Molt

1. Chapter 1- Lenora

There’s something in my bed.

I know before I open my eyes.

It isn’t breathing. It isn’t moving. But it’s touching me.

Something cold and damp rests against the inside of my thigh, trapped between my skin and the sheets.

For several seconds, I don’t move.

My bedroom is quiet except for the uneven clicking of the ceiling fan above me and the pipes knocking somewhere inside the wall. The dull street lights outside push weakly through the curtains, turning everything gray.

I stare at the ceiling listening to the clicking while trying to stay deathly still.

Whatever is against my leg slides when I breathe.

My stomach tightens.

I reach beneath the blanket and my fingertips find something soft, thin and wet.

I jerk my hand away. “What the fuck?” Then kick off the blanket and something pale tumbles onto the floor causing me to scramble backwards until my shoulders hit the headboard. At first, I think it’s fabric. Maybe part of the fitted sheet ripped.

Then I see the shape.

I stop breathing.

It looks like skin. Not a piece of it. Not some little flake from dry legs or a blister that peeled during the night.

It’s large. Almost the length of my forearm. Translucent, wrinkled and wet around the edges.

I stare at it.

“No.” The word barely leaves my mouth.

I look down at my legs.

Nothing.

No blood. No wound.

I turn my thigh toward the window.

My skin is smooth. Too smooth.

I touch it and a strange sensitivity shoots through me forcing a moan to slip from my lips.

I pull my hand away. “What the fuck?”

The thing on the floor doesn’t answer.

Obviously.

I lean over the edge of the mattress and gasp when I see tiny lines running through it.

Veins.

My stomach rolls.

“Nope.”

I grab my phone from the nightstand and nearly drop it trying to turn on the flashlight.

The beam lands on the floor.

I wish it hadn’t.

The thing is shaped around something.

Around me.

I can see the impression of a knee. The faint curve where my thigh would have been. Even the tiny scar I got when I was eleven after falling off my bike.

I look down.

The scar isn’t on my leg anymore. My fingers find the place automatically.

Smooth.

I rub harder. Nothing.

I know where that scar is—was.

I’ve touched it a thousand times.

Three little white lines just above my knee.

Gone.

I look back at the floor.

There they are.

Three tiny white lines.

On the skin beside my bed.

My stomach clenches violently.

I barely make it to the bathroom as I slam my knees against the tile and grab the toilet before everything I ate earlier comes back up.

When there’s nothing left, I sit against the bathtub.

My hands shake.

This isn’t happening.

There has to be an explanation.

Some kind of skin condition.

An allergic reaction.

Maybe I spilled something.

Maybe it’s some fucked-up piece of latex from…from what? I don’t own anything made of latex that looks like my leg.

I wipe my mouth and my reflection catches my attention, making me freeze.

Something is wrong with my face.

I crawl toward the vanity. “Jesus.”

My skin looks incredible.

That’s the problem.

I haven’t looked this good since I was sixteen.

No dry patches. No tiny lines beneath my eyes. The acne scar beside my chin is gone.

I touch my cheek.

Smooth and soft.

New.

A shiver crawls through me.

I turn my head. There’s a pale strip behind my ear.

I lean closer to the mirror.

“No.”

I touch it and the edge lifts.

Every muscle in my body locks.

Don’t.

My finger slips underneath anyway.

There’s no pain. Only pressure.

A strange little release.

I pull and the strip separates from behind my ear with a quiet, sticky sound.

My stomach turns.

I should stop but I don’t. I keep pulling.

It comes away slowly down my neck, across my shoulder.

A thin translucent layer stretches between my fingers.

My breath fogs the mirror. “Oh my God.”

I pull harder and the sensation changes.

Not pain.

Something worse.

Relief.

A shudder moves through me and my knees nearly buckle. I moan aloud as the skin underneath feels hypersensitive against the cool bathroom air.

I hate how good it feels.

I hate that my body wants me to keep going.

So I do.

I pull until the strip tears near my collarbone.

I stare at it hanging between my fingers.

My skin.

It has to be.

There’s a tiny freckle near the edge.

I look at my shoulder.

The freckle is gone.

I drop it into the sink.

My reflection looks back at me.

Pale. Terrified. Perfect.

Too fucking perfect.

I turn on the faucet and wash my hands until the water burns. Then I wash them again.

By the time I go back into my bedroom, I’ve convinced myself I’m going to call a doctor.

That’s all.

Doctors deal with disgusting shit every day.

People shed skin. Snakes shed skin. Lizards shed skin.

Humans…humans don’t molt.

I stop in the doorway.

The floor beside my bed is empty.

I stare at the spot.

No.

I step closer.

The piece is gone.

I check beneath the bed. Nothing.

Under the blanket. Nothing.

Maybe I imagined where it fell.

I pull the sheets off completely. Nothing.

