Page 41 of So Thirsty

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F ootsteps. Slow, heavy footsteps. I turn to see Henry. He’s already made it out of the hall; he’s not too far from me. He’s looking at me. Everyone else is looking beyond me, toward the hall, toward the noise, the smack of bare feet coming down hard.

I take a step forward, holding the fire poker tightly though I’m sure it makes me seem more pathetic than intimidating. I move to get a better look at whoever is coming down the hall. Naomi, now wearing her thong, her bra, and her Penny Lane jacket, follows closely behind me.

Before I can even process what I’m seeing, she’s screaming.

From the murky darkness emerges a pale, jagged shape. A creature. A skeletal frame.

Its movements are tortured, agonizing just to witness. Its labored approach is accompanied by the groaning I heard earlier, and wheezing. Gruesome wheezing. The sound of absolute suffering.

The closer it gets, the more I can see it, and the more human, the more horrific it becomes. It’s got these long, spindly limbs. It’s spidering toward us on all fours. It’s got a bald head, skin like cellophane, eyes like boiled eggs out of the shell. Its nose is narrow, nostrils gaping. It has no lips, but it has a mouth, a void, a giant hole filled with brown, rotten teeth. A desiccated tongue the color of ash juts out as the thing makes a new noise. A wordless howl.

“What the fuck!” Naomi screams. “What the fuck!”

The thing—the pale man—slows to a complete stop. He goes on howling as he begins to roll up, his bones cracking with repulsive intensity. He wears nothing except a pair of stained, stretched-out tighty-whities that slump from his hip bones. All of his bones are visible. I can count every rib. He’s been starved.

He lifts his emaciated arms and lurches forward, but he’s too eager. He falls face-first on the floor.

Naomi screams again.

I can’t look at her. I can’t take my eyes off the man. He’s splayed out; one of his arms is broken. I can see the fracture through his gauzy skin. His legs twitch, but other than that, he’s not moving. I know he’s alive because I can still hear him breathing. Wheezing.

I reach over for Naomi’s hand, silently begging her to take mine so we can turn and run out of here.

Then I remember the snow. I remember the gate.

I remember that I don’t have my phone, but she must have hers.

“We need to go,” I say, taking a step to the side, bringing Naomi with me. We pass directly in front of the man.

“He’s gonna die,” Naomi whisper-yells at me. “He’s about to die.”

“We need to go,” I repeat.

There’s resistance. She’s resisting. She pulls free from my grip. I turn toward her, and she’s fixated on the dying skeleton man. For as freewheeling and oblivious and inconsiderate as she can be, Naomi is also profoundly empathetic.

She drops to her knees in front of the man, compelled by his suffering, undeterred by his monstrousness.

“Okay,” she says, reaching a hand over his back. “Okay. It’s okay.”

There she is. Once, back in high school, we were at her house and a bird flew into her bedroom window and broke its wing. She went out to help it, put it in a shoebox, rehabilitate it. I warned against doing this, telling her birds carry diseases and mites. She ignored me. She doesn’t listen to reason. She doesn’t listen.

I scan the room. No one’s moved. Tatiana is still holding Costel’s dick. With the exception of Henry, they’re all naked, which should make them seem less threatening, but it doesn’t. Because they’re the ones who did this. How long has this man been locked away? How long have they lived here letting him suffer and starve beneath their feet?

Did they break in? Take the house by force?

What the hell is going on?

“It’s okay. We’re gonna get you help.” Naomi reaches into her pocket. Her brows pinch together. She reaches deeper. Deeper. She tries the other pocket.

“Where is it?” she mumbles. “Where’s my phone?”

“You shouldn’t get too close,” Henry says. “This isn’t what you think it is.”

“Sloane. I don’t have it. I don’t have my phone. We need to get him help.”

She’s not thinking clearly.