by A. P. Fuchs
Inexplicably drawn toward them, Bernie studied the faces of each dead person, his mouth agape at the slack-jawed mouths of the heads, their open eyes, the whites in them faded to an awful gray. Their cheeks were caved in slightly, their lips pallid and thin. Their hair sat unnaturally, as if the Man had taken the time to style and comb each mop atop all of them. The baby didn't have any hair, Bernie noticed. Upon further inspection, he realized his assessment of the hair on the top of the heads wasn't entirely accurate. On the tops of each of them the hair was crusty, tainted a deep red, almost a maroon, the tops of the head a mess of skin, hair and bone, as if something had sanded away the flesh on top. Bernie shuddered at the sight.
A semi-transparent, beige tarp stretched from about the middle of the room to the wall on the right. The silhouette of the Man danced behind it, his feet hopping from one to the other to a tune only he could hear. He danced around a table with a lump in the middle of it, the sound of scraping filling the silence of the cabin. Bernie knew what that lump was, though he wouldn't acknowledge it. How could he? The very thought of it made him cringe.
He took a step closer, the Man starting to whistle now. The raspy, scraping sound continued, droning in and out---jsh jsh JSH JSH jsh jsh JSH JSH---over and over. The Man held a large file, rubbing it back and forth along the lump, quickly in some places, slower in others. Jsh jsh JSH JSH jsh jsh JSH JSH. Bernie paused to look again, his breathing noticeably getting louder. He swallowed hard, the wad of spit in his mouth going down his throat like a pebble into his stomach.
The Man paused suddenly in his work, his head cocked, as if hearing something.
Bernie froze. The Man cocked his head a little further to the left, listening. Once it was determined all was at peace, he resumed his filing: jsh jsh JSH JSH jsh jsh JSH JSH.
Bernie, with legs like noodles and a rock in his stomach, approached the beige tarp. The fabric was inches from his nose. The Man kept working furtively on whatever project it was that occupied the table. However, Bernie knew what that project was. Again, he just wouldn't acknowledge it.
Just then, spittle caught in the back of his throat and he involuntarily coughed to clear it. The hacking sound was louder than it should have been in the silent cabin, the rough scraping inside his throat from the cough feeling a lot harsher as well.
The Man stopped, and though still concealed by the tarp, Bernie could swear he saw a grin spread across the Man's face. The Man set the file down, but Bernie could still hear---still feel---that awful scraping sound.
jsh jsh JSH JSH.
Bernie closed his eyes as he shuddered, the cold tingle taking him fully, the hairs on his skin standing on end. When he opened his eyes, he saw the Man wasn't behind the tarp anymore.
Afraid to move but compelled to do so anyway, Bernie lifted his right hand, reached across himself, and grabbed the corner of the beige tarp on his left. He squeezed the fabric into a bunch, his arm daring to pull it back. He had to see what that lump was. Had to. Had to make sure it wasn't---or was---what he thought it was. He held the edge of the tarp tight, the material already becoming damp with the sweat from inside his palm.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
He pulled the tarp back.
He didn't open his eyes.
The scraping went on, but more to the right and behind him---jsh jsh JSH JSH.
Bernie opened his eyes.
His brother's head sat on a wooden workbench, held in place by a small vice built into the tabletop's center. Brent's---Brento's---eyes were open, glazed over, and lifeless. Brento looked at his brother, his gaze filled with longing, asking---begging---for Bernie to take him home safe and sound to their parents. But Brent was dead, Bernie knew, and there was nothing he could do to save him.
jsh jsh JSH JSH jsh jsh JSH JSH---from off behind Bernie.
Why weren't you there, Berno? Brent's eyes pleaded.
Bernie didn't have an answer. This was already too much. The top of his brother's head was bald, the hair having been rubbed away by the file in a scalping. Wet and messy patches of hair smeared in blood was all that was left of Brent's scalp. That was what the scraping sound had been. The Man had been preparing Brent to be a part of his collection of heads on the wall.
