Lex and the Midnight Hour

Lex woke with an empty stomach and a head full of nails. She realized she had thrown up sometime during the night, missing the toilet and instead filling the sink. It was a good thing her roommate was gone for the weekend; Marcie would be downright apoplectic at the mess. Lex groaned and fumbled through the medicine cabinet for ibuprofen. She had no recollection from the night before after her friends had dragged her to some hip new bar downtown. Lex wasn’t sure what was so special and out it; really, any bar was hip once you got drunk enough.

Which apparently she had done, since the night was a jumbled blur in her pounding head. Her hands finally found the bottle of ibuprofen and she swallowed three of them dry, choking slightly. Her bleary reflection stared at her disapprovingly when she shut the cabinet.

“Don't look at me like that,” she mumbled, swaying. She worried she was going to throw up again but the wave of queasiness passed. Once she'd cleaned up her mess in the sink and taken a shower, she felt three-quarters human again. She fixed herself coffee in the biggest mug in the apartment and then settled in to try and work on her thesis portfolio. She only had six months left to finish her book of poetry for her MFA degree, but her headache didn't seem to care about deadlines. The coffee wasn't helping her hangover and Lex found herself squinting at her computer screen, oddly aggravated. The sunlight peeking through the window and the brightness of the screen were making her eyes hurt and her skin itch.

Finally she slammed the laptop shut, resigned to a wasted afternoon. She snapped all the curtains closed and pilfered one of Marcie’s sleeping masks. In the darkness, she fell asleep and her dreams were full of darting shadows and drops of blood. Lex woke with a start and squinted at her phone, finding that it was midnight. Her headache had receded to a dull thrum and she felt strangely alert. She poked her laptop again and wrote through the night, but the chainsaw powered back on in her skull when morning came.

Lex texted the friend who'd dragged her to the bar to ask just what the hell they'd been drinking. Ally texted back a bunch of laughing emojis and said it was just tequila and Jell-O shots.

“Like hell it was,” Lex muttered, downing more ibuprofen. She'd never had a hangover relapse but she was back to feeling woozy and shaky. Coffee did nothing and every bit of light and sound sent needles through her brain. She nearly shrieked when her phone rang, Ally calling.

“Hungover, are we?” Ally asked cheerfully and Lex winced, rubbing her temples.

“I feel like shit,” she admitted.

“Did you at least take that guy home?”

“Guy? What guy?”

“You don't remember? You must have been drunker than I thought. You spent most of the evening with this guy, I don't think I got his name. Tall, kinda goth. But not in like, a cringy Hot Topic sort of way. He was pretty cute.”

Lex waded through her watery memories, vaguely able to recall hands on her waist, a toothy smile. Everything else sank into the murk.

“I woke up alone,” she said. “I think I just took a cab home.”

“Shame. But maybe for the best if you were that wasted. You want me to come over?”

“No, I need to work on my project.”

“Drink water. You need hydration. See you later.”

Lex spent another afternoon buried under her blanket, Marcie’s sleep mask over her eyes. She woke at midnight again, the pain from her head now concentrated in her jaw. Groaning, Lex stumbled from bed and into the bathroom, wondering if she'd cracked a tooth in her sleep.

“Ow, ow, fuck,” Lex whimpered, prodding at her gums. There was some redness, but nothing else she could see. Her reflection was hazy, like the mirror was dirty or fogged with steam. In pain but fully awake, Lex didn't bother cleaning the mirror but instead took more painkillers and got back to her portfolio. She dimmed the brightness on the screen as low as it would go to keep her eyes from stinging and wrote more than she ever had in a single sitting. Her fingers flew over the keys so quickly she wasn’t even sure what she was typing. She'd have lost track of time completely except she knew the instant the sun came up. She drew a curtain back and immediately hissed, the skin on her arm feeling blistered.

“What the actual shit is happening,” she grumbled, rubbing her tender skin. She considered googling whether you can develop a sun allergy later in life, but the white light of her screen hurt her eyes so she gave up and went back to sleep. Her dreams continued to be disturbed, hazed in red with flashes of grinning teeth and bloody lips.

It was once again midnight when Lex woke suddenly, her stomach cramped with hunger pains. Dimly she realized she hadn't eaten anything since Friday, before the bar. All she'd had since was coffee and painkillers. Lex stumbled from bed and into the kitchen. There was actually food in the fridge, which meant Marcie must be back. Lex had slept through her homecoming, which was hard to do. Marcie wasn't one to keep her displeasure to herself and Lex hadn't done the dishes all weekend.

A sharp, meaty smell reached her nose and Lex’s stomach cramped violently. She rifled through the fridge, looking for the source. She nudged aside almond milk and green smoothies and tofu but didn't see anything that would be making that smell. By now she was nearly frantic, her stomach pitching wildly. She imagined it as that flower from Little Shop of Horrors, demanding that she feed it.

“What are you doing? It's the middle of the night.”

Lex turned to find Marcie, wearing her coordinated striped pajamas and fuzzy slippers, a face mask and irritated expression on her face. Marcie was a grad student like Lex, yet she somehow always gave off a vibe like a disapproving midwestern mom.

