Missing Bowls

It started with a glass bowl. I stood on my office chair and pushed a glass bowl forward with the end of a broom, cereal washing over the edge like a wave pool. I squatted on the chair waiting, praying in silence for anything else to be true. As my knees quivered and my sweaty hands gripped the splintering wood of the broom’s handle, the bowl began to move. It was pulled, as if gravity was turned ninety degrees, under my bed and out of sight. 

That was the third bowl I lost.

My cat’s water bowl was stolen first. Blue, with tiny clouds painted along its glassy exterior, used to sit at the foot of my bed. It took me a while to actually realize it was gone and it wasn’t even me that realized it had been taken. It was Gilbert, my cat. His big brown, slitted eyes stared up at me one night before bed and I could tell he needed something. He pawed at my leg as it hung from my bed frame like he was playing with one of his toys from the living room. 

“Okay, okay,” I said, standing from my bed and tearing my eyes from the bright screen of my phone. I dropped my phone on the edge of the bed and absentmindedly knelt down to grab the bowl. But it was not there. Not only was the bowl not there, but a trail of slimy brown residue was also plopped in its place. At first, I thought my cat had thrown up. Pretty usual behavior for a ten-year old cat who licked itself ninety percent of the day. This residue was different though, it was still warm, wet, and thick. 

After cleaning up the cat throw up with a tissue, I walked downstairs and grabbed a new bowl. Bright pink with “I work hard so my cat can have a better life,” etched in white letters across the glass exterior, the water sloshed side to side as I walked back into my room. Gilbert, perched on top of my bed, pawed at my phone and watched it fall to the ground. He leapt like a trained acrobat to the floor, using his bright white tail to balance and stick his landing. He smelt the water within the bowl and proceeded to walk out of my room. 

“Such a strange cat,” I said, falling back onto my bed. I remember hitting the light switch and falling asleep quicker than I normally do. I only say this because I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of scraping against my hardwood floors. Maybe it wasn’t so much scraping as it was sliding, but it was jarring enough to wake me for the moment. 

“Go to bed, Gilbert,” I mumbled. Gilbert was a night owl who loved to cause mayhem in the dark hours of the day. That was enough to explain away the weird sounds for the moment. 

I rubbed my eyes when the bright sun poured through my window. Gilbert purred at the edge of my bed, his eyes drooped with fatigue, one more than the other. I noticed a scratch across his right eye that hadn’t been there yesterday. A small drop of dried blood stuck to his cheek bone. 

“What happened there, buddy?” I blotted his cheek with a wet towel. He hopped down from my bed and turned, taking the stance of a predator, and hissed beneath my bed. Content, Gilbert walked from my room, the bones of his shoulder blades rocking back and forth with each step. What was that all about? I turned my body and placed my feet against the ground. It was wet. A brown, slime trail like that of a slug stuck to the hardwood floor. 

“What the?” 

I wiped the trail of slime with the same towel used to clean Gilbert’s face, but the brown sludge would not dry. The consistency was like looking under a microscope and seeing millions of organisms crawling over one another. The closer I looked, the more it looked alive. And the pink bowl was gone. Upon further investigation, the brown sludge trail began in the bathroom trash can and moved across the floor until it journeyed beneath my bed. This was the same trash can I had cleaned up the cat vomit less than twenty-four hours ago. 

I wiped the floor clean and dumped the entire towel into the bathroom trash can. As I cleaned closer to the foot of my bed, the hair on my arm stood. Was there a skunk or a slug beneath my bed? 

I came back to my room with the usual: cereal in a bowl. I also brought a broom to poke around beneath my bed and see if anything would come running out. I ate on my bed, resting the cereal bowl on my stomach which raised and lowered with each breath, but it seemed as though my whole body was moving. I held my breath. This time, it was the bed that was breathing. 

My knees bounced against one another as I stood on my office chair. The third bowl was now gone and out of the corner of my eye, brown sludge crawled across the floor and beneath my bed. Gilbert eyed the trail. 

“Get out of there, Gilbert!” I screamed from the top of my chair. 

The cat did not listen. It snuck forward, like a leopard ready to pounce on its prey, and followed the sludge to the foot of the bed. I stuck out the broom and tried to push Gilbert away, but he dodged the broom’s bristles and hissed at me. 

Like a high-powered vacuum, Gilbert was sucked beneath the bed. 

I jumped from my chair and face planted on the ground as the chair’s wheels rolled out from under me. Now level with the floor, I could see a figure beneath the bed. With each breath, the bed above vibrated causing the comforter on top to fall slowly to the ground. The shadows beneath the bed obscured my vision, but I could make out what looked to be a shell which wrapped around the creature’s body. The shell was formed from cups, loose clothing, apple cores, forks and other miscellaneous items that had been left in my room over years and years of habitation. As it exhaled, pools of brown goo expelled from its figure, the smell of soggy banana peels and burnt hair wretched my stomach. 

Bags of skin covered what looked to be its eyes and the skin on its face drooped like multiple weights were tied to its cheeks and chin. Bits of blue and pink glass crunched between its jagged teeth and out of its mouth streamed brown liquid. Decomposed food hung on its purple lips and the sloshing of food and water in its mouth left me lightheaded. 

My body began to move, but I was no longer the one moving it. My nails scratched across the floors until the tips bled red across the hardwood. Even though I kicked and screamed nothing would stop the pull toward the creature. The grinding of the creature's teeth sent terror pumping through my lungs in the form of short, exacerbated breaths. 

It pulled with an invisible force, and as it moved its body toward me, I could see a swishing white tail connected to its midsection. I reached toward the comforter which had fallen to the ground as the bed still pulsed in sync with the creature's breathing. I gripped with all that I had but the comforter was connected to nothing. I dragged it along with me, my last connection to the world and the home I used to live in. A wet fish-like grip wrapped against my ankle as the creature pulled harder than before, inching me closer and closer to its ripped teeth and the brown liquid which still oozed from its body. 

My right foot entered its mouth and like a pencil in a pencil sharpener, the skin ripped, and bones snapped. Limb by limb I was consumed and though my mind expected death, I never experienced its relief. My eyes were opened, and I could feel heavy skin resting on my eyebrows and cheeks. Beneath the bed, I could feel my breathing vibrating the mattress above. A deep hunger rumbled in my stomach as I pulled the broom with a force, I cannot explain away from the office chair. Beneath the bed I chewed on its wood and scratchy bristles.