The Herpetarium

by D.W. Davis

The dreams followed him up from sleep: whispering, grating, the thrum of constant motion. They stayed with him as his senses awoke to the new reality, sensations more tangible now than they had been a moment, an hour, before. His weight on the mattress, his weight upon himself. The lingering humidity from the day. The creak of the box springs beneath his back. Little pinpricks of consciousness.

He felt, too, the emptiness beside him, the hollow recess of what had once been a whole bed. A chasm, into which he could fall at any moment. The loss they don’t prepare you for. He remembered remembering this. Other things as well, which he pushed aside as he’d learned to do. Just the now. Just this. He took a deep breath, held it, counted backwards from five as he’d been told to do. Exhale on one. Don’t wait for zero.

Two months and twelve days. Not an eternity: a freefall, a bottomless pit of time. That thing he had been told would make everything better. Everyone said so. The friends, the books, the articles. Time, time, time. The worst part, the most damning part, was he knew they were right. It would get better. In time. With time. He could not accept this. Some things should always hurt. Anything else felt like a betrayal.

He pulled the sheet off his chest. Focus. He stared at the moonlight on the ceiling, filtered through the blinds, and tried to push the dream away. Just another night. He’d made it this far.

The darkness tickled his skin. Almost a taunt. The pulsating static in his head soothed and sang. The dreams would not fade, whatever they had been. He could still hear, feel, the vibrations, the sense of ceaseless motion, as though he were a boat upon a gently rolling sea. The rhythm uncomfortable, unsettling, and he closed his eyes against it. Then opened them again.

He was awake. There could be no doubt of that. He was awake. And the room was not still.

His left arm twitched toward the other side of the bed, but stopped instinctively. Something there, something substantial enough to raise the hair on his skin. He was not alone. The breath caught in his throat as the room shivered around him. He could feel the vibrations on the mattress. He thought, Not like this.

There was a lamp to his right, atop the nightstand. His arm inched towards it, slinking through the darkness, afraid of what he might touch. His phone was there as well; he could flip on the light, grab the phone, roll out of bed, and call. Who? 911? His first thought, though, was his sister-in-law. She had been his rock after, she had propped him up when all other trusses had rotted away. But that was impractical; this was something physical, not emotional. She could not help him half a country away.

He took a breath. Felt the room react to the inhalation. He closed his eyes, shot his arm out the rest of the way, and snapped on the light.

For a moment, the room stilled, and that scared him deeper than anything yet. The reaction to his action. The room was alive. The room was responsive. The room was no longer his.

Eyes open. The bed, and space immediately around, bathed in soft yellow light. Thoughts of calling for help evaporated instantaneously. Thoughts of anything at all disappeared.

The room slithered. The room pulsed and hissed and breathed. The floor an undulating black mass, ripples upon ripples. As far as the light reached—movement, angry now, intensifying. His hand hovered near the lamp, shaking. He could not look to the bed beside him, to the space invaded. He stared at the mass of movement that had become the world he’d once known, and he swallowed a scream and closed his eyes against it. He thought, Time is not enough for this.

He switched off the light. The room returned to rippling darkness, ceaseless motion. He waited for the inevitable. Whatever that would be.