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Showing posts with label Horror Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Horror Stories. Show all posts

LACRIMOSA

The woman is a mound of dirt and rags pushing a squeaky shopping cart; a lump that moves steadily, slowly forward, as if dragged by an invisible tide. Her long, greasy hair hides her face but Ramon feels her staring at him.

He looks ahead. The best thing to do with the homeless mob littering Vancouver is to ignore it. Give them a buck and the beggars cling to you like barnacles.

“Have you seen my children?” the woman asks.

Her voice, sandpaper against his ears, makes him shiver. His heart jolts as though someone has pricked it with a needle. He keeps on walking, but much faster now. It isn’t until he is shoving the milk inside the fridge that he realizes why the woman’s words have upset him: she reminds him of the Llorona.

He hasn’t thought about her in years, not since he was a child living in Potrero.

Everyone in town had a story about the Llorona. The most common tale was that she drowned her children in the river and afterwards roamed the town, searching for them at night; her pitiful cries are a warning and an omen.

Camilo, Ramon’s great-uncle, swore on his mother’s grave that he met this ghost while riding home one night. It was the rainy season, when the rivers overflow and Camilo was forced to take a secondary, unfamiliar road.

He spotted a woman in white bending over some nopales at the side of a lonely path. Her face was covered with the spines of the prickly pears she had savagely bitten. She turned around and smiled. Blood dripped from her open mouth and stained her white shift.

This was the kind of story the locals whispered around Potrero. It was utter nonsense, especially coming from the lips of a chronic alcoholic like Camilo, but it was explosive stuff for an eight-year old boy who stayed up late to watch black-and-white horror flicks on the battered TV set.

However, to think about the Llorona there in the middle of the city between the SkyTrain tracks and a pawn shop is ridiculous. Ramon never packed ghost stories in his suitcase, and Potrero and the Llorona are very far away.

• • • •

He sees the homeless woman sitting beneath a narrow ledge, shielding herself from the rain. She weeps and hugs a plastic bag as though it were a newborn.

“Have you seen my children?” she asks when he rushes by, clutching his umbrella.

Nearby a man sleeps in front of an abandoned store, an ugly old dog curled next to him. The downtown homeless peek at Ramon from the shadows as he steps over old cigarette butts.

They say this is an up and coming neighborhood but each day he spots a new beggar wielding an empty paper cup at his face.

It is disgraceful.

This is the very reason why he left Mexico. He escaped the stinking misery of his childhood and the tiny bedroom with the black-and-white TV set he had to share with his cousins.

Behind his house there were prickly pears and emptiness. No roads, and no buildings. Just a barren nothing swallowed by the purple horizon. It was easy to believe that the Llorona roamed there.

But not in Vancouver which is new and shiny, foaming with lattes and tiny condos.

• • • •

The dogs are howling. They scare him. Wild, stray animals that roam the back of the house at nights. His uncle told him the dogs howled when they saw the Llorona. Ramon runs to the girls’ room and sneaks into his mother’s bed, terrified of the noise and his mother has to hold him in her arms until he falls asleep.

But when he wakes up Ramon is in his apartment and it is only one dog, the neighbor’s Doberman, barking.

He rolls to the centre of the bed, staring at the ceiling.

• • • •

Ramon spots the woman a week later, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“My children,” she asks, with her cloud of dirty hair obscuring her face. “Where are my children?”

Nauseating in her madness, a disgusting sight growing like a canker sore and invading his streets. Just like the other homeless littering the area: the man in front of the drugstore that always asks him for spare change even though Ramon never gives him any, or the gnarled man beneath a familiar blanket, eternally sleeping in the shade of the burger joint.

The city is heading to the gutter. Sure, it looks pretty from afar with its tall glass buildings and its mountains, but below there is a depressing stew of junkies and panhandlers that mars the view. It reminds him of Potrero and the bedroom with the leaky ceiling. He stared at that small yellow leak which grew to become an obscene, dark patch above his bed until one day he grabbed his things and headed north.

He felt like repeating his youthful impulsiveness, gathering his belongings in a duffel bag and leaving the grey skies of Vancouver. But he had the condo which would fetch a killing one day if he was patient, his job, and all the other anchors that a man pushing forty can accumulate. A few years before, maybe. Now it seemed like a colossal waste of time.

Ramon tries to comfort himself with the thought that one day when he retires he will move to a tropical island of pristine white beaches and blue-green seas where the wrecks of humanity can never wash ashore.

• • • •

He’s gone to buy groceries and there she is, picking cans out of the garbage in the alley behind the supermarket.

Llorona.

He used to send a postcard to his mother every year when he was younger, newly arrived in the States. He couldn’t send any money because dishwashing didn’t leave you with many spare dollars and he couldn’t phone often because he rented a room in a house and there was no phone jack in there. If he wanted to make a call he had to use the pay phone across the street.

Instead, he sent postcards.

Carmen didn’t like it.

His sister complained about his lack of financial support for their mother.

“Why do I have to take care of mom, hu? Why is it me stuck in the house with her?” she asked him.

“Don’t be melodramatic. You like living with mom.”

“You’re off in California and never send a God damn cent.”

“It ain’t easy.”

“It ain’t easy here either, Ramon. You’re just like all the other shitty men. Just taking off and leaving the land and the women behind. Who’s gonna take care of mom when she gets old and sick? Whose gonna clean the house and dust it then? With what fucking money? I ain’t doing it, Ramon.”

“Bye, Carmen.”

“There’s some things you can’t get rid of, Ramon,” his sister yelled.

He didn’t call after that. Soon he was heading to another city and by the time he reached Canada he didn’t bother sending postcards. He figured he would, one day, but things got in the way and years later he thought it would be even worse if he tried to phone.

And what would they talk about now? It had been ages since he’d left home and the sister and cousins that had lived in Potrero. He’d gotten rid of layers and layers of the old Ramon, moulting into a new man.

But maybe Carmen had been right. Maybe there’s some things you can’t get rid of. Certain memories, certain stories, certain fears that cling to the skin like old scars.

These things follow you.

Maybe ghosts can follow you, too.

• • • •

It’s a bad afternoon. Assholes at work and in the streets. And then a heavy, disgusting rain pours down, almost a sludge that swallows the sidewalks. He’s lost his umbrella and walks with his hands jammed inside his jacket’s pockets, head down.

Four more blocks and he’ll be home.

That’s when Ramon hears the squeal. A high-pitched noise. It’s a shriek, a moan, a sound he’s never heard before.

What the hell is that?

He turns and looks and it is the old woman, the one he’s nicknamed Llorona, pushing her shopping cart.

Squeak, squeak, goes the cart, matching each of his steps. Squeak, squeak. A metallic chirping echoed by a low mumble.

“Children, children, children.”

Squeak, squeak, squeak. A metallic chant with an old rhythm.

He walks faster. The cart matches his pace; wheels roll.

He doubles his efforts, hurrying to cross the street before the light changes. The cart groans, closer than before, nipping at his heels.

He thinks she is about to hit him with the damn thing and then all of a sudden the sound stops.

He looks over his shoulder. The old woman is gone. She has veered into an alley, vanishing behind a large dumpster.

Ramon runs home.

• • • •

The dogs are howling again. A howl that is a wail. The wind roars like a demon. The rain scratches the windows, begging to be let in, and he lies under the covers, terrified.

He feels his mother’s arm around his body, her hands smoothing his hair like she did when he was scared. Just a little boy terrified of the phantoms that wander through the plains.

His mother’s hand pats his own.

Mother’s hand is bony. Gnarled, long fingers with filthy nails. Nails caked with dirt. The smells of mud, putrid garbage, and mold hit him hard.

He looks at his mother and her hair is a tangle of grey. Her yellow smile paints the dark.

He leaps from the bed. When he hits the floor he realizes the room is filled with at least three inches of water.

“Have you seen my children?” the thing in the bed asks.

The dogs howl and he wakes up, his face buried in the pillow.

• • • •

He takes a cab to work. He feels safer that way. The streets are her domain, she owns the alleys.

When he goes to lunch he looks at the puddles and thinks about babies drowned in the water; corpses floating down a silver river.

Don’t ever let the Llorona look at you, his uncle said. Once she’s seen you she’ll follow you home and haunt you to death, little boy.

“Oh, my children,” she’ll scream and drag you into the river.

But he’d left her behind in Potrero.

He thought he’d left her behind.

• • • •

Ramon tries to recall if there is a charm or remedy against the evil spirit. His uncle never mentioned one. The only cure he knew was his mother’s embrace.

“There, there little one,” she said, and he nested safe against her while the river overflowed and lightning traced snakes in the sky.

• • • •

In the morning there is a patch of sunlight. Ramon dares to walk a few blocks. But even without the rain the city feels washed out. Its colour has been drained. It resembles the monochromatic images they broadcasted on the cheap television set of his youth.

Even though he does not bump into her, the Llorona’s presence lays thick over the streets, pieces of darkness clinging to the walls and the dumpsters in the alleys. It even seems to spread over the people: the glassy eyes of a binner reflect a river instead of the bricks of a building.

He hurries back home and locks the door. But when it rains again, water leaks into the living room. Just a few little drops drifting into his apartment.

He wipes the floor clean. More water seeps in like a festering boil, cut open and oozing disease.

• • • •

The Llorona stands guard in the alley. She is a lump in the night looking up at his apartment window. He feels her through the concrete walls and the glass. Looking for him.

He fishes for the old notebook with the smudged and forgotten number.

The rain splashes against his building and the wind cries like a woman.

The dial tone is loud against his ear.

More than ten years have passed. He has no idea what he’ll say. He doesn’t even understand what he wants to ask. He can’t politely request to ship the ghost back to Mexico.

He dials.

The number has been disconnected.

He thinks about Carmen and his mother and the dusty nothingness behind their house.

There might not even be a house. Perhaps the night and the river swallowed them.

• • • •

The Llorona comes with the rain. Or maybe it is the other way around: the rain comes with her. Something else also comes. Darkness. His apartment grows dimmer. He remains in the pools of light, away from the blackness.

