Masticate

On February 21st, during 5th period, somebody locked my friend Jason in a closet in my school’s basement. He had gone down to clean in his free hour in the 5th period.

That night, he was admitted to NMCH’s psych ward for an indefinite stay. By the time Jason’s parents realized he hadn’t arrived home from band practice, he had been locked in that closet for 5 hours. 

We talked in 4th period that day. German class was always a blowoff, we didn’t care and neither did the teacher. We talked about video games, bullshit homework, mindless small talk. He had tucked his shirt in wrong and I gave him shit for it. We set plans to see a new horror movie playing downtown this weekend, the bell rang, and we walked our separate ways.

I didn’t see Jason in 6th period. 

Nobody heard him until a student had returned to collect their forgotten homework later in the evening. They passed by the basement door on their way to the exit when they heard him scream. 

Somebody please get me out. The door is locked. Someone is in here.

HIs voice was hoarse and squeaking, repeating these desperate pleas over and over. He must have sounded horrible. I think she sees a counselor now.

When the custodian and principal arrived, they found the closet deathly quiet. He was shivering, huddled in the corner of the dark closet. Curled into a tight ball, his hands were covering his ears tightly. His head was between his knees, squeezing his legs over his hands to further muffle any possible sound. He looked like a scared little kid hiding under a blanket, not a kid about to go to college. They don’t know if he can go to college anymore.

When his mom tried to take his hands off his ears, he screamed, kicked, thrashed, spit, and did anything he could to get his ears covered. He shrieked that he could hear it, and begged them to go away. He began to weep, breaking out in desperate sobs while he scrabbled back into his former position. The principal called an ambulance. Jason’s mother had started to cry as well, and Jason’s father was torn between comforting her and trying to figure out some way to help his son. Paramedics arrived, sedated Jason, and transported him to NMCH. Jason’s mother rode in the ambulance, and his father followed close behind in the family car. He’s been admitted there for the past 7 days.

Everybody loved Jason.

Jason was, for lack of a better term, a nerd. We both were, but Jason was different. Whereas I prefer to keep to myself, Jason goes out of his way to talk to strangers. He helps out with clubs that he isn’t a member of for fun. He was nerdy and awkward, but he loved to help out. His hospital room is a clear representation of how involved he was around the school. Flowers from most of the clubs, friends, some of the teachers that he helped out with, even.

It’s been raining for the past three days, so most of the flowers that people brought Jason have wilted in the window. He’s currently staring out it, vacantly casting his gaze over suburban normalcy like he has been since they got him to stop screaming.

It was one of the nurses' ideas, I think. Somebody saw that he was covering his ears and gave him a pair of ear plugs. Simple as that. It took two plugs and tape over both of his ears, but he’s stable enough that he can stare and sleep without sobbing anymore. 

He hasn’t eaten since they found him in that closet. He outright refuses to eat anything, to the point of needing to be restrained if they were to even attempt it. They had to put in a feeding tube.

I’ve visited and tried to communicate with him every day since, but he’s not there anymore. I don’t know what happened to him in that basement, but he might as well be in a coma. If you stand in front of him, his eyes slide off of you to whatever else in the room catches his attention. The doctors said it must be some kind of catatonic state due to being locked in the closet and a horrible case of “undiagnosed claustrophobia”. 

Jason and I have been watching horror movies together since we were old enough to know what they were. We’d take turns begging each other's parents to let us rent the latest slasher, monster feature, or found footage movie that had caught our eye on TV. His parents laughed a lot back then. 

We’ve covered all of the classics, but he always lit up whenever we’d catch sight of one of his favorites. Jason had a fascination with those movies that went into the tight dark spaces. The Descent, As Above So Below, stuff like that. He always joked that his dream vacation is to drag me caving after watching a movie marathon. It was his favorite thing.

"Undiagnosed claustrophobia."

I’m going to that basement.

