by Adam Golaski
“Not impossible,” he says aloud. “Anyone could have put that together. From the same sticks.”
Nicolas dares himself not to open the bottle of gin.
Nicolas dares himself to take apart the low lean-to as he’d done before. He approaches the structure, “a pile of twigs,” hesitates a moment and kicks down, hard. The sticks snap apart, scatter. There is no great hole beneath. A patch of wet, bald earth.
“Nothing!” Nicolas shouts.
He walks—staggers a bit, as if drunk—toward the little forest. He thinks about what to do with the bottle. “Give it to the sneaker-god,” he says. “Toss it up onto the dead tree,” he thinks. Behind him, he hears the sound of earth moving, wet dirt being pushed aside. Nicolas turns around. His face expresses a sense of inevitability. “Here comes,” he says. The sun is afternoon high. Hardly a cloud crosses the sky. I-90 is busy. People are jogging and walking the Kim Williams trail. From Mt. Sentinel, a person could easily see Nicolas and the shadow-figure.
Nicolas faces the man with the wide-open mouth. A mouth like a rotten hole in a tree-stump, like a sink-hole. It is not a man at all, but something that has been buried a long time. Its body is man-shaped but a shimmering shadow figure lost sometimes in the bright sun reflected off the river. Its mouth is huge and working, twitching at the edges and rotten tongue squirming like an ebon baby snake. Behind the shadow-figure, from the hole it made as it climbed from earth, are gurgling sounds. Birthing sounds. The sealed bottle of gin in Nicolas’s hand feels heavier than it possibly could.
THEY LOOK LIKE LITTLE GIRLS
The Greyhound bus slowed to 50 mph somewhere between Spokane and Missoula. There wasn’t much traffic on I-90, just trucks; their headlights emerged from the black curve of the horizon and then blew past, rocking the bus, spraying the bus with gravel. And so, each time a truck passed, the thirteen year-old girl (Kallista) woke. She was glad, though; when she dozed, she picked up the thread of the same bad dream. She’d been traveling for ten hours and it was much later than her accustomed bedtime (9 PM on school nights). She tried to read to stay awake, but she was so tired the book’d become all a jumble, one line twisting round the next.
The bus chug-chugged, jerked everyone forward and back.
The grad student (Genevieve) was undisturbed by the bus’s turbulence because she’d gulped down two Lortabs with a slosh of scotch just before she’d got on the bus. She’d be washed-out when she woke up, she knew, but she couldn’t face the ride and she hated chit-chat. Each time she drifted out of her blackout, into actual sleep, she ventured a little further along the course of her own bad dream.
The factory worker (Hammond), tired, longing for a smoke, was upright in his seat, rigid, stretched taut as if sprung, not eager to get off the bus but damned if the bus was going to make him late for his first day at the next factory, another lumber job; nicks on his face from wood chips shot through the air, sawdust in his lungs, sap and grease on his hands—one factory job to another, the next. He’d fallen asleep almost as soon as he’d boarded the bus just outside of Spokane, but had slept no more than an hour. He’d jolted awake and wouldn’t go back to sleep.
The recently retired history professor (Walter) was also wide awake. He sat with his back to the window, a thick knit cap between his head and the plastic window pane, and looked at Genevieve asleep in the seat across from him. For the past hour, he’d had two seats to himself, as did Genevieve, as did, he guessed, anyone still on the bus—in Spokane, most everyone got off. Only a few of us, he thought, are going on to the great cities of Montana. He’d attempted to make a sketch of Genevieve, but his eyesight wasn’t very good and the light on the bus was dreadful—hard, flat white, grainy as if sand had been tossed into the air. He didn’t presume to have intentions on the sleeping student, though imagined various conversations they might have.
The over-weight and over-friendly driver that had picked them all up, had been replaced in Spokane by another, a tall man whose cap cast his face in shadow. He spoke, for the first time, in a flat voice, low like the hum of the bus itself, but each word that tone carried was clear: “The bus is experiencing mechanical trouble. We will stop in Mullen, where another bus has been sent to take you to your final destination.” After a pause of a minute or more the driver added, “We at Greyhound are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for choosing to travel Greyhound.”
