Late one evening, just before bedtime, the phone rang and rang, and nobody answered it. Nobody had answered it the previous day, or the day before it. Its petulant call echoed around the hallway as Rot watched it. Something had to give. Desmond looked through his ancient eyes at the bare wall, running his gaze over the cracks in the paint and plaster from his chair, following the labyrinth of murk to the floorboards, along the woodworm infested planks to his feet. The rot had started with him and had cobwebbed itself though the room and into the shell of the house. Waiting to burst through into the street and the prevailing world. It amassed at the door frame, a miasma of black mold given humanoid form as it pounded against the oak, rattled the brass handle and howled. Turning from the door it crept back to its captor. Talons raking the walls leaving deep gashes of flowering putrescence in its wake.
“You’re back, can’t leave can you, Rot?”, spittle sprayed from his laughing mouth spattering the tower of muck as it stalked into the room. Filth laden fibers flexed an imitation of muscle as arm recoiled to strike the ageing man but howled in abject pain as the arm flinched, just an inch from Desmond’s face. “Silly little shit, can’t harm your vessel. Can’t harm Desmond.” More laughter filled with hateful derision echoed filling Rot, making it ache with longing to be gone from this house and from the company of that insipid man.
Days followed nights, year followed year, he just wouldn’t die, he just laughed in his chair. A throne where he had done the impossible and cut the decay and death from his body. Now immortal but still chained to his Rot as Rot was tethered to him. It roamed the big house for any escape but none was found.
The house looked empty, curtains drawn. No car parked in the driveway but a dim light flickering through the heavy downstairs fabric. Joe mused that someone had probably gone away, pulled the curtains and left the TV on to give the house a pretense of bring lived in. An old ruse which kept away a lot of unprofessional burglars but Joe was a professional of some repute at least in his own mind. He had rang the phone listed in the directory several times over the last three days which was never picked up. Joe had tutored under his father Gary, who had learned his craft in many of his sojourns to Armley Prison, in cells swapping stories, work practices and the occasional unromantic indulgence. Luckily with the tutoring from Gary, Joe had never had a holiday booked for him at Armley. He was careful to avoid it and only took risks when needed.
A crowbar jimmied the back room sash window as it grated wood against swollen frame, jerking open allowing Joe entrance and the stale air an exit. A room devoid of carpet and furniture but the floor regaled itself in the finery of dust as it gently plumed with each footstep towards the beaten door. Edging the door open to let a crack of light spill into the room as Joe looked out into the hall and down toward the room at the end. He could see a figure standing menacingly over a chair howling at its host, stomping angrily away and climbing the fetid stairs. Steadying his breath and slipping out from his hiding place, surely there would be something valuable in the room?
Desmond whipped around in his seat as he heard the backroom door wale and creak as the young man edged out into the hallway “Oh lad, you shouldn’t have come here. Nothing here but Desmond and Rot. Rot! Rot! We have a guest. Come here Rot.” Black saliva dripped from Desmond’s lips as he wheezed looking at Joe, his eyes gaping wide as something leapt behind the unassuming burglar with a moist quiet pad of mossy feet. It opened its maw, emitting a violent scream watching a shaking form turn to face it towering over them. The scream muffled all noise as it turned to a cackle leering at the poor ashen form, slack jawed and eyes agog. Rot flowed into him, seeping into each pore, drowning each orifice with acidic puss. Virulently taking over his new vessel as the final cords tethering him to Desmond were cut, no longer tied to that bag of bones his chain to immortality but now the instrument of his death. Rot/Joe smiled as they advanced on the old man.