Grue On #2
Horror Fiction by Harold C. Holt
Embedded Files
That Sick, Churning Feeling
That Sick, Churning Feeling
By Harold C. Holt
Single moms sometimes walk a path fraught with trials, uncertainties and Monsters
Jemiah Walker saw it for the first time one late afternoon in the alley behind her South Loop apartment on Wabash. It was just a glimpse, a blur of dark hair and appendages dragging something behind it, something that mewled pitifully before going silent.
“C'mon, Mommy! You said 'mac-n-cheese' for dinner!”
Kayla, Jemiah's six-year old daughter, squeezed her hand and tugged it a little. Having completed a double shift at Mercy Hospital, Jemiah had just picked her daughter up from her school's aftercare program. She'd parked in the tenents' lot and was walking Kayla to the side entrance on East Cullerton Street when she passed by the alley that was full of dancing shadows whenever an L-train roared overhead.
Needless to say, the day had been long, and Jemiah was tired—so tired, she thought, that she was seeing crazy shit that wasn't there. However, she couldn't get that pitiful mewling out of her mind nor the sick, churning feeling out of her stomach. She regretted skipping lunch during that second shift. Like Kayla, all she could think about was getting some mac-n-cheese in her belly.
The elevator was out again, so they had to climb the stairs to Jemiah's third floor apartment. Once inside, Jemiah took extra care to lock both deadbolts.
“Go change out of your school clothes, Kayla. You know what to put on. Any homework today?”
“Two sheets full of adding! I can do it by myself, Mommy!” The child bounced into her room happy to have homework that she could do on her own. It made her feel like the teacher was entrusting her with a special task, like a secret agent.
Jemiah was certainly fine with that. Every moment of downtime when she didn't have to be doing a song and dance to hold Kayla's attention was a welcomed moment of peace. She could decompress while changing out of her scrubs then start dinner. The remainder of the evening progressed in ridiculously mundane fashion, the creepy scene from the alley already dissolving into the fatigued recesses of Jemiah's mind.
Jemiah was awakened by scratching and thumping against her bedroom window. She rolled over and glanced at her phone as it lay upon the base of her charger and flashed 3:22am in crimson digits. The scratching and tapping persisted. Jemiah tried to clear the fog from her head and told herself it had to be a bird. What else would it be on the third floor?
As she got up and crept toward her window, that sick, churning feeling in her gut was back. Initially, all she could see was the crisp downtown skyline which appeared like an immaculate silhouette enhanced by hundreds of tiny lights. But then she caught the dark shape in the lower-right corner. Jemiah doubled back and grabbed her phone. Using the white screen as her source of light, she flashed it at the dark shape. It had a face that was catlike but wrong: it had too many bright green eyes, eight of them. Instead of jaws, it had mandibles. Its long, barbed tongue slid across the glass like an obscene serpent.
Jemiah was not and had never been a scream queen, but that didn't mean her heart wasn't pounding; it didn't mean she wasn't trembling; it didn't mean her guts weren't churning. She staggered back, the carpet buffering her fall enough to avoid serious injury.
A mewling, sad voice called out to her: “Jemiah! Jemiah!”
She didn't hear it in her room so much as she heard it in her head. Jemiah scrambled to her feet and flashed its light at the window, but the terrible little creature was gone. She approached the window and saw trails of its sickening drool where it had lapped its tongue across the glass. There were also impressions like paw prints but with too many toes.
“Mama, I saw a kitty!”
Kayla wandered into Jemiah's bedroom wiping her eyes, trying to bring herself to full conscioussness.
Jemiah turned and approached Kayla, thinking her fall must have awakened the child.
“Whatchu doin' up, baby? Go on back to sleep now, okay?”
With a longing gaze into Jemiah's eyes, Kayla recounted, “There was a kitty outside my window, mama! It kept waving at me to let it in. It was funny and had lots of eyes. Can I keep it?”
“No, baby, no!” Her voice was too sharp; Jemiah realized she was scaring the child. She caught her breath and, in a calmer voice, she said, “Don't talk to it, and don't look at it. If you see it again, you come and get mommy, understand?”
Kayla didn't reply; she just nodded.
Jemiah hugged her daughter, unaware that Kayla was looking toward the window behind her mother, smiling faintly.
Jemiah drove Kayla to school the next morning despite the events of the previous night. Let the girl go to school and have a normal day, Jemiah thought. Between school and the aftercare program, there'd be plenty of eyes on her all day. However, Jemiah called in at Mercy Hospital and took a sick day. There was no way she could focus on work until she got a handle on whatever the hell was going on. But first things first.