Outside, in the alley, the Llorona scratches the dumpster with her nails.

The dogs howl.

Ramon shivers in his bed and thinks about his mother and how she used to drive the ghosts away.

• • • •

She is sitting next to a heap of garbage in the middle of the alley, water pouring down her shoulders. She clutches rags and dirt and pieces of plastic against her chest, her head bowed and her face hidden behind the screen of her hair.

“My children. My children.”

She looks up at him, slowly. The rain coats her face, tracing dirty rivulets along her cheeks.

He expects an image out of a nightmare: blood dripping, yellow cat-eyes or a worn skull. But this is an old woman. Her skin has been torn by time and her eyes are cloudy. This is an old woman.

She could be his mother. She might be, for all he knows. He lost her photograph a long time ago and can’t recall what she looks like anymore. His mother who ran her fingers through his hair and hugged him until the ghosts vanished. Now he’s too old for ghosts, but the ghosts still come at nights.

The woman looks at him. Parched, forgotten, and afraid.

“I’ve lost my children,” she whispers with her voice of dead leaves.

The alley is a river. He goes to her, sinks into the muck, sinks into the silvery water. He embraces her and she strokes his hair. The sky above is black and white, like the pictures in the old TV set and the wind that howls in his ears is the demon wind of his childhood.

BY SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA

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HOW TO GET BACK TO THE FOREST

“You have to puke it up,” said Cee. “You have to get down there and puke it up. I mean down past where you can feel it, you know?”

She gestured earnestly at her chest. She had this old-fashioned cotton nightgown on, lace collar brilliant under the bathroom lights. Above the collar, her skin looked gray. Cee had bones like a bird. She was so beautiful. She was completely beautiful and fucked. I mean everybody at camp was sort of a mess, we were even supposed to be that way, at a difficult stage, but Cee took it to another level. Herding us into the bathroom at night and asking us to puke. “It’s right here,” she said, tapping the nightgown over her hollow chest. “Where you’ve got less nerves in your esophagus. It’s like wired into the side, into the muscle. You have to puke really hard to get it.”

“Did you ever get it out?” asked Max. She was sitting on one of the sinks. She’d believe anything.

Cee nodded, solemn as a counselor. “Two years ago. They caught me and gave me a new one. But it was beautiful while it was gone. I’m telling you it was the best.”

“Like how?” I said.

Cee stretched out her arms. “Like bliss. Like everything. Everything all at once. You’re raw, just a big raw nerve.”

“That doesn’t sound so great,” said Elle.

“I know,” said Cee, not annoyed but really agreeing, turning things around. That was one of her talents.

“It sounds stupid,” she nodded, “but that’s because it’s something we can’t imagine. We don’t have the tools. Our bodies don’t know how to calculate what we’re missing. You can’t know till you get there. And at the same time, it’s where you came from. It’s where you started.”

She raised her toothbrush. “So. Who’s with me?”

• • •

Definitely not me. God, Cee. You were such an idiot.

• • •

Apparently, a girl named Puss had told her about the bug. And Cee, being Cee, was totally open to learning new things from a person who called herself Puss. Puss had puked out her own bug and was living on the streets. I guess she’d run away from camp, I don’t really know. She was six feet tall, Cee said, with long red hair. The hair was dyed, which was weird, because if you’re living on the streets, do you care about stuff like that? This kind of thing can keep me awake at night. I lie in bed, or rather I sit in the living room because Pete hates me tossing and turning, and I leave the room dark and open all the curtains, and I watch the lights of the city and think about this girl Puss getting red hair dye at the grocery store and doing her hair in the bathroom at the train station. Did she put newspapers down? And what if somebody came in and saw her?

Anyway, eventually Cee met Puss in the park, and Puss was clearly down-and-out and a hooker, but she looked cool and friendly, and Cee sat down beside her on the swings.

• • •

“You have to puke it up.”

• • •

We’d only been at camp for about six weeks. It seemed like a long time, long enough to know everybody. Everything felt stretched out at camp, the days and the nights, and yet in the end it was over so fast, as soon as you could blink. Camp was on its own calendar—a special time of life. That was Jodi’s phrase. She was our favorite counselor. She was greasy and enthusiastic, with a skinny little ponytail, only a year or two older than the seniors. Camp is so special! The thing with Jodi was, she believed every word she said. It made it really hard to make fun of her. That night, the night in the bathroom, she was asleep down the hall underneath her Mother Figure, which was a little stuffed dog with Florida on its chest.

• • •

“Come on!” said Cee. And she stuck her toothbrush down her throat, just like that. I think Max screamed. Cee didn’t start puking right away. She had to give herself a few really good shoves with that toothbrush, while people said “Oh my God” and backed away and clutched one another and stared. Somebody said “Are you nuts?” Somebody else said something else, I might have said something, I don’t know, everything was so white and bright in that moment, mirrors and fluorescent lights and Cee in that goddamn Victorian nightgown jabbing away with her toothbrush and sort of gagging. Every time I looked up I could see all of us in the mirror. And then it came. A splatter of puke all over the sink. Cee leaned over and braced herself. Blam. Elle said, “Oh my God, that is disgusting.” Cee gasped. She was just getting started.

• • •

Elle was next. All of a sudden she spun around with her hands over her mouth and let go in the sink right next to Cee. Splat. I started laughing, but I already felt sort of dizzy and sick myself, and also scared, because I didn’t want to throw up. Cee looked up from her own sink and nodded at Elle, encouraging her. She looked completely bizarre, her wide cheekbones, her big crown of natural hair, sort of a retro supermodel with a glistening mouth, her eyes full of excitement. I think she even said “Good job, Elle!”

Then she went to it with the toothbrush again. “We have to stop her!” said Katie, taking charge. “Max, go get Jodi!” But Max didn’t make it. She jumped down from the third sink, but when she got halfway to the door she turned around and ran back to the sink and puked. Meanwhile Katie was dragging Cee away from the sink and trying to get the toothbrush, but also not wanting to touch it, and she kept going “Ew ew ew” and “Help me, you guys,” and it was all so hilarious I sank down on the floor, absolutely crying with laughter. Five or six other girls, too. We just sort of looked at each other and screamed. It was mayhem. Katie dragged Cee into one of the stalls, I don’t know why. Then Katie started groaning and let go of Cee and staggered into the stall beside her, and sploosh, there she went.

• • •

Bugs.

It’s such a camp rumor. Camp is full of stories like that. People say the ice cream makes you sterile, the bathrooms are full of hidden cameras, there’s fanged, flesh-eating kids in the lake, if you break into the office you can call your parents. Lots of kids break into the office. It’s the most common camp offense. I never tried it, because I’m not stupid—of course you can’t call your parents. How would you even get their number? And bugs—the idea of a bug planted under your skin, to track you or feed you drugs—that’s another dumb story.

Except it’s not, because I saw one.

The smell in the bathroom was terrible now—an animal smell, hot; it thrashed around and it had fur.

I knew I was going to be sick. I crawled to the closest place—the stall where Cee knelt—and grabbed hold of the toilet seat. Cee moved aside for me. Would you believe she was still hanging onto her toothbrush? I think we both threw up a couple of times. Then she made this awful sound, beyond anything, her whole body taut and straining, and something flew into the toilet with a splash.

I looked at her and there was blood all over her chin. I said, “Jesus, Cee.” I thought she was dying. She sat there coughing and shaking, her eyes full of tears and triumph. She was on top of the world. “Look!” she breathed. And I looked, and there in the bowl, half-hidden by puke and blood, lay an object made of metal.

It actually looked like a bug. Sharp blood-smeared legs.

“Shit!” I said. I flushed the toilet.

“Now you,” said Cee, wiping her mouth on the back of her wrist.

“I can’t.”

“Tisha. Come on.”

Cee, I couldn’t, I really couldn’t. I could be sick—in fact I felt sicker than ever—but I couldn’t do it that hard. I remember the look in your eyes; you were so disappointed. You leaned and spat some blood into the toilet.

I whispered: “Don’t tell anyone. Not even the other girls.”

“Why not? We should all—”

“No. Just trust me.”

I was already scared, so scared. I couldn’t bear the idea of camp without you.

• • •

We barely slept that night. We had to take showers and clean the bathroom. Max cried the whole time, but for at least part of the night, I was laughing. Me and Katie flinging disinfectant powder everywhere. Katie was cool, always in sweatpants, didn’t give a shit about anything.

“You know your friend is a headcase, right?” she said.

It was the first time anybody’d called Cee my friend. We got out the mop and lathered up the floor. Everyone slipped and swore at us, coming out of the showers. Cee went skidding by in a towel. “Whee!” she shrieked.

• • •

You cannot feel your bug. I’ve pressed so hard on my chest. I know.

“I could feel it,” said Cee. “After they put it back in.” It wasn’t exactly a physical thing. She couldn’t trace the shape of the bug inside her, but she could feel it working.

“Bug juice,” she said, making a sour face. She could feel bug juice seeping into her body. Every time she was going to be angry or afraid, there’d be this warmth in her chest, a feeling of calm spreading deep inside.

“I only noticed it after I’d had the bug out for a couple of weeks.”

“How did your parents know you needed a new one?”

“I didn’t need one.”

“How did they know it was gone?”

“Well, I kind of had this fit. I got mad at them and started throwing food.”

We were sitting on my bed, under my Mother Figure, a lamp with a blue shade. The blue light brought out the stains on Cee’s Victorian nightgown. We were both painting our toenails Cherry Pink, balancing the polish on my Life Skills textbook, taking turns with the brush.

“You should do it,” Cee said. “I feel better. I’m so much better.”

I thought how in a minute we’d have to study for our Life Skills quiz. I didn’t think there was bug juice in my body. I couldn’t feel anything.

“I’m so much better,” Cee said again. Her hand was shaking.

• • •

Oh, Cee.

