‘The Kitchen Guest’: A Work of Dark Fiction

The Kitchen Guest

by Clinton Nix

Lena peered out the window. Her eyes dragged the grayed cityscape, seeking but grabbing nothing, as she turned back toward the kitchen. It was inevitable. The wooden cabinet, painted a lackadaisical sky-blue, swallowed the whole room.

She could only wait for their guest. Their guest seemed to hate the morning. Lena could not breathe, as if her lungs were punctured and seeping air. But she had to endure the wait, and then life would slip back into normalcy. She could already imagine those hairy legs slipping out of the cabinet, twisting around the door. The unspoken tension, the smell, those eyes—

It felt like hours before it made an appearance. It was huge, its body fitting snug in the bare cabinet, and legs that could stretch into every crevice of the room. Its body was coated in a muddy brown fur, as if it had gutted a dog and wore the skin. The plethora of eyes bewildered and paralyzed, and the arachnid maintained an air of omnipresence—it saw through everything, or perhaps nothing.

The creature slipped a careful leg on the oak countertop, peeking its glowing eyes out through the crack. Of all the thoughts wheeling through Lena’s mind, the most mundane bubbled up—that the kitchen would need yet another thorough scrubbing.

Just behind it, a large hole gaped in the cabinet, an empty vacuum from which it would submerge. She could not remember how it arrived, and where it went during the day, but she didn’t care to pry further. It was difficult to know where its eyes were pointed, but Lena simply knew when it was looking at her. She felt the presence of its gaze, in her skin, searching every pore. And she could understand, know what it wanted. It uttered no sound, but rather, exuded intent.

Beside her feet a wicker basket lay on the tiled floor. It was covered by a layer of clear plastic, with a raw, red lump buried inside. Warm meat’s foul stench lingered the air, but her senses had long been dulled. She picked up the basket, unwrapping the offering, and placed it on the counter.

The creature crept closer, eyeing the gift, before knocking it off the counter with a swipe of a leg. The meat had slipped out of the basket and rolled on the floor.

“It’s what you asked for,” she blurted. She glanced anxiously toward the door leading to the den, but the spider, which had slunk out entirely, stole her attention when the cabinet door flapped. It hovered close enough she could smell the thing—a roiling mix of rancid meat, sewage, and a pungence yet unnamed.

A gingerly voice came from beyond the far door, giggling, magnetizing the creature’s gaze.

Lena willed it forcefully toward her, but the voices beyond the door grew brighter. They were playful, adolescent sounds of complete obliviousness, happiness. But she could feel its intent oozing up inside her again, melting like an oven stone.

“Mommy?” The kitchen door handle jiggled. Lena pushed the spider instinctively and rushed toward the door.

“Don’t come in to the kitchen, Steph.” She clenched her eyes shut, hoping their guest would go away, and then cracked open the door to find a gleeful girl, prancing in place, with her little hands on the doorknob.

“Hi mommy,” she said.

“Hi sweetie. Go back and wake your brother. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Are you in there with Selly?” She stomped her little foot.

Lena’s eyes twitched in agitation, and her mouth drooped crookedly to one side.

“What’s wrong, mommy?”

“Nothing, Stephanie. Now go wake your brother.” She gripped her dress behind her, out of sight.

“Okay …”

Lena clenched the knob, afraid to face what lurked behind her. The room was soundless, however, except for the trickle of running water in the pipes behind the wall. When she turned, the spider had gone. The cabinet was closed. The wicker basket had also disappeared, along with any trace of the mess on the floor.

* * *

Lena had taken the kids to school during the day as usual, but their return soon approached. The sun was sluggish, fighting to stay afloat behind the lumbered buildings. The guest’s silent consciousness smothered her, and she entertained thoughts of stabbing it with a kitchen knife, beating it with a rolling pin, or filling the room with gas from an untended burner and lighting the spark. If it consumed them whole together, all the better, she thought. But she was steadied, perhaps, by her flickering instinct to protect her family.

The front door had opened, breaking the tension like a crashing mirror, and ushered in her two children, Stephanie and Kurtis, and her husband, Bradley. His jovial nature rolled off his cuffs, his cool demeanor dripped from his shoulders. He held little Kurtis above him, with Stephanie gripping his hand. The sight melted her pain, and her troubles seeped away into the hidden recesses of her mind.

“Mom! Guess what.” Kurtis was beaming.

“What is it?”

“I wrote a poem!”

“A poem? That’s nice. What about?”

“Guess.”

She fought her stomach from leaping out of her throat.

“We’ll read it after dinner,” Bradley said.

“Gross. Did you wrote a poem for Selly?” Stephanie slapped Kurtis’ dangling leg.

“Shut up. Dad likes it.”

Lena clasped her stomach.

