Selected Stories

by Nate Southard

  I stepped past the door and turned to face the street again. I figured plenty of others were doing the same thing, acting like the triangle didn’t interest them. Quiet and calm is the way to survive in the city. The rule held true for homeless and civilian alike.

  I reached Republic and managed to cross the street without getting trampled by the crowd or smashed by a truck. I worked myself into the stream of foot traffic heading back up the street. Half a block and I’d reach the butcher. Maybe I could grab a few steaks. We could cook them over the drain in the busted shower same as we had the chicken.

  I fell into a well-practiced pattern, learned through years of hunger-induced theft. I looked to the butcher and then let my eyes wander, took a few steps and looked again. I examined the area while I appeared to be nothing more than a rather poorly dressed pedestrian. By the time I reached the butcher’s humming coolers, I had memorized the entire layout and even had my exit planned.

  “Dad!”

  The scream stopped me. Its abrasive note grabbed me in rough hands and spun me toward the street. The terror in the cry was a hot, piercing thing. I knew the voice belonged to the old man’s daughter even before my eyes reached the street and I saw what was happening.

  He’d broken free of his daughter and lost his cane. It didn’t appear to hamper him any, though. He lurched off the sidewalk and into the street.

  “Never coming back.” His voice whispered like a cold wind through valleys of paper. His wrinkled face folded and stretched, but it looked more like pale tree bark than skin.

  “It’s gone,” he said. “It’s never coming back.” His eyes grew wide, and I saw light reflect off the tears that filled them. His jaw dropped open, and he began to wheeze a scream into the sky.

  His daughter reached his side. She’d dashed right past his cane in order to reach him, and she appeared to be unable to say anything but “Daddy!” over and over again. “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” I could hear the concern in her voice. This woman wasn’t embarrassed that her father was putting on a show, she was frightened for him.

  She reached out with both hands and touched his arm again, creating that lifeline I’d seen earlier. He didn’t notice her. He screamed that dry, breathless scream and looked into some unknown distance with his wide eyes, but he gave no sign that he felt his daughter’s hands on him.

  “Daddy!”

  The crowd watched, silent and frozen as if held at gunpoint. The woman begged with her eyes for them to help her, but nobody moved or even spoke.

  A trickle of blood exited the old man’s nose. It made a slow and steady crawl toward his lip, and I found myself thinking of the triangle I’d seen earlier, of the yellow trickle at its bottom point.

  “Daddy!”

  The old man fell. His daughter made a desperate attempt to keep him on his feet, but it didn’t matter. He crumbled to the pavement like a tower of playing cards.

  Her wail broke the crowd from its trance. Several civilians shot forward to help the woman, and everybody started chattering at once, asking their neighbors if they’d just seen the terrible event.

  I grabbed a white paper package from the butcher’s freezer and ran. I didn’t want to stay there any longer.

  That night I distracted myself with Cayden. Our naked limbs twisted. I smelled the dirt in her hair and felt the grease and sweat on her skin. I shivered against her, and as I reached my end I saw the old man, blood tracing a narrow path to his mouth.

  “What is it?” Cayden asked. She kissed my shoulder like she cared about me.

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No.”

  She rolled over and pressed her back to my chest. Mutt whimpered quietly in the corner.

  “Did you see any triangles today?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Don’t—”

  “I told you to shut up.” I shoved her away from me and pulled on my filthy jeans.

  Cayden went to bed curled in Warner’s arms. Mutt slept next to me, loyal and warm. I fell asleep with my back to the door of the squat. For some reason, I didn’t trust the locks anymore.

  I dreamed that something warm and wet splashed my face. When I opened my eyes, I saw Cayden straddling Mutt, carving into her hide with a yellow knife.

  Carving a triangle.

  I went hunting the next morning. Curiosity and a bad night’s sleep pushed me out of the squat and onto the streets. My breath tangoed in front of my face before disappearing into the sunrise. My footsteps chased me through the concrete valleys.

