Mr. Shivers

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “So where’d he walk?” asked Roonie.

  Pike nodded up the road. “So I suppose now it’s hide and seek,” he said, and spat.

  They organized a search party as quickly as they could, each taking pairs. Connelly was paired with Roosevelt and they would travel with the twins. They each took a street and, if needed, decided they would search what few houses there were.

  “No one’s here anyways,” said Lottie. “The damn place is a ghost town. Ghosts won’t care if we bust in.”

  “Amen,” Roonie said.

  Connelly and his group moved north and wandered among the alleys and the stores. A handful of slums squatted toward the edge of town, along the ditches and the bridge and a scattered half dozen trees. They walked along fences and looked into yards and began to search the homes.

  “You ever broke into a house before?” said Roosevelt.

  “No,” Connelly said.

  He chuckled. “It’s easy. Sort of fun. Can’t see it being fun with no one around, though. Sort of spoils it.”

  The twins picked a ruined shack with no door, but for some reason Connelly was compelled otherwise. He would not want that, he realized. The scarred man would not want something so poor and already hopeless. He would want something comfortable. Something homey. Something warm. It would be of no worth to violate something already destitute.

  “Where you going, Connelly?” asked Roosevelt as Connelly walked away from the twins, but he made a motion with his hand and Roosevelt was quiet.

  He found a house trying its best to look nice. It was shabby and old but it had a fresh coat of white paint and its yard had once been clean and organized. Rows of flowers in the front. A doormat. A knocker and a mailbox. It was a home more than simply a house.

  This would be the place, he knew. Connelly’s instincts said so in a way that had no words.

  “Stay out here,” he said. “Stay here and watch. Watch if he comes out. If he does, yell.”

  “You think he’s in there?” Roosevelt said.

  “We’re about to find out.”

  Connelly surveyed the house once more in the pallid light. There was no noise but the wind. He pushed the fence out of the way and came up the front walk. Windows dead. Door slightly ajar. Something had come here and disturbed this dead place, like an animal whose path had stirred up fallen leaves.

  He stood on the porch, minding the creaking boards, and pushed the door open a bit. Its hinges squawked and he winced, then squatted and spat on them and tried once more. Now it was barely a whisper. He moved to look about in the doorway but saw nothing, then he took off his shoes and padded inside.

  Everything was dark and cramped. A hallway led away before him and there were stairs up to his left. Pictures hung from the walls and sat on shelves, their glass catching the light from the street and shining slick. The wind picked up, battering the windows, the panes rattling in their frames. Besides that there was no noise at all. The sense of abandonment was overpowering, and Connelly felt like he was not in a home but some stone chamber far below the earth, with narrow atriums splintering off into the dark.

  He moved down the hallway and came to the kitchen. Cupboards all closed. Dishes on the countertop. A child’s drawing on the far wall.

  On the table was a light. A single candle, its flame innocently dancing on the tabletop. Next to it was a placemat and a dish, a nice one, white with flowers on the edge. Probably the nicest dish in the house. But in its center was a muddy brown stain, almost a smear. It was copper or red at the edges. A knife and fork sat directly to the sides of the plate, also stained. Connelly paused, then reached out to touch the smear. It was still wet. He lifted his fingers to his nose and sniffed. Its scent was thick and coppery and he knew without doubt it was blood of some kind.

  A black fly alighted on the fork. It twitched and flew to the plate, then back to the fork. It was joined by another fly, then another, their reedy whine near impossible to hear over the wind. Connelly looked around, then glanced into the living room. There he saw the blue light filtering through the window outside, yet it was strange. The light or the room itself seemed almost alive. Everything moved and pulsated, everything shuddered.

  Then he noticed a low, wet buzzing coming from in the living room. He thinned his eyes and walked in.

  The air was thick with flies, dozens of them at least, swarming through the air. They filled the room and seemed to make the shadows twitch. As he stood in the darkness he felt them invade his arms, his neck, his legs. He suppressed a shiver and tried to see where they were coming from. They seemed to be pouring out of one of the walls.

  He approached and saw he was at the top of the stairs to the basement. They led straight down, ending at a small brown door with cracked paint. Connelly reached forward and pawed at the air and felt a string hanging from the ceiling. He pulled and nicotine-yellow light filled the stairs from the bulb above. The door seemed to change, to move in the light like it was awoken or disturbed. It was slightly ajar and Connelly could see the oily-black forms of the flies flowing out its crack, as though the basement was bleeding or leaking.

  Suddenly a wave of stench washed over him, thick and heady, like the door before him had exhaled a putrid sigh. He almost staggered back, unable to bear it. His eyes watered and he turned his head to the side and the flies seemed to increase, like they were fleeing something from the basement, something that was waking up and stirring to greet him and pushing out that horrible stink.

  How long has he been here, thought Connelly. Days? Weeks? It couldn’t have been more than a few days.

  He took a step down toward the basement, hesitated, then took another. He could be down there, he thought. The scarred man could be down there. But Connelly did not know if he could bear to see what the man had been doing for so long. What foulness had been gestating here in this deserted town, what prey had he been feeding on? And feeding was what he had been doing, after all.

