by David Lubar
Over the next month, the little rituals, the small acts that paid tribute to my fears, began to vanish. I didn’t have to make sure my feet were under the blanket. Half-asleep, I didn’t worry about what might lurk beneath the bed. I know—that’s stuff for five-year-old boys. Guys my age are over fears of monsters. But I couldn’t help what I was.
Until now. Now, since I’d met Jennie, those things had started to fade. I’d found something else to fill my mind. Now that the fears were visiting my thoughts less frequently, I was very glad I’d never told her my secret. I doubt she would have thought much of me if she had known. She would never have wanted to be with someone who saw creatures in every shadow.
I didn’t realize how much the fears had faded until the night we went to the cemetery.
“Let’s go see Don’s grave,” Jennie said as we drove from the parking lot at the mall.
“What?” I felt my hands grip the wheel.
“He was your friend. Let’s go pay our respects.”
“But…”
She put her hand on top of mine. “Come on, he needs to be remembered.”
I took a deep breath. Then I thought, Sure, why not? We parked outside. The gate was locked at night. I helped Jennie over the fence, lingering to enjoy the feel of my hands on her hips. She hopped down gracefully, then waited until I joined her.
Jennie took my hand and led me through the maze of marble headstones. I kept glancing at the graves, waiting for the images to take over my mind, waiting for my brain to fill with scenes of rotting hands exploding through the soil to clutch at our legs and pull us down to join them. My mind seemed dead to such fears.
We reached Don’s grave. There was no headstone yet—I guess they take a while to make—but there was a marker on the ground with his name.
When we knelt on the ground, I braced myself, but there was no rush of dreadful images. There were no visions of corpses rising from below. All I felt was distant sadness.
When Jennie lay down and pulled me to her, all I felt was lust and hunger. All else vanished as we kissed and wrapped our arms around each other.
My fears were gone.
“What do you feel?” she whispered.
I told her.
* * *
I returned to the cemetery the next evening, alone. The stories and images that had once haunted me now drew me. For an hour, I sat by Don’s grave, sometimes talking to him, sometimes just thinking in silence.
“I never told you about this,” I said. “It seems silly now, but I want you to know.” I talked about the way I’d been. It felt good telling Don the truth.
But I was confessing my past, not my future. There was no fear in me. None at all. Nothing in this land of graves and death brought terror to my mind. To test myself, I wandered deeper into the cemetery. There was an open grave, empty, awaiting. With the strange belief that it was waiting for me, I climbed down inside it, feeling the trickle of soil fall from the edge to join me at the bottom. I lay flat on the damp earth and thought of being buried alive. It felt right. It felt good.
I imagined the earth dropping over me. First, a shovelful, spreading as it fell. Then another. Falling like thick rain, covering me, burying me alive.
The images didn’t bring fear. They excited me.
Like a thirst, the need rose within me, bursting to the surface of my mind, grabbing me so hard that I sat up and scrambled from the grave.
I needed it to happen for real.
But where?
I searched through the cemetery, failed to find what I needed, then returned to the street. Up the road, I saw the lights of the old supermarket. Then I knew. I closed my eyes and thought of the gaping hole that had once filled me with dread. I had to go to the east side of town, where they were building the new supermarket. I’d slip in tonight and wait for morning. They were constantly moving earth, shoving piles of dirt from place to place. Within the rush of bulldozers and trucks and tons of earth, they’d never notice me.
It would be easy.
I got in my car and drove, looking forward to the feel of the earth as it covered my still-breathing body.
A car at the cross street ran a stop sign. I hit the brakes. My tires squealed, the rear end fishtailed, but I stopped in time. The shoulder belt pressed against my chest, like the hand of a friend trying to keep me from harm.
Don would have had a fit if he was with me, I thought.
But Don was dead.
Nick would have said something funny.
But Nick was dead.
I started to move my foot from the brake.
