Then one night, during an unseasonably warm spell after weeks of heavy snows, I walked Lower Wacker, avoiding the widening pools and the spouts of water spilling from the streets above and whining to myself about Mona, whom I had not seen in two days. Had she disappeared for good? Could something have happened to her? I wandered Lower Wacker for a while, drinking in the desolate and expansive solitude that seemed like such a perfect extension of my mood.
The area where the Shabbies used to stand was now under a foot of water. As I stepped to the edge of this pond I saw a rat half-swim, half-scurry across it, cutting a line of splashes neatly down the middle. As the waters settled, erasing all traces of the rat’s pathway, I saw what I believed to be a reflection of the ceiling above me, and my tired eyes began to unfocus along the strange contours formed there.
Suddenly there was movement in the water, something large, struggling up from an impossible depth in this shallow pool. In the brief moment it broke the surface I was sure that it was a man, but the water settled over it and the pool grew still and silent, as though nothing had happened. I looked around; there was no one anywhere, and the green lights illuminating the underground were all flickering in synchronization.
Another splash—there it was again, exploding to the surface. Only this time it did not seem to be a man at all, but rather some kind of slimy, chaotically misshapen encephalopod, transparent and thrashing furiously before sinking once again beneath the surface. I looked carefully at the once-more placid surface, then at the ceiling above. Only a reflection.
I hurried on my way, considering for a moment taking the nearest stairway up to street level and then changing my mind when I saw the ominous shadows moving along the entrance to the stairway. I began to run, but there were puddles and roaring downspouts everywhere, and in the weak, still-flickering green light, it was difficult to negotiate the water, and the soles of my shoes were sliding treacherously on the wet ground. Finally I stopped, leaning against a steel and concrete beam while a downpour of water roared just on the other side. I crept around to look at it more closely as I caught my breath. Was this water running down here from the street? I looked up but there was only a blackness from which the water didn’t seem so much as fall as simply
And then I heard it. Oh, I recognized the sound, all right. The moment I heard the voice I was sure I must be lying in bed alongside Mona and having another one of those dreams, because it was Mona herself, speaking in the voice with which she had so often called out to me in so many of those early dreams. But it wasn’t just a single woman’s voice, it was several, along with manly voices that spoke in deep, threatening tones. I looked into the falling column of water and saw transparent figures struggling within, little more than water themselves, thrashing away as though trying to force their way free. I blinked and leaned closer, my face set in what must have been a ridiculous, gaping mask. I could see human forms in there, all occupying the same small spaces, trying to break away from each other. Every splash against my face felt like fingertips grasping out toward me. Finally a hand emerged, then an arm. I backed away as it reached out and then disappeared. I can’t say for sure whether it sank back into the spout of water or merely splashed shapelessly to the ground.
I screamed and ran onto the catwalk, where the shadows were heavy, but it was dry and I had quick access to the next set of stairs leading up to the street.
Though my train ride home was uneventful, I couldn’t stop thinking of the hallucinations I had experienced on Lower Wacker. I arrived home in an absolute panic. Inside I found Mona, wearing one of the simple, second-hand dresses I had bought her, looking up from the television and smiling sweetly.
“Mona!” I cried, rushing over to her.
And then she did a strange thing, unlike anything she had done before or would do over those last few days she remained with me. She put her arms around me and rocked me, shushing me as though I were a small child. As we stood there, her rocking me gently and running her fingers through my shamelessly thin, greasy hair, I stared at the bulging contours of the sheet draped across her shrine. And as I listened, it was almost as though her wordless whispers were rising from the things she had hidden away there.
Then we made love—for what turned out to be the last time. I drank of the sweetness between her thighs and then sank deep inside of her while we lay still, both of us breathing hard, both of us trying to freeze this instant in time while her soft hands glided over me until they began to urge my movements.
When it was over I buried my face between her cheek and shoulder and fell into an unsettling sleep which was disturbed by a series of unbearably sharp stomach cramps. I tossed and turned, trying to force my eyes open, gradually becoming aware that the pains I was feeling were something more than those of a simple stomach ache. Something was burrowing into my body and tearing it apart, breaking through my rib cage and devouring my heart, my lungs… everything inside that twisting, struggling cavity. Though my eyes were still not open, I was able to see the thing that was eating me. It glared at me, shreds of meat hanging out of its bloody mouth.
I awoke screaming. I sat up in bed and looked over to the kitchenette light, the only light on in the apartment. There, drowning out my single scream with its constant, hideous cries was an animal—not much different from the one I’d seen struggle in the explicable depths of that shallow pool on Lower Wacker—stretched out upon the kitchen table, thrashing furiously beneath the slender young woman who dug through its flesh with her teeth and claws.
“Mona…” I croaked, as a piece of the transparent beast was ripped from its body and flung across the room. A small bit of it stuck to my cheek and I collapsed onto the sheets, trying to rub the hot, steaming mass from my face. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to wake up, realizing that the stomach pains had disappeared without a trace, as though they had belonged to someone else all along.
When I rose the next morning Mona was gone. I examined the kitchenette thoroughly, trying to find traces of the gruesome feeding I had witnessed the night before, but I detected no sign of a struggle among the usual clutter on the table. I felt the spot on my cheek where the glutinous flesh had splattered me and remembered that elusive oily sensation I had felt on my skin the first day I’d walked through the motionless array of Shabbies.
Then I heard it. A familiar ringing noise that seemed to snake through the air, stinging my skin and jabbing into my ears like a long needle.
I turned to the corner where Mona’s secret shrine lay. As I stepped toward it I could feel the pressure of that invisible fluid closing in around me again. I knelt and placed my hand on the sheet. It was warm, its surface like silk; and when I ran my palm across the gentle luxurious folds in the fabric, it sighed and twisted like reacting flesh.
When I yanked the sheet aside I did not see the disturbing mosaic of clutter, but an emptiness, black and cold. A stench rose from that emptiness, and with it invisible clouds of oil that struck at my face and hands. I let the sheet drop back into place. Its movement was slow and graceful and did not end until it stretched and spasmed, letting out a quivering sigh as it finally stopped.
I touched my face and my hand came away with a layer of transparent ooze that grew warmer and warmer the longer it remained in contact with my skin.
IV
Her last few days in the apartment were a nightmare for me. She was in and out all the time, leaving each time as though she would never return, and later walking back in the door as though returning had been an unforgivable failure of nerve. It was no longer as though she didn’t know I existed; it was as though she were suddenly so aware of my presence, so appalled by it, that she had to keep moving and distracting herself to keep from being overcome by it.
The warm weather that had brought the Shabbies from whatever realm they ordinarily inhabited would be returning in a matter of weeks and so, I believed from Mona’s nervous manner, would the Shabbies. I knew that every time she walked out the door could easily mark the last moment I would ever see her.
Finally, one especially frigid night, she opened the door and cast a hateful, unregretting glare in my direction. I was sure that the time had finally come. I broke down and ran to the door, slamming it and whirling her around to face me.
“Mona. Please…”
She averted her eyes and tried to slip quickly past me.
