There's Something in the Walls Read online

  David was about to ask what Tommy meant by “something,” but before he could his phone began to chirp in the pocket of his robe. He took it out and looked at the screen. It was his agent.

  “Sandra,” David said as he pressed the phone to his ear.

  “Hey, David,” Sandra said. Her voice had a fake, mournful tone to it. “Did you get my text?”

  “I did.”

  “I’m so sorry. But rest assured, I’ll stay on them until they reschedule.”

  “I know you will. And be sure to let them know I’ll meet them anywhere. I don’t care if it’s at their office or at a coffee shop, or a gas station…wherever.” David winced a little at his own desperation.

  “Two steps ahead of you. But in all the years I’ve worked with R.J. Roland and his company, they’ve always insisted on first meetings being in their offices. It’s actually pretty annoying…”

  Sandra went on, but David was no longer listening. Because Tommy had removed a butcher’s knife from a drawer in his kitchenette and was now pushing the blade into one of the slime-laden cracks in the wall. David opened his mouth to tell Tommy to stop, but he didn’t get the chance. Tommy shoved the blade in, and was rewarded with a spray of black liquid that hit him fully in the face. His Coke bottle glasses had protected his eyes, but he stumbled away sputtering and retching as if the fluid had gotten into his mouth. The scene would’ve been comical in any other circumstance, but given the fact that they had no idea what the substance leaking from the walls was, David feared for his friend.

  “Shit, Sandra, I’m sorry to cut you off, but I have to go,” David said.

  “Are you okay? Is someone hurt? What’s that sound in the background?”

  David ended the call without answering any of the trio of questions. Sandra, ever the drama queen, was likely still rapid firing more queries into the dead line. He went forward and placed a hand on Tommy’s shoulder.

  “You all right, man?” he asked.

  Tommy stood bent over, his hands on his knees, and dry heaved a few more times, then grabbed a dish towel from the counter by the kitchen sink. He took his glasses off and started to wipe at his face.

  “Good Christ,” Tommy spat. “It tastes the way diarrhea smells.”

  Again, David wanted to laugh, but again he couldn’t.

  “Rinse your mouth out, man. Don’t swallow that stuff.”

  Tommy took the advice, bending over the sink and slurping directly from the spigot. He swished and spat a few times, then straightened up and wiped at his face again.

  “What on Earth possessed you to do something like that?” David asked.

  Tommy’s eyes went to the side, as if he were considering the question, then he said, “Curiosity? I wanted to see if there was something solid in there. In retrospect, it was a poor idea.” He spat into the sink again. “I’ll never get that taste out of my mouth.”

  David moved back to the crack in the wall and examined it. Now, in addition to the thick, gooey stuff lining the crack, there were dark splatter marks all around it, and also a long line of the fluid dripping down to the floor where it had begun to pool. The new substance wasn’t as thick as the slime, but it seemed too thin to just be dirty water, as David had first guessed. It was thinner than oil too. It was more like…

  “Blood,” Tommy said from beside David. “Looks like black blood. What the fuck is going on in this place, man?”

  David looked at Tommy seriously, but made no reply. Because he truly, honestly had no idea.

  . . .

  That Saturday evening, David stood outside the door to Alice’s apartment sharply at eight o’clock. Actually, he’d been standing here since seven fifty-five, he just hadn’t worked up the courage to knock yet. He was also trying hard to brighten his mood before seeing her. He’d seen neither hide nor hair from Sandra in the intervening days and was beginning to worry that the chance at finally selling his script had slipped through his fingers like sand. It was as if his hopes had been raised so high only so they could be crushed all the more absolutely. If the meeting never occurred, if he didn’t sell his script to R.J. Roland Productions, he would rather have never been told about the meeting at all. It was a lot easier to fail when there had never been any hope for success.

  David squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, as if trying to physically dislodge the sad-sack thoughts from his mind. He was just about to smack himself across the face when the door opened. Alice squeaked, startled at seeing David standing there.

