There, things got worse.
Margot’s grave was a yawing hole. Certain there’d be an open coffin in the bottom, Sam crawled toward it and peered over the edge.
Empty.
He stumbled to the groundskeeper’s hut, but the keeper wasn’t around.
In no mood for freaks or spiders or Jesus-judges, Sam lay down at the edge of the hole and—after picking out the rocks and shale—fell asleep with his head on the pile of dirt.
“Sam.” The familiar voice woke him.
It was dark. Sam felt around for his bed, but all he touched was prickly grass and knobby dirt. Cicadas played their eerie songs from the few trees scattered around. Margot called his name again, this time with more annoyance. She told him to wake up already.
“Margot?” Sam rubbed his eyes, but it was like being in muddy water, in the dark.
Something cool and slimy squirmed over his neck. He yelped and shot up to a crouching position, hands waving back and forth like radar.
“Sam!” Strong hands gripped his shoulders, and the sting of a slap sent his head sharply to the left. “Look at me.”
It was Margot.
But not.
And horrible.
One of her eyes hung from the optic nerve. Little white worms dotted her face and writhed in her tangled hair. Her cracked lips seeped yellow pus, and her skin was marbled in the colors of death: blue and yellow and black.
Sam threw up an arm to shield himself. “You’re what I’ve been talking to, all this time?”
“You were careless with the mortar.”
“Somebody left nitroglycerin in it. It wasn’t my fault.”
“It’s never your fault, is it Sam?”
Margot was a cry-wolf sort of woman, full of drama, always something wrong. So that day, when she cried out from the bedroom she couldn’t feel her left arm, Sam told her he’d be right there. He meant after he finished the chapter. Her second and third calls sounded theatrical, and Sam was not down for playing nursemaid to Margot’s hypochondria. When she stopped calling, he figured she fell asleep and congratulated himself on putting up healthy boundaries.
The squad asked what happened, and Sam told them he’d found her that way, skipping the part about her numerous requests for assistance. She’d been trying for the cell phone on the end table, judging by where she was found on the floor. Didn’t Sam hear anything? they asked.
No. He was asleep in his recliner.
All the times he visited her and she never brought it up before. Sam figured it was water under the bridge.
“Whatever you do, Sam, don’t look in a mirror.”
That was all she said. Then she crawled back in the hole and with grimy hands and broken fingernails, pulled the dirt back over her in the body-shaped pile.
Sam hadn’t paid himself much mind since he began seeing alterations in everybody else. Shaving was a focus on his stubble. Combing was a focus on his hair. Teeth, on teeth. He’d not actually looked at himself. Not once.
At home, Sam put off looking in the mirror for exactly five minutes. But he had to know. Margot knew he’d look. She wanted him to. Would he have swirly eyes? Spiked teeth? Devil horns? Would he look like a baby? Like Stupid Pregnancy Girl?
He slunk into the bathroom but left the light off. After a few deep, cleansing breaths, he flipped the light switch…
There he was.
In half a second, he plunged the room back into darkness.
Sam startled so hard he flipped and fell, apparently out of a bed and onto a tile floor. A white-hot pain in the top of his hand and the crash told him he’d toppled his IV. Everything was black. Totally and utterly black. Sam waved his hand in his face and accidentally smacked himself. The floor was cold and a little gritty. He called for help, relieved at the squeak of rubber soles approaching.
They put him back and spoke soothing words.
A doctor came. Sam felt a squeeze on his arm. “I have some hard news.”
“Couldn’t be worse than what I just went through.”
“I’m sorry?”
Sam waved his question away.
The doctor cleared his throat. “Sam, the accident caused…” He explained corneal lacerations and shattered lenses in extreme minutiae, and Sam found himself losing patience.
“Can’t you just spit it out? I’m not following.”
The doctor sighed. “I don’t know how to put this gently…You’re blind. No restorative options. A social worker’s coming this afternoon to talk you through your transition strategy.” The doctor blithered on about living a rich and fulfilling life, learning braille, support groups blah blah—
“—Wait. I’m blind? Forever?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Nothing else?”
