Joan­na Jadoo

Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies

Agnes had nev­er re­al­ly been the most pop­u­lar girl at school.

Agnes was not the most pop­u­lar per­son at the of­fice ei­ther.

She was al­ways passed over, for­got­ten. Her col­leagues rarely re­mem­bered her name. Her good work per­for­mance was ig­nored and thus, she was al­ways over­looked for pro­mo­tions. Agnes feared that if she stood still for too long she would fade in­to the wall­pa­per or be­come part of the decor.

Agnes was an as­sis­tant to the head of mar­ket­ing for Hayzelle Cos­met­ics. That meant she fetched Mr. Caleb's cof­fee, sched­uled his ap­point­ments and took his calls. It al­so meant that Mr. Caleb him­self rarely no­ticed her... un­less his cof­fee was late. And there he was now...

Agnes had prac­ticed her speech for hours the pre­vi­ous night. She would get her boss to lis­ten to her ideas for once. She want­ed to be an as­set to the com­pa­ny.

She got up from her desk, smooth­ing her skirt and ad­just­ing her blouse as she ap­proached Mr. Caleb. She was men­tal­ly go­ing over what she would say as he was head­ing to his of­fice, stone-faced as usu­al, brief­case in hand.In a trem­bling voice, Agnes said: "Good morn­ing Mr. Caleb, I'd like to have a word with you about some ideas I ha... -

"I have an idea," Mr. Caleb in­ter­rupt­ed. "Get my cof­fee."And with that, he walked in­to his of­fice, shut­ting the door be­hind him. Agnes re­turned to her desk with a melan­choly sigh.That evening, as Agnes was walk­ing home and re­flect­ing over her day she saw some­thing... It was a small fly­er stuck to a pole. There was noth­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly pe­cu­liar or out­stand­ing about it. It was just a black and white fly­er: no pic­tures, and just the fol­low­ing words:

LIFE NOT GO­ING YOUR WAY? OVER­WORKED?

UN­DER­PAID?

OVER­LOOKED, PER­HAPS?

CALL PA­PA SAM­MAS AT 919-3359.

CAU­TION: ON­LY FOR THE TRU­LY DES­PER­ATE.

'On­ly for the tru­ly des­per­ate?' Agnes thought. 'How sil­ly!

An ad that in­sult­ed its tar­get au­di­ence.'

The fly­er in­stant­ly made Agnes re­call the spir­it-crush­ing in­ci­dent with Mr. Caleb ear­li­er that day. She was cer­tain­ly over­looked. She was most def­i­nite­ly un­der­paid. She had to be avail­able at all hours if Mr. Caleb need­ed some­thing done that was not im­por­tant enough for him to do per­son­al­ly. Agnes pushed these thoughts out of her head as she neared the apart­ment com­plex where she lived. She reached in­to her hand­bag, fish­ing for her keys and pulled out... the fly­er.

'What?' she thought. 'This can't be. I don't re­mem­ber tak­ing it with me .'Agnes rea­soned that she must have for­got­ten she had even picked it up.

Lat­er that night, she found her­self loung­ing on the so­fa in her apart­ment, tempt­ed to call. How could it hurt?

It would prob­a­bly be fun­ny to call.

She di­aled the num­ber.

The phone rang sev­er­al times with no an­swer.

Agnes hung up, ac­tu­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed.

She tried again. The re­sult was the same. She was re­al­ly ir­ri­tat­ed now.

"This guy is prob­a­bly a quack, any­way!" she fumed aloud, pac­ing back and forth in her liv­ing room.

'One more time,' she thought, pick­ing up the portable re­ceiv­er and di­al­ing the num­ber again...

A faint voice em­anat­ed from the re­ceiv­er... "You must re­al­ly want this," the voice said, sound­ing like a man of great age.

"Pa­pa Sam­mas?!?" Agnes said, sud­den­ly se­mi afraid.

"Well, you're call­ing my num­ber. What did you ex­pect?" Pa­pa Sam­mas replied in a mock­ing but not in a par­tic­u­lar­ly of­fen­sive way. The jovial tone of his voice put Agnes at ease. She was at a loss for words, though. What would she ask him?

"I have just the thing for you, my dear," he said.

