Where There's a Drip

Angela woke reluctantly from a deep, dreamless sleep and propped herself on shaky elbows.

"That tap," she muttered, "will be the end of this relationship."

The steady drip, drip, drip echoed through the stillness of the bedroom, impossibly loud for a simple bathroom faucet. She'd thought that before, on the hundred other occasions when Roger had left it dripping. She sighed deeply and looked down at her slumbering companion, shaking her head in exasperation.

"No way you're just sleeping through this one, Rog," she said.

With careful precision she ran a knuckle down the edge of Roger's ribcage, eliciting a satisfying yowl and an acrobatic body roll. Roger tumbled off the bed and hit the floor in a heap of arms and legs. A moment later his head appeared, wide eyes glinting in the faint streetlight glow that suffused the room through the drawn curtains.

"What happened?" he asked shakily.

"Nothing new," Angela replied. "You're simply paying the price for yet another neglectful session at the bathroom sink."

Roger was silent for a moment, and Angela could almost hear the gears whirring to life in his head.

"I turned it off, Angie," he said at last. "I’m sure of it. I swore last time it would never happen again." He cocked his head to one side, bewilderment on his face. "It can’t be."

He pulled himself awkwardly to his feet and shambled off towards the bathroom. Angela leaned back against the pillows, hands folded behind her head, and waited for the sound to stop. It didn't.

"Angie," Roger called. "Angie, come and take a look."

For a moment Angela's temper flared, but she caught herself and imposed calm. After all, she was already awake. Roger's stupid tricks couldn't disturb her rest any further. She took a deep breath, threw back the blankets, and got up.

"What?" she said.

"Just come."

"This better be good, Roger. I've just about had it with these middle-of-the-night scenes."

She squinted against the relative brightness of the bathroom lights, then entered the room as her eyes slowly adjusted.

"Well?"

Roger pointed. "I checked them both, the sink and the tub. Both off."

Angela looked for herself. No trick. Unless Roger had something more devious going on, which she truly doubted. The steady dripping rang in her head, louder than before. She glared at him.

"So what's going on?"

Roger shrugged. "It's not coming from here. Maybe it's raining outside, and there's a drip from the gutter system." He looked at her appealingly. "Can't you just apologize and let it go at that? I really need some sleep."

"Me too, but there's no bloody way I can settle down with that incessant dripping in my skull. Now let's find out where it's coming from and shut it up."

She led the way back into the bedroom and over to the window. A quick tug and the curtains drew aside, flooding the room with violet-hued streetlight glare. In spite of the lights, she could easily make out the crescent moon peering over the apartment block across the street.

"So, no rain," Roger said. "What about the kitchen?"

Angela gave an exasperated groan. "Roger, even when you're doing dishes, running the water full blast, if I'm up here in the bedroom I can't hear a thing. Use your head." She was getting angry again. There was nothing she could think of either that would explain the sound. She took Roger by the wrists and squeezed, frustration lending ferocity to her grip.

"Ouch." Roger pulled his arms free and shook them. "You've got to control your temper better, Angela. That's twice in the past five minutes, and I don't like it."

Angela ignored him and concentrated on the sound. Regular and consistent, every four or five seconds. Direction was difficult, but she was sure it was coming from above.

"Follow me, Roger," she said.

With Roger on her heels Angela headed into the hall and stood listening. Here the drip was even louder, and the direction more definite. She pointed up at the attic hatch.

"It's coming from up there," she said. "Go and get the stepladder."

Roger looked at her uneasily. "Angela, whatever it is, it can't be in the attic. There's nothing up there except insulation and rafters. It must be a trick of the echoes."

"Don't be such a chicken," Angela barked. "There's got to be an explanation for this, and we're going to find it. Now get the ladder."

It took Roger a full two minutes of clattering and banging to extricate the ladder from the back of the junk cupboard. By the time he’d manoeuvred it up the stairs Angela had turned on the lights and moved the hall table aside to make room for it.

"What's that?"

Angela followed Roger's gaze. Above the staircase was a large, irregular dark patch on the ceiling. The rosy pink paint looked roughened, the plaster uneven and puffy.

"I don't know," Angela whispered. She cleared her throat. "But let's find out."

"Angela, I don't like this."

"Whatever," Angela replied. She lined the ladder up below the trapdoor, and climbed. "Hit the switch for the attic light first, though."

Roger flicked the light on, then stood watching her, a look of apprehension on his face. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.

"Just be ready, Roger."

Angela licked dry lips, then gave the hatch a solid shove. It pushed free easily, and she threw it aside. A cloud of dust rose over the hole and she sneezed violently, almost losing her balance. Then she was up another two steps and peering over the rim of the hatchway.

The attic was, as Roger had said, nothing but rafters and layered pink insulation. Now that the dust had settled the air was dry and foul, with an acrid sour taste like a sulfur cloud. Angela looked in the direction of the ceiling above the stairs, and stared in fascinated shock.

