The air in the apartment felt heavy, thick with the scent of old wood and something else—something metallic and sharp, like the tang of a freshly cut wound. For months, Sarah had tried to ignore it, telling herself it was just the building's old plumbing, or maybe the construction across the street. But tonight, it was different. Tonight, the air itself seemed to pulse, a silent, rhythmic beat that mirrored her own frantic heart.She clutched her phone, its light a pathetic shield against the encroaching gloom. The glow cast long, distorted shadows of her furniture across the walls, making the armchair seem like a hunched figure and the coat stand like a skeleton with too many arms. Sarah knew it was her mind playing tricks, a byproduct of too many sleepless nights, yet she couldn't shake the feeling that she was no longer alone.The sound started subtly, a faint scratching in the walls, like mice skittering through the dry wood.
But it didn't stay small. It grew louder, more insistent, a frantic gnawing that made her teeth ache. It was coming from the kitchen. Sarah crept toward the sound, her bare feet sticking to the linoleum floor. The scratching evolved, becoming a furious, wet sound, like bone being scraped clean. A sound that shouldn't be possible.She found the source in the corner, behind the ancient, humming refrigerator. There, in a gap where the wall met the floorboards, a small, dark hole had been chewed. It was no bigger than a teacup, but the edges were wet and jagged. And from the hole came the slow, deliberate movement of something long and pale.
A single, delicate human finger, disconnected at the knuckle, crawled out. It was followed by another, then another, a procession of severed digits tapping and twitching their way across her kitchen floor.Sarah let out a choked cry, stumbling backward and fumbling for her phone. Her fingers, slick with cold sweat, fumbled to dial 911, but the phone slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor, the screen cracking in a spiderweb of light and darkness. As she scrambled to retrieve it, the tapping fingers began to converge, a macabre gathering forming a circle around her.Then came a new sound, a rhythmic thump-drag... thump-drag... from the living room. It was too heavy for a rodent, too slow for a person walking. It was the sound of a body, or part of one, being moved.Sarah froze, the cracked phone screen illuminating her own wide, terrified eyes. She could hear it now—the wet, heavy sound of it dragging across the floor, getting closer. The fingers on the floor paused their frantic tapping, all pointing toward the archway leading into the living room, as if awaiting their owner.The thing in the doorway was tall and impossibly thin, a skeletal framework draped in a patchwork of human skin. It moved with a disjointed, twitching motion, each step a sickening crunch of bone against bone. It had no face, only a smooth, featureless oval of mottled flesh. And it had no hands. Just two raw stumps of wrist bone, weeping a dark fluid onto the floor.It tilted its head, a silent, inquisitive gesture. The fingers on the kitchen floor rose up on their tips, a line of pale white things, and scampered eagerly towards it, crawling over its feet and up its legs until they reached the stumps of its arms. As they attached themselves, fusing with a wet, popping sound, the creature's smooth face began to change.
Dark lines appeared, deepening into hollow sockets. A slit opened, stretching wide into a silent, screaming mouth.Sarah didn't scream. She couldn't. The sight had not only frozen her but had stolen her voice. The creature's head snapped to the side, then back, as if listening to a sound only it could hear. It was the sound of something else, something small and familiar, moving just outside her bedroom door. The sound of a little boy's voice, singing a nursery rhyme.All around the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel...She had no son. There were no children in the building. Yet the voice was so clear, so close, singing a song she hadn't heard since her own childhood. The creature lifted a newly formed, slender finger, placing it over its lipless mouth in a gesture of shushing.The sound of the child's singing stopped, replaced by a sudden, high-pitched giggle....Pop! Goes the weasel!The creature's head swiveled slowly toward Sarah, its new, hollow eyes fixing on hers. A single, dark tear rolled down its smooth cheek, and a small, satisfied smile stretched across its sewn-shut lips.
The fingers on its hands began to tap, once again, a rhythmic, silent beat against its own fleshy wrist. Sarah understood. The creature wasn't looking for her. It was simply her turn to watch. And wait.