The Otherworldly Intruder: Chapter 2

The Otherworldly Intruder Chapter 2 by Lou Bealy

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That night when Mandy got home from work, she didn’t even bother looking for her poor missing cat Garth. She was so stressed out from the continued intrusions into her home and her inability to figure out what exactly was happening. The mystery was what made it far worse. At least they had just stopped with what she was wearing and seemingly hadn’t gotten to her closet yet. Her socks were fortunately still in her drawer. Why would someone as crafty and clever as this apparent foot fetishist intruder have to steal footwear? And how did they get out of her room, down the stairs, and out of her house so fast? 

She hadn’t heard anyone leave and checked everywhere for someone hiding. It was both amazing, almost impressive really. Someone as smart and capable as this pervert should be able to find someone to let them smell their feet, or whatever he was into. Or maybe, she figured, he was a disgusting troll. She tried not to dwell on that but it was hard not to speculate.

She holed up in her room all night, reading a book in silence and trying to listen for any intruders. By now she wasn’t surprised that there was no sign of anyone trying to break in. Not a peep. This intruder seemed to know exactly when she was going to sleep, so she stayed up much later than usual and still there was no sign of anyone breaking in. Maybe they didn’t just know her timing but were actually watching her. As soon as that thought crossed her mind, her heart rate immediately began to increase, her fear becoming even more acute.

She had no way of knowing that she was right, she was being observed at that very moment but not by a camera or listening device, but by the intruder itself, sitting in the air vent near her bed and just waiting for her to sleep so it could go about its business. The monster knew how to be patient and it wasn’t giving up on its most wonderful tasting victim that it could remember.

She tried to reassure herself that the weirdo couldn’t be watching her all the time. Her new pair of shoes were still in her car where she had left them. That was a good sign, at least. But that didn’t inhibit the fear that was building. They may not be watching her outside, but she wasn’t so sure about in the house.

Mandy hopped out of bed, deciding to check every room in the house for any kind of listening devices or cameras. By this point, she wouldn’t put anything past them. Whoever they were, they were very crafty and determined, if nothing else.

She looked very closely at every corner, every cupboard, under all of her furniture, even in the air vents. She noticed something strange when she looked into the vent in her room, though. There was some kind of dark, opaque and thick sludge on the bottom of the vent, just inside of it. She looked at it, puzzled. She didn’t remember the last time she looked in her vents, so it could have been there a while, whatever it was. It was too flat to have any kind of camera in it, she figured, but it could have some sort of microphone, maybe?

She also remembered that sticky stuff on her feet from the night before again. That just made the situation even more puzzling. She wasn’t sure if this weird dark blob in her vent had anything to do with what had been happening, but it was the first lead of any kind she had found since she had begun getting terrorized by this foot loving night stalker. She told herself that it was probably just a coincidence. She wasn’t even sure how it could have gotten into her vent without leaving a trace on the floor, but she was going to find out all she could about it. She went to the kitchen to retrieve a screwdriver so she could open it up and inspect it closer. 

The monster had stayed still, knowing that it didn’t want to give itself away if it could avoid that. As soon as she left, it darted farther back into the vent, where it made a sharp ninety-degree turn. She wouldn’t be able to see it there and it was well out of her reach.

When she returned, it had mysteriously vanished. She quickly unscrewed and removed the vent cover so she could get a closer look. The evidence of the strange sludge was still there, though. The bottom of the vent looked sparkling clean instead of the typical coating of dust. This immediately reminded her of the trails all across the floor she had discovered before this ordeal had even started.

“I know I saw something, goddammit!” Mandy yelled to no one in particular. She was beyond exasperated with everything that she had to put up with in the last several days. She tried to reach into the vent and see if she could feel it, but with no success. Eventually, she gave up and put the vent cover back on. She then checked every other vent and the only thing she found was more evidence of it having been there, the strangely clean vents were all so noticeable now that she was looking for them. She continued looking for anything else suspicious or out of place in her house but came up with nothing.

She returned to her room, dejected and even more confused than when she had gotten out of it. She couldn’t shake the feeling that these strange occurrences were connected to her intruder, but she wasn’t sure exactly how. She never got a look at whatever had been on her feet that tripped her as she got out of bed, but why would it be in her vent? She couldn’t figure it out, and that made it even worse.