  Connelly rubbed his mouth and wondered what had been on that plate.

  He stopped halfway there, the door staring up at him like some brown, blind eye. He held his hand to his mouth yet again and fought back retching.

  No. He could not do this.

  He walked back up the stairs and took a breath. As he did there came a tapping noise from upstairs, quiet and brittle. He froze and listened. It did not stop.

  Connelly sped up the stairs and through the kitchen and came to the stairs leading to the second floor. He put his foot on the first step and the tapping halted.

  He waited. No other sound came. He treaded up the stairs on the balls of his feet, gazing into the darkness. He could see nothing, no movement, no light. He was nearly to the top when the sound of the wind rose and he felt air in his face. He thought for a moment and leapt forward and rushed around the right doorway at the top of the stairs.

  Some room, a child’s room, but on the west wall was an open window with the wind blasting through.

  He raced to the window and looked out. There was no pole or fence or tree to climb down near the window, yet he had felt it open and the pressure change. Someone had been in here and opened the window, opened it to escape, he felt sure of it. He looked again. The yard was below him and beyond that the trees and the creek, but after that there was nothing. The trees raged and shook in the wind. Besides them and the swirls of dust he saw nothing move.

  He heard something. There was a sound in the wind. A howling, like an animal. Something screaming in the violent night.

  Connelly sprinted back downstairs and out the front door and saw Roosevelt standing in the street, shielding himself from the wind. “What the hell is that?” he shouted, but Connelly was already following his ears and running for the creek.

  The howls grew louder. As he dodged through the trees Connelly saw him ahead. A man kneeling over a crumpled form on the bridge, shaking the thing before him and screaming wildly. Connelly slowed and walked forward. It was Jake. Snot and spit ran down his face as he shrieked yet again.
Connelly looked at the thing at Jake’s knees and could only tell it was Ernie by the clothes he was wearing. Blood shone black in the quivering starlight and the night seemed to go mad.

  The others ran up behind him. They looked at the slain man and began screaming and swearing. Some went to try and pry Jake from his brother but he snapped and struck at them and clung ever tighter. Pike and Hammond began running through the streets and the nearby fields, crying that the scarred man could not be far, not far. Lottie struggled to hold Jake back and called to Connelly to help her, but he turned and followed Hammond and Pike.

  He tried not to think about how the man had gotten out of the house and how he had gotten to Ernie so fast. How he had done what he did and moved on. Connelly couldn’t think of such things because then he might be something more than a man and then Connelly might not be able to do anything at all.

  He wouldn’t like open spaces, thought Connelly as he ran through the streets. He likes small things. Alleys and boxcars and basements. He likes being contained. He likes little roads…

  There was nothing. The town was deserted as before, nothing but coils of dust and blank windows, some broken, and here and there a dog or cat cowering at the onset of the storm.

  Connelly ran until his legs burned and his throat hurt. The town turned into a blur as the wind picked up and his search became more desperate. He ran down a large street and then an alley and stumbled as he came out. He lifted his face from the gravel. The countryside unfolded before him, the dry creek running across the face of the hills like a scar and trees thrashing along it. And there crossing the creek at a quick but steady pace was a figure in a ragged gray cloak streaked with ashes, striding over the fields as though he had business on his mind.

  Connelly stood and stared, unable to believe. It was impossible that this man was real. Then his body took over and he began running, trying to close the gap, but the man seemed to melt through the night, like he was being dragged forward by invisible strings. Connelly realized he was screaming, bellowing at the top of his lungs. He wanted some name to call, some name to curse, but the man had none and so Connelly did no more than scream.

  The gray man halted and cocked his head, hearing him. He turned, his long, weathered face, swiveling to see him. Even at that distance Connelly heard the word the man said.

  “Connelly,” whispered the scarred man.

  Connelly stopped, stunned to hear his name. Then the man in gray looked at the night sky and the hills beyond, and there was a dreadful lull in the wind. The others were far behind Connelly, following his screams, and he heard one of them shout, “My God, look! Look! The stars!”

  Connelly’s eyes trailed up to the sky.

  The stars. They were dying. It started in the distance, the farthest star they could see winking out, then the next, then the next. A black wave thundering across the sky, drowning out the stars and the moon. It was as though some unseen godly hand was reaching into the heavens and pinching them out like candles.

  Something was coming. Something behind the hills, but he could not see.

  The scarred man turned once more to look at him. His eyes stayed on Connelly alone. Behind the man the black wave crested the hill and Connelly heard the others begin yelling in panic at the sight of it.

  It was a massive gray-red cloud, crawling up the tops of the hills and charging forward like a vast, blank army. It swallowed up the trees and the hills and the creek, consuming everything in its path. The others shouted for him to run, run, for God’s sake, run, but he and the scarred man stood watching one another. They seemed to share some strange moment, caught between men screaming on one side and the sky raging down upon them on the other.

