From Within

I wrote this one in between university and my first real job. The pandemic did a number on me with health anxiety. If I had to put my finger on any cause or meaning behind this story, that’s where I’d look. Stepping into a new world, horrified by being made out of meat.

It was a slow day at work. That was why I felt it. Too much time standing at a till with my own thoughts. In between the few purchases, I was running my hands through my hair, trying to keep it out of my eyes, but that led me down the back of my neck. That was where I felt it. The lump. Just a small knot then. As I slid my fingers down the side of my neck, right behind my ear. I went back, wondering if it was a mistake. There it was, under my fingers. Firm under pressure and the size of a two-pence piece.

Cold washed down me, from the base of my skull to my knees. Fuck, I knew what a lump meant. Someone stepped up to the counter and placed a book down. My eyes twitched across the cover, a biography of Yeats. I was still in my own head. My heart was going like it was fit to explode, and my thoughts were racing. Oh Jesus, I thought that, I’m going to die. I swallowed back the reality, pulling a weak smile as sweat started to break out over my body.

“Hi.” I croaked out, “Just this for you?”

“Yes, thank you, just that.” And he started fishing around for his wallet.

“Are you alright, son?” I looked up to see the customer staring at me. He was an older guy with grey hair and a mole under his cheekbone. “You look a bit peaky.”

I chuckled. Well, I tried to. It was just a nervous expelling of air.

“Yeah, just a bad lunch.”

The customer gave a laugh, a real one, “I know the kind,” Then gestured to the reader between us, “Card please.”

I fumbled the transaction through. I wanted to feel my neck, to press the lump, to see if maybe it was just an ingrown hair, but that would mean moving my shaking hands up again.

He turned away, smiling and thanking me. I pulled my face into a grin I couldn’t feel, as a chill washed through my flesh and numbed me to everything but the terror. I thought about what it meant for me, what it might mean for my friends and family. I fought it down as best I could, but it stayed with me throughout my shift, lying at the bottom of my mind like sediment. It wasn’t so bad if I could find something to do: a fifteen-minute diversion chasing after an early Lee child book, twenty minutes stocking shelves. These small things proved to be a relief, but then I had to return to my solo work and the thoughts rattling around inside my head. I knew catastrophizing back and forth with myself wasn’t going to help, but that didn’t stop me. It never did.

It was an exhausting way to spend the afternoon, to feel the fear settling on me as I went about the shop, replacing books and checking our inventory. You’d think I was excited to finally get off work, but then I knew it would only get worse. I started towards the bus stop, making my way home. My earbuds went in, and I leaned up against the stop. The glass had been punched out a few Saturdays ago, the gap filled with safety-orange canvas straps. I found a podcast, something with lots of talking, trying to fill my head with chatter and force my thoughts away from the twitching lump beneath my skin.

Night fell as my bus wound through the streets. The street lights were coming on, their dull orange glow washing all the colour from the world; the jack-o-lantern light of orange and grey didn’t improve my mood.

By the time I was home and fumbling my keys into the lock, it was eight, and I was ready to eat and fall into bed. Experience told me that if I could get myself off to sleep, then it would be alright until morning, my anxiety could hold off for a moment, just enough to get some rest at least.

The cold of the night followed me through the hall, and I made a beeline for the living room. I tossed my things onto the sofa where my housemate Andrew sat watching tv, chewing through a sandwich. He cast an eye up at me as I came in.

“Hey,” He shot over, “How was work?”

I was already banging about in the cupboards, looking for rice.

“It was alright, just feeling pretty shity today, you know?”

He murmured and took another bite out of his sandwich, “Shitty Customers?”

I pulled the box from a cupboard, a pan in my other hand. “Nah, they were fine, just too in my own head.”

He raised an eyebrow and put the TV on mute, “Oh. It’s not one of those days, is it?

Desperate to have a normal evening, I waved him away, “No, I’m not at that point. I’m just feeling down.”

Andrew relaxed, “You should throw on a movie or something, get your mind off it. Do you have any comfort films?”

“Yeah, but I think I just want to get my head down as fast as possible, really.”

