Dreams

by Wesley McBride

  He stayed there awhile, heaped into the corner next to the door. His ribs ached, and he could tell he was bleeding from somewhere on his face, but where exactly he did not know. His eyes tried to adjust to the darkness but no light could penetrate into the stairwell. Nothing is here he thought. Nothing is in here now trying to get here. You’re alone. Now get out. He stood, painfully, palming the wall until he found the door and the knob. Deep breaths. He gritted his teeth and turned the knob slowly to not alert whatever was on the other side. He pulled and attempted to slide into the hall but, ill-timed, caught his shoe on the door and almost fell, his left hand propping himself up from the floor. Something was wrong. There was a faint glow of light coming from an unknown source revealing shapes and objects but he couldn’t make out what they were. He gripped the floor. Carpet. Carpet? He widened his eyes in an attempt to see better. He stood. There was a light switch next to the door but it didn’t work. He thought he knew where he was. No. He could see the outline of another door and scanned the floor in front of it to check for obstacles but could not see any. Move. He walked to the door fast, with purpose, grabbing the knob, twisting, lifting upwards and pulling it open. A blast of light and heat burst through his front door, stinging his eyes. He pulled back and scanned his living room. There was ashes blanketing the room worse than before. The smell of something rotting and sulphur was intense. He tried to make sense of things.

  Uurrurururururrururururruurrr

  Don’t move. Stay. Don’t move. They can’t get you if you don’t move. Just stay here.

  Urrururururruurururuururrruuu

  He watched his phone. It was sitting on the end table by the couch, slowly vibrating its way across the glass though he couldn’t remember leaving it there. He couldn’t remember leaving it anywhere. Today couldn’t have been a dream. I’m losing it, he thought, I need help. I need help. He waited. Hunched by the door, he made sure to keep an eye on his bedroom. Had I really never left this morning?

  Ururuururruruuururuururururu

  The phone made its way to the edge and fell, landing softly on the carpet in a puff of ash. He watched it from across the room, afraid to move from his spot next to the open door. The heat pouring through was intense, worse than it had been in the past week. His ribs hurt from the fall he wasn’t sure happened. He lifted his shirt and saw the red marks on his side. He thought and began to crawl, silently. He could see through the bedroom door under his bed to the shoebox. He kept his attention on the box, and began to crawl towards it, stalk it. Nothing can get me if I don’t look away. Through the bedroom door, he crawled. Onto his belly now, he squirmed under the bed and slowly pulled the box out as he wiggled his way out ahead of it. He backed his way out of the room, back into the corner by the open door, grinding the ash into his pants and the carpet in parallel paths. Sitting on the floor, he pulled the pistol out of the box and opened the cylinder. It was empty. He felt around the shoebox until he found one of the boxes of bullets. He slid them into the chambers and put the rest of the box in his pocket. He slid the shoebox behind the door and stood up. He pointed the gun at the phone and walked towards it but caught himself and lowered it, finger on the trigger. He moved it to his left hand and picked up the phone and turned, keeping his back to the wall. He held the phone, staring at the blank, dark screen, thumb on the button that would light it up but unable to press it.

  Uurrururrrururrururrurururr

  It vibrated in his hand and lit up. He shook as he read it.

  Why did you leave me in the hospital dad? This is your fault.

  Anger now. Hate for whoever was doing this to him, worse than he’d ever felt it before. He heard a crack, not realizing he had squeezed the phone until the screen shattered in his hand. He pitched the phone against the wall and watched as it broke apart, putting a long dent in the drywall, switching the gun to his right hand and firing two shots at the phone, hitting a piece once. He kept the gun raised at nothing for a while, unsure of what he was aiming at. He looked towards the open door. Heat poured in, heat and ash and light. A crash howled in the distance the echoed through him. He walked to the doorway, calmly, and stood on the concrete landing, staring out into the alley.

  The sky was a pale red, a sea, darkly swarming with whirlpools of dust and ash, blocking out the sun, casting shadow only broken by flashes of light flaring through the clouds followed by thunder. He saw it. Something, a shadow, darker than the rest, slowly moving to the center of the alley from behind the brick buildings that lined the street ahead of him. He raised the pistol towards it as he backed into the house, slamming the door behind him and heading to the window. A tightness came over his chest, making it difficult to breath. The shadow kept coming towards him, stopping near the door, watching him without eyes, speaking to him, threatening him without lungs, without breath. This thing, this evil thing, wanted to harm him, but couldn’t somehow, something was stopping it. A piercing scream shattered the silence. The thing laughed. The scream was coming from the kitchen he thought. He turned and backed into the corner, away from the window. He couldn’t see the shadow anymore but he could feel it as he kept his eyes on the opening that led to the kitchen, raising his gun to it. He leaned around to look out the window though he couldn’t see the thing anymore. He jumped and spun, pointing the pistol out of the window but saw nothing but ash and red and someone running on the street past the alley. He stepped forward towards the entrance to the kitchen, keeping the gun pointed but looking out of the window. Two more men ran by the gap in the alley followed by what looked like a woman only bigger and faster than a person should be capable of. He stepped again towards the kitchen as the scream turned into a wail. He could feel it now, the shadow, grasping him inside his chest, his stomach. He was close now. He didn’t fight it now. Just crept to where it wanted him. He got to the wall now, feeling his hand drag against the bubbled and brailed paint. He grasped the edge. The shadow pushed him forward. Deep breath. Go. He swung the pistol into the kitchen ahead of him. A woman stood in his kitchen with her back to him, shrieking and crying.