She drove to Jewel on Wabash and Roosevelt Road where she purchased two 10-pound bags of rock salt. When she got back to the apartment, she went into Kayla's room and carefully sprinkled the rock salt along the windowsill. A silly-ass Creole superstition she'd learned from her mother who never stopped believing in the old Gullah ways. When Jemiah was a teenager, she used to laugh at her mother for spouting what Jemiah thought was such nonsense back then. But now, something about it just felt right. Keeping that creepy ghoul out and away was the immediate priority.
When she brought Kayla home, she would explain to the child that the salt along the windowsills was not to be touched. Kayla would ask 'Why,' of course, because that's what kids did; they questioned every damn thing you told them not to do, to which Jamiah would respond, 'Because I'm your mother, and I said so.'
Jemiah salted the windowsills in the bathroom and the kitchen. Then she entered her bedroom and momentarily froze when she saw the cat creature outside the window like before. Seeing it in broad daylight made it look even more horrid because in broad daylight, you couldn't tell yourself it was an illusion born of shadows or a trick of the moonlight. Here was the morning sun saying, Don't get it twisted; this motherfucka's real.
Jemiah was scared, but she pushed the fear down. That's what single moms did: found ways to move past the fears and the uncertainties. There were no safety nets or guarantees; there was only the shit you needed to get done. She glared at the creature outside her window and whispered, “What kinda devil are you?”
It crouched on the tiny ledge like a housecat, its ashy fur shimmering like oil. Its eight eyes blinked randomly, not at all in unison. Its mandibles hung slightly open, allowing its sickening tongue to dart in and out. Jemiah thought it was about to lick her window some more, but instead it spoke. Not aloud, but in her head, as it had the night before when it called her name. This time the voice was less mewling, more firm and deliberate.
“Your small one. Give her.”
Jemiah felt like throwing up, but she forced it down with the fear. “What do you mean?” she asked, realizing that she was doing exactly what she told Kayla not to do.
“You made wishes. Your wishes opened the hollows and woke us up. We are here for your small one. Now give her.”
“No, you're wrong. I... I never wished anything! Go away and leave us alone!”
“I said give her!”
In a sudden burst of speed, the chimera creature raised up and slammed into the window as spidery legs unfurled from its back, jointed like broken fingers. It hit the window three times, the glass finally showing a diagonal fracture line with the third impact. Jemiah moved as quickly as she could, pouring the salt along the windsill. The creature, suddenly frothing from its mandibles, scuttled disgustingly up the glass toward the roof and disappeared.
Jemiah wanted to sip a Moscato, and perhaps once this ordeal was over with, she would do just that. For the moment, she used her laptop to scour the internet for stories, sightings or urban legends that would help her figure out what she was dealing with. She came across several forums on Chicago folklore. Most discussed ghost stories centered on north and northwest side areas, but finally, buried in a southside folklore Reddit was a thread called The Spider-Cat of South Loop Hollow. A user calling himself minyakonyx posted only once back in 2015:
My sister saw it near Printer's Row, said it looked like a cat made of tar and long legs. It takes unwanted people, especially kids. If it visits you, don't talk to it; don't look at it. If it marks your windows, you belong to it. Only way to stop it from coming after yours is to burn a part of what it wants and drop it down the hollow.
“What hollow? And how the hell do I 'burn' what it wants? It wants my child!” Jemiah blurted out loud. This was suddenly not sounding like a very smart move. Nevertheless, she continued reading.
The hollow is how it crosses over. It forms when unfulfilled wishes tear transitional cracks between the realms.
The thread from minyakonyx received only two responses: one in 2016 and one in 2020. The 2016 response was from a user who'd gotten pregnant right after starting a Master's program at DePaul University. She was angry she'd have to drop out and put her career plans on the backburner. Then she was visited by the cat, and a week later she lost the baby. She hated herself and attempted suicide twice.
The 2020 thread described a man who began caring for his son after his ex-wife died during the Covid pandemic. He had complained about how fatherhood of a preteen was such an unexpected disruption of his reclaimed single life. A couple weeks after the cat-thing paid him a visit, his son went missing. When the boy's body was found in the back seat of an abandoned car, a victim of sexual assault post strangulation, the father attempted a rage-induced mass shooting, but was himself taken down by police.
Jemiah rubbed her temples as a migraine was forming. She was beginning to understand all too well what this whole thing was about. But was it fair in her case? Raising children is difficult for any couple, no matter how well planned out their parenthood is. So how is it that people expect single parents to not get frustrated and tired sometimes?
Did Jemiah sometimes feel trapped? Yes!
Did she sometimes wonder how much more she could accomplish if she didn't have a child? Yes!
