Flesh Flower

  I wake up the way I do every morning, by opening my eyes and rolling over to get more sleep. ‘Having an evening job is really nice.’ I think as I slip back into my dreams. Then a yowl from my cat at the door startles me awake again. “Good morning to you too,” I grouch, raising myself from my bed and dressing.

  The yowling gets needier as I approach the front door. I open it, “Hey there, Be…” 

That’s not my cat. This cat is mangy and spotted. It’s orange and flies buzz around its crap-crusted body. It tries to enter my house but I slam the door. Almost instantly I hear another mewing at my back door. 

  “There you are, Bellatrix. Did that gross thing scare you away?” I say. I open the door to the same cat. My jaw drops open and I slam the door again. “Ok,” I mutter to myself, “There are two of them…” 

  I worry about Bellatrix as I ready my shower and I jump about a foot off the ground when she yowls at the bathroom window. “Oh, thank goodness. Hi sweetie,” I coo, opening the window screen to let her in, “Your food’s in the kitchen ok?” I let her out of the bathroom and go on with my morning routine. 

  While I’m showering, I swear I hear my phone, like, three times. My ringtone is a minor-key bell version of that baby song ‘Go to sleep, go to sleep.’ It’s pretty disturbing, but, hey, I like creepy things.

  I dry off and check my phone. ‘thirteen missed calls.’ My heart starts pounding. Was someone I know hurt or dead or something? I unlock it to see that all of the calls are from the same unknown number, 1-310-136-1366. They left me a voicemail for each of the thirteen calls I received.

  I almost laugh. I don’t shower that long. Bellatrix rubs against my feet as I prepare my breakfast (eggs) and I listen to the voicemails on speakerphone. Then I stop cooking. Then I start to be a bit freaked out. 

  The first message was from a little girl. She’s muttering, something very uncharacteristic for young girls. I turn up the volume to hear what she says. “My mommy or my kitty, my mommy or my kitty, my mommy or my kitty…” She repeats it for as long as my message system records. 

  The second message was from a deep-voiced man. He’s whimpering something unintelligible. The next message is blank. A long blank silence. I checked my phone right before I showered, there’s no way all of these messages could be as long as the first three. 

  The fourth message is almost as blank as the third except for halfway through where the silence is broken by a barely audible far-off plinking sound. Like bells or music. I start the fifth message as I put my now-burnt eggs on a plate to see if Bella will eat them. 

  I almost drop the pan when I hear myself in the message. My voice is played backwards, it sounds like, “meh Foose ner eh yek bwu.” I open up my computer and get my sound editing software running. I replay the message into the speaker and flip it back to the way it should be. “Ok,” I had muttered, “There are two of them.” 

  I sit in stunned silence. A knock on the door makes my heart hide in my skull. I shakily check the peephole and see a large plain packing box. After a glance through all the windows and a long scan through the peephole I open the door to receive my package. I’ll open it when I’m less freaked out. Right now, a mysterious box is not so good for my anxiety. 

  To be fair, I had ordered some things and they were due to come, but I’m not taking any chances. The eggs on Bellatrix’s plate are gone. “Hungry,” I stutter a bit, “Were you Bella?” She stares at me from the couch. She’s not usually one for eating scraps. I clean up the plate with fear-weakened hands. “Stop freaking out,” I whisper to myself, “Deep breaths. No panic.” 

  I count seconds and breathe slowly like my counselor tells me to when I’m feeling the tightness in my chest that means a panic attack is coming on. It subsides slowly, but every time I think of the messages I’ve heard, the squeezing in my lungs returns. 

  “Ok,” I say to Bella, “fear-facing time. Let’s finish them.” I start message number six and drop the phone. It’s the yowling of that unfortunate cat. It sounds like pain. An abandoned cry. As much as that cat freaked me out, I didn’t want to hear it suffer. Then there’s a sickening choking sound and the message ends. 

  I shudder. Not cute, horror-movie-heroine little shivers either. An earthquake from my head to my cold toes. I pick my phone up again and call Abigail. “Melly?” She says with a crack in her voice. I instantly feel bad. I forgot she has a night job now. I make my voice sound cheerful. “Sorry, butt-dialed you. Didn’t mean to wake you up or anything,” I say. She sounds more awake when she replies, “Are you sure, you sound freaked out. Don’t panic, ok?” 

  “I’m fine, Abi. Sorry for waking you up,” I say. We say goodbyes and I hang up. I feel ridiculous for waking Abi up over a stupid phone message. It’s some kind of prank or something…

  I start up message number seven. It’s the little girl again, or so it sounds. She’s laughing, tiny chugging giggles. “Not mommy, not mommy, not mommy,” she laughs over and over. The message ends with a terrified scream. 

