Septem

“It bleeds into the concrete…”

“What does?”

"Their flesh. Their blood, their skin, their... rot.” Hannah tugged at her elbows, the room suddenly so cold and bleak that she felt it in her very core. She hugged herself tighter. A soft glance from her therapist and then his hand reaching for the remote in front of him, sent gratitude rolling through her.

“Thank you,” she said with a small nod hidden behind dirty, stringy black hair. Her teeth chattered.

“Alright Hannah, whenever you’re ready to continue, please do. But take your time, ok? We’re in this together for the long haul, I’m not going anywhere.” Tom had been with her since the beginning, when this whole nightmare had started, and her gratitude would never be enough. Without him, she was sure that her time on this mortal coil would have ended a long, long time ago.

Outside, the sky was clear, and the sun shone warmly as a reminder that not all in the world was as bleak and cold as she was feeling. In fact, Spring was in full motion and the temperature nice enough that a family might consider heading to the beach for the day.

Hannah wouldn’t know though; she hadn’t felt warm since that day almost seven years ago. Tom watched her, his eyes searching hers for any sign of what she might be feeling.

“Talk to me,” he prompted quietly, his pen poised over the notebook in his lap. As much as she wanted to continue to relate the details of the incident, her body had tensed up so much, it seemed near impossible to move her mouth. Tom sighed softly, sympathetically, and placed his notepad down so he could get up and move to the seat beside her.

“Your husband is coming home today. That’ll be nice, right? He’s been away for quite some time, hasn’t he? Focus on that for me and then, when you feel a little better, we can continue.” Tom was right, but Hannah whimpered as images of her husband flashed through her mind. He was handsome, tall, sweet, with a soft, brown beard and even softer brown eyes. She’d loved him from the day they had first met and that feeling threatened to overwhelm her strained emotions.

Tom reached into his pocket and a rattling snapped her out of her reverie to focus on the object he had pulled free. It was a box of mints–Fresh Burst –and he popped one delicately into his mouth before offering her one as well. Hannah stared at the box miserably for a second before she politely declined.

He was so nice, and all she did was complain about a thing that happened seven years ago, but the anniversary was coming up and so the dreams had begun again. This time with a fervour she hadn’t experienced before.

The rip of sticky flesh trying to pull itself forward. The groans that echoed from the hollowed eye sockets were like jagged fragments of a mirror in her mind, cutting her conscious thoughts. It was excruciating and exhausting to have those memories constantly pulling themselves to the forefront of her mind, always unbidden. The moment the tears fell, and the shaking began, Tom hurried to pull out the tissues. A necessity in his line of work.

“Hey now, it’s ok. This is a safe place. You’re safe.” His voice was comforting, and Hannah sniffled for a few moments more before she regained control of herself.

“Thanks, Doc,” she breathed as she brushed a strand of unwashed hair behind her ear. That had been one of the last things she had been worried about lately. Tom smiled that brilliant, kind smile that stretched to his eyes and always soothed her soul.

“How about I drive you home today?”

Hannah chewed her lip for a few moments in thought before she shook her head. “You have other patients and besides, wouldn’t it breach some privacy thing?” Tom chuckled and waved a hand dismissively.

“I clock off after your session so it would just be me, a friend, making sure you, also a friend, were getting home safely. No privacy breaches. I won’t go into your house or anything.” Again, Hannah hesitated, but that soft demeanour and reassuring smile made her feel safe. Safety was of desperate importance when her world was plagued by nightmares.

Outside, the brilliant day had become grey as clouds covered the sky. Thunder rumbled in the distance and the birds had stopped their song in recognition and fear of the imminent fury. It would be hell walking home in the rain, even though the water running over her always felt cleansing.

“Yeah, I would appreciate a ride home. Thanks, Tom,” she finally said when her thoughts had reconciled themselves. Together they walked outside, and the air was cool against her skin, not bitingly so but enough that its presence was well known. It was also still, in that way, that tells you something dangerous is looming just on the horizon. Even the trees seemed to hold their leaves silent in anticipation. Hannah shivered.

It felt like that night.

Tom opened the door of his sedan and smiled at her warmly. The interior was, as you would expect, a little dusty, a few bits of rubbish strewn about as if nobody had sat in the passenger seat in the car’s lifetime. However, there was a steering wheel cover dedicated to what must have been his favourite band.

Rammstein–figures.

It was assured that someone this sweet and warm would have a few dark spots here and there. Some built up rage, a few odd hobbies on the side. Somehow, though, seeing something like that out in the open made her feel even more at ease with him.