  I searched for triangles. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the dream, or maybe it was Cayden’s constant talking about the damn things. More than once I thought it might be because of the old man and the things he’d said, but I kept reminding myself that I had nothing to connect the dead man to the triangles but my own fear and superstition.

  I started down Mission Avenue. The cold morning wind slashed at my dry face, an angry lover with a rusted blade. I hunched my shoulders up to my ears and trudged ahead, checking alleys for doors. Each fissure between buildings set my nerves jangling, convincing me I’d find a yellow symbol with three sides.

  I passed a newsstand on the corner, stole a copy of the morning edition. I ducked into a nearby tenement and flipped through the pages. No mention of the old man. I double-checked, turned up nothing once again. I shouldn’t have been so surprised. People died all the time; it wasn’t anything new. I couldn’t shake the feeling there was something different about this though, something wrong.

  The tenement creaked around me. I looked up from the paper, checked the area for anybody who might be watching. My breath caught in my chest.

  Rusted doors, no knobs or handles. Yellow triangles marked every last one. They filled the hallway, the symbols watching me like unblinking eyes.

  Something in my head told me to run. I wouldn’t find anything I liked here. I wanted to listen, wanted to head back to the squat and curl up next to Mutt, hear the soothing growls deep in her chest. Instead, I pushed myself away from the wall and stepped toward the first painted door.

  I saw cracked tiles and water stained walls in my peripheral vision. The fluttering light from a broken fixture ticked off the moments in crooked time. The triangle pulled at me. The rusted door reached out to wrap me in a gritty embrace. I thought maybe I had stopped walking, that the door and its symbol had started dragging me forward. Only the distant crunch of old ceramics under my shoes convinced me otherwise.

  Time bent and twisted, disappeared and returned in a sudden flash. I found myself inches from the door, staring at a wide field of neon yellow. The color reminded me of disease, of abnormal tumors growing unrestrained, of fields of bacteria that had become sentient and angry.

  My palms lay flat against the door. The metal was strangely warm for such a cold morning. I felt the temperature throb through my hands, comforting and taunting at the same time. Once again, I thought the door and its triangle might be pulling at me.

  I pressed my ear to the metal. It was freezing against my head, even as warmth pulsed through my palms. I heard something on the other side, an empty sound like one of those big seashells or maybe the wind through a canyon. It sounded so large though, so deep and wide, that I couldn’t think of anything that might be the source. All I could think of was emptiness. I pictured it in my head, the door swinging open to only blackness and rushing, angry wind. A little boy’s voice reached out of the darkness and kissed my ear.

  It’s never coming back.

  The door groaned beneath my hands.

  I ran.

  Warner didn’t come home that night. It was his turn to steal food, and Cayden and I sat alone for a long time, watching each other and trying to deny how hungry we were. We’d both grown used to hunger, but the swelling fear that ate at us didn’t help matters.

  “I bet he went in a door,” she said. Her voice was a broken whisper.

  I shrugged. I feared talking about it might make things worse. If we
didn’t discuss the triangles and their doors, maybe I could forget the past few days for a little while.

  “Why else wouldn’t he come back?” It appeared Cayden had other plans.

  I climbed to my feet.

  “Where are you going?” The sudden fear in her voice dropped the temperature a few degrees.

  “To get some food. I’m starving.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “I’ll bring back enough for both of us.”

  “Bai, I’m afraid!” Tears spilled from her pleading eyes.

  “Come with me.”

  “I can’t leave.”

  “You need to make up your mind.”

  “Why are you being mean?” Her voice cracked, and suddenly she began to sob. She buried her face in shaking hands, and her body hitched up and down. Mutt approached her, nuzzled her neck, and Cayden shoved her away. “Leave me alone!”