Brento.
A part of Bernie was glad he found his brother. He was glad he could see his brother one last time before---
The Man came up behind Bernie, his callused hand spinning him around. Bernie looked up at the Man through watery vision. The Man's head was very round, but very square all the same. It was as if it had been carved from a cube of ice, the edges softened and rounded to take on a more human appearance. His eyes were big---as big as they come, Bernie thought---the blank whites of his eyes now replaced with irises bluer than the ocean on the most beautiful of days. His skin was beige like the tarp in the room, however slightly more tanned. His skin was rough with large pores. He had on a long, deep black smock that swallowed the light, and was rather clean and neat in appearance against the more rough-and-tumble atmosphere of the small cabin.
"You killed my brother," Bernie said. "You killed Brento."
The Man only smiled a kind smile, as if killing Brent had been the right thing to do. Bernie took notice of the Man's extraordinarily crooked teeth, black gaps having taken the place of some of them.
A welt of heated loathing brewed up inside him. "I hate you!" he screamed and started pounding his small fists against the Man.
The Man, not retaliating, only took Bernie into his arms, holding him like a father would a son. Bernie sobbed and sobbed, the hurtful knowledge of his brother's death rampaging through him. His skin rubbed against the rough material of the Man's cloak, making near the same sound as the scraping he'd heard earlier. Almost, but not quite. The Man smelled like warm orange juice.
Jsh jsh jsh.
The Man pushed Bernie away so he could look at him. Bernie kept crying. Brent's head looked on.
"Why did you kill Brento?" Bernie asked, his voice thick with tears.
The Man didn't reply. He only stared at Bernie.
"Why did you---" Bernie began but couldn't finish. Why did you? Why did you? Why did you have to run off, Brento? Why did you? Why did you? Why did you have to run off?
* * * *
There were no answers that night. The Man didn't have any to give Bernie. He just simply did what he knew how to do.
And Bernie. Poor Bernie. His head, too, sat on a shelf along with his brother's, their eyes peering out into the rest of the musty cabin. What drove Bernie nuts, though, wasn't that he was forced to stare at the same interior day in and day out. No, sir. It was the draft. The draft that cooled the worn-away bald spot on the top of his head.
And the tickling. There was the tickling of the matted strands of hair that hung just above his ears, just touching their tops, that drove him crazy.
He couldn't speak. His voice box was gone. He wanted to ask Brent if he was being tickled, too, and if he felt that draft all the time or if the torment was only his.
* * * *
That night, out here, in the real world, ten-year-old Bernie woke up with a start, his body jerking itself free from the quilts that covered him. He was in Brent's room, on the floor, with Brent fast asleep in his bed.
It was a bad dream. That's all. It was over. It was---
A voice echoed from the basement of the house, two floors below Brent's room.
See you tomorrow night, it said.
* * * *
Bernie's wife was sleeping upstairs. Bernie knew that she was because he heard her breathing. That blasted breathing.
He pulled the knit blanket up close under his chin and closed his eyes again. Thinking about the Man in Woods had exhausted him. Long ago, the Man had warned him he would see Bernie tomorrow night. And he did. There had been many tomorrows since that first night, and on each of them, the Man had visited Bernie. Bernie couldn't prove this, but he knew it was true. There were nightmares beneath the pleasant dreams, nightmares about
the Man, but, when recalling his dreams from the night before, he could only remember happy ones . . . but with a darker edge. Maybe Brent had these same strange good-bad dreams, too? But Bernie didn't know if Brent knew anything about the Man, as he didn't have the heart to ask his brother if he was having the same recurring dream. How could Brent be having those dreams, anyway? Brent was only in the dream. He hadn't dreamed it.
But the Man came back, just like he said he would.
Bernie's wife was breathing more loudly now. Bernie opened his eyes; the sound of her breathing eased, but not completely. He closed his eyes again. The breathing resumed.
jsh jsh jsh.