The doctor didn’t say anything.
“Doctor?”
“Sorry. I should know better. I was shaking my head. No. Nothing.”
Sam exhaled. “That’s not so bad.”
The doctor patted Sam’s arm. “I wish everybody took hard news like you, Sam. Most patients won’t accept the truth.”
Sam choked out a joyless laugh then sank into his pillow and stared sightlessly ahead. His other senses were already adapting. The steady beep of his pulse monitor, the citrus smell of a fruit basket, the buzz of nurses at their station in the hall, the traffic outside. The sun must be out, for a shaft of warmth caressed his legs.
Then, beneath those sounds Sam heard another. It was far away, but not far enough. A sly cascade of dirt and stones. He could hear her, coming.
Margot.
Falling Asleep in the Rain
Robert P. Ottone
Clay Whitley stared out the window of his empty car of the Metro North Railroad as he checked his Fitbit and noted with amusement that even at nine at night, the dark woods and mountains looked beautiful. They seemed to rush by, dark teeth chewing into the navy blue-colored sky, the occasional bit of light pollution highlighting the separation between the trees and the sky. One of the conductors of the train walked down the aisle and checked on him. “Sir, our next stop is Kirkbride’s Bluff.” Looking up, Clay smiled and thanked him. He must’ve missed the announcement, and when he looked around the car, he realized how alone he was.
As the train came to a stop, Clay noted the mist that had begun to accumulate on his window. He rose, grabbed his briefcase (which was empty except for his pills, an apple, banana, and flask of whiskey), and exited the train, standing on the platform. He looked around and waited for anyone else to step off, and when the doors closed and Clay saw how alone he was, in the darkness, on the platform, a ping of anxiety struck him.
Clay always felt lonely, even when surrounded by hundreds, sometimes thousands of people. He never married. Never sired children. Maybe that’s why he found himself on the train to Kirkbride’s Bluff. He had been working late; rather, he had been sitting at his desk staring at his computer for hours until he realized it had gotten late, and instead of catching his usual Long Island Railroad train back home to Long Island, decided it was time to head home. His real home. Where he grew up. He realized that this had more to do with the whispers than his own desire to go anywhere but to his bed, but here he was. On the train to Kirkbride’s Bluff. His childhood town. Where someone whispered and beckoned to him in the night.
In his posh upper-middle class suburb, or at work, he was never more than twenty feet from another person. He knew this because he had become oddly obsessed with the notion one night when he couldn’t sleep and stood in his pajamas between his home and his neighbor’s and realized that a mere twenty feet away was their master bedroom. He never spoke to his neighbors. Not because he wasn’t friendly, but because they didn’t speak any English and always just smiled and waved, saying something in Chinese to him when they met eyes. He always waved back and wondered what they did for a living.
It was around this time that Clay began hearing the voices. At first, he believed them to be thoughts. Simple concepts that would slip int
o his head, telling him to do normal, everyday things that he most likely would find himself doing day to day anyway. Run the dishwasher. Brush your teeth. Wear the bergamot cologne. Call your mother. Small things to which he believed he was the originator, but over time, the whispers became more abstract. They had sounded like someone speaking Russian, but with a mouth full of mashed potatoes. They began to take the form of unknown words, foreign terminology, unintelligible and confusing, but repetitive. Eventually, they took on familiar shape and sound.
Board the train. Return home. Kirkbride’s Bluff.
The most ominous of all: I’ll be waiting.
Clay walked down the steps of the platform and looked around for a cab. No such luck. He took his phone out and pulled up Uber, but again, there were no drivers in his vicinity. The nearest would be an hour wait time, as they were coming from Resting Hollow and currently had a fare.
