There was no big fuss, no hoopla, no screaming or yelling, or running around in a panic. When someone goes out, they just go. Tad Parker knew this as he walked out of Massachusetts General Hospital.

The beep from the heart monitor had shot out every few seconds. Michael’s breathing was…shallow. It came in irregular bursts, and when he exhaled, it rasped in his throat. The death gurgle, Tad thought.

The beeping and the rasping, the beeping and the rasping.

Tad stayed like that, with a feeling of unreality, for the next minute or so, staring at Michael, listening to the rasps weaken with each breath, the beeps on the monitor come further and further apart. He had seen it before the monitor had told him; Michael’s last breath was just a twitch of his mouth, a final sign of life, like a wind-up toy making one last jerk before the knob settles to its final position. And then the beep. The long beep. Going on and on and on.

Tad couldn’t remember what he had done next, whether he had said something to the nurse whom must have been in the room, or whether he had just walked out. All that he could remember thinking was: It’s over.

Now Tad walked around Boston. The streets all ran together, people coming and going from work.

Horns honked. Pizzas were delivered via bicycle. Cabs stopped on the corners. Everything went on the way it was supposed to. Just keep on going while the knob turns. When your time’s up just listen for the long beep, give one last twitch and come on over, the rest of the world will just keep on keeping on.

Tad briefly stopped at a corner Coffee Quack, ordered a small dark coffee. A kid on the street corner was decked out in his Coffee Quackers baseball uniform, glove and all, spitting sunflower seeds into a sidewalk vent. Tad grabbed his coffee and headed down Congress Street toward South Station.

He’d met Michael in his second year on the Baseball Senior League. Tad had been the quiet kid, not quite weird enough for the other kids to make fun of, but weird enough for them not to know what the hell to say to him. Michael had been the team’s catcher, a big kid who was obnoxious and always got the others thundering on the dug-out fence. For some reason Michael had taken to Tad. He would sit next to him on the bench as boys went up to bat, shoot-the-shit about girls, fucking girls, weed, and smoking weed. The first thing that Michael had ever said to Tad was “Fucked Kim last night.” Chewing his sunflower seeds and looking at the field, his eyes trained on nothing in particular. In retrospect it was most likely a lie, but back then a thirteen-year-old Tad had listened to Michael with a mixture of horror and awe.

Michael said that he had gone over to Kim’s house the night before and they had used a water-bong just before they’d fucked for two hours straight. He made Kim come three times. “That girl’s one horny bitch,” he said.

“Ya’ know what a water-bong is, Taddy?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh yeah?” Michael looked at him from the corner of his eyes as a glob of sunflower seeds seeped out his mouth. “What is it?”

Tad sat there, thinking it over, then said, “Fake dick filled with water.”

Michael had burst out laughing, sunflower seeds spraying the chained-link fence in front of him.

Tad looked around. The Besmetville six o’clock train wasn’t quite as crowded as the five-thirty would have been. He stretched out on the hard-plastic seat. The day had been long. From stressing over the presentation for the Marsten account, to getting the call from Michael’s downstairs neighbor:

“He’s laid out in the hall, Mr. Parker! Oh Christ! Keeps sayin’ ya name. Meds is comin’! Oh Christ! Keeps sayin’ ya name, Mr. Parker!”

Tad had hung up and walked straight over to the hospital.

Now he closed his eyes, put the ear buds in, and switched on some Rage Against the Machine.

Michael had gone to live with Tad’s family the school year after that summer. His father was some kind of spokesman for a tool company–he was never home–and his mother was in and out of the hospital with a terminal case of cancer. Tad had never known which type, he had never asked. In fact, Tad had never seen Michael’s mother.

In the last couple of months of his mother’s life Michael had begun to get somewhat distant and violent. One night during that school year Tad had been in his room, tying on his hemp-mushroom necklace, when he heard a loud cracking sound come from the bathroom. Michael was in the bathroom slamming his fist into the wall, a large indent where he had struck.

He turned to Tad and said, “Look at my fuckin’ face! Fuckin’ gross isn’t it? I’m disgustin’!”

Tad looked at the mirror, a big glop of pus had slid down its center. He hadn’t known what to say at that point. He stared at Michael, his face was covered in large craters and pockets of white pus that were ready to burst with the slightest touch. One of those pockets was leaking a clear liquid mixed with blood just beneath his right eye.

“Come on, Mike.”

“Fuck you, Tad! Look at your face!” He motioned with one arm, “Clear as a fuckin’ window!” He took a couple of steps closer to Tad. His hands balled into fists at his side. His eyes were strange, they looked defeated, but were lit with a wildness that Tad had never seen.

Tad took a step back. “Take it easy, man.” He tried to turn.

“Fuck you, man,” Michael said. One fist came up from his side with such speed that Tad never had a chance to move. It struck the side of his face and he fell back into the hallway wall.

Michael fled from the house. They hadn’t seen him again for days. Not until he had knocked on the door almost a full week later. Tad’s mother answered it. Tad could remember her soft weeping as she looked at Michael standing in the doorway. His eyes had sunken into his face, hair grew in sporadic spots across his cheeks. His skin had a yellow tone to it that made Tad cringe. Tad went into his room without saying a word. An hour later Michael had entered.

“Sorry ’bout ya face.”

Tad was playing Silent Hill on the Play Station. He shrugged.

That had been the end of it…for a while.

He looked up at the front door of his house and sighed as he used his key. Inside Sheila was picking up some toy blocks from the living room floor.

“Hey, you,” she said, looking up, not sure to smile. She was in her blue sweats. They were somewhat baggy, but somehow seemed to cling at all the right spots. Her light-brown hair was tied back in a pony-tail, it made him feel like they were back in high school. He pushed that thought away.

“Hey yourself,” he said, a grin showing in his eyes. He tried to let it extend to his mouth, but it wouldn’t. He hadn’t cried the whole day–not once since first seeing Michael in the hospital–but he felt it come on now, in a large sweeping burst.

Sheila was with him suddenly. Her head was in his chest, her arms curled around his back, fingers squeezing his shoulder blades.

“He’s gone, Sheila.”

“Shhh.”

“He died. Heart-attack, can you believe that shit? He’s only a year older than me for crine-out-loud!” His father’s words escaping his mouth. “Never told him I was sorry,” he said. “Never did.”

“We tried.”

They stood like that until he stopped and rubbed the last tears from his eyes.

“Where’s Jerr?” he asked.

“Laying down. I think he’s coming down with a cold, prob getting’ a fever,” she said. “You know how he’s prone to fevers.”

Prob. The word grated at him. Her chat room dialect. He looked away to Jerry’s room.

“He’s been asking me where you’ve been for the last hour. Kid’s so smart, knows when you normally get home.”

Jerry was curled up under covers. Tad walked over to the side of the couch and knelt down so he could see his son’s face. It had the slightest puff to it, and a touch of flush–both caused from the fever. Jerry’s eyes flicked from the TV, where the Wiggles were dancing and rambling on, to his father’s face. A huge smile appeared.

“Dad!” His voice was raspy.

“Hey, bud! How ya feelin’?”

Jerry shrugged. “K, I guess.” His son looked him right in the eyes as was their way. “You feelin’ okay, Dad?”

It was ridiculous how perceptive he was. Tad was sure that Sheila hadn’t said a word to him about what had happened today, why would she? But somehow the kid still knew something was wrong.

“Yeah, bud,” he said. “Listen, why don’t you get some sleep? Hopefully you feel good enough in the mornin’ to go to school.”

“Yeah, I’m goin’ to bed. But guess what, Dad?” Jerry’s eyes lit up, not wavering from Tad’s.

“What’s up, bud?”

“Today I did the monkey bars! All-by-my-self!” His face expanded, his eyelids disappeared. “With no help from the teachers either!”

“Wow!” A warmth spread over Tad’s heart. “I’d say that earns you a special treat for tomorrow.”

“It does?”

“Yup. Whaddya want?”

Jerry kept his eyes latched onto Tad’s, they never faltered. Tad could see he was thinking hard about what he was going to ask for.

“I think I want a bag of Reese’s! Can I get that, Dad? It’s my fav!”

Fav. Sheila’s chat-room dialect escaping his son’s mouth.

Tad thought for just a moment of telling his son he couldn’t have anything if he was going to talk like that. He could just go and fuck off with those monkey bars if he was going to say things like fav.

“Sure, bud.” He smiled. “I’ll pick it up on my way home tomorrow.”

Tad got up and headed out of the room. The window by the end of the couch didn’t have its shade drawn. He looked at the dark glass and felt a strong sensation that something was out there. Before leaving the room he pulled the shade down to keep the dark out.

#

VRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMM

VRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMM

He opened his eyes onto the dark room. What was he hearing? No, not hearing, but feeling?

VRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMM

He got up on his elbows. Sheila was next to him sound asleep. Her hair smothered her pillow and some of his own.

VRRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMM

He willed himself to focus. His cell phone was lying on the bed next to his pillow. Sense came back to him then. He picked up the phone and looked at the screen. It read:

#

1 missed call @ 3:02 AM

#

Tad groaned and sat up. Who the hell was calling him so early in the morning? Especially when he needed his rest for the Marsten account! It’s just the way it always happens. If it wasn’t Jerry waking him up in the middle of the night, it was some asshole calling.

He opened the flip and looked at the name:

#

Mikey

#

Tad dropped the phone to the bed. A ghost-image of the name hung in front of his eyes.

Michael? How? It’s not him, someone has his phone. Who? Where is his phone? Why do I still have his number?

The phone lay face down. He didn’t want to pick it up. If he just left it there he wouldn’t have to deal with it. But he found himself picking it up.

#

Mikey

#

He unclipped the battery from the phone and dropped both pieces to the floor. Someone was playing a joke, one in very bad taste. He lay back down, his arms wrapped around Sheila. She reached around his bare leg behind the knee. She continued to sleep, and it was her soothing breaths that lulled Tad back to sleep.

#

Even though he woke up earlier than usual Sheila was still up before him. When he walked into the kitchen she had already put on a pot of coffee and given Jerry some sugar-toast for breakfast. He watched her from the doorway. She was there constantly with their child–raising him, feeding him, washing him, cleaning his diapers, cleaning the house. It made Tad tired just thinking about it.

Sheila told him that Jerry didn’t have a fever so she was sending him to school. Tad had checked to make sure for himself, but she was right of course.

He kissed Sheila good-bye and then thought about the call. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked at it like it was an artifact found on a cheesy-television alien ship.

“Hey, Sheil, I got a call around three last night.”

Sheila was mixing a new cup of coffee while she looked up at him. “Yeah, who was it?”

He opened the missed calls screen and held it in front of her. She squinted.

“Michael’s number,” he said.

Sheila looked confused. She took the phone from Tad’s hand and held it in front of her face, shrugged, and handed it back to him.

“Not right, someone must have his phone,” she said, tasting her new cup of joe, the red mug cupped in her hands.

He looked back down at the phone’s screen, pocketed it. “Yeah, must be. Just can’t figure out who would even have it.”

“You didn’t answer it?” She blew onto her coffee, as if that would instantly cool it down.

“Didn’t wake up in time.”

“Try calling it back, then,” she said.

That thought hadn’t even crossed his mind. Maybe because calling a dead person’s phone wasn’t something that normal people did. Or maybe they do, Tad thought, to hear their loved-one’s voice one last time. He thought about it while looking straight into Sheila’s brown eyes, but shrugged it off. “Just a bad joke,” he said, and then, “I gotta go, can’t be late today.” He stood in front of her. “If I land this account we won’t have to worry about the mortgage for a while.”

She smiled and kissed him deep on the lips. “I’m making chicken, broccoli, and ziti tonight.”

“Mmmmmm.” Their lips lingered close. “I’ll make sure I’m home for supper,” he said, smiling. He kissed her again.

He went into the living room where Jerry was watching some cartoon On-Demand. He said good-bye to his son, giving him a “biggest-hug-in-the-world”. Then Tad was out of the house and on his way to work. Back to the train, back to South Station, back to the agency. Michael was in the past.

#

Everything seemed muted. The sky was a pale gray, the trees were staked membranes. There seemed the be less people on the road.

“Because it’s earlier,” he mumbled to no one.

Everything was just a little off track. He put on the radio and tried to drown out the strangeness. Break The Cycle by Staind rang out. A song from the past. A song from the last year of high school. Tad switched off the radio.

He didn’t feel much better at work. The Marsten papers were scattered across his desk, he shuffled through them, jotting notes, making final touches, but none of it held the same weight as it had the day before. Instead, his mind continually ended up thinking about the call. Michael’s call. The dead call. Who had gone into Michael’s apartment and taken his phone? It was nonsense.

He looked back to the papers and sighed. Robert Marsten would be there in two hours. He opened the file on his computer, thinking about why he had needed to come in early. The proposal had been no problem, everything had fit into place. For Tad, everything in his life always fit into place. Good paying job out of college, check. Engaged and married to a great woman, check. A beautiful son born without complications, check. Estranged best friend calls from the grave, check.