As the door closed beside her, and Tom got into the driver’s seat, the rain began. Soft at first, little taps like a lover at the window. Then it fell heavier until it blanketed the town in a blurry haze of water and mist. Hannah watched the drops bead and twist over her window as they travelled, and once again, those memories crawled to the surface.

The apartment building with the almost caved in roof that her husband had taken her to. How the wind had whistled through the broken glass. It had been his old home. Clothing strewn on the floor and so mouldy that the colours were unrecognisable. Peeling paint that seemed to flake with every breath.

“His mother had just up and disappeared one day,” she said aloud. Tom tapped the console to pause the music so he could listen.

“That’s awful,” he sympathised. Hannah nodded slowly in agreement as her eyes focused on a tiny river of water that was flowing over the outside of the window. Streetlights flickered on to combat the darkness the storm had created, and the light glittered in those little rivers.

“Yeah... my husband was devastated. I never knew my parents, so it was hard to empathise. We got into an argument over it, and I left the room. Somehow, I ended up in the basement. It was so cold down there, and damp...” Hannah trailed off as she remembered the day her life had changed. That moment that had brought her to Tom all those years ago.

“That’s where you saw it,” Tom whispered, his hands clenched on the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. Silence fell between them in the car and though he had heard this story so many times, to have Hannah open to him without nudging her was important. So, he stayed quiet until there was a heavy sigh as she continued to recall.

“It was horrifying,” she breathed, a small spot fogging on the window in front of her. Tom sighed sympathetically. Hannah gasped in shock when she felt his hand touch her shoulder. She looked at him, her deep brown eyes wide and swollen, chewed lips trembling.

“It was down this street here, you said,” Tom asked, his lips pulled into a grim line and his eyes focused ahead. Thunder cracked outside and Hannah felt tears rise in her eyes as she realised, she was almost home. Almost home where her husband wouldn’t be until a few hours’ time. Almost home to an empty house where she would be alone with these all too vivid memories. It gnawed, frightful like a snake coiling tightly in the depths of her stomach.

“Y-yes, please, could you come in and wait with me until my husband gets home,” she said, the words garbled as they fell from her mouth too quickly for her tongue. Tom stared straight ahead for what felt like the longest time and when Hannah pointed out her house, he pulled into the drive without a word. When the car had fallen silent, with nothing but the ticks of the engine cooling to keep them company, Tom finally raised a hand to the bridge of his nose and rubbed at it almost tiredly.

“Of course, I’d be a terrible friend if I didn’t.”

Hannah let out the breath she’d been holding and popped the catch on her door. “Thank you so much.”

Her boots splashed in the water from the downpour, and the rain pelted her skin like tiny ice bullets. The wind howled around them. Tom pulled his jacket tighter closed. At the door, Hannah’s hands fumbled with the keys as she tried to open it, until finally the one she needed slid easily into the lock and clicked over.

It was quiet inside and with a flick of a switch, Hannah turned the lights on, illuminating the lounge room. It was simple; plain like how she felt but to her it was beautiful. It was home. The couch was leather and worn, the bookshelves were new but full. Her plants were alive and well, their leaves green and lush. Everything was normal here. Safe.

Tom glanced around as he entered and made sure to take his shoes off before heading too far into her home.

“Please, have a seat. I’ll make us some coffee,” Hannah said. She pulled the oversized cardigan she was wearing, over her shoulders and around her thin frame. So small, she was, that it almost wrapped around her twice. Tom watched her go before he moved to the couch and allowed himself to sit.

She left him there, in his patient’s lounge room, in the middle of one of the first storms of the season. It felt comfortable now in this otherwise empty house, and as she made him coffee, she tried not to cry about the past. Hannah carefully carried the warm drinks into the lounge, rain lashing against the windows. As she set the coffee down on the table in front of Tom, she smiled warmly and he returned the smile, but the light didn’t seem to reach his eyes.

Hannah hesitated for a moment but as she was about to speak, an enormous crack of thunder made her scream and knock both mugs onto the floor. Coffee splattered everywhere as the mugs shattered spectacularly on the floor. As Hannah was recovering from the shock of it all, the lights dimmed, flickered, and then went out completely.

“Shit...” Hannah cursed into the silence, which was only broken by the rain outside. Outside, the clouds thickened, drawing down on the world, forcing their presence upon the people beneath them and unaware of the sheer havoc they were wreaking.

