Unknown Visitor

The room smelled of lavender and the cool glow from the TV rested on my closed eyes. As my fiancé and I lay on the pullout sofa within our living room, I awoke to a strange rustling in the kitchen. Slowly opening my eyes to look into the adjacent kitchen, I could not comprehend what I was seeing. An inhumanly tall creature with pale smooth skin stood in the center. A horrifying face with no eyes was turned toward us with a smiling red mouth full of large, jagged teeth. With its long-extended fingers, it slowly began to crawl towards us, leaving no sound as it inched across the room. The scream gurgling in my throat would not release. I realized the creature had somehow paralyzed us, with only my eyes able to move. As it crawled over my legs, its skin felt scaly and cold. Its sneer released a hissing laugh as it hovered over my fiancé’s unconscious body.

My tears are what bring me out of my deep slumber. I’ve had this dream for roughly two years. I’ve had strange dreams before, but they usually happen when I’m staying in a creepy hotel or visiting my family's very old home. The nightmares will come and go, but none have been so vivid or recurring as this one. Streams of light come through our curtains, illuminating the corgi clock on my nightstand that indicates I’m running late to work again. I reluctantly climb out of bed and throw my lime green scrubs on, brush my hair and teeth before releasing our chunky corgi, Ducky, from her bed. While commuting to my job, I obsess a little over the dream. Have I seen any movies that resemble this monster? Why doesn’t it speak? Why are there no eyes and why is its face smoothed over except for its ruby red mouth? As I enter our beautiful glass skyscraper building and take the elevator down to my domain, I forget about the dream and all my unanswered questions.

As a medical examiner, my specialty is determining the cause of death by performing autopsies. There are tons of unexplained deaths in a big city like where I’m from in Jaazdale. Recently, though, there have been a lot of murders containing the same M.O. The corpses coming in have their torso exposed and missing organs. It looks as if an animal attacked, but in a calculated sort of way. Only the chest cavity and stomach regions are affected. Liver, lungs, and heart are always missing. As I walk up to today’s work, I notice the familiar scent of chemicals including formaldehyde similar to a household cleaning agent. I reach for my latex gloves and begin my examination. The room is cold, and the steel table contains the body of a woman in her 30’s. With her long brown hair and relaxed facial features, she would appear to be sleeping peacefully if it wasn’t for the meticulously clawed at upper body and intestines sitting next to her stomach region. As I lean on her arm to take a look inside her chest cavity, I can feel her freezing body absorb my warmth, like walking into a freezer. The claw marks are striated across the chest peeling the skin back to show each rib. The victim's intestines are always found placed in a pile next to the body, giving better access to where the liver would have been located. The ribs are intact in all victims, as I observe now. Long claw marks are found from inside the ribcage where the heart and lungs are usually found to the base of the stomach region. The scene resembles a pudding cup that's been scraped empty. Unfortunately, the police have not identified any suspects. In the morgue, we have found no trace of foreign DNA to link it to a suspect as the bodies keep coming in. There is no pattern as to who the next victim will be.

Finally reaching my home after an exhausting day at work, my fiancé and I decided to relax on the sofa bed. I start to drift off to the sound of static and the smell of lavender. As my breath begins to steady, I hear a rustling from the kitchen. My eyes immediately open. The creature again stands tall, pale, and leering at me with its bright red lips and spiked teeth. As so many times before, it makes its way on all fours to the sofa bed where we rest in the living room. No sound escapes me as it crawls over me releasing a scratchy laugh. Its long fingers drag across my ankles as it makes its way to my fiancé’s resting body. The tears begin to flow. As usual, I am paralyzed everywhere except for my eyes. This time, though, something is different; I realize I am awake, and this is no dream. Out of the corner of my eye, it begins to devour my unconscious fiancé’s torso. I close my eyes as I’m forced to listen to the chomping of flesh beneath its teeth. A metallic smell is released into the air. I can feel the warmth of liquid under my body as the blood begins to seep into the sheets. As quickly as it began, the sound of dining ceases. I feel a hot breath on my face along with the stench of death. I opened my eyes to realize I would be consumed next.