He grabbed the phone out of his pocket and looked at the missed call.

#

Mikey

#

Who had done it? He looked at the printer, piling up his papers, then up at the clock. Still time before Marsten arrived. He looked back to the phone.

#

Mikey

#

It taunted him.

Try calling it back, then.

He stared at the screen for another moment, finally he pressed the SEND button. The phone rang. Sweat appeared around the collar of his button down. The recorded operator told him to leave a message after the beep (the long beep, give one last twitch) and to press some button or other if he would like to hear more options. Then he heard Michael’s voice.

“Hey, leave me a message, why dontcha?”

Then the beep.

#

Robert Marsten knocked on his office door three minutes ahead of schedule. When he entered, Tad’s stomach took a spin. The man was wearing tan khakis, a white button down shirt rolled up at the sleeves, and a pair of mocha-colored moccasins. His hair was balding in front, blond, short, all combed forward. His eyes were wide and alive, a sky-blue color. He stepped in front of the chair at the opposite side of Tad’s desk.

“May I?” he said.

Tad motioned for him to sit down.

“I hope that I am not too early arriving,” he said. “I tend to think that people expect others to be late, so I make it a point to arrive ahead of schedule.”

“Not at all, Mr. Marsten. I like to be punctual as well.”

“Good. So what have we come up with?”

We. It angered Tad when people tried to sound in charge by including themselves in things they’d had no part in.

“Well, I didn’t have much information to work with…as you know.”

“Yes, that is the way my company would have it. We feel that a…more evasive approach will help to attract more customers to our services.”

Tad found himself nearly gawking at the man sitting across from him. He’d had a mental image of a short man with no hair and a mustache, beady eyes, a suit and tie, dress shoes. This man was the complete opposite. But there was something about him that was nagging in the back of Tad’s mind.

“Which services would those be?” he said, and wished to take the question back.

“I believe,” said Mr. Marsten, “that you said the personal functions of my trade were of no matter to you if I wished not to divulge them, which I would rather not.”

“Of course, of course. I’m sorry, Mr. Marsten.”

Mr. Marsten waved a hand noncommittally. He turned his head down, maybe to look at his shoes.

Tad stared. The angle was all he needed to realize where he’d seen this man almost fifteen years ago.

“Okay then,” Tad said. He got up and walked to the white board on the back wall. A projector was set to it, an image of Tad’s agency lit dimly on its surface. “I’ll lower the lights and let the video play. I’ve come up with five different approaches. If at any time you’d like to ask a question, please do.”

He hit the lights, and the image on the white board shown in brilliant color. Tad could just make out the man’s outline in the dark room. It was too big a coincidence that this man should have come back into his life now. Michael’s memory seemed to be hanging on, clinging to Tad’s life like the last stubborn barnacle on a boat’s hull.

Tad clicked a remote and the video began to play.

A strange night had come about two months after their fight. It had been a school night, each laying in their own bunk. Tad had been letting the flicker of the television lull him to sleep.

“Hey, Taddy? You awake, man?”

“I guess.”

“Hey, Lee just beeped me.”

“Yeah?”

“one-four-three. That’s ‘I love you’, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah, you think she means it? I really like her, man. Like, really.”

Tad knew that Michael was about to open up. Most of the time it was “I fucked this girl the other night and that one gave me a knobber”. But Tad could sense a real conversation coming–a grown-up’s conversation–and that scared him.

“I dunno. Who knows what girls really mean,” Tad said.

“Yeah, that shit’s true.”

A car had driven down the street then, its headlights running across the walls in the dark room.

“The first one won’t do.”

The voice knocked him back to reality. He was in his office, the lights down, the projector on.

Tad shook his head to clear it. “That’s fine, Mr. Marsten,” he said. “Write down anything you would like to see done differently. I’ll address it once the presentation’s done.”

The second video began to play.

After the short exchange about Lee’s beeper message Michael had gotten quiet.

“Hey, Mike?” Tad said.

He didn’t answer. Tad thought that he had fallen asleep. Then, just as Tad was beginning to shut his eyes, Michael spoke.

“Yeah, what’s up?” His voice was strained. Tad’s stomach dropped; Michael was crying.

“Nothin’.”

“No, whats up?”

“Nothin’, I just wanted to know how ya mum’s doin’.”

Quietness again.

Tad said, “Don’t worry about it, man. Night.”

“She’s been unconscious for the last two nights. I’ve been spending as much time as I can with her, but she wants me to keep goin’ to school everyday. She told me that. She said, ‘Mikey, you promise that you keep goin’ to school’.” He was sobbing. Tad felt his own eyes tear up.

“But…but she said that back when she didn’t know she couldn’t wake up, man. She didn’t know that shit was gonna happen. So I have to keep goin’ to school everyday, and comin’ here at night cuz the shitty doctors and nurse-bitches won’t let me stay there overnight. What if she wakes up and is lookin’ for me? She won’t fuckin’ find me, man. I keep thinkin’ about what if she can’t find me when she wakes up and what if she’s scared and it makes me scared too.”

Tears welled in Tad’s eyes, one dripped down the side of his face and landed on the pillow. Kid’s his age shouldn’t have all these problems–that’s what adults were always saying about Michael behind his back.

Laughter broke out in the dark room. Tad looked around, a fresh tear in his eye. Mr. Marsten was cracking up. The sound was foreign to Tad’s nostalgic ears.

“That’s…really…HA!…really good!” Mr. Marsten said. “Well done, Tad.”

“Thank-you, sir. Please write your comments down.”

“Yes, yes.”

The third video started.

Just as Tad had thought he couldn’t take Michael’s sobs another moment, a knock had come at the bedroom door.

Michael’s sobs ceased at once. Tad looked at the door, it was late–too late–and his parents never knocked. He could hear his mother’s muffled voice somewhere down the hall. Was she crying?

“Yeah?” Tad called out.

Michael was quiet.

Tad’s father entered the room. His hair was disheveled, his eyes wide trying to see in the dark room. He looked to the top bunk, right at Tad. Then his eyes moved to Michael.

“No,” Michael said. The sobs were swallowed back in his throat. “No…please.”

Tad’s father lowered his head. He knelt down at the side of the bed and disappeared from Tad’s view.

His father’s voice was soft, quiet: “Mike.”

“No no no.”

“Mike, I’m so sorry, Mike.”

“NO! I wasn’t there!”

“Mike, come here.” His father sighed.

Michael’s sobs were full-on cries now. Tad imagined his father holding Michael’s head close to his chest, hugging him, trying to make the pain disappear, the way he had for Tad so many times. But this time Tad knew he couldn’t.

“Mike, I know you’re very upset, but there is someone here who wants to help you. You’ve got to go with him, okay? He’s going to help you through all of this…explain what needs to be done.” His father paused. “Come on.”

Whatever happened after that was a blur, except the image of Tad’s father and Michael appearing from below the side of his bunk; them walking out of the room, both of his father’s arms around Michael; Tad entering the living room and seeing his mother sitting on the couch, crying into a crunched up paper-towel; looking out the dark window and seeing the shiny-black car, Michael entering the passenger seat, the man behind the steering wheel with his head down, maybe looking at Michael’s shoes.

“That’s the one, Tad. I don’t need to see any others,” Mr. Marsten said. “Where do I sign?”

The third presentation had also been Tad’s favorite. He stopped the video and switched on the light. He handed Mr. Marsten the contract. Just as he did, he felt the phone in his pocket vibrate. He looked up to Mr. Marsten. The man was looking at him intently, studying him.

“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Mr. Marsten asked.

Tad realized he had his hand cupped over his pants pocket, over his phone. He pulled the phone out and looked at the screen:

#

Mikey

#

Mr. Marsten signed the paper, got up, and turned toward the door.

“Great work, Tad. I’ll be in touch for distribution.” He held his hand out to Tad. Tad shook it, stunned by both the call and the ease of winning the contract. The deal was going to blow his career wide open, make a him one of the top ad agencies in the city.

Robert Marsten walked out of his office.

Tad looked up at the door and back down to the phone. Someone was fucking with him and it needed to stop. He locked the door and leaned his weight against it, ready to call the number back. Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye, a white piece of paper lying on the floor next to the chair Robert Marsten had just occupied. Tad pocketed the phone and unfolded the paper. An invoice for services of the Marsten Company provided to Michael Prow. Michael’s name and address were stamped in blue ink at the top right corner of the paper.

Tad backtracked, trying to get his thoughts in order. Marsten had been the man who not only had been Michael’s guardian through his mother’s death, but had ultimately adopted Michael later that year. The same man had now, nearly fifteen years after the night of Mrs. Prow’s death, provided some kind of service to Michael for the hefty sum of one-hundred-thousand bucks ($100,000.00, the number looked menacing). And in addition to all of that Tad had received two calls apparently from the deceased.

He pocketed the invoice, grabbed his coat, and headed out of the office.

#

That same dull haze that had been settled over everything that morning was still hanging there now like a bout of morning breath the toothpaste couldn’t mask. Traffic was light in the city, every light was yellow-turning-red, the sun poking in and out of clouds. While he walked the city streets Tad listened to Michael’s voice mail recording. How had Michael’s life ended so abruptly? His breaths growing shorter and shorter, shallower, softer, weaker. His last breath just a twitch of the mouth.

He stood in front of Michael’s apartment house now. It stood nondescript along the street. Three apartments were housed inside its pale-blue exterior. Michael had lived on the third floor, according to the invoice–Apt 3.

Tad walked up the stoop and tried the door. It opened without complaint and he walked into the dark hall. To his right the first-floor tenant’s door was closed. A small light bulb was lit above the red door. Directly ahead of him was the staircase. He tip-toed up.

On the second floor landing Tad noticed something on the dingy carpet. There was no direct light here, the only light came from the small bulb from the first floor. He knelt down to the carpet and picked up the object. A cell phone. He opened it and found Megan Fox staring back at him. Instinctively Tad looked up and saw the railing on the third floor. He imagined the phone flying from Michael’s hand while he clutched at his heart the day before. He clicked the SEND button. The first two missed calls in the list displayed Tad’s name.

“Shit.”

It was Michael’s phone.

He started up the last flight of stairs. At the top he stopped to open up the cell phone. There was no light up here at all; the single dim bulb on the first floor provided zero illumination this high up. He glanced at Megan Fox and spun the screen around into the darkness.

A manila envelope sat on the floor. The door behind it was a jar. He paused at the top of the steps, frightened by what he was getting himself into, thinking for just a moment about turning around and forgetting that the call had ever been made. He’d chuck Michael’s phone into the river and forget the whole thing. The thought brought on an image of Michael, his face blue and swollen, shambling up the stoop of Tad’s own house, stumbling into Tad’s bedroom with his hands held out, the cell phone clutched in one, his mouth dripping polluted water, saying the same thing over and over in a gurgled voice: Ahwent you sowwy? Ahwent you sowwy?

Tad compelled himself to go forward. Whatever the reason for all of this, there was some kind of explanation that had nothing to do with ghosts. Ghosts didn’t call cell phones, or open apartment doors, or leave envelopes on the floor.

He knelt down at the doorway and looked at the envelope. No address, only Michael’s name written in pen across the front. He picked it up gently. He dared to move it back and forth like Jerry on Christmas morning trying to figure out what to open first. The thought triggered a laser that settled on his son. He missed the kid. He should have been home right then, not poking around a dead man’s living quarters. When he left this ridiculous charade he’d make sure to go straight home and spend the rest of the night with the little guy.

With the envelope in his hands, he nudged the door open the rest of the way. Gray light flooded the landing, the diminishing daylight coming in through the windows. The sunshine finally succumbing to the granite clouds. The apartment was tidy and cold. No heat on, but no surprise there, even at the beginning of December the temperature hadn’t gotten so low that they warranted cranking on the heat.

Michael’s apartment was small–a bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room that had a small kitchen attached to it–and the first thing that Tad’s eyes fell on was the computer. The monitor was sitting on a small particle-board desk that Michael had probably gotten from Wally World. A coffee cup rested like a corpse next to the mouse–probably the last place Michael had placed it before collapsing in his hall the day before. A chill shot through Tad’s neck as he thought about it. As he walked over he saw that it still had coffee inside. The cream had all risen to the surface and formed a barrier to the liquid below that looked like drying mud on top of a moist puddle. There was a stain on the rim where Michael had been drinking from. How long since he took that last sip? Tad thought.

As he sat down at the desk he realized he was still holding the envelope. He set it on the desk beside the keyboard. It grazed the side of the mouse and the monitor sprang to life. A zoomed in picture, taken at night, filled the screen. Tad’s stomach dropped fifty-thousand feet; a very recent Sheila was looking at something in their bedroom, she was in her nightgown, her hair hanging down over one shoulder. When he finally got a hold of himself he let go of the mouse. He’d been squeezing it so hard that the side had crushed in.

