The Night Listener and Others

by Chet Williamson

  I tried to catch a breath, even to breathe in that foul, stinking air, but my decaying lungs were filled with fluid, and I heard the clicking and bubbling as I struggled to pull in oxygen. I could feel my mind slipping away as my heart worked harder than ever before to pump blood up into my brain, but I could feel it failing, shrinking like a sponge being squeezed dry so that there was no blood in my dying brain, and my thoughts started escaping, my mind dribbling away, everything slithering into utter hopelessness.

  And then I felt Kylie. With what lousy senses I had left, I felt her, knew she was here, and that knowledge, weak as it was, brought me back. I’m not dying, I thought to myself. I’m not! But everyone else around me was, and I started moving through them toward my Kylie.

  You know how in the Lord of the Rings movies you’ve got these rows on rows of CG orcs and monsters? It was like that, as far as I could see, these vast ranks of the dying standing and lying and writhing on…it wasn’t ground, exactly. I don’t know what it was, but it was wet, and it stank just as badly as the things that lived—or died—there. And it wasn’t flat like the ground. It curved up and around, like I was inside a huge globe, but a globe as big as the earth. Still, with the light all around me, I could see everything, way across on the other side above my head. It was freaky as hell, and if it hadn’t been for Kyle being there I probably would’ve lost it. I had to keep it together for her, and that’s what I was going to do.

  I tried to call her name, but when I did it felt like my mouth was turned inside-out and was pouring out of my head, my tongue slopping down over my jaw. So I called her from inside myself, and I felt an answer. I stumbled through these slimy, groping, eternally dying things that crawled and shambled all around me, trying to get closer to Kylie, telling myself that it was okay, that my body wasn’t dying, that pieces of myself weren’t really dropping off with every move I made, that I was sitting back in the hospice next to Holly, and outside the snow was falling and it was dark and cool and safe, not hot and bright and blinding and stinking like the contents of a slaughterhouse left in the sun for weeks.

  Still, with every step I felt my bare feet sink into the sweltering ooze that was both the ground and the bodies that I walked on. In some places you couldn’t tell one from the other—the landscape seemed made of the dying. Heads and hands and arms rose out of it like tree branches from a swamp. Only branches didn’t twist and clutch and writhe in agony. And they didn’t look up at you with eyes that blazed like the light that imprisoned them.

  I kept moving, kept thinking Kylie …Kylie …Kylie …ut there were all these other things that were trying to get into my mind, thoughts and visions and memories that weren’t mine. And I finally figured out that it was from coming into contact with all these dying people, that somehow what was in their heads was creeping into my own. It was like I was part of a mass mind, like a zombie Borg-collective, if you’re into Star Trek like I am.

  The worst part was that so many of their thoughts were about their dying, and so many were the same, because all these people in this particular light had died in the hospice, so their deaths were long and painful. That’s all I want to say about it. But if anybody ever tells me, oh, nobody knows what it’s like to die, I can say that I do.

  In spite of all these alien thoughts battering away at my mind, I felt Kylie growing nearer. Even in all that stench of death I could suddenly sense the lemon-strawberry scent of her hair, and before I realized it I was right beside her.

  She was naked, and it was the first time I’d seen her that way, but it wasn’t sexy at all. Her body was like a skeleton with skin stretched across it, and it scared me, but she was still Kylie and I had come to save her, so I grabbed her hand.

  I don’t know which was worse—the fact that her hand seemed to melt into mine like they were both made of pudding, or what I felt coming into my mind from her own. It was like I knew everything that she knew, like all her memories and thoughts were an open book to me.

  I knew that she never loved me, that she loved Rick, and that Rick had seen her naked.

  I knew that Rick had broken up with her right after she got sick, and that was when she started pretending to like me, because she wanted somebody who would love her and take care of her and not leave her to die alone.

  I knew what she was thinking when she was kissing me, and I knew that she held her breath when she did so that she wouldn’t smell my bad breath, and she closed her eyes so that she wouldn’t see the zits that I brushed my hair to cover.