• • •

The weird thing is, I started writing this after Max came to visit me, and I thought I was going to write about Max. But then I started writing in your book. Why? This book you left me, your Mother Figure. You practically threw it at me: “Take it!” It was the worst thing you could do, to take somebody else’s Parent Figure, especially the mom. Or maybe it was only us girls who cared so much about the moms. Maybe for the boys it was the dads. But anyway, taking one was the worst; you could basically expect the other kids to kill you. A kid got put in the hospital that way at a different camp—the one on the east side—but we all knew about it at our camp. They strung him up with electric wires. Whenever we told the story we ended by saying what we would have done to that kid, and it was always much worse.

But you threw this book at me, Cee, and what could I do? Jodi and Duncan were trying to grab your arms, and the ambulance was waiting for you downstairs. I caught the book clumsily, crumpling it. I looked at it later, and it was about half full of your writing. I think they’re poems.

dank smells underground want to get back

no pill for it

i need you

I don’t know, are they poems? If they are, I don’t think they’re very good. A nap could be a door an abandoned car. Does that even mean anything? Eat my teeth. I know them all by heart.

I picked up this book when Max left. I wrote: “You have to puke it up.” All of a sudden I was writing about you. Surprising myself. I just kept going. Remembering camp, the weird sort of humid excitement there, the cafeteria louder than the sea. The shops—remember the shops? Lulu’s was the best. We’d save up our allowance to go there. Down in the basement you could get used stuff for cheap. You got your leather jacket there. I got these red shoes with flowers on the toes. I loved those shoes so much! I wonder where they went? I wore them to every mixer, I was wearing them when I met Pete, probably with my white dress—another Lulu’s purchase I don’t have now.

It was summer, and the mixer had an island theme. The counselors had constructed this sort of deck overlooking the lake. God, they were so proud of it. They gave us green drinks with little umbrellas in them and played lazy, sighing music, and everyone danced, and Pete saw a shooting star, and we were holding hands, and you were gone forever and I forgot you.

• • •

I forgot you. Forgetting isn’t so wrong. It’s a Life Skill.

• • •

I don’t remember what my parents looked like. A Parent Figure cannot be a photograph. It has to be a more neutral object. It’s supposed to stand in for someone, but not too much. When we got to camp we were all supposed to bring our Parent Figures to dinner the first night. Everyone squeezed in at the cafeteria tables, trying to find space beside their dinner trays for their Figures, those calendars and catcher’s mitts and scarves. I felt so stupid because my Mother Figure was a lamp and there was no place to plug it in. My Father Figure is a plaque that says Always be yourself.

Jodi came by, as the counselors were all going around “meeting the Parents,” and she said, “Wow, Tisha, that’s a good one.”

• • •

I don’t even know if I picked it out.

• • •

“We want you to have a fabulous time at camp!” Jodi cried. She was standing at the front with the other counselors: Paige and Veronica and Duncan—who we’d later call “Hunky Duncan”—and Eric and Carla and the others.

Of course they’d chosen Jodi to speak. Jodi was so perky.

She told us that we were beginning a special relationship with our Parent Figures. It was very important not to fixate. We shouldn’t fixate on the Parent Figures, and we definitely shouldn’t fixate on the counselors.

My stupid lamp. It was so fucking blue. Why would you bring something blue? “The most important people in your life are the other campers!” Jodi burbled. “These are the people you’ll know for the rest of your life! Now, I want you to turn to the person next to you and say, Hi, Neighbor!”

• • •

Hi, Neighbor! And later, in the forest, Cee sang to the sky: Fuck you, Neighbor!

• • •

Camp was special. We were told that it was special. At camp you connected with people and with nature. There was no personal tech. That freaked a lot of people out at first. We were told that later we’d all be able to get online again, but we’d be adults, and our relationships would be in place, and we would have learned our Life Skills, and we’d be ready. But now was special: Now was the time of friends and of the earth.

Cee raised her hand: “What about earthquakes?”

“What?” said Veronica, who taught The Natural World. Veronica was from an older group of counselors; she had gray hair and leathery skin from taking kids on nature hikes and she was always stretching to show that you could be flexible when you were old.

“What about earthquakes?” Cee asked. “What about fires? Those are natural. What about hurricanes?”

Veronica smiled at us with her awesome white teeth, because you could have awesome white teeth when you were old, it was all a matter of taking care of yourself with the right Life Skills.

“What an interesting question, Celia!”

We were told that all of our questions were interesting. There’s no such thing as a stupid question! The important thing was always to participate. We were told to participate in classes and hikes and shopping sprees and mixers. In History we learned that there used to be prejudice, but now there wasn’t: It didn’t matter where you came from or who you loved, just join in! That’s why even the queer girls had to go to the mixers; you could take your girlfriend, but you had to go. Katie used to go in a tie and Elle would wear flowers. They rolled their eyes but they went anyway and danced and it was fun. Camp was so fun.

Cee raised her hand: “Why is it a compliment to tell somebody it doesn’t matter who they are?”

We were told to find a hobby. There were a million choices and we tried them all: sports and crafts and art and music. There was so much to do. Every day there was some kind of program and then there were chores and then we had to study for class. No wonder we forgot stuff. We were told that forgetting was natural. Forgetting helped us survive, Jodi told us in Life Skills class, tears in her eyes. She cried as easily as Max. She was more like a kid sister than a counselor. Everybody wanted Jodi to be okay. “You’ll always be reminded,” she said in her hoarse, heroic voice. “You’ll always have your Parent Figures. It’s okay to be sad! But remember, you have each other now. It’s the most special bond in the world.”

Cee raised her hand: “What if we don’t want us?”

Cee raised her hand, but of course she raised her hand. She was Cee. She was Cee, she’d always been Cee, do you see what I mean? I mean she was like that right from the day we arrived; she was brash, messy Cee before the night in the bathroom, before she supposedly puked out her bug. I couldn’t see any difference. I could not see any difference. So of course I had second thoughts. I wished so bad I hadn’t flushed the toilet. What if there wasn’t anything in it? What if somebody’d dropped a piece of jewelry in there, some necklace or brooch and I thought it was a bug? That could have happened. Camp was so fun. Shaving my legs for the mixer. Wearing red shoes. We were all so lucky. Camp was the best thing ever. Every Child at Camp! That was the government slogan: ECAC. Cee used to make this gag face whenever she said it. ECAC. Ick. Sick.

• • •

She took me into the forest. It was a mixer. Everybody else was crowded around the picnic tables. The lake was flat and scummy and the sun was just going down, clouds of biting insects golden in the haze.

“Come on,” Cee said, “let’s get out of here.”

We walked over the sodden sand into the weeds. A couple of the counselors watched us go: I saw Hunky Duncan look at us with his binoculars, but because we were just two girls they didn’t care. It only mattered if you left the mixer with a boy. Then you had to stop at the Self-Care Stand for condoms and an injection, because becoming a parent is a serious decision! Duncan lowered his binoculars, and we stepped across the rocks and into the trees.

“This is cool!” Cee whispered.

I didn’t really think it was cool—it was weird and sticky in there, and sort of dark, and the weeds kept tickling my legs—but I went farther because of Cee. It’s hard to explain this thing she had: She was like an event just about to happen and you didn’t want to miss it. I didn’t want to, anyway. It was so dark we had to hold hands after a while. Cee walked in front of me, pushing branches out of the way, making loud crackling sounds, sometimes kicking to break through the bushes. Her laugh sounded close, like we were trapped in the basement at Lulu’s. That’s what it was like, like being trapped in this amazing place where everything was magically half-price. I was so excited and then horrified because suddenly I had to take a dump, there was no way I could hold it in.

“Wait a sec,” I told Cee, too embarrassed to even tell her to go away. I crouched down and went and wiped myself on the leaves, and I’m sure Cee knew what was up but she took my hand again right after I was done. She took my disgusting hand. I felt like I wanted to die, and at the same time, I was floating. We kept going until we stumbled into a clearing in the woods. Stars above us in a perfect circle.

“Woo-hooooo!” Cee hollered. “Fuck you, Neighbor!”

She gave the stars the finger. The silhouette of her hand stood out against the bright. I gave the stars the finger, too. I was this shitty, disgusting kid with a lamp and a plaque for parents but I was there with Cee and the time was exactly now. It was like there was a beautiful starry place we’d never get into— didn’t deserve to get into—but at the same time we were better than any brightness. Two sick girls underneath the stars.

Fuck you, Neighbor! It felt so great. If I could go anywhere I’d want to go there.

• • •

The counselors came for us after a while. A circle of them with big flashlights, talking in handsets. Jodi told us they’d been looking everywhere for us. “We were pretty worried about you girls!”

For the first time I didn’t feel sorry for her; I felt like I wanted to kick her in the shins. Shit, I forgot about that until right now. I forget so much. I’m like a sieve. Sometimes I tell Pete I think I’m going senile. Like premature senile dementia. Last month I suggested we go to Clearview for our next vacation and he said, “Tish, you hate Clearview, don’t you remember?”

It’s true, I hated Clearview: The beach was okay, but at night there was nothing to do but drink. So we’re going to go to the Palace Suites instead. At least you can gamble there.

Cee, I wonder about you still, so much—I wonder what happened to you and where you are. I wonder if you’ve ever tried to find me. It wouldn’t be hard. If you linked to the register you’d know our graduating class ended up in Food Services. I’m in charge of inventory for a chain of grocery stores, Pete drives delivery, Katie stocks the shelves. The year before us, the graduates of our camp went into the army; the year after us they also went into the army; the year after that they went into communications technologies; the year after that I stopped paying attention. I stopped wondering what life would have been like if I’d graduated in a different year. We’re okay. Me and Pete—we make it work, you know? He’s sad because I don’t want to have kids, but he hasn’t brought it up for a couple of years. We do the usual stuff, hobbies and vacations. Work. Pete’s into gardening. Once a week we have dinner with some of the gang. We keep our Parent Figures on the hall table, like everyone else. Sometimes I think about how if you’d graduated with us, you’d be doing some kind of job in Food Services too. That’s weird, right?

• • •

But you didn’t graduate with us. I guess you never graduated at all.

