bed bugs (short story attempt)

feel free to leave constructive feedback if you want to,, im trying to improve my writing so any feedback would be helpful ^_^ !!

Bed Bugs

The devil is real and he exists in my kitchen, he resides underneath the floorboards and within the cracks in the plaster. Sometimes I find him in my shoes; his remains hidden between the crevices of my soles. He scuttles across the tiles, expelling himself from the holes in the flooring, yet even after I purge him out from my home he always comes back resurrected the next morning. Six spangly legs and a layer of shell that hides the viscera inside of it. I’ve held him close in my hands once and I have felt his flesh between my fingers as I try to crush him between the digits. He is forever free but always just out of my grasp. Leaving but never really going, circling and coming back sometimes with a head but other times without. The brainless demon that lives in my kitchen. Running across split marble tiles. I lunge and it slips away, slivering once more back into the crack in the wood.

We have always been plagued with the creature. When we first bought the house we were told about the damp, the holes in the roof, the rotting of the floorboards but not once of the creeping pestilence that occupied the space long before I did. The missing tiles in the roofing has caused quite a severe leak, and makes the rooms upstairs open to the harshness of the elements. At night all you can hear is the buffeting wind thrashing against the exterior of the house. We have had to move our bedroom into the basement, which is hardly better. The space is cramped and smells but it is much warmer than the space upstairs. My husband promised that we would start renovating the house soon after we were married but six months have already passed and not much has changed except the mould that is now partly veiled under a thin sliver of translucent white paint. I’ve started to think that he likes how the house is.

Often I catch him talking to the roaches instead of killing them as I have told him to. He lets them go and nurses them back into the cracking wood. When he sees me watching he will press his face against the wall as if trying to merge into the interior of it. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, even when neither of us benefit from it but the only doubt I have is that he cares about my opinion. Sometimes it feels as though he prefers the roaches in the kitchen than me with how much care he gives them. I think that he resembles the creatures in a way, he is a mousy man with sharp angular features. His hair has the same texture as dried straw; the wiry follicles sticking out like antennae reaching out and escaping from his scalp. His body is slim and lean. The curvature of his spine makes him loom over whoever he talks to, when he does this his arms fold into chest as he leers into the empty space. On first impression, many people describe him as appearing skittish or nervous and when I first introduced him to my family they were unsure of him. However, much like how damp spreads up and into drywall, so does his  influence; they soon came around. Everyone does eventually. He has a way with people and a way of getting what he wants. 

The same thing happened when we first started planning for our wedding. Even as a girl I had always dreamed that my wedding would be grandiose and eccentric. At the entrance of the venue a piano would play softly to lull the guests into their seats and into organised rows. Each guest would be overcome with the quiet lustre of the day. The room would be reverent of the sickly sweet scent of honeysuckle and the walls would be adorned with flowers of every colour; the delicate petals falling from the sky and into the laps of the guests. As I would pass down the aisle, I would notice them being shaken from the creases of men’s trousers and onto the floor. I’d pick up the skirts of my dress and gingerly step over each one, careful not to crush it beneath my heeled feet. I would have had a lovely white gown and the pale silk of the dress would swallow me whole like a caterpillar being consumed by its cocoon. I would close my eyes and open them as a different being; the metal band around my finger is my chrysalis. A kind of social catharsis where the worm becomes woman and the woman becomes wife. You will not be given wings, you will allow yourself to be tied to a hook. When you try to writhe for space, the movement becomes redundant. You have been tied to the hook and there is a hole that has been torn through your middle. You are stuck and to be subsumed into what you thought would make you whole. 

I’ve tried to writhe. To move, to toss and turn but when I do I cannot move very far. Even if you prise yourself free, parts of you still remain on the curved metal that pierced your flesh. I wanted to have our honeymoon somewhere faraway, like Spain or somewhere with a beach like the Caribbean. However despite my extensive and elaborate plans, our wedding ended up more the result of impulse more than anything else. The ‘ceremony’ took place in the registry office and our honeymoon was in our dilapidated bedroom. I suppose the domesticity of it all was romantic enough, we had balloons and little cakes. At least we have the house and each other’s company, I find myself saying whenever I start having doubts. When they come, a blurred phantasmagoria of images flit through my mind: The hook, the worm and the ring.