"You do?" in­quired Agnes.Pa­pa Sam­mas chuck­led. "Take down this ad­dress." Agnes re­al­ized it was a street that she fre­quent­ed, and must have passed the old place dozens of times with­out notic­ing it.

He told her that spot was his of­fice.

"You don't have to come in. I will leave your 'an­swer' for you on the doorstep to col­lect."

The line went dead.

As Agnes said good­bye and hung up, she felt in­cred­i­bly un­easy about the vague na­ture of Pa­pa Sam­mas' ser­vices.

THE PAR­CEL

The next day dawned like any oth­er, but the Agnes that emerged from her one-bed­room apart­ment was quite dif­fer­ent. There was a ner­vous en­er­gy about her as she hur­ried along the pave­ment. She felt un­stop­pable some­how and yet there was a hint of fear min­gled in with this new-found con­fi­dence.

She found the build­ing Pa­pa Sam­mas had de­scribed. It was a shab­by, two-storey, brick house squeezed in be­tween two mod­ern-look­ing, glass-front­ed build­ings. The old house was in­cred­i­bly nar­row and looked worse by com­par­i­son with the two shin­ing glassy struc­tures sand­wich­ing it. In front of the lit­tle house, a small neat­ly-wrapped par­cel sat in­no­cent­ly on the doorstep. Agnes passed the build­ing with­out stop­ping and as she did this, she swept the par­cel up and un­der the jack­et she was hold­ing in her right hand.

She re­turned to her apart­ment with the par­cel. The clock said quar­ter to sev­en; she was not ex­pect­ed at work un­til eight. Still, she had got­ten dressed ear­ly so she could pick up the pack­age, take it home and then leave im­me­di­ate­ly for work. She could not have opened it up at work... some­one would see.

A cu­ri­ous Agnes slow­ly un­wrapped the brown pa­per par­cel.

Even in the pri­va­cy of her apart­ment, she felt she was be­ing watched some­how.

Un­der the brown pa­per wrap­pings, there was a box with a lid. She lift­ed the lid, her hands trem­bling.

What lay in­side the per­fect­ly in­con­spic­u­ous lit­tle box made Agnes re­coil in hor­ror.She stum­bled back­wards in shock, knock­ing in­to her cof­fee ta­ble and slump­ing for­wards on­to her knees.

Her hands clutched at her throat. She could not breathe.

She scram­bled to her feet and rushed to her bed­room and ripped her top draw­er right out of her dress­er and on­to the floor. She rum­maged in it fran­ti­cal­ly for her in­haler.

Grasp­ing it quick­ly, she in­haled a few puffs.

Soon, she felt her air­ways open­ing up. She could breathe again.

Her body was re­lieved but her mind was still rac­ing. She went to the kitchen for a drink of wa­ter... and then she re­mem­bered the box.

She dared not re­turn to her liv­ing room but she had to.

Agnes en­tered the liv­ing room as though she were a thief in her own house. She ap­proached the box guard­ed­ly and peered in­to it again. A tiny crea­ture lay slum­ber­ing, curled in a fe­tal po­si­tion in one cor­ner of the box.

It was half a foot in length not in­clud­ing its long curl­ing tail. Bare­ly two inch­es in di­am­e­ter, it had hu­man-like legs and arms. It al­so had a short tor­so and a round head with three minute horns on its crown. It was flesh-coloured and ap­peared to be naked.

Just then, Agnes no­ticed a note taped to the in­side of the lid of the box. She slow­ly took it. In bold, red let­ters, it said: Feed It­Clothe It­Don't Ever For­get It Agnes felt a chill run through her body. She went to her bed­room and ro­bot­i­cal­ly be­gan pick­ing through a box of her old things. She found an old Ken doll and re­moved its clothes. They were just the right size. She re­turned to the box. The crea­ture had awak­ened.

It stretched its lit­tle arms and seemed to be yawn­ing be­fore it looked up at Agnes with its beady, black eyes. Agnes tried to help it in­to the clothes, fin­gers trem­bling. Sur­pris­ing­ly, the crea­ture re­spond­ed with a hu­man-like in­tel­li­gence, prac­ti­cal­ly dress­ing it­self in the lit­tle white shirt and black pants. It seemed to strug­gle for a mo­ment and then sud­den­ly, its tail burst a hole right through the seat of the pants. Sat­is­fied, the new­ly clothed crea­ture stared ex­pec­tant­ly at her.