  “I was just about to head to your door,” she said, her hand still on her chest where it had landed when the sight of David had frightened her. “What are you doing just standing out here, you weirdo?”

  David smiled sheepishly, and looked away. “Sorry. I…uh…was just trying to remember if I said eight or nine. I was afraid I was early.”

  She squinted her eyes and looked at him skeptically. “No, you said eight. Are you ready?”

  David nodded, but now, looking at Alice, he wondered if she were even up for their date. He’d spoken to her in the hall a few times since the night of the earthquake, and had noticed that she’d developed a sniffle. Nothing serious at first, she just seemed to have a slight cold. But now, standing in her doorway, she had dark bags under her eyes, and the skin under and around her nose was red and raw.

  “Are you sure you’re up for it?” David asked. “It looks like that cold has gotten worse.”

  “Tell me about it. But don’t worry, I’m all hopped up on cold medicine and ready to go.”

  “Well we don’t have to go anywhere if you’re feeling bad. I mean, we could just order a pizza and stay in if you want.”

  Alice’s face made the same squinty, suspicious expression, then she slowly began to grin. “David, are you trying to Netflix and chill me?”

  David’s eyes went wide and he shook his head. “Or the restaurant is fine too,” he said quickly. “I just didn’t want to drag you out if you weren’t feeling well.”

  Alice laughed, then turned and closed her apartment door and locked it with a key. She started down the hall and David followed.

  “The fresh air will probably do me good,” she said. “I think being cooped up inside studying is part of what caused this cold or whatever it is. No matter how often I dust in there it doesn’t seem to do anything for the air quality. Plus, ever since the earthquake Tommy has made me more and more paranoid about black mold.”

  A spike of worry rose up in David’s stomach at the mention of the mold, and his mind once again showed him images of the slimy cracks and black blood-like liquid running in rivulets down the wall at Tommy’s. These had been on David’s mind a lot in the last few days as well. Any time he bumped into Tommy in the hall, his friend would ramble on and on about his new theories pertaining to the walls. Come to think of it, Tommy must have caught the same cold as Alice, as the skin under his eyes and around his nose were in similar states lately. Lack of sleep probably had a lot to do with it in Tommy’s case though. He was chomping at the bit with this new conspiracy, and David hadn’t seen him this worked up since an online article on one of Tommy’s frequented conspiracy websites claimed airplanes were spraying chemtrails over an area very near the Perkins Building eight months ago.

  “Yeah, I’ve heard all about that theory,” David said. “But I don’t think it’s black mold. Although I guess that’s more likely than a CIA mind control substance experiment that Mrs. Perkins allowed to be done to the residents of her building in exchange for money.”

  Alice laughed. “He didn’t say that!”

  “He did. Tommy’s mind can go off to strange places when he’s worked up like this.”

  They reached the stairwell together and started down. David favored his uninjured foot a little. His injured one, which had at first seemed to be healing just fine, had taken an odd turn the day before. The pain was back almost as bad as when it had first happened, and David had found fresh blood in his sock when returning from his morning walk. He was a litt
le worried that it was becoming infected, though he didn’t know how. He’d kept the bandaging clean and antibiotic salve on the wound, just like Alice had told him.

  “Have you ever been to Sweet Basil?” Alice asked, referring to the Thai food restaurant she had chosen for their date.

  “I haven’t,” David replied. “But I love Thai food, so I’m sure I’ll like it.”

  “Good. And you’re in for a real treat, this place has the best Thai food I’ve ever had. Maybe the best food period.”

  David place a hand over his belly. “You’re making my stomach growl.”

  They reached the bottom of the stairwell and went through the lobby, then out into the night. It was hot out, but the heat was dry and therefor bearable. That was the one thing David preferred about summers in California to summers in Michigan where he’d grown up. There was never any humidity here.

  The Perkins Building had no parking lot, so the residents had to park curbside along San Horace Avenue. David’s blue Honda Civic was a quarter mile down. He turned on the sidewalk and led the way.

  “You drive the blue one, right?” Alice asked.

