The interview was not going well.
Andy had already mumbled his way through six competency-based questions, with follow ups, while biting his nails to the root. A nasty habit at the best of times, but now little streams of blood were trickling down between his knuckles. The three sharp-suited professional women on the panel tried to ignore it, but there was a good chance it was starting to damage his employability.
“Can I get you a plaster for that?” asked Julie Gray, Head of Marketing. Her hair was shorter than her LinkedIn profile picture but she was wearing the same cream blouse and navy blazer. An ensemble that said I’m the boss.
“No, sorry… just a nervous habit.” Andy wiped the tacky blood on the seam of his trousers.
His briefcase jumped next to his shoe.
Bringing a large medical briefcase to an interview for an admin role was a bold choice. He thought it might come off as a statement. A quirky detail that would stand him out from the crowd.. The concern on the panel’s faces when he’d entered the room suggested they hadn’t seen it that way.
But it’s not like he could leave it at the reception desk. He’d caught one of those things on the way over here, and it was now rattling against the metal bars of the trap, trying to escape.
Andy thrust his heel back, delivering a swift kick against the leather bag. It silenced the creature that struggled inside.
If the panel noticed this, they ignored it like a fight brewing on a crowded train. It’s not real if you don’t look at it.
Andy sat only a foot or so back from their wide formica desk. The women sat in an evenly spaced row with their evenly spaced eyebrows and evenly straightened hair. They were outlined like avatars against the featureless white wall. Sunlight reflected off the glossy paint and into Andy’s eyes from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Ally O’Connor, Director of Communications, had the next question. She wore a lurid red blouse and severe black mascara. She looked at Andy like he was a fly in her wine and asked, “What excites you about working for the Department of Work And Pensions?”
Faint scratching and thudding started behind the walls.
The cage inside the case shook again. The bag shifted a few inches back along the floor. He resisted the urge to kick it.
His voice broke as he answered, “I can’t wait to share the good news about all the great work you do.”
Ally O’Connor, Director of Communications, narrowed her eyes. Her artificial eyelashes formed a mesh in front of her pupils. She jotted something in her notepad.
Andy gripped his knees, fighting the urge to chew his already savaged nails. The scratching grew louder and climbed higher up the walls. Something was gnawing and digging, trying to chew its way into the room. The walls trembled.
Another one.
There was another trap in his case, but it was a small andless effective model and, though the interview wasn’t going well, Andy wasn’t sure that pausing to set up a modified rat trap in the corner of the room was the thing to rescue it.
“We’re a friendly bunch here,” said Stephanie Birch, Digital Marketing Officer, her face frozen in a demented rictus. “We’re always having a laugh and a chat. It’s so relaxed, as long as we’re getting the job done.”
Andy meant to laugh but it came out as a whimper.
The edges of Stephanie’s smile dropped a little as she recited, “How important do you think it is to work in a great team?”
Something carved a tiny hole in the middle of the wall just behind her head. Small white boulders, like cat litter, tumbled down and a puff of white dust drifted across the room. Little claws poked and scraped through the aperture, opening it wider.
Andy’s eyes widened.
“For me, it’s the relaxed atmosphere it creates. You can’t ever be afraid to ask for help.”
They were all smiling at him now. Lips pressed into thin white lines.
His palms were slick with sweat and his mouth was dry. Jagged sections of plaster crumbled to the carpet as the hole opened wider. Needle-like claws poked through, on the end of spindly fingers as small as grains of rice.
Julie Gray, Head of Marketing, said, “That’s the end of our questions. Is there anything you’d like to ask us?”
The hole was now the size of a cricket ball and a head appeared in the gap. Long, pointed ears folded inwards and then snapped back as it pushed it’s wrinkled, leathery head into the room. Shiny red eyes peered at Andy from a spherical skull, tufted with fine hair. It hissed at him from a snarling, lipless mouth. The creature strained and shuffled, squeezing through the hole to get to him. His case rattled in response.
He looked at the panel aghast. Like everyone else, they saw nothing, heard nothing. Their sympathetic smiles said Unfortunately, other candidates demonstrated experience that more closely matched the job description.
The creature wriggled through the wall towards him. Itsface crumpled into a look of pure, animalistic hatred.
Andy sprang from the chair, grabbing his old leather case and bolted through the door without another word.
#
He tried not to run because running in an office is impossible to ignore.