ON THE JOB

Agnes sat in the board­room at work, tak­ing the min­utes of the meet­ing as Mr. Caleb had in­struct­ed. Still, she could not for­get the lit­tle crea­ture.

Its rub­bery skin.... the way it wolfed down a hu­man-sized sand­wich...

She had left it in the box. It seemed quite hap­py in there and Agnes did not want it out of her sight. As afraid as she was of the crea­ture it­self, she was even more afraid of it get­ting lost. Agnes was shocked out of her men­tal rec­ol­lec­tion by the sound of her boss's voice.

"Didn't you have some ideas you want­ed to share with us, Agnes?" Mr. Caleb said with a smile. Agnes near­ly dropped her pen and pa­per. Had she en­tered a par­al­lel uni­verse? Mr. Caleb was smil­ing, speak­ing nice­ly to her, ask­ing her to share ideas and us­ing her name! Set­tling her­self quick­ly, she got out of her seat and head­ed to the front of the ta­ble where the white board was perched on the wall.

"I would love to, Mr. Caleb," the as­sured-sound­ing voice out of Agnes' mouth replied as she be­gan to dis­cuss the ideas she car­ried in her head from the pre­sen­ta­tion she had pre­pared, nev­er think­ing she would ever get to use it.

***

Agnes walked home with some pep in her step. The Hayzelle Cos­met­ics board had loved her ideas and planned to im­ple­ment a few of them right away. Mr. Caleb ac­tu­al­ly praised her to high heav­en and said a board po­si­tion could be hers if she played her cards right. Could that have re­al­ly hap­pened? It had seemed dream-like... even or­ches­trat­ed some­how, like mag­ic.

Agnes thought of the tiny crea­ture in the box.

What would hap­pen if she lost it or for­got to feed it? Would she go back to be­ing ig­nored maybe? Some­how, Agnes knew that would not be all that hap­pened if some­thing went wrong with her new lit­tle 'an­swer'.

***

The month pro­gressed like some­thing out of an in­spi­ra­tional movie.

Agnes changed her wardrobe and she got new friends.

Mr. Caleb pro­claimed that she was one of his best em­ploy­ees and then he said the words she had been dream­ing of.

He of­fered her a po­si­tion on the board.

She de­cid­ed she would for­mal­ly ac­cept it at the Hayzelle Cos­met­ics Brunch Meet­ing at the end of the month, where she would make a pre­sen­ta­tion. The brunch was a month­ly af­fair to which Agnes was usu­al­ly not in­vit­ed.

Things were cer­tain­ly im­prov­ing.The events at work, how­ev­er, were in sharp con­trast to what was tak­ing place at Agnes' apart­ment. The first day she re­ceived the crea­ture, Agnes had re­turned home to find her fridge emp­ty. It had been raid­ed. The crea­ture had cleaned out every­thing and re­turned to its box to sleep.

Every day, it ate more and more. Agnes shopped for gro­ceries dai­ly and the cashiers and su­per­mar­ket staff would give her weird looks as she pushed her cart.

At least the new salary she would be mak­ing would help pay for all this food.

The crea­ture nev­er spoke but some­how, Agnes al­ways knew what it want­ed and when it was hun­gry. The crea­ture had changed too. It was now al­most a foot in height and con­sid­er­ably stur­dier.

It was no longer thin and frail to be­hold.

***

Agnes came home the night be­fore her big pre­sen­ta­tion to find the crea­ture sit­ting on the so­fa. It sat rigid­ly up­right and stared her down as she walked through the door. She placed the gro­cery bags she had been car­ry­ing on the floor at the crea­ture's feet. It lurched for­ward, im­me­di­ate­ly rum­mag­ing through the bags, and scarf­ing down their con­tents. It had de­vel­oped a huge lik­ing for raw meat and dairy. Agnes backed away from it, slid­ing silent­ly in­to her bed­room.

Could she re­al­ly keep this up?

***

On the day of her pre­sen­ta­tion, Agnes shone.

She daz­zled every­one at the board meet­ing, re­ceiv­ing a huge round of ap­plause from the board mem­bers as she took her seat at the end of her pre­sen­ta­tion. At the brunch, she min­gled with every­one ef­fort­less­ly. She was charm­ing and com­mand­ed at­ten­tion. She was not the old Agnes at all.

