I gasped as I flew back into consciousness. The blood pressure cuff on my arm squeezed tightly and I could hear the alarm notifying the nurses that there had been a change in my vital signs.
“Hospital? …Why is everything so dark?”
I could feel something soft tied firmly around my head. As I tried to bring my hand up to my face, I was instantly hit with a shockwave of pain. “Is anybody there?”, I winced.
“Mr. Tarver, so glad to see you awake. I’m your nurse, Amy.” Her voice was kind. “My nurse? Ms. Amy what’s going on? What happened?”.
“We were hoping you could tell us. You were attacked at work Mr. Tarver. Samaritans found you unresponsive, hanging upside down in your harness. You have some broken ribs and severe lacerations”, she said. My mind became aware of the cuts on my body and they burned like fire.
“Why is my face wrapped?”, my voice cracked. I heard her sigh as she gently took my hand. “The doctor is very hopeful that you’ll regain partial vision in your right eye”, she said. “Partial vision…I don’t, I don’t understand. Whats wrong with my eye?”.
Thats when my ears caught the “tick, tick” of the IV pump as it pushed the droplets of whatever was in the bag down the line and into my arm.
My chest fluttered …“tick, tick”… The equipment beeped an alert as my heart rate increased. “Try to take a few deep breaths, Mr. Tarver”, Amy said. But all I could hear was the loud …“tick, TICK”…of the machine. “No, no, no, no, we have to leave, we need to leave”, I pleaded. I tried to ignore the pain and get up, but a new pair of hands held me fimly in place. “Keep breathing Mr. Tarver”, the nurse said as I heard her open something and click it to my IV line…“TicK, ticK”…I fought as hard as I could but the pain of my ribs was too much. The medicine took affect immediately. “We need to leave”, I repeated, quieter this time. My body stopped responding to my brain ordering it to run. “Please, please, don’t let it get me…” I begged. My heart rate slowed and I felt the cold of a stethoscope touch my chest. “You’re doing great Nathan.” I started to drift in and out of consciousness again.
“Can…can you please uncover my left eye? Please let me see something, anything”, I asked tearfully. She pulled the stethoscope back and softly squeezed my hand. “I’m so sorry, but your left eye was missing before you got to the hospital.”
•••••••••
My name is Nathan Tarver and I’m a window washer. For the last 2 years, I’ve repelled down the sides of multi level buildings, cleaning the glass, and trying to ignore what was on the other side. You can probably imagine some of the stuff I’ve seen. Extreme hoarders in apartments, infidelity in business offices, and so many exhibitionists. I think I even witnessed a satanic ritual once. (I try not to think about it) So when my coworker Tommy said we were cleaning a vacant building, I was happy to hear it.
Tommy was in his early 50’s, overweight and red faced from high blood pressure, with a really big nose. He was a pretty cool guy. He told good stories and was a great mentor. He gave me the rundown of the job during the ride over. He said someone had bought and renovated an old hotel and would be having the grand opening soon. Easy peasy.
Pulling up to the location though, I was kind of confused. It wasn’t in disrepair, the place seemed functional, but it definitely wasn’t recently renovated. The paint on the outer walls was faded, the cloth awnings over the doors were frayed, and the pool was green. Tommy looked at me and shrugged, “This is the address they gave me and they already paid. I guess let’s get set up.” I watched him roll out of the drivers seat and he grunted as he stood. “Kid, I’m glad you’re in the harness now. I don’t think my fatass could take it anymore”, he laughed, smacking his denim overall covered belly.
Tommy was my spotter. He’d sit on the roof and tend to my lanyards, making sure I didn’t twist them up some how. He’d also set up a manual crank, so on the off chance something happened, he could “rescue me”. I’ve told him multiple times not to worry about lugging that heavy winch around, but he always ignores me. I think he just likes feeling like he’s still protecting his rookie.
I watched him walk toward the entrance of the hotel with his arms full, undoubtedly going to find an elevator, when he stopped short in front of some bushes and bent down. I figured he’d found a penny on the ground. He intensely studied the shrubs. “Whatcha find Tom?”, I called over to him. “I don’t know Kid”, he shouted back. “Some kind of animal? Or it used to be, I think. It’s got grey fur. Maybe a cat or a raccoon? Its really hard to tell. It must have been hit with something. Its mouth is gone….and so are the ears”. He stood up, shivered, and then disappeared through the sliding doors. “It’s mouth is gone? That’s weird”, I thought.
Walking up to the front of the building, I scanned my eyes over the windows. 6 floors high and 5 rooms across. “Cool, “only 30 windows on this side”, I said to myself. As I went to find the exterior ladder that lead to the roof, a “tick, tick” caught my attention. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. It was the unmistakable “tick tick” of a fingernail tapping glass.
My gaze shifted up to the second story and I saw slight movement in one of the windows. The glare from the sun on the glass made it hard to see, but I thought I saw a silhouette. I shaded my eyes and moved to get a better look. Relieved, I saw the window was empty.
I topped the ladder and stepped onto the roof. Tommy had just popped open his shade canopy. “Gets hot sitting here on these roofs all day while you’re just swinging and playing around down there”, he said with a wink. I smiled at him and latched the safety lines to the D-ring on my back. I positioned myself on the ledge, preparing to descend, when Tommy clipped the hook of the winch to my back as well. “Thought you were guna get away without it didn’t you?”, he said, slapping me hard on the shoulder.
“This is going to take me longer than I thought, the build up on these windows is insane”, I hollered up to Tommy. “Wish we got paid by the hour then”, he shouted down.
