The Mouth of the Dark Read online

  “Why don’t they do something?” Emory asks. She sounds equal parts frustrated and irritated.

  “They come from Africa,” Jayce says. “They’re used to the heat, and they know that standing still will help them conserve their strength and keep them from getting overheated.” He knows next to nothing about the animals, but this sounds like a reasonable explanation, and it seems to satisfy Emory. She shifts restlessly in his arms, and he knows she’s still frustrated, though.

  The zoo is not crowded today. Most people aren’t dumb enough to venture out into this heat. They’re sitting comfortably inside their air-conditioned houses, sipping glasses of ice water, and congratulating themselves on how smart they are. Right now, Jayce hates every one of them.

  Another family approaches the enclosure – a man, woman, and a boy a couple years older than Emory. Jayce doesn’t pay them much attention at first, but then Emory tugs on his T-shirt.

  “Daddy.…” She sounds frightened, and when she points to the family – who stand at the railing a dozen feet away – he turns to look at them.

  At first he doesn’t notice anything remarkable about them, certainly nothing to frighten a little girl. But then he realizes their features aren’t symmetrical. Their eyes don’t line up, their noses are bent and twisted, the nostrils different sizes, one ear is higher than the other, and their mouths droop at one corner. The longer he looks, the more odd details he notices, and he wonders how he could’ve ever mistaken them for normal. Their flesh sags on their bones, as if their skin has been designed for people that are grotesquely obese but has somehow ended up on people who are stick-thin.

  Jayce has a disturbing thought, then.

  It’s the heat. They’re melting.

  He turns to Mackenzie. She isn’t looking at the Incredible Melting Family, though. She’s looking at the giraffes without any particular interest. From her weary expression, he guesses she’s too busy trying not to think about how goddamned hot it is to pay attention to anything else.

  Jayce’s first thought is he’s crazy, but Emory sees the family too. Does that mean they’re both crazy? Maybe it’s a hallucination brought on by the heat. But if that’s the case, how can two people share the same hallucination? He decides to ask Emory what she sees when she looks at the family. Maybe they aren’t seeing the exact same thing. But before he can speak, a sudden flash of memory overtakes him. For a moment he’s thirteen again, sitting on a toilet in a bathroom stall, and looking at a pair of gray-tinged feet that belong to whatever stands on the other side of the door. The memory is so powerful that his legs buckle and his vision momentarily goes gray. He might fall to his knees, maybe even faint, but he has hold of his daughter, and he won’t allow himself to drop her. The weakness passes, his vision clears, and he grips Emory tighter to make sure he won’t lose his hold on her.

  How could he have ever forgotten the man – or thing – he saw in the restroom at the mall? How can anyone forget something like that? But he has, and he wonders if he’s forgotten any other bizarre experiences like that one. If he has, how would he ever know? But right then he doesn’t care how many other dark memories might be locked deep in the recesses of his mind. All he wants to do is get Emory the hell away from the Melting Family. Bad enough that he has some nasty memories lurking in his head – ones so bad that he’s evidently done all he can to forget them – but he wants to spare Emory from beginning a collection of her own.

  He speaks then, his voice shaky.

  “How about we go see the tigers, sweetie? They’ll be a lot more interesting than.…”

  He breaks off as a half dozen shapes emerge from behind the fake rocks. No, he realizes, from inside them. Each is a yard long, cylindrical and thick-bodied. They are snail-belly white and undulate like caterpillars, but they have no legs that Jayce can see. They have no eyes, either. The only features they possess are insect-like mandibles that protrude from their heads, black, slimy, and cruel-looking. More a weapon than a mouth, he thinks. He doesn’t have to ask Emory if she sees them too. She stares at the creatures, eyes wide, and despite the oppressive heat, he feels her shiver in his arms. He also doesn’t have to ask if Mackenzie sees them. He knows she doesn’t. The Melting Family does, though. The child squeals in glee, his voice gurgling as if his throat is clogged with phlegm. He claps his hands together, the saggy, loose flesh around them making a moist smacking sound. Jayce can’t be certain, given the way the family’s skin droops, but he has the impression that all three of them are grinning, or at least attempting to.

