Chapter 14: Tonguewood
I didn't sleep after the girl left.
I couldn't.
I sat at the kitchen table all night, staring at the box she brought. I couldn't bring myself to touch it again. Not the tongue. Not the nail. Not the note that promised a fifth would come screaming.
The box pulsed faintly under the light. The shadows around it didn't move with the room—they moved on their own, crawling inward, like something inside was still breathing.
By morning, I noticed something worse.
The walls had changed again.
They were no longer plaster or paint or wood.
They were tonguewood.
It looked like wood, but when I leaned in close, I saw it—tiny pores, like tastebuds. Veins underneath the surface. Faint ridges like fingerprints curling through the grain.
I reached out, gently pressed my fingertips to it.
Warm.
Sticky.
It licked me back.
---
I went to the bathroom to rinse my hand, but the sink only spat up muddy water. Thick. Viscous. It clung to my fingers and ran upward, not downward, like it was trying to crawl inside.
I screamed and stumbled back.
The mirror caught me mid-fall.
I froze.
It wasn't me in the reflection.
Not exactly.
The man in the mirror had my eyes. My skin. My clothes.
But his mouth—was gone.
In its place was a spiral of splinters, circling inward like a tree grown into a scream. No lips. Just wood. Just nails.
Just silence.
He raised his hand and pressed a finger to where his lips should've been.
Shhh.
Then he mouthed a word:
"Soon."
---
I don't know how long I stayed in that bathroom.
When I emerged, the house was listening again.
I could feel it.
The air was denser.
The rooms had grown smaller.
The spiral book had moved—now resting on my bed, opened to the center page again, the spiral glowing faintly red.
It pulsed with my heartbeat.
I didn't remember carrying it there.
I don't think I had.
---
At noon, the phone rang.
Not mine.
The house's.
A black rotary phone sat in the hallway on a small antique table I'd never seen before. The cord dangled into nothingness. It was already off the hook.
It shouldn't have worked.
But it rang.
Slow.
Heavy.
Like a breath drawn in.
I picked it up.
Static.
Then—a scream.
A child.
Sharp. Pure terror.
And underneath it… wet sounds.
Chewing.
I dropped the phone.
But I still heard it.
Not from the receiver—from the walls.
They were playing it back.
Looping the scream over and over.
Feeding on it.
Digesting the fear.
And then the phone spoke one word:
"Prepare."
---
That night, I found the spiral etched into my skin.
My chest.
Over my heart.
It wasn't carved. It was grown.
Like it had always been there and was only now surfacing.
It pulsed faintly.
Itched constantly.
It whispered when I touched it.
I tried covering it.
Didn't help.
The whispers only got louder when it couldn't see light.
---
I decided to go into town again.
I had to. I needed to see Liam. Needed to know if he was still… Liam.
If he hadn't already grown the mark.
The house didn't stop me.
This time, it wanted me to go.
---
The road stretched longer than I remembered.
Trees leaned over the car like ribs closing in.
The radio wouldn't turn off. It played nothing but muffled voices in reverse. Somewhere in the static, I heard my own name.
Over.
And over.
---
When I reached Liam's apartment, the door was already open.
Inside, the lights were off.
The air smelled like copper and damp soil.
The floor creaked under me.
I called his name.
Nothing.
But then—*
Tap. Tap. Tap.
From the bedroom.
I stepped closer.
The door was shut.
My hand trembled on the knob.
I turned it slowly.
The hinges wailed.
Inside the room was darkness.
Total.
And then—
"Don't come closer."
Liam's voice.
But broken. Fractured.
Like it came from inside a deep well.
I took a step forward anyway.
Something crunched under my shoe.
A photograph.
I picked it up.
It was the same girl who'd brought me the box.
Only now her mouth was gone.
Ripped clean off her face.
The caption scribbled in red ink below it:
"She tried to speak too soon."
---
Liam emerged from the shadows.
Or what was left of him.
His eyes were sunken, mouth sewn shut—not with thread, but hair.
Long black strands twisted into knots, gagging his words.
He reached toward me.
Hands trembling.
In one hand, he held a spiral of nails.
In the other, a drawing.
It was me.
But instead of a face, my head was a door.
And it was open.
Inside, there was no brain.
Only tongues.
Twisting.
Lashing.
Tied in knots of bone and bark.
---
He dropped the items and fell to his knees.
And he began to pray.
But not in words.
In noise.
Low moaning hums, like bees swarming beneath flesh.
Like the house was inside him now too.
---
I left him there.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I had to.
Because if I stayed one second longer, I would've fallen to my knees beside him.
And never stood again.
---
When I returned home, the front door was gone.
In its place: a spiral.
Wide open.
And on the front step:
A note.
Just one line, burned into old paper:
"The fifth is inside."