  I knew that she thought my hand was sweaty when I held hers.

  I knew that she thought the sci-fi DVDs we watched were stupid.

  I knew that Annie and Drew and Liz teased her for dating a nerd.

  I knew that she hated them for doing it.

  I knew that she didn’t love me, not at all.

  For a moment I thought about leaving her there, but I couldn’t. In spite of everything, I still loved her. I had come in there to save her from the light, and that’s what I was going to do.

  I don’t know exactly how I was able to get her out. It was twice as hard getting back to the edge of the light as it had been to get to Kyle in the first place, but after what seemed like hours I knew we were there. I could see the room in the hospice like it was through deep water, and I wrapped my arms around Kyle, felt her body ooze into mine, and pushed out of the light. It was as though the light made one final effort to hold us, and blazed up, blinding me, so that when I could see again I was sitting in the chair by the bed in the hospice, Holly beside me, Kyle lying dead, her eyes still open.

  “… Andy?” Holly said, and I looked up at her and smiled. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, and my voice sounded funny to me. “I’ve got her. I saved her.”

  “Where…where is she?”

  “In here,” I said, touching my chest. “She’s safe in here.” And she was. I could feel her soul inside my mind and my body, warm against my heart, within my brain. I looked above the bed, then all around the room. “It’s gone,” I said. “The light. I think I kicked its ass.”

  Holly laughed uncomfortably. “I guess you did.” She took a deep breath. I looked down at my hands, happy that they were solid again. “Are you ready to let her go?” Holly asked. “Into the shadow?”

  I nodded.

  “Then let’s bring it back,” she said. “Start to let Kyle out, but watch out for the light.” That was all it took. As I began to let Kyle’s spirit slip out of me I started to see the shadow, forming like a thick cloud of darkness in a corner of the room, about eye level. I heard Holly gasp, but it wasn’t at the shadow. It was at the sight of what was pouring out of me, a gleaming, iridescent ribbon made of air and light.

  She watched it start to go into the darkness, and then I gave a cry of pain, and Holly’s gaze snapped back to me. When we looked at the shadow again, the ribbon was gone, and in another moment so was the shadow.

  “That was amazing,” Holly whispered. “What you did. I never knew anyone who went into the light and came back. What was it like?”

  I told her. Everything.

  “She didn’t love me,” I said. “I thought she did, but she was lying all along. Just to have somebody to be with her…when she died.”

  Holly’s face was pale. “My god, Andy. When did you learn that?”

  “As soon as I…touched her.”

  “And you brought her out anyway.” She shook her head and smiled at me. “That was incredibly generous. And very brave.”

  “Yeah, whatever.” I looked at Kyle’s dead face. “Should we let everybody else know? That she’s gone, I mean.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Holly said as she stood up. “I’d tell you to go home, but I don’t think anybody’s going anywhere in this weather. You want to wait in the lounge, or—”

  “I’ll just sit here for a while,” I said. “If that’s okay.”

  She looked a little surprised. “Sure. Sure it is. You take as long as you like
, and then I’ll get some of the others and we’ll…take care of Kyle. And Andy?” I looked up at her. “Don’t take this too hard. You’ve got a gift, a very special gift, and we’ll talk more about it and what you might want to do with it. But you’re also a very special guy, and I promise you that someday there’s going to be a girl who will love you, just for yourself. Okay?”

  I nodded and put on a brave smile. Holly left me alone and I sat and looked at Kyle’s body.

  Then I looked at—and right into—her spirit, still inside me.

  Holly was right. There was going to be a girl that really loved me, and it was going to be Kyle.

  I’d decided what to do on the way out, fighting my way through that nightmare, that hell that I’d gone into for her. I had let Kyle slip partway into the shadow, but then I’d made that noise to distract Holly, and when she looked at me I yanked Kyle back, like pulling in a fish all at once. Misdirection. Like sleight of hand, but really sleight of mind. Holly thought that Kyle had gone into the shadow, but she was really tucked away inside me.