I robotically moved from window to window, falling into my groove. Before I knew it, I’d knocked out all of the top 5 windows and was feeling good. I was taking a look at my finished work on the bottom window of the 1st column, when I heard, “tick, tick” loudly right beside me. My heart jumped into my throat. I jerked my head to the right and looked at the window next to me. The curtain wafted gently, but nothing was there. Shaking my head, I began pulling myself up to start on the 2nd column.
I peaked my head over the wall to see Tommy hard at work snoring loudly under his shady umbrella. Laughing quietly, I descended and got back to work.
I had only cleaned 2 windows when I heard the “tick, tick” again. This time, I pretended not to notice and kept cleaning. The sound repeated insistently every few minutes. It sounded like it was moving around from window to window, begging for my attention. By the bottom of the 3rd column, I could almost ignore it completely. I was in the zone, but my muscles were really feeling the burn now.
But on the last window, I froze. I heard it again, but this time it went, “tick, tick…tick”.
I took a deep breath and slowly turned my head to look at the window next to me. There it stood. It’s spindly arms and legs looked too weak to hold it up and I noticed that its knees bent backwards, like a bird’s. A bloated stomach poked out from beneath a rib cage that seemed too small for its body. It’s translucent grey face had no eyes or nose, just very smooth craters where they should be. But the mouth…it stretched all the way across and was full of pointed teeth. Its upper lip split in the middle in a strange feline way and was outlined with mangey tufts of grey fur. It tilted its head and I noticed two pointy ears, covered in the same fur, crudely stuck to the skin on the top of its head. It smiled as it’s long taloned fingers tapped the pane again, “tick, tick, tick.
It ran its tongue across the tip of the razor sharp teeth in its mouth. “Tom..Tommy”, I tried to scream, but my voice was a whisper. The thing straightend it’s head and looked up towards the roof, then back at me. With a sick grin on its face, it very slowly licked the window before running out of the room. “TOMMY!!!” I yelled as loudly as I could. “TOMMY ITS COMING!!!!”. I started pulling myself up as fast as I could, but my arms were shot. I begged the adrenaline to get me up to my friend. “TOM!!! WAKE UP!!!”. But it was too late. I heard Tommy scream, followed by a squelching sound. I slammed my eyes shut as I saw his body get thrown from the roof. Tears poured from my eyes as I looked down at my friend. “TOMMY!!!”
Suddenly, I heard “tick, tick” right in front of me. I turned to see it standing in the window. It’s body pressed flat against the glass. Tommy’s nose replaced the smooth crater that I had seen earlier. I screamed as the blood ran down its face and onto its teeth. It took its sharp talon and traced circles on the glass, perfectly in line with my eyes and smiled. Before I could react, it pushed its claws into the window like pick axes, shattering the glass. The shards flew out at me and cut through my clothes, tearing across the front of my body
Frantically trying to shake the glass fron my vision, it grabbed my head in its razor fingers and began pulling at my eye. The pain was indescribable. I helplessly dangled and kicked in my harness. I gripped its talons and tried to pull its hands off of my head, but it was no use. My hand found a shard of glass and I stabbed blindly at its arms and hands. The glass made contact, but it was too late. I heard a rip, followed by a loud pop. The pain was searing and I blacked out
I woke up seconds later, feeling my body being pulled upward toward the roof. It was using the crank to get to me, it was playing with me! I thrashed to reach the winch hook on my back. My hands were slick with blood and kept slipping off of the carabiner. Fighting hard, I got it unhooked. The slack in my lanyard caused me to freefall and I felt my ribs break as the line jerked tight and slammed me into the wall. I looked up to see it peeking its head over the edge. My own eye looked back at me. It grabbed the lanyards and started pulling me upwards again, its hands wrapped in the lines. I reached into my bag and grabbed the razor blade I use to scrape the windows. Swiftly, I cut one of my safety lines. I watched the line tangle around its wrist, and as my body weight pulled it tight, I heard a sickening “POP”. Through the blood, I looked up and could see its hand was gone. It let out a deafening scream and disappeared from the ledge.
••••••••••••
It’s been a little over a month and I can see light and shadows again. Its all still blurry but I think its getting better everyday. It’s been so long since I’ve seen myself, I feel like Im looking at a stranger from what little bit I can see in the mirror. I’ve had to stay out of the sun as much as possible for my eye to heal. I used to be really tanned from cleaning windows in the sun all day, but I’ve lost all of my color. Depression has really gotten to me too since the incident. I havent been able to eat much. You can almost see my ribs.
I returned to the hospital today to be fitted with my new prosthetic eye. It’s bitter sweet. I’m happy to feel somewhat normal again, but the acrylic eye will just be a constant reminder of what happened. Not to mention, I can’t get the hang of it. I keep dropping it. Its small and the acrylic is so smooth, it just slips out of my fingers. It doesnt help that I can’t cut my nails anymore. They’re getting really long, but I can’t see well enough to not hurt myself with the clippers.
Aside from all of that, because the eye isn’t completely round, I never know where it’s going to fly when I drop it. “Dammit, not again.” On my hands and knees, I lightly pat the floor, when I hear…“tick, tick”. I freeze and listen, as the tears begin welling up in my good eye. But the sound doesn’t return. I slowly start searching again and the “tick, tick” picks back up! I frantically start patting quicker and the “tick, tick” is getting faster. It sounds so close, like it’s in the room with me!
“I don’t need it. I don’t need it. I have to get out of here. I can find a new eye. I can’t let it get me. Yea, I’ll find another blue one just like the one that thing took from me. I’ll get another eye somewhere else. Nurse Amy has blonde hair, maybe her eyes are blue…”