She made sure the door was locked and put the chair back in front of it just to create another obstacle and opportunity for the intruder to give themselves away. She thought about going to her car and putting her remaining pair of shoes on, but she ultimately decided not to. She only had the one pair left and didn’t want to have to buy shoes again. She had to make do with just wearing socks, which normally would be enough to keep her comfortable but now made her feel strangely naked. She would have to cope, though. At least until she could afford more shoes, but hopefully this all would be over before then, she hoped.

She sighed, wondering what else she could do, but to just try and get some sleep, hoping her cameras would finally provide her with an answer as to what was going on. The mystery and uncertainty did make that difficult, but she eventually succeeded in finding sleep.

The blob was watching from inside the vent. It had extended a thin pseudopod with an eye on the tip toward the opening of the vent. It was confident that it could retract it in a hurry if she approached again since she was apparently on to the monster's presence.

It waited until it was sure she was safely unconscious and then slowly crept out of the vent, sliding silently across the floor until it reached her bed. It swiftly climbed up and slipped under her covers. It didn’t want to waste any time and enveloped her feet right away and only afterward raising its temperature. Because she was inside its body, the effect was much more acute, increasing her skin oil production sharply. It didn’t wait for her socks to become marinated in her flavor. It dissolved them right away, so it could taste her skin directly. It knew it didn’t have long. It relished the flavor for the short time that it had. It quickly swirled its entire body around her feet, crisscrossing between them like a figure eight.

After a few minutes of sheer bliss, Mandy began to stir.  The syrupy blob monster decided to hide again, dropping to the floor and hiding underneath the bed. It pulled itself up through a gap in the felt that lined the bottom and into one of the corners of the box spring where it spread itself out. She wouldn’t likely look for it there since she would have to actually rip the fabric open to check. Even then, it would be so dark that unless she shined a light right on it, she wouldn’t be able to see it. It was also a bonus that her bed smelled of her scent, which it had grown to crave. There it waited, satisfied that it was safe and hidden.

* * *

It didn’t even surprise Mandy at this point that her socks were missing off of her feet. Her feet were also still silky smooth like her feet had been exfoliated again, as they had every night recently. Her socks were still in her drawer, thankfully. She put a pair on and then immediately checked her phone to see what the cameras had recorded. She couldn’t understand what she was looking at.

Almost immediately after she had gone to sleep, she saw a dark shape exit her vent and glide across the floor to her bed. It seemed to reach up and climb onto her bed and then disappeared under the covers. She hit the fast forward button and watched for it to come out again, which it did in about a half-hour later. It dropped to the floor, and slid under the bed, where it disappeared and did not come out for the rest of the night. She just stared at the screen for a moment in disbelief. Then she snapped out of it and dove to the floor, to check under the bed for the strange invader.

Strangely, there was nothing under her bed but dust bunnies. But she immediately noticed one of those clean trails through the dust. It seemed to just end at the corner of her bed, though. She looked up underneath the bed, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then she noticed the cloth material that covered the bottom of the box spring had been disturbed. Where the trail in the dust ended, there was a wide tear that she immediately reached into and tore wider. Once it was torn wide open, she shined the flashlight from her phone and saw the dark shape hugging the inside corner of the frame. She shrieked and ran from the house.

She sat in her car, trying to calm down and catch her breath. After her breathing had returned to normal, she sat and thought about what she should do now, or even if she could do anything. She laughed and figured that she had to at least try to look at the bright side. At least it wasn’t some pervert breaking into her house, as she had assumed. This explained how there was no sign of any forced entry, and how the intruder had disappeared so quickly after she had almost caught it in the act.

She also had evidence of what was going on. She went around the neighborhood to the people she had told about her recent problems but none of them believed her. Of those that would even look at the video, they all said she was using some kind of editing program on her computer to make the monster appear. It was frustrating!

She had to admit that in the dark, with the low-resolution cameras, it just looked like a dark shape moving around, which she figured would be easy enough to fake with some kind of computer program, though she had no idea how to do such a thing.

