Content warnings

Emotional abuse and manipulation. Mould. Violence. Death.

When David first showed me the basement apartment, I fought the clutch in my chest, refusing to cry. David saw my sour expression, then clasped my hands and kissed me in the mold-scented air.

“It's all we can afford. I know it's not what you wanted, Bethie, but it's only for a few years, I promise.” At a honk outside, he ran to the stairs, then paused. “Let's make the best of it, okay?”

A few years. Jesus. The thought of living underground for more than a few days prompted a wave of queasiness. I couldn't believe I'd let him talk me into this.

We'd discussed it, sitting in our bay window, before he caught the plane to our new city. I've only got two weeks to find an apartment. What do you want?

A view of the sky, I'd answered. A bedroom with a door I can shut. That's all I need.

The apartment had neither. It didn't even have a closet. It felt vertiginous, like the angles between the walls were optical illusions. The window was opposite the base of the stairs and well above my head, the glass just over a foot high, the panes greasy. A kitchenette was stuffed under the stairs, the refrigerator barely my height. The bathroom was a musty walled-in corner with a sliding door.

He'd described this place as an upgrade.

I had to do something productive or I would scream myself into oblivion. I looked around. The bed. I could start with the bed.

I found the screwdriver and started to assemble the bedstand under the window. David carried a box down the stairs, then noticed what I was doing.

“Why are you putting the bed there?”

“I'll see a sliver of sky this way.”

“Everyone will see us sleeping. Don't do that.”

“Who's going to peek into a dirty basement window?”

David shook his head. “People are weird. I don't want the bed there.”

Can't scream can't scream. My vision blurred and I felt a slight pop, then a dizzy pressure around my temples. I dropped the screwdriver on the floor. “Fine. You do it.”

David grunted, pulling the pieces to the wall opposite me. I set up a makeshift unpacking area by the window, two folding chairs and a LED lamp, then started unboxing our kitchen utensils as the sun went down.

It wasn't until David asked me for sheets that I noticed the webs. Or threads, straight and glowing, hovering over the lamp. Slender glistening things like spider silk or scratches on a window. I stared at them until David cleared his throat.

“Sheets, Beth?”

“Should be in one of the boxes,” I murmured.

“What are you looking at?”

“Those.” I pointed at the shimmering lines.

“What? I don't see anything.”

“Spiderwebs, I think.”

“No spiders. I had them fumigate before we moved in.”

I shrugged. “That's what it looks like to me.” I dragged my eyes away and squinted at him. “You really can't see them?”

David sighed. “Whatever you're playing at, I don't appreciate it.”

“Playing? What are you talking about?” I blinked as his mouth pinched in annoyance. “You think I'm making this up?”

He turned away from me, wrapping himself up in a duvet cover and plunking down on the bare mattress. “I don't know what you're doing, but I don't like it. I'm going to bed.”

I probably should have been angry, but I was preoccupied with the lines. I paced around the lamp investigating them, first squatting then standing on tiptoe. The shimmer changed depending on the angle. but they never went away.

I jumped when David's alarm grated him awake around dawn.

“Oh god, are you still looking at the lamp?”

“No, I'm looking at the lines, David, Jesus.”

“Dammit, Beth. It's just your imagination. You're stressed.” He huffed. “I'm taking a shower. Can you please unpack your suitcases?”

I looked around the apartment. “Into what, exactly? This apartment has no closets.”

“Fuck's sake, Beth.” He stomped into the bathroom and shoved the sliding door closed.

Over the lamp, the lines started swaying. They even smelled wrong, like the ghost of burnt meat. I was still staring at them when David came out from his shower a half-hour later.

“Beth, what the hell?”

“David, I swear, there are lines—”

He stalked towards me and waved a hand over the lamp. “I told you there's nothing—”

The lines went through his hand like he was soft butter. He gawped at the clean slices through his palms. Blood welled up and started dripping, but towards the lines rather than to the floor. Then something twisted and somehow his fingers were ribbons being sucked into the shimmering threads, his screaming first a low aaargh then flowing to a high-pitched EEEEE...

I clapped my hands over my ears and crushed myself into the corner. I knew no one would look through our tiny window to see what was happening, no one would help us, and as the smell of burnt meat combined with the metallic scent of blood and the spoiled milk stench of brains I crawled over to the stairs and scampered up into the foyer and out onto the street where I could see the sun rising, and the pressure in my head stopped.

I went back when the sun was high in the sky. Not a single drop of blood or strand of hair. I stared for an hour, but no lines.

I grabbed my suitcases and left.

I know now. There are cracks in the universe. Slivers of emptiness that will pull a person through, without a trace.

I don't miss him. No one has asked about him, not even the old landlord. I might have found that suspicious, but after I found a room across town with a huge skylight, I decided to let it go.

I shut the door on David, and let the emptiness have him.

Author’s note

Years ago, my spouse and I were looking for a new apartment and nothing we were finding had what we needed. My spouse was very supportive of me and my needs, which led me to think back on partners who were not supportive, and what that might have been like.

Risa Wolf

Risa Wolf is a multi-gendered water elemental disguised as an ink-stained lycanthrope. (Don't tell their spouse or their dogs; the disguise is working.) They imagine houses for book-ghosts for a living. Their writing can be found in Apex, Clarkesworld, and Diabolical Plots.

This story originally appeared in the anthology 99 Tiny Terrors in 2022.