Infected
by Bart Mann

Some people swore that the house was haunted. Some people swore that the street was haunted. Some said “Hell it’s the whole damn city.” But they were all wrong.

 It was my heart that was haunted… haunted in ways that could not be hushed. I can see how people made the mistake. I carried the rattling chains and wailing whispers of my ruined heart wherever I went.

Especially in that house, my house. For that is where it all happened. It began with her. She didn’t just come into my life; she oozed in like a dark liquid slipping in beneath my front door. She was the pale skinned red headed mystery that I had waited my whole life to solve. I didn’t know exactly where she was coming from, but it seemed like only moments before we tumbled into a whirlwind of lust.

And inside that house, the walls, the floor and the ceiling were our only boundaries. We satiated every desire known to man, perhaps beyond that. We stayed there locked up for weeks. Soon the house was imbued with the power of us. The dripping, pulsating energy of us. We rarely ate. We mostly drank whiskey or wine. I don’t remember the full passage of time or events. But I do recall the moment she changed.

 It was a simple day with the sun dragging itself lazily across the sky. We were lolling on the front porch, taking a break from the bedroom. She turned her eyes towards the horizon and then slowly back towards me. “I’m bored,” she said. “What?” I asked? “I’m bored, “she repeated, “Is that a word you don’t understand… bored? B-o-r-e-d!” She looked at me with contempt. It was as if she had been infected by some parasitical malevolence.  I watched the light in her eyes go black. Happiness drained out of her while anger and then apathy poured in.  

“What exactly are you bored of…” I asked incredulously, “The sexual marathon we’ve been running, or the laughs from the gallons of booze we’ve been drinking?” She sighed and threw her head back. “Both I suppose, and neither,” she replied. “I don’t know… haven’t you ever just woke up and realized that your life is like a tape loop? It goes around and around but never gets anywhere.”  Perplexed, I asked, “How are we in a tape loop? We’ve only known each other for something like 30 seconds… and most of that time we were too out of breath to talk.” She snapped, “Maybe it’s been 25 seconds too long.”

She stood up, said “I’m gone.” She walked into the house, and then out of my life. I was dumbfounded. I didn’t know what to do. I realized now I was infected too. Not by anger though. I was infected by her flesh. Days came and went and my fever for her only grew. I spent a week searching for her in the city to no avail. I spent the weeks after in the house seeking out traces of her, trying to find a stray hair on a sheet, or smell her scent hiding in a corner.

I realized that it had only been some kind of crazy stunt for her. A diversion from whatever tape loop she felt caught up in before I entered the picture. She didn’t care that she left me in a loop of my own, where the ghost of our desire taunted me while her phantom touch burned my skin. I had fallen prey to her devices. Nothing was ever the same again after that.