As I crouch, the roach escapes again. The horned antennas sticking and reaching in my direction. It runs a circle around me and then back out the room. With a surprising dexterity, I undo the laces of my shoe and arm myself with it. I run down the winding staircase and my feet find the hard surface of the steps as my free hand grips the railing for balance. I descend at a rushed pace and fling my shoe at the creature. It hits the door with a loud thud and bounces off to squash the roach. I feel myself overcome with barbaric pride at the overdue death of my tormentor. Leaning down to swipe the shoe from the ground I see only its legs. When I look up I see its mangled body dragging itself by its remaining arms and disappearing into a split in the flooring.

When I saunter into the room, still armed with the shoe in my hand, I notice that my husband lays in his usual spot on the bed. His back is pressed against the hardened sheets of our mattress and his body is engulfed into the duvet. Stained yellow, both by time and negligence, the sheets are clustered with a dozen white balls that stick to the surface. They are roughly the size of my hand and look similar to what you would find in a ball pit or a playcentre but less solid. To touch, they feel like a hard boiled egg; the consistency is hard but they squish between your fingers when pressed. In the past when I have asked my husband what they are he says they are ‘ours’, other times he ignores me entirely and pretends like I have not spoken. Unsure of what they are I have left them alone for the most part however when I do try to throw them away another comes back in its place a few weeks after. Attempting to restore some sense of order, I line them in tandem and push them to my husband’s side of the bed. Cleaning up the space has always been a difficult task that has gotten more difficult with time. With our laxity of discipline and proper order, the room had become a state with all of our most valuable possessions stacked up on each other. The towers of cardboard boxes climb the walls to hold up the ceiling, when you push against them too violently the structures will wobble and threaten to topple over. When this happens it will leave a mountain of broken objects in its wake.

A dozen mounts are scattered across the floor. Along with the rest of the room, our bed frame has begun to deteriorate, the wood log dead before it made it into our home. The rot has eaten away at its two front legs and now what holds up the wooden carcass are stacks of my old books. The room is almost inhabitable and the absence of a window made the room dark, the only source of light is the lamp that leers lecherously over the drawers as it cascades the room in a dark orange colour. The bubbling wallpaper peels away to reveal the split plaster and rock that hides underneath. Despite my attempts at cleaning, whatever I do or try the room is always a mess. I mean to be better but whenever I try to explain to my husband that we need to keep a clean space, he says he prefers it this way and that the unfortunate state of our room is what makes it more homely. I beg him to see sense and in response he sulks away further into the twisting sheets. He is an adamant man and unyielding in every argument or dispute we have, all my thoughts and opinions become imperceptible against the loudness of his stubbornness. He stays in bed for most of the day and when he does leave, parts of him remain imprinted into the space, he leaves an indentation into the sheets where his body lays. His fervent distaste for cleaning has only made our room smell, the stench of death has attached itself to the walls and decay hangs itself in the air.

When I move to stand at the edge of the bed he pulls me down and into his grasp. He encases me into his arms like six ribs around the heart, the bones brittle and easily breakable. I allow him to hold me and find myself welcoming the warmth that writhes into my skin. Staying in his hold, I feel myself pulsating at his touch and fall forward into the sensation. Something cold pierces into the flesh of my neck and the sharp sting throbs under my skin. The pain is followed by a numbing kiss which pulls me into a dream while I am still laden with consciousness. He pulls away from me red faced and panting.

The weight of him drops beside me and he falls asleep looking much fresher and fatter than usual. His rounded stomach is blotched with patches of colour and the rash matches his now pinked cheeks. He looks peaceful in sleep and I am careful not to wake him as I gently prise myself from his arms and escape into our bathroom.

