None Rats on the Soup Man

The creature’s mangled nails sunk deep into his belly. He could feel them splitting his intestines and then moving around to spread the carnage. They went deep enough to scrape some bones, creating one of the worst sounds imaginable- it was close to nails on a chalkboard, but it had more of a wet quality. Yet again, the creature had gotten him. When it decided that it had done enough internal damage, it slid its nails out. The creature smiled as the internal bleeding began to spread outside. The creature calmly went a few paces to the left of James, sat down, then it continued from where it left off last time.

“July 17, 1979, 3:52 am. July 17, 1979, 3:52:40 am.” The creature recalled, speaking in its monotone, almost childlike voice. Its voice sounded both childlike and worn, as if a 7 year old had been smoking for 20 years. It listed dates and times- nothing else. It never used a book or any other reference. It was just the creature’s own memory.

James stared past the dark and focused (vaguely) on the ceiling. It was hard to make out and maybe James wasn’t even seeing the real ceiling, but rather what he knew the ceiling to be. He couldn’t remember how long he had been in this house, but it was definitely long enough to know what the ceiling looked like. He even had time to count how many dots and lines protruded out from it. The earliest time he could remember was when the creature was counting the year 1012. James didn’t remember a time before the creature, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t leave the house. One time (very early on) he smashed the window in the second story bathroom. When James went to jump out, all he saw outside the house was black. This was different than just darkness; this was pure black. That was the only time the creature didn’t say any dates. All it did was grab James and jam its fingers into James’s eyes. The creature's fingers made it all the way to the back of James’s skull. Before its fingers went in, James noticed that the creature was very angry. It wasn’t difficult for James to find out he wasn’t supposed to see that void- whatever it was. When he woke up the next day and went to the bathroom, the window had been removed. It was just solid wall and so was every other window in the house.

James could feel it coming and a wave of relief washed over him. It was bitter-sweet, as always, seeing as how the creature would be back again tomorrow with more dates, but at least James would get some rest and the pain surging through him would cease. Slowly, the details of the ceiling began fading away. The creature’s voice got dimmer and James could feel himself growing paler. The darkness dimmed until suddenly, James woke up.

He was in the same bed as always, in the same position as always, with the same welcoming beam of sunlight shining brightly onto his eye. Even though the windows were gone, the sunlight still shone in. It may look weird to most, but if the math starting from James’s earliest memory until now was right, he had been here for roughly 967 years. The window incident had to have been maximum 20 years into this- meaning James had at least 947 years to get used to the weird look of it. James sat in bed for longer than usual today. The creature had got him good. There wasn’t any pain or scars (just like always), but the memory of the pain was enough to make him want to stay in bed. After about an hour, James got up. If he hadn’t, he would’ve stayed until the creature came and there wasn’t much worse than dying in bed. You need to have one safe place, even here.

James went down the wood stairs on the second floor to the shagged-carpet living room on the first. He sat down on his favorite, brown, puffed-cushioned recliner. It was a bulky item, but it was the most comfortable thing around the house- even better than his bed. He would sleep in it, but he made the mistake of sleeping in it during the day and waking up just in time to be slain by the creature at night a few too many times before. The drowsiness the chair caused was alluring, but James had learned to fight it. He didn’t think he could ever leave the house nor did he think the creature would ever stop coming, which means the day time he is given is the only time he has here to not be either afraid or in pain. Why spend that time asleep? Instead, he turned on the tv. Sure, many would argue that’s just as invaluable a way to spend time as sleeping, but there was an odd comfort to it, even though there was never anything good on. All the tv would play was infomercial channels, movie channels that only played movies with a quality that most would consider “airplane movies,” and channels that played tv shows or documentaries of a similar quality.