He dreamed of being on the shelf, dreamed of the draft that would constantly pester the top of his head. Sitting on the shelf, his eyes staring out into the cabin, his brother beside him, Bernie thought maybe this was how the Man got inside his head in the first place: through the filing down of skin and bone and hair. Through the filing down of all the heads in his prized collection and that somehow all the people in the room, even the animals, now dreamed of the Man and his cabin all the time. But if that was true, that would mean maybe his brother did dream of the Man.
Maybe.
Bernie awoke again; his wife's breathing eased once more. He recalled his realization in his dream. If Brent dreamed of the Man, maybe he could talk to his brother about it? Maybe, together, they can put to bed a nightmare that started over thirty years ago.
Maybe.
His heart sped up with hope. This was a good thing. Too excited to sleep, Bernie threw the blanket back, sat up on the couch, stretched, and stood. He went upstairs. As he approached the door to the master bedroom, he half-expected to hear his wife's breathing. But the bedroom door was closed. Bernie paused, just outside the door, his hand wanting to embrace the knob and enter.
Elizabeth was sleeping soundly. It didn't add up. All those years of marriage, all those nights of laying awake, his eyes closed, listening to his wife's labored breathing. All the times he told her she breathed loudly in her sleep and she said she didn't. All those mornings of her complaining of his moaning in his sleep, his retaliating by saying she breathed too loud. All those---
Then it hit him. His mind, perhaps because he was focusing on the subject, replayed that breathing: Jsh jsh jsh. It was then Bernie realized what he had taken back with him from the woods. It was so clear the shock of it sent his heart racing.
He knew his knowing would be the death of him.
* * * *
Elizabeth woke the following morning, sad and slightly upset at herself for making her husband sleep on the couch in the living room. She knew she had been hard on him, but she couldn't take any more of that moaning in his sleep. But there was more to it than that. More to the moaning that she hadn't told him. There was also the breathing, the raspy breathing that sounded as if something was being sanded and filed down. That awful jsh jsh jsh sound that kept her awake most nights. But he was her husband and marriage was about putting up with the other's more annoying habits. If Bernie breathed loud in his sleep, she had to accept that.
She got out of bed and, yawning, made for the bedroom door, almost tasting her morning coffee. When she opened the door, her breath caught in her throat. Her hand slid off the doorknob.
No one needed to confirm for her what she saw. She knew.
Bernie was dead.
He lay just outside the bedroom door.
* * * *
Booth 2
Intensity. That's what it was.
Every afternoon they came in between one and three. Every day exactly one hour after midmorning mass. Today, it wasn't supposed to be any different. It's what assured Father Haldo Mr. Thompson would come into St. Mary's Cathedral for confession that afternoon, come to Booth 2, his confessional.
The confessional door creaked open, the number 2 swinging loosely on the nail that held it in place on the door, and Mr. Thompson---Gerad, was his first name---came in and kneeled behind that black mesh, crossed himself and began his confession the same way he had every week for the past twenty years.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last confession," Gerad said in a flat tone, the one that stated things never changed for him.
As usual, Father Haldo leaned on the armrest of his chair and ran a palm over the bald spot atop his head. He wiped a thin film of sweat on his black robe. Sweat still ran down his dark sideburns, trailing along his jaw. He hated the stuffiness of Booth 2. Hated the scent of the wood and the smell of his own sweat mixing with the warm air.
Gerad began going on again about his wife and how he thought she was sleeping with their neighbor, "Mr. Smith." Gerad called his neighbor that, but Father Haldo always thought the name sounded too made up to be the truth. He didn't appreciate lying while confessing. It defeated the purpose. So, thinking his wife was having an affair--- "Not her first one, mind you," Gerad added---Gerad started venturing off on his own at night, searching for any woman who might give him company. He wasn't a bad looking man. He was in his mid fifties, his dark hair already heavily streaked with gray. He had this jaw that looked as hard as an anvil and a weathered-yet-kind expression was always in his soft gaze. He was slim and seemed to be in good shape from his many years as a construction worker.
