It Crawls Through the Window
When an unknown terror begins stalking her daughter, Patrice does everything in her power to protect her.
Patrice's daughter was sick. Normally warm and outgoing, Teena suddenly became quiet, withdrawn, sluggish and fatigued. She complained of chills and had no appetite to speak of. Even the smell of food made her nauseous. At first, Patrice thought she had the flu. She cooked broths, bought over-the-counter medication for her, and, despite the heat, bundled her in warm blankets. But when Teena developed a strange rash on her arms, then woke up crying in the middle of the night from bad dreams, Patrice knew this was no flu.
During his examination, Teena's doctor noted the swollen, red welts on her arms and checked her blood pressure. He ordered a battery of tests, most of which came back negative, but the bloodwork did confirm she was anemic. After putting her on intravenous fluids, which she responded to quite well, he prescribed cortisone and iron supplements, then sent her home.
For a while, Teena was back to her usual self. The welts disappeared and her appetite returned, and she was well enough to go back to work and hang out with her small network of outgoing friends. But as the weeks progressed, her health started to decline, and she became weak and lethargic once again. Her doctor administered more IV fluids, tests, and medication, but nothing seemed to crack the mystery of her ailment. By the end of August, Teena was bedridden and the rash along her arms had progressed to her shoulders, neck, and thighs. At night, she sweated through her bedsheets, and her nightmares intensified. Patrice took her to more doctors, but their tests revealed nothing more than anemia. It was clear that her illness had stumped them. They speculated diet, lifestyle, and stress as likely causes, but they offered no definitive answers, leaving Patrice and Teena with the raw, aching dread that nothing and no one could help her.
With still no idea of what was making her daughter sick, Patrice took care of Teena in the apartment they shared, bundling her in thick quilts that made her sweat in the summer heat, feeding her bone broths and detox soups, and slathering her rashes in mustard packs. Teena complained about the mustard packs––"It stinks," she said––but Patrice assured her it will help. "Trust me," she said. She forced Teena to get out of bed and exercise, though Teena complained about this too, and was barely on her feet for more than ten minutes before she begged to go back to bed. An old neighbor looked after Teena while she was at work, but that didn't soothe Patrice's worries either. She called home every couple of hours to make sure Teena was all right and looked in on her first thing when she came back home. Before she started dinner, she sat down with her laptop and researched possible answers online.
One Saturday, while nodding off to a Netflix movie, Patrice was jolted awake by Teena's screams. Heart pounding, Patrice bolted to her room and found Teena in a fit. "Mama," she cried out as she clung to Patrice and trembled in her arms like a frightened rabbit. "Baby, what's wrong?" Patrice asked, her heart still racing. She had never seen her daughter so frightened before. Teena pointed terror-stricken at the open window. "It…it crawled into my room!" Patrice frowned, then went over to the window. Down below, darkness shaded the back alleyway between her apartment building and another. An arc of light crept near the entrance where a street light glowed. There were garbage cans, and nothing else.
"Ain't nothing out here," she said, shutting and locking the window.
"I saw it," Teena cried. "That thing." She covered her face with her hands and cried out again.
Patrice tried to get her daughter to describe what she saw, but she was too distraught to speak coherently. She told her that everything was all right, and that she was safe, then stayed with her until she calmed down and drifted back to sleep. As her daughter's breath sawed unevenly from her mouth, Patrice glanced over at the shut window with worry pressed into her brow. Was her daughter starting to lose her mind, she thought.
Wondering if only psychologists could help her daughter now, she sighed then looked down at Teena again to gently smooth her hair off her forehead, when her gaze drifted to the pillowcase where her daughter's head lay. Nearby were a cluster of strange black flecks, large as eraser shavings, and curled like shepherd's crooks. She frowned, then touched a black fleck with her fingertip to examine it closely. It looked like dried blood!
For days, Teena interrupted the night with screams. But every time Patrice ran to her room, the monster she claimed was there had vanished, her window was wide open, and black flecks clustered her bedsheets.
"Nightmares," another doctor said after he examined her. "Probably stress-related. Your daughter's symptoms could possibly be psychosomatic."
Patrice sat in the examining room, blinking heavily in the harsh overhead lights. "Psychosomatic," she echoed.
"A psychological condition. Basically, the patient's physical symptoms are induced by emotional stress."
Patrice pressed her lips tight, then looked at her daughter, who stared anxiously back at her. "Are you saying all of it is in her head? Even the anemia?"
