But, you know, there’s gotta be more to it. So he takes out the highest-wattage bulb he has—spotlight-quality halogen, it looks like—puts on a pair of fricking polarized safety glasses, for fuck’s sake, and says: “Let me just try one more thing.” Well, how was I gonna stop him? He holds up the bulb, pointing it away from me, and the same thing happens as he lifts it closer and closer to the cold spot: Filament starts glowing, ramps up as he lifts, until the cone of light it’s throwing is so bright the colours on that side of the apartment look almost completely washed out. And I turn away, shielding my face, which is the only reason I see it happening.
Q: See… what happening?
A: How every other bulb in the place really is dimming down now, very visibly: kitchen, hallway, bathroom—and before you ask, this isn’t just my vision adjusting to one bright light source, I can see them browning out. And it’s getting colder in the place, too, like the window and front door have both been thrown open and a cross breeze is sucking out all the heat. Except everything’s still closed. And then Joe—my… my friend—I hear him yelp, like the sound you’d make if somebody startled you by slapping your hand. He staggers back from the corner, and he’s just staring at the bulb hovering there, and the look on his face is finally about as freaked out as I’ve been for the last fifteen minutes. So I hurry over to him, asking what’s wrong, and he pulls me almost right against the window so I can see what he’s seeing.
The bulb isn’t stuck to the wall. It’s floating there right in mid-fucking-air. And smoke is curling and hissing off the plaster overhead, except the stain spilling across it isn’t black, it’s… “white” isn’t strong enough. It was like someone photographed a heat-scorch and then flipped it into negative, so black becomes white, except it’s this blinding purplish-UV glow that—I can’t describe it; staring at it hurt, like someone was squeezing my eyeballs, like the world’s worst case of glaucoma, and after a second I had to hunch over with my palms in my eye sockets. But Joe, he’s got his glasses on so I guess it wasn’t hurting him to look at, and he was just staring up at it, his mouth open a little, almost smiling—like he was so amazed, he was happy. Like he was seeing God.
Then, under the sizzling sound of my ceiling cooking, there’s this rippling wave of sharp cracking, banging sounds, and the plaster splits open all around the bulb, shooting out in all directions from the corner—along the ceiling, down the wall, towards the windows. And more glowing shit spills out through all these cracks, except this isn’t light or smoke or fire; it’s more like…
Ever seen one of those phosphorescent jellyfish they have in aquariums? Like the wall at Ripley’s Aquarium, the one they shot part of The Handmaid’s Tale pilot episode in front of? They’re all made of, um, goo, right, even the biggest ones… transparent, like slime, or mucus that isn’t infected. Invisible, really. Until you shine a light behind them.
(PAUSE) I’ll assume you have. Anyway, imagine that, but with the wall’s brightness amped up to eleven, almost as hard to look at as the bulb itself. And I can’t even see the bulb, any more, only the place in the corner where the light is brightest. And this horrid blinding incandescent shit coming in through the cracks, that fizzling, spitting sparkler of a fissure between here and—somewhere else starts… weaving itself out in all directions, dropping these wet viscous tendrils onto the floor, throwing them out at the walls like the support lines on a spider web. Oh God, and just the way it sounded made me want to puke, and the smell was like ozone and rotten seaweed and rancid fat. But even while it’s doing all this—making itself manifest like somebody fucking cutting themselves apart so their entrails fall out, or whatever—it’s still cycling through every colour you can think of, and it’s fucking beautiful, like staring into a ten-foot-tall kaleidoscope.
The bell forms, then filaments, then tentacles. Mucus and spines spread all over Joe, cocooning him—he’s up to his waist in this swamp of oozing, spiny tendrils, and I’m standing in a puddle of oil-slick glowing crap that’s inching its way up my ankles, like I’m sinking into the floor. If I hadn’t already had the broom in my hand I really don’t think I would have gotten out of there, but thank Christ, I did.
I don’t even remember being angry, or frightened, just… wired. Like I was buzzing. Like a signal going through me.
So I stumble forwards with my eyes closed and start flailing with the broom at the corner of the ceiling, the cold spot. And I can feel the sickening, wet way all this slimy guck gives way under it when I’m swinging and jabbing, but then—somehow—there’s this solid crunch, and the light goes out, with this… it isn’t a sound. It’s like a feeling in the air. This silent, agonizing trembling all along my skin, like a thousand dog whistles all screaming at once.
I broke the bulb, and that’s all it took. Right then, anyhow.
So. All the shit that’s wrapping up Joe falls apart with this disgusting squelching noise, and Joe goes over on his side, which is when I grab him up with both hands, trying to haul him to the door—where I thought the door used to be. Because it was dark in there, man, super-dark; dark plus. I’ve never seen dark like that, before or after.
Must’ve looked pretty funny, in retrospect: there I am, dragging—attempting to drag—this huge, cute young dude twice my size, slapping his face and yelling hysterically at him, desperate to get him to wake up. Couldn’t see much, but I remember his arms felt slimy, and patches of his skin almost seemed… soft, like if I squeezed too hard it would just slide right off his arm. Overcooked meat, that was the feel. (SOFTER) God, I wish I hadn’t remembered that.
(PAUSE, THEN NORMAL TONE) Okay, so. I get him past the kitchen counter into the vestibule, still fumbling around, and my hand falls on the door handle, at fucking last. Jesus! It was like a miracle. And I open the main door, so I can finally see again in the light coming in from the hallway—
—which is exactly when the thing in the apartment suddenly bursts into blazing light again, even brighter, but I can still see what it’s doing. It kind of… pulses, first inward and then outward, and opens up like a gigantic umbrella, a vampire fucking squid, with red and purple teeth all ringed round inside and dripping. Tendrils shoot out and they wrap round Joe and haul him back in, so fast and hard I don’t have time to let go. Next thing I know, it snaps shut on us both: all of him, me just to the wrist, the right one. Joe’s just—gone, swallowed. And my hand is stuck inside the peak of the thing, and it’s burning, like I stuck it in a beehive, or a vat full of acid. Like I’d stuck it through a hole, right into somebody else’s stomach.
I must’ve been screaming, but I don’t remember. Just hauling as hard as I could till my hand peeled free and throwing myself back out that door, slamming it shut behind me.