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Rich, up to date schools in upper class neighborhoods come with a large variety of security infrastructure. They generally have cameras, there’s an alarm, and there might even be a guard or two depending on how rich. It would be incredibly difficult to break into one without the help of someone who worked at the school.

Fortunately for me, we did not attend one of the nice schools.

After midnight, nobody is in that building anymore. They couldn’t afford to hire a night guard if they worked for free. Popping open the side door that our custodian keeps propped to smoke out of, I crept through our school towards the basement door. Something has to be in that closet that they didn’t see. There’s no chance that Jason would be that freaked out from getting stuck in a closet. 

I stand at the threshold of the basement door. The opening a black square cut into the wall ahead of me. None of the lights down there were on, and the overnight lights in the school were far too dim to cut into the pitch.

Turning on my phone's flashlight, a small, string pull cord is revealed, dangling in the darkness. A quick pull, and relief washes over me. While the tiny, dust covered lightbulb does little to cut through the oppressing darkness, it was still a welcome relief compared to before. I entered the basement, using my phone to turn on the rest of the bulbs in the room. To my left lies the large boiler system used for our heating. It’s a hulking metal thing that pumps and whines incessantly. It’s a miracle they can keep it running at all. To my right, there is a small work area where the custodians have their tools, a workbench, and various landscaping equipment stored for the season.

Tucked into the corner, unmarked, and covered in a thick layer of dust, was the supply closet.

It was plain, without a real door frame of any kind, just kind of set into the wall with a seam. A small placard read SUPPLY. The doorknob was, similarly, plain and out of the way, towards the corner. The thick dust was disturbed where the custodian, or whoever had locked him in there, had turned the knob prior. 

I reached for the knob, realizing that the door very clearly did not have a lock. Odd, considering my best friend was traumatized to the point of catatonia from getting locked in this very closet. The doorknob was smooth, plain, and there was absolutely nowhere on that door to insert a key.

I assumed that the story must have gotten shifted by the time it got to me. Whoever shoved him in here must have blocked it with something. Shuddering at the prospect, I carefully ensured that there were no objects nearby that could fall or block me in. Regardless of how well lit the basement was, and despite the fact that I was about to open a completely normal supply closet, I felt a pit of unease in my stomach. Whatever was in this basement closet had turned my friend into a shade of his former self, and it scared me. 

Logically, I can understand that it’s just a supply closet. It’s been a week since this happened, and it’s gone back to regular use for the custodians. It’s perfectly safe.

Opening the closet is a daunting task right up until I do it. Then it’s just a closet again. It is so plainly just a closet that I feel a little stupid for coming all the way down here in the first place. I reach in and pull the light cord, lighting up an array of cleaning supplies, ranging from glass cleaner to rags to a mop bucket in the corner. The two walls on either side were shelves, with the back wall having a small wire rack to hang keys or jackets. In the other corner, opposite the mop bucket, is a spot that is clearly cleaner than the rest of the room. Mark, some dickhead in my science class, spread a rumor that Jason had pissed himself when it happened, causing more than a few dirty looks his way from Jason’s friends. Looking at the clean spot shining from the surrounding grime and dust, it looked like he was right.

What could have possibly scared him this much in this closet? Sure it would be dark if the light wasn’t working, but that wasn’t a part of any story I had heard. It had turned on just fine, and even looked like they had replaced the bulb since it happened. As unsettling as 5 hours in the dark would be listening to that heater shriek, it wouldn’t do that to Jason. Shaking off my earlier trepidation, I stepped into the closet to examine the newly cleaned corner my best friend had hid in just a week prior.

As soon as I took two steps into the closet, the lightbulb above my head winked out. The room was still lit by the doorway behind me, casting my silhouette onto the wire rack in a rectangular spotlight. I nearly pissed myself, before sighing, shaking my head, and reaching up to pull the cord in a futile attempt at the classic turn it off and turn it back on technique.