• • •

I’ve looked for you on the buses and in the streets. Wondering if I’d suddenly see you. God, I’d jump off the bus so quick, I wouldn’t even wait for it to stop moving. I wouldn’t care if I fell in the gutter. I remember your tense face, your nervous look, when you found out that we were going to have a check-up.

“I can’t have a check-up,” you said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because,” you said, “because they’ll see my bug is gone.”

And I just—I don’t know. I felt sort of embarrassed for you. I’d convinced myself the whole bug thing was a mistake, a hallucination. I looked down at my book, and when I looked up you were standing in the same place, with an alert look on your face, as if you were listening.

You looked at me and said: “I have to run.”

It was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. The whole camp was monitored practically up to the moon. There was no way to get outside.

But you tried. You left my room, and you went straight out your window and broke your ankle.

A week later, you were back. You were on crutches and you looked . . . wrecked. Destroyed. Somebody’d cut your hair, shaved it close to the scalp. Your eyes stood out, huge and shining.

“They put in a bug in me,” you whispered.

And I just knew. I knew what you were going to do.

• • •

Max came to see me a few days ago. I’ve felt sick ever since. Max is the same, hunched and timid; you’d know her if you saw her. She sat in my living room and I gave her coffee and lemon cookies and she took one bite of a cookie and started crying.

Cee, we miss you, we really do.

Max told me she’s pregnant. I said congratulations. I knew she and Evan have been wanting one for a while. She covered her eyes with her hands—she still bites her nails, one of them was bleeding—and she just cried.

“Hey, Max,” I said, “it’s okay.”

I figured she was extra-emotional from hormones or whatever, or maybe she was thinking what a short time she’d have with her kid, now that kids start camp at eight years old.

“It’s okay,” I told her, even though I’d never have kids—I couldn’t stand it.

They say it’s easier on the kids, going to camp earlier. We—me and you and Max—we were the tail end of Generation Teen. Max’s kid will belong to Generation Eight. It’s supposed to be a happier generation, but I’m guessing it will be sort of like us. Like us, the kids of Generation Eight will be told they’re sad, that they need their parents and that’s why they have Parent Figures, so that they can always be reminded of what they’ve lost, so that they can remember they need what they have now.

I sat across the coffee table from Max, and she was crying and I wasn’t hugging her because I don’t really hug people anymore, not even Pete really, I’m sort of mean that way, it’s just how I turned out, and Max said “Do you remember that night in the bathroom with Cee?”

Do I remember?

Her eyes were all swollen. She hiccupped. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m scared.” She said she had to send a report to her doctor every day on her phone. How was she feeling, had she vomited? Her morning sickness wasn’t too bad, but she’d thrown up twice, and both times she had to go in for a check-up.

“So?” I said.

“So—they always put you to sleep, you know . . .”

“Yeah.”

I just said “Yeah.” Just sat there in front of her and said “Yeah.” Like I was a rock. After a while I could tell she was feeling uncertain, and then she felt stupid. She picked up her stuff and blew her nose and went home. She left the tissues on the table, one of them spotted with blood from her bitten nail. I haven’t really been sleeping since she left. I mean, I’ve always had trouble sleeping, but now it’s a lot worse, especially since I started writing in your book. I just feel sick, Cee, I feel really sick. All those check-ups, so regular, everyone gets them, but you’re definitely supposed to go in if you’re feeling nauseous, if you’ve vomited, it might be a superflu! The world is full of viruses, good health is everybody’s business! And yeah, they put you to sleep every time. Yeah. “They put a bug in me,” you said. Camp was so fun. Jodi came to us, wringing her hands. “Cee has been having some problems, and it’s up to all of us to look after her, girls! Campers stick together!” But we didn’t stick together, did we? I woke up and you were shouting in the hall, and I ran out there and you were hopping on your good foot, your toothbrush in one hand, your Mother Figure notebook in the other, and I knew exactly what they’d caught you doing. How did they catch you? Were there really cameras in the bathroom? Jodi’d called Duncan, and that was how I knew how bad it was: Hunky Duncan in the girls’ hallway, just outside the bathroom, wearing white shorts and a seriously pissed-off expression. He and Jodi were grabbing you and you were fighting them off. “Tisha,” called Jodi, “it’s okay, Cee’s just sick, she’s going to the hospital.” You threw the notebook. “Take it!” you snarled. Those were your last words. Your last words to me. I never saw you again except in dreams. Yeah, I see you in dreams. I see you in your white lacy nightgown. Cee, I feel sick. At night I feel so sick, I walk around in circles. There’s waves of sickness and waves of something else, something that calms me, something that’s trying to make the sickness go away. Up and down it goes, and I’m just in it, just trying to stand it, and then I sleep again, and I dream you’re beside me, we’re leaning over the toilet, and down at the very bottom there’s something like a clump of trees and two tiny girls are standing there giving us the finger. It’s not where I came from, but it’s where I started. I think of how bright it was in the bathroom that night, how some kind of loss swept through all of us, electric, and you’d started it, you’d started it by yourself, and we were with you in that hilarious and total rage of loss. Let’s lose it. Let’s lose everything. Camp wasn’t fun. Camp was a fucking factory. I go out to the factory on Fridays to check my lists over coffee with Elle. The bus passes shattered buildings, stick people rooting around in the garbage. Three out of five graduating classes join the army. Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change! How did I even get here? I’d ask my mom if she wasn’t a fucking lamp. Cee, I feel sick. I should just grab my keys, get some money, and run to Max’s house, we should both be sick, everybody should lose it together. I shouldn’t have told you not to tell the others. We all should have gone together. My fault. I dream I find you and Puss in a bathroom in the train station. There’s blood everywhere, and you laugh and tell me it’s hair dye. Cee, it’s so bright it makes me sick. I have to go now. It’s got to come out.
BY SOFIA SAMATAR
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'There's no Reason to be Afraid'

When my sister Betsy and I were kids, our family lived for awhile in a charming old farmhouse. We loved exploring its dusty corners and climbing the apple tree in the backyard. But our favorite thing was the ghost.We called her Mother, because she seemed so kind and nurturing. Some mornings Betsy and I would wake up, and on each of our nightstands, we'd find a cup that hadn't been there the night before. Mother had left them there, worried that we'd get thirsty during the night. She just wanted to take care of us.Among the house's original furnishings was an antique wooden chair, which we kept against the back wall of the living room. Whenever we were preoccupied, watching TV or playing a game, Mother would inch that chair forward, across the room, toward us. Sometimes she'd manage to move it all the way to the center of the room. We always felt sad putting it back against the wall. Mother just wanted to be near us.Years later, long after we'd moved out, I found an old newspaper article about the farmhouse's original occupant, a widow. She'd murdered her two children by giving them each a cup of poisoned milk before bed. Then she'd hanged herself.The article included a photo of the farmhouse's living room, with a woman's body hanging from a beam. Beneath her, knocked over, was that old wooden chair, placed exactly in the center of the room.

by whoeverfightsmonster

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'They got the definition wrong'

It has been said that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results". I understand the sentiment behind the saying, but it's wrong.I entered the building on a bet. I was strapped for cash and didn't buy into the old legends of the hotel to begin with, so fifty bucks was more than enough to get me do it. It was simple. Just reach the top floor, the 45th floor, shine my flashlight from a window.The hotel was old and broken, including the elevator, so that meant hiking up the stairs. So up the stairs I went. As I reached each platform, I noted the old brass plaques displaying the floor numbers. 15, 16, 17, 18. I felt a little tired as I crept higher, but so far, no ghosts, no cannibals, no demons. Piece of cake.I can't tell you how happy I was as I entered that last stretch of numbers. I joyfully counted them aloud at each platform. 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 44. I stopped and looked back down the stairs. I must have miscounted, so I continued up. 44. One more flight. 44. And then down ten flights. 44. Fifteen flights. 44.And so it's been for as long as I can remember. So really, insanity isn't doing something repeatedly and expecting different results. It's knowing that the results will never ever change; that each door leads to the same staircase, to the same number. It’s realizing you no longer fall asleep. It's not knowing whether you've been running for days or weeks or years. It's when the sobbing slowly turns into laughter.

by Lloiu

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'I hate it when my brother Charlie has to go away'

I hate it when my brother Charlie has to go away. My parents constantly try to explain to me how sick he is. That I am lucky for having a brain where all the chemicals flow properly to their destinations like undammed rivers. When I complain about how bored I am without a little brother to play with, they try to make me feel bad by pointing out that his boredom likely far surpasses mine, considering his confine to a dark room in an institution. I always beg for them to give him one last chance. Of course, they did at first. Charlie has been back home several times, each shorter in duration than the last. Every time without fail, it all starts again. The neighbourhood cats with gouged out eyes showing up in his toy chest, my dad's razors found dropped on the baby slide in the park across the street, mom's vitamins replaced by bits of dishwasher tablets. My parents are hesitant now, using "last chances" sparingly. They say his disorder makes him charming, makes it easy for him to fake normalcy, and to trick the doctors who care for him into thinking he is ready for rehabilitation. That I will just have to put up with my boredom if it means staying safe from him. I hate it when Charlie has to go away. It makes me have to pretend to be good until he is back.

by horrorinpureform

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100 COFFINS - Coy Hall

Roth Cadman rode through the drizzling midnight rain towards the livery stable of Trinity Hill. Mud jumped from the street, up his leg and around his face. Rain fell in stinging drops. With the exception of a few dim lights shining from the saloon, the town looked deserted along Main Street. Cadman moved into the dry stable and dismounted. The livery, like the town around it, seemed deserted.

Maybe it’s the late hour, he thought to himself, pulling his things together and unsaddling the horse. But the explanation wasn’t convincing. Boom towns like Trinity weren’t in the habit of going to bed just after sundown. Cadman put the horse away and fed it. Beating the rain from his hat, he prepared to make a dash through the downpour towards the saloon. He needed a drink.

The sky rumbled with thunder. Wind moved the rain in sideway sheets across the dark, muddy vista.

Cadman stooped his shoulders and ran for it. The mud was three inches deep in places, and puddles, like small ponds, dotted the street. A plank sidewalk led up to the porch of the saloon. Cadman stood breathlessly beneath the awning, glancing inward over the batwing doors. People were inside, a lot of them, sitting quietly around the dim glow of candles.

