Company
A short story by Steve Conoboy
It
ate the cat last night, but I forgive It. I did like that cat, but I
guess I can get another. Not right away, of course. Wouldn’t be much fun
for the cat if I did, although the Greyling would probably be happy.
Quite an appetite it’s got. Gobbled down all of my cat, fur and
everything. Happened pretty quick. The cat was lolling about on the rug,
the Greyling was listening to me rattle on, all calm and normal. Then
the Greyling’s eyes bugged out of its head. A split-second was all it
took. It was on the cat in the blink of an eye. Would have been me next
if I hadn’t got over the shock and started talking again.
Poor cat. Judging by the way the It looks at me, it’s got a similar
fate lined up for my furless hide. Hasn’t tried to eat me yet, and I
think I know why.
I’ve had to learn a lot about the Greyling pretty quick. It loves the
sunlight, thrives on it I think, which you wouldn’t expect to look at
it. Sleeps from dusk till dawn. Precisely too, so I have to be on my
toes there.
Can’t sleep in, or I reckon that’ll be all for me. I’ll go the same
way as the cat. Excuse me talking with my mouth full but it’s
unavoidable. It’s become habit. No, more like a survival technique.
While we’re awake, me and the Greyling, I talk. Constantly. Only thing
that keeps the It at bay. It presses itself against a wall and listens,
like it’s doing now. Follows me around the house to keep me in earshot
and drinks in every word. It’s like some odd kind of hypnosis, not
really like talking, filling the air with inane rubbish. It’s a spell, a
really long spell I’ve got the Greyling under, and it’s easily broken.
That’s why I don’t turn the television on any more. You can get
distracted and forget. I’ve had a couple of close calls like that.
I’m forced to sing to it while I’m in the shower. Quite loud so it can
hear. I’m not a singer, I wasn’t built for music. At least it doesn’t
come in the shower with me, just lurks in the room. It could do with a
wash, though. Smells like an old attic. Not sure how to approach the
washing of the Greyling. Or how it would react if I did. That’s why I
haven’t done it yet. Neither would you if you’d been anywhere near those
teeth.
It’s not a looker. Man shaped, if that shape had been stretched and
buckled. All its joints seem like they’ve been screwed inwards. Makes
you think it must be slow and weak, looking at it. It’s not, though.
Definitely not.
I don’t know where it came from. I was putting the bin out one night,
only takes a few moments so I left the door open. By the time I got back
in the house it had snuck in. I leave the front or the back door open
whenever I can now, but it doesn’t seem interested in leaving. Knowing
my luck I’ll end up with another one creeping in at some point.
I hate this time of the year when the days start getting longer. The
winter wasn’t so bad, when the Greyling was getting itself off to sleep
around four, five o’clock. Meant I had the evenings to myself. Could
stop talking for a few hours too, although I’ve got to admit I still end
up nattering on to myself. Force of habit. I think the whole experience
has made me a bit eccentric. It would do the same to anyone, I suppose.
These later evenings mean I have to keep my mouth going for longer.
It’s a hell of a lot of time to fill up with talking. Sometimes I end up
babbling nonsense just for the sake of stringing words together. The
way an old person might coo and chitter to a beloved pet.
The first couple of weeks were… fractious. I couldn’t work out what to
do about the Greyling. Still haven’t really. I thought about reporting
it to the police, but something tells me that wouldn’t work out very
well. I’m not sure what I’d tell them to be honest. All it has done so
far is menace me and eat the cat. There’s no doubt that it’s got more
murderous intentions in mind… but if the police came round I suspect the
Greyling would simply hide, and do a good job of it. That wouldn’t make
me look very good. And it might be angry after.
A while back I got tired of it following me around, always being in
the corner of my eye. It’s just creepy. So I locked it in the bedroom.
That’s why I don’t have a bedroom door any longer. It went completely
berserk. For the sake of my doors I haven’t tried doing that again. I’ve
never seen anything that furious. It could quite easily pluck my arms
and legs out of the sockets. When it comes to the Greyling, I just don’t
know what to do.