  Then the gray man put his arms about his breast and bowed his head. The cloud approached and Connelly began shouting, “No! No!” but it was too late. The storm swallowed the man whole and he was lost.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The dust storm lasted for nearly three days. Connelly would have been marooned if the others hadn’t shouted for him. It was impossible to see anything. They broke into one of the homes and used it for shelter, piling mattresses and blankets up against the windows and the doors to try and keep the dust out. It still seeped in, a fine mist that filled each room. Soon they learned if they did not frequently brush themselves off they would gather a coating of crimson-red, like they had just crawled out of the earth’s bowels.

  Jake would not leave his brother in the storm. He dragged the corpse through the dust and into the house and sat over it in the corner sobbing and praying and promising the dead thing he would make sure it was buried right. The others kept their distance. Though unnerved by its presence they did not have the gall to ask him to toss it out. Lottie convinced him to lay a sheet over it but before the first day was out it began to smell. Its intestines had been punctured and shit was leaking into its abdomen.

  They did not know it, but this was one of the smallest storms of the time. Others filled the sky with red almost past the heavens. When winter came to New England, far away, it brought red snow with it.

  Food quickly became a concern as they huddled in the center of the cloud. Neither party had packed much beyond a day’s rationing. Eventually Connelly and Hammond bound their heads up in scarves and ventured out into the storm to the general store. They found the place ransacked and when they returned they looked like tribal clay puppets brought to life.

  They tried to ignore their hunger and the stink of the dead man and the chalky taste that filled their mouths. Each night Roosevelt made a new little idol out of things he found around the house, and each morning they were all whole. Roosevelt seemed to believe from this that there was no real danger but no one took his word.

  “I think it’s dusk,” said Pike one day as he stared out the window. “I can’t be sure, though.”

  “All this dirt in the air?” said Roonie. “That’s the livelihood of every fella in this state. Every man who grew cotton or corn, his future’s in the air right now. We’re breathing it in and brushing it off.”

  “God has forsaken this place,” Pike said.

  “That’s awful harsh,” said Monk.

  “Certainly. It may be. But I find it hard to say otherwise. Look around. The land is a desert, cracked and empty. Hell’s storms stride across the earth. I can’t say what these people have done to incur His wrath, but His wrath is what they have and it is here now.”

  Connelly withdrew to a small bedroom and found Hammond on the mattress frame, cross-legged, a blanket around his shoulders.

  “Don’t know how much longer this’ll last,” said Connelly as he sat across from him.

  “Wouldn’t expect you to.” Hammond sniffed and sneezed. “How are the others bearing it?”

  “Not happily, that’s for sure.”

  “I bet I know. They’re all saying this is something new. Something about a curse for something we did. Aren’t they?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hammond laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Connelly.

  “It’s not new. Things like this have happened before.”

  “I’ve never seen it.”

  “Doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened before. Just means you weren’t around to see it.” Hammond paused. His eyes grew wide and hollow and Connelly had never seen him look so fearful. “I think it’s more than just the storm.”

  “What is?”

  “I think it goes further. They say the storm is a curse and they say these hungry times are a curse. Like they expect things to always be safe and this hunger is new and strange. That there’ll always be plenty. But that’s the strange thing. That’s the new thing. Living comfortably. That’s strange.”

  “Think so?”

  “I do.”

  “Well. That’s an idea.”

  Hammond sniffed again, then said, “Hey, Connelly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You hear about how the last thing a guy does is shit himself?”

  “Yeah?”
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  He paused. “Think Jesus did that when He died on the cross?”

  Connelly started up, then sat back down uncomfortably. “Goddamn. That’s a crazy thing to say.”

  “Isn’t it? But you have to wonder, don’t you. He was definitely human. And He definitely died. It would stand to reason, wouldn’t it?”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in Jesus.”

  “I’m just wondering, is all. We all want dignity. We all want plenty. But we’re probably not going to get it, are we.”

  Lottie walked in, looked at the two of them, then sat next to Connelly. She undid her kerchief and her hair spilled down around her neck and she shook it out. Red clouds formed around her head like a halo.

  “Look at me. I’m Irish,” she said, and tried to smile.

  “What’s going on in there, Lottie?” asked Hammond. “Still a lot of moaning and groaning?”

  “I’d be shocked if there wasn’t.” She chewed her lip. “He’s long gone, isn’t he.”

  “Yeah,” said Connelly.

  “I guess a man could run through that if he didn’t care where he was going,” she said. She chewed her lip more, then began to bite her nails. “Go over what happened in the house one more time,” she said.

  “I been over it enough,” said Connelly. “Everyone’s been asking me about it ever since we calmed down.”

  “We haven’t calmed down. I can’t imagine someone being calm in these circumstances.”

  “Well, since things got less goddamn crazy, then.”

  “It doesn’t make sense, is all. How’d he get out of the house? Through the window? What the hell was he doing there? I won’t ask Jake to talk about it, but how did he… How did he do what he did to Ernie so fast?”

  “Jake won’t know,” said Hammond. “He wasn’t there.”

  “You saw?”

  “No. Stands to reason if Jake had been there to see he’d be cut up just as much as his brother.”

  She shook her head, eyes wide. “And the storm…”

  “I don’t want to hear any more ghost story talk,” said Connelly. “He’s a man. I know more than anyone. I saw him scared not more than a day or two ago when I almost caught him and pulled the guts out of him. Ghosts aren’t scared.”