Cadman did what he could before entering, smacking his hat against the rail and wiping the water and mud from his unshaven face. He was used to being alone, and used to being stuck out in the weather, but that didn’t mean it didn’t make him miserable. Nights like this made him feel like a stray dog.

As Cadman entered, the folks barely stirred. They turned and looked for the most part, then fell back to their solemn thoughts. Every table was full; people lined the bar shoulder to shoulder; the walls and steps were covered by those standing. There were more than a hundred people in the large room. For light, homemade candles, bitches as folks call them, constructed from tin cups and bacon grease lined the main bar and decorated the tables. Shadows danced in the few open spaces. A haunting aura hung about the room.
Not wanting trouble or attention, Cadman took the oddity in stride. His mind, though, was at work behind steady eyes as he made his through the labyrinth of people to the crowded bar. When he was a kid, his mother dragged him to church on Sundays. Anytime somebody in the congregation died, the church held a prolonged moment of silence. He remembered those mornings vividly, and how they chilled him to the core then. This silent group of folks at Trinity Hill brought him back to those days, stirring a long-dormant uneasiness.

He nudged his way to the bar without a fight, without words. To his chagrin, however, there was no one tending it. He wasn’t a man to snap easily, but he needed that drink like a sick man needs medicine.

The man standing beside him acknowledged his presence first. “Stranger,” the man tipped his hat in greeting. He was an old gentleman of the professional class. He wore a heavy gray mustache that nearly hid his mouth and had steely eyes that revealed years of learning. His slick black suit spoke of money.

“Howdy,” Cadman offered. “You know how I can get a drink?”

A thin smile crossed the old man’s face; his mustache twitched. “Tonight,” he said, “you’re free to take what you wish. Though folks’ll frown on a drink, I hear,” he paused. “There’s no need of money where we’re going.

“Where’d that be?” Cadman asked, curious to hell but trying not to play it up.

“Just hop on over and take a bottle,” the man goaded.

“You tryin’ to get me shot to pieces?” Cadman said defensively. “What’s goin’ on in here anyhow?”

Another man approached, shouldering through the crowd. He extended his hand to Cadman. He was a young man, clean-cut, with a round, reddish face. He smiled. “We didn’t think the outsiders were going to make it,” he said. “But we’re certainly glad to have you here with us tonight. My name is Joseph, sir. And I am very pleased to meet you.” Joseph exuded congeniality, too much in fact. His was an artificial personality, constructed with an eye to a strict agenda.

Cadman turned, leaning his back against the bar. “Roth Cadman,” he said, shaking the young man’s hand. There was no need to turn the thought over in his mind; Cadman didn’t like the fellah for an instant.

At the sound of Cadman’s name, the old man at his side grinned widely. “Cadman?” he asked. “Well a man would be mighty amiss if he hadn’t heard of you. Joe, you know who this fellah is?”

Joseph shrugged blankly. “A child of the lord.”

“Why, he’s a bounty hunter. Been in the paper several times. Three weeks ago when he nabbed Charlie Volquez just north of the border. Roth Cadman. Name’s Mortimer J. Alexander,” the old man said loudly. “I’m impressed to hell with what you do, young man.”

Cadman thought: This is better than the usual reaction I get. Hostility, especially in boom towns, was typical. Cadman nodded his thanks to Alexander.

Joseph didn’t share the old man’s enthusiasm; in fact, he seemed disappointed. The friendly demeanor faded. “A man-hunter?” he asked snidely. “Trinity Hill’s blessed with your presence.”

Cadman let the remark slide, but he knew he wouldn’t forget it. His ego was too large for the latter. If I catch roly-poly Joseph alone, he thought, he’ll get the worst pistol-whipping of his life. He winked his thoughts at the young man.

Joseph turned without a further word and walked back toward the front of the room.

“The boy’s got the idea that he’s important,” Alexander said, turning his back to the counter in imitation of Cadman. “It’s a hard disease to get rid of.”

“You might say that. How long you been in Trinity?” Cadman asked.

“Nine months about. I put up the bank across the street. Does well enough with all the money comin’ in from the oil. You visited before?”

“Yeah,” Cadman said shortly. “I don’t mean to get pushy, but you’re gonna tell me what’s goin’ on around here. Most of these folks haven’t breathed a word since I came in.”

Alexander nodded. “It’s not an easy thing,” he said, “preparing yourself to die. I’m an old man, but that still doesn’t make it simple. Folks, as you’d expect, are taking it hard. That’s why they’re quiet.”

Cadman’s understanding didn’t budge. “Everybody in here’s gonna die?”

“And you,” Alexander said, then twisted his face in confusion. “You really didn’t know?”

People in the immediate vicinity turned to listen, curious.

Cadman shook his head. “I was just passing through.”

“Then the Word hasn’t reached as far as we’d hoped,” Alexander sighed. “That explains why you’re the only stranger to come.”

The thought settled in Cadman’s mind that he stood in the equivalent of an asylum, surrounded by a cadre of religious fanatics. He didn’t like the prospect of it. And the whole town, he guessed, was like that: sitting here in the dark, waiting to die, waiting for the world to come to an end. I’m getting a drink and moving on, he promised himself. To hell with Trinity Hill; I’ll sleep in the rain if I have to. With that in mind, Cadman eased his backside onto the bar top and slid his legs to the other side. He hopped down with a thud.

A young man, similar in appearance and attitude to Joseph, piped up from close by. “You can’t drink,” he chided. “Sir, there’s no drinking in here tonight.”

Cadman, ignoring the young man, unhooked his duster, allowing it to fall open. It revealed two pistols holstered at his side. Their pearl handles shone even in the dim candlelight. “Well I’m gonna,” he said.

People turned at the sudden ruckus.

“You can’t drink liquor in here,” a woman shouted out.

Cadman, flushed with anger, pulled a pistol from his side. “I’m taking a drink,” he said to whoever wanted to listen, and there were a few. “Any man or woman tries to stop me and I’ll shoot them dead.” He smiled caustically. Removing a full bottle of Kentucky bourbon from the shelf, he looked around the room, watching, wondering if anybody would call his bluff. They lost interest quickly, though. There was no fight in them beyond the battle in their own minds. They let Cadman break the rules without any further objections. Not even Joseph, who Cadman eyed in the far corner, protested.

Cadman downed a mouthful, then offered the bottle across the bar to Alexander. The old man looked tempted, but torn. “I can’t,” he said mournfully.

I don’t remember Trinity being hit so hard by the temperance drive, Cadman thought to himself. It doesn’t seem natural. A man used to fight not to buy vice around here. Cadman watched the weary crowd, then downed another quick drink.

#

Joseph Henriksen had his own way of dealing with unruly strangers: he told the higher-ups in hope that the responsibility would pass him by. He was a man of God, after all. And violence, he felt, was no one’s friend.

Joseph watched Roth Cadman from across the room -- watched him drink whisky insolently. The man is boastful and arrogant, he thought to himself, and fumed inside. But he’s dangerous, too. Joseph got a sense of the latter from the look in Cadman’s eyes. They had an animalistic nature, wary and unmoving. The look was enough to unsettle Joseph and push him away from a confrontation. He brooded in silence.

Moving amongst the people, comforting their frightened souls, had given his own mind little relief. He felt tense and, though he was reluctant to admit it, afraid. Though it didn’t create these feelings, Cadman’s presence accentuated them. Joseph moved to the front of the dark saloon and out the doors. The rank night air, for once in his life, was a relief.

Paul Goodman -- Paul of the Holy Trinity -- is waiting across the street, he thought to himself. He’s waiting in the sheriff’s office to come amongst us. I should be with the flock until his arrival, Joseph reprimanded himself. But what he should do and what he had to do were irreconcilable. His own mind couldn’t be at rest until he had a final talk with Paul, the flesh of his savior. Paul held the key to his own peace. How could he help the flock otherwise?

Joseph sunk his steps into the muddy street. The rain, it seemed, had passed for the night. The air felt cold and bitter.

The sheriff’s door was unlocked. Joseph entered, finding the meditating form of Paul sitting quietly at the desk. He was a slim, tall man with thin, sharp features. Paul looked up in the darkness. “What is it, my son?” he asked in an aloof, distant voice.

Joseph wrung his hands, nervously. “My lord,” he began with respect, “there is fear in my heart.”

Paul Goodman struck a match and lit a candle atop the desk. He moved his seat closer to the glow. “My son,” he said with a smile that seemed to hold a thousand years of forgiveness, “you would be lying to yourself and to others if you pretended to be without fear. Your lord respects fear and especially those who face it.” Again he smiled.

Joseph’s heart raced with what he guessed to be infinite love. Tears of mixed emotion escaped his eyes.

Paul raised a single hand. “I know what you want to say. And you know I feel the same for you and the entire flock of Trinity Hill. I marvel at the appropriate name of this wonderful place.”

“There is another thing,” Joseph said; his throat tightened. “A stranger arrived.”

“A blessing,” Paul smiled.

“No, my lord. This is a man of evil. I feel it in him. He is a killer.”

Paul cast a stern look. “Are you so intuitive to turn away those who would go my way?”

“No, my lord,” Joseph said shamefully.

“It is never too late to turn down the path I offer. You know this, Joseph. Do not deny the love in your heart to any man. He will pass with us tonight. He will die as if he’d been a fundamental member of our flock since the beginning.”

“Yes, my lord,” Joseph said, swallowing nervously.

“Is that all that troubles you, my son?”

“That is all.”

“Then lead, my faithful son. Steer those souls in that once house of vice. I will come among you in a matter of moments. Our time approaches.” Paul snuffed out the candle and the room once again fell to black.

Joseph, his hands clasped at his waist, left the sheriff’s office and headed back to the saloon. His heart still felt heavy, even more so than before.