  She still is. And that’s where I’m going to keep her until the day that she loves me for real. She says she does, but she’s just saying that to get out, so that she can go into the darkness. I know she’s lying. I know everything in her mind and her soul. She can’t lie to me, not this time.

  So that’s about it. My main reason in posting this is to let people know—don’t go to the light or tell anybody else to go there. Tell them to go to the shadow and they’ll be okay. Or as okay as you can be when you die.

  I said at the beginning it was important, and it is. So spread it around, post it on your own blogs. Because I want people to know. I want to help save them. I mean, I’m not a bad person, even if Kyle thinks I am. She thinks I’m really bad right now, but I’m not. And soon she’ll see that. Soon she’ll love me.

  She’d better, for both our sakes.

  Marley’s Cat

  I was Marley’s cat, to begin with, though I became Scrooge’s later. Mind, I wasn’t anybody’s cat at first. I just frequented that gloomy pile of buildings where Marley lived because it was teeming with mice and rats, which, while unappetizing, are at the least nourishing. Since grain was stored unprotected in one of the outbuildings, the vermin were fat and lazy, while I was lean, sleek, and hungry. The conflict was naturally one-sided, and I ate my fill.

  Jacob Marley was a hard man, harder in some ways than Scrooge, truth be told. But I was his weakness. He first came upon me shortly after he had bought the house. I was dining on a particularly succulent rat in the court, and he looked at me thoughtfully, then went inside and came out again shortly with a dishful of milk, which he set on the stones a few yards away from me. At first I regarded it disdainfully, as I was no man’s creature. But then it occurred to me that milk was milk, after all, and that one should not ignore what fortune puts in one’s path. So I took a final bite of my rat and glided slowly over to the proffered dish.

  I’d tasted milk only once since the period of my nativity, and that was when a clumsy milkmaid had spilt some in the street. I liked it then and I liked it even better from Marley’s dish. So when I emptied it, and he picked it up, walked to his door, opened it wide, and beckoned me in, I went. It was also far warmer within than outside, and I felt confident that if he had my destruction on his mind that I could evade and savage him, if need be, for my claws were long and hooked, my teeth sharp, and my jaws strong.

  But he had no mischief in mind, only, it seemed, our joint welfare. I learned that, as the result of living so close to the granary, his chambers were infested with rodents, not the huge rats that I delighted in worrying by their necks like a terrier until my hind claws could rip open their fat bellies, but relatively inoffensive and much smaller mice.

  Marley kept his victuals well stored and beyond their reach, but the books and records of his business dealings showed numerous nibblings, and I quickly deduced that many of the pages had been reduced to bedding for the innumerable litters that populated the walls of his rooms.

  It was, I saw as readily, a proposition of business, in the practice of which Marley had spent his entire life. I was to rid the house of the creatures that riddled Marley’s business records, and in turn he would provide me with warm lodging (at least warmer than outdoors, for his meanness extended to his use of fuel) and a daily dish of milk. It seemed fair enough. I remained and did my job admirably, and he reciprocated in his way.

  After several months our relationship deepened. I was sitting one February night by the fireside, which gave out but the bare minimum of heat. I must have been purring notwithstanding, and was startled to find Marley’s hand upon me. He was hesitantly stroking my fur, so lightly that I could barely detect his touch. I did not move, but continued my purring and kept my eyes closed. My passivity emboldened him, and his patting increased, but became no less gentle, and I discovered to my great surprise that I relished it.

  My purring increased in volume, and Marley actually chuckled, the first time I had ever heard such a noise escape his throat. He rubbed behind my ears then, and I went into a near paroxysm of ecstasy. However, when he tried to rub my belly, the intimacy was too great, and I jerked up my head and gave a low and menacing growl. The hand went quickly back to my ears.