My leg froze. Don and Jennie. Nick and Jennie. Me and Jennie. I remembered another moment like this. It was three days before Don had died. We were riding to the city so Don could get a present for Jennie at this fancy gift shop. I’d jammed on the brakes after deciding at the last moment not to run a light. Don had leaned pretty far forward. He couldn’t have moved that far unless he hadn’t been wearing his seat belt. I tried to remember the details, but they were hazy. I tried to think of other moments from Don’s last month.
Small things came back, things I’d seen but not really been aware of before. Don cutting an apple, slicing toward himself with a sharp knife. Don running down a flight of stairs. I saw it now—Don had grown less and less cautious over the last few months. Finally, he’d lost all his caution, and his life.
I did a U-turn and headed toward Jennie’s house. Something was forming in my mind. It wasn’t easy to think. I still wanted to embrace a suffocating mound of earth.
It was late. I hoped her parents wouldn’t mind. I’d never met them. Jennie always waited for me in front. She never invited me in. I guess the time had come for that meeting.
I knocked at the door.
After a long while, Jennie answered. She seemed surprised to see me. Then she spoke, and it was my turn to be surprised.
“Weren’t you going somewhere?” she asked. “Don’t you have something you need to do?”
“Yes,” I said, too surprised to deny my plans. I took a step inside. The room was empty except for a chair. There was no way to tell from where I stood, but I sensed that the rest of the house was also empty, both of furniture and parents. I suspected Jennie had been on her own for a long time.
She stroked my cheek. “Tell me what you want,” she said. She dropped her arm quickly, as if the touch meant nothing. “Tell me what you need.”
“To be buried,” I said. “To end my days beneath tons of earth. Buried but still alive. Alive, but knowing there is nothing ahead except death.” Even the sound of it excited me. Combined with the lingering feel of her touch, it was almost more than I could bear.
“Go. It’s waiting for you.” Her voice was like a soft caress against the most sensitive folds of my brain.
Yes. Of course. She was right. My Jennie knew what I needed to do. I turned to leave. Behind me, I heard a sound—perhaps a sigh of relief. I turned back. “What are you?” I asked.
She smiled. “Surely you know. You’ve touched me, felt me. I’ve had no secrets from you.”
I didn’t understand. But I had to understand. I waited for her to speak again.
“You took what you wanted. I took what I needed. I’m like you—we all feed on each other. But you’re empty. You have nothing more for me. Go to your destiny.”
What did she take? Fighting the urge to run to my car, I tried to think. I began to see the pattern. Don had been robbed of his caution. Nick had been robbed of his humor. Each had lost—as it hit me, I spoke aloud. “The strongest feeling…”
She said nothing.
I knew. From each, she had taken the part that had been the strongest. She had stolen my fears. Just as she had stolen Don’s caution, leaving him to run across a highway no sane person would try to cross. She had stolen Nick’s humor, leaving him empty of life. No reason to laugh, no reason to live. Whatever remained—the bones, the pits, the peelings—was thrown in the garbage. Jennie had chosen each of us because we had so m
uch for her to take. Then she’d drained us.
“Do you know what you’ve stolen from me?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t pay that much attention.”
My hands clenched into fists. As bad as it was to have been robbed, it was almost worse that she didn’t seem to know or care what she had stolen. “Don’t you even know what you have taken?”
“Can you tell me what you had for breakfast last week?” she asked. “That’s all you were to me. An egg. A bowl of cereal. A piece of meat. Nothing more. I’m interested in my next meal, not my last one. A girl like me has to plan ahead. You young ones are most tasty. Your emotions and feelings are so strong.”
Slowly, she licked her lips. “I think it’s time for me to move to another town. I almost left after the last one. Nick? I think that was his name. I almost left, but you were so very hard to resist. So full and juicy.”
I stared at her, with no idea what to do. She’d stolen my fears of the imagined and the unseen. Under any other circumstances, that would have been a huge favor. But now I was supposed to follow Don and Nick. To her, I was nothing but the inedible scraps and gristle left after a two-month feast. Still, I had to know. “What are you?”