#

Maybe it was the drink in his system, but Roth Cadman felt a sudden curiosity about the saloon’s proceedings. After downing a couple drinks, he had prepared to head out. The rain, as far as he could tell, had passed on. His horse had no doubt eaten its fill at the livery. But his thoughts of leaving had turned away when Joseph burst through the batwing doors, announcing that the arrival of Paul of the Holy Trinity was forthcoming. A matter of moments, he’d said. A murmur rose amongst the crowd which still hadn’t died away. It was a nervous chattering, a hundred voices going at once. Cadman became a spectator.

“You prepared to die?” Cadman said, still behind the bar, to the brooding Alexander.

“I thought so,” the old man said. His attitude had deteriorated steadily since Cadman’s arrival. “I hope Paul can get me going once more. Faith’s a brittle thing, you know that?”

“Not if it’s real,” Cadman said, waxing philosophic.

Alexander raised his thick eyebrows and sighed. “True,” he admitted.

“So when did this Paul fellah come into town?”

“Seven months ago to the day. Came in one night, a rainy one like this, soaked to the bone. He did some preachin’ around town, always out on the street with the people. His flock he called it.”

“And now he’s takin’ you home,” Cadman said.

Alexander nodded slowly.

Paul of the Holy Trinity didn’t keep his audience waiting. His arrival, however, was more low-key than Cadman had expected. What could’ve been accompanied by extravagant pomp and circumstance occurred with the pathos of a funeral procession. Even Cadman felt moved by the melancholy entrance.

“That’s the savior,” Alexander whispered unnecessarily, his face turning ashen.

Cadman watched the scene unfold.

Paul had the overhanging oil lamps relit, filling the saloon with light. The candles burned low. Paul took a noble stance on an elevated platform which held a player piano. He stood in front of the instrument, distinguished, raising his hands to quiet the crowd. Silence swept across the room with palpable force.

All the while, Cadman eyed the man named Paul intensely. There was something about him -- something he vividly recognized. Cadman swiftly moved over the bar and into the crowd for a closer look. Paul noticed Cadman’s approach, and his magnetic gaze fell over him. There was a reserved stillness in the man’s face. Cadman racked his mind, trying to remember.

“My children,” Paul began in a loud, velvety voice that resonated off the saloon walls. “The night of our departure has finally come.” He smiled.

Finally it clicked in Cadman’s mind, and a quaking chill traveled up his spine. Fresno. Two years ago. He’d tracked a highway robber from Fresno to Trinity Hill, killing the man when he wouldn’t surrender. He’d watched the man die -- seen his grave on the hill behind town. Watching Paul of the Holy Trinity spout his rhetoric, there was no doubt in his mind. Paul was the very man he’d killed that night -- the man he’d seen buried. The savior of these fanatics was a dead highway robber.

Cadman quickly turned towards the bar, his eyes searching out Alexander. Fortunately, the old man hadn’t moved from his perch. Leaning in, Cadman spoke calmly and quietly. “What if I told you I knew that man?”

“Paul Goodman?” Alexander asked.

Cadman nodded. He looked over his shoulder suspiciously.

“How?”

Cadman stamped the fear from his voice, but his mind was rampant with it. “Because I killed him. I saw him buried on the hill behind this saloon, right here in Trinity.”

“Well,” Alexander said in disbelief, “I don’t doubt he looks like him, Roth. Maybe you oughtta take another drink, huh? We’re all worked up.”

Cadman couldn’t find fault with the old man’s reluctance to believe what he said. His disbelief was natural. I’d react the same, he thought. “Why don’t you take a trip with me?” Cadman asked. An idea popped into his mind: the grave should still be in the cemetery. Alexander will see then, and I’ll see for sure myself. It wasn’t an easy thing to believe. “Come out to the graveyard.”

Alexander looked around with nervous eyes. His faith already on unsteady ground, it didn’t take much convincing to get him away from the saloon. “They won’t let us go,” he said; but he was ready to run.

“Yeah,” Cadman admitted. He thought for a moment. “There’s a trap door behind the bar I’ll bet,” he said. “They gotta keep the liquor somewhere.”

“The front door’s the only other chance.” Alexander’s eyes darted through the crowd.

Paul, fired up now, worked the crowd into a furor. They called back his shouts, and the place began to roar.

Cadman hopped the bar like before, but nobody seemed to notice. In the better light he could make out the markings on the floor. It didn’t take him long to discover the outlines of a square door. Thankfully, there’d been no effort on the bar owner’s part to hide the passageway. Cadman nodded his discovery to Alexander, whose mustache twitched in nervous relief.

Lifting the door, Cadman peered into the dark storage space below. He took a candle from the bar and went down. The space was black as pitch and no taller than five feet; barrels littered the way. The candlelight helped him find his footing, but little else. Hunched over, Cadman felt his way to the cold wall.

The shouting voices resonated through the floorboards, nearly causing them to buzz.

Cadman had known fear many times in his line of work. It was an everyday reality. But, seeing Paul standing on that platform had shaken him harder than any grazing bullet. It was a different type of fear -- distant, but more poignant. Regardless, his mind remained steady from years of practice.

When the dim candlelight fell over the form of a cellar door, resting closed at an angle above him, Cadman nearly thanked God for the blessing. He rushed carelessly back to the trap door and pulled himself up onto the barroom floor. He stood, motioning to the waiting Alexander to follow. The old man, smartly, had already made his way across the top of the bar. “He’s getting ready to tell them how it’s going to happen,” Alexander said.

Together, they hopped down into the cellar and moved through the cramped darkness to the waiting doors. Cadman pushed them open, emerging into the night air first. Rain fell in a light drizzle. Just as he looked up, however, his excitement turned sour.

A gun clicked.

Joseph pointed a revolver at Cadman’s head. “Come on out Mortimer,” Joseph said. “Both of you stand up.”

Thunder shattered the sky.

Angrily, Cadman stood in the muddy lot behind the saloon. The cemetery hill loomed in front of them. Alexander was at his side, brushing the mud from his suit. He didn’t speak.

Cadman went over the situation in his mind. He’d sized up Joseph in the saloon, and had made the conclusion that the boy was a lightweight in everything except talk. He certainly wasn’t a fighter. But it didn’t take a killer to kill; and the way Joseph had the revolver trained on Cadman’s face meant that it wouldn’t take much skill either. But the boy didn’t want to kill; he wanted Cadman and Alexander to rejoin the saloon fanatics in their ritual.

“How’d you know?” Cadman asked.

“I’ve been watchin’ you all night,” Joseph said proudly. “And this’s the only way out. It wasn’t much of a stretch. Now drop your guns, Cadman. Both of them.”

“Aren’t you missin’ out on what the savior’s saying?” Alexander asked sarcastically.

“Old man,” Joseph said threateningly, “the lord’ll leave you behind with an attitude like that.” He shifted his gaze. “Drop the guns, Cadman!”

Cadman played a trick he’d been executing for the last decade. He pulled both pistols at the same time, holding them out for Joseph to take with his one free hand.

“I said drop them,” the young man said. He extended the revolver.

Cadman called his bluff. With lightning quickness he tossed one of the pistols towards Joseph, gripped the other, and with a swift blow, brought the butt down on Joseph’s gun hand. The young man let out a cry as his gun dropped to the mud.

Cadman was on him in a second, swiping the front of Joseph’s skull with the handle of his pistol. It was enough to stagger him. Cadman reached down, grabbing the two pistols from the mud. He holstered his own, tossing the other to Alexander. “Keep that on him,” he said. “We’re goin’ to the cemetery.”

Alexander nodded rapidly. He pointed the gun at Joseph. For good measure, Cadman uppercut Joseph in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Joseph shouted out, doubling over in pain.

They labored up the hill in the rain, gaining the mud trail about halfway up. The cemetery was crude, but no worse than any other boom town. Wooden crosses shone greyly as a lightning bolt split the sky.

“Why’re you takin’ me here?” Joseph asked. “You gonna kill me?”

“No.” Cadman said. “That man inside: Paul. I know him.”

“How does a man like you know him?” Joseph asked snidely.

“’Cause I killed the bastard.”

“Right here in Trinity,” Alexander put in, his gun still aimed steady.

“That’s insane,” Joseph said. “Paul Goodman is a man of God.”

“He was a highway robber,” Cadman said. “I tracked him here two years back.” The three walked through the maze of graves to the back corner. “This is it,” Cadman said, kneeling at a dilapidated cross. He remembered the burial vividly; he had a good memory when it came to his business.

“The grave of a man you murdered,” Joseph said, continually looking over his shoulder at the peaking roof of the saloon. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Notice anything strange about it?” Cadman asked. The sight, even though he’d half expected it, made him shudder. The dirt sank inward almost a foot as though something had been removed from it. “I’ll bet if you dug this up there’d been nothin’ in it.”

Joseph was silent, but his look was ambiguous. He conceded nothing.

Again, lightning lit the sky.

“They’re all like that, Roth,” Alexander spoke up. “The three or four around here are at least. All of ‘em sunk down.”

“When Paul showed up in Trinity,” Cadman asked, playing an absurd hunch, “did it coincide with anything?”

“We’d sunk a new oil well about that time,” Alexander said.

“Maybe you released more than oil,” Cadman said vaguely. “Sounds ridiculous,” he said. “But so is everything else going on in Trinity.”

“You’re insane,” Joseph said, looking over his shoulder impatiently. “You insinuating that demons and the like came out of that well and possessed corpses?” he laughed. “Lord, please forgive this man.”

From the bottom of the hill, a series of indistinct shouts rose suddenly from the saloon and cut through the night. They were shouts of pain and agony, not of praise and worship.

The sound stirred Joseph to life. Disregarding Alexander’s gun, he ran towards the noise. Quickly, he disappeared over the crest of the hill.

The screaming continued, unabated. A hundred shouts of terror and agony rang through the din of the storm, climbed the cemetery hill and assailed Cadman and Alexander. The two men stood transfixed, listening, trying to see through the darkness. Neither moved for a moment.

The chorus ceased slowly, one voice at a time. The whole scene lasted minutes.

Alexander looked at Cadman. “You don’t …” he stopped, thinking.