"Well," the doctor started, then cleared his throat. He scratched his shiny, bald head with a bandaged finger. "Anemia can, in very severe cases, be induced by psychological trauma."
"And the black flecks?" she said, frustration circling her head like smoke rings. "You saying that's stress-related too?"
"Skin shedding––"
"Skin shedding? That wasn't no skin, doctor, it was blood. And as far as stress is concerned, Teena wasn't in no kinda stress before all this started. She was like any normal teenager."
"I'm not crazy?" Teena said, though Patrice noted the doubt creeping into her voice.
The doctor shrugged, then wrote out a prescription for Zoloft. "The reason why we haven't been able to pinpoint a diagnosis is because her symptoms may very well be stress-induced. I suggest you take your daughter to a psychologist and see if he might get to the root of her problems." He held out the prescription to her. "In the meantime, e-mail me if there's any more problems."
Patrice took the prescription and wheeled her daughter out of his office.
After they got home, she handed Teena a pencil and asked her to draw the thing that showed up in her dreams. Teena took a deep breath, then started sketching on the sheet of lined paper Patrice had given her. When she finished, she took the sheet and studied what her daughter had drawn. Patrice's heart sank. The thing, with its long body and small head, four arms with hooks for hands, and two legs, was a monster!
"This is what you see at night, baby?"
Panic glistened in Teena's eyes. "It comes through the window, and…and it comes to me and…Mama, it bites me."
Patrice clutched her daughter's hand to calm her, but her own thoughts grew more troubled.
That night, Patrice searched Google Images on her laptop and found a series of pictures that resembled Teena's rash. But as she read the sites from which the images came, she scratched the back of her head and frowned. These rashes were caused by fleabites. She recalled the picture Teena had drawn for her, then typed "fleas" and "black flecks" in the search bar. Sure enough, black flecks were common to fleas, which regurgitated the blood after they bit their victims. Patrice leaned back in her chair. Could that be it? A flea infestation? Rats weren't uncommon in the alleyway between her apartment building, so it wasn't unlikely.
The next morning, Patrice did a thorough inspection of her apartment. She twice vacuumed the living room carpet, mopped the kitchen tile floor, and scrubbed every spot and crevice. She hadn't found anything resembling fleas, but she wasn't going to take any chances. She mopped and swept and vacuumed until she was satisfied that no pest could swarm and survive there.
Later that afternoon, she bought jars of Boric acid from Home Depot. She read online that the tiny crystals were deadly to fleas. They cut their tough exoskeletons and caused them to dehydrate. It was safer too. Flea bombs were full of toxic chemicals. They'd have to stay out of the apartment for a few hours, and her sick, bed-bound daughter simply wasn't up to that. Once she got home, she spread the Boric acid along the baseboards and the windowsills of the apartment. Teena watched silently as Patrice spread the crystals around her bed. When she had finished, the mother and daughter locked eyes, and for a moment, Patrice felt ridiculous. But when she noticed the dark circles under Teena's eyes, her feelings of ridicule morphed into determination.
The next morning, before she went to work, she knocked on the super's door. The super was an older man, thin and hollow-cheeked, who had a look of perpetual disgruntlement on his face. When she mentioned about the infestation, he pinched his features and said, "There ain't no fleas in this building. Or rats either."
She crossed her arms. "Look, there's fleas in my apartment. Now what are you gonna do about it?"
He sniffed. "You got a flea problem, then that's probably 'cause you got a dog or a cat in there. You know the policy––no pets allowed."
"Oh, for Christ sakes, the fleas are coming from the rats you don't do nothing about in that alleyway. And if you don't do something about it, I'm taking it to the management."
The super straightened up quick and promised to call pest control. But as he shut the door on Patrice, he still grumbled about how there were no rats or fleas in the building, and accused her of hoarding pets.
Patrice fared worse with Patrice's doctors. They insisted that flea bites weren't causing Teena's anemia. Teena had now been in the ER several times over the last few weeks for IV fluids. Until they diagnosed her ailment, both her doctors and Patrice feared she might end up needing a transfusion. Patrice was grateful that the insurance from her job covered her daughter's medical care, but she was co-paying for the hospital expenses, and her deductibles had barely kicked in. She demanded her doctor to at least consider the possibility, but he refused to listen. She ended the phone conversation in frustration.
After getting off from work, Patrice approached her apartment building and noticed a pest control van parked out front. She sighed as she walked up the front steps. Maybe she and her daughter will get some much-needed relief, she thought.