  I watched her for a long moment, trying to think of something to tell her. Maybe I had been mean. Maybe my desire to avoid talking about triangles and doors had turned me cold. It didn’t matter. Even her sobs made me want to leave. I needed time alone, time away from her, from everybody.

  “I’ll be back in a few. Mutt will keep you safe.”

  “Fuck you!”

  I left.

  I should have known before I hit the street. The halls outside the squat were usually a hive of energy and noise, other homeless huddled and whispering, sometimes laughing in the abandoned rooms. There was none of that, though. Only quiet greeted me in the dark hallway. A faraway car horn sounded like a lonely cry.

  The streets were all but empty, and the sight jolted my heart in my chest. It wasn’t too late. The sun had only dropped below the horizon a few hours before. It should have been Friday or Saturday night, and the city should have been alive, bustling with energy. Instead I saw empty pavement, streetlights illuminating nothing but cold stone.

  I looked across the streets, hoping to see lights, fires, anything that might suggest life. Instead I saw flat, rusted doors. I saw the yellow triangles painted on them. The shapes faced me like a casual, deadly threat.

  My knees wanted to buckle. I fought to stay on my feet. This couldn’t be real.

  I started down the block. I didn’t know where I was heading, and something told me to return to Cayden and Mutt. But I could only move down the sidewalk, first at a confused walk and then at a frightened jog, before my brain went hot and I took off in a terrified sprint. My footsteps sounded like cannon fire as they tumbled down Mission Avenue.

  I heard another car horn. Its lonely blast sounded frightened as it wandered the city’s canyons. I saw the car—a taxi—tear through the intersection two blocks up. I thought the driver’s side window might have been shattered, but I couldn’t be sure. It might have been my imagination. It could have been my mind finally snapping as the world around me went crazy and hollow.

  I saw the rusted doors and their triangles everywhere. They appeared on tenements and apartment buildings, on Chinese restaurants and weekly hotels. They’d infected the city, eaten it up like cancer. I was the lone blood cell trying to travel a collapsing vein.

  I reached Republic and Cross, and the world stopped. Gone, all of it. The shops were closed, their windows dark or boarded over. The glass doors and metal cages the shops had sported a few days before were gone, replaced by flat doors and triangles, markers of death or maybe desolation. I couldn’t tell, and my brain wouldn’t tell me anything but Get back to the squat!

  I was staring at the former marketplace when a figure shambled into the street. I blinked, thinking the person couldn’t be real, and then I realized it wasn’t a person at all but a cop. It figured. Even with the city swallowed whole, I’d still get a final beating.

  “Hey!” the policeman called. I wanted to run—years of living in alleys and gutters and abandoned buildings had given me the reflex—but the pitiful, scared sound of the cop’s voice froze me. When he started laughing and crying all at once, I wanted to scream.

  “Just you and me, huh?” the cop said as he finally stood in front of me. His eyes had gone wide and bright with madness. “I looked everywhere, man. Ain’t nobody left. All gone, and it’s never coming back.”

  I remembered the old man.

  “I have to go,” I said.

  “Nowhere to go. It’s all gone and it’s—”

  “Never coming back.”

  “Yes!”

  I didn’t even notice him draw his gun. The weapon just appeared in his fist. He waved it in front of my face.

  “I can take care of it, man. I’ll do you and then myself. You know we ain’t getting out of this any other way!”

  I moved then, backing away. My hands went up, and I felt my pulse beating through my throat.

  “No,” I told him. “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Suit yourself.” He pressed the gun’s barrel under his chin.

  Maybe I told him not to do it; maybe I just watched. I can’t remember. All I can recall is the way the top of the man’s skull blasted into the air and the wet sound his brains made against the street.

  I returned to the squat a few hours ago. It’s gone. The door’s been replaced, and the yellow triangle on the rusted sheet of steel tells me I won’t be getting inside anytime soon. I tried prying the boards off the windows—they weren’t there when I left—but they won’t budge. I can’t even find any nails along their edges, not that I figured I would.