“I’m hungry,” Lex said. “Did you get some kind of meat?”

Marcie scowled. “You know I'm going vegan,” she huffed. “If you want meat you’ll have to get it yourself, and don't let it touch any of my stuff. You should really think about going plant-based too, you know.”

Lex wasn’t listening. She could still smell the raw meat smell and it was making her skin buzz. She stalked closer to Marcie, who was so busy pontificating she didn't notice.

“You were drinking this weekend, weren't you? I tried to wake you up earlier and you didn't answer me. I'm not going to clean up your messes. You left mugs all over the counter and the milk was bad. It's a good thing I went shopping but really, can't you even keep staples –what are you doing?”

Marcie finally noticed Lex hovering over her, her hands clenched at her sides.

“Are you high or something?” Marcie asked. “Your eyes look weird.”

“The smell is you,” Lex said and Marcie looked offended.

“My face mask has green tea and honey, and it smells fine.”

“You smell like meat,” Lex said, swaying closer to her. “Like…blood.”

Marcie’s annoyance faded into something closer to alarm. “What are you talking about? Lex, you’re freaking me out.”

Marcie tried to push past her but Lex’s hand shot out, capturing her arm and rooting her in place.

“Ow! Lex, stop it!”

Marcie squirmed as Lex leaned closer, her mouth watering. The smell was definitely Marcie, and it was definitely making her hungry. There was a quick, sharp pain in her gums. Lex felt something poke her tongue. She paid it no attention, focusing on Marcie, who by now was jerking and twisting like an animal in a trap.

“Lex, let go of me,” she said, raw panic on her face. Lex could feel Marcie’s pulse under her palm; could feel the life rushing through her veins. Lex’s vision went soft around the edges and then the entire world was red; like a crimson veil had been draped across her face. She heard a shrill noise that subsided to a gurgling whimper, and finally silence. It was several minutes, or maybe an eternity, before she drew away from Marcie and began to blink the world back into focus.

Her hunger was sated, and the pain in her head and gums was gone. Marcie was slumped on the floor at her feet. She was pale except for a gash of sticky red on the side of her neck. Lex touched her own face and felt wetness around her mouth.

“Holy shit,” she said, though she wasn’t really that concerned. She felt detached from herself. She dragged Marcie into the bathroom, her dead weight not as heavy as Lex would have expected. She propped Marcie against the tub, wondering if she could make this look like an accident. But no, people didn’t accidentally misplace all their blood. Lex turned to the mirror, expecting to see herself, but a horror movie version. But all she saw in the mirror was a smear of blood, hovering in midair.

Lex was more unnerved by her new lack of reflection than she was about killing her roommate, which probably didn't reflect well on her (ha, she thought) but she didn't much care. After all, she'd been starving, and Marcie’s constant nagging had been wearing on her nerves. Even now, Marcie’s pale dead face seemed to wear a look of reproach.

“Does it count as plant-based if I eat a vegan?” Lex asked her. She swiped at the blood on her chin, thinking about what to do now. When the sun rose she'd be relegated to her dark room again; she'd have to make the most of tonight. Marcie’s death wouldn't look anything but suspicious, so she had to go. Lex fetched a trash bag from the kitchen, remembering how she had held Marcie in place with one hand. Dragging her to the bathroom had been easy enough too.

Lex grabbed her former roommate's limbs and twisted, The cracking sounds were loud and grotesque, but Lex hummed to block it out. Once she had bent, folded, and disassembled Marcie sufficiently, she tucked her into the trash bag. Marcie’s arm kept trying to pop back out and Lex huffed.

“Why do you always have to be so difficult? You were just lecturing me about cleaning up after myself. You should be happy.”

Lex looked/didn't look at herself in the mirror again. If she couldn't be seen in mirrors, would the apartment building’s security cameras see her? Or would they just pick up a trash bag, floating on its own through the halls? That was the sort of thing that might draw attention. She hefted the bag of dead roommate leftovers and climbed out onto the fire escape, moving stealthily down to the alley below and circling round to where Marcie kept her Toyota parked. Lex stashed the trash bag in the trunk; tomorrow she'd figure out what to do with it. Surely she could disable the cameras for a bit, so no one would find it odd they saw Marcie coming home but not leaving again. Toss the car into a lake. Accidents happen, after all. No reason for anyone to suspect that Lex had eaten her roommate.

Nothing at all to see here, officers. This is not the bloodsucking creature of darkness you’re looking for.

Back in the apartment, with several hours of nighttime left, Lex settled in at the desk and began re-reading the poems she'd worked on over the weekend. They had taken on a decidedly angsty edge, but there was almost enough to complete her portfolio. Grad students were unhinged anyway, weren't they? Her thesis professor would probably love them.

Dawn broke and Lex retreated to her room, suddenly exhausted. She put on two of Marcie’s sleep masks this time; she wouldn't be needing them and it would be a shame to let them go to waste. Marcie hated wasting things. Lex curled into her artificial darkness, sinking into deep sleep as the sun finished rising in the sky. She needed her rest; after all, she had a big night ahead of her.