The picture had taken his breath away. His heart thumped in his chest, echoing in the blood at his temples. He shouldn’t have been surprised, not after what had happened all those years ago, but that didn’t take the shock away. The icons on the desktop were arranged such that none of them interfered with Sheila’s image. Tad cringed, the picture had a crude reality to it; the look of a picture taken by a stalker in the night.

He maneuvered the pointer around his wife and clicked on the MY DOCUMENTS folder. As the folder opened up, Tad felt his phone vibrate from within his pants pocket. He fished it out from between his money and bank card and stared at the screen.

#

Mikey

#

The blood that had just thundered in his head was now ice cold, almost numb like a pins-and-needles feeling. He looked about himself; what in the hell was he doing here anyway? He should be home with his family, enjoying life, enjoying time with his son and his wife–his eyes danced back to Sheila’s picture. He stared back at the phone, grinned, and laughed to himself.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” he said.

He clutched Michael’s phone from within his jacket pocket and pulled it out. Sure enough, it was dialing his own cell phone, his full name displayed on the screen:

#

dialing…Tad Parker

#

Maybe he had hit the SEND button when he sat down, causing the phone to dial the last number in the call list. But that didn’t have any consequence; there still had been the calls earlier in the day, that was why he was here now.

He ended the call and set both phones down on the desk in front of the envelope.

The MY DOCUMENTS folder was filled with the normal array of folders, except for one which was labeled PARKER. Tad clicked it, revealing a long list of files and sub-folders. As he scrolled through he felt the thudding sensation return to his temples. The list was comprised of pictures of Sheila, himself, and Jerry. It contained documents regarding major purchases his family had made over the last eight years. Some files were user names and passwords for his and Sheila’s on-line accounts to various companies. Just what had Michael thought he was doing here? The previous feeling of dread had turned to a percolating anger.

There were maybe two-hundred files which contained information on his wife. Her birthplace; schools attended; favorite TV shows; her past-times; favorite kind of ice-cream; favorite flowers; her physician. The list seemed endless. Michael had gathered maybe more information than Tad, himself, knew about his own wife. But could he really blame Michael? After what had happened?

In their last year of high school things had definitely taken a turn for the worst. Michael had been adopted by Marsten after his mother’s death. Tad and Michael had drifted from each other–not as friends, maybe, but surely as best friends. They still hung out once in a while, going to the movies (Tad with a date, Michael hanging solo), meeting with other people at laser tag arenas, attending the many parties over each weekend. But the closeness they had shared over that one summer had gone, the magic had run its course.

Michael’s life had become somewhat of a mystery to Tad, in that he had never met Michael’s adopted father. So when Michael showed up with the most beautiful girl in school for the homecoming dance that year Tad had been shocked to shit. For all of his talk when they were younger Michael had never held a steady relationship. He was loud. That made a difference with the girls. He was big and loud–the kind of guy you’d never want to take home. The kind of guy that the boys liked and the girls paid no mind.

Tad had his arm around his own date at the dance when he saw Michael stroll in through the auditorium double doors. Michael held the door for the girl, a girl no one had ever seen, and then walked the rounds with their arms locked together. Tad thought he could see a new light in Michael’s eyes, something he hadn’t quite seen since that summer they’d played baseball together. The girl had a stunning effect on him. She’d have that effect on me, too, Tad thought.

Michael and his date made their way around to Tad’s table.

“This is Sheila Rose.”

Sheila looked around the table, a slight crouch in her stance like she wanted to curl up and get this embarrassing charade over with. “Hello,” she said.

Tad found himself to be closer to Michael that night than they had been for the last three years. Michael was acting empowered again, maybe getting over his mother’s death once-and-for-all. Everything felt right, and Tad was truly happy that Michael had finally gotten a girl for himself. Not just a girl, but a woman who made the rest of the high school girls look dull the way Disney World makes Six Flags look dull.

Tad realized he was staring at the picture of Sheila again. The memory of the dance shattered to a million pieces. He got up and started to look around the apartment, mixed emotions swirling through his head. The living room was bare except for a small Coby TV hooked up to a dust-covered DVD player. The bathroom looked like most single men’s bathroom: dirty toilet bowl, hairy sink, soap scum on the shower walls. His bedroom was a mattress on the floor and a pile of clothes in one corner. Nothing except another pile of clothes in the closet.

Walking back to the computer he heard his phone go off again. He nearly ran in the small apartment, but stopped, feeling self-conscious in front of himself. He looked at Michael’s phone. It was calling again, and this time it hadn’t been in his pocket for him to push accidentally, it had been sitting on the desk, away from him the whole time. He looked at his name on Michael’s phone and the word CALLING displayed on the screen. Something was not right. He picked up his phone and pressed the green SEND button. He could hear no noise on the other end.

Of course I can’t, he thought, I’m on the other end.

“Hello?” Tad said into his phone, his voice echoed.

The line was clear. Just as he was about to press the END button on his phone he heard something. It wasn’t in the apartment, it came from the phone, far away. At first he thought it was some kind of music, maybe interference from a close-by radio tower, or a neighbor’s powerful stereo. But he understood it wasn’t. What he was hearing was a kind of moan. Someone in agony. Someone crying out.

“Hello,” he managed. And again he was about to hang up the phone, but the moaning grew louder. He listened. It sounded like someone was crying out while running across a huge auditorium, steadily getting closer to the phone. Tad’s eyes settled on the envelope resting on the desk. He wanted to open it, that was all there was to it. He wanted to see what was inside. Find out whom had left it at the door of a dead man. Tad reached for it.

The moaning ceased, suddenly. His hand stopped mid-air, hung there for a moment while waiting for the noise to resound, and then fell to the desk. The line remained quiet.

“Hello?” He didn’t feel altogether good about talking into a phone when the other end was sitting on the desk. Almost two minutes had ticked off the clock since Tad had answered the call from no one. He laughed to himself and went for the envelope again. His hand groped the top where the tape’s edge was. His fingernail started peeling back the corner. That’s when the moan came back.

It was much louder this time, getting closer at a much quicker pace than before. Tad paused. He looked back down at Michael’s cell phone, laughed to himself, then started to peel at the tape again. The air around him grew to a horrid chill. If a thermometer had been sitting on the desk it would have dropped to below freezing at that moment. The moan came in a sudden mad rush in the phone, and all at once it was screaming in his ear.

TIDEY’S!

Tad fell to the ground, the shock of Michael’s voice in the phone knocking the wind out of him. His phone went flying and slammed to the floor a few feet away. As he hit the ground his peripheral vision caught the faintest glimpse of someone cowering over him, and then it was gone.

(tidey’s)

The next few months after the dance had been almost like old times for Tad, with Michael being back in his life full-time. The main difference was that they each had girlfriends to attend to and spend time with. Though he never went to Michael’s house. But they went everywhere else together: Tad, Michael, Sheila, and Tad’s fling of the moment. As Michael and Sheila’s relationship grew stronger Tad found it harder and harder to commit to any of the girl’s he went out with. There just wasn’t anything special there. So over time it went from four of them to three of them. And that was fine for Tad.

Michael’s birthday was April twenty-seventh. Him and Sheila and Tad were supposed to be going out to some Indiana Jones type adventure in the city that night. An interactive puzzle adventure was how it was described. As Tad shaved, just hours before Michael was supposed to pick him up, his mother knocked on the bathroom door.

“Yeah, come in. Just shavin’.”

She entered the room, the cordless handset covered by her palm. “Hey Mike’s on the phone–” She stopped when she saw him getting ready. “Oh, you got a date tonight?”

“No, going out to Boston for Mikey’s birthday.”

“Oh, why do you always get yourself all fancy when you go out with Mike? Your not?” She rolled her eyes off to the side and back at him. “You know…homosexual?”

“MOM!”

“Sorry, sorry. But the only time I see you caring how you look lately is when you’re going out with him and that girl he’s got.”

“I dunno…isn’t he on the phone?” Tad shaved off the last of the stubble from his cheek and wiped his face on the towel.

“Yes,” his mother looked at him, hard. “You better not be getting any ideas about her, Tad.”

“Mom! He’s on the phone!” Tad reached for it.

“Just promise me you aren’t. You’ll be starting a mess that won’t end good for anyone.”

“I promise, just give me the phone. Jeez!”

She handed him the phone, her eyes caught Tad’s once more, and she walked out of the bathroom. Tad watched her leave, appalled by what she’d suggested, and put the phone to his ear.

“Hey, Mikey. What time you guys gonna be here?”

“Why-in-the-hell were you keepin’ me waitin’ for so long, Taddy? Jerkin’ one out in the bathroom or somethin’? Mama Parker catch you?” Michael’s laugh filled the handset and it crackled.

“Maybe I was, homo.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey, Taddy, about tonight. Me and Sheil’ve been talkin’ and…I think we’re just gonna go solo. Not solo, but double, I guess. Ya know what I mean.”

It was liked being dumped, which Tad had never had happen to him before. He held the phone out in front of him and realized he needed to say something before he was quiet for too long.

“Um, yeah man. I get it. It’s your birthday and all, ya wanna spend it with her.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, “Sorry ’bout the last minute stuff. We can do something this weekend though, just the two of us.”

They were both quiet.

“So I’ll see you in school,” Michael said.

“Yeah, man. Have fun. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

Tad hung up the phone. He stood there a moment, not knowing what he was feeling. The hurt of being dumped that night was building in him as anger instead of sadness. And something Michael had said (Just the two of us) was bothering him. He didn’t want it to be just the two of them. He wanted Sheila to be there. He threw the cordless against the door, the battery cover popped off as it slammed to the ground.

He glanced over at his cell phone lying on the floor, then up at the desk above him, at Sheila’s photo. As Tad reached over to pick up the phone, it began to vibrate again. He pulled his hand back, but when he looked down he saw that it was Sheila calling. He picked it up, not aware of how shaken his voice was.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hey, Hon. Listen, are you gonna be home soon? Jerry’s fever spiked again.”

“He went to school, didn’t he?” Michael’s apartment was so cold.

“Yeah he went to school, but–is somethin’ wrong?”

“No, nothing wrong,” he said, and looked back up at the computer monitor.

“K, you sure?”

K, the word peeled the cold flesh off his spine.

“Yeah I’m sure. Christ! Why you callin’ me instead of takin’ our son’s temp if you’re so worried ’bout it?” He hadn’t meant to snap at her, but it had happened.

“Whoa, you’re in a piss-ass mood. The presentation went bad I’m guessing?”

He softened his voice. This should be a time for them to celebrate. The confirmation of the Marsten deal meant that a lot more money would be coming in. “I’m sorry. Just stressed from everything’s that’s been happenin’,” he said. “The presentation went great. He accepted, it’s gonna mean that we can finally start paying back some of those bills, babe.”

“O-M-G! That’s great! I’ve been so stressed.”

He needed to end the conversation. “I gotta go, Sheil. I’ll be home soon. Love you.”

“Love you, too,” she said.

He pressed the END button on the phone. The apartment was much darker now. The sun was going down and Tad didn’t want to be there anymore. He thought about picking up the envelope, then decided against it. Let it stay there. Someone would come by and find it. Someone had to take care of these things sooner or later.

He shut the computer down, took another glance around the apartment, then headed for the door. With his hand on the handle he felt his phone vibrate once more. He hoped it was Sheila again, because anything else might drive him mad.

#

1 NEW TEXT MESSAGE FROM MIKEY

#

He opened the door and took a step out into the hall. The phone vibrated again: this time he pushed the OK button and looked at the message.

#

take the envelope

#

Simple as that. With cold, dripping sweat falling from the tip of his nose he walked back across the apartment and picked up the manila envelope. This time, as he walked back to the door, he went fast, hearing the door slam even as he trotted down the stairwell. He didn’t want to think about what he was doing or what had just happened; because deep down he was scared, dreading where he knew he was about to go.

Once he was back out in the (dwindling) light of day he was able to clear his head. He tucked the envelope into his coat, feeling one of its corners digging into his armpit. He passed the streets quietly, telling himself he should head back to the train station, that Sheila would be worried. But the walk was soothing.

He ran through the day’s events. The call from Michael at three in the morning; he hadn’t answered the phone, no answers there. The realization that the Marsten account belonged to the man who had fathered Michael through high school, and maybe longer; that had been strange, but nothing concrete. The call at Michael’s apartment; there had been a strange moan coming from the phone. And the horrible shout.

(tidey’s)

And then there had been the text message. He looked down at the phone again. He had been holding both his and Michael’s phone when it happened, the text had come from out of thin air.

When he looked back up he saw Massachusetts General Hospital appearing from around the corner.

He passed through a set of double doors at the far end of the lobby. The hospital wasn’t busy tonight. A young nurse was enjoying a coffee. An equally young man sat by her side, legs moving in excited spasms beneath the table, his face the picture of composure. Two middle-aged women sat at the lobby’s front desk. One was chatting away about her son-in-law whom had just been deployed to Afghanistan. Janitors and nurse assistants pushed carts around the corridors, not hurrying, getting paid by the hour.

