At eight thirty, Alexandria Nichols West woke up with a bad hangover and a worse case of bedhead.
At ten thirty, it ate her neighbour.
And this was what happened afterwards. Later.
***
By midnight the last of the fires had gone out, but the smell remained: burnt and stale and acridly thick around the nostrils. It was a smell with teeth, that could chew at you as it went down your esophagus.
Which was very merciful because the smell took your mind off the sights. If you put enough mind into gagging you could pretend the thick, tangled locks spilling from every window, doorway, and ventilation duct were mould or something normal you’d condemn an apartment building for.
One of the thicker snarls writhed insolently at Marjorie as she sat outside the front stoop. She flicked a pebble at it, and it ate it.
“Another six inches in the last half-hour,” she said. And scooted backwards a few more feet. “Still not slowing down.”
The snarl, its meal complete, sidled closer. She threw the nearest clump of burning hair at it and watched in satisfaction as it receded to sulk.
“Goddamnit.”
Marjorie looked over her shoulder to see Bruce throwing his new cell phone at the crumbled remains of the sidewalk, where it became his old phone. Perspiration streaked his face and combed the soot from his white moustache.
“No luck?”
“No. The landlord says it’s a matter for the health inspectors, the health inspectors say it’s a matter for the cops, the cops say the fire department needs to come in and check the building before they’ll do anything about it, and the fire department said we should consult with pest control.”
“And pest control?”
“I can’t phone them; my son-in-law works there.”
“Oh. I could do it.”
“Not anymore you can’t. Unless you want to go back in there for your phone.”
Marjorie looked back in there, but not very far: the knotted coils and curls obstructed all light and dark leaving only hair. “No, I don’t think so. Probably eaten by now anyways.”
“Good. He wouldn’t be any help, trust me. Little snot-nosed creep. Don’t know what Donovan saw in him anyways. ‘Oh dad, we’re in love and we don’t care what you say’ yeah well your husband doesn’t know a glue trap from a humane trap from a trapdoor damnit. He couldn’t catch this thing if we paid him.”
“If he’s in the city’s pest control we are doing that.”
“And he never listens, either. We’d tell him it’s a giant hairball and he’d just ask us to make sure it isn’t rats either or a rat king or some other nonsense.”
“How horrible that would be. Imagine.”
“And I’ll tell you what: he always gets me a sweater at Christmas. A sweater! Do I look like I’m going to freeze to death without a sweater? Do I look that old to you?”
“Mind your foot.”
“Because I don’t care when I turned sixty or not; I’m still wearing t-shirts when I go on my runs. And I like that! I like it that way! None of this fuddy-duddyizing hint-hint bullshit!”
“There’s hair on your leg.”
“He tried to buy me a spa kit for that too,” said Bruce offhandedly. “Hah! That’s insulation, that is. Trying to freeze me out so I’ll wear his damned sweaters and sweatpants and headbands. The gall.”
“Bruce.”
“I don’t need him making judgments about my lifestyle like that. Sure, Donovan gets more done now that they’re married, but that’s no call to meddle in the personal affairs and personal attire of your eld-”
“BRUCE. The hair’s got you.”
Bruce looked down at the creeping strands slowly engulfing him. “Eh? Whatever. Now in MY opinion, Jordan’s problem was that his parents were-”
The hair took Bruce and led him away. Marjorie checked his phone, but it was indeed broken.
No phone. No neighbours. No house. Nothing much.
The building shook and shuddered and disgorged a collection of bones and one bedraggled straggler.
“Hey Angie.”
“Hey Margie. So, how’s everything doing out here?”
“Nobody cares, really. How’s everything in there?”
“Awful. The hair ate everyone except me.”
“Why not you?”
“It doesn’t like my shampoo.”
Marjorie sniffed Angie’s hair. “Yeah, can’t blame it. What is this?”
“Expensive.”
“Well, that’s your problem.”
“Not a problem today, is it?”
“Right.” Marjorie prodded the bones. “So…is this everyone?”
“Just about. See? There’s Clive’s titanium hip. And Janice’s braces. And I think this must be Holly’s scapula – see the deep muscle scarring?”
“Yeah. Wow, all those weights really did a number.”
“No fooling. Did anyone else come out?”
“Just me and Bruce. It just got Bruce because he was too busy complaining.”
“It’s what he wanted.”
“It really, really was.” Marjorie squinted into the squirming depths of the apartment building. “Hang on – didn’t you say everyone else got eaten?”
“Yeah.”
“Then who’s that? Did they hide in there somehow?”
“No, that’s Alex. Hey, Alex!”
The twitching, contorting figure jerked one arm outwards and slapped it twice at the air, serpent-quick.
“Doing alright in there?”
A violent spasm shook her shoulders, her skull immobilized by the crawling nightmare that filled the building.
“Think that’s no. That a no, Alex?”
What could have been a chin wobbled.
“Okay I think that’s yes. Yes, it was no. Sorry, it’s a little hard right now.
Chinwobble.
“Want anything? Food?”
Chinwobble.
“Alright. Should we bring it in, or-“
HeadspasmheadspasmHEADSPASM
“Okay we’ll just leave it out here. You should be up to it within an hour or two, right? The rats shouldn’t get it; I think it ate ‘em all.”
Chinwobble.
Angie turned back to Marjorie to find that she was deluged in mail. “What’s happened?”
“Bills,” said Marjorie. “Cell phone, internet, electricity, insurance, rent, so on and so forth. I think we’re probably getting penalized for this too somehow.”
“Hmm. Think they’ll accept the building being eaten by hair as a reason to not charge us?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, if we’re paying we might as well get something out of it. Hey, Alex!”
In the distance, the skeletonized form jerked.
“Can we crash in your place for now until we get on our feet again?”
A pause for thought, then chinwobble.
“Cool. Should we come in, or-“
Headspasmheadspasmheadspa-
“Okay okay point made. Well, can you just dump some of the bigger debris outside then? We’ll make a little hut or something.”
“See if you can find a working laptop,” urged Marjorie, “I’ve got sixteen hours of data entry due by tomorrow night or I won’t be able to make rent on this little hut.”
“Sure thing. Hey Alex!”
***
At seven-thirty-five PM the hair consumed the rest of the city.
Marjorie did not receive her paycheque, and as such, missed rent. This reflected poorly on her finances.