by J L Aarne
“They go camping all the time. Nothing’s ever happened yet,” Wyatt said.
“Yeah, except for that one time, you remember?” Kat said. “We were little, and Dad was off getting wood to start a fire and Mom was unpacking lunch on the picnic table and that cop showed up and shouted at us to come out with our hands up?”
“Um… no. Was I there?” Wyatt asked.
“Yes, you were—Oh. Never mind. You were two I think,” Kat said. “You were trying to catch frogs. But anyway, some guy had killed his wife in town and they were looking for him. Still, he had a gun and it freaked Mom out pretty bad.”
“I don’t think that’s the sort of thing we have to be worried about right now,” Wyatt said. “Dad had a stroke, he didn’t get shot.”
“Obviously, I just—Never mind. So, tell me more about Mr. Hotness. What’s that about?”
Silas. She meant Silas.
Wyatt frowned and mouthed “Mr. Hotness” to himself. He rolled his eyes. “What’s what about?”
“Well, the thing where you got stranded in the middle of nowhere—”
“No thanks to you.”
“—happened weeks ago. Why’s he in your living room now?”
Wyatt opened his mouth to tell her then realized that he couldn’t do that and closed it again. He had never had that problem before and he wasn’t sure what was different now, but something definitely was. Before when he told Kat what he’d seen or what had happened, usually it had been a slipup because he despised the way people looked at him when he told the truth, but he hated it most when Kat looked at him that way; with pity. Like he was crazy. Doomed. Like he was sick and beyond help. He had told her before though, and not been afraid. Now he was afraid to tell her what he knew and what was happening, and it didn’t have a lot to do with how she might look at him. What made him close his mouth was the knowledge that he had now (the certainty) that it wasn’t just in his head. It was real and real things could bite. Real things could kill you, peel your skin off and walk away in it.
“He, uh… He likes cats,” Wyatt said. “Anyway, he’s not here. He left.”
Silas didn’t dislike cats, but Wyatt knew the moment the words were out of his mouth that it sounded like bullshit.
He tried to recover from it. “He likes watching TV.”
“And he doesn’t have one of those?” Kat asked.
“He… He’s Amish.”
She coughed out a laugh. “That guy is not Amish.”
“He… doesn’t like being Amish. He’s ashamed of his Amish-ness. He—”
Kat laughed. “Wyatt are you messing around with that guy?”
“What do you mean?” He knew what she meant.
“You know… Are you fucking him?”
“Am I what? No. No, I’m not, I wouldn’t do that, Silas would kill me if I—”
“Okay, fine. Sorry I brought it up. Clearly you are just… Actually, nothing is all that clear about it, but whatever, have it your way.”
“And when I say kill, I mean really just—” He made a slicing motion across his throat with his fingers, even though she couldn’t see it. “He has a sword.”
“Like one of those stupid repo elvish novelty things from a movie?”
“No, like a… if I forgot to sharpen it recently, I’ll just use it as a club and smash you with it because it’s fucking huge sword sword.”
“Okay, okay, Wyatt, I’m really sorry I said anything,” Kat said. “Calm down.”
“I am perfectly calm. You calm down,” Wyatt said.
“Okay, I think I’m gonna go,” Kat said. “I really just wanted to tell you about Mom and Dad.”
“Okay,” Wyatt said.
“And I’m sorry,” she said.
“But…?” Wyatt said.
“No but, I’m just sorry, okay? Don’t be an asshole, just let me apologize.”
“Fine, you’re sorry,” Wyatt said. He felt a little bit bad about the things he had rehearsed saying to her.
“I am. I was mean,” she said. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Okay,” he said. In none of his imaginary scenarios had he accepted her apology as easily as he did in real life.
“Okay, so I’m gonna go,” she said.
“Okay.”
Wyatt put his phone back on the table. On the TV, someone’s house was burning, and their dog was still inside.
There was a bottle of whiskey in his freezer. He hadn’t touched it in a long time because the alcohol did funny things to him when mixed with his medication. When he was still in college, he had once woken up on the kitchen floor in his parents’ house with no memory of driving there. He had never been taken to the emergency room after drinking, but he had passed out a few times and come to with a gasp because he had stopped breathing. It didn’t keep him from drinking, or stop him from taking his meds, but he didn’t drink often anymore.
He wanted a drink now, so he went and got the bottle out of the freezer and brought it back with him to the sofa.
“This is bad idea,” he told the two sleeping cats.
Then he tipped the bottle up and drank.
Chapter 9
It was the middle of the night and Wyatt woke up in the bathtub. The water was cold and, not only didn’t he remember running a bath, he had almost no memory at all after sitting on the sofa drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. According to the clock on his phone, which he found on the downturned toilet seat, that had been the previous day. He hadn’t wasted his Sunday off though, if the trash on the floor around the bathtub was any indication. At some point he had traded the whiskey for cheap vodka. The bottle was mostly empty and sitting in the sink. On the rug lay a plastic cup that had once contained a parfait from the bakery at Albertsons.
His fingers and toes were pruney and white from the water.