  David smiled, amused because there must be ten or eleven blue cars among the Perkins Building’s residents. Alice took notice of this and slapped him on the arm.

  “Shut up, I don’t know cars,” she said, giggling. “Why are you parked so far away?”

  “I’m terrible at parallel parking. Have to go pretty far out to get enough space.”

  Alice laughed. “You can’t parallel park? Even I can parallel park. How are you gonna’ laugh at me for not knowing what kind of car you drive just by looking at it when you can’t even parallel park?”

  David held up his hands in a placating gesture. “I didn’t laugh!”

  “You were about to though, jerk.”

  David scratched at his cheek to hide a mischievous grin. “No, honestly I was born with a defect. It’s called ocular myostypligsia. It messes with my spatial awareness and depth perception.”

  Alice placed a hand over her mouth and stared at him as they walked. “Oh my god, David, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun.”

  David shrugged and looked at the ground. “It’s all right, you didn’t know. Yeah, I get dizzy spells sometimes too, but that’s rare. The migraines are the real nuisance though. I get those pretty often.”

  “That sounds terrible.”

  “It can be. But I cope. Or at least I usually can, until the blackouts start. The fainting. I’ve got a few scars from falls I’ve taken because of that.”

  “My god… Is it rare? I’ve never even heard of it in my classes. What was the second word, myosty…my Latin isn’t so good yet, is that…”

  “The worst part though, is the anal polyps… The facial tumors… And when my elbows bend the wrong way and I have to wear my shirts backwards.”

  Alice stopped in her tracks and glared. “You…asshole!”

  David started laughing. “Hey, that’s what you get for giving me shit!”

  She lunged at him, and unleashed a flurry of playful but stinging punches at his arms. “That was so wrong. Say you’re sorry!”

  David continued laughing, and tried, ineffectively, to shield himself from the blows with outstretched hands. “Ow. Ow! Jesus, that one hurt. Are you wearing rings? I’m sorry…I’m sorry!”

  Alice finally relented, but pointed a finger at him. “I was planning on going Dutch tonight, but after that little stunt you’re paying for the whole bill.”

  “All right, all right, deal, just don’t hit me anymore.”

  They had finally reached David’s blue Honda, and he stepped forward and unlocked the passenger side door, then opened it for her.

  “Oh, now you’re a gentleman,” Alice said, then ducked her head and got in. David closed the door after her, then went around and got into the driver’s seat. Soon they had pulled away and were driving toward the restaurant.

  . . .

  The next morning, David was in a good mood. This was mostly due to how well his date with Alice had gone. They had continued to banter throughout dinner, making each other laugh and genuinely having a good time. But that wasn’t the entire reason for his mood. It was just the root of it. Having Alice with him had allowed him to take his mind off his screenplay and just enjoy being alive for a while. This had reminded him that he used to enjoy many things, he used to enjoy writing, before it was a job, back when it was just a hobby, something that he genuinely liked—no, loved—to do. After walking Alice to her room, both of them still laughing because Alice had parallel parked David’s car for him in a prime spot right in front of the building, David had gotten a kiss goodnight. A kiss with tongue! He’d gone back to his apartment feeling like he was floating above the splintery floorboards instead of walking on them. Then he’d sat down on his chair, opened his laptop, rested it on his legs, and started pecking out a story that had come to him a week ago, but he had been in too sour a mood at the time to start. He’d written until four in the morning.

  David went to his kitchenette and looked at the shattered dishes and cabinets that he still hadn’t cleaned up. He considered starting the project of getting his kitchenette back to normal, but then thought, fuck it, and quickly dressed, then headed out to get breakfast at a nearby diner that made excellent breakfast foods. He could almost taste the bacon, eggs, toast, orange juice, and strong, black coffee, when he opened his door, but a shrill, too-loud voice quickly chased the phantom sensations away. Mrs. Perkins was paying a visit to her tenants, so it seemed.

