I Hate My Smelly Neighbour - Pt 2
Jake was right. I could hear a lot of yelling next door.
The Rancid Reaper’s metal gate was wide open, but the wooden door was opened by a slit, which only slightly muffled the commotion. Weird though….there wasn’t any light coming out.
Come to think of it, the Rancid Reaper’s flat actually looks pretty creepy. He has a grilled gate that used to be painted white, but roughly 70% of the paint has flaked off, leaving the metal underneath to the mercy of the elements. There’s also a simple wire shoe rack outside that looks like it’s gonna fall apart any moment. It’s filled with many shoes, even though I’m sure the Reaper is the only one living in there.
But the main wooden door behind the grilles is the one that gives me the creeps. The bottom is covered with scratches, some of them about the size of my fingernail, and others as long as my forearm. I’ve noticed these many times while walking past, but it’s only now when I noticed how many there are - there’s got to be hundreds of them, tiny black slits standing out from the pale brown wood.
“Should we go in?” Jake sounded really hesitant, all his earlier enthusiasm faded away.
“It was your idea. And now you want to pussy out?” I looked at him in exasperation, and motioned to him to enter first. He sighed, and pushed the door open.
The corridor lights illuminated the first few metres in. I could see a worn wooden armchair wrapped in cling wrap, a tiled floor covered in stains, and….nothing else. The rest of the room was in absolute darkness - it was akin to looking into a black hole. Any attempt to discern shapes only made my eyes hurt.
Strangely, it didn’t smell as bad as I expected it to be. Sure, I caught a whiff of the stench from time to time, but it wasn’t as strong as that memorable episode, when I was trapped with him in the lift.
From our apartment, all we could hear was indistinct shouting; now that we were inside, we could distinguish the two voices more clearly. One of them was high-pitched and a little nasal; it also halted at irregular intervals, as if the speaker was crying, and trying to speak through tears. The other was a deep, booming voice that reverberated around the apartment, and had a gravelly undertone that was kinda irritating - it’s like growling and rasping at the same time. I assumed the high-pitched one was the woman’s, and the deeper one belonged to the Rancid Reaper.
I don’t understand a single word they’re speaking though. Their speech seemed to consist of a series of guttural noises, shrill whistles and loud grunts - I’ve never heard such a language before.
I shut the door silently, hoping that my eyes would get used to the darkness. But no - I still couldn’t see shit. Thank goodness Jake was wearing a white shirt, so I could still make out his faint outline in front of me. His figure swayed from side to side as he ventured deeper into the house. I followed, albeit a little slowly, as I felt around for obstacles. I didn’t want to make any noise or worse, stub my toe.
But we didn't have to travel far.
I had scarcely taken five steps before a loud crash deafened both of us. Jake jumped backwards in shock - right into me, and we both collapsed onto the ground.
At the same time, I felt a wave of warm air wash over me, as a huge shape flew above us and crashed into the wall behind.
I pushed Jake’s cold sweaty hands from my face, and opened my eyes to find the entire room flooded with light.
We were lying in the middle of what’s supposed to be the living room. The place was in a mess - it’s clear that he hasn’t had any guests over for quite some time. Multiple sheets of newspapers were laid all over the floor, and what little furniture he has were covered with transparent plastic sheets. My gaze rested on the small coffee table beside me - underneath the plastic, I could make out numerous stain marks, and an abundance of small scratch marks - similar to those found on the front door.
I tilted my head upwards to see what had flown past us.
Holy shit - it was the Rancid Reaper himself, only this time, he was missing his characteristic stained wife beater. Instead, he was naked from his waist up, exposing his saggy boobs in their full wrinkly, hairy glory. He lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the wall, bleeding from many cuts all over his body. I think he may have crashed into the wall a little too hard.
Oh, and in the process of falling over, I might have kneed Jake in the head. Hard. He’s not responding, and his right temple seems a little red.
I turned to face the front, where the light was coming from.
The bottom half of the door clung on the lower hinges of the doorway before us; the upper half of the door was exploded into hundreds of splinters spread all over the floor. Huge chunks of plaster and drywall had fallen off the neighbouring part of the wall, leaving behind huge holes and sending huge cracks outwards - I certainly hope that wasn’t a load bearing wall.
And standing in the room was the petite woman that Jake had budged in here for. Only thing is….she isn’t petite anymore. Or even a woman, for that matter.
Normally, her long flowing hair hung over her face, obscuring her features. Today, she brushed her hair back behind her ears, finally giving me a clear look at her face. Her huge almond-brown eyes bore into me, a steely gaze that never wavered in intensity; her nose was narrow and sharp; her lips were pressed into a thin line, as if she was pissed at our entrance. Her cheekbones were oblique and prominent, and coupled with her pronounced jawline, gave an impression of a stern, headstrong lady. Her skin dazzled in the light, the porcelain white a stark contrast to her distinctive tight black dress.