Mandy was at a loss as to what to do. She didn’t want to go home, not with that thing lurking around. She went to a nearby coffee shop and pulled out her tablet to take advantage of the free wi-fi. She tried to look up any incidents of this happening to anyone else but was frustrated with what she found. There were a few mentions of blob monsters, but they came across like fiction or conspiracy theories. She realized how crazy her own story sounded, so there may be something to it. There was no way of really knowing what stories may have any truth to them.

She eventually decided to call an exterminator. If anyone could get rid of this thing, they could. She debated telling them the truth or not, and decided she might as well, since claiming she had bugs or something may result in a lot of money on pesticides that ultimately did nothing.

The exterminators she called told her that they had never heard of such a thing. A few of them just laughed at her and called her a prank caller. Even after emailing a few of them the videos, she wasn’t able to make much headway. It seemed no one was going to take her situation seriously.

By the time the coffee shop was about to close, she basically gave up. She left and headed for home, dejected. She had considered not going home at all, but that didn’t last long. She didn’t have any friends to crash with and what’s more, she didn’t have any of her clothes- besides the socks and shoes she now kept in her car- or toiletries of any kind. She supposed she could buy some, but as a poor college student, she wasn’t exactly made of money. She couldn’t really afford a hotel either. She resigned herself to heading back to her house.

* * *

After Mandy found the blob hiding under her bed and then ran out of the house, the monster decided that it was done sneaking around. She had finally discovered its presence, but there was no way it was leaving now. It loved her scent and her taste way too much to run away. So when she finally came home, it didn’t waste any time. It immediately pounced on her. She had left her shoes in the car, as she had been doing for days now, but she was still wearing socks of course.

“Ah!” she shrieked as she noticed its glowing red eyes emerge from under her coffee table. it sludge monster swiftly enveloped her feet, she almost fell to the floor before she had even shut the door behind her. She leaned on the door handle, slamming it shut as she stumbled into it. She gripped the handle tightly, barely able to regain her balance as the weird creature churned around her feet, pulling them together and tightening its strange viscous body around them. 

The monster wasted no time and began to dissolve her socks so it could taste her lovely feet. She struggled, but it barely noticed. It didn’t care what she did at this point. She had definitely been wearing the socks all day and they were absolutely permeated with her taste and smell. It relished the flavor as it slowly ate them away, its whole body roiling violently in order to complete the task as quickly as possible. It was so strong and its movements were so swift and violent that it almost knocked her over again, even though she wasn’t even surprised this time.

“Get off!” she tried to kick her feet out, to maybe fling it across the room or at least free one of her feet, but to no avail, she just succeeded in throwing herself even more severely off-balance, causing her to fall backward. She tried to hold herself up on the doorknob again but lacked the strength and lost her grip, toppling to the floor.

She began to scream and freak out, thinking the monster would continue up her body and violate or hurt her in some other way. She violently kicked her feet, throwing her whole body around on the floor but she was completely unsuccessful in even stalling the monster.

But the monster didn’t budge from her feet at all. After her socks were completely gone, it took its time, running itself completely around her feet, tasting it with every inch of its syrupy form. It loved her taste so much, it didn’t even care that she was actively resisting. It was clear to it and her that she couldn’t stop it anyway.

She reached down and tried to pull it off of her feet, but her hands immediately got stuck in its sticky body. “No!” she yelled, frightened that she would be even more helpless than she already felt, but her fear was short-lived. 

After quickly tasting her hands, she was able to free them, as it seemed to have very little interest in them. She resisted the urge to strike it, or try to free herself again. She knew at this point that it wouldn’t do any good. She had to admit to herself that its warm body flowing around her feet, eating her dead skin, was almost like a foot bath. It was very weird and unwanted but it actually felt kinda good.

She breathed out a long sigh, as she pondered for just a moment why it would only want her feet. She supposed it was not too surprising. After all, it had been living in her house for a while at this point, coming into her room at will and dissolving her footwear but never doing anything to truly harm her. It was strange and having to buy so many socks and shoes was an expense and an inconvenience but she surmised that it seemed to be the worst of it. It could have done worse to her countless times already, and when she was helpless and asleep. She did feel some level of relief after coming to the conclusion that it was largely harmless and far less scary than some pervert breaking in and stealing her footwear as she slept.