The corridor that Tad found himself walking through was empty. Three green elevators were to his right. Somewhere up ahead he could hear more people talking and laughing, enjoying themselves on a slow night. He stepped over to the elevators and scanned a large plaque on the wall. It listed the location of different sections throughout the hospital: OR, ER, ICU, pediatric, etcetera. Some way up from the bottom of the list he found the listing.

Morgue–B2

Without understanding why he was doing it, he pushed the down arrow in between the elevators. The voices up the corridor continued. Tad looked back to the doors he had entered through and saw someone move away from the small windows. He took a step toward the doors, to see if someone had been watching him, when the elevator DINGED! its arrival.

Begrudgingly, he stepped in. The elevator sort of lurched, then closed its door.

During his descent, it occurred to him that he never called Sheila to tell her that he’d be late. He grabbed the phone from his pocket and cycled through the contacts. For a moment there was one bar, but it disappeared as he watched the elevator drop to B1. He frowned and placed the phone back in his pocket. He’d have to be quick.

Quick doing what? he asked himself.

The elevator DINGED! again, opening its door onto a dark corridor. As soon as he stepped out the motion-sensor lights flicked on. The corridor wasn’t as comfortable as the upstairs one had been. The walls were lined with chrome stripping on the top, as well as the bottom. The floor wasn’t carpeted. Bleach-white tiles gleamed in the fresh light. Up ahead a chrome cart was pushed up against the wall, forgotten.

As he walked past the lonely cart he wiped more cold sweat from his brow. He shivered and felt the envelope dig into his armpit. Why had Michael’s text told him to take it? Had Michael known that he was going to come here?

“He don’t know shit, ’cause he’s dead,” Tad said. He cringed at the sound of his own voice.

As he passed the cart, he noticed his reflection in its shiny chrome surface. It was distorted, his elongated face a surreal, shiny blur. Shadows cast under his blue eyes. The glare from the light above blotted out the rest of his face, giving the reflection a religious quality.

A sound further down the hall caught his attention and he looked away. He tip-toed five steps closer to the doors. He heard the DING! of the elevator then. He stood frozen, looking at the double door at the end of the corridor, sure he was about to be caught down here where he didn’t belong. Everything from this horrendous day tumbling around his brain, a swirl of incoherency.

Phone call

Marsten

text

envelope

Michael

What did it all mean? Why was he about to enter the morgue?

To make sure he’s dead, he thought.

He had to get himself back under control. The elevator doors rumbled, about to open. Tad couldn’t move. That was when he heard the sound again. This time aware of what it was: Jerry. Crying.

The elevator was forgotten. He spun around on his heel, rushed to the door (not caring about how much noise he made now) and burst in.

“Daddy!” Jerry’s voice echoed off the bare steel of everything in the room.

The sensor lights popped on a moment later, as if he had been too quick for them. Tad spun his head in each direction, trying to locate Jerry’s voice. In the center of the room were two chrome tables. Along the left hand wall the morgue refrigerator made its presence known with at least thirty drawers. Along the opposite wall were a multitude of chrome cabinets and drawers.

“DADDY!”

Tad dashed across the room, balancing himself on the chrome tables as he flew by. If someone else had been standing by and watching Tad at that moment they would have seen a man on the brink of insanity. He stood in the center of the morgue, staring at the refrigerator drawers. His right leg positioned out in front, both hands gripping the muscles on the back of his neck. His face looked like that of a woman out of a bad Lifetime movie, staring in disbelief as the husband she thought was loving and tender beats the shit out of her teen-age daughter.

Tad’s rational mind told him that there was no way that Jerry could be stuck inside one of the drawers. His irrational mind wanted to start ripping open morgue drawers right away.

“DADDY HELP ME!”

Rational, take a seat. Irrational, step on over.

In an instant Tad was in front of the drawers, one hand on a handle. His hip had slammed into the side of one of the chrome tables on the way over, but he felt no pain. The sound of the impact masked the sound of the morgue doors being opened.

The first drawer was open a second later. A body-bag lay motionless on the extended table. He moved on to the next. This drawer had the same result. The same with the next. When he pulled the following drawer open Jerry’s voice echoed out at him from inside the heavy body-bag.

“I’m coming, Jerry! Daddy’s coming!” he cried.

Now he felt the throbbing in his hip. He pushed the pain aside, still in an irrational fervor.

“DADDY!” Jerry yelled from inside the bag.

Without pause Tad unzipped the bag. It jammed about six inches from the top.

“Dammitall ta hell!” he shouted. His father’s words escaping his own mouth.

“DADDY!”

The cries were louder now. He yanked the zipper up and down, up and down, trying to get it loose. His son called him again. Sweat poured from Tad’s forehead and a drop landed on the black bag. In the cool of the morgue refrigerator, the sweat droplet steamed.

Finally the zipper came loose and Tad pulled it as far down as he could manage.

“I got it Jerr! I got it!” he said as he separated the bag down the middle. His hands were around the corpse’s neck, ready to scoop it up, his lips on its forehead, before he had a chance to realize what was happening. His lips lingered a moment on Michael’s frigid skin. Tad’s hands seemed almost stuck in a stranglehold on the back of Michael’s neck. He let out what he thought would be a scream, but came out as an exhaled breath. He jumped back and landed on the body-bag behind him. Tad’s eyes shot to the small, black tape player slung around Michael’s neck.

“DADDY!” the tape player blurted out.

He pushed himself forward and stared at the black speaker broadcasting his son’s voice.

At some point after Michael’s birthday, and before the end of the school year, Tad and Sheila had begun having conversations via the computer. AOL had still been the big thing back then, and Tad had eventually added Sheila to his buddy list. She had begun signing-on every night after she hung up with Michael. That suited Tad just fine.

Tad always got a thrill from talking to Sheila late at night. It was wrong, he knew it was wrong, but it didn’t change how he felt. There was no one in the world who could get him so excited. It just so happened that she was dating his best friend. There was no harm in just talking. Sometimes they talked for hours, sometimes only a few minutes (although he hated those times).

But the night had come when the truth had been said without any warning. The subject matter at the moment concerned Sheila’s perception that every girl in the school was hopelessly in love with Tad Parker.

#

LiLyCutE: the thing about girls liking u is true…

TaddyBoy211: maybe..who should I go for??? gretchen? Nevaeh??

LiLyCutE: quiet!!

TaddyBoy211: so who’s been blabbin?

LiLyCutE: i cant tell….really…

TaddyBoy211: will you tell me if I guess it right??

LiLyCutE: ya

TaddyBoy211: hmmmm….are they online right now?

LiLyCute: maybe…

TaddyBoy211: what color hair?

LiLyCutE: brown..

TaddyBoy211: must be gretchen!! i knew it!

LiLyCutE: shut up =)

TaddyBoy211: not gretchen?? maybe…hmm? No one else on with brown hair

LiLyCutE: tad…

TaddyBoy211: I guess it could be dina but shes just a freshmen….too young I think

LiLyCutE: i like you

#

He was catching his breath, watching the white smoke of his exhales blow into the cool morgue, when his phone vibrated. Only one vibration–text. He looked down at the phone. It was from Sheila. He saw the one bar of service flick away as he flipped open the phone and pressed the OK button.

#

thought you were comin home..cant reach you..everythin ok?

#

No, he thought, everything is not ok. He needed to get out of there, now. Get back to his car, call Sheila, make sure Jerry was safe, and get home for dinner. His eyes darted back to the tape player–he hadn’t seen it in years. Not since the night at Tidey’s.

After the mutual revelation that they held feelings for each other, they graduated from virtual, secretive meetings to actual, secretive meetings. Whenever Michael was at work they would meet up, usually in the back of Tidey’s Market. Some towns have cliffs with aerial views overlooking the township. Kids goto these places at night to make-out and have sex. Besmetville had the back-lot of Tidey’s Market.

Sheila had picked him up from his house, much to the chagrin of his mother who still lectured him about lying to Michael on a daily basis. They had driven to Tidey’s like they always did during these meetings. Up until that point they had done just about everything to pleasure each other except the final act. Sheila had even gone down on him, a new feeling that topped the list of all his personal pleasures. That night she was wearing a short dress that rested high on her thighs, and even higher when she was sitting behind the wheel of her Accord. The effect was excruciating on Tad’s groin.

When they were parked behind the market Sheila sat there with a devilish gleam in her eyes.

“You should go buy some…you know,” she grinned. “From the market.”

He stared at her. “You sure?”

She nodded, grabbed his hand, and pressed it high on the inside of her thigh. His fingers grazed her panties, which, he noted, were hot and moist. Her hand reached over and grabbed him. Hard.

“Yes,” she said.

A few minutes later they were both in the back seat, kissing, moaning, slipping out of their clothes. Tad tugged on the rubber, and, just before slipping into her, looked into her eyes. “I love you,” he said. And he meant it.

“I love you, too.”

He entered her. As they rocked together, the guilty thoughts of Michael were forgotten, Tad’s conscience subdued. All that mattered was feeling her, experiencing her. She moaned in his ear. He pressed deeper. She grabbed the muscles above his shoulders.

Tad looked up as he climaxed. Up and out of the steamed windows. A figure stood there, looking in, motionless. Tad uttered a single, blowing grunt.

“I know. I know,” Sheila whispered. She arched her head back on the felt seat.

“No! Someone’s there!”

They were both sitting up a second later. Sheila covered herself with a piece of the dress.

“Get out of here, you pervert!” she yelled.

The figure was still.

She rubbed the steam off the window. “Listen you–” but she screamed instead.

Michael stood there, his eyes locked on Tad’s, the tape recorder he used to listen to music at work slung around his neck. He stood like that, without saying a word, and Tad thought he could see a tear in his friend’s eye. Or had it been star light in the fog? That had been the last time either of them had had any contact with Michael.

And there was the black recorder again. Tad looked down at the phone, Michael’s name displayed on the screen–he was calling again. He pushed SEND with a trembling finger.

“Goodbye.” Michael’s voice.

Something sharp entered the base of Tad’s skull. The shiny, surreal morgue went black like a fade at the end of a show. He slowly flipped over, his face landing on the cold tiles. Mocha-colored moccasins stood on the floor before him.

“Go now.” Marsten’s voice.

Darkness.

#

The lights never came back. There was quietness for a while. Quietness and darkness. At some unknown time later there was a voice: his voice, Tad’s voice. But it was not him speaking. Someone else seemed to speak through him.

“Look at your face,” his voice said. “I’ll take care of her, Taddy. I’ll take care of him, too.”

Quietness again. Tad felt no cold, he felt nothing. There was a kind of energy running through him that he had never noticed until then. But this energy was dissipated, strained, it wanted to disperse. He waited.

I’ll take care of her, Taddy. I’ll take care of him, too.

Those words waited with him.

#

He was vaguely aware that something was entering his veins, but he couldn’t speak to tell whomever was the cause to stop. A sort of epiphany came to him, all of his remaining energy building up enough for him to realize one last truth: this was being dead. He was able to hear everything around him as his brain lost its energy. Now he was being prepared for the coffin. Embalming fluid was being pumped into him.

He could hear, somewhere far away, something that sounded like a vacuum. Memories swirled through him. Events that had occurred before. And then he was looking through the other end of that window back at Tidey’s Market.

Tad on top of Sheila. Their horrified faces looking out at him through a steam-wiped window. Michael’s memory, not Tad’s.

I’ll take care of her, Taddy. I’ll take care of him, too.

***

There was no big fuss, no hoopla, no screaming or yelling, or running around in a panic. When someone goes out, they just go. Tad Parker knew this as he walked out of Massachusetts General Hospital.

He smiled and pulled the envelope from his coat. The air was sweet, it felt fresh traveling to his lungs. The day was over, the dark sky was lit by artificial light from street lamps and neon OPEN signs hung on the front of businesses across the city. But the night was not dull–no–it was full of possibility. He read the letter from the envelope as he walked.

#

Dear Michael,

I would just like to congratulate you. Tad Parker signed the deal with the Marsten account this morning. It should set him up for a successful and happy future with his wife and young son.

I was never much of a father to you, and I hope that you can forgive me for that. I also hope that you are indeed reading this. If you are then the procedure was a success. May your second life be umpteen times happier than your first.

I assume that I will soon see an obituary for Michael Prow.

You would do better if you didn’t go looking for it. It is behind you now.

Take care of your girl, do not let her get away again. And be sure to buy that little boy of hers a bag of Reese’s on your way home from the hospital. I trust you can take it from there.

Take care of yourself, and forever cherish your new life.
Love always,
Robert Marsten

#

Before boarding the Besmetville run at South Station Tad stopped at a local convenience store. He asked for a small book of matches and bought a big bag of Reese’s Pieces. He set light to the letter and dropped it into a vent along the sidewalk.

When he arrived home he stood on the front stoop. A tear fell from his eye as he used his key to enter the house.

