throughout the entire meal. “Uh? A little help? I don’t know what’s with this table…” As Enrique pulled at his sleeve, I realized that ´stuck´ wasn’t quite the right word: it was more like his arm had merged with the table somehow…and when he tugged at his sleeve…it was like tugging at his own skin. I moved to help him…and realized I couldn’t.
I was stuck to my chair. Sol let out a low moan.
“I can’t move my feet,” she whimpered. “Why can’t I move my feet?”
“Argh!” Enrique was cutting at his sleeve with his steak knife, trying to free himself…but the place where his arm and the table met was bleeding. If anything, he was more fused with it than when I’d last looked a few seconds before. Sol started hyperventilating…but that was nothing compared with the screams coming from the bathroom.
Lara.
“Help!” my girlfriend shrieked from somewhere down the hallway. “I can’t–HELP!” the screams went on and on. It was useless. The more we struggled, the more we merged with the house. “Help. Help,” Lara sobbed from the bathroom, “HELLLL–”
It was like the house had swallowed her up.
And it was doing the same to the rest of us.
Gore pooled on the table where Enrique continued to fight for his arm. The effort had drenched him with sweat. Even when I looked away, I could hear those sickening sawing sounds, a knife cutting through something that wasn’t quite wood and wasn’t quite flesh.
I can still hear them.
With a triumphant grunt Enrique peeled himself free–but only for a second. Since his shoes were still stuck in the tile, the motion unbalanced him. He sprawled backwards onto the floor. Squirming to keep his spine from touching the floor for too long, he fought with his laces–but they’d become just as sticky as the rest of the house.
In fact, I had a nasty feeling that even if he was able to yank off his shoe, it would be like yanking off his foot.
Everything in there had probably already fused into one disgusting union of polyester and flesh.
Sol and I were going through the same thing. I’d figured out that by rocking back and forth just a little bit I could slow the process, but that panicking seemed to speed it up. I fought to get my gasping breaths under control. Enrique was on his back, rolling from shoulder to shoulder while he tried to free his feet…but with each motion the floor stuck to his back a little more. Sticky strands–a gum-like blend of skin, fabric, and tile–appeared between his back and the ground, sucking him in…
Sol had been wearing a skirt, and it was easier for her to escape than for the rest of us. My stomach lurched each time she took a step and revealed the stretchy gunk trying to hold her feet on the floor.
It made each step more difficult than the last. I winced when she almost lost her balance; one look at Enrique–who by now was just a mouth and nose disappearing into the kitchen floor–was enough to know what that would mean for her. She hadn’t tried to help Enrique, or me, but I couldn’t hold that against her. Any person would think of themselves first in such an insane situation, and I wanted her to get away–
If only she hadn’t slammed into the door.
When Sol´s hand stuck to the knob, she finally lost her cool. The moment she slammed her shoulder into the door it was over for her: she was going to become part of the house like the rest of us.
Me? I’d accepted my fate the moment I saw what happened to Enrique. Because of how I was sitting my ankles were stuck together, fused with each other and with the stool.
The only way out would be sawing off my legs, and even then…
I’d still land on that sticky, hungry floor.
So here I sit, rocking methodically forward and backward, getting stuck just a little bit more each time. Delaying the inevitable. It’s taken me about two hours to type my story on mobile, and I still don’t have service but maybe–
Maybe this will slip through.
Of course, by then…
I’ll already be part of the hou–