He nodded like he hadn’t just been suggesting the opposite

“Ahh yeah, sometimes that’s for the best, get some rest and have a go at it in the morning when you’re fresh.”

I filled the pan and nodded along with him. I set the water to boil while I grabbed some sausages from the fridge. By the time I had them cooking, the rice was ready to go into the water. It was a quick meal, the kind of food you’d look down on someone for offering you, but it was just me, and I couldn’t face doing much more, not with that lump pulsing just under my thoughts.

I tried to stop myself from touching it any more, but still my hands found their way up. It was definitely a lump, no doubt about that. There was no hair, no pustule that would have relieved me. I applied pressure, felt the hollow space around it, just under my skull, and felt pain there. Was that the prodding, or was the thing already burrowing inside me? Searching to turn my own flesh against me. I hated the way it made me feel. Not as a person, but as a passenger in a vehicle I didn’t understand and couldn’t control. I was not my body; it would do things I didn’t understand, spasm and mutate and generate things that horrified me. Trapped inside flesh I could not command, I managed the best I could.

I watched my dinner cook, bubbles rising to the surface. I stared through the water, into the void, suddenly recalling everything I’d ever heard about spontaneous deaths from medical issues. In the end, it was the alarm from the oven that broke me out of my doom-spiralling. I had to take them out, or they’d burn, had to move, had to think outside of myself.

I grabbed a plate and laid out the rice. It was cheap and sticky, but it would fill me up. I laid the sausages over the top, a few lines of ketchup, and I was done. I headed back to my room, ready to hide myself away till morning, wafting steam after me as I padded through the hall.

I climbed up the stairs to my room and shut myself in. I didn’t want to eat without noise, so I pawed through YouTube until I found something good, some video essay about French extremity. I wasn’t really watching, I was on autopilot, spooning food into my mouth and watching, hearing the words even as they slid from my mind. I put up a curtain of fluff to hide the fear; it’s two scaly monster feet poking out from underneath.

Before long, I scraped down the last morsel of food, leaving a few grains of rice lying like maggots on my plate, gorged in ketchup. That image was enough to put me off finishing. I pushed my plate onto the dresser, deciding it was time for bed. If only I could get to sleep.

Getting under the covers, I lay there, staring up at the ceiling. I knew what kind of night it was going to be, the kind where cold-sweating fear played havoc with my body and where sleep only came with the sun, maybe only after getting up all over again and a shot or two of alcohol.

I felt my neck aching, hard tension in the flesh beneath. There was the bruised feeling of too much prodding. I sat up in bed and sat with my arms over my knees, trying to focus on my neck, to understand if it was just me or-

Something twitched under my skin. A muscle spasm? I wondered and moved my hand up. No. There was no way I could hide from it then. The lump had swelled to the size of a ping-pong ball, and the skin was stretched tight. Something pulsed under my finger. The spot had been feeling pressed back. Something was inside, and it knew I was there. The more I felt, the more it began to grow, scratching at the inside. I felt my heart beating in my throat. A shiver ran down my spine, and I clenched my fists. It was happening. I pushed myself out of bed and stood in the centre of my room, mind speeding, trying to think clearly before it was too late.

I lunged for my desk and snapped on my lamp. I needed something sharp, and I went to the first thing I could think of, the pair of scissors I kept in the bottom drawer. By the time I had them, I felt my head tilting backwards, the weight from the growing lump pulling it down. My hands came up, the scissors opening, and I nipped at the lump, catching the skin and snipping it open. I felt the heat as blood came dripping down my neck. I dropped the scissors onto my bed and watched my shadow play against the wall, cast from the lamplight. There I stood, the shape of my body and head. I caught my breath and swallowed hard as it began to unfold from behind me. A spindly arm twisted up and scratched at the air.

The hand dropped down, catching my shoulder, the slippery squelching sound coming from behind my ear as it began to free itself. I knew it was coming, and wanted to get it all over with.