My heart had just started to settle down from its panic at the light turning off when I gave up on the cord and reached further to tighten the bulb. Out of the bottom of my peripheral vision, I saw my rectangle of light narrow and bend swiftly, and realized with immediate panic that the door was swinging shut. I whirled around just in time to see the last crack of light wink out, when the door closed with an audible *click*. 

Scrambling to the door, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and flicked my flashlight back on, fully intending on getting the fuck out of this basement. 

Reaching for the knob, I heard a second, louder, click, coming from the door. The sound was instantly recognizable. It was so bizarre I was sure that I had imagined it in my panic until I grabbed and pulled.

Somebody had locked it. Someone had followed me in through the side door, or was fucking around in the basement, and had locked me in here. That was the immediate and absolute conclusion my brain came to, until I remembered that this door did not, in fact, have a lock.

In tandem with this realization, my flashlight turned off. The display followed suit a second later. 

Panic had set in fully at this point, I fumbled by the doorknob, using the limited light by the cracks in the door to yank at the handle, turning it frantically. I started tearing up at the sound of the three lightbulbs in the previous room popping in their sockets, cutting my meager light from the doors seams to an empty void. 

Up until this point, the closet had smelled like cleaning supplies, dust, and cigarette smoke. As to be expected from a custodial closet in a shitty high school. When the last of the light winked out from the cracks in the door, I began to smell the overwhelming stench of rotten meat. 

Have you ever gone on vacation, only to realize when you got home that the fridge broke while you were gone? Or opened a deep freezer stocked with frozen meat that somebody forgot to plug in and left over a long, hot summer. The kind of smell that pervades the mouth as much as your nose, stings your eyes, and sinks into your clothes.

I heard a deep, wet, rasp of a breath inhale behind me, from where the wire rack was mounted.

It’s a small, 3x3 supply closet. There wasn’t space for anyone to be hiding. There were no vents, no cabinets to hide in, no way to sneak past me in this cramped area. I must have imagined the sound in my panic.

In the brief rush of horror, panic, and denial that followed, I came to two realizations simultaneously. The warmth in my legs told me that this time I really had pissed myself, and the hot, muggy heat on the back of my neck told me that I was not alone in this closet.

I froze, pinned in place by overwhelming terror. I know that it’s technically fight or flight or freeze, and I froze. The stench intensified, nearly making me gag from the suffocating miasma that filled the room. 

I volunteered over the summer at a nursing home, and in my time there I saw one man die. Nate Bollin was not a small man. He didn’t take care of himself in any way shape or form, was horribly overweight, and was horribly rude. He, also, was suffering from a terminal case of pneumonia. Those horrible, wet gasps that he let out towards the end have come to me on nights where sleep was hard to find.

Another exhale. It sounded for all the world like Mr. Bollin.

It spoke to me, crooning in garbled words that I couldn’t understand through too many teeth that I could not see but I could hear them all click and grind and  I could smell the rot in them and I could feel them, if I only reached out and tried. 

I didn’t try. I sank to my knees, the strength leeching from my body entirely as I was subsumed beneath the overwhelming feeling that I was about to die. But I didn’t die.

It’s words stuck and echoed in my head, sliding across my conscious thoughts like a slug. It was the most disgusting experience I have felt in my entire life. I didn’t understand anything it was saying, it wasn’t any language that I knew. The breath on my neck got hotter, and that overwhelming pressure increased to an unbearable weight. it was leaning, stretching, bending closer to me and I could feel it take a long, low breath next to the nape of my neck. Tasting me. 

It was much, much larger than me. I began to sob.

It let out a low, contented sigh of what sounded like satisfaction, and the pressure released slightly as it retreated further back in the room. I felt momentary relief, before hearing its teeth click as it’s jaws, however many it had, began to creak and pop and yawn open behind me.

I realized then that I could no longer hear the oppressive bleating whine of that hulking boiler. I couldn’t hear anything, actually. I couldn’t hear my rapid breaths, and I couldn’t hear my hands scrabbling at the door handle, desperately tugging at my lifeline. I couldn’t even hear myself when I started to scream.

