Monty's Apartment

The last place Monty had been seen was at his apartment, which made it the first stop in my investigation. I decided to bring Sara with me on this trip. While I usually dislike having clients look over my shoulder as I work, she was pulling double duty as a key witness, and I wanted to see what information I could draw out of her. She was enthusiastic about getting to leave the house, but I had to wonder how long that enthusiasm would last.

It turns out it lasted until she saw my car. Now, let me say from the start that I love my car. It has gotten me through many tough times. But I can’t deny that it is an ugly piece of junk. I think it was originally a Volkswagen, but so many parts and pieces have been replaced that now it’s more of a metal Frankenstein-esque abomination. Sara seemed to go into shock when she saw it. That shock was quickly replaced by disgust, which gave way to fear as it dawned on her she would have to ride in it. To her credit, she didn’t complain. She sucked it up and sat in the passenger seat like a good girl.

Three hours later, we were in Chicago, parked on the street in front of the apartment. Another lousy, grey, and cold day, which didn’t do any favors to the look of the old buildings around us. I didn’t remember any of the trip, but I was expecting that. For Sara it came as a surprise. The only thing that stopped her from jumping out of the seat was her seatbelt.

“What just happened?” She said with a panicked squeak.

“We drove to Chicago.” I calmly replied. I pointed at the apartment in front of us. “That’s the place Monty lived?”

“But, but, how did we get here?” Her voice rose higher as she stammered with confusion.

“I’m guessing we drove here.” I kept my voice level as I spoke to Sara. “But we can’t remember any of the trip. It’s how the house protects its location; anyone who visits it forgets its location once they leave.”

“You mean I just forgot the whole trip? It’s just gone? I just lost…” She quickly glanced at the car’s clock, “three hours of my life?”

“Check inside the glove box.” I said.

She was skeptical, but looked inside anyways. Among the mess of trash that had accumulated in there over the years was a slim black notebook. Without any prompting from me, Sara opened it up and began flipping through the pages.

“This is… a journal of the drive here?” She said.

I nodded. “I probably told you to start writing stuff down once we got on the road. This is why you need to keep a record of everything.”

It was obvious that Sara wanted to keep studying that notebook, but we had things to do. She could read back at the house. Monty’s apartment complex was an old, ugly, and brown thing. With the weather as cold as it was, no one was outside. If it weren’t for the lights behind a few closed blinds, you could think the whole place was abandoned.

I didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary outside in the cold, and dashed from the car to the apartment. Sara took her time walking; I guess living here builds up a natural immunity to frostbite. She also didn’t seem to mind the decrepit condition of the building, but I guess being a college student builds up a natural immunity to being bothered by cockroaches. Once she joined me by Monty’s unit, she tried unlocking the door.

“Key doesn’t work?” I asked when I saw the surprise on her face as she worked the lock.

“No, it’s… it’s already unlocked.”

Red warning flags shot up in my head, and I gently nudged Sara away from the door. With a steady caution, I turned the handle and looked inside.

“Your boyfriend not really the cleaning type?” I dryly said after looking at the room. I don’t think Sara heard me. The moment she’d seen what was on the other side of the door, her jaw dropped.

It was a small apartment, with one room taking on the jobs of living room, kitchen, and dining room. Even in the best of times the mishmash of furniture and deteriorating wallpaper wouldn’t have looked appealing. This was not the best of times. Someone had gone through the room and methodically trashed every inch of it. I’ve seen my fair share of ransacked rooms, and this one was up there among the worst. Someone had really set their mind to wrecking this place in every way they could imagine. They’d even torn a couch in two, which must have been impressive to see.

All this passed through the back of my head while I focused on the most urgent issue: was the culprit still here? Apart from the steady rhythm of the faucet dripping into a half-filled sink, there was no sound. And the food that had been thrown from the fridge had started to rot, meaning the attack hadn’t happened today. Unless this was an extremely patient vandal, they had probably left.

