STALE AIR
Henry Moulder
No one believed Andrew when he told them the shadows were stealing his breath.
"It’s merely a manifestation of your fears over your asthma," his therapist stressed as always at the end of their weekly sessions.
But years of therapy had done little to instill any mental protection from the monstrous thing that had been stalking him since childhood. The terror that had overtaken his life for decades had its roots in one seemingly normal afternoon when he was nine years old. There were no omens or warnings Andrew could remember looking back on that day. It had been an average day in all aspects up until that horrific moment in the woods.
Andrew and his group of friends had decided that day to see who was the best at hide and seek. None of the others would have admitted it, but Andrew was the one who time and time again stumped them at this game. He had considered himself a master of hiding among the overgrown vines and trees at the outer edge of the school playground. Andrew always took special care to tiptoe as quietly as he could as he searched for his hiding spot.
Today was no different as he had found the perfect place: the hollow of an old oak tree. A thin-framed youth, Andrew had no trouble bending his body into spaces that would have normally been inaccessible. There was something odd about the depth of the darkness within this tree’s hollow though. It didn’t match the tree’s size.
His hesitance was quickly abandoned as he heard crunching leaves. His friends were nearly upon him. He darted into the hollow, contorting his limbs, and as he struggled to get comfortable, he caught a whiff of something odd in the air. It reminded him of the time he followed his father into his grandparents’ attic after their passing. The air hinted at the prolonged absence of human life within it. While Andrew did not have the words or years of experience to put these thoughts to any coherent form, he was disturbed by it. And as soon as he recognized that smell of stale, lifeless air, all he knew was that he had to get away from it. As he twisted and grunted to escape the tight confines of the hollow, he felt something breathe against his right arm.
That was the moment his lungs failed.
The world spun and panic overtook his senses. As he struggled to take a breath, stale air filled his lungs. He felt as if he was suffocating. No matter how many times he tried to breathe, that stale air brought no relief, only another strained gasp.
As his vision grew dim and consciousness began to slip away, Andrew caught a glimpse of something deep within the hollow. Something infinitely darker than the shadows of nature. Slitted yellow eyes floated quietly out from the darkness, their stare unblinking. The last sound he heard as he lost consciousness was a wet smack.
Andrew awoke to the steady beeping of hospital equipment and voices murmuring outside his room. His mother entered before he was fully awake, accompanied by a grey haired doctor whopulled up a nearby chair.
Andrew's mother placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Andrew, this is Dr. Birch. I know you might be feeling a little confused why you're in the hospital, but he's going to explain everything,okay?"
Andrew looked from her to the doctor, confused.
The doctor smiled back reassuringly. "I know what you went through was very scary, but this happens to other people, too. You simply had an asthma attack."
Andrew weakly asked what asthma was.
"Well..." Dr. Birch cocked his head. “Things like dust and pollen from plants can cause your lungs to stop working as well as they normally would. Your mother told me you were playing hide and seek during recess and you used a hole in a tree as a hiding spot. Do you remember there being a lot of dust in there?"
Andrew nodded. Remembering the yellow eyed thing caused him to breathe heavily despite the pain in his chest. He closed his eyes and tried forget about the horrible thing.
The doctor patted him on the shoulder as he stood up from the chair. "Don't you worry, we're gonna get you back out playing with your friends in no time." As the doctor turned to leave, he suggested to Andrew's mother that he rest up before he could leave the hospital.
"I'm going to go downstairs and get you something from the cafeteria, okay honey? I'll be back soon." Andrew's mother left, shutting the door behind her.
Andrew looked around the room. The breathing mask around his face had started to cause his skin to itch. As he removed the mask from his face, he caught a whiff of the stale air again.
Something wet smacked from the darkness of the bathroom.
The sound reminded him of one of his friends who had a nasty habit of smacking his lips while noisily chewing on his food. The smacking grew louder as something stirred in the shadows of the bathroom. Andrew dug his fingers into the mattress of his bed as he watched a pair of tiny yellow slits peer out from the darkness. The thing's bulbous head jerked up, and those yellow eyes bore into him unblinking as its mouth--or what Andrew could only imagine was its mouth--opened in the eerie shape of a grin. Jagged bits and pieces of what looked like bone reminiscent of teeth lined its gums, and as its maw widened, the stench of stale air became even more suffocating.
Panic rose in Andrew as he felt the very air seeping out of his body. Tears formed at the edges of his closed eyes as he struggled to get the mask back on his face. As the stale air faded with each breath, his courage returned enough for him to open his eyes again.
The breath thief was gone.
His hoarse screams carried through to the hallway, and a flood of nurses ran in to calm him. He tried to tell them what had happened, of the horrific thing that had tried to steal the breath from his body. The sharp pain from a needle left a burning sensation in his arm. He knew the thing was still somewhere nearby, waiting for him. He could smell the lingering scent of stale air as the drug slowly enveloped him in sleep.
The horror had only begun.
Decades went by as Andrew struggled with increasingly violent asthmatic episodes. He tried to counteract what he believed was his body's own inherent weakness by restricting himself to a regiment of exercise and a diet that left little in the means of indulgences. Despite the hours upon hours of exercise and constant visits to specialists for any potential remedy, Andrew could never escape that sense that the next breath he took would be his last.