“What’s wrong?” Bradley asked, setting Kurtis down. The boy was kicking and ready to run off into his room as soon as he touched the floor.

But she couldn’t dare say. She looked into his eyes. “Nothing—I’m glad you’re back.”

“Really.” His attention was pulled toward the empty kitchen.

Lena knew what he was doing. She was beginning to loathe him, but she would remain steady. It wouldn’t be long until she could breathe easy again. And they could go back to the way it was before.

* * *

Lena sat with her family at the table, in the den, in the farthest corner from the kitchen. An assortment of meats and vegetables lay on the table, though nothing could rouse her appetite from the acidic stabs in her stomach. The others were happily digging into their plates, but Lena prodded the sagging chicken breast in front of her.

“Daddy, Kurtis took my chicken!”

“I did not! She’s a liar. It was Selly, I saw him.” Kurtis snickered behind his hands.

“Come now—is it right to accuse our guest?”

“I don’t want to eat anymore,” Kurtis pouted.

“I have no appetite either,” Lena added. “I think I’ll go lie down.”

“Please.” Bradley held out his hand. “You should stay.”

They finished their plates—even Kurtis, who also ate the leftover chicken from Lena’s plate despite insisting he wasn’t hungry. The kids argued about school, socks, food, their rooms—but Lena was glad to hear it for once.

Bradley clanked his glass on the table. A tiny brown dot traveled out of his sleeve, shimmying down his arm, until he noticed it and quickly brushed it out of sight.

“Kurtis—don’t you two have something to share?”

“Yeah! The poem!” Kurtis’ enthusiasm only festered the poisonous gulch in Lena’s stomach.

“Let’s hear it.” Bradley leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Lena said, her eyes tracing the bedroom door.

“What?”

Kurtis and Stephanie made pouty noises and squirmed in their seats, quarreling over reading Kurtis’ writing.

“I don’t want to hear your poem.” Lena struggled to find the words to say, clenching her stomach. She stood up in a rush, tipping her chair over until it crashed behind her.

Bradley folded his hands on the table. “Then say you’re sorry to them.”

“No.”

His lips creased as he held back a response.

“I said no.”

Bradley grimaced, and a glimmer of truth flickered through it, Lena saw, as his face contorted to push the realization back down.

She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came but burning air from her stomach. She pressed her dress close to her, and then promptly left the table.

“What’s wrong with mommy?” Stephanie asked.

Bradley flicked his wrist. “Kurtis, go on with the poem.”

* * *

A figure had creaked the kitchen door shut. The moon had risen with an almost greedy quickness. The blue cabinet, in response, slipped open to reveal the darkness within it.

Bradley crooked his body over the counter, facing the suffocating moon outside the window. He probed the narrow window view, a city landscape hiding behind the concrete, between the cracked walls and rusted pipes, the lingering steam in the desolate alleys. He refused his search when their guest peaked through the cabinet.

He could feel it so wonderfully. The call was magnetic, pulling him into a hypnotic lull, and with no recourse for the strength to withstand it. A painful melody rang in his bones. He stepped closer to their visitor; it climbed over his shoulder, wrapping its long legs around his upper torso. The weight was enough to buckle his knees. He could have turned away at any point—he was conscious of this—but it was as though something compelled his legs to walk, his eyes to look, his hands to move. Bradley wanted to speak, however, but the words floated up, languorously, as frail bubbles. As soon as they landed upon his tongue, they dissolved, and he could not command his mouth, body, or mind. He was like a passenger in this body, a helpless witness with some invisible specter steering him.

His gaze escaped out through the window somewhere, perhaps running boundless through the alley, free and weightless in the night. And he raised a quivering hand, or rather it raised itself, to caress the creature resting on his shoulder. He embraced it, though a tear trailed his cheek, and he wiped it and shrugged it off with a free hand.

* * *

Bradley quietly entered their bedroom, the night thick like webs in the air. Lena had been awake, staring intently at the ceiling. Their bodies were fading silhouettes in the ever-darkening room. Bradley laid himself in bed and looked to reassure her, though his face was sagging, heavy, aged. And her worried eyes met his—searching for solace in her partner.

Bradley raised his hand to gently touch her face: a rush of small dots swarmed around his arm, engulfing it, climbing to her. Her heart was festering also; she wanted to scream, but her voice had plunged somewhere deep in her body.

“I’m sorry.” His whisper floated from somewhere in the room; from somewhere, but not his lips.

She succumbed to it, to them. The spiderlings engulfed the bed, and the room, and Lena felt like drifting into deep waters. Perhaps she could have done something, anything. But as she searched her memories for an answer, they slipped further away, like darkened spots scurrying over the horizon. She could only see herself running, free, alone, through the alleys in the night air.