I search under the nightstand, behind the dresser, the hamper.

Nothing.

My heart beats rapidly inside my chest when I look toward the bedroom door. I know I closed it when I went to the bathroom.

It’s open.

Only a few inches.

But it’s open.

“Hello?”

Silence.

My apartment suddenly feels enormous.

Which is ridiculous because it’s barely seven hundred square feet.

“Is someone here?”

Nothing.

I grab the first weapon I can find. A fucking curling iron.

Perfect.

If there’s a murderer in my apartment, I’ll give him beach waves before he kills me.

I move into the hallway.

Bathroom. Empty.

Kitchen. Empty.

Living room. Empty.

The chain is still across the front door. Deadbolt locked and windows closed.

I stand in the middle of my living room holding the curling iron against my chest.

Then I hear it.

Footsteps above me.

Slow.

One. Two. Three. Stop.

My eyes lift toward the ceiling.

Apartment 305. The man upstairs. I’ve never met him. I rarely ever see him. Once—maybe twice in the past few months. He’s tall with dark hair —eyes. Always wearing black.

The first time I saw him, he was standing inside the lobby while rain hammered against the windows. He wasn’t doing anything. Just standing there looking at me.

I remember thinking I knew him. Not that he looked familiar. Something stranger. Like a feeling you get when you walk into a room and forget why you’re there.

Recognition without memory.

Then the elevator doors closed between us.

I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.

Which is pathetic considering I don’t even know his name.

The footsteps start again.

One. Two. Three. They stop directly above me.

I swallow. “Okay.” I lower the curling iron. “Doctor first. Psych ward second.”

My phone rings and I scream. The curling iron flies across the room as the phone slips from my hands. “Fuck!”

My phone continues vibrating and ringing against the floor.

I take a deep breath and pick it up.

Unknown number.

I stare at it and let it ring.

It stops.

Almost immediately, a text appears.

Unknown:

Don’t throw it away.

Everything inside me goes cold.

I don’t move.

Then another message.

Unknown:

Lenora.

I stare at my name as my fingers hover over the screen.

ME:

Who is this?

The response comes immediately.

Unknown:

You know.

“No, I fucking don’t.”

Three dots appear. Disappear and appear again.

Unknown:

Not yet.

I call the number.

The ringing doesn’t come through the phone. It comes through the ceiling. Faint and muffled.

Above me.

My blood turns to ice.

Someone answers. I hear breathing. Not through my phone.

Above me.

“Who the fuck are you?”

Silence.

Then a man’s voice. Low. Quiet. Tired.

“Don’t peel any more.”

I hang up.

My hands are shaking so badly I almost drop the phone.

Another message appears.

Unknown:

Please.

I stare at it.

Then another.

Unknown:

It makes it happen faster.

I don’t respond. I don’t know what the fuck that means and I don’t want to know.

I call the police or I try to.

My thumb hovers over the button.

What am I supposed to say?

“Hello, there’s a man upstairs who somehow knows I’m shedding my body like a fucking reptile?”

I look toward the ceiling.

Silence.

Then something drips onto my hand.

I flinch.

A tiny red drop sits on my knuckle.

Blood.

I look up and another drop falls hitting my cheek.

My heart stops.

There’s a dark spot spreading across the ceiling directly beneath apartment 305.

“No.”

Another drop then another.

I don’t think. I don’t call anyone. I don’t even grab shoes. I just spin and run out of my apartment toward the stairwell and up the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Third floor.

My feet slap against cold concrete. Apartment 305 sits at the end of the hall.

The door is black.

Of course it fucking is.

I pound on it. “Hello?”

Nothing.

I knock again. “Are you hurt?”

Silence.

I reach for my phone but the door opens and I forget what I was going to say.

He’s taller than I remember. Much taller.

Dark hair falls across his forehead. His face is pale, sharp, exhausted. Beautiful in a way that immediately makes me uncomfortable. But that isn’t why I can’t speak.

Blood runs from his nose and he wipes it with the back of his hand then his eyes move over me…not hungrily or even with curiosity but…with sadness. Like he’s looking at someone standing beside a coffin.

“Lenora.”

Hearing my name in his voice does something strange to my chest.

I step backward. “How do you know my name?”

He closes his eyes and for a second, his face crumples like my question hurts.

When he opens them again, whatever was there is gone. “My name is August.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I know.” He says so quietly I almost miss it.

“Why do you have my number?”

He looks past me toward the stairwell. “Go downstairs.”

“What?”

“Lock your door.”

“You texted me.”

“I shouldn’t have.”

“You knew what happened to me.”

His jaw tightens. “Go home, Lenora.”

“Tell me what the fuck is happening.”

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Both.”

I stare at him as another line of blood slips from his nose.

“You need a hospital.”

A humorless laugh leaves him. “No.”

“You’re bleeding through my ceiling.”

“I’ll clean it.”