  The boy points. “Look, Daddy!” he says in his phlegmy voice. “Cankerworms!”

  Neither giraffe seems to notice the slug-things at first. The animals continue standing, motionless and unconcerned. The six creatures converge on the giraffe closest to them, picking up speed as they draw closer. The first creature to reach the giraffe begins undulating up the animal’s leg, and it is quickly followed by two others. The giraffe lets out a cry of alarm that sounds uncomfortably close to a human scream as the slug-things move swiftly up the legs and onto the central part of its body. The rest of the creatures mount the giraffe, and soon all six of them are clustered on the animal’s sides, belly, and back, covering it in a throbbing white mass. The giraffe rears onto its hind legs and whips its head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge the creatures, but without success. The second giraffe shows no sign of alarm at what’s happening to its companion, but it does move off, putting some distance between them, as if it is only partially aware of the attack on the other animal.

  Jayce expects the slug-things to begin biting into their victim’s hide, but what they do is far worse. Just as they emerged from the rock, passing through it as if it were no more substantial than mist, they enter the giraffe’s body without breaking the skin. The giraffe’s torso swells as the slug-things – cankerworms, the saggy-fleshed boy called them – fill it, and the animal screams in agony.

  Emory presses her face against his chest, eyes squeezed shut, tears running from them, soaking his already sweat-sodden shirt.

  “Make it stop, Daddy, make it stop!”

  All he can do is hold her tighter. Mackenzie continues looking at the enclosure, a listless expression on her face.

  How can she not see this? Jayce thinks. Fuck seeing. Why can’t she hear the giraffe scream?

  He expects the giraffe’s torso to explode like a boil so overfilled with pus that the skin can no longer contain it. But instead, the giraffe’s legs buckle and it falls onto its side. Its screams give way to weak bleating sounds, and then the animal’s neck, legs, and tail begin to shrink as they are pulled toward the swollen mass that’s the center of its body. The torso swells more as the legs and neck are pulled into it. The tail is the first to disappear into the mass, and the legs go next. The neck is longer, so it’s absorbed last. By this point the giraffe’s bleating has dwindled to quiet whimpers, which are silenced as the head is pulled into the bulging central mass. It’s like it’s drowning inside itself, Jayce thinks. All that remains of the giraffe is a swollen blob, white with brown spots. The colors begin to edge toward white as the mass shrinks, and then it’s gone, and only the cluster of cankerworms remains. They hold together for several more seconds before slowly detaching themselves from the group. Their bodies are thicker than before, evidence that they’ve fed and fed well. One by one, they begin undulating back toward the rock they emerged from, passing into it with the same ease with which they came. Within moments, the cankerworms are gone. Nothing is left of the giraffe they attacked. No scraps of flesh or pieces of hide. No fragments of bone or splashes of blood. It’s as if the animal never existed.

  The remaining giraffe walks slowly over to the spot where its companion was…devoured? Absorbed? Unmade? It lowers its head to the spot as if trying to pick up its companion’s scent. After a moment, it raises its head and walks off. Its movements are slow, ponderous, and Jayce wonders if it’s grievin
g the loss of its friend.

  The Incredible Melting Family applaud as if they’ve just witnessed a spectacular performance. They move off then, their sagging flaps of skin quivering. Jayce watches them go and wonders what animals they’ll visit next and what horrible things they might witness there. Emory is still crying, and Mackenzie comes over and puts her hand on top of their daughter’s head.

  “What’s wrong, sweetie? Are you sad the giraffe’s alone? Don’t worry. Maybe one day the zookeepers will bring in a friend to live with it.”