The open-plan floor was crammed with square cubicles and humming screens. There were photos tacked to the walls and half-empty biscuit packets ripped open on the edge of desks. Employees chattered through headsets to grids of blank faces on blurred backgrounds.
The case buffeted against his leg.
He passed a whiteboard with crude drawings of party streamers and fireworks around the edges. Along the top, it read “Team night out: ideas please!” The list of suggestions underneath was empty.
He walked straight into Sadie.
She squealed as they collided and her papers crumpled against her.
The case clattered in his hand, and he took two large steps backwards.
“Oh, hi Sadie. Sorry. Hello.”
This was exactly the kind of interaction he dreaded. An unexpected encounter with an old acquaintance, the obligation of casual conversation. The threat of indefinite small talk.
To make things worse, Sadie was an old high school crush. She had always been way out of his league, but had at least spoken to him and treated him kindly. She’d even been seen with him in public and it had cost him nothing more than the promise that he would do all her Maths homework for her.
His eyes darted around the room and towards the exit.
“Andy! Wow…what brings you here? I haven’t seen you in ages.”
She blew a curl of auburn hair out of her face and smoothed it behind her ears as she spoke. He’d caught the scent of it when they’d stumbled into one another. Coconuts. She still used the same shampoo.
“I er…had an interview. I didn’t know you worked here. Good to see you.”
“You too, you too.” She reached out to touch his arm but stopped short.
They stood looking at each other for a moment, their mouths opening and closing, searching for the next foothold in the conversation. She put one hand on her hip, then down by her side, then on her hip again. Experimenting with poses for a photo nobody was taking. Her figure was fuller than he remembered.
“You moved back?” she asked.
“A couple of months ago. I’m not far. I have a small place in Deluna Gardens.”
“Oh cool, my friend lives there. I’m just round the corner.We should meet up.”
Her smile died as she said this and she looked at her feet.
Andy winced and looked again at the exit. From the case, a wheezing, hissing titter. When the silence became too much to bear, he said, “Of course, come round. You know… when you’re not busy.”
The cage rattled and jumped, battering against his leg.
She looked up and smiled, her eyes glittering. The light rebounded off them and the thick sheen of makeup that covered her oval face.
“Are you free tonight?” she said.
Andy felt scratching underneath his feet. Heard it above him in the ceiling. The pitter-patter of tiny footsteps along the carpet in the corners of the room.
Behind Sadie, back towards the elevators, a tail flitted behind the walls of a cubicle.
#
Sweat was soaking through his shirt by the time he reached his building. The climb up the stairs to his apartment, five flights, only made it worse. His ill-fitting suit clung to his arms and legs. But the lift was a risk he wasn’t willing to take today. Not after he’d already seen at least three of them.
He was breathing hot and heavy by the time he reached his door.
“Evenin’ Andy, been out on your rounds again?” His neighbour, Thomas, stepped out of the adjoining apartment with a chuckle. He patted Andy on the shoulder as he passed. “That bag… what do you look like?” said Thomas, shaking his head in amusement.
The leather bag jerked and hissed at him.
Andy slid his key into the door but waited until Thomas was in the lift and heading down before he turned it and scuttled in. He slammed the door shut and turned to face the cacophony of his apartment.
It was like all the other apartments in the building, and probably the building next door. A facsimile. A neat little box to file someone away. Like all the others, it opened immediately into a compact, square kitchen. A breakfast counter separated the kitchen from the sofa/coffee table/rug combo in the middle of the room.
But those other apartments didn’t have the stack of metal cages piled neatly floor-to-ceiling against the back wall. Cages that clattered and shook, under attack from hairy little demons trapped inside. A whirl of ears and tails and shining red eyes. Screaming and whining. Clicking their sharp teeth against the stainless steel bars in fury.
Andy set down his bag and took off his suit jacket, catching his breath and trying to cool off.
He retrieved a pair of thick, plastic gardening gloves from the kitchen drawer and bent to open his case. The thing hurled itself at the bars of the cage and he flinched before grabbing the handle on top of the trap and easing it out of the old leather bag.
He held it at arm’s length, away from his body. The creature ceased its attack on the cage and stared at him through the grating. It was a withering look of contempt and disgust.
Andy carried it over to the wall where its brothers and sisters threw themselves at the walls of their cells. He lifted it high into an empty corner, making sure it was secure on top of the pile, the little beast screaming as he did so.