But several days later, Teena woke up screaming. Patrice ran to her room. The monster her daughter cried about was nowhere in sight, but the window, which Patrice was sure she had locked, was open. When she went to close it, she noticed scratch marks under the bottom rail. She frowned. The alley below was empty, undisturbed.
The next morning, while Patrice served her breakfast, Teena remarked, "Maybe the doctor's right, Mama. Maybe I am crazy."
Patrice placed the breakfast tray over her daughter, then lowered herself on the edge of the bed. "I don't think so, baby."
"Then how come I keep seeing this monster in my bedroom? I gotta be crazy, right? Maybe that's what's wrong with me."
"You're just sick, baby, physically sick. You have anemia, so something's making you this way. I think it might be fleas."
"But this thing, Mama, it's too big to be a flea."
Patrice frowned. "How big?"
When Teena said it was taller than she was, a chill entered Patrice's bones. She didn't think her daughter was seeing things. Something was biting her, drawing blood, causing her rashes and anemia. That wasn't in her mind, or in Patrice's. But what could it be?
"Don't you worry," she assured her daughter. "I'm gonna get to the bottom of this, I promise."
After Teena finished breakfast, Patrice returned to the kitchen with the tray, then opened her laptop on the table and researched on fleas. On one site, she read that a single flea can lay up to fifty eggs a day, and the death of one flea could trigger their premature hatching, creating an endless army of bloodsuckers. She searched more websites, but could find nothing which suggested a flea could grow as large as a human. She winced, and berated herself. Ridiculous, she muttered. Fleas don't grow the size of people. And then she recalled what her daughter said, that she herself had to be crazy to think so, and shook her head and refused to think like that.
Patrice removed her glasses and tapped the tip of the temple against her bottom lip. Unless she saw it herself, she wasn't going to be sure. But every time she ran to Teena's room, the thing disappeared. If she recorded Teena's bedroom, she deduced, she might catch a glimpse of it.
That night, Patrice moved Teena to her room, where she hoped it was safer, then, after recharging the batteries, propped her cell on the nightstand where she could get a good vantage of the window.
For the first time in months, Teena slept fitfully next to Patrice. She hadn't had any bad dreams, and was feeling much better in the morning. Patrice was glad. Until she retrieved her cell from Teena's room and checked the video. Her heart froze.
In Teena's room, dark except for a plug-in nightlight, with the camera of her cell pointed directly at the window, there appeared a dark silhouette, too large for its entire body to be visible through the glass. It shifted and slithered like something from another dimension, lingering for a few seconds as if peering inside for something––its victim!––before it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
Patrice gasped, then watched the video again, doubting even her own eyes. Was it real? Was it a shadow? The more she reviewed the video, the more convinced she became that this was not a shadow or her imagination. This thing––whatever it was––moved of its own volition, appeared sentient, intelligent. And frightening.
Patrice called the police, but when she reviewed the footage for the cop who showed up at her door, he simply said, "I don't see anything, M'am." "Are you saying I'm just imagining this?" she said, and he looked at her with a blank expression. Even if there was something, there was nothing he could do about it. "There's no crime here, M'am," he said to her horror. "There's nothing here at all." Teena's doctor remarked that it was only a shadow reflected on the window. When she insisted it was a monster, he looked at her strangely. "Have you ever heard of the condition, folie a deux?" he said. "It's a form of psychosis that's shared by two people––" "Fuck you," she said, and left. Only the super admitted the video was strange, but he hadn't gotten similar complaints from other tenants and didn't think it was an urgent matter. "It's probably just a shadow," he said, before he slowly closed the door on Patrice's face.
She decided to upload the video to her Youtube account. Maybe, she hoped, someone out there could explain to her what it is. But two days passed, and no one had responded to her video, though clearly it had received a few views.
Patrice realized she was all alone.
Undaunted, she bought more Boric acid, then left the jar on the nightstand in Teena's room.
Later that night, Teena felt strong enough to eat dinner in the kitchen with Patrice. Sleeping in her mother's room had obviously done wonders. Her old spirits and her appetite seemed to be back. She even talked about finding another job and moving out. Patrice smiled at her daughter, cautiously hopeful that she was on the mend, but as her thoughts dwelled on what she planned to do later that night, her spirits flagged.
"Mama," Teena said, concern dripping out of her eyes. "You all right? You look tired."
Patrice snapped out of her thoughts, then smiled. "Oh, I'm fine."
"You're still not worried about me, are you? ‘Cause I'm getting better all the time, promise."
"I know you are," she said.