  * * *

  Jayce sat on the edge of his bed, shaking from the intensity of the memory he’d experienced, one so vivid it had almost been like reliving it. How the hell could he have ever forgotten something like that? Forgetting what you had for breakfast on Thursday last week, that was normal. But forgetting seeing a giraffe being absorbed by monstrous white worms that can crawl through solid objects? It seemed impossible. But he had forgotten it, just as he’d forgotten seeing the bare gray feet on the other side of the restroom stall. As awful as these memories were, maybe it wasn’t so surprising that he’d suppressed them. Given a choice, who would want to live with such nightmarish images scuttling around in their mind?

  One thing reliving this memory had taught him – Nicola was right. He did have ‘the Eye’. And he’d learned something else. Emory had it as well.

  He had one other thought, and this one was the worst of them all. What other memories might be hidden deep within his mind? It was a question he didn’t want to know the answer to, but he feared he was going to find out anyway, like it or not.

  Chapter Five

  Jayce pulled into the parking lot of Springhill Apartments at a quarter to five. He drove to the rental office and parked, but he didn’t get out of his car right away. He sat, hands still gripping the steering wheel, and stared at the OPEN sign in the office’s front window.

  The name Springhill conjured images of countryside. Trees with lush green leaves, rolling hills covered with grass and dotted with flowers. The name also implied quiet and tranquility, a place of peace and calm repose. The reality, however, was far different. The Springhill Apartments were a cramped cluster of shabby buildings located on the edge of the Cannery, only a few miles from the CrazyQwik where Emory had worked. Or at least, where she’d claimed to work. She’d once told Jayce that while Springhill didn’t look like much, the rent – while not cheap – was doable, and it was close enough for her to walk to work, which saved on gas. He hadn’t been comfortable with the idea of her walking alone in the Cannery, especially at night, but she was stubborn, just like her mom, and he hadn’t been able to convince her how dangerous it was, and now she was gone.

  You’re her father, Mother said. You should’ve tried harder to convince her, should’ve made her listen to you.

  He couldn’t argue with that, so rather than continuing to sit in his car and wallow in guilt, he got out and started toward the rental office. He wasn’t certain why he’d come back here. The manager he’d spoken to about Emory hadn’t been any help before. But he had to do something. He’d been going crazy sitting at home, and he hadn’t been able to take it anymore. He had six hours before he was supposed to meet Nicola, and he might as well do something useful with them.

  The short walkway that led to the office was cracked in numerous places, and it looked so old Jayce wouldn’t have been surprised if it had crumbled to dust beneath the weight of his footsteps. The rental office was a small building, almost a hut really, with a number of shingles missing from the roof, grime-streaked windows, and brick that looked soft and porous, like sandstone. Jayce imagined a strong rain would wash it away. It wasn’t just the physical characteristics of Springhill that created an impression of age, decay, and dissolution. The air was flat, stale, and lifeless, and when he breathed it, it felt as if it gave his lungs no nourishment. Jayce supposed there were more depressing places to live in town, but he had a hard time believing it.

  You should never have let her stay here. This is the kind of place where women get raped in every hole they have, filleted like fish, and tossed in a dumpster like last week’s trash.

  He ignored his mother’s voice, and when he reached the door, he took hold of the knob – the metal discolored with age – and turned it. At least he tried to, but the door was locked. He looked to the window in time to see someone inside turn the OPEN sign around to the CLOSED side. There were no posted hours of operation on the window or door, but it wasn’t five yet. Why were they closing early?

  They saw you coming, Mother said, and they don’t want to talk with you. They know something about Emory, and they want to keep it from you.

  Jayce tried to see who’d turned the sign, but the window was so dirty, all he could make out was a silhouette on the other side of the glass.

  He knocked on the door, waited, then knocked again. No one answered. He knocked again, this time pounding the door with his fist.

  “Hey!” he shouted. “I just want to talk to you for a couple minutes! It’s important!”

  No answer.

