The Inkblot

Terror in two dimensions

Image by Bill Adler

“I apologize for the straightjacket, but I’m sure you understand.” Dr. Daniel Dale chewed on an unlit cigar. This was the closest he’d get to a smoke until after work. “Patients who assault staff end up in straight jackets.” Daniel smirked. “Rules are rules.”

“I didn’t assault that nurse, though he had it coming.” Mila Gaboury locked eyes with the doctor, fixing her gaze like a predator certain of its meal. “Nurse Jamison annoyed me. I’m sure he annoys you, too, because that’s his nature. Some people are born annoying.”

“Jamison was found face down in your room, unconscious, his left arm broken. If you didn’t assault him, how did he end up that way?”

“Doctor, doctor, both my arms were handcuffed to the bed. I couldn't even have picked my own nose.” Mila wriggled her shoulders, shrugging them as best she could. “I wasn’t in a position to assault anyone, just as I’m not in a position to assault you.” She offered a toothy smile. Mila simultaneously rattled the wooden chair and shouted, “Boo!” 

Daniel gasped and then took a long breath. “Very funny. But if you ever want to get out of here, I’d suggest you behave.” The doctor opened the manila folder on his desk and clicked a pen. “Now, do you want to tell me what happened to nurse Jamison?”

“Sure.”

“What happened?”

“You won’t believe me.”

“The only test of that is to explain it to me.”

"Let's make a deal, Doc. I’ll tell you how if you first tell me what I’m doing at the Lovington Psychiatric Home. I don’t belong here. I’m not crazy. I’m sure all your patients say that, but for me, it’s the truth.” 

Mila scanned the doctor’s cramped office. Ikea furniture, a framed diploma from a school in the Midwest nobody had heard of, and overhead fluorescent lighting that was at war with a standing halogen lamp in the room's corner. Mila’s office was considerably posher, with a solid teakwood desk and a twenty-thousand dollar bar set. On Mila’s wall, hung a Yale law school diploma.

Mila explained. 

“There’s a demon in you?” the doctor asked, when she was finished. 

“Yes.”

“And this demon entered your body through your ears the night before last?”

“Yes, again.” If smiles made sound, Mila's would’ve been a thunderclap. 

“And the demon made you take a crowbar to your living room, bedroom, and kitchen, reducing those rooms to rubble. And then your husband called the police who, by the grace of an overly-compassionate judge, deposited you here, at a psychiatric hospital, instead of jail.”

“Yup. That just about sums it up. The demon and I are simpatico. Though we’re only recently acquainted, we are having a good time together, with better times to come. Whatever it wants, I’m happy to be at its service. Isn't that the way everyone should be—accommodating?” 

Daniel harrumphed. It wasn’t the most professional response, and, in fact, it wasn’t professional at all. But sometimes his instincts overpowered his training. He once laughed at a patient's cough because it sounded like a seal's bark, and he’d once pinched his nose in response to a patient's noxious flatulence. 

“Where did the demon come from? And why you?”

“Melzithon doesn’t want you to know.”

“Why is that?”

“Not saying.”

“You’re not saying, or you don’t know?”

“Aren’t we getting a little off-track here, Doc? Don’t you want to test me? Determine if I’m really crazy?”

“Are you ready for some tests?” 

Mila nodded.

The doctor aimed a white plastic sheet painted with a black splotch at Mila, holding it with both hands. “What do you see?”

“I’d hoped you’d do an inkblot test.” Mila grinned. 

“And?” 

Mila kept her voice steady, her tone low. “It’s a butterfly.”

Daniel camouflaged his disappointment. The inkblot resembled a butterfly, and that's what most normal people said. He was hoping for something revealing, such as a Lovecraftian monster, invading alien, or roadkill. Mila must be toying with me. No matter; there were twenty more inkblots and a half dozen other tests to come. 

“You hoped for more. I see it in your eyes, Doc. You can tell me." Mila paused for a moment. "We should have an honest and open relationship." 

The inkblot board slipped from Daniel’s hand and thunked onto the floor. 

“Heavy, isn’t it?”

Daniel leaned over his desk and stared silently at the plastic sheet on the floor, which landed inkblot side up. Before he dropped the sheet, it had felt as heavy as lead, and cold, as if the lead had come from a freezer.  