Cadman felt the urge to turn and run; to get as far away from Trinity Hill as his legs could afford him. But his urge died with the grisly shouting.

“What about the boy?” Alexander asked. “Joseph.”

Cadman shrugged. Whatever happened, he did it to himself, he thought.

“Let’s head back down,” Alexander continued. “I wanna have a look.”

Cadman instinctively followed Alexander through the graveyard. His imagination ran wild as he made out the roof and upper façade of the saloon. If something had come out of the well … He watched the graves as they passed. All of them were the same -- all drooping, missing something. He wondered if many of the townsfolk were like Paul Goodman. But that wasn’t likely. There’d be too much of a chance of getting recognized. If I’d only been here a day earlier, Cadman thought. I’d have recognized Paul before it was too late -- recognized him for what he really was.

The bleak silhouette of the saloon sat calm and quiet. Cadman and Alexander moved cautiously around to the front entrance. They stopped, looking over the doors. Not surprisingly, all of the lights had been snuffed out except for a few candles here and there. Alexander started to push through the doors but Cadman held him back.

Something on the ground, just within the entrance, caught his eye. He bent to pick it up, then recoiled in horror, throwing it with force back to the ground.

“What was it?” Alexander asked excitedly.

Cadman rushed off the porch without answering, towards the livery. Alexander was at his heels, though. “What?” he asked again.

Cadman turned. “A finger,” he said with difficulty. “A god-damn bloody finger with the nail broken back. Like it’d been clinging to the wood.”

Alexander looked past him into the night, a look of illness on his aged face. “Every grave up there looked that way” he said, “like Paul Goodman’s. There could be hundreds out there like him.”

Cadman searched for words but couldn’t find them. The same thought had been going through his mind. Joseph, he guessed, must’ve made it inside the saloon -- probably the last to go. Trinity Hill was a battleground, he thought to himself. The saloon a mausoleum. And Alexander and I listened to a massacre. “The first,” his stomach wrenched, “of many.”

Alexander looked at him like he understood the quiet words, like they had come from his own mind. “There’ll be more like this,” he said to himself. To Cadman: “When we sunk that well, seven of the men died in an accident. They were blown to pieces,” he paused. “That’s what we thought anyhow.”

Cadman nodded, rain dripping from his hat. All we can do is run, he thought.
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Dead Things - Marius Dicomites

It was worse than she expected.

Nothing could really prepare you for the cold, irrefutable confirmation - the shock of the moment when all doubts and illusions were snatched away to be replaced by a suffocating and onerous grief. The final day for the dead was the beginning for those left behind. This was when the mourning truly began.

Rachel watched silently as the long procession gradually gathered around the graves. It was still raining heavily – it had been raining for most of the day – and as they held their umbrellas over each other, she felt they were closing themselves off from her. They were a close, impenetrable group, and she was not allowed to be part of them. But she understood; she was the one to blame for all this. She had no right to share their grief.

From a distance, hardly feeling the cold or the rain, she held herself as she watched the ceremony. Desperately, she tried to draw some consolation from the priest’s words, but she was only reminded of what she had lost. How could words relieve the gnawing shock and disbelief she still felt? How could words ease the emptiness? There could be no persuasive reason or justification for all this. She just wanted those she had lost back again. She wanted things to be the way they had been before.
She lowered her head as the ceremony finished. The mourners passed her as they left. None of them spoke to her, and she didn’t attempt to speak to any of them. When they had all gone, she took a step towards the graves. But it was too much. Despite the stark reality before her eyes, she still didn’t want to accept the truth. The tears she had tried to suppress clouded her eyes. Falling to the ground, she began to sob uncontrollably.

And then they came. They wrapped their arms around her and took her into their fold. They held her close and tight. Whispering to her, they pressed their faces against hers; they rocked her gently and tried to soothe her as the reality penetrated her consciousness and she began to scream with grief. Holding her even tighter, they drew her away. She didn’t resist. She needed peace. Surrendering, she fell back against them; she hid within them as unwanted memories flooded relentlessly into her broken mind.

Willingly, she lost herself to them, and prayed that she would never recover herself again.

#

They had left her alone.

It didn’t matter. She had no use for them anymore. She had recovered enough of her sanity to recognise the distant pity they had shown her. Since the day of the funeral they had chosen to keep their distance - not one of them had spoken to her face to face. They hadn’t reached out to her again. They had been a hollow presence offering reserved consolation. Well, she no longer needed the forced solace they had shown her; knowing the contempt they really felt for her, she had no further patience for their cold compassion. She had depended on it in the beginning – it had been her only grasp on her sanity. Now she knew its worth, and she despised it as much as she despised them.

To be left alone; that was what she wanted. With the curtains closed and all the lights off, the outside world didn’t exist anymore. There had been phone calls for a while – incessant phone calls – but then she had ripped the phone cord out. Without day or night, without time, without even sound, she had kept to her bed; cocooned by the bed sheets wrapped around her, drifted in and out of a half-conscious sleep, where dreams with familiar faces waited for her – and she woke up crying. To be left alone; she needed to be left alone.

But there was someone in the house.

Unconsciously, she had been hearing it for some time; agonised, struggling to be heard, the intermittent murmur of a man’s voice from the room next door - their child’s bedroom. There had been so many thoughts running through her mind; broken, disjointed and irrational thoughts that she had been compelled to utter out loud – the man’s voice had been lost in the confusion. But the thoughts had stopped now, and it was there, it was definitely there.

And he had no right to be in her house. It was her house!

Swaying with rage, dragging her breath down her throat, she threw the bed sheets off her, and stumbled unsteadily, heavily, almost blindly, out of the door and into the passage. Fleetingly, it crossed her mind that it might be a burglar. But she didn’t care. There was too much rage inside her to care, and she was already giving voice to her rage when she pushed the door open.

The room had changed; everything had changed. Her child’s bed, the cartoon wallpaper they had taken days to put up, the toys that had filled the room – they were gone. Instead, the walls were covered with stained, faded wallpaper which was peeling off the walls at the edges; heavy pine furniture took up most of the space and dominated the room; and ingrained in every aspect was a gloom that seemed almost indelible.

And there was the bed.

Any rage she felt was dissipated at the sight of the frail, withered form that lay there, struggling to breathe but hardly moving, clearly so weak he was unable to move. It was a sight that instantly aroused pity in her; but it was also impossible. She was curious now. Expecting the incongruous vision to vanish at any moment, she moved cautiously closer and looked down at him. He saw her. His eyes widened with shock.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

He had asked the question she had wanted to ask him. Still unable to believe he was real, she reached out her trembling hand to touch the bed.

They both screamed at the same time.

They were pulled apart from each other. An invisible force swept over her like a wave; it was as cold as ice, and she shuddered involuntarily as it continued to move in ripples through the air. It was palpable - she was unable to resist as she was carried along with it. The man – the whole room – simultaneously moved away from her; she was thrown into a world of constantly changing visions of the familiar and unfamiliar; intrusive, pulsating, all-consuming visions which stole all sense of her physical body.

And suddenly she found she was no longer in the bedroom.

It was the materialisation of a memory that had burned every detail of itself into her mind. She was making her way down the staircase, struggling to see through the thick, billowing smoke which choked her every time she drew breath. She knew what was coming. She knew what was about to happen –

“Mama!”

A tremulous moan of revulsion and disbelief fell from her lips. She shook violently with the next step, and then couldn’t go any further – it was too much. Not again, she pleaded inwardly, her body leaning backwards. She struggled to persuade herself it wasn’t real; but the smoke stung her throat with each breath, and the searing heat was beginning to burn her skin. It was real. It was happening again!

“Mama!”

Knowing what was about to happen, she could feel her heart pounding as she stumbled blindly forwards. The cry had come from the living-room. She couldn’t see anything through the door; the thick smoke obscured everything.

“Amy,” she screamed out frantically.

“I can’t get out. Help me!”

“Stay where you are,” she ordered. “I’m coming!”

The words she had spoken before; they were exactly the same words she had spoken before. Tears began to stream down her face. “I don’t want to,” she pleaded faintly.

“Mama!”

The voice jolted her from her hesitation. She couldn’t just stand there and watch. She had no choice. With clenched fists, she threw herself through the door; and felt the explosion from somewhere inside the room throw her whole body forcibly back through the door and against the wall in the passage. Her head struck the wall first; she could taste blood as her twisted form slumped to the ground.

She couldn’t move. Sitting with her back against the wall, she could only watch helplessly as the flames spread into the passage; and she could only listen to the cries for help as her sight rapidly darkened. Her strength was draining away from her. She opened her mouth to cry out for help; the sounds were stifled as they climbed up her throat. She could hardly focus her thoughts now. There was nothing she could do.

I’m sorry, she whispered inwardly, and everything slipped away from her.

#

Sooner or later, it was going to stop. It couldn’t go on forever. Nothing could go on and on forever. She had to endure and be patient. It was going to stop.

“Mama!”

Shuddering with revulsion, she pulled the bed sheets over her head. A strangled cry escaped from her mouth as she curled into herself and wrapped her arms around her knees. But she couldn’t hide. The house had become a part of her now, and so every sound jarred harshly into her hearing, and every movement crawled through her with a violating, almost palpable sensation.

Nothing was hidden now.

“Mama!”

“I can’t help you,” she cried out desperately, pulling the bed sheets off her and sitting up in the bed.

“Mama!”

“I can’t help you,” she screamed, her body shaking violently. “I can’t – “

Her words were stifled as another low but distinct sound crept through to her from the bedroom next door – an insistent scratching, something heavy falling to the ground, and then beginning to drag itself across the ground. She knew what – who – was coming; she could hear him straining and gasping for breath as he struggled to push himself forward.

The door.

The realization that there was no key on the door threw her into a panic verging on hysteria. She was galvanised into action. She heard him coming out into the passage as she rushed to the door. Frantically, she made an effort to push the chest of drawers beside the door across it; but it was far too heavy – it refused to move. As the door shook and the doorknob began to turn, she twisted around with a shudder and held her back against it. It was futile. Her body sank convulsively to the ground as he repeatedly thrust against the door. He was too strong. This wasn’t the frail and elderly man she remembered – he was steadfastly exerting himself beyond his endurance.