He started to get up, but it hurt so he sat back down. He was stiff from sitting in the tub of cold water.
Most of the lights in the house had been turned off and he wondered how blotto drunk he’d had to get for that to seem like a good idea.
First thing was first; get out of the tub.
He pulled the plug and while the water was draining, he braced his hands on the side of the tub and got his feet under himself. Then he tried to stand and nearly smashed his face into the wall. He caught himself with one hand just in time, but almost ended up back on his ass in the tub all over again. After a lot of struggling and careful maneuvering, he managed to get one leg over the side and sit on the edge of the tub.
He decided to take a break.
Benson wandered into the bathroom to see what his human was doing and rubbed against Wyatt’s calf. Wyatt petted him.
“I need to go to bed,” he told the cat.
“Meow?” Benson said.
“That’s right,” Wyatt said. “Too bad I have to walk there.” He looked at the floor, looked at the cat and thought about it. “Or do I?”
He slid down onto his knees and began to crawl for the door. Wyatt made it out of the bathroom and down the dark hallway with his heart racing as he hurried to the light switch at the end. He had to stand up so he could reach it and that was more of an ordeal than it should have been. Hallway light on, he felt much better. Once upright, he was determined to remain that way and used the wall to brace himself as he made his way through the living room toward his bedroom.
There came a loud knock at the front door.
Wyatt stopped and listened. A minute passed, and the knock came again. It was much too late for casual visitors.
“Hello?” he called.
No answer, but a few seconds later, another knock. It was insistent, but not like someone was slamming their hand against the door. It wasn’t an aggressive knock, like he would expect from the police, merely a persistent one.
Knock, knock, knock.
Wyatt aimed himself at the door and reached for the back of the sofa to hold onto as he went. “Hello? Who is it?”
Nothing. Then, Knock, knock, knock.<
br />
“Kat, if that’s you, this isn’t funny,” Wyatt called. “You have a key, just use it.”
Kat wasn’t much of a night person. It probably wasn’t her. Could it be a neighbor? He had a lot of neighbors, but he wasn’t well-acquainted with any of them.
Silas was a night person. He seemed like the most likely person to visit him in the earliest hours of the morning.
“Silas? If that’s you, just… hold on a minute,” he called.
There was no answer, but as he reached the door, the same repetitive knock sounded. Wyatt put his eye to the peephole and squinted. It was pitch black outside and he saw nothing. Still peering through the peephole, he slapped at the wall and found the porch light switch with his finger. The light snapped on and a little boy with pitch black eyes stood on the doorstep looking back at him.
Wyatt stumbled back from the door, his hands going to his mouth. He nearly fell on his butt on the floor but managed to stay upright with the help of one of Aunt Tallie’s antique end tables. His salvation was nearly the end of an incredibly valuable and heavy cut glass vase. He caught it as it was teetering on the edge of the table and made sure that it dropped into a chair instead of to the floor.
“Go away!” he shouted through the door.
You really think that’s going to work? asked a little voice in his mind. When was the last time something like that ever worked, even on TV?
“Never,” Wyatt said.
He looked through the peephole again. The boy was still standing there in the exact same spot, and now there was an even smaller girl standing beside him holding his hand. The boy looked back at Wyatt and he got the uncomfortable impression that he could see him. That he was looking at him somehow despite the door.
It made Wyatt’s skin crawl and he stepped back from the door, shivering. “What do you want?” he asked.
“We just want to come in,” the boy said.
“We need to call someone. Can we use your phone?” the girl asked.
“No,” Wyatt said.
He was not falling for that shit, not after the run-in with the black-eyed girl at the pizzeria or after everything Silas had told him about his neighbor lady. He didn’t know if they could come inside without his permission, but he didn’t think they could. The girl outside the truck had been aggressive and scared the hell out of him, but she had knocked, too, and asked for permission. Like with vampires, there were rules here or some power or force that prohibited them from trespassing. Even if it was something as simple as a compulsion, a thing that was all in their heads, it meant that as long as he didn’t invite them inside, they would have to stay on the other side of the door.
That seemed easy enough. He just wouldn’t let them in. Instead, he would go to bed.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Hey, mister? Can we please come inside?” the little girl asked.
“It’s cold out here and we’re lost,” the boy said.
“We need to use your phone,” the girl said.
“We need to come inside,” the boy said.
Another shiver ran up the side of his neck and Wyatt rolled his shoulder up against the sensation with a grimace. “Go away,” he said.
“But we’re cold. It’s dark,” the boy said.
“I’m scared,” the girl said.
She did not sound scared. Neither of them did. Their voices were flat and emotionless. It was as if they were repeating words someone had taught them without any idea what they meant.
Whether they could enter the apartment without his permission or not, Wyatt decided that he needed to get away from the door.
He had carried his cell phone with him from the bathroom and his hands shook as he searched for Silas’s number. He hit SEND and it rang for what felt like ages. While it rang, the kids at the door began to knock again. Both of them now. Four little fists hammering away.