I caught a hold of the wrist, feeling the bones grinding together, the tendons and veins standing out against my palm; there was barely any room inside its carcass for its own anatomy. With all the strength I could muster, I heaved on the writhing limb, the fingers raking at the back of my hand. I felt it slipping loose, like a larva pulled from under a dog’s skin. It came forward, dripping a pink mixture of blood and plasma.

There was a scream, muffled by the meat of my insides as I drew it out, up to the shoulder, my skin stretching. I hauled it on, trying to tear them from my body. Its fingers caught and scratched at me, their nails opening the skin of my forearm. I smelt the blood in the air, but I was getting it out one way or another, and the adrenaline passing through my system kept me on task.

I felt the skin tugging around them, trying to tighten and protect me from this invasive procedure. Another good tug, I felt more of it coming free, with a schlorp the shadow of their head became visible against the wall. They spluttered once and started screaming nonsense. I knew I was close and hauled again. My skin tore, blood dripping in a sheet down my back, and I could feel it running through the divots of my spine.

Their other hand burst out and dropped around my neck. I felt them craning in, clawing themselves towards my throat. I let go of the wrist and drove my fist backwards, feeling for the first time the rigid structures of their face, the skin pulled tight across them. I might as well have been punching a skull. Their nails were sharp, and their fingers dug at my skin. Tendons stretched, they clawed them into the flesh of my shoulders. I reached back and caught hold of their jaw, my fingers hooking into the soft skin behind the bone, and wrenched forward.

In one fluid motion, they slithered free of my body, arms clawing at me, but by then I was slick with sweat and blood. My arms trembling, I hurled them away from me, a tangle of matchstick limbs, against the far wall and out of the lamplight. It slid backwards, covered in slime, skidding over the floorboards until all of it slapped together; its back striking the wall. I could see the splatter mark the impact had thrown up the plaster, a red spider spreading its legs in shock.

Separated at last, I stood in the centre of my room, chest heaving, shoulder throbbing. I saw its eyes glitter in the dark, the wet sound of its lips parting, exposing all its teeth, the gums almost invisible; just tooth and tongue. It slapped one emaciated hand down, looking for purchase on the floor. The muscle and ligaments visible beneath the skin, working like hydraulics, a machine struggling over time and shaking with the effort. It seemed shrunk in on itself, all the meat sucked from its bones, but I knew there was still enough there for it to kill me.

Its shoulders rolled, collarbone snapping under the force. I could hear the bones grinding against one another as it drew back into a crouch, the one stone masons have been carving gargoyles in since they invented the chisel: knees up, hands planted between the feet. A rasp came from deep within its throat, and those black button eyes settled on me, staring out from baggy sockets.

I stepped back, planting my feet, shoulder width apart and swept the scissors from my bed, making sure my fingers were wrapped tight around the plastic. It crawled forward, almost like it was trying to go around me, towards the door, but two loping steps and its feet tensed, a split second before it hurled itself at me.

Sailing through the air, hands outstretched, it looked like some kind of nightmare, dredged up from an old fairy tale; the kind where good children did not always win and sometimes witches got their supper. I’d done this dance before though, and I met my spawn as it came for me, one hand caught around its throat, the other driving the scissors into its back, beside the scapula. It hissed and curled its strip-of-liver tongue, leg rising up to scratch at my stomach, toenails raking the skin open above my hip. I felt it unzipping, and blood began to soak my pyjama bottoms.

In a strange way, I felt better. Now that I had my hands clasped around the object of my fear, I felt steady. Now I could face it down. Thumb and forefinger clenched tight behind its jaw, I smashed my forehead into its face. I saw stars, but there was that gratifying crunch as its nose crumpled in, the cartilage broken under the force of my skull. There was that squashed steak sound, and dark blood poured down its face, black clots visible in the mess. It made the creature’s skin look waxy pink under the lamplight. It reeled back, hands flattened against its face, eyes watching me, narrowed with pain and hatred through the lattice of its fingers. I knew it wouldn’t stay down, not until I finished it. I lunged forwards, ready to press my advantage, but it saw me and knew I was serious

A hand came forward, fingers extended, the nails spearing me below my collarbone. They sank past the first knuckle, curling down into my flesh. I could feel them twitching under the skin, drawing me in close, its mouth opening, blood flecked teeth snapping at the air. I wrapped my hands together and wrenched down on its elbow. One wrench was all it took, with a sound like a breaking twig, their elbow erupted through the skin. I felt it sink into my palm. The creature bellowed, and the fingers in my chest went limp. Blood splattered over my feet, and I dropped their arm as it screeched into my ear.