“Why would someone do this?” Sara quietly said as we closed the door behind us.

“Part of a cover up. Creating a big mess makes it harder to find evidence of what they actually were doing, especially if they stole something. We wouldn’t be able to tell what’s missing.” I said.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s too deliberate for blind destruction.” I told Sara, a little annoyed at her questioning my expertise. “If they were just smashing stuff, they’d only have thrown open the fridge and dumped everything out. They wouldn’t open each individual TV dinner and scatter their contents all over the room. This was thought through.”

Sara looked around, taking in that information. “If this was a cover up, what were they trying to hide?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.” I said. “No cover up is perfect. It’s human nature to make mistakes.”

I’d said that with confidence, but as I picked through the shattered glass and torn furniture, that assurance wavered. There was too much to piece through, and I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to find. “Was Monty’s family well off?” I asked Sara.

The question caught her off guard. “What? I mean… well… why do you ask?”

“The furniture in here. If you look beyond the mess, it’s very nice. Much nicer than I’d expect to find in a place like this. And it’s all fairly new, so I doubt he bought it at a thrift store. Which means Monty either was bringing in more money than his apartment would lead you to believe, or he had someone help support him. I guessed family since it seemed to be the most likely explanation.”

Sara rolled her eyes a little; she probably thought I was showing off. “Yeah, his parents are pretty rich. They don’t get along with Monty, though.”

“They got along well enough to buy him a couch.” I think Sara had a comeback to that, but I ignored her. Still hadn’t found anything. As I scanned the room for a third time, something poking out from under a flipped chair. When I dug it out, I was disappointed to realize it was just a painting. Not even a proper painting; one of those abstract modern ones. Lots of oranges and blues that blended together in some places. It might have been a picture of a person. Or maybe a fire? Possibly some kind of fish. Is this the kind of thing that universities are teaching kids these days?

“Oh, I remember that.” Sara said. “That was one Monty and I worked on together.”

“You can paint?” I said with surprise.

Sara looked at me like I was an idiot. “I was attending an art college, you know.”

“Right. Of course.” Not important, anyways. This was getting frustrating. And the faucet’s dripping was getting on my nerves. Each little drip felt like a hammer on my school. Usually I can ignore insignificant details like that, but I couldn’t let that sound go. Fed up with it, I tried to turn off the faucet, but no matter what I did with the knob the water kept slowly dripping out.

“Let’s check the other rooms.” I said. “Which door’s the bedroom?”

Sara led me to a door just down the hall to the left. The door was locked, but Sara had a copy of the key. I’m not entirely sure what I expected to see inside, but it hadn’t been gallons of blood. There was blood all over the small bed in the corner, and splattered across the walls. Sara covered her mouth in horror, and looked like she might scream. I put a hand on her shoulder and firmly said, “Stay calm. It’s not real.”

She grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “It’s not real?” She said, her relief clear. “That’s fake blood?”

“What? Oh, no, the blood’s probably real. But it doesn’t splatter like that when someone’s killed. This looks like someone just threw a few buckets of blood around the room to make it look gruesome.”

Sara’s grip loosened, but she kept her hand on mine. “And of course you’re the expert on blood splatters now?” She said with a touch of snark.

“I’ve seen a few homicide scenes in this job. Now let’s get looking. I want to see why someone tried to make us think your boyfriend got killed.”

Once again, my confident words didn’t hold up once I started looking. While the culprit’s attempts to hide the existence of a cover up were clumsy, the cover up itself was unusually well done. The amount of damage done to the apartment made it impossible to determine what they had been doing or looking for, and I couldn’t find any signs that hinted at the identity of the culprit. I usually don’t put much faith in obvious clues like muddy footprints or hair caught in the door, but after half an hour searching without results I was really wishing for one. And that dripping sound would just not go away.