Usually when I walked past her, her head came up to my shoulder - but now her hair was brushing the ceiling. As my gaze travelled downwards, I was prepared to see her standing precariously on some furniture, maybe an unstable swivel chair. Instead, her dress gave way to….a torso?
While the skin on her arms and face were smooth and unblemished, the skin below was dotted with pockmarks and discolourations, not unlike humongous acne scars. It gradually got darker and hairier, until it lost all semblance of human skin, and melted into a….spider’s abdomen?
Her monstrous behind was larger than the entirety of her human upper half, and took up almost the entire back half of the room. It was covered in bands of black and light grey fur. As her abdomen throbbed rhythmically, the hair swayed in cadence, filling the air with soft rustling sound.
However, her legs weren’t covered in hair, but were encased in a hard, shiny shell. They were sleek and well-built, each segment roughly the size of my thigh. There were also spikes near the end of each leg - they glinted menacingly in the light, ready to tear any prey to shreds.
She started walking towards us, her spider limbs making ominous clicking sounds with every strike against the smooth marble floor. As she advanced, her upper body swayed from side to side while her stare focused squarely on my face, like a snake sizing up its opponent. I don’t like the way she’s looking at me - I’m scared of the way she’s looking at me.
I swallowed nervously and pushed Jake’s limp body off, frantically trying to get away. I would save him if he was conscious, but since he was out cold, I figured I would do the “get help” part instead.
Just as I untangled myself from his limbs, I heard a familiar sound from the room. A feeble gargle, shaky and reedy, fearful of its surroundings. It was a far cry from the horrors that rocked my bedroom, but I still recognised it - it had the same inflections, the same wetness that evoked feelings of disgust.
Spider-Woman immediately broke off her stare, her attention redirected to the source of the cry. She backed into the room, and bent to the side, where the wall hid her from view.
There were a few more gargles, interspersed by….cooing and kissing? I looked on, bewildered, as her abdomen paced around in that constrained space. It took a while before she pushed a pink stroller into view, then scooped something up from the side and put it inside - Oh. My. Fucking. God.
The thing in her hands was hideous.
It was about the size of a human baby, but….the bottom half looked like a spider, while the top half looked kinda like a human. It was essentially a miniature of Spider-Woman - a nymph, I think that’s what you call it. The spider part was grey, with thick clumps of mucus covering it. Its eight legs weren’t that developed yet: they were lined with myriad little bumps and were perpetually curled up. The entire abdomen looked squishy.
I thought it was hard to top that, but the human-like torso was even more disgusting. The entire trunk was cocooned in a white slimy sac that was dotted with multiple black spots. It quivered with every breath that the freak took, and I think it had arms under that covering, because sometimes that cocoon would expand in weird angles. The head wasn’t covered with the sac, but still boasted a lot of the same slime. The eyes were scrunched shut; the nose was extraordinarily small, and the nostrils were wrinkled, like little repulsive anuses; the mouth was a lipless slit that spanned the entire face, as if a cleaver had been used to chop the head almost the whole way through.
Spider-Woman put the little abomination into the stroller, which it didn’t like very much, as evidenced from its fucked-up little frown. It scrunched its eyes up even more, wrinkled its forehead, and flared its tiny anus-nostrils to take a deep breath.
Then it opened its mouth, revealing….a thin white film, not unlike the one covering its body. It effectively sealed the entire opening/ I was instantly reminded of a scene in the first Matrix movie, where Neo’s mouth was sealed shut by a membrane by the Agents in the interrogation room. It looked just like that - only this time, it was far slimier, and much more gross.
When it exhaled, the mouth-film swelled up, before the tremendous pressure ripped it open in the centre. The drooping edges flopped about violently, producing a familiar wet, disgusting rattling sound that waxed and waned with the infant’s shaky breath.
So that’s where the gargles came from. That was the cause of countless sleepless nights, the accursed source of all my troubles.
I feel like lunging forward and punching the shit out of that vile shitbag, but the intimidating presence of the Spider-Woman suppressed that violent urge. She bent over the handles to give it a little kiss, momentarily placating the annoying little bugger.
Then she started walking towards me.
I shook myself out of my dazed state, and turned around to flee, only to comically hit my head hard on the armchair right behind me. That impact sent me back down to the floor, clutching my throbbing forehead.
Behind me, I could hear the squeaking of the stroller’s wheels, as it protested under the weight of the baby. There was also the same sinister clicking of adult spider legs against the hard floor….which grew less frequent, and started to resemble the familiar clicking of heels.
Confused, I opened one eye, to watch something even more bizarre than anything I’ve seen so far.
As the woman approached me, her body started changing. Her spider-abdomen was growing smaller: its grey and black bands were thinning, and also changing into a lighter shade of….nah, all the spider-parts were turning beige.
The back six of her legs curled up slowly and retracted back into her shrinking backside, while the front two had begun a weird transformation process. The hard, shiny shell gradually turned into soft, fair skin; the spikes flattened out; the claws at the end of the legs turned into her characteristic black heels. Both legs also grew shorter, lowering her outrageous height into a more diminutive stature.