“As if we had a choice,” Walter muttered. He looked back at Genevieve, and jumped a little—seated next to her was a figure, sitting upright in the aisle seat, and though the figure should have obscured Genevieve at least partially, it didn’t, quite—and then there was no figure—a trick of the poor light, a hallucination brought on by simple exhaustion. In spite of Walter’s reasonable dismissals, he was much disturbed anyhow: the figure was like the figure that had occupied the nightmare he’d had when he’d first boarded the bus.
The Mullen station was hardly a station at all—more of an enclosed shed with benches and a ticket window. The driver held the station door open for Genevieve, Walter and Kallista; Hammond remained outside for a cigarette.
Kallista stood by Genevieve in the middle of the station. The station was cold—Kallista wished there was someone she could lean up against. She’d gravitated toward Genevieve because she was another girl, but Genevieve was asleep on her feet. The front door opened, and Hammond stepped inside, hands crammed into his jacket pockets.
The driver unlocked the ticket booth, went inside and was immediately on the phone. Genevieve, in a thick voice that startled Kallista, said, “I’m freezing.” Hammond pointed to three unplugged electric heaters, huddled together in a corner. Hammond plugged in the heaters and they shook to life. Kallista let her body relax, though the station was no warmer. Walter said, “Why don’t we bring those closer to the benches”—of which there were two. Without any help, Hammond moved the awkward and obviously heavy heaters, one at a time, so they made a triangle around the benches—two behind the girls, one behind Walter. Kallista sat next to Genevieve and introduced herself. Genevieve grimaced—meant as a smile?—then tilted her head back and shut her eyes.
The driver stepped out of the ticket booth. He stood under a blinking fluorescent bulb; this light obscured rather than made clear: “Another bus will be along in an hour. We at Greyhound are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Thank you for choosing to travel Greyhound.”
Walter said, “This is outrageous.”
Genevieve said, “It happens.”
Walter quieted.
Hammond said, “I agree with him,” but only Kallista heard him speak.
Kallista watched the driver walk across the station and step out into the night. As the glass door closed, his back shimmered; light on the glass, Kallista figured. When the bus started up, everyone looked at each other. Walter leapt up when they heard the bus roll away from the station.
Walter said, “Son of a bitch.” Kallista giggled. Walter said, “He’s just going to leave us here?”
Hammond said, “He’s just going to limp it to a garage.” Walter looked at Genevieve—she stared blankly ahead. Kallista felt suddenly very nervous. She said, “I’m Kallista. I’m going to live with my grandmother in Bonner.”
“Bonner,” Hammond said. He smiled in a way that put Kallista at ease. “I’m going to a new job in Bonner. A pleasure to meet you.” He put out his hand and Kallista took it. She turned her head down and away. Hammond said, “I’m Hammond. Are you warm enough?” Kallista nodded. Genevieve said, “I’m fucking freezing.” Hammond gave her a stern look and glanced at Kallista. Genevieve shrugged. Walter grinned and said, “These heaters aren’t doing much good. But they are warm. The way they’re circled around us, we should be fine for the hour.”
They sat facing each other, Hammond and Walter on one bench, Kallista and Genevieve on the other. The three heaters, as tall as men, stood around them, coils glowing orange, casting little heat. When the wind picked up outside, a draft cut through the
station. After a few minutes of silence, Kallista said:
“I had a bad dream on the bus.”
Everyone looked at Kallista.
Hammond bit his lower lip.
Walter said, “The bus was uncomfortable and noisy. It’s no surprise you had a nightmare.” He thought he was being kind; he looked to Genevieve for approval. Genevieve offered Walter no approval, nor any sign of interest in what Kallista had said.
Kallista’s Bad Dream
began in the girl’s locker room at the city pool. She had been dropped off by her mother for her weekly swimming lesson. She changed swiftly. She could hear other girls’ voices, but couldn’t see the girls. The showers were running. The locker room floor was carpeted with hard, gray industrial carpeting, which Kallista believed was teeming with fungus and bacteria. She wore bath sandals, but with open toes and no back, they seemed feeble protection.