I stopped and thought about that. The noise should have gotten quieter since we left the kitchen, but I could still clearly hear it. There had to be another source. I looked around the room until my eyes settled on Sara. She’d stayed in the back of the room to let me work; maybe I should have been a little suspicious that she hadn’t made any smart remarks to me in so long. As I watched her, I realized her lips were moving slightly, making a dripping noise.

“Sara?” I said, uncertain if she would respond.

“Yes? Drip, drip, drip….” She wasn’t saying “drip,” she was somehow making the exact same sound that the faucet had.

“Why are you making that noise?”

“What noise? Drip, drip….”

I told Sara to stay still and then shined a flashlight in her eyes. Her eyes followed the light, but her pupils were dilated. When I touched her forehead her skin was cold and clammy. “We’re leaving right now.” I said after finishing my check.

Sara didn’t seem to register what I’d said at first. When she did, her voice was slightly slurred. “What, did you find something?”

“Maybe. I just need to grab a few things before we leave to make sure.”

On our way out, I collected a sample of the water coming from the faucet. After analyzing it and comparing it to the sample I have of Sara’s tears, I can confirm that there was a significant amount of Ichor in the water.

I still stand by my statement that it’s human nature to make mistakes.

But I don’t think what we’re dealing with here is human.

Exploring the House

Last night I dreamt that I was lying in bed. Exciting, I know. I couldn’t remember why, but I felt incredibly exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that seeps into every part of you, to the point where even thinking feels strenuous. Someone in my dream was knocking at the door and calling for me. I wanted to answer them, but couldn’t gather the will to get out of bed. As their calls grew more concerned, I noticed the sound of water near me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the room slowly filling with water. I wondered if I should be worried, but I was just too tired to feel afraid. And so I laid there as the water rose, until it had completely submerged me.

I woke up as Matthew opened the door to my room. “Hey, Sara, I’ve been knocking for five minutes!” He said. “Rosa says it’s time to wake up.”

Ah yes, “Time to wake up.” That, along with “Time to go to sleep,” are two of the most tyrannical mandates that Rosa has put on me. If god had meant for man to go to bed at 10, then he wouldn’t have made midnight so interesting. Along with controlling when I can and can’t sleep, Rosa’s also had a tight leash on what I eat. The food she serves isn’t bad, it’s just… boringly healthy. I would murder for a double decker cheeseburger. Or a crate of French fries. Or maybe just give me a gallon of grease, I’ll drink the whole thing in one go.

Maybe I shouldn’t complain too much. I am getting free room and board, after all, which is a definite improvement from before. Well, I’m still going to complain a lot, but at least I can acknowledge the nice stuff. Like this new bedroom. Twice the size of my old room, and without the strange mold and smells that I had in my apartment! Got a nice window view of the gardens around this place. Well, I say “nice view,” but so far it’s been a really cloudy and foggy view. I don’t think I’ve seen the sun once since coming here. But hey, the garden’s nice. Got topiaries and shrubberies and shit.

So far I feel like I’ve been coping pretty well with the change.  The hardest part has been adapting to this house. I don’t even think it’s right to call it a house. It’s more like five completely different architects all had their own idea of what kind of building they were making and they just jammed together all their projects without any regard for how much sense the arrangement made. That creepy void room I woke up in? There’s an entire hallway of those called the “Quarantine Wing.” It really looks like someone just ripped a hallway out of an old hospital and put it there. Then you walk to the end of the Quarantine Wing, open the door, and suddenly you’re in the most stereotypical old rich person mansion you can imagine. Then there was one time I took a wrong turn while lost and for a few rooms I was in some kind of old fashioned wooden hunting cabin before I found my way back to the mansion.

Yeah, I get lost here. A lot. But more on that later.

So the big mansion part is called the “Living Areas,” ‘cause that’s the part actually fit for human habitation. My new bedroom’s there, conveniently placed only a short walk from the kitchen. Which would be a much happier arrangement were it not for the scheduled diet I have, but you take what you get I suppose. At least I’ve been able to make it feel like a home, after Matthew brought all my stuff from my apartment.

