It Came From the Roommate’s Beard

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J.B. Stone

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His beard was so massive, so brooding, so thick, that one could fit more than a dust pile of fugitives from a vacuum bag, but a whole damn buffet. Daryl seemed to be more beard than man. Every time I would get back from another shift dealing with the combination of delights and randos, bartending at The Pink on Allen, it wouldn’t matter if I was coming back from work at 4:30AM or waking up at 11AM, I would see him half-naked on the living room sofa, his beard draped down to his crotch, and watch him feed his beard. At first, I saw maybe corn nuts, tootsie pops stuck to it, but there were times I would see the food sink in his beard like children trapped in quicksand. This wasn’t just an accident, no aftermath of crumb, no unintended spillage. He would literally scoop cereal, and milk into his beard. He would feed it spaghetti, ramen stir-fry, Grillos hot dill pickles, leftover wings from Gabriel’s Gate. 

There were nights I would stare in horror watching tentacles peer out from this thick beard which seemed to grow longer and longer each and every day, a wormhole almost illuminating the room in blue light. I wasn’t sure if it was a hallucination brought about from the eerie calm of shroom tea, or maybe the result of insomnia, but even I can only hold so much imagination until it morphs into a reality. One night I saw an entire cow’s carcass in our living room. Before I even had a chance to react and scream what the fuck, his beard opened a gate of sharp, circular saw teeth, leech-like jaws, set in several rows, and of course those long cephalopodic tentacles. The beard pulled in the poor cattle, slowly engulfing the cow like a meat processor.

The following night, sometime around 11:20 PM, I confronted Daryl, while he stared aimlessly at the TV for the umpteenth hour of the umpteenth day. There was a jaundice look baggaged across his face. I snapped my fingers like a wake-up call, in a fervent rage and panic that was longing for closure.  

“Okay dude, we need to talk, better yet, WE’VE BEEN NEEDING TO TALK,” I demanded. 

“Sure, I know what this is about, you’re looking to kick me out,” he said, simultaneously rolling up a fat joint of weed. “Mind if I smoke as we talk?” he continued, nonchalantly, as if he’d had this same conversation a hundred times before. 

He lit up his joint, making it clear his question was rhetorical. 

“Well, ya sort of beat me to the punch man, not really anything else to discuss. In fact, the only reason I didn’t call the cops—” 

“—Because you saw the monster and if you called the cops, they’d think you’re crazy,” he blows his smoke into the ceiling, still more calm and collective than any normal human being should be.  

“Yeah… so wait? What the fuck is going on? Has this been an issue with past roommates and landlords. And what is that goddamn thing crawling out of your beard?” I shouted.

“You got a lot of questions. Understandable. Okay stand back now, like all the way back.”

I moved to the front of the archway, at the very end of the living room, only to tremble at the sight of it all. The monster slowly spidered and slugged its giant self out of the beard, a pinwheel anatomy of tentacles, a giant mouth of teeth in the place of torso and a neck. As the monster moved closer, like a tumbleweed from hell, I didn’t book it, I was too scared to even back away, let alone run. My knees buckled and I collapsed to the ground, turtling myself, hoping I could hunch my back into a shell, pretending my spine was armor no sword-sharpened teeth could pierce. 

The monster moved in, a steam of heavy, bullish grunts from wherever its snout was, snorting and salivating at the taste of what my flesh would bring.

Daryl, then approaches me, menacingly, as I cower in the corner of the archway. 

“Like him? I know I do. Not sure what species he is, nor the name of the dimension he hails from, but I woke up one day, and his home world opened up in my beard. I have no idea what mystic force brought him into my life, but he’s been with me for a few years now. You may seem him as an ‘it’ or a ‘thing,’ but for me, his name will always be Max,” he rambles, laughing, in between his sick little monologue. 

Daryl takes off his aviators, and his eyes open wide, crazed, revealing his pupils colored in cosmic purple. 

“Ever wonder how I still managed to get my references? Max! Ever wonder why you rarely see me plugging away at my WFH job? Max! Max isn’t just my pet, nor my protector, he’s my family, and you don’t fuck with family! Max realizes that! I could give so many examples, but you probably get the point by now. Right?”

“R-r-r-right.”

“Glad we understand each other.”

After that altercation I never said another word to him. I knew the evil on the other side of my bedroom was there, and there was nothing I could do about it. Every night I will hear the snarls and growls pummeling through the sound barrier of my walls. I will hear the monster in Daryl’s beard feasting, engulfing the whole carcasses of dead livestock to munching and crunching sleeves of Ritz crackers and Oreos. All I can do is listen; all I can do is allow my silence to be bought, lest I’m next on the monster’s menu. All I can do is wallow. All I can do is shake. I’m just glad this is a one-year lease, because if they aren’t out of here by June 1^st, I know I’ll be.

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J.B. Stone dressed as the older Steven Universe.

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J.B. Stone (he/they) is a Neurodivergent/Autistic spoken word poet, teaching artist, critic, writer, wannabe wicca, and Steven Universe impersonator, from Brooklyn, NY, now residing in Buffalo, NY. They serve as Founding EIC/Reviews Editor at Variety Pack and reads flash fiction for Split Lip Magazine. Nominated for both Best Small Fictions and Best of the Net, J.B. ‘s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Star*Line, Coffin Bell, The Citron Review, Flashback Fiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, among other spaces.

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