A putrid smell of rotting flesh assaulted Daniel's nose. He gagged. 

The inkblot fluttered its wings like an animated GIF. 

“It’s just an inkblot.” Mila’s blue eyes turned white, and she flicked her tongue against her upper lip. She let out a guttural laugh that vibrated the room’s small window. "But you saw what you saw. Confused? The bad news is you need to worry, but the good news is you won’t need to worry for long."

The inkblot jittered faster, flapping against the board like a fish out of water. 

“What is that?” 

The black inkblot peeled off the plastic sheet, flapped its wings, and hovered three feet in the air. It rotated in slow motion until it faced Daniel. 

Mila whistled. “Here comes the bad news part.”

The butterfly transformed from a two-dimensional sliver into a three-dimensional creature hued with red and orange, like a balloon inflated with air. It hissed at Daniel as it sprouted rows of sharp, interlocking teeth like saw blades. Eel-like orifices snapped open and closed at the tip of the creature's two long antennae. 

The monster grew, filling half of Daniel’s office. It rotated toward the ceiling, exposing a third mouth, its largest mouth, which traversed along its orange and black abdomen. That mouth opened wide to reveal shark-shaped teeth.

“You get to choose how to be eaten. The big belly mouth is fast. With the smaller mouths, you get to live a little longer, but it’s sure to hurt—hurt more, that is.” Mila cackled. “The demon always gives a choice. For nurse Jamison, the choice was to break an arm or a leg. He chose an arm. I think that was the right choice because crutches are terribly uncomfortable. The demon transformed his stethoscope into a serpent that coiled around his arm, snapped it, then spilled him onto the floor. So, what’s it going to be, Doc? Speak now or forever hold your peace. Or should I say pieces?”

Daniel shot out of his chair. 

The monster chased the doctor over and under his desk. Its massive wings generated a wind storm that blew the books off the shelves and shredded the curtains. Daniel slipped under the desk and squeezed his knees to his chest, making himself as small as possible, whimpering and shaking like a cold, lost puppy. 

The creature dropped to the floor and crept toward the desk, its wings thumping against the ground. Too big to fit under the desk, it extended its undulating, teeth-tipped antennae toward Daniel. The first bite took half his foot; the second two toes from the other foot. The two snapping eelish mouths ate in tandem. Clumps of meat rolled through the inside of the tubular antenna, like snakes that had swallowed mice. 

Daniel screamed.

“That’s not the choice I would have made,” Mila said. 

“Make it stop!” Daniel yanked his Bic out of his jacket pocket and stabbed wildly at the undulating, teethed tentacles filled with his flesh. He pierced the monster’s skin, blue ink spilling across its epidermis. The stabs had no effect; the beast continued to consume Daniel. 

“Stop? Why? This is fun.”

Daniel thrust his pen at the creature, making another blue inkblot that resembled a sea urchin. The creature shrieked, a long high-note half in the upper range of human hearing, half in the ultrasonic, but it was a squeal of joy, not pain. 

The butterfly monster stopped eating Daniel. 

Daniel looked at his legs. Only bone and thin tenders of flesh remained below his knees. He guessed if he got medical attention in the next few minutes, he might live. He focused on how, although his brain was a place of pain rather than cogent thought.

From his useless hiding place, Daniel watched the ink blots he made on the monster’s skin transform from two dimensions into three. One was a butterfly like the one eating Daniel, and the second was a sea urchin-shaped demon. They peeled off their progenitor’s body and took flight. 

They were already big enough to block the ceiling light.

The newly-born monsters flew around the room for a few moments before banging into the door. 

Mila stroked her chin, hmmed to herself, and mused, “So, that’s how we make more monsters.”

The door to Daniel’s office cracked. 

Another three slams and a large piece of door splintered and crashed onto the hallway floor with a thundering boom, creating an opening through which the two creatures escaped. 

Mila’s attention turned away from the door when Daniel screamed once more. The butterfly had resumed him. 

Daniel stabbed the monster again and again, failing to slow it, but adding an ink splotch to the creature’s skin each time. He birthed a dozen more monsters before he died, never hearing the screams from the hallway.

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If you enjoyed The Inkblot, I think you’ll also like my story Losing Your Fear.

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