Oh yeah, Matthew? Great guy. I think I’d have spent a lot longer freaking out if he hadn’t been here to help me adapt. He seems to be some kind of odd jobs handyman around the place. I asked him about that, and all he told me was that he helps Rosa take care of the house. Trying to dig any further than that was useless, since he claims he doesn’t remember anything before waking up here one day.

I met the fourth and last member of this household while I was exploring some rooms I hadn’t been in. I know Rosa doesn’t like me wandering around the place, but she just has to learn to deal with it. Not like I can go very far; most of the doors here are locked anyways. But back on topic, Sphynx and I were wandering through a room in the wood cabin sections of the house, looked like some kind of reading room, when I realized someone else was in there with me. They had been dusting the bookshelves that ran along the walls so quietly I hadn’t even noticed them at first. It was another woman, maybe a few years older than me, with short blond hair and wearing a weirdly stereotypical maid uniform. Frills, skirt, apron, headdress, everything. She hadn’t reacted to me entering, so I cautiously said, “Um… hello?” to catch her attention.

The look she gave me was…. I’ve never seen anyone look at me with such pure hatred before. If looks could kill, then the one she gave me would have reduced me to dust. I was stunned into silence as I tried to think if there was something I needed to apologize for to get her to stop glaring at me. Sphynx, who had been walking behind me for most of my journey, trotted over to the maid and sat down next to her feet. She scowled at him with the same anger she had shown me, and reached down towards his neck. I almost shouted for her to stop, but all the woman did was begin to gently scratch him. Sphynx purred happily as he rubbed against her legs, and I felt some of my concern fading away. “So… do you like cats?” I hazarded to say.

Once again she silently looked at me with that expression of pure rage. “Sorry!” I said quickly. “I didn’t mean to, I mean, I’m sorry for… um… sorry?”

I heard Rosa’s voice behind me as she entered the room. “Stop scaring the kid, Joyce.”

I was wrong to call the woman’s expression “pure rage” or “hatred” before. The way she had looked at me was friendly compared to the raw loathing she looked at Rosa with. It looked as if she wanted nothing more than to strangle Rosa to death with her own hands.

In spite of this, Rosa remained nonplussed. “She do anything to you?” She said to me as she lit up a cigarette.

“No,” I said, keeping my eyes on Joyce. “She’s just been… quiet?”

“Yeah, she does that. Joyce, show Sara why you don’t talk.”

Joyce ripped her eyes off Rosa to look at me. Then she opened her mouth, wide enough for me to see in. It was filled with thin metal wires that crisscrossed her mouth, and were sewn into every part of it, from her teeth, her gums, and even her tongue. “You may close your mouth now.” Rosa said, and Joyce snapped her mouth shut. “Now get back to work.” Joyce did a sharp about face, and resumed dusting the shelves.

“Sorry you had to meet Joyce like that. She’s not a people person.” Rosa said, acting as though Joyce wasn’t still in the room with us.

“It’s alright. Sphynx likes her. Um… what… happened to her?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I had to ask.

“About how sick are you of hearing ‘I don’t remember’ as an answer?”

I crossed my arms and frowned at that. “It is starting to grate on me a tad.”

“Well get used to it, because that’s your answer here as well.” Rosa took a puff on her cigarette and glanced at Joyce with bored curiosity. “I don’t remember a thing about who Joyce is or why she’s here. All I know is that she does everything I tell her to and she really doesn’t like me.”

“And you’ve never tried to remember why that is?” Because to me that sounded like the kind of big mystery you’d want to unravel.

“No.” Rosa said with certainty. “Nothing good ever comes from digging into the past. Now let’s get you back to your room. It’s easy to get lost out here.”

And that kinda sums up my first few days here. It’s actually felt more like a weird vacation than being quarantined due to magical poisons. And wasn’t wandering around a mysterious house looking for mysteries a childhood fantasy for all of us? I just wonder how long it’ll take before being stuck indoors drives me crazy and I start crawling through the walls like a ratman.