  David went out into the hall and found Mrs. Perkins there arguing with a very tired, very sick looking Tommy. She turned immediately and glared at David for what she had apparently taken as an interruption. The woman was at least halfway through her ninth decade on earth, but she still dressed as if she were a Hollywood star in the nineteen-fifties. Which wasn’t actually that far from the truth. David had heard from Tommy when he first moved in that Mrs. Perkins had starred in two detective movies back in the late fifties, both times as a murder victim, though, and Tommy had stated this very disappointedly, neither film had actually shown the murder scene. Such was the hatred for Mrs. Perkins by her residents.

  After those films, Mrs. Perkins had married Mr. Perkins, who had soon after committed suicide and left Mrs. Perkins his substantial estate, all of which she had pissed away in the time between then and now, except, of course, for the building in which she now stood.

  “David, can you tell this old witch what you saw in my apartment?” Tommy said immediately after David closed his door.

  David used his key and locked his door, then turned toward the pair, wishing now that he’d stayed inside to clean up all his broken dishes.

  “Uh, you mean the mold…slime…whatever?” David asked.

  Mrs. Perkins poked a wrinkled finger tipped with a painted nail at Tommy’s face. “So even your witness doesn’t know what he saw!” she barked.

  “Be-cause we don’t know what the fuck it was, la-dy!” Tommy shouted back, making each syllable a separate sound and speaking in a cadence.

  Mrs. Perkins placed clenched fists on her hips and glared. It was probably a hundred degrees outside, but she wore a long sleeved, albeit threadbare, red dress and had a fur draped over shoulders. The fur was so old and in such bad shape that it looked like it must’ve been taken from a dog with the mange. Her makeup was caked on and too brightly colored, and a wig with flowing blonde locks sat crooked on her head. In her own mind though, David imagined, she probably thought she looked good enough to sashay down a red carpet, putting every twenty-something-year-old starlet she passed to shame. That was Mrs. Perkins in a nutshell—eternally delusional.

  “Young man, if you continue to talk to me in such a disrespectful manner, I’ll have you rousted from your bed in the middle of the night and thrown into the LA River,” the old woman said.

  Tommy looked like he wanted to say more, but Mrs. Perkins had spoken with such confidence that he seemed to belie
ve her threat may not have been an empty one.

  “Now,” Mrs. Perkins went on, “I am here to assess any damage afflicted by the earthquake, and only when I have found ample evidence for the need of repairs will I start making calls and taking quotes. I don’t expect either of you to understand how much one has to go through to find a reputable maintenance company in this day and age.”

  “Well then by all means,” Tommy said, opening the door to his apartment and making a grand, sweeping gesture for Mrs. Perkins to enter, “assess away.”

  Mrs. Perkins took a step forward, leaned into the doorway and craned her head around. She then straightened with a look of disgust on her face.

  “I’ll not step one foot into that pigsty,” she said. “If you want anything at all done to your apartment you’ll clean up that god awful mess first.”

  The old woman was obviously referring to Tommy’s “archives,” and in her defense it did look a lot like just stacks of papers and files strewn about the floor at random with only a few narrow walkways left throughout them.

  “Fine,” Tommy said, a very offended tone in his voice. “Some of it you can see from here anyway, and I can tell you the rest.” He pointed at the back wall. “See those cracks back there? The ones dripping black slime and fluid? Those definitely weren’t there before the quake.” He held up a thin finger, then began to count off, holding up another each time he spoke. “My hot water doesn’t work. Both window panes are now cracked. The electric outlets on the back wall with all those slimy cracks in it no longer work. My stove won’t get hot enough to cook anything. And to top it all off, ever since that stuff started leaking out of the walls I’ve come down with some sort of flu.”

  “If you are sick, it is much more likely due to the fact that you are living in filth. That would also explain why you have mold growing in there, if that is even what it is. I have never seen liquid mold before, and I doubt anyone else in the world has either. As far as the electricity, if that is in need of repair it is a problem in the entire building, and not unique only to you. The hot water heater may be broken, and I’ll certainly look into that, but in the meantime I’m sure you can make do with just the cold water. I lived the first part of my life with no hot water and I made it through just fine, though my generation is made of sterner stuff than yours.”