Hannah fumbled through the dark for a few minutes before she managed to find the flashlight they kept in the coffee table for emergencies. When she flicked it on, the beam shone directly onto Tom, still seated on her couch but now he was holding a piece of one of the broken mugs between two fingers and inspecting it.

“Tom...” Hannah said cautiously as she held the light on her therapist. He smiled as he regarded the piece. One of the mugs she had brought out had been one in the shape of a cow, and the piece was its nose.

“This is funny,” Tom finally said. “I like novelty mugs, too.” The small smile brightened as he looked up at her. His face was different, and those teeth looked so strange suddenly. Hannah felt her heart tighten.

“What’s wrong, dear?” Tom asked as she continued to stare at him. Hannah swallowed, her hand shaking as Tom stood, the broken mug’s nose piece still in his hand.

“I think... you should go now,” she whimpered. A flash of lightning split the sky and his form was both illuminated and shadowed by it. He was changing, morphing. Hannah’s stomach grew cold. This was something out of a horror movie, but then her life had become one of those since that day seven years ago. Since she had found her mother-in-law's corpse in the basement, where it had groaned and writhed. Corpses didn't groan and they most certainly didn’t writhe.

This one had.

“It did, didn’t it?” Tom said, the words a hiss. “It moved, and it crawled, and it moaned.” Hannah began to shake and took a step backward, her heel catching the rug in the doorway to the entrance hall. She stumbled. The moment of inattention was enough for Tom to sweep in and with gentle hands, he caught her around the waist and pulled her body against his.

“Sweet thing,” he whispered, “sweet, small, little Hannah. All alone.” Hannah screamed as his head tilted unnaturally, cracking as it went. She pushed against him, but her hands were powerless. Tom’s body seemed to mould to the touch and absorb it.

All at once, the storm outside seemed to grow to almost catastrophic levels. Hail pelted against the outside walls and roof like bullets, the thunder cracking so loudly that it vibrated to her very bones. Fetid breath swept over her face, and Hannah fought the urge to gag.

The mints.

Tom smiled as if he had just read her mind again. It was a cruel expression filled with too many teeth and eyes that had turned a ghostly white. Hannah’s voice died in her throat. Her whole body, exhausted from years of depression and misery, turned to jelly.

She could feel the drain in her core as her muscles tired and her eyes watered. No more strength was left inside of her, and she couldn’t make a noise. Not even a sob. Tom laughed, and this time it was distorted, demonic. Evil.

Hannah shuddered as her legs gave out from underneath her, the howling of the wind fading into the background as her heartbeat pounded in her ears. Was she dying?

“You are indeed dying,” Tom hissed, his face now far beyond human and his eyes glowing a cold white in the darkness. “I’ve been feeding on you for years. Emotions, negative ones, are my lifeblood but every seven years I need to take a life-force completely to stay alive.”

Hannah remembered her husband’s father recommending Tom, that he was an excellent therapist. She remembered her husband nodding at her kindly. Sympathetically. Lastly, she recalled how when she had appeared in his doorway, Tom had smiled with such delight she was sure they had to have met before.

Now it made sense.

“You...”

“I ate the mother, yes. I was her therapist, yes yesssssss, ahhh... full of doubt and fear, that one. I create these, I make it, so I have food all the time. So, I never go hungry again,” Tom said, drool running freely from his lips and elongated, pointed teeth as he spoke in thin, sticky streams. Some of it fell across her face, but Hannah’s skin was numb now. Cold, and her heart was slowing. The storm was silent; dying with her it seemed.

“Good night, child,” the ghoul growled as he bent over her, teeth grazing her neck and tongue lapping at the skin there. All was silence from there, and nothing was anything anymore...

When Alex opened the door and called out to his wife, excited to be home after the hell he had just endured because of the storm, he didn’t expect for the house to be so dark. Maybe Hannah hadn’t gotten home yet?

“Honey, are you ok? Are you sleeping?” Alex called as he shook his jacket out and hung it on a hook in the entryway. There was a soft shuffle from the lounge room, and he smiled. She must have been sleeping on the couch or curled up near the window with a book. Hannah rarely responded when she was reading.

“There you... are.” The words died on his lips as he saw the thing in the room... and his scream echoed louder than its groans.

“It bleeds into the carpet...” Alex whispered; his knees drawn to his chest on the couch of Tom’s office as he recalled the moment he had found her. It had been a week already.

“What does?”

“Its flesh... its blood. Oh, the smell,” he sobbed as he dropped his head to his knees. Tom’s eyes flashed white, and outside a bird sang. Ever the cycle repeats itself... doomed is the fly that is unfortunate enough to come across the spider’s web.