Primordial ooze ...again

Primordial ooze revisited

At first sight the level of work needed to make this old house into a home was staggering.  The weather was not helping either, with rain predicted for the next two weeks and intermittent drops of temperature that would bring between two and three feet of snow just made matters worse.

I’ve worked a lot of jobs but this one was slightly misrepresented.  I was hired to redo the kitchen and maybe one bathroom, if it was needed but upon my initial inspection of the associated report the basic services to the house were in desperate condition.  There was no water, no heat, the walls were cracked and there was mildew that seemed to cover large portions of the walls and floors.  It was a little late to back out however, I was being paid by the week, I had a clean and comfortable room at the local motel and a food allowance with no completion date.  I guess they (whoever they were) knew of the work needed but knew I wouldn't accept initially.

As I entered the house, through the back door, the front door was jammed; the rush of air that blew past me seemed to go right through me.  It was as if it was trying to escape and the associated feelings were that I should do the same.  I needed the money and this was going to be a long term payoff, so I shrugged my shoulders and drove my hands deep into my pants pockets and entered.

The mud room was the first room I physically saw and I was amazed at the amount of growth on the walls and floor, the black, almost fuzzy, mossy stuff seemed to be everywhere; I could feel it under my boots with each step.  I removed my painter’s knife and scraped at the nearest wall, the stuff fell away easy enough, just like peeling some dead skin off an old wound.  I let it drop and moved on into the kitchen.

With each step further into the house I could feel my breathing become labored and knew at that point that the black mold was affecting me, I would have to get a hazmat team in here for removal.  I instinctively put my hand to my face and covered my nose and mouth with my sleeve.  The kitchen layout was nice except for an island area that had fallen into disrepair.  One side of the oval shaped island was falling through the floor revealing a slight gap into the basement below a level of blackness that seemed to draw you in, your eyes seeing only the blackness their focus riveted by the nothingness within.

Even with my hand over my mouth and nose the darkness started to creep under my palm, I could taste it.  The foul but strangely sweet taste dripped down my throat, causing me to gag but the sweetness came and it actually tasted good.  Nothing I've ever tasted before but a pungent sweet and sour mix that confuses the senses, at least I could drop my hands.

Passing though the kitchen into the dining room I pulled on the soiled and dusty curtains hoping the lights from outside would alleviate some of the dankness, but when I pulled down the heavy cloth the windows were still covered with the gritty ooze leaving only a shadowing glimmer to the once darkened rooms.

Making it to the front door I had to use all of my power to budge the massive oak door from its locked position into opening.  This shard of light blasted the darkness like a flashlight in a darkened cave but the sight it revealed cramped my breathing and forced me to dive out of the house.

I had never seen what I just saw and hoped beyond hope that I would never see again the images that would forever be emblazoned on my psyche.  As I knelt panting and gasping for fresh air, even with the rain soaking my clothes I was grateful to be free of the grasp of that reality within.  And just as I had committed to move away from the house the house pulled at me, willing me to return and in some way explain itself, to rationalize, I thought to downplay what I had seen. 

With sever trepidation my feet began to move prior to my mind agreeing and before I could stop myself I was past the threshold, closing the door behind me.

For weeks no one knew what had happened to me or the house.  For me it was only a few moments but for my employers, it was three weeks.  They had heard nothing of me or any progress reports only my silence.  My rented motel room had thought nothing of my never returning. After the initial two week payments had been exhausted they simply cleaned the room and rented to another.

As for me, this is all I remember.  I remember closing the door and the smell attacking my senses so completely that I felt sick, after that only bits and pieces, dreams and snippets of nightmarish images that still bring tears to my eyes, even now ten years later.

I drove by the house a few months back and it’s still there, Still boarded up and dark.  Still vacant, well vacant from our perspective but from mine it’s very much occupied, very much filled with borders and tenets, not the paying kind, they really don’t want to be bothers but when they are they take the time to get to know you.

They got to know me.  Every inch, inside and out, they got to know me, for as soon as I closed the door and reentered their world I was theirs.  They are not evil per say, I don’t think they know what evil or what good is, they just are.  For three weeks the blacked moss grew over every inch of my body and extracted whatever it was they wanted.

My memories, my fears, my dreams and my very existence were theirs to use as they pleased.  I still don’t know what they are, but I know who they are, they are both life and death, existence and void, they are the primordial ooze that started all life and from which all life had its humble beginnings, except there not from around here, there not from earth.

The only clear thing I do remember is that their not sure what to do with what they started.  This house is another test spot, like the old misty ponds of millennium ago, except now there in a house.  What will come next, I wasn't told but I could feel that there was more going on than just me.  It felt like I was being evaluated and something new was about to be introduced and whatever it was would not be human.