“Jesus,” he said under his breath and tucked the phone away. The misty rain didn’t bother him much, and he stood under a portico, planning his next move. He decided to head deeper into Kirkbride’s Bluff and walk around town. He figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get his steps in, and when he stepped out from under the portico, he heard the whispers, seemingly beckoning him into the town. He nodded, acknowledging them, which is something he had been doing more of, and walked toward the town, the small shops and buildings in the distance easily visible.
After a while, he found his feet starting to ache, and when he checked his Fitbit again, somehow, he had walked another eight thousand steps. Nearly five miles, and yet, he wasn’t near his hometown. That can’t be possible. The train station was always just outside of town. A mile at most.
“How the hell—?” he said aloud, confused by the number now glowing on his wrist.
The rain had remained misty, and while his suit was flecked with tiny beads of condensation, he didn’t feel wet otherwise. The chill in the air remained, and he walked down the sidewalk, looking at the various storefronts and businesses he frequented in his youth. He walked past GJ’s Dugout, an old baseball card and collectible store he used to frequent with his parents, where they’d buy him two packs of cards per visit. He found himself disappointed after tearing into the packs and the only New York players he ever seemed to get were guys on the useless Mets, a team he grew up despising because they were “losers,” and he didn’t like losers.
The baseball card shop was boarded up, the sign long-faded. Clay couldn’t remember the last time he ventured into the store and wondered how long it had been since the doors closed for good. Many of the stores in the area seemed vacant, their signs either removed entirely or faded, some beyond recognition. There was the pizza joint, Renzo’s, across the street from the other pizza place, Donato’s. Donato’s was his preferred spot, but his friends all liked Renzo’s, and this had been the first indication that Clay was truly alone in the world: as a kid, he and his friends divided over pizza.
Both restaurants were now gone, and Clay crossed the street to where Donato’s had been and peered inside. In the dark, he could barely make out the counter where he would order his meatball slices and orange soda. The yellow glow of the streetlight above him helped him get a view of the tables he usually found himself at, those thick Formica classics from the 1980’s.
It was at Donato’s that Clay first saw the boy. Well, not the first time, but it was during a moment of childhood laziness that Clay found himself in Donato’s, playing Street Fighter 2 in the corner when a kid who moved to town a few years earlier walked in. Clay found himself not paying attention to the game and instead, noting every movement the boy was making. He couldn’t remember his name, but his every movement drew Clay’s attention.
Clay had never paid that much attention to another guy before. Girls, sure, but not a boy. At first, Clay was confused, and a little angry to be so focused on this kid waiting for his pizza at the counter, hands lazily in his pockets, bobbing his head to the pop music on the restaurant’s speaker system. When the boy noticed Clay staring at him, he turned and gave a light wave.
“Hey,” he said. The boy’s eyes caught the light and seemed almost flecked with gold-orange light.
“Hey,” Clay said back. Clay remembered the nervousness in their first words to each other. Vicious, unbridled anxiety that only a teenager could know or understand. The kind of anxiety that fades with age and experience.
It looked like the place hadn’t changed from Clay’s memory; at least, until the day the doors closed forever. He wondered where the owner was. He was an older guy, even when Clay was a kid, so it’s possible he just passed away. The thought made Clay feel uneasy. It seemed as though when he left for college, the entire town just closed up shop for good. His parents never talked about Kirkbride’s Bluff, and Clay didn’t have any other family members in town, so, once he left for school, his parents moved into the city, and that was that.
The whispering slipped into his ears again, and Clay turned to look across the street, past Renzo’s, and down the alleyway next to the lesser of the two pizza joints. Checking before he crossed the street, Clay chuckled to himself, thinking how strange it was that Main Street was this empty. There was seemingly no one else around. Only the wind, the misting rain, the yellow beams of light from the streetlights, and him. There weren’t even any stray cats, dogs, or even any birds. It was as if Clay stepped into another world completely, one that time had left behind and progress and growth had disregarded.