Father Haldo was in good shape, too. Lately, he'd taken up jogging in the mornings and doing push-ups before bed. He found the exercise helped him deal with the monotony of sitting day in and day out in a small booth, listening to people go on and on about their secret sins and how he was somehow expected to forgive them when, in truth, it was not his place to forgive them, contrary to popular Catholic belief. And giving sermons was no Wonderland either. Saying the same thing each day for an hour in the mornings, an hour in the afternoons, an hour in the evenings---it weighed on him. Turned his mind to jelly.
Father Haldo supposed he first noticed the change four years earlier when he listened to Mrs. Snyder explain her sick habit of touching each of her six cats between their legs at least four times a week. It was then, he later realized, he discovered that a life of serving hadn't been the correct choice. But he stuck it out anyway, seeking council with the other priests in the church, especially those late night talks with Father Reynolds in the rectory.
Before Gerad even got into the thick of it, Father Haldo had---What? What was it I'd done? What have I done? He ran his fingers along the black wire mesh and felt moisture on his fingertips. There, in the bottom right corner, was a hole, a weakness in the wooden frame holding the mesh in place. Gerad had begun speaking about something but . . . Father Haldo knew about the hole and the next thing he realized, he was reaching into it, Gerad not paying attention, too lost in his confession about his night out with Daisy. Or was it Trixy? What was her name, again? Father Haldo had suddenly grabbed him by the collar of his winter coat and, with a violent tug, pulled him into the mesh, Gerad's head denting the wire, a startled scream filling the tiny space that was the confessional booth.
Again. Again. Again. Father Haldo kept pulling, kept putting his body into it. He was a big man and outweighed Gerad by at least seventy pounds. But he didn't want to hear of Gerad's adultery anymore. Didn't want to be the one to say, "I forgive your sins, my son. For penance---"
For penance . . . I kill . . . I killed him. He ran a callused palm over his face, wiping at the splashes of blood that had got on his cheeks.
"Oh Lord, what have I done? I---" He deserved it, didn't he? Coming in here, telling me about all he's done wrong but . . . but what about me? What about me hating these last four years, not wanting to give another sermon, not wanting to stuff one more flake of bread into someone else's mouth? Oh God, help me!
Father Haldo put his face in his hands and wept, all the while envisioning poor Gerad and the expression on the man's face each time his head crunched against the mesh and the hard oak frame surrounding it. He remembered hearing a bone crush and the popping of flesh as one of the sharp corners of the frame punc
tured a hole just above Gerad's left eye.
The light, a small lamp in the ceiling of the confessional booth---he dared not turn it on. The orange glow would mix with the red that was no doubt all over the little meshed-covered window and in blotches on the wall surrounding it. As for Gerad's side of Booth 2---Father Haldo couldn't bear to think of it, yet he was tempted to sneak a peek. He wanted to check and see exactly how much damage he had done.
"Don't. No. Stay," he told himself. He folded his hands, fingers entwining together. Don't. But---
The digital ring of a cell phone startled him out of his weighted thoughts and heavy heart. It came from the other side of the booth. From Gerad.
Must be in one of his pockets.
The phone rang persistently, each techno-drone of its ring seeming to grow all the more louder in the quiet church.
Grunting, Father Haldo stood up, straightened his robe, and opened the door to his side of Booth 2, purposefully avoiding looking back into it, not wanting to see the blood.
His hand paused above the door handle of Gerad's side. When he opened the door he'd see a dea---No. Don't think of it. The phone kept ringing. Why am I doing this? Why answer the phone? What's wrong with me? You want help, that's what. I just wanted him to be quiet. Just wanted peace. Just wanted silence. The rings never gave up and it was a wonder Gerad didn't have voice mail. Screw it!
Father Haldo opened the door and pawed at the bloody body inside. Gerad's head lolled back when he moved it so he could get into the inner pocket of the man's parka. After much fumbling and squinting through watery vision, trying not to gag on the scent of blood, Father Haldo finally found the cell phone.