You can love your child with all your heart, but that doesn't mean they don't still get on your nerves sometimes. That doesn't mean that sometimes you don't need a break from them. Jemiah sincerily believed that all her feelings and fears and doubts about motherhood were completely normal. She certainly did not hate her child nor did she want her child gone. Would she give her life for her child? Damn right she would, so who the hell was this demon to weaponize her stray thoughts brought on by occasional frustration and fatigue? What hubris made this demon think that she would simply give up her child? Jemiah felt her fear morphing into anger. Enough was enough. She was ready to show this spider-cat that it had definitely fucked with the wrong mama.
After Jemiah picked Kayla up from the aftercare program, she drove over to her mother's apartment building just off of 33rd and Rhodes in Bronzeville.
“Are we going to Gramma's?” Kayla asked.
Jemiah nodded. “Just for tonight, baby. I want you to show Gramma that you can do your homework by yourself like a big girl, okay? Mama needs to take a later shift tonight at the hospital.”
“But what about the funny kitty? I won't see it outside my window if I'm over here.”
“Baby, cats come and go all the time. When you're a little older, I promise we'll get you a cat, okay?”
“Okay, Mommy! You always keep your promises, so I believe you. But how much older? I'm almost seven now, you know!”
“I know, honey, I know. Let's talk about it another time, okay?”
Jemiah parked when she reached the apartment building. She turned to Kayla and said, “Stay in the car while I make a call, okay?”
Kayla nodded her head, only half paying attention as she thumbed through one of her school books.
Jemiah got out and called her mother before going up. “Hey mom? We're downstairs. Thanks for keeping her tonight. What? Oh no, I'm not going out on a date or anything like that. But I need her to stay with you tonight, so thank you. And I need to ask you a favor. Please don't laugh at me, but before we get up there, can you uhhh... pour salt along all your windowsills? I know, I know, I can't really explain it to you now, but its serious and I really need you to do that. Yes, I promise I'll explain everything tomorrow morning. Thanks, mom. I'll take her across the way to Jewel for a treat; that should give you enough time to salt the windowsills. What was that? Oh no, don't you worry at all. I promise you I've got this, Mama. Yeah, I got this.”
When logic made no sense, Jemiah fell back on her instincts, which hadn't failed her yet. With Kayla safe for the moment, Jemiah drove back home but paused when she passed the alley behind her apartment building, the alley where she'd first gotten a glimpse of the thing that wanted her daughter. It was in there, she told herself. The hollow, the transitional hole that had spewed out the disgusting creature in response to her own momentary, ill-thought wishes.
She parked in the tenents' lot then took the side entrance followed by a three-story climb to her apartment. She started digging through her dresser drawers while thinking about everything she'd read about the spider-cat. Knowing what she knew about her family's own cultural lore, she realized that although very specific, instructions on manipulating supernatural forces were hardly ever 100% literal. Supernatural magic needed room to move and wiggle, so to speak. Having realized that, Jemiah reached in back of one drawer then another until she finally felt it in her hand.
She pulled out a small, blue plastic denture case that contained, instead of dentures, four of Kayla's baby teeth. Whenever Kayla lost a tooth, Jemiah told her if she left it under her pillow for the Tooth King, he'd pay her a dollar for it while she was asleep.
“What's he do with all the teeth he gets?” Kayla had asked one night.
Jemiah said, “He builds things with them like club houses or toys for unfortunate kids in the neighborhood who don't have anyplace to live or anyone to care for them.”
“So he's kinda like Santa Clause? Yaaayy!”
Those were simple, happy times, Jemiah thought while staring at the teeth inside the container. Kayla discovered there was no such thing as the Tooth King around the same time she learned there was no Santa Clause. Thanks a lot, Internet.
Jemiah carried the baby teeth into Kayla's room where she quickly scanned the items on top of her daughter's dresser, settling on the girl's red comb, which had small clusters of Kayla's black hair between its teeth. She pulled all the child's hair off the comb and dropped it into the case with the baby teeth then snapped the lid down. She shook her head and scoffed out loud, cursing that creepy-ass spider cat for having her run around like some half-crazed conjure woman. She grabbed a matchbox from the kitchen cabinet along with her purse then went back out.
By 8:44pm, Jemiah was standing in the alley behind her apartment. Two L-trains heading in opposite directions roared while passing overhead, casting flickering shadows everywhere, glitchy phantoms that she imagined were coming after her child at the spider-cat's behest. The lights from the tenants' parking lot helped her to see beyond just shapes and silhouettes. She walked toward the spot where she'd seen the spider-cat that first time. There was a sizable metal dumpster there, and its lid was raised. The pavement suddenly felt wet beneath her shoes, which made no sense considering it hadn't rained in days. She removed the matchbox from her pocket, took one out and struck it along the friction side of the box, igniting the tip. Then Jemiah crouched low to illuminate the ground, which did appear moist and... crimson? Like blood? And there were tracks in it similar to the impressions the spider-cat had left on her window: paw prints with too many toes.