A hand lashed across my face, nails raking my forehead, down across my eye, sending a cascade of blood into it. I hissed, palming blood from my eyes and shunting forward, tackling them around the waist and slamming them against the wall, dust shaking down over the pair of us as we fought.

It was a desperate move. While I had them pinned there, they opened my shoulders, long fingers ripping through flesh. My pyjama bottoms were heavy, and I knew I couldn’t go on much longer. I set my feet shoulder-width apart and reared back, trying hard to fight the stench of blood that invaded my nostrils. One hand closed around their throat, the bones jabbing into my palm, and I smashed my right into their face.

I hit them mid shriek, their eyes rolling. Their head knocked back into the wall, and they gargled out their pain. I didn’t stop, I hit out again. I caught them in the mouth, teeth cut into the back of my hand, but the thin gums tore, and rotten blood splattered up my arm like coffee grounds.

I kept going, the ache in my body worsening as I twisted, pounding my fist in again and again. The thing’s head was pressed into the wall, splatters of blood thrown over the white paint. All through the beating, they watched me with pain-filled eyes, as their howls turned to whimpers and their hands settled about my waist. I splintered teeth from their mouth, crushed their orbital bone, and the eye drooped from the socket. They stopped fighting back, but I was bleeding and pissed and afraid. I caught them a staggering blow to the temple, and its eyes rolled up as it dropped to the floor, arms sticking out in a jumble.

I followed them, taking hold of their temples, jaw flapping. I beat their skull against the floor until my arm hurt too much to move. I collapsed on top of the spawn, gasping. I lay there, the full scale of the cuts and tears all over me now revealing itself in a cascade of pain. The one under my collarbone felt like it might need stitches; the rest would heal. Then I heard the rapping. Knuckles on my door. I gulped down blood and called back.

“Sorry…I’m getting changed.”

His words came muffled by the door, “It happened again, didn’t it?”

I couldn’t reply. Didn’t know how to start. I was an idiot, and a scared one at that.

“Yes…”

I waited for the response, the silence audible through the door. Then the handle turned, and light fell from the hallway. I must have looked awful, huddled over that wreck of flesh, half naked and bloody, like a ghoul from a sick man’s nightmare. I couldn’t look; I was scared to meet Andrew’s gaze.

“Well, this is a shambles, huh?”

The laugh ripped up from my chest, feeling harsher than anything my neck spawn had done.

“Is it still alive?”

I pushed my arm down on the thing’s chest, feeling the fluttering beneath.

“Yeah.”

“Alright then.” And he came forward, kitchen knife in hand, “You need to tell me when you’re getting in your own head, you know how bad it is when you let it build up, I mean just look at yourself. You’re a mess.”

He knelt beside me and uncurled the bundled limbs. He turned the knife over and settled the point between two ribs. He turned to me with patient eyes.

“Come on, we’ll do it together.”

I nodded and settled my hands over his, on the handle of the knife. Together, we pushed the blade through the papery skin, and that dark blood squelched up. Its last breath escaped as a gargle at the back of its throat. Slender fingers wrapped around the blade before the thing stilled entirely.

Andrew leant back and snorted.

“Jesus, you really took a pasting this time. Come on, let’s get this cleaned up, and we can get you seen to.” He rose and stuck his arm out to me, “Shame you can’t get frequent flyer miles with the NHS, right?”

He was trying to be funny and get me out of myself. I decided to let him. I knew it wouldn’t be the last thing to crawl from me, hidden by fear and disgust of my own unknowable flesh, but I was going to learn. I was going to fight them before they grew, before the fear pushed them into the world, and I wasn’t going to do it alone.