The living room was empty. He walked to the back room and found Jerry lying on his couch. He was red with fever, but he was awake. He knelt down beside the boy and placed the bag of Reese’s on the pillow next to his head.

“Hey, bud.”

Jerry’s eyes flicked from the TV to Tad’s eyes, as was their way. Tad saw confusion furrow the boy’s brow.

“Who are you?” Jerry asked.

Tad’s stomach dropped. He looked at his reflection in Jerry’s pupils and saw Tad’s face staring back. With a sigh of relief he said, “I’m your daddy.”

“Jerry!” It was Sheila.

Tad spun around to see her. She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

“You know who your father is!” she protested.

Tad stood and faced her. “Don’t worry, he was just waking up is all.”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowing. “Where have you been?”

Tad pulled her in close to him. She buried her head into his chest, wrapped her arms around his back, her fingers squeezing into his shoulder blades.

“Shh,” he said.

She hugged him tighter. “I missed you,” she said.

She pulled her head away and Tad kissed her.

“I missed you, too,” he whispered.

“You are not understanding me,” he shouted. The girl behind the counter looked at him like he was the asshole.

“I understand you perfectly. What would you like me to do?”

“Get your manager is what I’d like you to do.”

The girl behind the counter disappeared into a door next to a one way mirror. Cute, he thought. The store was filled with middle aged women. Some juggling multiple kids, most shopping by themselves. An elderly woman pushing a carriage walked by and shot him a dirty look.

“Somethin wrong?” he asked.

The elderly woman turned away, pushing her cart down aisle four.

All he had wanted was a box of Saltine crackers to eat with cheese during break. Instead, he’d gotten a huge dent in the passenger side door of his car. He’d just bought the car (a white Mitsubishi Galant) not even a month ago. Some old fart wasn’t going to—

A tall, lanky man stepped out from behind a door next to the service counter. He walked over and said, “Hello, Mr. Arnison?”

“Mark.”

“What seems to be the problem Mark?”

The fucking problem is that I have a huge dent in the passenger side door of my new car. “What’s your name?”

“Bob,” the tall lanky asshole said.

“OK Bob. You have a guy that looks to be about one-hundred years old outside collecting carriages. I was just sitting in my car ready to leave this place and he pushed a whole stack into my car door. The whole fuckin thing is dented.”

Mr. Tall Asshole made a show of considering what Mark had just said. Then he said, “I am very sorry about that Mark. I’ll make sure we handle the situation.”

“Yeah. Ya’ gonna handle the situation by firing that old shit and paying for the repair on my car.” Mark could feel the warmth of the blood rising into his face.

“Well, I’ll have to discuss all of that with my manager.” He paused and then said, “I’ll have Kelly give you a twenty-five dollar gift card for now and she’ll take down your number.” He motioned to the girl behind the counter. She didn’t look up or even acknowledge that someone had just said her name.

“I don’t want a gift card, but I’ll take it for now,” Mark said, and then: “I want that old man fired Bob.”

Mr. Tall Asshole smiled and shook Mark’s hand. He told Mark that they would call him in a couple of days. He walked back behind his two-way mirror and was gone. Mark wrote his number on a piece of paper and handed it to Kelly. She looked like she was about to throw it in the garbage. He asked for Bob’s business card and then took his twenty-five dollar gift card.

As the blood drained from his face, he passed the old man who’d dented his car. The piece of shit was bald with gray hair, and he had dark brown eyes that could have been black. The guy had no business working at all. He smiled at Mark as he walked by.

Yeah, see if you’re smiling in a few days asshole.

Mark turned back to the service counter before walking out of the grocery store. Mr. Tall Asshole was in the corner talking with Mr. Old-As-Shit. The old man had his head down. Bob seemed to be lecturing him. Mark thought that at least Bob was good for his word. The old man would probably be fired today. Three days later, Mark would be fired as well.

#

“Yes Mark, I know you’ll get a job…don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“What am I gonna get Ma? I got fired from a God damn deli! Where the hell am I gonna get work?” He slammed his fist into the steering wheel.

“Just relax…are you driving right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I’m going to hang up then. You just concentrate on driving and we’ll talk about it when you get home.” Her voice was coming through the car speakers and Mark thought it sounded more and more like one of those pleasant, robotic, female voices you get when you call 800 numbers.

“Yeah, talk to ya later then,” he said in a mumble.

“I love you.”

“I love you too Ma,” he said. He ended the call.

He pounded his other fist into the wheel and tried to catch himself before he went through with it. He was too late and it slammed down hard. A shot of pain ran through his arm like a long needle had just been inserted at the base of his palm. He screamed and the car swerved into the other lane momentarily. He seized the wheel and swerved back over to his lane.

He looked at his throbbing hand and saw that blood was starting to appear on the bandages again. How could he have been so stupid? The deli, Conner’s Deli, was the best job he had taken in the past six months. The pay was decent, he was at home by six every night, and a ton of great looking women came in and out all day. And he had ruined it all by getting himself fired.

He looked back down at his hand and saw the white bandages were slowly turning to red. The blood seeped further and further outward. It had hurt so bad when he’d stuck his damn hand in that thing. If that girl hadn’t come in, then none of this would have happened.

The tomato slicer was kept behind the glass case, facing the workers. When someone ordered tomatoes on their sandwich, all the worker had to do was grab a fresh tomato out of the bucket and throw it in. Then they’d grab the handle and pull it down. The slicer would spit out at least ten good slices per tomato. Ten razors were secured inside. The cover would push the tomato into the razors and VOILA!, new slices.

The girl had come in during busy hours that afternoon and walked straight over to Mark’s line. He had seen her right away. Blond hair and bright blue eyes. Her hair seemed to cascade down onto her bare, tan shoulders and down the nape of her neck. That was the first thing he’d noticed. The second was the way her breasts moved when she walked; just enough to send a dull, throbbing pain into his groin. Her legs seemed to him, the most perfect legs he had ever seen.

She’d waited in his line and every time he had looked up to his current customer, he had glanced over at the girl. And every time she had smiled at him. It had slowed him down and he’d known it, but he didn’t care. His customers had cared though. One woman had stared at him the entire time he’d made her sandwich. She kept reminding him that she had a very important meeting to get back to. The man right before the girl (the girl) had been on his cell phone. Every time Mark had glanced up at her the man had stopped his conversation, tapped the glass case between them and said, “Hey you, just keep ya eyes ta the grinda, ya got it?” Mark had gotten it, but he hadn’t cared. Those people would be in his life one moment and then be out the next. Fuck them.

The girl had finally walked up to the counter and Mark had looked directly into her light blue eyes. He remembered they had almost looked neon. The girl had smiled and then giggled at him. She had just about hypnotized me, he thought.

The thought brought him back to reality and he realized he had drifted into the other lane again. A car blew its horn and he swerved back into his lane. The car passed him on the left. The driver shot up his middle finger and sped by.

He looked down at his bandage. The blood had covered the entire inside of his palm and was creeping onto the back of his hand. The pain was still there, but it was subsiding. It was nowhere near the pain he had felt at Conner’s.

The girl had ordered a BLT with green peppers instead of tomatoes. He remembered thinking that was just the craziest fucking thing he had heard in a while. Some people ordered some crazy things. Like one woman that came in everyday at 12:04PM. She ordered cheese and a pile of hot peppers on a crusty roll. The same gross thing every day. Then she would sit down at one of the tables and eat the “mountain of farts”, as Ben called it, while typing away on her laptop.

But this girl had ordered her crazy BLT (more like BLP he could remember thinking at the time). He had gotten the roll and looked up into her eyes. Then he had spread a little bit of mayo and looked up into her eyes. He had placed the lettuce and bacon–then looked up into her eyes. Every time he’d looked she had smiled and giggled. What had driven him crazy was that she had kept creeping closer and closer to the glass case. It had gotten to the point that her breasts had been pushing up against it so he’d had a perfect look while making her sandwich.

After staring into her eyes, and even more at her chest, he’d picked up a tomato from the bucket and tossed it into the slicer. He had grabbed the handle and looked back into her neon eyes. She’d smiled at him as he started to pull down on the slicer. Then he had stopped abruptly. She wanted green peppers, he had thought. He had pulled the lever back up.

What happened next he had no explanation for. He had still been looking into her eyes as he’d reached his left hand down into the slicer to grab out the tomato. She’d smiled the whole time. His hand had pressed down onto the razors. The pain had shot up his arm, into his neck, down his back, circled around his groin and back up his arm again.

The girl had started to walk back to the door. He had finally broke his gaze (from those eyes) and looked down at his lump of meat sitting in the razor blades. The blood had started to drain fast. It was almost squirting up onto the counter. He hadn’t uttered a single word as of that moment. He’d just looked in horror at what had happened. The palm of his hand had been seated down into the razors; he had felt them rubbing up against the bone. His middle, index and pinkie fingers had all been sliced down the center, all on their own blade, how nice. His pointer finger was bent and hadn’t touched a single blade, but his thumb’s tip had pressed down involuntarily in the “pick up” motion and had sliced along the sharp edge. The very tip had been cut off and he’d seen it lying in the plate at the bottom of the slicer.

He had seen this whole situation before reacting in any way, but then something else happened. He’d heard a scream and it had knocked him back to reality. He had looked up and seen one of the customers that Ben had been working with staring at the mess and pointing. She was screaming something about blood, but he’d felt woozy and unreal so he couldn’t remember exactly what she had been saying. Then everyone had been looking and so he had looked back down too. This time he had only seen a ball of bloody meat resting in the slicer. Blood had somehow squirted onto the glass case and dripped into the tomato bucket. Ben had been trying to cover up the deli meat containers before any blood got in. Mark remembered thinking that Ben was an asshole for that.

The entire place had been a mixture of screams and yells. Mark had picked up his hand. He felt the razors slide out of his flesh and off of his bones. The blood had seemed to intensify when he had done this. He had held up his hand in terror and watched the blood run down his arm. He’d moved around the glass case as people had been screaming and hurrying to exit. He’d been holding up his hand as the blood flung everywhere; the walls, the seats, the food, the garbage cans, the glass case. It had been everywhere and Mark had been screaming for a doctor. Just like in a movie. He couldn’t remember why he’d been screaming and flinging his bloody lump around the establishment other than that’s what he had thought was appropriate at the time.

Now the phone in the car rang and Mark jerked back out of his memory. He pressed the phone button and said hello.

“Hey bud, how you feelin man?” Ben’s voice crackled over the car speakers and Mark turned the volume down just a bit.

“Good as can be, I guess. Was the boss pissed?”

“Yeah dude. He ain’t lettin you back,” Ben said.

“Yeah I figured.”

“Why didn’t you just go in the back man? Go bandage it up? What were you thinkin swinging your hand around everywhere like a fuckin victim in a scream movie or somethin.” Mark was laughing as he said that last part.

“I dunno man. I wasn’t thinkin straight. If you ever shove your hand into the slicer then see what you do.”

Ben laughed. “Yeah OK. Ya gonna be able to keep ya hand
though right?”

“Yeah, just needed some stitches. But my thumb’s fucked.”

“What good is it anyway?” Ben asked. And then: “Alright bud, I’ll let you go. Call you later.”

“Later,” Mark said, and hung up.

Up ahead he saw the red glow of brake lights and brought the car to a stop. He was about to pound his fist into the steering wheel again, but he stopped himself this time. The exit was backed up all the way onto the highway.

Well isn’t that great. More time to think about how much of an asshole I am.

He remembered looking around for the girl after being that asshole at Conner’s, but she must have left by that point. Not only had he lost his job and nearly cut off his hand, but he had also ruined any chance he had with that girl. Life sucked.

Mark came to a stop behind an old K-Car. He thought about calling the boss up and trying to explain what had happened, but he thought better of it. He just waited in line with the other cars and watched the blood dominate the white bandage on his hand.

#

The traffic line was moving slow. Mark turned the knob on the radio. 93.7 popped up on the screen and Dave Matthews started singing to him. He put his head back against the head rest and alternated his foot: gas, brake. Gas, brake.

The exit curved to the right off the highway and then forked left or right onto Main Street. The problem was that there were no traffic lights, just a stop sign. When you reached Main, you’d have to wait for either a kind soul to stop and let you through (or two kind souls if you were turning left), or dart out recklessly into oncoming traffic and hope not to get hit.

Mark was the guy who would dart out. No question. He was still at least ten cars behind, but he could see the guy up front waiting for the kind souls (the problem with waiting for them was that there weren’t any). He came down on the horn every few minutes and muttered things under his breath like: “People are pussies” or “Fuckin go”.

Finally, the guy up front got a little dangerous and released himself into the traffic. How frightening. Mark sighed and alternated from brake to gas then back to brake. Dave was finishing up his “Ants Go Marching”, and Mark briefly flashed on his days in high school. Everyone wanted to go to a Dave concert and smoke weed and “Just go with him, ya know?” All bullshit as far as he was concerned. He let the thought leave quickly and he glanced out the window.

