The Intruder

Inspired by Sylvia Plath.
It was 1983; Robert Harrison, a former soldier turned burglar, 35, scruffy black hair with an overgrown moustache and an unkempt stubble. He has a slender frame hidden by a black raincoat, a rolled up ski mask, black wool gloves, dark green cargo pants, and black army combat boots. His pockets carried only the essentials - a knife, some cigarettes, and a lighter. Leaving room to take what he wanted. Over his shoulders he carried an empty backpack, unzipped - a darkness in the backpack, filled but never full. He had walked past this apartment before, it had always seemed… hollow… but now - something has changed. Maybe it’s nothing - but the building called to him. Not by name, not literally… but he felt it - the house was calling to him. The windows echoing and yearning for him as if it was looking at him - beckoning him. The streets of Brooklyn were dark, this particular street you would think was abandoned if not for the street light illuminating one red door at the top of a flight of stairs. Beautiful carving covered the door and a large knocker with the face of a bull sat in the middle. The sidewalks were covered by a damp layer of orange and red leaves as a mist of rain covers the city. It is a perfect wall of sound for what he will be doing.
His boots hit the floor in a consistent march - tick, tick, tick, tick. Step, step, step, step. He keeps this rhythm with every job; keeps him focused, fast, quiet. He can’t help but hear the leaves below him - crunching, the sound irritates him but he won’t be slowed by that - not anymore.  The house was tall - cold. Robert didn’t notice though, if he did he would’ve noticed the burnt drapes that hung from the windows. Or the colorless flowers that fill a planter on its porch. He was silent as he ran up the frontsteps, he turns and climbs to a window on the left; He goes to pry it open and it opens without struggle. In one effortless motion the man slides it open,  turns and stands inside. Robert scans the room; noticing photos of an old couple, many photos of the lady - she seems to have passed. He goes for the first set of cabinets he sees, the shelves are full of scrapbooks - pulling one out he sees the lady from the photos dated “11/1/1955” His curiosity gets the better of him and he opens the book. There are no pages, there is one photo and it displays Roberts troupe the day they were sent off. Filled with confusion and slight anger, he tears out the rest of the scrapbooks. Empty. All of them are empty. He jumps back, unable to look away. The cabinets suddenly begin tipping over, slamming down in front of him. He is snapped out of his trance looking at the wall behind the cabinets. There’s a rusted key, dangling from a strand of hair - nailed to the wall. He grabs the key and yanks it off the wall. The nail flies out and blood begins oozing from the hole. A darkness emanating, it calls to Robert. He steps towards it, looking inside. In an instant, hundreds and hundreds of bugs spew out. He recoils, stomping and swatting, smacking them off his body the best he can but he’s overwhelmed by the sheer amount and is chased down the hallway into the only open door - a closet, shutting it behind him, he holds his breath, listening. The bugs go silent. He opens the door slowly and is met by a completely different hallway. This one is lined with beautifully hand carved wooden sidings with a deep forest green wallpaper on the top. Illuminated by gas lamps there is a single door at the end of the hallway. He begins walking towards it, he goes past various paintings depicting small animals, all killed in different manners - not by other animals, but each other. A bunny shredding into its mothers neck, a duck pecking through its own skin, and mice eating through a fawn. Robert ignores it. Walking up to the door he notices it doesn’t match the room - rusted and decrepit, he remembers the key. It seemed to match perfectly. He inserts the key and with a loud click the door opens.

Stepping inside, he finds the walls covered with moldy wallpaper, and a pungent black goo seeping from the corners. He didn’t have time to even comprehend what he was looking at because as he turned he saw the woman from the photos downstairs, tied up. She’s passed out and she smells awful. “Jesus christ- are you okay?” He asks frantically as he drops his bag, and lunges down for the ropes, trying to untie her but is interrupted by the door slamming behind him.  He hears the lock turn and click as he runs to the door and tries opening it, but it won’t budge. He screams “LET ME OUT”, banging on the door he continues “OPEN THE DOOR YOU SICK FUCK”. He is met with silence. Robert turns back to the woman and starts untying her, but she doesn’t move. He tries shaking her lightly, but nothing. Rob checks her pulse and doesn’t find one. He jumps back and begins hyperventilating, pacing back and forth he can’t think of what to do. He begins screaming and banging on the door. “LET ME OUT PLEASE” he begins begging. His voice quivering as he bargains with the kidnapper. “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?” The man cries, his yells now unintelligible, his banging slowing down as he tires and slides down the wall. He cannot be stuck here. He will not die like this. With a second wind he gets up and bangs harder, yells louder; he starts throwing himself into the door in hopes it will break down. Nothing. Robert steps back and begins examining the room.  Suddenly he is on his feet - ripping everything off the walls, hoping to find something, anything, to get him out. The man rips the wallpaper in the corner of the room and is met with a sliver into an empty void. Not entirely empty though… as Robert stares he can hear a jumble of voices whispering, talking, and screaming, all on top of one another. The voices all saying something different; some angry, some begging, some happy, it was overwhelming. He goes to put the wallpaper back up but as he turns back he is met with a being indescribable to human perception. Somehow larger than the world he inhabits, evershifting wheels of agony and power, unseen to the human eye. It speaks to Robert. Nothing in any language discernible to the human ear, yet he understood nonetheless. Robert turns to the woman on the floor, as if he was being controlled he walks over, kneels down, and begins ripping chunks of rotting flesh off of her arms. Next he goes for the back - digging his nails into her shoulders and ripping downward, it took a few tugs but he manages to get it in one piece. Moving onto her legs he begins clawing from the middle, he manages to get a finger under as he rips ligaments and whatever muscle was left out of her calf. After finishing with the body he begins laying the skin out in a pattern - finishing the pattern the walls around him falls away. He is not met with an endless darkness but the town he’d been in before - the rainy streets, the dark alleys, flickering streetlights, nothing had changed. He looks down at the skin laid out before him. An unending, everchanging, kaleidoscope of human flesh lies before him. He takes a step and falls directly in. Something has been awakened. It was bigger than him now. Robert awakens and is now in the woman's arms. She is no longer torn apart and she smells like his mother. He turns back and sees nothing. Not even a room nor the city around him. He is in a field, tall grass surrounds him and he looks upon a field centered by a large willow tree. Blanketed by a warm moonlight Robert walks to the tree, he lays down against it, and as he sits there, he smiles. “The Moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.”