The tv blasted Pretty Little Liars, one of James’s favorites. He originally only liked it for the theme song. He sang along with it and gave dramatic motions to all the lyrics as he sang. Although it’s not like James to call anything in the house something better than “mediocre,” or (more accurately) just a little shrug of the shoulders, singing the theme song to a teen-drama directed towards teenage girls is as close to fun as the house would likely allow him. Ding dong. James froze. That sounded like the doorbell… but there wasn’t a doorbell for this house. At least, none that James had found in his near millennia of being here. James waited a few minutes. Maybe it was just the tv? Speaking of the tv, James had missed a lot while he was panicking about the doorbell sound. It sounds stupid, but this was all he had and darn it all if he wasn’t absolutely invested in Pretty Little Liars. He wanted to know who ‘A’ was probably as much as he wanted to leave the house, maybe even more. Ding dong. That was definitely not the tv. The sound of the doorbell echoed through the house as much as it did James’s head. The house is surrounded by a void, so how was the doorbell ringing? It rang for a third time. Ding dong. 

James paused the tv, got out of his comfy chair, and ran across the shaggy, deep-blue carpet (and, shortly after, the wood tiling) to the front door. James’s hand hovered over the doorknob. It had always been locked so there's no reason for it to open… then again, there's no reason for the doorbell to be ringing either. Ding dong. That's four. Four times the doorbell has rang. What is happening? James took a deep breath and tried to twist the doorknob. 

The door slammed open from inside-out, making a loud clack as it smashed into the brick walls that make up the outside of the house. James was seeing those for the first time. They were an odd shade of brown. Weird. It’s not like he expected much, to be honest he never thought about what the outside of the house looked like. Ding dong. There’s the doorbell again. James looked in front of him, hoping to see who (or what) was ringing the house’s doorbell. This was terrifying. This was new. Finally James saw what rang the doorbell.

It was nothing. There was nothing outside the house. Surrounding the outside of the house, it was all just the same pure black that he saw during the window incident. James paused for a second, disappointed. Out of all the things to be outside that door, death, horrors beyond anyone’s wildest imagination, or even cats. It was just… nothing. Why is it always nothing with this place? James thought angrily. It was either nothing or extreme horrors- no in-between. Ding dong. There it was again. 

James’s face burned bright red with anger. “Come in!” James yelled out into the void. It was very loud, but it didn’t echo outside. Almost as if the void absorbed the sound. The door slammed closed. There was a tremendous force behind it, sweeping up James and throwing him backwards and away from the door. He slid a little as he hit the floor, giving almost a rug-burn effect on most of his body. If it weren’t for the fact that he gets brutally murdered every night, then wakes up with a perfect reset, then tomorrow he would be mostly covered in a burning pinkish-red. “Ow.” James said, unenthused. What was that? Why make him open the door if you’re just going to throw him back?

He slowly sat up. The world around him was rocking from side to side. He must’ve hit his head really hard when he was thrown back. 

“I wondered when this would happen,” a voice said from behind. James jumped up, discombobulated, immediately tripped, and fell back down. Now, at least, he could see who was talking. It was the creature.

“Don’t get any funny ideas about trying to kill me,” the creature said in its usual 7 year- old-chainsmoker voice. It walked close to James and then bent over. The creature said with a smile, “And this time, don’t break any windows.” It winked.

As James opened his mouth to say something, the creature stopped him by grabbing his tongue and slicing it off with its nails. Splat. The creature stuck its twisted, mangled, nails deep into James’s head through his ears and then said something. For what are hopefully obvious reasons, James had no clue what the creature said. Maybe it was spoilers for Pretty Little Liars. Although that would be cold, even for the creature. Who knows? Certainly not James. Although it almost looked like it said, “None rats on the soup man.” It was a bit early for the creature to kill James, but today had been very weird already so it makes sense that this would be out of place too. 

James woke up in his bed. Weirdly, there wasn’t a welcoming sunbeam shining on his face. He opened his eyes and stifled a scream. Directly in front of him, in the place where the same empty spot that is always there should be, was a sleeping woman.