Mr. Caleb in­sist­ed that Agnes join him and some of the board mem­bers for drinks af­ter work, and they went to an up­scale restau­rant and bar.

He paid for every­thing, in­clud­ing her cap­puc­ci­no.

Agnes was glee­ful.

Still on a high, she sud­den­ly be­gan to feel a lit­tle bloat­ed from the drinks and the brunch ear­li­er. Her ap­pro­pri­ate­ly-timed laugh­ter in re­sponse to one of Mr. Caleb's jokes was cut short as she ex­cused her­self to the ladies' room. Her stom­ach lurched painful­ly, and she bent over the toi­let bowl, prompt­ly throw­ing up every­thing she had eat­en that day.

She won­dered if she had food poi­son­ing, for the pain in her stom­ach grew more in­tense and boil­ing hot, spread­ing through her un­til her whole body was on fire. She was so... hun­gry.

It dawned on her that she was not hun­gry at all.

It was!

***

She hur­ried home af­ter an apolo­getic good­bye to Mr. Caleb and his col­leagues.

She burst through her apart­ment door car­ry­ing the gro­ceries she had rushed to pur­chase at a 24-hour su­per­mar­ket.

It was way past feed­ing time. The now two-foot tall crea­ture pounced on her as soon as she en­tered; grab­bing the plas­tic bags and rip­ping them open, prac­ti­cal­ly in­hal­ing the food items in­side.

It shud­dered as it fin­ished eat­ing. Was it enough? Agnes silent­ly hoped it was.

The crea­ture turned its cold, black eyes up­on her. It was still hun­gry. The crea­ture tack­led her to the ground.

Agnes screamed as she felt its tiny dag­ger-like teeth sink in­to her fore­arm. She man­aged to shove the crea­ture off of her with all her might, re­al­is­ing that the crea­ture had a great phys­i­cal strength that did not cor­re­spond with its small size.

She rushed out the door and slammed it be­hind her, lock­ing the crea­ture in the apart­ment. She could hear the thing gnaw­ing at the door. It would not be trapped there for­ev­er. She ran away from the apart­ment com­plex and down the street, hunched over on the pave­ment, un­sure of what to do.

Sud­den­ly she re­alised she was near the place where she had first seen that fly­er.

A light bulb switched on in her head. She pulled out her cell phone, pray­ing that she still had the num­ber as she searched through her con­tact list. She called the num­ber. It rang and rang.

A small bush fur­ther down the road rus­tled.

Agnes' whole body trem­bled.

She end­ed the call and tried again.

The crea­ture she had left in her apart­ment sud­den­ly emerged from the bush, its tail swish­ing from side to side as it ap­proached her.

There was no an­swer.

The street lamps flick­ered on and off. The crea­ture squealed, an un­nat­ur­al sound.

Agnes dropped the phone in fright, and clam­bered to pick it up again. She di­aled the num­ber a third time as the crea­ture lunged at her. The phone was flung out of her hand on­to the pave­ment as she fell back­wards.The crea­ture let out a blood­cur­dling snarl.

Be­fore every­thing went black, she heard Pa­pa Sam­mas' voice com­ing from the phone on the ground: "Don't ever for­get it."

EPI­LOGUE

Agnes spent a few weeks in the hos­pi­tal. She was treat­ed for he­m­or­rhag­ing due to her in­juries. The doc­tor ques­tioned her about the seem­ing­ly hu­man bite marks, but she told him she didn't re­mem­ber any­thing.

She nev­er re­turned to the apart­ment. She quit her job and moved back in with her par­ents. She was go­ing to take the time to 'ful­ly heal' as her par­ents and the doc­tor had sug­gest­ed.

As soon as she was set­tled in, she called Pa­pa Sam­mas.

She want­ed to be sure it would not come back for her.

"The buck is be­ing pre­pared to go to an­oth­er own­er," Pa­pa Sam­mas said. "Don't wor­ry. As soon as it was hand­ed over to some­one else, it would for­get its pre­vi­ous own­er." Agnes found it strange­ly amus­ing that the crea­ture could be made to for­get her.

Af­ter all, she would nev­er ever for­get it.