Cleaning and talking to yourself seem to go together, don’t they? You
know, it went mad when I locked it in the bedroom, but it’s fairly calm
when it comes to me leaving the house. It has to be done at some time,
going to shops and whatnot. Mowing the lawn. Posting a letter. Essential
things you can’t get away from. Work, when I used to. I was invited to a
meeting, and invited to leave. A result of my recently-developed
eccentricities, I think.
The bloody thing sets traps for me sometimes. They’re crude, but that
makes them no less disturbing. I came home one time and the It had left
me a sandwich on the stairs. A sandwich. There was a tube of superglue
inside it. You can imagine what it had in mind. On another occasion it
stuck a strand of gaffer tape across an open doorway at what the It
guessed to be mouth-height, presumably for me to walk into. I got it
across the neck. That gave it the idea that I’m garrotable, means I have
to check all doorways whenever I get home.
I tried to find out a bit more about the It, but where do you begin?
I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life. It’s like a horrible
cross between a human and a shaved lemur. I spent a while at the
library on the internet, looking through websites of weird and wonderful
creatures and mythical beasts and that sort of thing, sites about yetis
and other things that don’t exist but people have photos of. There was
nothing that looked or sounded anything like the Greyling. Maybe this
Greyling is the only Greyling there is. Which isn’t very helpful for me,
because it means I’m stuck without a handbook or instructions of any
kind.
I could take my own pictures, and I’ve tried. They don’t come out very
well, though. It would be great if I could get a good clear picture of
the Greyling, send it off to… whoever you send such things to. The news,
a science magazine, I don’t know. But it doesn’t like to pose. And any
pictures I do get come out smudgey. When you look at them it might as
well be a gaunt old man diving out of frame. A better camera might
produce clearer results, but I can’t exactly afford one of those when
I’ve been invited out of my job.
And what if this Greyling is the only Greyling? Wouldn’t that mean I
held some sort of responsibility for it’s safeguarding? That worries me a
lot. We’ve all heard what these sciency-types get up to, all their
poking and prodding and cutting and after all that the It will be dead.
Yes, it ate my cat, but perhaps cats are one of the main things it eats.
I like chicken and beef and things like that. Cows eat grass, birds eat
insects, that’s just the way things are.
I’ve got neighbours on either side of me. I figured it might
eventually get tired of waiting and slope off for an easier meal.
There’s Mrs. Whitby out in her garden, hanging out her washing. She’s
seventy-six and getting frail and has about as many visitors as I do and
there’s nothing stopping it sneaking into her house when she isn’t
looking. Horrible thing to think, that is, isn’t it? I’m not making
excuses, but when you’re having to watch where you’re going all the time
and you’re talking to yourself all the time and it’s been going on for
months, well, sometimes you don’t think right, do you? It doesn’t really
matter what dark thoughts I might have had. The It shows no inclination
to go anywhere. Pushing it out with the broom seems unwise. The It
seems to be easily riled up. And Mrs. Whitby might be going deaf, but
not even she could fail to her it shrieking if I tried to shove it out
while she was tending to her azaleas.
I’d miss the Greyling if it went.
Can’t believe I just said that. With all this nattering on, I come out
with the funniest things sometimes. It often strikes me that I’m quite
lucky there’s only the It around to hear me droning on. Anybody else
would’ve had me locked up by now. Quick call to the funny farm, and off I
go.
I wonder if it would follow me there?
When it comes down to it, I don’t really mind the Greyling so much.
There’s no woman in this life of mine, no children pattering across
these floors, just me and these walls that the Greyling clings to.
There’s never a question these days whether it will be there, my strange
and terrible companion. Always listening. Always attentive. Never
boring. It chose to come here, and chooses to stay.
A lot like a friend.
I, er.
Oh.
I don’t know what to say.
Er…