  Turn around.

  She didn’t.

  Turn around now, I’ll shoot.

  His voice cracked as he spoke. Again, she didn’t. He raised the pistol and pointed it at the crying woman’s back and crept, momentarily contemplating hitting the woman with the gun, around the ledge and discovered what she was wailing over. It appeared to be a man, blurry though recognizable as a person. His skin appeared grey against the rug though he couldn’t make out features. The pressure grew inside him now, it wanted him to see. He stepped towards the side of the woman, pistol still raised though more casual now, to try to see her face. The gun dropped to his waist. Her grey hair was set back into a ponytail, red glasses filling up with fog as her breath fled upwards from hands softened with age that were cupped over her mouth as she tried to calm herself unsuccessfully, lines on her face from laughter and cries, both of which he had caused. Yellow loafers under jeans under a ruffled green sweater, the one he had bought her years ago for mother’s day.

  Mom? He began to cry as he looked down at the mass on his floor, oddly familiar but still unable to see its features.

  Mom? Look at me.

  She did not. Ignoring him, she now knelt and placed her hand on the person, the mass on the floor. She shook the leg and wailed again as she did. Whatever it was, it was stiff and cold. He could feel it as well as she could in that moment. An intense feeling of sadness and loss that he had felt only once before in his life but knew more intimately than any other feeling he had ever experienced. He trembled as she stood again, crying, staring at her eyes that had swollen and reddened and glazed with tears. He watched as she turned towards him, hoping for her to stop and talk to him, to hear her voice, but instead watching her move towards the doorway and slowly walk into the living room, hunched and defeated as she went.

  Mom, he said once again, knowing she couldn’t hear him but not understanding what was happening in the moment. He followed her gho
st into the living room but she was no longer there as he entered after her. His door was open. He walked back into the kitchen. The form on the floor was gone, probably never there he thought, just an apparition he thought. He picked up the bottle that sat on the counter, knowing its contents may make him feel better for the moment and returned to the living room. He sat, placing the bottle on the ashy table with his left hand while holding the pistol with his right before returning the bottle to the kitchen. He tried to make sense of things. They aren’t real. They can’t be real.

  He stared at a patch of rug, his mind straining. He imagined placing the gun to his temple, then did that. The steel felt cold. He imagined pulling the trigger. He sat imagining. Crazy people don’t know they are crazy, he thought.

  A large chunk of concrete burst through his window into the back of his television, sending shards of glass across the room and waking him from sleeplessness. He jumped to his feet, pulling the pistol from his temple and aiming it at the window. It was dark now. He could hear people yelling in the street. Someone ran away from him down the alley though the shadows obscured his vision. He burst through the door, angry, chasing the culprit down the alley until he lost sight of him when he turned down the street. He slowed then. Holding the gun with both hands, pointing it ahead at the bricks where he last say the brick thrower, he crouched and stepped forward carefully, not thinking about the day’s events or the weeks.

  It won’t help.

  He spun and pointed the gun to his right, ready to shoot, until he noticed it was the homeless man. Lower the gun. A loud crash of thunder again followed by a flash. Ash swirled into his eye. He rubbed as he spoke.

  Did you see who did that? The rock through my window?

  It won’t help.

  What won’t help?

  Trying to chase him. Getting him back. It won’t help.

  He stared at the old man.

  What are you talking about? Some fucker just put a rock through my fucking window!

  He laughed. Yeah I saw that. But you chasing him won’t help. Being angry won’t help.

  More screaming, yelling from the street now.

  What is going on out there?

  Don’t know. Don’t care frankly.

  Don’t care? It sounds like a goddamn…fucking…riot.

  Go home. All I know is when the world goes to shit don’t add to the pile.

  What?

  Whatever is going on out there, it’s not going to help you to join in.

  He stared at the old man. A light beside one of the back doors to the long brick buildings lit up for the first time since he could remember. He pointed his gun at the door, waiting for someone to exit, though he quickly thought better and lowered the gun. He looked back at the old man. This was the clearest he had ever seen him, though not completely without shadow. His shirt and vest and coat still in the order he first saw them in but his greying beard and shaggy hair were concealing something more familiar now. For a moment, he thought he knew him. Something about his eyes. Something about his voice. I swear I know you. He opened his mouth to say something, what he wasn’t sure yet, when the ground tremored preceded by a loud crash. Fire tongued from two of the windows of the apartment building across the street from the alley, chased by black smoke.