Every asthmatic episode began the same way: he would always catch a scent of dry, stale air and panic as he struggled for breath. It was when the episodes reached their height of intensity that he would catch a glimpse of the yellow eyed darkness stalking him. Whether nestled in the branches of a tree or in a dark corner of the classroom where he taught science, it was always nearby,smacking together the outer edges of its grinning maw. He would compulsively struggle to find his inhaler despite knowing he always kept it in the same pocket of his pants.
He knew deep down this thing was more than some delusion. Logically, he knew it was only a nightmare from his childhood memories, but his instincts screamed otherwise. Despite years of therapy and medications, nothing had managed to banish the thing except a puff or two from his inhaler. He never had any answers until a nightly visit to the gym birthed an epiphany about the nature of the living nightmare that plagued him.
Andrew was running on a treadmill as part of his daily cardio when a survival show on one of the televisions caught his attention. Over the carcass of a dead deer, two hunters were discussing the best method for cooking it that night back at camp. As one of the men began to skin the deer, the other expressed concern that the meat might taste bad since the deer had survived the initial kill shot before being chased for another mile by the hunters. "You know how fear can season the meat?" The concerned hunter stated. The other hunter grunted concern as well.
Andrew slowed his pace as he thought back on the breath-stealing thing. Could it be? It was true that the thief only made itself known at the height of his panic during an asthma attack.
He pulled up a search on his phone in concerns to fear and its effects on the taste of meat. Many of the articles confirmed that the flesh of a frightened animal did taste different. Andrew's heart raced as he fumbled for his inhaler. Could this thing have been torturing him all these years just to season him to its liking? That's just fucking absurd, Andrew thought to himself, but the idea had already buried itself deep in the back of his mind. His hands trembled as he braced himself on the treadmill. He took another puff of the inhaler and wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
Despite the gnawing fears pervading his waking thoughts, weeks passed without any asthmatic incident. It was as though his asthma had miraculously disappeared. He began testing himself by pushing his limits at the gym or taking an extra hour outside to tend to his yard. A reserved hopefulness returned that he hadn't felt in years. He didn't know how long it would last, but he felt his luck finally had changed.
At the end of a two month asthma-free period, Andrew decided to finally act on a hiking trip he had planned since his youth. With little delay, he packed his hiking gear and made his way back to one of his favorite trails in the nearby state park.
Everything started well enough. He made the drive from his house to the state park in record time. The sun was barely above the horizon when Andrew parked and began to unpack his gear. It was a crisp fall morning with enough of a chill that goosebumps rose on his arms as he started along the trail. He breathed in the cool mountain air, smiling despite himself. As he breathed out, he watched the puffs of air escaping him. He felt renewed.
It was midday when he reached the halfway point of the trail. Unfortunately, he found himself at an impasse. The wooden bridge that crossed an overflowing creek had been washed out. A quick glance at the rushing water and its depth banished any thoughts of crossing without the aid of a bridge. Looking at the trail map, he found an older service trail a few miles from his current point. Time for a little off trail hiking, Andrew thought. Checking his compass and the map again, he set forward along the creek.
Hours passed. Despite the optimistic disposition he had at the beginning, the hiking trip had now become utterly daunting. His once joyful mood soon became overshadowed with anger upon arriving at the service trail.
The second bridge had washed out as well.
Cursing himself, Andrew turned to the sun and realized that he was quickly losing daylight. As he fiddled with the top of his water canteen, he caught a faint whiff of something he hadn’t smelled in months.
Stale air.
He stood paralyzed, wheezing as he scanned the trees for a darkened spot in the woods. The stench intensified as the first cough wracked his ribs.
He couldn’t breathe. The scent was overwhelming, choking him without respite.
He braced himself against the nearest tree and collapsed to the ground. Something was terribly wrong. The smell was worse than anything he could remember from the countless other assaults he had suffered from. Was his delusion amplified by this environment? His thoughts quickly turned back to his labored breathing as he fumbled through his backpack for his inhaler. He shook the contents onto the ground in such a frenzy that he nearly doubled over. As he fumbled through his loose possessions scattered across the forest floor, the sky suddenly dimmed.
The logical side of his brain prioritized the search for the inhaler, but he felt the overwhelming instinct to run away. With his vision obscured by the fading light, his hands scrabbled for the inhaler. He knew he had packed it. There was no way he could have forgotten it!
His teeth clenched between spasms of dry heaves from forced breathing. Finally his hands grasped the inhaler. He had barely enough strength to bring the it to his lips. Before he could take a single puff, a blunt force connected with his hands and the inhaler tumbled into the nearby brush. The force of the impact knocked him on his side as he rolled onto his back, gasping in agony. The bones of his right hand had been crushed.
His eyes darted about, searching for the source. Despite the fits of coughing, his eyes caught a glimmer of something yellow. He tilted his head away from the loam until he faced the shadowy mass looming directly over him.
A thick miasma snuffed out any breathable air. The light from the sun was extinguished by the impenetrable darkness nestled in the tree limbs above his failing body. A darkness with two yellow slits for eyes.
Andrew's last breath escaped as a hiss from his rigid body.
The breath thief lazily lowered itself down beside his body. Its maw opened and closed, smacking excitedly. Widening its mouth, the thing leaned down, lowering its dripping lips around Andrew's face. As it suckled on the fear-drenched flesh, a strange noise akin to a giggle escaped the creature.
The meat was perfectly seasoned to its absolute delight.
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