“What are you?” she demanded from the creature, finally calming down a little. 

It didn’t answer. She didn’t even know if it could answer, or understand her at all. The only response was a soft slurping as it continued to flow around her feet. She watched its strange translucent body surge around in circles. It had stretched itself thin enough that she could just barely see her feet through it. When on the floor, it looked like an opaque black shape but now it was more of a deep brown. It had eaten whatever little dead skin she had accumulated in one day and was now just slowly flowing. It almost seemed happy, its glowing red eyes were closed and she noticed there was a barely noticeable hum, almost like a cat purring. Its thick body pressing on her firmly and the swirling motion were almost giving her a foot massage. It didn’t even tickle, she noted.

She felt how silky smooth her hands were now. Her guitar playing fingers had thick calluses and were usually covered in dead skin. She was amazed that even in the short time that they had been inside the creature’s body, it had dissolved all but her thickest calluses.

The monster eventually relented and let her go. It slid off of her feet, not leaving a trace of itself on her or anywhere else as it swiftly flowed away, finding a hiding spot somewhere toward the kitchen before she had even pulled herself to her feet. She sighed, allowing herself to enjoy how silky smooth her feet were for the first time since the first night her socks disappeared off of her feet. She went upstairs to her room and found her socks to still be in the drawer and quickly replaced the ones that the monster had consumed right off of her feet. She had always loved the feeling of fresh socks being pulled on for the first time but this was even better because of how soft and smooth her skin felt. Maybe this wasn’t all bad, she thought. She giggled to herself when she thought of it as a slimy Roomba that rubbed and exfoliated her feet for her. That made the whole situation far more tolerable.

* * *

The next morning, Mandy awoke and checked her feet and confirmed that her socks were eaten off during the night once again. This time, it didn’t really concern her the way it had before. She knew that the creature was responsible and that it was relatively harmless. It was still annoying, but there was seemingly nothing she could do about it. She was beginning to really appreciate how silky smooth her feet were each morning. She didn’t know how she had gone so long without getting the calluses and dead skin on her feet dealt with. Her shyness about her feet had prevented her from experiencing one of the little pleasures in life.

As she got up to go get in the shower, she looked around to see if she could find the blob monster, but it must have been hiding again. Once she got out, she went to her room and put one of the couple of pairs of socks on that she had left. She supposed she would have to go get more on the way home, or she’s run pretty quickly.

She would have to forego the typical knee-high striped socks that she normally liked to buy and probably just go with some plain white ones from the department store. They wouldn’t be as nice, but at least she could somewhat afford to keep replacing them.

On her way out the door, she turned and saw the creature’s glowing eyes coming from the air vent near the door. It was the same vent that it had been waiting for her in the previous evening. She already knew what was going to happen when she got home that day. Mandy decided not to give it the chance, though. She knew it would get her socks sooner or later, but she didn’t like the idea of being attacked by the strange thing as soon as she entered her house. She wouldn’t be able to do anything about it getting her in her sleep, but maybe she could at least avoid it until then.

Mandy pulled into the driveway, dropped her shoes off in the car and then walked daintily in her sock-clad feet around her house on the cement path to the back door. She quickly unlocked the back door and entered the house. She tried to run up the stairs before the blob monster noticed, but it seemingly heard her as she entered. It intercepted her in the living room right as she got to the stairs. It reached out with its tentacles and grabbed her feet so swiftly that she almost wiped out across the floor. She grabbed the railing of the stairs to keep from falling and just in time too. It didn’t even waste time flowing its body around her feet, it simply wrapped itself around one, and then reached several of its tentacles out to grab her other foot and pulled it in. She waddle-hopped over to the couch and plopped down, waiting for it to get its fill.

The monster was glad at this point that it had given up the stealth approach. It had no need at this point to hide or to slowly dissolve her socks. It could consume them quickly so it could get to the main course. It loved how it could taste her at its leisure now, and she was apparently powerless to stop it. Even if she brought another human to the house to try and chase it away or otherwise try and stop it, it would simply hide somewhere where they couldn’t reach. Once it dissolved her socks, it just rolled around in circles, tasting every inch of her skin from her calves to her toes, filling its body with her wonderful flavor.