A man was standing on the cement island between the off-ramp and the on-ramp of the highway. He was holding a sign that was turned away from Mark so he couldn’t read it fully. All he could make out were the first two words on each line:

Out
God

Weird, he thought. The man looked almost elderly and had a suit on. His head was balding so that the gray hair formed a horseshoe shape that stretched from temple to temple. The suit was black and he had a white shirt on underneath. A dark tie hung from his neck. Mark wasn’t sure if it was blue or black. It might even be green and who gives a shit?

Mark seemed to give a shit, that’s who. The man didn’t look like he would be the type standing out near the highway, holding a cardboard sign. More like a doctor or lawyer type. Though that didn’t matter much. Everyone had low points. He had just started one himself.

The asshole up front decided to be brave and turned out into the oncoming traffic. Mark alternated from brake to gas and back to brake. He was getting closer. His hand was still hurting from that asinine slam into the steering wheel. His head was starting to ache. He just wanted to sleep. He realized that Marilyn Manson was playing on the radio–”The Beautiful People”–he switched off the radio again. What kind of station plays Dave and Manson back-to-back?

He glanced back out the window to the man holding the sign. He wasn’t moving. He just stood there with his sign–that Mark now read as:

Out of
God Bl

–and stared into the cars of people crawling by. There wasn’t even a bucket for change by his feet. What the hell was this guy doing? And now that he was a little closer, Mark could see that his suit was kind of messed up too. His shirt was partially un-tucked and his tie was pulled down and hanging like a noose waiting to kill.

Has he moved at all?

Mark looked back to the asshole at the front of the line. A dark blue convertible, probably a gift Volkswagen for some annoying high school girl. The cars were flying by on both sides of the street and the Volkswagen hadn’t even tried to inch out. It was staying safe and sound behind the white line at the end of the off-ramp. Mark’s head throbbed. He took in a big gulp of air and came down on the horn. He let it hang for a few seconds, then let up. He exhaled.

A woman from the car in back of him yelled, “That ain’t
gonna do nothing for ya! Shut the fuck up!”

Mark grinned and came down on the horn again. When he let go, he flipped the radio back on; Hootie and the Blowfish were singing, “…if the sun comes out tomorrow…” He flipped it off and muttered, “Great station.”

A miracle was happening up ahead; the street completely cleared of all oncoming traffic. The Volkswagen inched its way out and broke itself free of the traffic line. Mark alternated from brake to gas, back to brake. He thought about what he was going to do when he got home. Rinse his hand off would be the first thing. Then bandage it back up (if he had any bandages). The sun was already starting to go down and he thought about calling up Ben but then decided not to. Maybe it would be better to just stay in tonight and watch a movie. Maybe he would even go down to Wal-Mart and buy a new one (with what money asshole?).

He glanced back out the window. The old man was still standing there. He was about two cars away from Mark now. The full sign read:

Out Of Work
God Bless You

What the hell do you want mister?

He rolled his window all the way down. The air was starting to cool and he stuck his head out of the window and yelled, “Hey Mister! Hey you!”

The old man didn’t move, he just turned his head to the right and Mark imagined the sound of large gears at the top of a clock tower, grinding together.

“What the hell do you want?”

The old man just stared at him. His face was concealed by shadow. In that light, Mark thought that he could have been a walking corpse.

“You want money? Where’s your bucket?”

The old man stared, but did not say a word. He didn’t turn away from Mark again.

Mark decided the old man was a nut and settled back into his seat. The asshole at the front of the line gunned it into the traffic and someone coming down the right hand side slammed on their brakes and honked their horn. That’s the spirit, he thought. He alternated from brake to gas and back to brake.

He decided to try the radio one last time. He flipped it on and Semisonic sang back, “…gather up your jackets, move it to the exits. I hope you have found a friend.” Finally, something worth listening to.

Mark glanced back out the window at the old man. He was only a car away now and still staring. The dark shadows around his eyes gave Mark the chills. He called out, “Hey, why don’t you turn around huh?”

The man didn’t move.

Mark looked back to the sign. “Out Of Work. God Bless You,” he muttered. That sign was strange too. It was a statement. Not a question. Most of those assholes usually wrote something like:

Out Of Work
Will You Help?

This guy was just letting everyone know that he had no work, and he wished everyone well. Strange.

“I’m outta work too buddy.”

The old man just stood there.

“Fine, I ain’t gonna keep trying,” Mark said.

The guy up front pulled out into the street and everyone moved up. Mark rested his bandaged hand out of the window and alternated from brake to gas and back to brake.

Semisonic was finishing up “Closing Time” and Mark was trying not to pay attention to the old man. He looked straight ahead at the K-Car and tapped his good hand on the steering wheel. The sun was almost down, and it left a red and orange streak in the clouds on the horizon. The song finished and commercials blasted out of the speakers. He flipped the radio
off.

Mark knew the old man was staring at him. He turned his head and glanced out of the window. The old man was now stumbling toward him. Every step seemed to draw every ounce of energy the man could provide. His arms drooped. The sign swung by the ground as he walked. Every time he moved, it would scrape the cement below.

“Hey man, what the hell?” Mark said, uncertain. “Whaddya want buddy? Money?”

The man stumbled closer. He didn’t make a sound.

“I ain’t got no fuckin money for you cocksucker.”

About two feet away from the car, the man stumbled out of the shadow. Mark saw his face. The old man from the grocery store.

What the fuck!

His eyes were hollow sockets surrounded by wrinkles. They looked like the inside of an empty walnut shell.

“Holy shit!” Mark yelled. Behind him, three horns were honking.

Mark didn’t have time to react. The old man lunged forward and grasped the bandaged hand. Mark tried to pull away but the man’s grip was amazingly strong. The pain was immense.

“Get the fuck off me!” Mark yelled.

“You…you…you,” the man said over and over again in a quiet but frantic voice.

Mark’s terror set in as the man unraveled the bandage. Pain shot up his arm. The slicer flashed into his mind. Mark screamed. Behind him, horns were honking like crazy.

Why aren’t they helping me?

Mark struggled to get his hand free, but the pain was paralyzing. The old man ripped the last of the bandage off and fell to his knees. From somewhere behind, Mark heard someone yell, “Let’s go asshole!”

The horns were blaring and Mark screamed in pain as the old man squeezed his hand. Fresh blood started to drip. The old man arched his neck underneath the hand and blood splattered off his tongue. He looked like a prisoner-of-war drinking water for the first time in days.

All at once, the man’s grip loosened and he turned his head to Mark and said, “Thank you…I’ll need more.” A small grin appeared on the old man’s face and Mark broke free. He spun around and saw that the exit was clear. He alternated from brake to gas and sped into the street. He heard the sound of screeching tires. He had turned directly in front of an oncoming SUV. He swerved his car with his one good hand. The SUV swerved the other way. He was safe.

He looked down at his hand; the stitches were still intact, but the hand was bloody. The pain was fresh. He wept as he drove home.

#

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“I was attacked,” Mark said.

“OK–Where are you sir?”

“Driving down Main in New Harbor, Mass.”

“OK, and where were you attacked?”

“The end of exit 16 off of I-197.” Mark realized his voice had taken on a strange professionalism. He looked down at his blood soaked hand and said, “I think it was some asshole I got fired the other day…”

“And what did he do sir?” the woman asked.

“He…” Mark thought about it for a second. Had that really happened? “I cut open my hand, he was tryin to rip out the stitches.” It sounded better than he was drinking my blood.

“Where is he now?”

“Dunno! Probably still at that exit. I was in my car…”

“OK sir, I’ll send someone over there. We’ll contact you later to get a report.” The phone clicked off through the speakers. He paused for a minute and then pressed the phone button. A mechanical voice asked him to say a name. Mark said
Ben.

Another click popped the speakers and then he heard the phone begin to ring.

“Whattsup Mark?” Ben asked.

“You still at work?”

“Leavin now, what’s up?”

“Hey do me a favor… call me up when you get to exit 16.”

“Yeah, sure.” He paused and then asked, “Something wrong?”

“Some asshole tried to attack me. At the corner of the exit.” Mark lifted up his hand to look at it. It was still bleeding.

“Holy shit!” and then, “What do you want me to call for?”

“I’m just curious if maybe I ran him over or something.”

Ben paused and then said, “Strange. Yeah, I’ll give you a call. Should be there in like twenty minutes.”

“Later.” Mark pressed the phone button.

Never mind Wal-Mart now. He wanted to get home, have supper, take a shower and go to sleep. He kept on thinking about the old man from the grocery store. The old man craning his head underneath his bloody hand and letting the blood splatter off his old tongue. Why hadn’t he had eyes? When Mark had seen him the other day his eyes had been there, glaring at
him. Maybe it wasn’t that guy at all. Just some other jerk who looked like him.

Mark pressed the phone button again and spoke with Information. They connected him to Merlott’s Grocery. The phone rang a couple of times and then a pleasant female voice picked up and said, “Merlott’s, how can I help you?” The day had been full of pleasant females and old men.

“Hi. I was wondering if I could speak to a gentleman that works there. Probably in his late sixties or early seventies. Has gray hair and balding on the top?” Mark thought that would be good enough.

There was silence on the other end and then, “Oh, you must be talking about Mr. Deval. He doesn’t work for us anymore. Poor old man. He needed the money. Anyway, you won’t find him here.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

His stomach felt like a sinking ship. He had gotten him fired. The speakers clicked off.

#

He pulled up to his house, parked and made his way up to the front door. His mother’s car was in the driveway, so she was home. He didn’t want to get into it with her. She would blow up and make it a huge deal. He decided he wouldn’t tell her what had happened.

He pulled open the front door, walked in and stopped. The house was in darkness. By now his mother should have had food in the oven and the TV on to one of her many, boring sitcoms.

“Hello?” he called out.

No answer.

He turned around and walked outside. The night air was much cooler than the stuffy house. He walked over to his mother’s car and looked in the windows. Nothing out of the ordinary; pack of cigarettes and a couple of candy wrappers on the floor. He looked into the back seat and saw a large plastic bag. Change of clothes for work, he thought.

He backed away and looked to his car. A sudden paranoia ran through him.

What if he’s in my car? That’s always how it happens. The guys always hiding in the backseat.

He shook himself and walked over to the car. The thought was stupid. The main reason being that the old man hadn’t climbed into his car. Still, the paranoia remained. Ridiculous.

He walked over to his car on the driver’s side. He noticed something dark on the rear door. He knelt down and looked closer. Wet. He stuck his finger in it and then looked down at the tip. Blood. His blood that had dripped after the old man had squeezed his hand. He stood up and looked in the back window. No one there. Just to be safe he opened the rear door. The interior light flicked on and revealed the mess of fast food bags that comprised his backseat. No one there. He shut the door and heard something CLAK! Behind him.

He spun around and saw the screen door swing shut with another CLAK! Mark stood frozen on the edge of his front lawn, looking at the house. It was still in darkness. He walked up the lawn and shouted, “Hey Ma! You home?”

No one answered him.

He reached the front door and opened it. He paused. His hand was throbbing. He needed to get some bandages.

He took a couple of steps into the house and reached out to switch on the light. The living room blazed before him. His mother’s purse was sitting on the sofa. He hurried into the kitchen and switched on the light. Everything looked normal. He turned around and looked down the hall. All three doors were closed; the bathroom, his room and his mother’s room.

He walked over to the hallway and switched on the light. The stuffed bookcase at the end of the hall loomed ahead of him. He made his way down and peeked into the bathroom. Everything looked OK there. Then he moved to the end. Without hesitation he slowly opened his mother’s bedroom door. The sound it made when he did this was: EEEEE-EEEAAAAAARRRRRRK!

Something lay on the bed in the darkness. The light from the hallway slowly revealed his mother’s legs. Mark gasped and threw open the door. At the same time his cell phone blared into the quiet house. Instinctively, he reached for it and held it out in front of him. His mother’s eyes shot open and she screamed. Mark fell back, knocking a pile of books to the floor.

The phone rang and Mark began to laugh.

“What are you doing?” his mother asked.

Still laughing, he said, “Sorry Ma…. I didn’t know what was going on. Everything was dark and…sorry.”

The cell phone stopped ringing and Mark looked down at it. The missed call was from Ben.

“Oh,” she yawned. “I was tired after work…needed to take a nap. Sorry about the lights.” Her eyes locked on his hand and she said, “Oh my God Mark! I thought they bandaged that up! It looks terrible!”

“It was bandaged. Just started to bleed. It’s fine. I’m gonna put some new bandages on after a shower. I gotta call Ben back.” He pushed open his door and switched on his light.

His mother was getting up and she walked into the hall.
“OK. I’m gonna start supper–it must be so late,” she said.

“Yeah, almost seven-thirty.” Then he shut his bedroom door.

Mark sank down onto his computer chair by the bed. It creaked as he sat back. He looked down at his phone and pressed the call button. The phone rang twice and then Ben said hello.