“Hello?” Silas said sleepily on the other end of the phone. “Hey, so I’m sorry for leaving you like that the other day, but you seemed like you needed—”
“Shhh, Silas, shhh,” Wyatt hissed. “They’re at the door. You have to come right now. Bring the sword.”
“What?” Silas said. “Wyatt, what are you talking about?”
“The kids are at the door,” Wyatt said.
“What kids?”
It seemed to Wyatt that he should not have to explain which kids he was talking about. What other kids would be at his door at that time of night? Kids that could frighten him so much he called Silas and told him to bring his sword?
“The black-eyed kids,” he said. “There are two of them this time.”
“Oh. Oh, well, shit. Hold on, I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
“That’s too long,” Wyatt whined. He heard the whine, acknowledged it, but he accepted it because if there had ever been a time to whine about something it was now. “They’re going to get inside.”
There was noise on the other end of the phone as Silas got moving. “No, they aren’t.”
The black-eyed kids continued to knock at the door. Three times, always three times, then three again and so on until Wyatt knew without a doubt that he would go screaming mad if it didn’t stop, and eventually, probably not for hours or even days, but in the end, he would let them inside just to make it stop and to end their incessant pleading.
“But what if they do?” he asked. “What if they get in? What happens then? You never told me that.”
“It doesn’t matter because it’s not going to happen,” Silas said. “Just, whatever you do, don’t let them inside. Don’t invite them in, don’t tell them to come in, don’t say ‘okay’ if they ask to come in. If you can stand it, don’t say anything at all. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Silas hung up and Wyatt slowly lowered the phone from his ear and stared down at it until the screen went dark.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Fuck,” he said softly.
“Mister, you need to let us inside,” the boy said.
“You need to get the hell away from my door!” Wyatt shouted.
He was so tired of this, of all of it. He was tired of the dark scaring him, of the things that lived in it. He was tired of thinking he was crazy, then questioning if he was crazy, then doubting he was crazy only to hope that he wasn’t crazy until he realized that not being crazy had the potential to be so much worse. He was tired of the things in the dark, even the cute ones, pushing their way into his life like they belonged there, destroying every chance he might ever have for a slice of normalcy. He was tired of being afraid all the time, of everything, but he was used to that, so more than that, he was tired of hearing that he shouldn’t be afraid. How else did a semi-rational person deal with the kind of things he saw all the time? Fear was only logical. It was exhausting, but logical.
They kept knocking and asking to be let inside and Silas kept on not appearing with his mighty sword. Wyatt finally got good and mad.
He walked back to the door, more sober in his anger than he had been since waking up in the bathtub, and opened it. The little boy and girl stood there waiting like they had known all along that he would come, and that the door would open. They were not at all surprised to see him. Not as surprised as Wyatt was to find himself standing there once he realized what he had done.
And that he was still naked.
In a moment of instinctual modesty, he thought about closing the door again so he could go put something on. Then he would come back and tell the little shits to get lost with some real authority. Except even drunk, Wyatt knew that wasn’t an option. There were demonic children on his stoop, so his junk would just have to hang out because that was far more important than whether or not he was wearing underwear.
Now that he had opened the door on them, did that mean he had opened the door for them? He didn’t know, but he wasn’t about to turn his back on them and find out when they snuck up on him and ripped the back of his skull off.
“You’re naked,” the little girl in
formed him.
“And you’re creepy, now go away,” Wyatt said.
He braced a hand on the doorframe and leaned there. Until he realized how that would look if his neighbors were watching. He straightened up and tried to pretend he had clothes on and that there were not neighbors and passersby out there at that very moment thinking about calling the cops.
“We really need to use your phone,” the boy said. “You need to let us inside.”
“You need to stop telling me what I need to do and go away,” Wyatt said. He settled for crossing his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”
He was curious about that because no one, not even the first black-eyed girl, had gotten around to mentioning it.
The black-eyed children looked at each other then back at Wyatt. Just watching them made his skin feel like it was trying to scuttle off his body and run away. They turned their heads to look at each other at exactly the same time. At exactly the same time, they turned them back and stared at him with their glossy, horrible oil slick eyes. There was a kind of understanding there, though Wyatt wouldn’t have called it wisdom. In their young faces, their eyes were old, but not like the eyes of a person who had lived a long time, seen many things and come away with knowledge. Theirs were eyes that had never looked on the face of any man with anything but hunger.
Wyatt found himself wondering exactly what they were beneath their chubby, innocent baby faces. Were they people? Did they have a culture of some kind? Clearly, they had hunting rituals; they went in twos, they had to be invited inside, but then what? If he looked at it like that, it was like a game. The object of the game was to convince the gullible humans to let them inside, that was how you won the game. Then what? He was going to have to press Silas about that.
If they were people, they didn’t relate in any way to humans. Wyatt had seen it before in the girl outside the pizzeria. He was nothing to them. Like an insect with pretty wings for pulling off.
“What do you want?” Wyatt repeated. His voice was trampled beneath the heavy beating of his heart. He had remembered at last to be afraid of these creatures. “What?”