Clay’s therapist prescribed him some medication for his nerves, because when the words became unintelligible, he mentioned them to his shrink. He didn’t quite know what else to do. He didn’t feel like he was going crazy, and yet, he was hearing voices, unknown, distant, in the dark. Clay fumbled with his briefcase and grabbed the pill bottle. He twisted the top off and popped one into his mouth, swallowing it dry.
He walked toward the alley, the whispers sounding clearer. He looked into the darkness, bracing himself on a chain link fence. “Hello?” he called, not expecting an answer. There was a level of panic in his chest that he hoped the anxiety medication would snuff out, but hadn’t yet. The familiar pins and needles of nervousness washed over his arms, up his shoulders and to his neck, and he waited, motionless, for any sign of movement or sound.
He was met with the cold, empty solitude of Kirkbride’s Bluff. Where only whispers seemed to live.
As he stared down the alley, he heard movement. Impossible, he thought, searching for his cell phone. He produced it from his suit jacket breast pocket, turned the flashlight on and slid it into the pocket usually reserved for a handkerchief, the top of the phone peeking outward and the light beaming down the alley about eight feet in front of him.
He moved slowly, one hand braced against the brick and cement wall of the pizza joint, and watched his step, moving past overturned garbage cans, their contents spilled out, rotting in the night. Ancient pizza boxes, long-stained with grease and cheese that was more plastic than dairy, mounds of brown and slick black disgust in smaller piles, which he avoided, lest he ruin his light brown nubuck Johnston & Murphy shoes. The smell found its way into his nostrils and made him gag.
He coughed lightly, and pinched his nose, noticing the light suddenly providing more than just a view of rotting garbage and cement alley. What looked like a foot, as though interpreted through a Francis Bacon hellscape, was lit up by his phone. “Hello?”
The “foot” twitched and scurried out of the light, and Clay recoiled quickly. He remained in place, his eyes scanning around, the light cast in various directions. Finally, pressed against the fence at the end of the alley, after a few cautious steps forward, was the figure Clay’s light had scared away. Or, at least, Clay imagined the light scared it. He couldn’t imagine what this thing was. Once close enough, he saw it was completely nude, its back slick with the misty rain, which was starting to increase in intensity. A low mist hung around Clay’s ankles, and he took two cautious steps toward the figure, which writhed, huddled in
the corner.
Two clubbed feet, more like hooves, connected to two sinewy legs, all bone, muscle and tendon, no fat anywhere on the creature. Creature was the only word that worked, as Clay couldn’t tell if the thing was human or not, though it vaguely resembled a person, with legs, a backside, and a muscular, tight back. When the creature turned, slowly, to face Clay and his light, he saw its face, which was almost entirely a mouth with two brightly-colored eyes like sunlight, eyes Clay vaguely recalled seeing in reality only once before, but hadn’t since…since…
The figure’s arms were thin, almost skeletal, and stretched toward him. The only noise the creature made was an exhalation, a sigh, extended, low, as though the air was being squeezed from its body with every movement. A slight wheeze, coming from God-knows-where, high-pitched, and unsettling. Clay stepped away from the figure and, without turning to run, backed himself quickly out of the alley. He stepped off the sidewalk and onto the road, unconcerned about potential vehicles or people, his eyes locked on the alley. The creature moved slowly, seemingly to struggle with every step and movement, its body almost too weak to carry the weight of its muscle and bone.
“You’re…what are you?” Clay whispered to himself, happy to hear his own voice amid the wheezy exhale of the creature, which was nearly on him. It grabbed at his clothes, its hands slick with filth, and he struggled to free himself of its grasp. The creature’s mouth found its way over his own, large enough that it even covered Clay’s nose, and he found himself struggling to breathe, the creature exhaling a black, viscous sludge from deep within its gullet. Clay vomited and forced the creature off himself, and wiped the black fluid from his face and did his best to scrape the sludge away.
He rose to his feet and looked around for something to defend himself when he spotted a nearby trash can. He grabbed the lid and held it out like a shield between himself and the creature. “Get back! Stay away!”
The Half That You See Page 7