Jennie smiled. “This happens sometimes. Once in a while, the waste refuses to flush itself. That’s not a problem. I’ll show you. It’s kind of fun—for me. But you won’t survive. Your heart will burst. Your brain will drown in blood from exploded veins.”
She stepped back several paces. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather go to your destiny?”
“No.”
“Last chance.”
“Show me.”
She shimmered. She shifted. She stood before me as she really was. Maybe. Perhaps this was her true form. Perhaps it was just an illusion she could cast as her ultimate protection. Before me, a creature unlike man or woman stood. Ancient, dry, and withered, with insect eyes in a skull of wrinkled, flaking flesh. Small at first, hunched, no more than four feet tall.
She rose. Her skeleton extended as she grew five, then six, then seven feet. Her arms spread, glistening chitinous wings draped from ribs to elbows. Her face alone would have stopped the heart of anyone who looked upon it. Her weapon was fear. She could scare mortals to death, turn them to stone like a modern Medusa.
But I was empty of fear.
Anyone else would have died at the sight of her. This was her ultimate weapon. But she had dined on my fear and stolen it from me.
“Guess what? You don’t scare me.” I stepped forward. My foot struck a hard object. I reached down, needing to grip something real. My hands met wood. I grabbed the chair and swung it at her. I was empty of fear, but I had rage. I had rage and anger and strength. The chair smashed against her. She crumpled as she rammed into a wall, then slowly stood again. Something thick and brown oozed from the side of her head. It smelled like burning hair and rotting flesh. I swung again. The chair shattered in my hands. I leaped on her, this time with a lust for vengeance.
I seized her neck—or whatever it was that led from head to body—and squeezed and shook. The flesh felt dry and brittle.
Her mouth opened. Her jaw unhinged like the jaw of a snake. Pieces of what she had stolen from her victims splashed over me like acid. Remnants of the strongest feelings and emotions of hundreds of her victims spilled from her.
Perhaps some of my own fear returned. I grew afraid enough to open my hands and let her head drop to the floor. It hit with the sound of a straw basket dropped on concrete.
But by then she was dead.
I stood and looked at the mess of fragile bones and skin and other things I never wanted to know about. It didn’t look like anything that could be mistaken for human remains. Already, it was crumbling, losing its identity among the dust and dirt on the floor.
“For Don,” I said as I stood and backed slowly away from the spot. “For Nick. For all of them. And for me.”
I left the house and walked to my car. The night was dark and still and, within the deep shadows, a little bit frightening. But it was nothing I couldn’t face. Nothing I couldn’t handle.
Every Drop
The sun had burned off the faintest wisps of clouds and beat down without mercy. It was the first truly hot afternoon in July.
“Perfect day for swimming,” Jake said as he checked the road to make sure no cars were coming. He slipped through the hole someone had cut ages ago in the fence beneath the KEEP OUT sign. A narrow path, worn down by countless feet, led him toward the south side of the old reservoir. Two more signs nailed to trees along the path also warned him to keep out.
He didn’t see anyone else there when he stepped into the small clearing near the bank. No surprise. It was still early in the afternoon. Jake stripped down to his underwear, then leaned out to grab the rope that hung from a branch of one of the maple trees that lined the bank. He swung out, let go, and plunged into the cool water.
He swam for a while, then pulled himself out of the water and dropped to the grass just as he heard footsteps coming through the brush. Hope it’s Sheryl, he thought. It would be nice watching her, or any of the other hot girls, splashing around in the water.
“Hey, what’s happening?” an annoying voice called out.
Oh, crap. Jake glanced up, barely acknowledging the greeting with a nod of his head.
Rodney Werner stepped from the path. Jake noticed the nerd was wearing a bathing suit and carrying a towel. How lame could a guy get?
“You been here long?” he asked.
Jake grunted, hoping the jerk would take a hint and go pollute some other spot along the bank.
But Rodney walked right up to him. “The sun’s actually farther away from the earth in the summer than in the winter. Did you know that?”