Jemiah cautiously approached the dumpster and peered over the side. It was empty, which was good because she was going to try and move it. The dumpster stood higher than her breasts but didn't quite reach her shoulders. She gripped it with one hand at the nearest corner and tried to shove it. With maximum effort, she managed to move it a few inches or so, its bulk scraping the ground with the effort. However, without proper leverage, she couldn't move it any further.
“Jemiah... Jemiah...”
That miserable mewling again. Jemiah felt her heart pinballing inside her chest as she looked behind her then all around for the spider-cat. Nothing on the ground as far as she could tell, at least not in her immediate vicinity.
“Where is she? Where is she? Give her and be freeeee...” The pitiful voice trailed off hauntingly.
This time Jemiah did not engage the creature, but the fact it was taunting her told her something that eased her mind just a bit: it apparently had no idea where Kayla was or it would be outside Jemiah's mom's place. Jemiah made a mental note to keep some rock salt in her home.
Having moved the dumpster just a few inches from the fence behind it, Jemiah used that tiny space to brace her back against the fence. She raised her right foot and pressed it against the dumpster with enough force to hold herself in place while raising her other foot off the ground. Her left foot joined her right, both her knees bent as she wedged herself between the two momentarily immovable objects. She strained, groaned, growled even as she finally managed to push outward with her legs, shoving the dumpster nearly two feet further away from the fence. Her feet dropped to the ground like those of a puppet whose strings had been cut. Momentarily weakened, Jemiah couldn't stop her body from sitting down with her back still against the fence.
Something about the ground was odd. Not only was it damp and cold; it felt unsteady as if it was shifting somehow, moving. Jemiah struck another match, casting light on what had been hidden beneath the dumpster. There was a hole in the ground, constantly morphing and oozing more like a biological orifice than a simple hole. Jemiah stood in awe, realizing that she'd found the hollow that minyakonyx character online had posted about, or at least a hollow. After all, who's to say there weren't several of these things? But this was the one behind her apartment, so Jemiah was satisfied that she'd found what she was looking for.
An L-train suddenly sped past overhead with its signature roar and prolonged baying of metal wheels against metal rails. Third rail friction caused sparks to generate here and there, a common sight to anyone accustomed to a city with elevated trains. However, the sparks made something visible overhead that Jemiah hadn't noticed earlier. There were translucent cobwebs overhead that momentarily glowed in the dark when the electric sparks hit them. And in the center of that web, a writhing, wriggling cat-headed shape with several green eyes and eight flailing appendages was lowing itself toward Jemiah by a web strand. It made a sound that alternated between mewling and snarling.
Jemiah felt that sick, churning feeling trying to return, but this time she wasn't having it. She quickly pulled the denture case from her purse containing Kayla's baby teeth and hair. She pulled her Black Opium perfume from her purse and sprayed the contents of the small case.
Jemiah glanced back up to see how close the descending spider-cat was: close enough that she felt like Little Miss Muffet in tha hood, except she wasn't running any damn where as long as the creature was a threat to Kayla.
Jemiah struck a match and dropped it into the denture case, which immediately ignited in flames. She shrieked as she let go of the case. It fell right into the shifting maw in the ground. An eruption of flame shot straight up as if from a blow torch, engulfing the spider-cat. Jemiah barely scrambled back out of the way in time. An odious funk momentarily filled the area as the hollow itself screamed, only to be drowned out by two overhead L-trains passing.
The elevated trains soon faded in the distance, and all unnatural sounds had gone silent. Jemiah saw that the ground was solid and no longer shifting. The moist surface looked like spilled liquid as opposed to a bloody, undulating membrane. Jemiah was sore and out of breath, but she believed she'd turned a corner and had seen this thing through to the other side. She left the alley and headed to the tenants' lot to get her car. On the way, she pulled out her phone to dial her mother.
Jemiah stayed at her mom's that night and slept in the bed with Kayla. The next morning before Kayla awoke, Jemiah told her mother everything, but she never mentioned any of it to Kayla. She and her mother agreed it was better if Kayla forget everything, and her mother could prepare an herb dissolvable in Kayla's orange juice that would help the child do exactly that. Indeed, Kayla seemed fine as Jemiah observed her closely over the next few days. No nightmares, no more talk about funny-looking kitties.
But that sick churning feeling wasn't done with Jemiah just yet. Sometimes late at night, she could swear she still hears it: tapping and scratching against the window. There's never anything there when she wakes up and looks out. She convinces herself it's just her imagination, and it most likely is... Until one day when it isn't.
Copyright (c) by Harold C. Holt, 2025
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