"Then what's wrong?" When Patrice didn't volunteer an answer, she added, "It don't have anything to do with that jar of…Boric acid?…you put in my room, does it? I only ask, 'cause, I looked it up online, and Boric acid kills fleas." Patrice nodded, but remained silent. "You really think it’s fleas that made me sick?"
She recalled the image on her cell and cringed inwardly. She didn’t want to worry her daughter any more than she needed to, so she said, "I don't have no other explanation for it. The rashes on your arm, your anemia. And then the drawing you sketched me. It all points in one direction." She told her daughter everything she learned about the pests, the number of eggs a single flea could lay, and how they hatched prematurely if an adult flea was killed. "Nasty things," she said with a shudder.
Teena hugged her arms. "I still have dreams about that thing."
Patrice smiled reassuringly, and told her daughter she didn't have to worry about it any longer. "I'm gonna take care of it, okay?"
Teena returned her smile, but Patrice could tell that even behind that smile there still lay a world of fear.
After Teena turned in for the night, Patrice stayed up late, streaming movies on TV. She barely watched the plots. Her thoughts turned inward, grasping, nervous, as she glanced intermittently at the clock on the wall. When the first hand struck one, she knew she couldn't put it off any longer.
She turned off the TV, then checked on Teena in her room. Sure enough, her daughter was snoring softly beneath the comforter. She smiled gently, grateful for her soft, untroubled snores, and closed the door. She went to Teena's room. After sprinkling Boric acid around the bed, she returned the jar to the nightstand and, still wearing her street clothes, climbed under the covers.
She rested her head on the pillow, and waited. Hours passed, and it seemed nothing happened. She struggled against sleep. Doubt and fear crowded her thoughts. And yet she still waited. Then, when she was just about to give up and fall asleep, she heard something rattle the windowpane. She froze and stared at the arc of light falling from the lampshade.
The window rattled once more, then slowly drew open. Cold air entered the room, and something heavy crawled inside with it.
Whatever entered the room clawed and scratched and thumped its way in. Patrice burrowed deeper under the comforter. She slept across the room from Teena. Why hadn't she heard this thing before?
As the creature clawed across the floor toward the bed, her heart raced, her breathing quickened, and her hands trembled. The clawing grew closer and closer, striking a steady rhythm of scratches and thumps that froze her heart. She held her breath and steadied her nerves.
Then the clawing stopped, and the room fell silent.
Something, a shifting of air, heavy and abrasive, hovered over her. An odd stench filled the air, fetid, like blood. How many victims had this creature visited tonight? How many were out there, struggling with unknown ailments, nightmares, and fears of insanity?
Taking one long breath, Patrice jumped up from under the bedcovers.
Then terror seized her.
Standing there over the bed was… the thing!
At six feet in height, it was shaped like a man, but, like Teena's drawing, looked more like a hideous monster. Stiff, wiry hairs poked out of its back, its legs bent backwards, and its four arms braced itself against the edge of the bed. The tentacles dangling from its mouth made sharp, clicking noises.
Patrice screamed. The creature jumped backwards, then locked its huge, empty eyes on her. Patrice grabbed the jar of Boric acid from the dresser, and tossed its contents at the thing.
Powder clouded around them in great puffs. The monster reacted violently. It twitched and spun as it tried to remove the powder from its face. But the more it rubbed its arms against its head, the more the tiny crystals cut through its thick exoskeleton. It let out a strange cackling cry, then crashed through the window, shattering glass everywhere, bumping its arms and long legs as it fell out.
"Mama!" Teena called from Patrice's room.
Patrice flew to the window and looked out onto the dark alleyway. The giant pest lay amongst the broken glass below, twitching violently before it leaped up again and crashed into a row of trash cans. For a second, she thought it was dead, but then it rose up from the refuse, shaking trash and bits of lettuce from its head, before it took another leap and cleared the next building, disappearing from sight. Its death by a thousand cuts was no doubt eminent.
Teena threw open the door. "Mama, what're you doing in here? What happened?"
"I got it, Teena," she breathed relievedly. "The monster––I threw the Boric acid at it. It's dead, baby. Thank God, it's finally over."
Teena joined her at the window and looked out at the dark, quiet night. Patrice put her arm around her shoulder. Teena smiled, relieved, but then her relief turned to distress.
"What's wrong?" she asked, frowning.
She looked at her. "Didn't you say their eggs hatch prematurely if an adult is killed?"
A chill entered Patrice's bones as both women glanced apprehensively through the window.