“Hey, so was he there?” Mark asked.

“I didn’t see nothin man. No blood, no old guy, nothing except a sign.”

“Out Of Work, God Bless You?”

“Yep.”

Mark tried to make sense of it. “OK bud. I’m gonna eat something and lay down.”

“No drinks tonight? Thought we were goin to Friday’s?” Ben sounded disappointed.

“I had a rough day. We can go out tomorrow…maybe. Don’t have a job, remember?”

“Dammit. Well you gotta get one quick. I need a margarita.” Ben was trying to be funny, but Mark could hear that he was pissed.

“Gay,” Mark said.

“Fuck you.”

“Later.” Mark hung up.

#

He was laying in bed trying to fall asleep. His mother had made cheese ravioli for supper which had been a good end to a shitty day. She had known something had been bothering him but he refused to talk about it. He just skirted it under the rug and moved on.

The shower after supper had relaxed him some. After washing away all of the dried blood, he’d looked at his hand. It looked horrible; swollen and sliced. It reminded him of those fake, bloody body parts that Halloween shops sell. Even so, the stitches had held up. When he was done with the shower he had bandaged it back up. Nice and tight.

Right before he had gone to sleep, the police had called and he’d given them his report. He told them everything that had happened. They told him the same thing Ben had said; no one had seen any old man, there was no blood, they only found the sign. He hadn’t felt like pushing it and really just wanted to forget about it, so he hurried them off the phone. He had told them he wasn’t interested in pursuing it.

Now he shut his eyes as he thought about the day. He tried to keep his mind on anything other than the old man at the exit. So he thought about Conner’s and the girl. He thought about the razors. He thought about the blood flinging all over the place (somehow even that was better than thinking about the old man). He thought about being so paranoid when he’d gotten home, and it ending up that his mother was just taking a nap. He smiled and at some point soon after, he fell asleep.

He was standing in the deli. A large group of customers standing all around him as if they were in a night club and expected him to dance. He looked down at his hand. A mouth was embedded into the side of it and sharp fangs jutted down the base of his thumb. Blood seeped out and the mouth whispered, “Thank you.”

He started to fling his hand around the deli. The group of customers didn’t move. They stood there, frozen and staring at his mutated hand. Blood flew from the mouth and landed all over the walls. It splattered on people’s faces, but they still didn’t move.

Mark looked over to the glass case while he was flinging around the mouth. He saw Ben eating a roast beef sandwich. Ben looked up at Mark. The mouth on his hand spit a clot of blood which landed across the sandwich. Ben gave Mark a thumb’s up and smiled, then he bit into a large chunk of the sandwich. Blood rubbed off on his upper lip like a macabre milk ad from the nineties.

Mark started to scream. He flung the hand around faster.
Blood poured from the whispering mouth and began to fill up the deli like a bath tub in hell. The customers just stood there. Then he turned and saw the girl with the neon blue eyes. She was standing in the doorway. The whispering mouth started to chant: God bless you. The girl walked toward him, her shirt seemed to flutter and then fell to the ground. Her plump breasts bounced as she swashed through the blood. She knelt down and dipped a hand in the knee deep blood. She got back up and looked into him with her eyes. Those freakish eyes. Then she ran her bloody hand down her chest, smiled and said, “God bless you.”

She smiled. Fangs jutted out just like on the whispering mouth. Both her and the mouth were chanting God bless you. She walked closer to him, blood dripped off her right nipple. Drip. Drip. Drip. Her whispering mouth chanting–“God. Bless. You.”–over and over again. Her fangs jutting out of from her upper lip and resting on the base of her bottom lip. The customers in the deli started to chant along with her and the whispering mouth. The blood had risen to the girl’s belly button. Mark looked at Ben and saw him licking the blood off the top of the sandwich over and over again like he was some satanic character on a Saturday morning cartoon.

He looked back to the girl and saw that the blood had risen to her breasts. It swished over and splattered her face. Her neon eyes pierced him. Her razor sharp teeth still bore. She was right in front of him and he reached out to push her back. But where his hands should have been, there were two bloody stumps. The chanting from the customers grew louder.

“GOD BLESS YOU!”
“GOD BLESS YOU!”
“GOD BLESS YOU!”

He looked back up at the girl. She was still smiling. Then her eyes started to bulge. They seemed to enlarge like a water balloon being squeezed. They popped out of their sockets, spraying him with hot goo. Her hair turned gray and shrunk back into her head. Her face wrinkled up like one of those magic shirts that come in a small cube.

He screamed. He was looking into the face of the old man. Mr. Deval smiled and he saw the razor sharp teeth were still there. Mr. Deval said thank you, as the blood swashed over his head.

Mark sat up straight in bed. He looked around the darkness and then to his hands. They were still there. He was in his bedroom. He wondered if he’d been screaming in his sleep. He couldn’t hear his mom so he didn’t think so. His eyes adjusted and he could see his desk and the door to his room. He took a
deep breath and then laid back down. He realized he had been sweating. The sheets were soaked.

A dream. He closed his eyes. He was about to fall back to sleep when he heard his computer chair creak. His eyes popped open.

Did I just hear that?

Am I going crazy?

The chair creaked again. The room was too dark to see clearly enough. He was about to get up and turn on the light when he heard it creak again.

Suddenly, out of the darkness, the old man’s eyeless face was hovering above him. Fangs rested on his lower lip.

“Thank you…I’ll need more,” the old man whispered.

This morning I wanted a story.

I started the morning out how I start all mornings out: by watching the cars. You see, I live on an on-ramp to the highway. My apartment is on the second floor overlooking the great view of the cars speeding by.

On most mornings I will wake at 8:00 AM and be in the shower by 8:15. That is where I do most of my creative thinking for the day–in the shower. Maybe it’s the steam that soothes my sleep-confuddled brain, or maybe it’s just that I have slipped into a routine over the last fifteen years. Either way, after the shower, I pour myself a large glass of orange juice and take it to my La-Z-Boy black-leather recliner in the parlor by the window.

You see, other than the cars thundering up my on-ramp to the highway (hoping to reach it doing a cool seventy-five miles-per-hour), the window looks straight out onto a cement wall. I very much like the view, but it is true, an overpass for I-195 sums up my front lawn. Spread out before the cement wall is the on-ramp (cleverly disguised as a street: Hammer Street). And sitting before the on-ramp, my apartment house (which looks like all of the other apartment houses next to it, built during the early twentieth century): 76 Hammer On-ramp (as I like to call it).

Like I said, I started the day out by watching the cars. There are two sets that drive along my point-of-view. The first are the ones that chug along Hammer. The second are that which are traveling on the highway. Those are on higher ground, so I am only able to make out their tops as they fly on by.

Maybe I should explain this wall a little better before treading on to the day’s peculiar turn of events. It is a high wall that starts as an overpass at the beginning of the on-ramp. As you travel West, it begins to taper off as the on-ramp ascends up-hill. The humble spot onto which I look upon each day is roughly one-third up from the end of the overpass, and is roughly fifteen feet high. Topping off the cement wall along the on-ramp is a grass spattered hill; the home of undernourished trees and bushes and the occasional squirrel and bird. The base of the hill has built up a rather…respectable pile of trash that spills out onto my lawn. I’ve long since thought about putting a sign up near I-197′s guardrail that reads:
DON’T THROW YOUR TRASH ON MY FRONT LAWN!
–HOWARD HUPPIN

I am a writer of short fiction (admittedly, not a very good one), so I wonder if anyone would recognize my name. And even if they did, would they understand what the sign meant? Probably not. So I’ve never done it.

So, I started my day off by staring at the cars and that wall. The noise from the cars somehow comforts me, which I guess is similar to the steam in the shower. I was thinking of a new story while looking at the trashy hill and listening to the constant hum of the vehicles driving by. Thinking of the make-believe is what I do on most days while staring out that window. Ten years ago I could write a new story a day–hell, five years ago I could do that. But now the stories don’t come so easy. When I say I was thinking of a new story, what I really mean is that I was trying to think of a new story.

And that is exactly when it happened; a car came screeching
to a halt on the highway, throwing open their passenger door. I watched intently, as I’ve never seen it happen in all the years I’ve stared out that window. All I could see was the top of the sedan; a silvery-blue color that reflected the overcast sky. Something fairly large rolled out over the guardrail and onto the hill. My first thought was a gigantic burrito, the size of a small dog, but then I realized that whatever it was, was wrapped in a eggshell-colored bed sheet.

The thing rolled down the hill as the silver sedan drove off. It only got caught up once when it slammed into the base of a small tree. It bounced right off, however, and continued to roll. I must note that when it hit the tree it made a peculiar sound which reminded me of bad feedback from a microphone being too close to a loudspeaker. After hitting the tree, it rolled until it reached the edge of the hill and fell, dead weight, fifteen feet to the sidewalk below. As it hit the ground it made another of those peculiar sounds, but this time it rang out much louder. It seemed to amplify through my window and I needed to cover my ears. I also looked away and crunched up my eyes. A silly thing to do considering that it was audible and not visual.

When I looked back I saw the sheet lying there on the ground. It did not move, and the sound it had produced had stopped. I made no attempts to leave my apartment and investigate, but there were others in the house who felt differently.

My apartment house is a three-floor house. There are a total of five apartments. The first floor consists of one large three-bedroom. (I will have to change the names of my neighbors for the sake of this story) Mrs. Pina lives there with her four small children. I do not believe any of them are above the age of six. On the morning on which the sheet-thing was lying across from our house, Mrs. Pina was at work and her children were at day-care, I presume.

The second floor consists of two apartments. The front apartment–or “South”–is inhabited by me, myself. I prefer to live alone and enjoy my own company over that of almost all others. However, my apartment is a two bedroom, and I’ve turned the other bedroom into an office, which I don’t use.

In the back–or “North”–of the second floor, two Cajun gentlemen reside. To my knowledge, they own a restaurant a few blocks over with a sign hanging out front that reads:
Indians In The Cupboard

Apparently my bedroom shares a wall with a room in which they enjoy to chant and gurgle late into the night. It used to keep me awake, but I’ve come to rather enjoy it as one might enjoy falling asleep to the sound of music or television. I’ve never come to know the two Cajun men’s names.

On the third floor South apartment is a young girl and her boyfriend. They are rather pleasant, but I do hear quite a few shouts from the boyfriend when he gets home from work. However, when I see them they always look happy and say nice things. I shall call them Kim and Walter.

The North apartment houses Mr….Scringle. An old man (I, myself, am considered to be old by people under the age of fifty; Mr. Scringle is considered old by a much larger audience), whom likes to collect garbage set out front from the Hammer On-ramp residents. I see him rummaging through people’s trash on Tuesday mornings before the waste truck arrives. I’ve never spoken to Mr. Scringle.

When the sheet-thing rolled down the trashy hill, it was Walter who decided to investigate. I heard him shout after the sheet-thing made its ear-shattering sound. He must have been at his window when he shouted because he sounded directly above me. What he shouted was: “What the Christ?”

I had been thinking something similar although I kept it to myself. I heard the muffled sounds of them–Walter and Kim– discussing something and then the far away sound of their door opening in the stairwell. I was still focused on the thing in the sheet as his footsteps made their way down two flights of stairs. The sheet-thing still hadn’t moved since falling from the hill.

The outside door opened and I watched as Walter walked half way into Hammer On-ramp, then stopped to observe the sheet-thing from a safe distance. Still no movement detected from where I was sitting, but maybe Walter had seen something because he took a couple of steps back. I knew Kim was watching from the window above me because I heard her say, “What are you? A pussy or something?” They really are very pleasant under normal circumstances.

Walter turned back and gave Kim a dirty look. I turned my attention back to the sheet and to my unbelieving eyes, I saw it grow in size. The sheet-thing just seemed to expand. Kim had seen it too; she uttered a short scream which made Walter turn back around in a sort of half-jumping action. He was just in time for it to screech its interference again.

I was happy to notice that Walter’s eyes also crunched up at the sound, so it was not only my ridiculous reaction. He turned back around and walked closer to it. Kim called for him to come back inside, but he paid no mind. He crept closer until he was about two feet away from the sheet-thing I had imagined as a large burrito. I then realized that cars were chugging up Hammer On-ramp much slower than usual. They were all looking at Walter, probably wondering just what he was doing out on the sidewalk in his underpants. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that Walter had decided to investigate the sheet-thing with nothing on but a pare of plaid boxer shorts and some beat up white sneakers.

I watched with much interest as he used his foot to nudge the sheet-thing. He did this with such hesitation that I just wanted to yell: “Hurry up pussy!”

When his foot finally hit the sheet-thing, to my (and Walter’s) surprise, it expanded again. It was the size of a small man as it broadcast its loud screech once more.