  Still, we had become more than business associates, and I began to greet him when he returned in the evening from the office he shared with his partner, Ebenezer Scrooge. Marley never named me anything, for which I was grateful. I have seen many a noble feline ruined by domestication and the resulting title of “Fluff “ or “Snowball.” How can any cat so named continue to ravage the bowels of rats and dip its snout in rodent gore? If he addressed me it was always Cat, and I found that appellation fair, respectful, and honest, for such I was.

  Marley had no visitors except Scrooge, and when he came to Marley’s chambers it was always upon the pretext of business, though there were times when the two partners would actually discuss other matters. Such discussions were nearly always limited to expressions of complaint, whether concerning the recent decisions of Parliament, choices in upcoming elections, or the follies of the Royal Family. No matter the topic, the crux of the discussion was always how it would impact upon the firm of Scrooge and Marley.

  The sole time that I saw or heard Scrooge touch, ever so peripherally, upon his personal life was the first evening that he became aware of my presence in Marley’s chambers. Before, when Scrooge had called, I had remained hidden, for the man’s presence was odious to me. While Marley was just as harsh as Scrooge in their business dealings, I could abide his presence and his hand upon me. There was something about Scrooge, however, that curdled my blood. I would no sooner have let him touch me than let a rat gnaw open my jugular vein with impunity.

  On the evening of which I speak, I was dozing under Marley’s armchair, concealed by the flaps of heavy fabric about its base, when a mouse, ignorant or inexperienced or both, scuttled across the floor. Immediately detecting and identifying its footfalls, I dashed from beneath the chair like a shot from a cannon, trapped it with my claws, and, taking its tiny head in my mouth, broke its neck on the instant.

  You would have thought Scrooge had seen a particularly hideous ghost, for he leapt to his feet and cried, “What in heaven’s name is that?”

  Marley replied calmly, “My cat, of course.”

  “You keep a…pet cat? “ Scrooge said.

  “Not a pet,” Marley said, as though the idea was ridiculous. “It’s here to keep down the vermin.”

  “Bah,” said Scrooge, sitting once again, but keeping a pale eye on me. “Can’t abide the brutes. Rather have mice, m’self.” Then his gaze seemed to look beyond me, into a dark corner of the room. “Hated them ever since…” His voice faded.

  “What?” said Marley. “What is it, Ebenezer?”

  Scrooge came out of himself then. He was as open and human as I had ever seen him up to that time, and possibly as Marley had seen him in many years. He told Marley
a tale full of bitterness and dread from his childhood when he lived with his family in the West Country.

  In a nutshell (and, unlike Scrooge’s better known chronicler, I do know what there is particularly concise about a nutshell), Scrooge’s mother was far younger than his father, who was a rather unsuccessful tradesman. He met the young woman on a visit to one of the farms from which he bought grain, and was smitten with her instantly. A wild girl, she was given to wandering outdoors over the heaths and moors on her own, and the elder Scrooge’s attempt to tame her met with little success. She bore him two children, Ebenezer and then Fan, and this second birth proved fatal to her.

  At least, related Scrooge, this was the story told to him by his father, but as he was growing up he heard several of the less close-tongued towns-people tell another tale, which he now retold to Marley. It seemed that some of the more ignorant and superstitious fancied that Scrooge’s mother was a witch, after hearing the account of one bibulous dipsomaniac of a carter who swore that he had seen her shed her clothes in the middle of a field one stormy night, embrace the devil himself, and then transform into a black cat.

  Now it was a fact, admitted Scrooge, that a large black cat had been seen in the area, and that no hunter had been able to kill it, but, he snorted, that (along with the ranting of a sole drunkard) was scant evidence for his mother’s being a shapeshifter. Still, the rumor spread, and it was not long before the people of the town shunned her, and the cruelty of parents extended to that of their children as well, making young Ebenezer’s boyhood unpleasant in the extreme.

  After his mother’s death, Scrooge and his infant sister were taken by their father to the town of Strood in Rochester, where no word of the deceased Mrs. Scrooge’s alleged spiritual impropriety had traveled. Still, because of the accusations against his mother and his belief that they had in part caused her death, Scrooge could not abide the sight of cats and had never admitted one into his chambers.