Konrad Hartmann's Blog - Posts Tagged "homunculi"

SIERRA NEEDS FRIENDS
By Konrad Hartmann



Sierra puffed out her cheeks a little as she put the black bottle to her lips. She drooled the contents of her mouth into it, staring at Keith as he buckled his belt in the candlelight.

“What are you doing?” Keith asked. He already felt regret seeping into his pores. The potential outcomes, all of them negative, flashed through his mind. If his wife found out. If his agency found out. If Sierra's family found out. If the county found out. Was it even legal? Sierra was an adult, true, but with her major mental illness and him being her case manager? He felt stupid and tried to numb out the panic creeping into his mind. It would come to nothing, no divorce, no being fired, no being sued, just nothing, he told himself. But what the hell was she doing with that bottle?

Sierra shrugged. Her curly red hair fell in a ponytail over the crow embroidered on her too small cowboy shirt. She drooled a little liquid out of her mouth, staining the black shirt. It looked like she did it on purpose.

“Oops!” she said, dabbing the corner of her mouth with her thumb and smiling. She set the antique bottle gently inside an old wooden box in a niche in the stone wall of the spring house. The old stone of the spring house seemed to be in bad shape, with stones missing, the walls pierced with holes big enough to fit a hand. Water gurgled out of a pipe and down through an eroded stone drain.

“What are you doing?” Keith repeated.

“Making friends,” Sierra said, crossing her legs Indian-style. Her cowboy boots matched her shirt, and she wore short denim shorts, her knees dirty.

“Your shirt,” Keith said, pointing to the stain.

Sierra shrugged.

“You could wash it with the water,” Keith said, pointing to the spring water.

Sierra smiled.

“You can add that to your progress notes,” she said. “'Sierra appeared somewhat disheveled.'” She laughed. Keith did not.

“We should probably get going,” Keith said.

“I don't have to be anywhere,” Sierra said. “You mean you should probably get going?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Keith said. He wanted to extricate himself, make some distance. He didn't want to be seen leaving the spring house with her.

“That's okay,” Sierra said, smiling and looking down at the floor. Now she felt used, he thought. Self-disgust rippled in his belly. He needed to go. This was trouble. His limbs felt stiff as he made his way to the door. His hand touched the latch.

“Keith?” Sierra said.

“Yeah?” Keith asked, turning around, his hand still on the latch. Something moved on the floor next to Sierra, and Keith stumbled back against the wall, thinking of a rat or monkey. But it was neither. It was a little man, or something like a little man, about a foot tall, but deformed, twisted. It half-walked, half-crawled, something like an ape. He was naked, with patchy body hair and a long beard. He faced Keith skittering from side to side, almost like a crab. His limbs were uneven, one leg too long, the other too short, and the same went for his arms. “What...?” It was all he could get out. He didn't understand what he was looking at. He wanted ask what it was and was it, was he, her deformed sibling. He wanted to throw up.

“You remember Tim?” Sierra asked. And the little thing did look like Tim, or at least a caricature of him.

“What about Tim?!” Keith yelled. It made him angry, whatever this was. He resented seeing this thing. He hated how it looked like Tim. Tim had worked with Sierra before she was 18. He had quit case management without notice.

“Well, look at him,” Sierra said.

“What? Are you saying that's Tim?” Keith asked.

“No!” Sierra laughed. “He's not Tim but I made him from Tim. It's not a very good job, but I was just learning to make them.”

“Make them?” Keith asked. His skin crawled, watching the little man-thing lope and scurry back and forth.

“Yes.”

“Sierra, what do you mean, 'make them?' What am I looking at?” Keith asked, his voice shaking. Just please God don't come any closer, he thought, looking at the thing. His hand still rested on the latch.

“Well, yeah,” Sierra said. “I learned how to make them. I've gotten better since this one, you know.”

“And, you made it look like Tim,” Keith said, his tongue feeling thick.

“Well of course it's gonna look like Tim because of the, ha, ha, raw material,” Sierra laughed.

“Sierra, what's,” Keith said. “What's the bottle for?”

Sierra grinned.

“What do you think it's for, Keith? It's not the bottle. It's what's inside the bottle,” she said.

“I'd like to have the bottle, please,” Keith said.

Sierra, still grinning, shook her head no. Keith wanted to slap her. His back to the wall, Keith followed the wall to the niche with the wooden box, keeping an eye on the Tim-thing. Keith grabbed the box and pulled it out, his heart pounding when he did not hear the clink of the bottle. He looked in. The box was empty. Sierra erupted with giggles, reaching out to hold the Tim-thing's tiny hand. The creature convulsed, and Keith realized it was dancing, capering with Sierra.

Keith tossed the box aside and looked in the niche. It formed a hole in the wall, roughly six inches in diameter. He turned around and grabbed the candle, peering inside the hole. It looked like the hole continued for several feet, then turned downward out of sight, just out of reach. He felt a draft of air on his hand and the flame went out. He patted his pockets for his smartphone, both for light and because he could try to take a picture around the bend and see if the bottle was there. Something brushed his leg and he yelled, kicking at thin air. He heard Sierra giggle. His hands raced feverishly through all his pockets, front and back.

“Sierra!” he yelled.

Across the room, Sierra's face lit up from a phone.

“You close your eyes for a long time when you're getting, well, you know,” she said, her face and teeth blue in the light. Her fingers flickered.

“No, no, no. Give me that. Ow!” Keith started towards her, but a pain lanced through his calf. He kicked around at scurrying forms, monkey-like shapes that disappeared into the holes of the wall.

“Send! Ha! Okay, here you go, Keith!” she handed the phone to the Tim-thing, who carried it like a big slate in his arms, to Keith.

Keith reached out and snatched it from the Tim-thing.

“I'm pretty fast, hunh?” Sierra laughed. “Just kidding. One of my friends snatched it. This little guy isn't bright enough to work it, but some of the others are smart enough to work the video. They're the older ones, the ones my Grandmom made.”

Keith fought the urge to vomit with panic. Something had just been sent. He saw Sierra's number and one unknown number. He clicked on the video. He saw himself. He saw Sierra, kneeling before him. It was shot from a strange angle, but their faces were clearly recognizable. He switched the phone to camera mode and plunged his hand into the hole in the wall. As the flash went off, he saw a little face, next to the phone, grinning. In the pulsing afterimage of the flash, his thumb exploded with pain. Keith shrieked, yanking his hand out, dropping the phone. He felt his thumb in the dark. It was wet, and too short. Up to the first joint was gone.

“Aww, Keith,” he heard Sierra say. “We'll let you out, but a couple things.” Keith's head throbbed. He felt himself crying. “One. The bottle and what's on my shirt? I know I'm considered schizophrenic or whatever, but that's a lot of DNA. Not just my crazy word, you know? People might believe I was coerced or something. Two. Your wife is just a “Send” away from seeing that little video. So is everyone with Internet access. Three. I could have made little Tim here better. I learned since then, it's all about having enough raw material. You and I will be seeing each other more often. Say, once a week now. Could become more if I need to. Understand?”

“Yes,” Keith gasped.

“Good,” Sierra said. “Now I'm gonna open the door. You get any ideas about getting rough with me, you're gonna have a hard time explaining things. Besides, I ain't alone, and neither will you be, not for a long, long time.”