Taking a step back, he looked at his collection. There was at least a new one every day now. They followed him wherever he went, seeking him out at every opportunity, sabotaging every attempt at a normal life.
It had started with one, but once he’d finally trapped that first intruder, more and more of them started to appear.They multiplied.
They crawled inside walls, across roofs and under floorboards. Scratching and biting and cackling. Appearing at the worst possible times. Forcing him from jobs, homes and people. Every time he managed to trap one, another would appear.
When he ran, they found him.
Returning to the wall, he drew a long, heavy curtain in front of the makeshift prison. Sometimes the darkness calmed them down, sometimes it aggravated them even more.
Soon, Sadie would be here. She might take his mind off things for an hour or two if he was lucky. Or she might laugh at him. Call him a freak. Or run screaming from his apartment.
He looked at his watch and saw that he didn’t have long. And still work to be done.
Kneeling back into the case, he pulled out the smaller empty trap.
He opened his front door and leaned down by the edge of the doorframe, placing the trap along the run of the wall. He lifted the lever, opening the door of the trap and let go of it gently. Then he pulled a pin from his trouser pocket and jabbed into the pad of his finger, dripping blood onto the trigger pad, before he slid back into the apartment and closed the door.
#
It was peaceful when Sadie arrived.
He’d straightened up as best he could and folded out a table in the cramped kitchen. Two plates and two glasses sat opposite each other. Pasta bubbled on the stove filling the room with steam.
He’d shunted an old bookshelf from the bedroom in front of the closed curtain.
The sound of the doorbell was so unfamiliar that Andy almost didn’t answer.
He opened the door and waves of floral perfume washed over him. Sadie stood in the hall, all feathered hair, red lipstick and cleavage. Her eyes shone beneath the clumps of mascara.
“I brought supplies!” She held up a bottle of wine in each hand and her silky shawl fluttered around her wrists.
Tiny feet skittered somewhere in the hallway and Andy pulled her in by the arm, slamming the door shut behind them.
He waited. A faint scratching noise near the floor and then…the soft click of the trap door.
He heaved a sigh of relief. Closing his eyes, he leaned his head on the door.
Turning to face Sadie, he found her smiling at him with a big toothy grin and clinking the bottles together.
“Thirsty?”
They sat at the table and he poured out two glasses while Sadie explained how it was the second cheapest pinot noir she had been able to find in the supermarket. He poured them right to the top, so they had to take the first sip without lifting the glass from the table.
The first glass relaxed him and he began to feel a release. His chest felt ten times bigger. Like he could breathe and breathe and breathe until there was no air left for anyone else. He smiled at Sadie, or at least he made that shape with his face, and she smiled right back. A smile so big and goofy he saw her fillings. He got goosebumps.
She said, “It was so lovely to run into you today. I don’t see anyone anymore. Just work, work, work.”
A thud from behind the curtain cut through Andy like teeth on foil. His muscles tensed a little.
“I don’t get out much myself,” he said. “I mean, there’s job hunting, but that’s hard.”
The saucepan began to bubble over on the hob.
“It’s so hard to make friends these days.” She took another gulp of wine, keeping her eyes on Andy. “So easy to just float along, past everyone.”
The cages vibrated behind the curtain. Sadie looked around and he thought this is it, the running and the screaming is about to start but she said, “It’s cosy here.”
Sauce slopped over the rim of the saucepan and sizzled. He got up to take care of the meal, certain that the pasta would be overdone.
He was right. He ladled out steaming piles of fusilli. The pieces slid over one another too easily on the plate and thin sauce pooled around the edges.
He covered each serving with liberal helpings of salt and fiery droplets of chilli sauce and laid it down apologetically on the table.
“I’m not the world’s greatest cook,” he said, avoiding her gaze.
A faint scratching came from the bedroom.
She gave him another goofy smile and wiggled her empty wine glass at him. He refilled it to the top and topped off his own too.
Sadie ate like it was her last meal. She shovelled huge forkfuls of slimy, gummy pasta into her mouth, one after another. Before she’d swallowed one, another was already on its way to her mouth. Her cheeks were rosy and blotched. She had a line of lipstick below her lower lip.
Andy tried to eat, tried to focus on the food and keep up with Sadie’s frenzied pace, but the scratching was creeping through the walls. From the bedroom, through the hallway to the skirting boards of the living room. The cages were shaking. There was the odd violent crash, followed by a low hiss. And maybe, the high-pitched squeal of a latch dropping open.