  I banged on the door for a while, called out to Cayden and Mutt. Nobody answered, and all I could hear when I pressed my ear to the cold, rusted metal was a churning emptiness.

  So I’m sitting on the stoop and waiting. I don’t feel like going anywhere. I figure that taxi is still out there—I hear it honk once in a while—but I don’t want to look for it. I don’t think I’d like the driver much.

  I heard a new sound a few minutes ago. It came from a few blocks over, I think. It’s hard to tell, because sound carries funny in the city. It’s getting closer, though. It sounds kind of like a scream, but it’s a little dry, a little mechanical. It took me a minute to figure it out.

  It’s hinges. Rusted hinges on doors that are starting to open.

  IT’S EVEN BETTER THE SECOND TIME

  The cramps wrenched Charlie from sleep, seizing him like an angry vice. They pulled a groan from him, then a scream.

  Charlie opened his eyes and clutched his belly with both hands. The pain surged through his entire body, and his muscles tightened in response. He ground his teeth together and let out a grunt that became a screech. Something was wrong. He’d never felt pains like these before. It felt like his stomach was trying to tear its way free of his abdomen.

  “Dammit, David,” he gasped before stumbling out of bed and charging down the hall.

  Of course David was to blame for this. David who always talked about saving up for culinary school. David who dragged him off to restaurants he’d never heard of, out-of-the-way dives and back-alley grills. Tonight had been a joint pushed into the dingy corner of a Chinatown basement, dim lights and boiling air thick with the scent of sesame oil and hot peppers. David had pushed his way in and flashed a quartet of twenties at the waiter before saying, “Best meal in the house!” The waiter had smiled from ear to ear and rattled off something that sounded a little too sly for Charlie’s liking. The chuckle that followed had sounded worse, but by then David was bragging about how his pot dealer had clued him in to the place.

  Charlie hit his knees in front of the commode hard enough to send lances of pain up both thighs. He flipped up the lid a split second before another spasm of agony bent him in half. What had they eaten? He’d thought it was beef and peppers, maybe some hot and sour soup. The meal had been tasty enough—probably the best meal he’d ever had—but what could have done this to him hours later? Something in the thick broth? A bad chunk of meat in his entrée?

  He gripped the bowl’s edge as the first real convulsion hit him. His body arched, shot forward, and hi
s stomach lurched its contents up his throat and past his lips. A series of violent plops sounded from deep in the toilet, followed by an angry stream as hot liquid burned its way up his throat. He clamped his watering eyes shut. His body relaxed then went rigid again, and a second barrage filled the bowl, emptying him.

  But something was still there. Charlie felt it in his mouth, pressing against his tongue and teeth and lips—something solid and ropy. It stretched all the way up from his stomach past his lips, refusing to spill free. He took in a weak breath through his nose, and then the thing in his mouth began to move, to undulate back and forth, pressing against his lips and shoving forward.

  Charlie tried to scream, but the sound was weak, choked. Whimpering, he opened his eyes to look at the thing coming out of his gut.

  And something looked back.

  MOUTH

  More.

  The word was still a whisper, barely more than a breath, but Gary knew it would get louder. It always did. Once it got so loud he couldn’t ignore it, he’d have to obey. He hoped to find a way to shut it out, but so far all his attempts had failed.

  Gary sipped his coffee, wishing he had enough energy to run, and watched half a dozen residents of the Juniper Ridge apartment complex chase a squirrel. Each time they came close to grabbing the little bastard, his entire body tensed, the anxiety and excitement creating a terrible friction inside him. When the animal switched direction and scurried free of their grasp, the friction disappeared beneath crashing waters of disappointment. He wanted to join them, but his legs were too tired. Just climbing from his bed, making the coffee, and then plopping down in the camping chair that decorated his balcony had stolen what remained of his strength. In a few hours, maybe he could join the hunt, but he hoped the group would catch the squirrel by then.