She was morphing back into a human.
She parked the stroller beside me, and I was instantly reminded of why we called the old man the Rancid Reaper. I hadn’t smelt it that much so far - but now, with the pram next to me, the odour hit me in full force. I immediately gagged on the smell, patting my chest in an attempt to keep my stomach contents where they were.
The repulsive infant leaned over the side of the pram, sinking its claws deep into the white ring of plastic at the top - so that’s what created the thousands of little slits I’ve been seeing all over the place. Its eyelids were opened, revealing black beady orbs that stared intensely at me. Its predatory gaze raked me from head to toe, as if it was mentally devouring me.
I didn’t want to look at the heinous hellspawn anymore, but there was this devilish aura around it that demanded my attention. Turning away from it only sent waves of unease rippling through my body.
The plastic creaked in protest as the creature pulled itself up, and leaned over the edge of the stroller. It opened its mouth, and once again, I was subjected to the horrid sight of its open maw. Only this time, it was mere inches from my face, so I could make out details that I didn’t really want to see. Stinking globs of saliva swayed perilously at both sides of the mouth, ready to drop down on my fresh pants. Hundreds of minuscule bubbles were spread out across the translucent membrane, which quivered erratically as it swelled out towards me.
Like before, a large gaping hole ripped open abruptly in the middle. I caught a brief glimpse of rows upon rows of sharp protrusions lining the inside of the mouth, before I raised my hands to shield myself from the globules of slime raining down on my face. Almost immediately, I fell back down on the floor in the foul-smelling pool of gunk, covering my ears from its deafening cry.
As the freak raged above me, my eyes fell on the scene behind the pram. The woman was standing over the Rancid Reaper, whom by now was awake, and panicking. They were conversing, I think - I couldn’t hear them but I could see their lips moving. Rancid Reaper was gesticulating frantically, alternating between looking at the pram and staring fearfully at her.
She raised her hand high above her head, and brought it down on him with a smack so loud, I could hear it above the infernal racket. The old man’s head slumped forward, unconscious - no no no, that’s not unconscious. I don’t think it’s humanely possible to bend one’s neck at that angle.
I think she just broke his neck. With just one slap.
She sauntered back to the stroller, and gently pushed her child back into the comforts of the pram.
“Sorry about my baby, he’s not seen his mama for a long time.” Out of the two voices I heard earlier in the room, hers was the deeper and raspier one. It was coarse and jarring, piercing my ears like the sound of nails on a chalkboard; and also loud and booming, reverberating around the room with an ethereal feel.
She grabbed Jake’s limp leg and hoisted him onto her shoulder effortlessly. “He’s got a crush on me, hasn’t he?” She smirked. “I’ll need a new mate.”
She raised her hand high above her head, ready for another one of those slaps. I closed my eyes.
Jake’s been missing for a few days. He hasn’t come back to his room ever since. I’m kinda worried - I don’t exactly like him, but I don’t want him to die or anything like that. The police has been looking for him, even sticking up posters with his face, but tough luck so far.
Han was the one who called the police. He had returned home from his night shift to find the entire corridor covered in white goo and stinking to high heaven, and both of our doors ajar. The smell kept him out of the Reaper’s flat, but he could see the mess inside and did what he was supposed to do.
The police interrogated me, of course. I was the last living person to see them both - I was lucky that she just chose to knock me out. They doubted my story - no surprise there. Who the hell would believe that an old man fucked a spider-demon, stole the resulting child, get attacked by the said demon, and end up getting himself killed and causing a neighbour to go missing?
But there was evidence to support my claim - the slime covering the entire crime scene was hard to miss, together with the smell, the scratches….and also a convenient surveillance camera at the lift lobby that caught her escape on tape.
They still find it hard to believe my story though, and I’m still a suspect in the case. I don’t blame them - this thing has been quite surreal, and traumatising. I can’t erase the memory of the loud smack and the twisted neck of the old man, nor can I forget the whole morphing-from-monster-into-human thing. I’m taking a break from school - from going out, actually - to get over this whole ordeal. Han used to be very quiet, but he’s talking a lot more now, trying to be a good friend and getting my mind off things. My newfound peace and quiet is helping a lot, too.
Just one thing though - just two days ago, Han was waiting to cross the junction, when he noticed a convertible with its roof down. The driver was a woman, clad in a tight black dress, with long hair that covered her face. She was leaning over to the passenger side, talking animatedly with her companion, frequently caressing his face. He didn’t really respond - he just sat there looking to the front, with a blank look on his face.
Han thought he looked like Jake. He had the same hair, same clothes, same face - same everything, really.
I said he was shitting me, but I pressed him to describe the woman.
Tight black dress. Short and slim. Long hair that obscured her face, but as she drove past, the wind lifted her hair. He didn’t get a really good look, but he remembered she had high cheekbones and a chiseled jawline.
I don’t know man. I just don’t know.