Half a meter below the roof beams a huge drop of transparent pale yellow liquid was forming. The drop had swollen to a near perfect sphere roughly ten centimeters across before it fell free of its invisible source, landing a meter below in a widening pool atop the soaked insulation. As the drop struck, the entire attic rang with a resonant dripping. Angela covered her ears to shut out the sound. A white vapour curled lazily up from the surface of the pool, and Angela saw that the insulation as well as the beams in the impact area looked insubstantial, as if their shape was shifting and changing while she watched.

"Roger," she called. "Damn, Roger. What do we do?"

"Angela, what is it?"

Angela half-climbed, half-fell down the ladder and clutched him by the shoulders. "You're the bloody chemist. Figure something out."

Out of the corner of her eye she suddenly caught sight of a drop forming on the ceiling, and a tiny shriek escaped her lips. She cowered against the wall, unable to tear her gaze from the growing yellow drop, the thin smoke that crept across the ceiling like an exhalation of doom.

"I'm calling 911," Roger said. He ran into the bedroom, and Angela was distantly aware of a short conversation. Then he was back at her side, just in time to watch the first drop coalesce fully and fall to the varnished wood of the stairs.

"Holy Christ, Angela," he shouted. "What's happening up there?"

She turned wide, staring eyes to look at him. "I must be dreaming," she said. "This can't be happening. I'm just obsessed with that bloody bathroom faucet, and this is all a nightmare." She pointed a shaking finger up the ladder. "It's a giant tap, Roger. Except there's no tap. Only the drops, falling into a pool, and not just any liquid, either. The stuff’s smoking and steaming, and it stinks." She looked beseechingly at him. "Wake me up, Roger," she whispered. "I don't like this dream any more."

With a sound like wet mud hitting stone a section of the ceiling fell away, dropping onto the stairs and smoking as it lay. Yellow liquid poured after it, a sparkling stream that sizzled and hissed where it struck.

"Some kind of acid," Roger said quietly. "We can't get out that way." He pulled roughly at Angela's arm, hauled her into the bedroom, and closed the door. "Grab some clothes and get dressed. If that liquid so much as splashes us we're in real trouble. We'll climb out onto the garage roof, then drop down to the front lawn. You remember, our fire escape route."

"Roger, didn't you hear me?" Angela said. In the relative security of her bedroom her sense of reason was returning. "There's no source for that stuff. The drops are forming out of thin air. That's--that's impossible, isn't it?"

"Who knows. I'm not about to stick around and find out." He scrambled into a pair of pants and pulled on a sweater. "Come on, Angela. Let's move."

Angela stood by the dresser, turtle-neck in hand, and paused in mid action. She suddenly realized that for the first time since she'd wakened, the house was silent. The dripping had stopped. An eerie sense of peace seemed to wash over her, spreading slowly through her body. She relaxed, dropping the shirt soundlessly to the floor. Then she turned and made her way quietly to the door.

"Angela," Roger said urgently. "Angela, don't."

"It's stopped, Roger," she said. "I have to see what’s happened."

Cautiously she opened the door and peered out into the hall. The hole in the ceiling was more than a meter across, but it no longer dripped or smoked. The stairs were disfigured and two of the steps had been completely eaten away, as had a portion of the handrail, but the hissing and spluttering, the acrid odour, all these were gone.

Roger came up behind her and put an arm round her shoulder. The wail of an emergency siren sounded in the distance, growing closer. "You’re right. I guess the dripping has stopped." He studied the gaping ceiling and the hole in the staircase. "The question is, for how long? And Angie, what was that stuff? Any normal acid would still be at work, but what kind of acid does damage and then sublimes?” He looked Angela in the eyes. "Angie, who’s going to believe us when we tell them what happened?”

"Did you fix the leak?"

"Yes, sir, but I'm afraid some of the fluid passed through the spatial distortion field and materialized on the planet."

"Idiot! How can we hope to maintain the element of surprise with fools like you in charge of anything? Have you traced the coordinates of the transfer location?"

"It damaged the living quarters of two natives. They were unharmed. I'm sure none will suspect the source."

"If the attack plan is in any way compromised as a result of your incompetence, your life is forfeit. Do you understand?"

"As you say, sir."

"And the next time you or any of your sanitation staff allows a leak to occur, whether it breaches the spatial fields or not, you will be held fully responsible."

"Of course, sir."

"Now go. I have an invasion plan to finalize, and imbeciles to work with. We will be bringing the entire fleet through the spatial barrier within twenty four hours. See to it that none of the toilets leak again before we attack, or else."

"It will never happen again, sir. I swear it."

THE END

Bio: Bio: In the author's own words, "I like writing stories, and get really fired up when I enjoy what I have written. That's the best part of writing - you are, after all, most often your only audience. What's really inspiring is when you start writing about a character and they take over, almost literally writing the story themselves. Then you read it through and the characters and events surprise even you. Several of my stories have appeared in Aphelion, most recently A Winning Combination in February 2016. For more of my material, both prose and other media, visit www.rodentraft.com."

E-mail: Roderick D. Turner

Comment on this story in the Aphelion Forum

Return to Aphelion's Index page.