  Breathing heavily, I consider calling the police. Then I remember how stupid I felt calling Abi, someone I know and trust. No way am I calling the cops again because of my stupid anxiety. I’m overreacting to some kids’ idea of a joke. 

  I start up number eight, questioning my own sanity. It’s a quiet splash-squish type sound, getting louder. It’s soon joined by a low, friendly-sounding chuckle. I feel my heart pounding in my chest. 

  Number nine is the same chuckling without the squishing sound. Then, near the end, I hear my own phone’s ringtone getting louder and louder and then ending. I close my eyes really tightly and touch the ‘play next’ icon. 

  It’s a breath, barely a whisper. I hold the phone close to my ear and listen. “The box,” it says, “now you can hear me can’t you?” My eyes flicker nervously from the box I’d gotten and the front door. I run past the box and scoop up Bellatrix, pulling my legs up to my body when I jump onto my favorite chair. 

  I feel a panic attack creeping into me and my scalp burns. I breathe heavily for several minutes, clutching my surprisingly patient cat and whimpering occasionally. Then I look at Bella and notice she’s dead.

  Screaming, I drop her to the floor and run to my room. “Oh, God,” I whimper, “OhGodohGodohGodohGod-” My phone rings in the hand that’s still clutching it. The number is Abi and I answer immediately. 

  “Help,” I cry, “Abi, I’m so scared. Bella’s dead and I’ve been freaked out all morning someone gave me a box and there’s thirteen messages they had my voice backwards and I think a little girl got killed help me please!” My cheat heaves and I feel like throwing up. 

  Abi’s silent for a few seconds, then a few minutes, then I realize there’s a breathing sound in the background. “Abi?” I say. It echoes back to me through the phone. I start to cry harder. I can hear it through the receiver. It’s outside, it’s outside with Abi’s phone. 

  I stand without thinking and walk into the living room, almost not caring that Bella’s corpse is missing. I grab the box and carry it to the counter. I slice the tape and open the box all at once, getting it over with. 

  Inside is the gristliest thing I’ve seen in my life. It used to be the cat. And the little girl. It’s been mutilated, arranged like a bloody flower. The cat’s head is in the center, lodged firmly in the mouth of the girl’s head. Her forehead has been peeled and the skull chipped away to reveal a sick-smelling black mass of writhing worms. 

  The ‘petals’ of the flower are limbs. The cat’s are stabbed through with the shattered bits of the girl’s bones and the girl’s are tied to her own head using locks of her brown hair to stand all the pieces erect. 

  Underneath is a frothing mass of sewed together skin and fur, blood seeping through the edges whenever whatever’s underneath moves. 

  The moving thing rolls the petals of the flower forward and back, making the entire thing seem alive. In my shock I realize calmly that it ‘is’ alive, the fingers and eyes of the thing are still twitching and moving. 

  The panic comes all at once, choking me and killing my shock. My scream is muffled by my own hand, which I’ve bitten down on. I taste blood and scream again. I fall hard on the floor, soon vomiting last night’s supper on the tiles. 

  The panic erases my thoughts and claws at me. My phone? I look for it. My breathing is shallow and raw. It’s still in my room. I tumble numbly to my feet and down the hall. Tears silently trickle down my face and I can’t seem to remember why. “You’ll be Ok, You’ll be Ok,” I tell myself, “It’s just another panic.” My body shakes violently and I’m dizzy.

  I look somberly at my bed, where there’s a large flower that I can’t remember being there before. “That’s pretty,” I mutter. It’s a weird artistic flower, it looks kind of like Bellatrix. My phone is on the floor and I pick it up. “Three unread messages?” I mutter. My brain is cloudy and unfocused. “Maybe I had a panic…” I whisper. 

  I listen to the first message. “Hello?” It’s a groggy Abi, “Who is this? Hello?” then it hangs up. I’m a bit confused by it, but I play the next. “Stop calling me,” says Abi, “I’ll call the cops.” That doesn’t make sense, she was asleep after my shower. My shower. I start to hyperventilate. “OhGodohGodohGodohGod,” I say. 

  I turn on the last message. It’s hollow and far away. “Get the hell away from my door,” It’s Abi’s voice, “GET OUT, GET OUT OF MY HOUSE. WHAT DO YOU WANT, WHAT DO YOU WANT?!” She starts crying and I feel that I am too. Then I look back at the flower on my bed with a scream. 

  It’s Bellatrix, and somehow, while I was listening to the messages the thing added Abi to it too. It’s not moving like the other one was, but it’s just as terrifying. Abi’s eyes flicker around the room and eventually look at me. I stare in terror. My heartbeat comes slowly. 

  Then there’s a banging in the hallway and 

I hear my phone ring.