As soon as I catch my reflection in the mirror I feel a gasp escape my lips, my eyes meet my deteriorated form and it is as if I shrink into myself threatened by the stranger standing before me in the reflection. My features in the reflection are dishevelled and the bags around my eyes are hollow and dark; the two shadowed holes becoming darker as they recede inwards. The eyes inside the black rings are red and bloodshot with fatigue. Each individual vein is visible and mapping tiny crimson paths into the soft flesh of the eye. Hair that was once shiny and full is now thin and the consistency of dried straw: matted and falling away. When I look at myself the feeling of inadequacy settles in my stomach as I run my hands down the bulging ridges that are now my ribs. My silhouette is sharp and angular as if my skeleton is trying to tear through skin and turn me inside out. My attention trails towards the red mark that has settled on my neck, a plum coloured bruise that sits above two puncture marks, it resembles a burn or sliced grapefruit. The blistering wound festers and the ugly patch begins to sting as if it is the sight of it that is causing me pain. I squeeze the mark like a pimple but instead of pus, droplets of blood fall away to stain the blotched patch. My restless fingers itch to ease the scratching pain that resides under the skin. I am relentless in my attempt and the two tiny holes soon become a flesh wound. My itching elicits a pained whimper and I scare at the sound, surprised that the noise has come from my lips and that I am able to make such a noise at all. I knock around the cabinets trying to find ointments or plasters, treatments or anything that may ease the burning sensation in my neck.

The noise that I make is loud enough to draw my husband from his sleep. He begins calling for me in his usual whispering breaths, I hear it and try to ignore the throbbing in my neck. I feel my feet move towards the door and out the bathroom. I make my way down the winding staircase once more and into our basement bathroom.

Once I open the door I am met with a pungent and pervasive smell that infiltrates my nostrils and makes me lightheaded. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I am met with the sight of my husband crawling around the bed on all fours and burying his head into the mattress; the most movement I have seen him make in months.

“What are you looking for?” I ask, my voice seemingly going unheard amongst his desperate rustling.

When he does not answer me, I join him in his search for whatever he is looking for. We fumble through the hardened moth-eaten sheets, the more we look the more the smell worsens. It is an odour so intrusive it can only be explained by faeces or death. It makes my eyes water and the insides of my stomach quake with its intensity, the sound of muffled weeping comes from underneath the folds of the duvet and I feel my insides curl when my hand makes contact with a chunk of soft squishy shell. I begin to strip the sheets and a trembling chorus of babies wail for their mother. It is an ugly sound that makes me realise that the smell does not come from death but from life unfurling from the crusts of the sheets.

A lump forms in my throat and the phlegm that coats the insides threatens to expel itself along with the vomit and bile I feel creeping to the surface. It is a bitter acrid taste that touches the roof of my mouth and makes me gag. Even when I want to run I am unable to move away, it is as if my feet have been bolted to the floor. Splotches of black and brown seep into the sheets, the stain of faeces appear like ink blotched upon the surface of parchment paper. White worms crawl from the hole in the sheets and then across the length of the bed. Their fleshy gelatinous bodies are coated in a slimy amniotic jelly, when they move the ligaments squeeze and contort as they leave behind a trail of mucus on the bed. They are new born, some still partly shelled. They scream as if their hearts are in their lungs and they drag themselves towards me. I pluck one of the wriggling creatures into my arms and hold its soft squirming body as if nursing it to sleep. They are sticky with new life and when I rock it back and forth the goo that secretes them comes off onto my skin to congeal on the surface. When their cries begin to cease I turn to my husband who has taken an equally horrific form. His arms have become legs and his legs have become arms. Each limb has become so malformed that the bone is visible, the sharp ivory ridges staking through thin translucent skin. He had grown six in total, three on either side, all of them barbed with spikes that go across the length. He has two eyes still but now they are black pearls attached to two twitching stalks. His back is curved and encrusted in a layer of hard shell which is pressed into the sticky fabric of the mattress. Swaying back and forth with all of his arms outstretched and reaching for me. I do not wriggle and allow him to pull him down into our marital bed, our larvae like babies still crawling around us.

// any fb is welcome - i already know some sentances are janky and i use too many seperate images that dont make sense but is there any way at all youd go ab improving it?? :O

if u got this far in,, thank u for reading!