Finally the jaws behind me stopped their popping and creaking. And it began to sing.

I couldn’t hear anything else, but I could do nothing to stop that awful, grating, rasping voice as it tore through my skull like a white hot iron. It wasn’t hot, though. It was cold, and sick, and so very very hungry.

I tried to block it out for a while, like Jason did. I dropped to my knees, screwing my ears shut as tight as possible in the same position that I heard he held, and I screamed as loud as I could for somebody, anybody, to help me. 

But I had come at night, and my school couldn’t afford a night guard.

I felt the breath cascade over my neck and the stench sit in my head for what felt like hours. Finally, I felt it approach, inching closer to my sweat soaked skin as I sat, sobbing and shaking. I felt a huge mass of cold, raw dead flesh and muscle cover the base of my neck, and travel up the back of my head, before retreating, followed by another satisfied sigh.

It licked me.

I blacked out.

I dreamt, then. 

I dreamt of a giant feast, a grand table stretching far off to either side of me. Trays and plates covered with cuts of meat in all varieties. Lamb chops, venison steaks, frog legs, chicken legs roasted to perfection. Turkey drumsticks the size of softballs, with any side you could possibly imagine or want. I gorged myself, reaching and biting and drinking and eating and biting and eating. Nothing I ate satisfied me. That gnawing, ever present hunger clawed at the walls of my insides. It’s song had played, then, in that beautiful, rasping melody of meat and teeth. The meat had begun to have that horrible, rotten taste that I smelled in that closet. I didn’t give a shit. I would have killed if someone got in the way of me and that food, I was delirious. The whole time as I feasted it sang out to me in that chattering, whispering, signing tone. It sings of how good it is to gorge and bite and swallow and to taste. How I can help it. How hungry it is.

I woke up at home, in bed, undressed.

I slowly swung my head to the other side of the room, seeing the clock illustrate 4:30 am to the rest of the room in bright LED red. My sheets were soaked, from where I had soaked it through with sweat and apparently pissed myself. It was all I could do to throw them in the wash and clean up before collapsing back into bed.. 

And then it was Friday. My alarm went off, my mom made breakfast and went to work, and I had school in an hour.

I cook myself as large of a breakfast as I can reasonably get away with before being accused of being a glutton by my parents. I caught a whiff of that horrible rotten stench then, and froze up. Examining the fridge, someone had forgotten a takeout container in the back of the fridge. I tossed it out, that sour taste leaving my mouth with the closing of the garbage can lid. That dream kept rattling around in my head, I still felt that weird gnawing hunger. 

I keep telling myself it must have been some weird fever dream/sleepwalking event resulting in me pissing my bed on a Thursday and having a nightmare. But that rotten taste is still in my head, and I still feel that gnawing hunger, although much fainter now.

School passed by at a snail's pace. Jason was yesterday's news at this point.

People were talking about it less, the school had chalked it up to a cruel prank, and didn’t give a shit enough to look into it any further. Everyone bought the claustrophobia bullshit. Honestly at this point I hope they’re right, that he really was just claustrophobic and not whatever sick alternative is rotting in that closet.

At lunch I ate my packed food, then went up and got a hot lunch from the cafeteria as well. Then a second one. I was insatiable, I just couldn’t quite get full. Nothing did the trick. My mind kept swinging back to food, but that same sick feeling would reverberate in my brain and I’d get nauseous. Thoughts of steak and ribs and burnt ends were followed by that same rotten stench of rot stinging like acid on my tongue, and inexplicably a gnawing pain in my stomach. 

The implications of this and the dream weren’t lost on me. I’d wait until after school, go back down there, and check the room for real. I’d prop the door open with one of the cinderblocks laying behind the shop building, bring a flashlight, and make sure that it was just a dream. 