The air in the locker room was gray like the carpet. And miserably damp. Light twisted and turned through steam from the showers (they must all have been on, they must all have been at their hottest). Kallista closed her locker door and jumped: a girl—an older girl—had been concealed from Kallista by the locker door. The older girl was naked. The older girl stared at Kallista. Around the older girl’s eyes were dark circles of runny mascara. Kallista wasn’t allowed to wear make-up, and why would she want to, she thought, if it would make her look so awful. The older girl seemed in no hurry to dress. No clothes were set out, no wet suit across the bench. Kallista turned away—not too quickly, she hoped—and took a step toward the dim exit sign. Another girl, another older girl, strode past Kallista. She was also naked—no towel, no slippers. This older girl’s hair was stringy, clumped together by damp. The showers stopped. The voices grew louder. Kallista walked quickly to the locker room door.
The pool room was empty. Kallista went right into the water, where she felt comfortable. She was a strong swimmer and the water was cool. She knew she should wait for the instructors to come before going into the pool—the buddy system had been drilled into her since the first swim lessons she’d ever taken—but she was calm now, the spell the locker room had cast, broken.
Kallista began laps, swimming a steady crawl from one end of the Olympic pool to the other.
In the middle of a lap, she looked down to the bottom of the pool, and saw a boy on the floor.
Light rippled like white tiger stripes around the boy. Kallista tread water, gazed down and for an awful moment she thought he was dead. He grinned then, and began to float up toward her. This wasn’t one of the boys from her class—she kicked hard, to get out of his way, to get to the edge of the pool.
The boy’s hand clasped Kallista’s ankle for a hot second.
She kicked free, swam, the boy behind her—how had she not seen him before, why hadn’t she worn her goggles, where were her instructors, she couldn’t breathe—she reached the ladder and pulled herself up. The boy stopped a few feet from the edge of the pool, treading water. He looked as if he had a wet paper towel over his face, his skin rippled and translucent.
Kallista asked, “Why did you chase me?”
Kallista felt a hand on her shoulder and a warm breath at her ear. Older girls, some in bathing caps, some with goggles, otherwise naked, all of them naked, emerged from the shadows of the pool room. Dozens of girls, not all older than Kallista, some much younger, practically babies with water wings on their arms.
Kallista looked frantically for the instructors—she shouted their names—“Julie!” and “Mark!”
The girls pressed forward—Kallista felt their bodies press against her own. She tried—ridiculously—to reason with them—“There’s a boy, he chased me”—but she was pushed to the lip of the pool and over, into the water, where the boy took hold of her suit and pulled at it, pulled her under.
Kallista was free for a moment. She’d squirmed out of her suit, and she surged forward, but the girls fell into the water, their bodies crashing down around and on top of her—
Kallista opened her mouth, and took in a great gulp of water.
Something bumped against one of the glass doors of the bus shelter. Hammond couldn’t tell which. He got up and went to the front door. A single floodlight, set above the door, illuminated a small stretch of dirt surrounded by woods. Wind whipped the trees in tight circles. He crossed the room to the front door. He could see a short stretch of the road that led back to I-90 and more trees. The station was deep in the forest. Why would anyone ever come here, he thought.
He turned to the group and said, “It’s really cold outside our little circle.” He meant to make the group feel cozy, to make some part of the station seem appealing. The door behind him banged and he jumped a little—not enough so the others would notice, he hoped. When Hammond turned he caught a glimpse of what looked to him like a large dog before it vanished into the dark.
The door couldn’t be pushed open, it opened out, but still, Hammond clicked the silver dead bolt in place and pushed at the door to be sure it was locked.
“What was that?” Walter asked.
“A dog,” Hammond said. Hammond crossed the room to the other door and locked it, too.
“Why are you doing that?” Walter asked.
Hammond didn’t answer, just began to walk along the perimeter of the room, poking at vents and testing windows.
Walter said, “I said, why—” but there was another bang, this time at the back door, and Walter’s question fizzled.
