Chapter 5: The World Knocking

Chapter 5: The World Knocking

The texts went from worried to angry to pleading. All were delivered. None were read.

For three weeks, Becca existed in a state of escalating anxiety. After their disastrous coffee meeting, Molly had gone completely silent. She didn't answer her phone, which went straight to a full voicemail box after the first few days. She didn't respond to texts. Becca had even gone to the apartment twice, banging on the door until her knuckles were sore, shouting Molly’s name until a neighbor poked their head out to glare at her. There was no answer.

Becca tried to rationalize it, using the same clinical logic she’d offered Molly. She’s having a major depressive episode. She needs space. She’s pushing everyone away. But beneath the medical explanations, a cold knot of dread was tightening in her gut. She couldn’t shake the image of Molly’s haunted eyes, her frantic insistence on being haunted. And she couldn’t forget the strange, childish note Molly had shown her. She can’t help you. The memory made her shiver.

The call that finally broke through her carefully constructed denial came on a Tuesday morning, just as she was getting off a grueling twelve-hour shift at the ER. The name on the screen was unknown, but the number was local.

“Is this Rebecca Collins?” a gruff voice asked.

“It’s Becca. Who is this?”

“This is Mr. Henderson. I’m the landlord at 1450 Elm Street. You’re listed as the emergency contact for Molly Tate in apartment 4B.”

Becca’s heart seized. “Is she okay? What’s happened?”

“Well, that’s just it. I don’t know,” the landlord said, his voice thick with annoyance. “Rent was due last week. She’s not answering her door or her phone. Frankly, I wouldn't care, but other tenants are starting to complain.”

“Complain about what? Noise?”

There was a pause. “The smell,” he said, and the word was laced with disgust. “It’s… sweet. But wrong. Like someone’s been baking around the clock and letting it all rot. And the flies… there are flies buzzing around her door. If she doesn’t get in touch with me by tomorrow, I’m calling for a wellness check.”

The line went dead, but Becca stood frozen in her kitchen, the phone still pressed to her ear. Smell. Sweet. Rot. The words echoed Molly’s own descriptions, twisting them into something nightmarish. The dread in her gut became a cold, heavy stone. A wellness check meant the police. It meant official reports and public records. Whatever was happening with Molly, Becca knew, instinctively, that it needed to be handled with care, not with a battering ram. She had to get to her first.

Armed with the spare key Molly had given her years ago, a relic from a time of brunch dates and shared secrets, Becca drove across town. Her mind raced, preparing for the worst-case scenarios her job had trained her for: an overdose, a suicide attempt, a body that had lain undiscovered. She was a nurse. She could handle it. She could handle anything.

The hallway of the fourth floor was where the smell hit her first. It wasn't just sweet. It was a thick, suffocating wave of burnt sugar, cloying vanilla, and something else—a high, sharp note of chemical decay that pricked the inside of her nose. It was nauseating. Mr. Henderson was right; a small cloud of black flies buzzed lazily near the top of Molly’s door.

“Molly?” Becca called out, her voice sharp with a fear she refused to acknowledge. She banged her fist on the door. “Molly, it’s me! Open up!”

Only silence answered.

She slid the key into the lock. It turned smoothly. But when she pushed, the door only moved an inch before stopping with a hard clank. The chain. It was chained from the inside.

Molly was in there.

“Molly, I swear to God, if you don’t open this door, I’m calling the landlord back to break it down!” she yelled, her voice trembling.

Nothing. Not a footstep, not a voice. Just the incessant, low hum of the flies.

Panic overrode reason. Becca threw her shoulder against the door. Once. Twice. The wood groaned. On the third, desperate slam, there was a splintering crack and the chain ripped free from the doorframe. The door swung inward, and Becca stumbled into the apartment.

The scene that met her eyes stopped her cold. The air inside was thick and visible, shimmering in a jaundiced, syrupy amber light that filtered through windows coated in a translucent, crystalline grime. The smell was overpowering, a physical presence that made her gag.

Her shoe stuck to the floor. She looked down and saw that the entire entryway was coated in a thin, sticky film, like a layer of clear, half-hardened candy. With every step she took, her sneakers made a sick, peeling sound. On the console table lay Molly’s phone, its screen dark and dead. Next to it was the silver picture frame. Becca picked it up, her heart pounding. It was the photo from their hike. Her own face was a mangled void of scratches, a violent, hateful erasure. A guttural sound of horror escaped her throat. Molly hadn’t been hallucinating. This was real.

She forced herself forward, moving deeper into the apartment. The walls of the narrow hallway seemed to be sweating. Glistening trails of a thick, sugary liquid oozed from invisible seams, running down the wallpaper in slow, obscene drips. More flies were here, crawling on the sweet, weeping walls. It was like the apartment itself was diseased, decomposing.

She reached the living room and the full, unadulterated horror of the scene slammed into her.

In the center of the room was a thing. An object. At first, she thought it was a piece of grotesque furniture or a bizarre, homemade sculpture. It was a massive cocoon-like structure, a confectionery horror of hardened caramel, brittle spun sugar, and glistening, semi-translucent amber. It rose from the floor in a chaotic swirl of hardened sweets, shimmering hideously in the foul light.

And sitting atop it, like a king on a throne of decay, was a life-sized stuffed bear.

It was a monstrosity of burlap and stained canvas, a crude effigy stitched together with thick, jagged seams. A single, dull button served as one eye, and a pained, stitched-on smile was pulled into a permanent grimace. Its mismatched, candy-striped arm was extended, as if in welcome.

Becca’s medical mind, her anchor in every crisis, tried to assert itself, to categorize, to diagnose. Psychotic break. Pica. Hoarding. The words were meaningless, flimsy labels against the sheer, impossible reality before her.

Her gaze was drawn to the center of the amber mass, to a shape suspended within the hardened sugar. A human shape, curled in a fetal position. Becca took a stumbling step closer, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream. She could see dark hair, the pale curve of a shoulder, the outline of a body encased and preserved like a prehistoric insect.

And then she saw the glint of silver.

There, pressed against the amber shell where a chest would be, was a small, heart-shaped locket. Molly’s locket. Liam’s gift. A final, undeniable marker of the woman entombed within this sweet, rotting grave.

The floor seemed to drop out from under Becca. Her training, her composure, her entire understanding of the world, shattered into a million pieces. The smells, the sounds, the sticky floor, the weeping walls—it wasn’t a delusion. It was a nest. A tomb. And her friend, her funny, sad, broken friend, was the prize at its center.

She backed away, stumbling over something on the floor. It was the empty, waist-high cardboard box, its candy-striped wrapping paper lying in torn heaps around it. The final gift had been delivered.

The scream that had been caught in her throat finally tore itself free, a raw, ragged sound of pure, uncomprehending terror that was swallowed whole by the thick, sweet, silent air of the room.