I had to. That rotten stench invades my space more and more as time moves on. A girl in my history class gave me a disgusted look and found a different seat. At least I’m not the only one that smells it. I have to clear my head. I just have to go back down to the basement.

It was after 8 when I left the locker room I had hidden in, hauling the cement cinderblock towards my school’s basement. It was just like my dream which at this point could surely not be just a dream. The hallways were dark and stretching out ahead of me. I felt that slow pulse of fear rise in my chest. I had arrived at the top of the basement stairs, that familiar expanse of black beneath me. 

Except this time it wasn’t an expanse of black. Somebody was down there. Multiple somebodies, actually.

“Doesn’t it feel weird being down here after what happened?” A guy was talking over in the corner by the boiler. He sounded like he was around my age, probably another student.

“What, just because some shithead is scared of the dark we’re supposed to feel guilty?” 

I froze, my grip on the cinderblock white-knuckling.

A third one piped up, the smug bastard laughed, then. “I heard he pissed himself. Goody fuckin two shoes wanted to go and help clean the basement when nobody asked him to. Maybe if he minded his business he wouldn’t be at NMCH right now.” 

His compatriots sounded his agreement with a laugh, patting their friend on the shoulder.
These were the guys who had put Jason in that closet. He had caught them in the middle of something, and they had decided he earned to be in that closet for it.

I smelled it then, the cigarette smoke. Whether as some bullshit teenage rebellious act or to hide it from home, they had decided to smoke cigarettes in the school basement instead of behind their garages. If Jason really did come down here to clean during 5th period, he would have seen them plain as day, and probably would have spouted something about how dangerous and stupid it was to smoke cigarettes in this old ass basement.

Then there was another smell, one that the cigarette smoke was failing to cover. That deep, horrible tang of rotten steak left in the sun. I heard the words then, again, and that rotten pulse echoed and slid around my head like a maggot through mud. The light above me popped and darkened, as did the light they had on down there, as the room was thrust into total darkness.

The door to the basement swung shut behind me. It was there again, I could tell by the all encompassing smell, the sound of its teeth clicking against each other as its jaws opened and closed in their multitudes. It whispered to me about the boys. I could understand what it was saying now. What they did to Jason.

It tried to tell Jason what it had told me. About that beautiful act of feasting. He didn’t understand it, he was scared. He wasn’t strong enough to help it.

But I can help. It whispered to me of how it could help Jason. That it was old and tired and weak, but it didn’t have to be. And after it wasn’t weak anymore, we could save Jason together. It whispered in my ear and in my blood and in that rotten pulsing bulb of sick in my head that it couldn’t do it without me, how hungry it was, how hungry WE were. Tens or twenties or hundreds of mouths chattered and barked and mumbled and shrieked and laughed and screamed and cried to me through that mess of meat and teeth that I could only imagine sat lurking in the dark behind me.

I felt the gnawing, gaping chasm sitting in my stomach yawn open even further, nearly causing me to double over in pain. It began to raise its tone to a crescendo, singing and screaming and telling me exactly where those rats were hiding in that basement. They couldn’t hear the boiler. But they heard it sing.

It told me where they hid, but I didn’t need it anymore. My mouth was flooding with saliva, that rotten stench had deepened, broadened, suffused itself so thoroughly into my senses that I had almost gotten used to it. I smelled them, then. The salt of their stinging sweat clinging to their skin. The stench of cigarettes clinging to their rapid, panicked breaths. 

Drool dropped from my mouth, through the hole in the cinderblock, and dripped onto the floor. This would have told them where I was, but they couldn’t hear anything anymore besides that beautiful, horrible, wonderous song. 

They couldn’t hear me, either.

Those bastards, who had forced Jason into the fathers den when he wasn’t ready to hear that beautiful melody of biting and ripping and of feasting and biting and tearing and tasting. 

The time for work is done and soon will be time for harvest. 

I’m starving, and I finally know what it’s been telling me to eat.