The windows in the station were high—Hammond could just peer out if he stood on his toes—and the only other door was the door to the ticket booth, which was locked—he checked. He returned to the circle. The weak heat hardly took the chill off. He wanted a cigarette, but he wasn’t going to go outside.
Kallista asked, “Is there just one dog out there?” The front door banged.
Hammond said, “I think so—” The back door banged— “Or two. But they can’t get in.”
Genevieve said, “The doors are glass.”
Hammond said, “Shatterproof, I guess. They’re strong. I’m sure.”
“And why would we be afraid of dogs, anyhow?” Genevieve said.
Kallista said, “I’m afraid of dogs.”
Genevieve said, “Don’t be stupid.”
Hammond said, “Come here, Kallista.” She came over and sat next to Hammond. Walter shifted to the end of the bench, stood. Hammond said, “I don’t like those dogs either. They walk funny.” Genevieve showed interest for the first time all night. “But,” he added, “we’re inside and they’re outside. And the bus will be along soon.” He looked at his watch. “In a little over a half hour.” In the wind, the station’s joints moaned. Genevieve said, “I’m freezing, are any of you freezing?” Walter nodded, crossed his arms over his chest. Hammond said, “Everyone is cold.”
Hammond’s Bad Dream
was set inside a factory. Hammond worked at a conveyor unlike any he’d ever worked at before—the whole factory was like the idea of a factory—a grim factory that had as its purpose nothing but providing men with dangerous work. He was surrounded by gray machines, all casting heat and generating asynchronous noises, like clinkers in a furnace, like gears whose teeth no longer truly meshed. He could see no other men from where he stood, but heard them: curses, shouts (of instruction, of pain). On a gangplank, which ran from one end of the factory to the other, splitting the building in half, paced Hammond’s supervisor. Hammond racked his brain for the name of his supervisor—he knew it, he knew he knew it, but all he could conjure were letters. Hard letters.
His job was to guide logs into the open mouth of the machine he stood next to. The machine had no buttons—no starter, no emergency stop. Hammond had yet to look into the machine. The logs were massive, from some primeval wood; in all Hammond’s years working for lumber companies, he’d never seen logs like these. They glistened. And the noise they made, huge, dropped from an unseen hand onto the belt, kicking wood bits and red spray high into the air,
shaking the belt. The smell in the factory was not of fresh cut wood, but burnt oil.
The logs tended to come at Hammond askew, or to roll toward Hammond. If he was not quick, he would be crushed, either pinned against the machine he worked or beneath a log. And Hammond’s arms were stiff. All that kept him going was going, a momentum of anger and fright.
He glanced up at his supervisor who’d stopped pacing. Though the supervisor wasn’t moving, he wasn’t still, either. The supervisor’s body shook, a constant blur.
Hammond knocked a log back on track. In the moment before the next log dropped, he glanced at his hands: they were covered in blood. He let slip a yelp—heard his yelp mimicked by someone else in the factory. The blood was not his own, he realized, after he wiped his hands on his jeans. Another log came. He adjusted it, and again there was blood on his hands. When the log hit the blade inside the machine—Hammond heard but did not see this—the log returned a spray of red that left Hammond sticky. He didn’t have time to look into the machine before the next log came, so slick with blood Hammond could barely guide it. An upward glance: his supervisor was gone. A feeling in his hand, a dull throb—Hammond sucked in air, whimpered—he’d lost a finger. A log charged down the belt—Hammond corrected its passage with his shoulder and was nearly knocked over. His shirt was soaked with blood—maybe his own, too. The sound inside the machine changed. Not cutting, but masticating.
A log knocked Hammond to the ground, as it passed. From the floor, Hammond saw the inside of the machine.
Snapping animal jaws, the face of a great, skinned wolf.
The wind died down. The dogs had stopped banging on the doors of the station. Walter sat next to Genevieve. She knew she didn’t like Walter. Her pills had worn off. She wanted more; she wanted more scotch, too. “Aw, fuck,” she said. They all looked at her. “I left a bag on the bus.”
