Chapter 2: The Mildew Apartment
The toilet water was cold against her forehead. Elena stayed there, kneeling on the cracked linoleum, until the shuddering passed. The taste of bile and cheap lager was a familiar ghost in her mouth. She flushed, the sound echoing in the tiny bathroom, and rinsed her face without looking in the mirror. She didn’t need to see the shadows under her eyes, the new tightness around her mouth.
Her phone buzzed again from the other room. A second, longer vibration. Not just a text. A call.
She ignored it, padding back to the couch. The stain on the ceiling had grown, she was sure of it. A new continent of damp was forming, a brown Rorschach blot that always looked, to her, like a tilted head, mouth agape. The neighbor’s game show applause leaked through the wall, a fuzzy, manic soundtrack to nothing.
The buzzing stopped. A minute later, a heavy knock shook her door. Not the super. Too rhythmic, too assured.
She knew. It was Friday.
Elena didn’t get up immediately. She finished the warm dregs of her beer, the aluminum can crackling in her grip. The knock came again, harder.
“Elena. C’mon.”
John’s voice, muffled but unmistakable. A gravel road.
She opened the door. He filled the frame, backlit by the grim hallway light, a six-pack of Pabst dangling from one hand. He still wore his work boots, caked with the same unspeakable muck she’d spent eight hours hosing off her own. The smell of the kill floor came in with him—a thick, metallic sweetness underlaid with chlorine.
“You didn’t answer,” he said, not as a question. He stepped inside, his bulk making the room feel even smaller.
“Phone was in the other room.”
He nodded, accepting the lie because it was easier. He set the beer on the counter next to her dying plant, its leaves spotted and yellow. He cracked two open, the hiss loud in the quiet, and handed one to her. His knuckles were scraped raw. A fresh cut, probably from a slipped knife or a stubborn bolt on the restrainer.
“Rough day,” he stated, taking a long pull.
“They all are.”
He looked at her then, really looked. His bloodshot eyes scanned her face, landing on the slight tremor in her hand holding the can. “You okay?”
“Fine. Just tired.”
“You don’t look fine.” He reached out, his thumb rough against her cheekbone, a gesture meant to be tender that felt more like inspection. She didn’t flinch. She’d learned not to. “Thought about what I said? By the river?”
He’d talked about getting a place. A trailer, maybe, out past the cement plant. A place with a yard. He’d called it a fresh start, his voice slurry with hope and beer. She’d watched the dead fish bob in the current and said nothing.
“I think this is fine for now,” she said, her voice flat.
His jaw worked. A flash of something—frustration, maybe hurt—crossed his face before it hardened back into its usual grimace. “Suit yourself. Just thinking about you. This place is a shithole.”
“It’s cheap.”
He grunted, turning to survey her kingdom of peeling wallpaper and damp. His gaze was possessive. She felt it on the back of her neck. He finished his beer in three more swallows and crushed the can, the sound making her jump. “You’re jumpy.”
“Long week.”
“It’s only Thursday.”
She shrugged. The silence stretched, filled only by the distant, laughing audience next door. He moved to the couch, sinking into the spot still warm from her body. He patted the space beside him. Not an invitation. An expectation.
Elena sat, leaving a careful foot of cushion between them. She focused on the water stain. The open mouth. The screaming head.
“Larry was asking about you today,” John said, voice casual. Larry was a floor manager. Hands like meat hooks, eyes that lingered too long in the locker room.
“What’d he want?”
“Just asking. Said he hadn’t seen you around much on breaks.” John took a new beer, took a sip, handed it to her. She took it, her fingers brushing his. A transaction acknowledged. “I told him you’ve been sticking with me. He got the picture.”
She felt a cold ripple of relief, immediately followed by a wave of sickening debt. “Thanks.”
“’Course.” He leaned back, stretching an arm along the back of the couch behind her. Not touching. Just claiming. “Can’t have guys like that thinking you’re available.”
The word hung in the air. Available. As if she were a piece of equipment, a locker with a functioning lock. She drank. The beer was bitter and too cold.
“I had a dream last night,” she said, just to say something that wasn’t about them. “About the cattle. The ones that fight the ramp. One of them looked at me. Like, really looked. Had these long, wet eyelashes.”
“They’re just animals, Elena.”
“I know.” But she could still feel its hot, panicked breath on her face, smell the fear-sweat. It was a different smell from the blood. More alive.
John’s hand came down from the couch back, his fingers beginning a slow, absent trace along her shoulder. His touch was heavy. “You think too much. That’s your problem. You gotta just get through the day, then come home, have a beer, forget it.” His fingers tightened, kneading the tense muscle. “Let me help you forget it.”
His breath was sour with hops. She closed her eyes. Saw the river, black and slow. Saw the fish, belly-up. This was the ritual. The unspoken fee for the peace he brokered in that world of men and blood and sharp edges. His hand moved to her neck, pulling her gently, insistently, toward him.
She went. It was easier. His lips were chapped. He tasted of cigarettes and the same cheap beer she was drinking. His body was a solid, immovable weight, familiar as the ache in her own bones. Her mind floated up, away, to the brown stain on the ceiling. The screaming head. She disassembled the act into a series of sensations: the scratch of his patchy beard, the press of the couch spring against her hip, the groan of the floorboards. A different kind of monotony.
Afterward, he smoked by the open window, the night air doing little to clear the room. He dressed in silence, the ritual complete. She pulled her knees to her chest, watching him.
“So, Friday,” he said, buckling his belt. “We’ll hit the river after shift. Maybe get some real beer, not this crap.”
“Okay.”
He paused at the door, looking back at her curled on the couch. A flicker of something like concern, or maybe just the need to solidify his role. “Eat something. You’re too thin.”
Then he was gone. The door clicked shut. The lock didn’t catch properly; it never did.
The applause from next door roared, a sudden, violent surge of artificial joy. Elena got up, her body feeling both used and strangely empty. She picked up his crushed beer can from the floor, felt the sharp edges of the dented aluminum. She carried it to the kitchen, added it to the pile on the counter.
She looked at her phone. One missed call. One text, unread, from earlier. She opened it.
It was from John, sent just before he arrived. Got beer. We need to talk about Larry.
She deleted it. She walked to the bathroom, turned on the shower as hot as it would go, and stood under the scalding water until her skin was red and the mirror was fogged opaque. She could still smell him on her. She could still smell the abattoir underneath it all, a scent that had seeped into her pores, permanent as a tattoo.
When she got out, wrapped in a thin towel, her phone was buzzing again on the couch. Not John this time. An unknown number. Probably a spam call. She let it ring, watching the screen light up the dark room, a tiny, frantic beacon in her private, quiet tomb. It went to voicemail.
A moment later, a notification popped up. A voicemail had been saved. She almost deleted it without listening. But something—the emptiness, the silence now that the game show was over—made her press play and raise it to her ear.
The voice was female, frayed with static or nerves. “Elena? Hi. This is Maya? From high school? God, this is weird. I got your number from Sarah Jennings. Look, I’m passing through town tomorrow. Just for a few hours. I know it’s last minute, but… I’d really like to see you. I’m at the Motel 6 off the interstate. Call me back if… if you can. If you want to.”
The message ended. The room was utterly still. Elena stood in the center of it, dripping onto the floor, staring at the water stain on the ceiling. The open mouth. For the first time in a long time, it didn’t look like it was screaming. It looked like it was trying to say a word she had long since forgotten.