He looked closely at Sadie, waiting for her horrified reaction, but she was busy clearing her plate. When she was done, she sat back from the table and pushed out her stomach. She opened her silk shawl and flapped it around her like gossamer wings. She belched, covering her mouth and chuckling.
“Tasty!” She gave a double thumbs up and tapped the side of her empty wine glass with the sharp edge of her nail.
Andy tried to find the words to express his awe and envy but couldn’t. He cleared away the dishes and pulled the second bottle from the fridge.
“You’re good company,” she said. “I feel comfortable with you. Like I could say anything.”
“People relax around me. They don’t much care what I think. I’m like a house pet, not intimidating.”
Andy felt vibrations from below. Tiny claws digging into the floorboards. By the couch, the rug bulged in one corner.
“I wouldn’t mind you around the house,” she said, arching a painted eyebrow and turning her head to the side. Her finger tapped on the unused knife next to her. He’d forgotten to clear away the cutlery.
The heavy curtain rippled and shifted from side to side. He was sure now, one of them must have gotten loose. And there were new ones too, somewhere in the apartment. There had never been this many before.
Andy’s heart strafed across his chest and beads of sweat formed at his temples. He grabbed his glass and poured the whole thing down his throat, the acidic wine lit a fire in his belly.
When he looked back at Sadie she leaned forward, opening her arms, gripping each corner of the small table.
A tail flitted behind the couch. There were shuffling and dragging noises in the kitchen cupboards behind him. The lampshade shook almost imperceptibly with the vibrations. Low squawking and wheezing came from behind the curtain.
He had to get her out of here. It was only a matter of time before she saw them, before they got her. It was a miracle it hadn’t already happened.“Well…it’s getting late, and I have another interview tomorrow.”
A commiserating smile curved at the corners of her lips. A smile that said I’m not put off that easily.
“C’mon it’s still early,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “Let’s just talk some more.”
A round head edged out from behind the kitchen counter, crimson eyes reflected the light at Andy, its mouth dropping open and closed.
Sadie reached out the slender fingers of one hand and brushed the tips of Andy’s, which were now digging into the table’s edge.
A cupboard creaked open next to him and a tiny, hirsute hand clicked its claws on the edge of the door. A pair of pointed furry ears poked up behind the couch and ducked back down again. A squeaking, girlish giggle echoed down the hallway outside the door.
Overcooked pasta began to surge back up Andy’s throat and it was difficult to catch a breath.
Scraping footsteps echoed around the quiet apartment. Glass broke in his bedroom, cages rattled behind the curtain.
With her other hand, Sadie continued to drum her fingers along the chrome surface of the knife. Tapping in rhythm with the skittering feet of the creatures which were getting closer and closer.
“I think we could really help each other,” she said, tracing the tips of his fingers with her own.
He opened his mouth to speak but only his hot stuttering breath came out. A single drop of sweat crawled down his cheek.
Small, spindly fingers gripped onto his ankle through his trousers. The table shook as something shimmied up the leg next to Sadie.
“The city is a lonely place,” she said. “But we’ve found each other again.”
One appeared over the edge of the table, next to Sadie’s elbow. It was grinning, its fangs exposed and gleaming, a thin line of drool extending from its shivering lips.
Andy stared into those eyes. Those translucent, reflective discs filled with malice. Its scrawny, knuckled fingers reached towards Sadie’s neck, the claws glinting at their razor-sharp points.
The air went out of his lungs, he couldn’t warn her, couldn’t speak. He could only wave his hands and nod, trembling as the creature edged its honed weapons closer to her pale porcelain neck.
The claw pressed against her throat, then a crack and a whoosh of sudden movement sent Andy reeling back in his chair.
The knife cartwheeled through the air above them.
With one sleek movement, Sadie caught the handle and brought it down against the skull of the creature with a hollow thud. It punctured one leathery ear and exited the other, pinning the creature’s head to the table. Its body twitched as it let out its final gasping breath.
The scratching and gnawing stopped. The cages ceased rattling. All was silent.
Sadie was smiling, her eyes glowing.
“We just need to help you relax a little,” she said and she took his hand in hers.
THE END
Ash Egan began writing horror stories in 2022. He lives in Bury, in the north of England.