That’s when she noticed that it looked even bigger than it had the night before; not by much but it was noticeable. Its whole body was now able to envelop both of her feet and ankles completely all the way up to her calves. The area that it was heating and massaging with its body had grown a little and so it felt even better than it had the night before. After several minutes, she was getting impatient but she knew better than to try and stop it. She had to simply wait until it was done. As she sat and waited, she figured she may as well relax and enjoy the pleasant sensations on her feet.

After a few more minutes, it finally released her and slinked off to hide again. She was happy that she had thought ahead to grab more socks because as she replaced the ones it had just eaten with what would have been her last pair, which she knew would almost certainly be gone by the morning. Again, she had to admit to herself that she loved the feeling of the soft material sliding up her smooth and perfectly clean skin.

* * *

This went on for a few days. Every day she would get home from work and the blob monster would immediately pounce on her, dissolve her socks and give her an involuntary foot bath and foot massage. She would then walk upstairs, put on another pair of plain white socks and go about her normal day. She had learned to cope with it and it didn’t even bother her before too long. In fact, she was beginning to enjoy it. She was beginning to truly appreciate the feeling of its warm body rubbing all over her feet, making them clean and smooth. She also noticed it growing slightly bigger day by day, but that didn’t bother her. It just meant it would warm and massage even more of her skin.

She had never liked anyone touching her feet. Ever. But this was different. It wasn’t another person that her natural shyness would prevent her from wanting to make contact with. It was just a blob, that seemed to be basically harmless. She also couldn’t do anything about it, so there was a large incentive to emphasize the good aspects in her mind.

Without even realizing it, she had grown to expect this rough but pleasant treatment. She would come home and just stand in her doorway, waiting for it to come and attach itself to her and do its thing. One night she found herself a little disappointed when it left after it was done with her. She felt like it hadn’t gone on long enough. She enjoyed the massage the warmth and now looked forward to it every day. She almost wished that it would wake her up when it ate her socks every night as she slept.

She didn’t know what it was, or where it came from but she almost looked at it like a pet at this point. She would talk to it like one.

One Sunday afternoon, after it had already taken her socks in the morning and it wasn’t likely to come for them again until the evening around the time she came home, she walked over to one of the vents. “Hey there, Taffy,” she had called it that one day and the name just stuck. It definitely seemed appropriate. “You hungry?” She waved her sock covered foot at the vent, trying to entice it to come out. “I want a foot massage and I don’t want to wait. Come on. Get over here.” She couldn’t quite get it to do this on command, but it would eventually come and give her another massage if she taunted it long enough.

The monster- or “Taffy” was a creature of habit and generally liked to feed at the same time every day but when it was tempted with its favorite meal like this, it was hard to resist. She noticed just how big it had become. It could practically envelop everything from her toes to her knees. It was getting pretty heavy, too. She could feel its weight pulling on her skin as it swirled around her legs. It still seemed to concentrate on her feet, not tasting or rubbing her legs as much but it still felt really nice.

Later that same night, at the typical feeding time, she had already been standing in the living room in their typical rendezvous spot for a few minutes waiting. She shrieked with laughter as Taffy came through the vent and quickly slid across the floor to grab ahold of her once again. She plopped down on the couch and leaned back, closing her eyes and enjoying it. Something felt off, though. She opened her eyes and looked down. Yes, strangely it had somehow shrunk. She was sure of it. Not only did it feel much lighter, but it was visibly smaller too, which she hadn’t really noticed when it came out but now that it could seemingly only reach part of the way up her ankle, it was pretty obvious. It was maybe half the size as it had been earlier in the day, even smaller than it had been when she first discovered it. She was beginning to wonder what had happened when she noticed something moving out of the corner of her eye.

“No way…” she said in disbelief. She saw another set of glowing eyes in the vent before another creature emerged and slid across the floor. She sat there in shock as the first creature moved to her right foot, sliding up her leg to her knee while massaging her. The second creature grabbed ahold of her left foot and did the same.

End

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