Jake didn’t even bother grunting. One of the great joys of Rodney was that he had a zillion mind-numbing bits of information to share, and no clue how uninterested the rest of the planet was in hearing any of it.
Rodney took a deep breath, then said, “I might have just inhaled the very same molecule that was breathed by Julius Caesar. Imagine that. The same air that Caesar breathed. Across centuries and miles.”
Just kill me now, Jake thought.
“I love water. Our bodies are ninety percent water. Did you know that? Some trees like to be near water.” Rodney pointed to the maple tree. “That’s a red maple. Most people can’t tell them from sugar maples.” His hand dropped as he pointed to the spot next to Jake. “Hey, mind if I join you? This is great. I was afraid there’d be nobody here.”
Jake’s mind searched for the best way to tell Rodney to take a hike. He wanted the guy to go as far away as possible. Like over to the other side. As Jake glanced across the water, he got an idea that was so sweet, he had to struggle to keep from smirking.
“Actually, I was about to swim. Want to race?”
“Sure.” Roddy looked toward the water. “How far?”
“All the way.”
“Are you kidding?”
“Hey, it’s easy. I already did it once today. It’s not as far as it looks. Anyone can make it. Anyone with guts.” He got up and walked toward the edge of the bank. “Ready?”
As Roddy stood there with his mouth open, Jake yelled, “Go!” and dived into the water. He stroked along for a couple of yards, then pulled to the surface, swimming slowly and listening. A couple of seconds later, he heard the loud splash of a clumsy dive. As he continued to swim slowly toward the distant bank, he saw Roddy catch up. Jake kept pace with him for a couple more strokes and then lagged, letting Roddy get ahead.
Once Rodney was well past him, Jake stopped to tread water. Roddy was still going, obviously clueless that he was in a one-man race. Jake turned and swam back to the shore. “Jerk,” he muttered as he climbed back on the bank.
Jake watched, expecting Roddy to turn back way before he reached the middle. But the fool kept going. The water churned around him as he beat at it with his awkward strokes. Sucker’s going to make it, Jake th
ought. He grinned at the idea of Rodney climbing onto the other shore and then turning around. The geek would scan the water first, and then, after a while, he’d finally notice Jake waving from the other side.
Good joke.
Rodney was about twenty yards away from the far bank when his stroke changed. It slowed, then stopped. He started to thrash.
Jake ran to the edge of the water. There was no point trying to swim across. He knew he’d never get there in time to help. Assuming he could even make it that far. He’d never work his way around the bank, either. There were too many overgrown spots.
By the time he’d thought all this through, Rodney had sunk from sight.
Jake stared across the reservoir. I don’t need this kind of problem, he thought. Rodney should have been smart enough not to try that. It was Rodney’s own fault, Jake realized. Darwinism in action. Survival of the coolest. He glanced around again. Nobody else had seen anything.
* * *
Though Jake kept his mouth shut, even a geek like Rodney was eventually missed. The alarms went out. Posters went up. Local news crews came by for a day or two. But he was old enough that everyone figured he was another runaway. Jake shoved the whole thing out of his mind, feeling less and less connected to the drowning with each passing day. But he also avoided the old reservoir.
The heat remained brutal through July, and the sky remained cloudless. Toward the end of the month, waking late in the morning, Jake got a glass of water from the kitchen. As he drank, he glanced down at the paper on the table. WATER LEVEL LOW, the headline said. Below that, CITY TAPS OLD RESERVOIR FOR BACKUP.
Jake’s body jerked as a mouthful of water sloshed toward his lungs. He coughed, spraying water across the kitchen. His body convulsed as if he were drowning. He put the glass down, forced himself to take deep breaths, and waited for the feeling to fade.
When he was back in control, he stared at the glass. “Don’t be stupid,” he muttered. The reservoir water was filtered and sanitized and mixed with all sorts of chemicals. It was perfectly safe to drink.
He picked up the glass, feeling just as he had the first time, and the last, he tried sushi. He took a small sip and swallowed carefully.