The door began to open. She screamed as his hand came through the gap and clutched hold of her arm; without thinking, she pulled the rest of him through the door as she shrank away with terror and revulsion, and suddenly he was bent over her, his hands repeatedly reaching out to her as she tried to pull herself away. He was as cold as ice; she could feel the sharp cold in the air around him.

“Help me,” he pleaded hoarsely, his countenance suffused and twisted with agony.

“No,” she screamed maniacally. Her back came up against the wall as she recoiled from him again. Digging his nails into the carpet, he dragged his emaciated body across the ground; and she felt the cold emanating from him enclose her as he came over her. Its not real, she whispered inwardly, as his trembling hand touched her face. But she could feel his breath; she could feel his skin.

“Help me!”

In a sickening shift, the palpable became impalpable. His twisted face penetrated her consciousness and burned into her mind. There were gnawing thoughts streaming inside her head – but they weren’t her thoughts. The world around them rocked back and forth before; and she could only feel relief as an impenetrable black quickly smothered everything around her and engulfed her consciousness.

Where was she?

The room had changed; the man was gone. It gradually came to her as her awareness of her surroundings grew. This was the room where she had found the old man. But there was something horribly wrong. There was one change.

She was the one in the bed.

In a half-conscious stupor, her thoughts were sluggish and struggled to find coherence. Making an effort to rise from the bed, she immediately sank back down again as a sickening nausea washed over her and made her crave sleep. It was then she grew aware of a dull but constant, slow-throbbing pain in her chest and abdomen.

“Help me,” she whispered.

There was someone in the room with her. Her vision was blurred, and at first all she could discern was a figure composed of shadows moving about. Whoever it was, they chose to ignore her plea; silently, with an unmistakable urgency, they moved about the bedroom. They were searching for something. Although her vision obscured the detail, she could hear drawers opening and been rifled through, objects been pushed impatiently aside.

“Who are you?” she choked out.

And suddenly they were looking down at her. It was a man in his early twenties. Tension tautened his face, but there was the barest trace of a smile on his lips. His eyes gleamed with familiarity, but there was no compassion or warmth.

“Who are you?” she said again.

His face convulsed with contempt. Before she could say anything else, he lifted a pillow over her; he wanted her to see it in his hands. A feeble moan crept from her lips as he thrust it down onto her face. Blindly, she reached out to try and push him away, but she was too weak to have any effect, and it only made him press the pillow down harder.

This wasn’t her death, but she could feel the pillow pressed against her mouth; she was the one struggling for breath. But this wasn’t her death. This –

The sight was ripped away from her. For a moment, she was sure she had been blinded; but then another sickeningly familiar vision bled into the dark before her eyes.

“Mama!”

She shook her head with shock and held herself as she stood in front of the door again. Tears welled in her eyes. The past would always come back to her. There was no choice – she had no choice. She hurled herself through the door; and felt the explosion throw her body against the wall again. But something had changed; she felt it as she sank into unconsciousness.

She knew the truth now.

#

Dead things caught in the fragment of a past that would never release them; on and on, it would go and on – until they were driven insane, and then they would be lost in the moment of their deaths. There would be nothing but their deaths.

It was there in her mind - distinct memories that hadn’t existed before. Her husband had come home drunk. He had lit a cigarette and quickly fallen asleep on the sofa; the cigarette had slipped from his hand. Amy had entered the room to see him, and she had seen the fire starting on the sofa. She tried to wake him, but he wouldn’t wake up – and the fire had quickly spread out of control. She wouldn’t leave the room. She made an effort to pull Graham off the sofa, but he was too heavy for her – and she still wouldn’t leave the room.

And then she had played her part. It was the fireplace. There had been something wrong with the fireplace, and if she gotten there a minute earlier it might have ended differently. The fireplace had exploded just as she entered the room. It wasn’t the explosion that had killed her. It had ended for her when her head struck the wall.

It wasn’t her fault. The hole in her mind was gone – it wasn’t her fault. There was nothing she could have done to prevent what happened. The fireplace had been installed a week earlier – she now realized it had been faulty. If it hadn’t been for the explosion, they might have all survived the fire.

What was she going to do?

The truth could bring little consolation now. It was a living death. They would keep going back in time to die again – she would never see their faces. And in another time, in the same house, an elderly man would be suffocated to death.

What was she going to do?

The answer came to her as the old man’s labored breathing slithered into her hearing from the bedroom next door; it was the only thing on her mind as she climbed off the bed and, steadying herself, went towards the door and out into the passage. She heard him falling off the bed as she came to the door of his room. Her fear of him had gone; there was no reason to fear now. As she heard him beginning to drag himself across the ground, she opened the door and went straight to him, calmly knelt down in front of him as he reached his hand out to her, his agonised eyes holding onto her with a frantic desperation.

“Help me,” she said hoarsely.

He understood; she could see he understood. He crawled closer to her and held out his hand again. As she stopped down to him, a movement at the corner of her eye made her look up. There was nothing there, but she still had the sensation of an invisible presence repeatedly throwing its gaze at them as it went about the room. She remembered the old man’s murderer – what had happened before the murder. Time meant nothing in this existence. The past was waiting for them; it had been waiting for them all along.

She stretched out her hand.

It happened so easily this time. In an instant, she found herself standing in the doorway, looking down at the old man as he lay on the bed. There was a discernible, palpable change in the substance of her surroundings; she could feel the cold in the air and the ground beneath her feet; she could see the light from outside slipping through the gaps in the curtains, and hear the sounds of voices in the street. This time it was different. It was real, or as real as it could be. Why was it different?

She stiffened as she heard hurried footsteps from the room below her. The old man moaned with dread and made a feeble effort to lift himself out of the bed.

It was happening.

The trepidation thickened and pounded inside her as she rushed to the bed. At first the old man could only look at her with disbelief. And then he held out his hand.

“Help me,” he pleaded.

“Shh,” she hissed warningly, and for a moment could only stare down at him as her mind struggled to formulate a plan. They couldn’t go downstairs; he would be waiting. What was she supposed to do? What would be enough to change things?

The wardrobe.

It was in the corner of the room. It was large enough to fit both of them. Hurrying over to the wardrobe, she threw open the doors and returned to the bed. Pulling aside the bed sheets, she brought her arms under the old man’s knees and back. He was so light and frail – it was surprisingly effortless to lift him from the bed and carry him to the wardrobe. As she heard a door opening downstairs, she placed him inside in a sitting position against the inner wall. The footsteps were beginning to make their way up the stairs as she climbed inside the wardrobe to join the old man and closed the doors.

How could they die if they were already dead? What did they have to be afraid of? It was incomprehensible - there was nothing to fear, yet the fear choked them into a cowering silence as the footsteps came nearer. This was real. The old man was going to die, and what would happen to her when she was discovered with him?

The footsteps entered the room, and then they stopped. In her mind, she could see him looking around the room, trying to determine where the old man would hide. But she didn’t need to imagine. When the footsteps started again, they came straight towards the wardrobe; and when they stopped, she knew they couldn’t hide anymore.

She thrust the wardrobe doors open and threw herself blindly at him. Her hands found his throat, and she used the hold to push him back with all the force in her body. At first he was surprised – he hadn’t expected her to be there – but he quickly recovered his senses, and then his face contorted with a brutal rage. He seized hold of her arms, and they both writhed frantically against each other. He couldn’t get near enough to harm her; with her hands clutching his throat, she kept on pushing him away. But she was beginning to weaken; she couldn’t sustain the effort. If she lost, it would all be over, and the past would reclaim them. There had to be an end to this. It had to stop.

Her strength flooded back to her, and her frustration and rage drew on it as she pushed at him violently. They stumbled out through the door and into the passage; and there was a moment when they were both helpless and blind as they fell over the banister and down the staircase. In her mind, she was ready to seize control again as soon as she had the chance, but her head struck the wall as she tumbled down the stairs. The pain and shock caused her to loosen her hold, and she could do nothing as she was sent sprawling into the passage on the ground floor.

Her body wouldn’t move. Her consciousness was quickly slipping away from her. Hearing sounds from the living-room, she twisted her head sideways – and tears welled in her eyes as she saw her daughter going into the room. She could smell the smoke. She could -

“No,” she whispered, and caught her breath as a figure suddenly knelt over her. It was the old man. Had she saved him? Where was his murderer? If it was over for him, it was good. But what about her? What about her family?

“Help me,” she pleaded desperately. He stretched his hand out to her. Her vision was deteriorating, and as she reached out to him she found herself reaching out to darkening shadows.

And the world slipped away.

#

In the dark, she could hear crying.

The light started to trickle into the dark. There were voices now. They were familiar, but she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. There was too much to dread, and so she kept her eyes closed tight. There was nothing more she could give. If failure and disappointment waited for her again, she would hide from the voices and anything that reminded her of the past. She didn’t want to be hurt anymore.

“Mama!”

Involuntarily, her eyes flew open, and she confronted the source of the voices. Her husband was sitting up against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably; their daughter knelt beside him, crying with confusion, and crying because he was crying. Shaking her head with a wary disbelief, she crawled slowly to them on her hands and knees. Hesitantly, she touched her daughter’s tear-stained face; her touch remained there, and when she was finally persuaded of its substance, her defenses slipped away and the uneasiness and doubts in her mind dissolved into relief. Looking at her husband, she could only feel pity. He was in shock. He realized what he had done, and it was too much for him.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. His body quaked as he tried to speak. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed.

There was no anger inside her. What was the point of recriminations? It was in the past. “I know you are,” she answered softly, resting her hand on his shoulder. She brought her daughter closer to her, and smiled as she hugged them both. In death, this was her existence now. They were all together, and they were all that mattered to her. The world was altering around them again. The visitants who had looked after her at the funeral, and after the funeral, grew into her awareness and surrounded them with warmth. There was no dread. She was certain that whatever happened it couldn’t hurt her anymore.

They would all be together.
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