  He ran towards the building. As he reached the street, he saw the body. An older man, about 60, lying on the sidewalk under one of the windows. He heaved. Nothing to vomit. His charred body ended at his hips, the rest of him torn away, gone, his insides spilled off the sidewalk into the street. Ropes of deep red and purple and black. Gory streamers lying in a pool of blood dampened ash. Screaming. He heard a woman screaming from inside the building. He didn’t hear his own voice screaming. He stuffed the pistol into his waistband and looked around the street expecting police. Nothing. No sirens, no lights. Another bang. He could see Blues in the distance, the brick surrounding the front cage began to crumble into red and grey dust into the street. A man ran towards the broken building and threw a brick through the window above the ledge he had sat on less than a week before, and jumped into the building. Screaming again, coming through the open doorway. He stared at the opening, scared. Hesitating. The events of the past few days had made him wary but angry. He ran through the doorway. Smoke filled the hallway and stairway neighbouring it. The screaming was coming from above. He ran up the steps, tripping on the 5th but regaining himself and continuing. In the second floor hallway, the air was hazy. The screaming continued from above. Third floor. On your left. Next door. He felt the handle. It was warm but not hot. He braced himself. Hiding behind the wall that was hiding behind its own yellowed wallpaper. He twisted and pushed, cowering away from the doorway. No flames but the screaming grew louder. He entered the apartment. He began to cough as smoke filled him. He crouched and crawled now, the smoke swimming above him, through the kitchen in the living room. She was there. A woman in a white dress, ashed grey now, lying on the floor near the front window. He hurried on the carpet, between the brown and green and beige couch and chair, to her. She was bleeding. Stomach. Blood pulsed out of her abdomen. He placed both hands and pressed like he had saw in the movies. Her face was pale and she looked directly into his eyes, terrified.

  Where am I?

  Her voice warbled as he noticed a pond of blood behind her head.

  I’m scared.

  I’m going to get help, he promised. He backed up on his bum into the kitchen cabinets, knowing then that he didn’t have his phone. He stood. The smoke choked his eyes. He felt along the walls trying to find the exit. A piece of plastic. An old Bakelite telephone on the wall. He pulled it free from the drywall and dropped to his knees looking at it for a moment. It was ancient, the curled cord running to the wall above him to a patch of unpainted wall and a small plastic pad from where the cord snaked. He stood again, left hand trying to think of numbers, receiver tucked between his cheek and shoulder, right on the counter, searching through the smoke to see numbers. Stabbing pain. He tried to twist to his right but he couldn’t. A long polished shard of steel with a cheap black plastic handle through his hand, and into the yellow sequined counter top. He looked up. A man. Not a man. A thing. Smiling at him. Smiling through shattered teeth, daring him. He dropped to the floor but his hand was stabbed through, pinned, tearing the muscles and tendons. Its red face licked its lips with a forked tongue and turned towards the woman. He pulled up his hand stopping at the handle. It licked again and turned its head towards the woman. It wore nothing. Its crooked body sparsely covered in black hair. Watching, he grabbed the knife and pulled, trying to get it out in a panic. It crouched towards her, savouring. She looked at him, locking eyes, begging him to help. It opened its mouth. Blackness inside and dripping onto the floor like tar. He looked at the blade, trying to keep his hand straight as he slowly slid his hand back down, the blade causing a suction inside his hand as he pushed. It wanted her neck. It looked at him them back to her. She looked, kept her eyes locked on him, begging him. It snapped. Blood sprayed as it began to chew on her neck, her throat and veins. He jerked upwards again but the blade was too deep. Wait. The pistol. He reached behind him, feeling for the gun, touching the steel but not being able to grasp. He pushed his hip against the counter until he could reach it, whipping it towards the living room. The thing gnawed, holding pieces of her in its claws, eating them. He pointed the pistol at it then towards the knife. He aimed at the blade and pulled the little metal moon, the handle of the knife a baton twirling into the smoke. He pulled up and freed his hand, looking back at the living room. She was clearly dead now, her head nearly freed from the rest of her. He fired three shots at it, appearing to strike it once in the head. It looked at him, held her arm, took another bite and smiled. He began to run, choking on smoke as he fled.

  Blood dripped from him but he didn’t notice. Get home. He ran down the stairs, swinging himself by the railing around the corners. Second floor. A small girl standing in the smoke in a bloodied nightgown staring at him, black oozi
ng from her mouth. No. Keep running. It wants you to stop. Away from the building, no longer caring about the woman, forgetting her, ashes following him as he ran. Almost there. His hand was on fire. Smoke in his doorway. An explosion ripped the air behind him though he didn’t turn around. The old man, the bum, was no longer there, his area ashed in already. Never was. More fire coming from the building on his right and a tremor growing beneath him threatening to topple him. He saw it and stumbled before falling to his knees and tumbling, as quick to rise as he was to fall. A shadow, a mass of darkness in his doorway, begging him to come to him. He ran towards it. Gun pointed. I’m ready. No I’m not. He faltered, dodging into the garage and fumbling in his pocket for his keys. 1, 2, 3, 4…he found them and jumped in. Starting the engine with his slick, bloodied hand he looked up through the windshield. Countryside. A dark highway.

  He recognized the blue gauges informing him and felt the fake leather handle on the gear shift, hand groping it past a long grey flannel shirt. The cut through his hand had disappeared. He watched himself, living again that day. Please stop. It was as if he could see his eyes and use them to see at the same time. Not this day. Not again.