  Sudden anger welled within him, strong and overpowering, and he envisioned himself stepping back, placing a well-aimed kick next to the doorknob, and hearing wood splinter as the door gave beneath the impact. He’d never been a violent person before, and the intensity of the anger – coupled with the feeling of exhilaration that accompanied it – shocked him. He almost did it, though, actually took a step backward, fixed his gaze on the point where his foot would make contact with the wood, tensed his muscles in preparation.…

  But his anger drained away as suddenly as it had come, and he turned and walked back to his car.

  A real father would do whatever it took to find his daughter.

  He got in the car, turned on the engine, and backed out of the space.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to know what a father would do?” he said. “I never had one.”

  Valerie didn’t respond to that, and he felt more than a little satisfaction at having shut her up. Imaginary or not, her nagging wore him down, and he was glad to be rid of it, if only for now. He wasn’t planning on leaving, though. A remnant of the anger that had erupted inside him remained, and he used it to fuel his determination to do something, anything, that might lead him to his daughter. If the goddamned apartment manager wouldn’t talk to him, he’d go see what he could find out for himself.

  He didn’t understand the manager’s seeming reluctance to talk with him. The man had been a bit standoffish the last time they’d spoken, but he’d been cooperative enough. What had changed? Maybe nothing. Maybe it was simply that the man wanted to close a bit early today. Maybe he had something to do, errands to run, or even a hot date. Maybe he wasn’t feeling well or was just tired after a long day. Maybe. But Jayce couldn’t escape the feeling that something else was going on, something far less benign.

  He drove to the building where Emory’s apartment was, parked, and got out of his car. His head had started hurting again, and his injured hand throbbed, but he barely registered the pain. His vision swam in and out of focus too, but he ignored it. And a moment later, it stabilized.

  Maybe you should go back to the doctor, Mother said.

  “Maybe you should just shut the fuck up.”

  He stopped to regard Emory’s building. It was two stories tall and contained four separate units. It was in the same shape as the rental office: cracked walkways, grimy windows, shutters slightly askew, friable brick, missing roof tiles. The building itself was lopsided, listing several degrees to the left. The overall impression was that of a structure perpetually on the verge of collapse, and he’d never been comfortable with Emory living here. His sad little apartment was nothing to brag about, but at least it wasn’t a shithole like this place. A few weeks after Emory had moved in, he’d considered trying to urge her to switch to his complex, but he’d abandoned the idea. They’d barely been on speaking
terms then, and he hadn’t wanted her to think that he was trying to exert some kind of parental authority over her to which she felt he wasn’t entitled. But now he wished he had insisted she move, had offered to help pay her rent at a new place if she couldn’t afford it. If he had done these things, she might have accepted. And if she had, she might not have gone missing.

  He did his best to thrust such thoughts aside. He hadn’t come here to obsess over what he should’ve done. He’d come here to see what he could do now.

  He didn’t bother going to the building’s entrance. The door to Emory’s apartment would be locked, and he didn’t have a key. If that bastard manager had answered his knock, maybe he would have a key, but the fucker hadn’t, and that meant Jayce was going to have to get creative if he wanted to get into his daughter’s apartment.

  He started walking toward the back of the building.

  * * *

  Jayce didn’t look back as he headed for the rear of the building. If he had, he would’ve seen a red pickup pull up and park next to his car, he would’ve seen the plate OHIO PIG, and he would’ve seen the driver get out of his truck and follow him.

  * * *

  A narrow sidewalk ran behind the building, the concrete in even worse shape than the front. It had buckled in numerous places, and large chunks were missing, exposing the ground beneath. The soil was still wet from last night’s rain, and Jayce was careful to avoid stepping in it. If he intended to break into Emory’s apartment – and he did – he didn’t want to leave muddy footprints all over the carpet. A line of scraggly, near-leafless trees stretched behind the building, a piss-poor attempt at creating a privacy boundary between it and the next.