Night Lights and Dark Places

Chapter Fourteen - Ritual

As night fell, she found herself lacking in quiet activities with which to occupy herself and had resorted to preparing for the end-of-semester project in her restoration art class. It amused her to a degree she'd never had to approximate the structure of a celebrity's skull based on their facial features, much less decide whether or not those features would make for an interesting death mask. Scrolling endlessly through headshots of actors and musicians she admired, she resolved that she didn't want to sculpt a traditionally pretty or symmetrical face.

Her laptop's already tenuous grasp on the complex's wi-fi signal struggled and sputtered while loading a particularly large image of Harrison Ford, and watching it appear one row of pixels at a time was incredibly unengaging. Her eyes wandered up from the screen to the glass door looking out onto the balcony, and then to her sleeping houseguest on the couch. It was past sundown, and he'd been asleep since they'd returned that morning. So far he'd slept quite soundly; curled on his side in a tight fetal position with his back facing outward and having hardly moved at all. So still that perhaps this would have been the one time she wouldn't have minded if a guest snored, because then at least that'd be some indication that they were alive.

She gently shut her laptop, tucked it beneath the living chair she'd been sitting in, and got to her feet. Stretching her arms over her head and stifling a yawn, she cautioned another glance at him. Since the night prior, she'd been struggling with the very idea of him, not quite able to stop herself from trying to rationalize away his supposed monstrousness, but the more she thought about it, the less indicated towards the possibility that he was human. The human body isn't built to carry someone of his size without wearing down at the joints and causing deformity, and he was able to move with an unburdened fluidity that seemed incredibly natural. His skin tone and texture were also natural, as were his teeth and claws. Nothing about this man was manufactured.

What did the book say again? It had been left under the coffee table from the night before, and she fished it out, sat cross-legged on the floor and skimmed through the pages. Black and white images of grotesque monstrosities flashed as she flipped page after page, and as she briefly met the blurry gaze of the moth man, she wondered, how many of these creatures were as real as the cryptid on her couch? She arrived at the entry for the Night Giant and squinted at the terribly compressed images. Hulking, shadowy figures towering over crude depictions of the Dutch settlers, a single sketch of a monstrous head, and a fuzzy photograph of questionable authenticity dated 1983.

She closed the book, rested her chin on the coffee table, resumed her staring. A blanket had been placed over him midway through the morning, but it barely covered him. Should she buy a larger one for him? He didn't seem to have extra clothes either, but where would she find anything his size? Before she got too far ahead of herself, he suddenly shifted, lifted his head. This was inexplicably exciting to her.

"Good morning!" She said, earning a startled glance in her direction, the muscles in his arms tensing up. "Actually, no, sorry. Good evening, maybe?"

It took a few moments for him to relax and smile apologetically. "I forgot."

"Might take some getting used to for both of us," Tolly shrugged. "Sleep well? Sweet dreams and all that shit?"

James, despite the grimace that crossed his features, nodded, sat up and cracked his neck. He folded the blanket, but left his jacket rolled up on the couch, making no move to put it back on as he had so urgently that morning and she suddenly realized just how ill-fitting it was. She had always assumed that, because of the way that it sat on his shoulders and bunched at his middle, he was softer. Without it, his frame was too disproportionate; narrow waist and protruding ribs tapering up and outward into an absurdly muscular chest and thick, well-defined arms. Not beefy enough to be comparable to a bodybuilder, but still he looked top heavy, cartoonish and unstable, like a swimmer or a mountain climber.