Walter had jumped back about five feet when it had done this, as Kim had asked him to come back inside. But he had started to move closer again, or at least stretch his head closer, like he had just seen something and was trying to figure out what it was. “What’s the matter, Walt?” Kim called from the window above me. Walt didn’t answer her. He continued his half-witted attempt at investigation and was now a mere two feet from the sheet.

“Come back inside,” Kim called. Walter turned his head and had a terrible grin on his face as he looked up to her. The grin seemed to say: “Who you callin’ pussy now?” He turned back to the sheet, and something happened. I wasn’t sure exactly what, but it looked as if something shot out from the sheet onto Walter’s face. His hands moved to his head as he started to scream. I noticed the sheet-thing expand again.

Kim was yelling in the window above me and saying something about calling the “PLEEEECE!” Walter wasn’t hearing her because he was screaming much too loud himself. The funny thing about our city, and especially on Hammer On-ramp, is that people are somehow immune to screams. We hear them all the time and do nothing. Just last night I heard a loud scream come from the apartment house next door. I barely registered it at first, but then it came twice more. I thought about calling 911 to report a disturbance, but the chanting Cajuns were much more interesting, so I just let them guide me to sleep instead. I think people have just learned to mind their own business in this city.

During the last growth spurt (as I am now calling them) of the sheet-thing, I noticed something jut out from one of the ends. The thing was now either six feet or larger, and the sheet could no longer hide all of it. Something black (when I say black I mean really black, not brown) jutted out. From where I was sitting, I could see a strange, dripping appendage attached to it. It looked like a severed foot stump with little nubs connected. I imagined sharp nails like claws being attached to the nubs, and hair jutting out in between its cracks.

I’d like to tell you that I was really worried about Walter and that I wanted him to get back inside for his own safety and well-being. That I hadn’t heard the roar of the suped-up Honda flying up the on-ramp. Alas, if I claimed either of the two, I’d be lying.

I called out to Walter to get back inside. He seemed to register that a new voice was speaking to him, but he was obviously in pain. He whirled around a few times, hands still clutched to his face, and started to move toward my voice and Kim’s screams. He stumbled out into the street as the white Honda hit him dead-on.

I saw it happen in slow motion as his body went airborne. His boxers opened perfectly to reveal his limp penis flap in the wind as his head smashed onto the cement, spilling brain and blood in a tidal wave due West. I thought it was an awful way to die; with one’s penis and brains exposed to the world (or at least to the residents of Hammer On-ramp).

Kim must have thought that it wasn’t such a great way to die either because I heard her start to cry. It was a muffled scream at first, like she was screaming into a pillow, but then it turned into hysterical sobbing. Meanwhile, I looked back to the sheet-thing and saw something which both excited and scared the hell out of me. It was moving! And it was close to my side of the on-ramp. The thoughts raced through my mind all at once, but I knew what I wanted to do. The damn stories just don’t come as easy as they used to.

I opened my door and ran up the stairs. I tried to open Kim’s door, but she had locked it. Maybe she had seen the sheet-thing moving too. I pounded as hard as I could until the door swung open.

Kim was staring at me with tears spilling down her face. I’m not sure she even knew that she was crying, to be honest. Her cell phone was plastered to her ear and she said (or more like screamed), “Yes! He’s in the road now!–Oh! There’s so much blood!” I acted quickly, without a pause, before I had a chance to consider what I was doing. I snatched the phone from Kim’s hand and flew across her parlor. The window was still open. I punched out the screen and tossed the phone to the on-ramp below. I watched it tumble through the air in slow motion. I thought, just like Walter’s penis. It exploded. Pieces of plastic ricocheted in all directions as it hit the ground.

I turned and saw Kim staring at me. “What?” she said, confused. I didn’t offer an answer to what I had just done. Instead, I made my way past her, out the door, into the stairwell. I shut her door behind and realized that something was not right in the hall. It seemed cooler. Damp. Like a London fog had settled down in 76 Hammer On-ramp’s Southern staircase.

I didn’t waste any time. I trotted down the stairs to the second floor and opened my door. I stepped in, turned to shut my door and paused in a kind of horrified spell. I was looking into the downward staircase to the outside door. There should have been day light coming in through the window, but it was dark. It was quiet. Kim’s cries had been turned to zero. The sounds of the cars were gone as if someone had just put up a road-block both on the on-ramp and the highway. The darkness stared at me, and I could feel it pierce my soul. It wanted me. It called to me. Come Howard. Come. If you won’t come, I will come to you. I could feel the coldness both in front and behind me. The Darkness had begun to engulf my apartment. Soon it would engulf me. Kim saved me. The upstairs door opened. With it, light rushed back into the stair-well. I briefly collected myself and fell back, slamming the door in front of me.

I heard the upstairs door slam shut, and footsteps clamored down. I waited, listening. This would be the test. I had been lucky to get away. Kim would not be so lucky.

I waited for the pounding on my door, but after a few seconds I realized that none were going to come. The footsteps reached the second floor and continued down while Kim called out, “You’re an asshole.” That was the last I heard of dear, pleasant, young Kim.

Before I continue, I feel like I should tell you a bit more about Walter and Kim. As I’ve said, they were nice people with the occasional fight. And that’s perfectly true, but I’ve also noticed other things in my time living beneath them that I did not wish to write earlier for the simple reason of thinking Kim may be coming back (and though I’ve changed her name, facts are facts). Well, she is not coming back, and so I will tell you: Walter had many girls visit while Kim was away. I don’t know where she went, probably to work, but while she was gone, there had been plenty of lying and cheating for poor, young Walter. I never dared say anything to Kim about it because, well, it was not my business.

Kim, on the other hand, expected Walter was cheating. I also think she caught him once or twice. I have no doubt that Kim was somewhat insane; more so than the rest of us. There were nights, when she was supposedly at work or wherever, on which I would see her sitting by a tree on the trashy hill above the wall, looking into her apartment with binoculars. I’ve told you these two facts about these two dead people because I am feeling the slightest bit responsible for their demise. Dear reader, you’ve wished to read a story and a story is what I am trying to provide. I’ve done what was needed in order to bring it to you. The ideas just don’t come as easily, you see.

Anyway–she passed by my door, called me an asshole and then no more. I sat, waiting to hear the sound of the outside door open and close, but it never came. There had just been her footsteps and then no footsteps.

I struggled to get up and made my way over to my place at the window. There wasn’t any change; Walter lay on the side of the street with the two most prominent organs of the human male exposed. As I’d suspected, Kim was nowhere to be seen. I heard the cop cars approach before I saw them. I had hoped to avoid them a bit longer when I threw Kim’s phone out of the window for the simple reason of my story, but alas, they were here. All I could do was sit and watch. They would get a great surprise when they opened the front door of 76 Hammer On-ramp. That’s if they decided to open it.

When they arrived, the EMTs worked with precision to scrape the brains off of the street and pressure wash the cement. Walter was carried off to an ambulance where he was covered with
a sheet and made decent at last.

I watched two investigators walk up to the apartment house next door. They stayed there for a while, and during that time I began to hear a recurring scraping noise. Like a giant slug, covered in splintered glass, squirming its way across the Pina apartment below me. Mrs. Pina was surely not home yet, so the sound was a tad unnerving. I tried to make myself believe that the sound was coming from the Cajun apartment that shared my walls, as I knew them to be home, but there was no mistaking it. The sound started directly below me, slowly working its way toward the Northern side of the Pina place. Suddenly, I heard a sickening BANG! A second later, the sound of plaster crumbling to a wooden floor fifteen feet below.

Back outside my window the investigators were walking over to my place. I knew Walter had left the outside door open when he went to his death because the slug had gotten into the hallway. Oh yes, I was quite sure that the slug was inside by that point. Somehow it had gotten into the Pina place, even though there is no door to that apartment inside the Southern stairwell.

Over in the Cajun’s place I heard a man scream. If you are a man, you never wish to hear that sound in your life. It leaves you hopeless, helpless. As Americans over the last century, we have been conditioned to hear a woman’s scream when something horrible is happening. It’s in our movies, books, plays and television. When I heard that man scream, goosebumps pricked my flesh. Then I heard something that sounded like a rooster trying to crow with twenty pounds of Jell-O poured down its throat. The slug had reached them. The knock came just a minute later. Hesitantly, I walked to my apartment door and called out, “Yes?” A gruff voice called back, “NHPD. We’d like to speak to you”. I opened the door.

A man, somewhere in his forties, was staring at me with a clipboard and pen in his hands. “You live here?” he asked me. A ridiculous question, seeing as I had opened the door to the apartment. But I played along and nodded.

“Well, there was a hit-and-run outside of your apartment earlier today. Do you know anything about that?”

“No, nothing officer. I am a writer and I’ve been in the…zone all morning. If you get what I’m laying down,” I said heartily.

He looked displeased with my answer but nodded and wrote something down. “So nothing at all? No screeching of brakes or any other sounds out of the ordinary?”

Oh you mean like a giant slug wrapped in a bed sheet broadcasting interference and scraping along the apartment below
me? I thought.

“Officer, I live on an on-ramp. I hear vehicle sounds constantly. I’ve learned to just block them out.”

“A young man was hit on the street about thirty minutes ago. He was seen coming out of this apartment house. Do you know who this man is?” he asked.

I wanted to lie and tell them that I knew of no man on this side of the house. But I thought that it would look suspicious once they found out the truth. “There’s a young couple that lives upstairs from me,” I said, doing my best to look concerned.

“Did you hear either of them come down the stairs a little while ago?” the investigator asked.

I shook my head.

He turned to his partner and said, “Alright Charlie. Let’s go check out the upstairs.”

I said, “I hope it wasn’t the young man upstairs who was hit. Him and his girlfriend were so pleasant.”

They both nodded at me and headed up the stairs to Walter and Kim’s place. As I heard them enter, I became interested in how the slug had managed to get into the Pina place from the Southern stairwell. I tiptoed down the stairs to the outside door. There seemed to be no answer to the question until a part of the wall to my right shimmered and then disappeared. A large hole, the size of a blow-up pool float, was blasted through horse-hair plaster. Through it I could see directly into the Pina’s kitchen. I have absolutely no idea how it had been camouflaged to look normal or how the thing had made the hole anyway.

I considered the dangers of climbing through, but my curiosity got the best of me and into the kitchen I went. The first thing I noticed was how nice the apartment was. The floors were hard wood (not cheap carpet), the walls were sheet rock (not plaster), the counter tops were level (so that a cup would not tip over with too much liquid in it), it was much nicer than my humble two-bedroom.

The second thing I noticed was a sign hanging above the entry way to the parlor. A blackish liquid dripped from one corner. It hung askew so that the bottom right corner jutted down into the empty doorway. It read:
Welcome

The third thing I noticed was something lying on the floor underneath the sign. It was the sheet. Crumpled up into a ball and discarded, the blackish liquid smacking it every three seconds like a leaky bathtub faucet. Above me, I faintly heard another sound like crumbling walls. It could have come from my apartment. I did not touch the sheet, but walked past it carefully into the parlor.

The parlor in the Pina place was beautiful too. The furniture left me with little to be desired, but the apartment itself was fantastic. At the Northern side of the room, debris from the ceiling lay in a heap on the beautiful hard wood floor. I walked over to it and looked up. Another large hole; this one looking up into the Cajun’s place. I thought about them chanting me to sleep. I thought about the scream I had heard from behind my walls. I shivered; there would be no more chanting.

While I was staring into the Cajun’s eccentric parlor beyond the hole, a troubling thought came over me. Whatever this thing was, it could paralyze with fear and cause illusions like the one which had covered up the hole in the stairwell. Then I heard the cry of a man from somewhere far up above me. I had no doubt that it had been old Mr. Scringle. The slug has reached him then, I thought.

I needed to get out of the apartment house. Out onto Hammer On-ramp. I started back down the parlor toward the kitchen. It seemed an eternity away from me, so I began to run. In the process, I hit my foot against the leg of the Pina’s ugly glass coffee table that sat in front of their red leather sofa. The glass clanged and banged, and a small vase holding fake flowers toppled over and smashed on the ground. The sound was deafening in the quiet apartment house. That’s when I felt it. I felt it much sooner than I saw it or heard it. To be honest, it didn’t make any sound at all. The cold clamminess overcame me. The same feeling I’d had in the stairwell before. The darkness seemed to settle in the large parlor like someone was slowly sliding a light dimmer down. Cold sweat dripped down the nape of my neck. I didn’t turn. I ran for the doorway before the darkness paralyzed me. I reached the kitchen as I heard it plop to the parlor floor. By instinct, my head turned in which felt like slow motion. What I saw was black. Huge. Hair protruded from its jelly-like torso. An appendage splattered down on the hard wood before it and thin, long claws scraped the wood into curly-cues as it pulled itself forward.

The darkness consumed it and threatened to paralyze me once more. I turned around and bolted for the hole in the kitchen. In my nightmares I am running from something terrible, but can only succeed in moving at a snail’s pace while the thing behind me closes in. That’s how it felt then, in the Pina’s place. No matter how fast I ran it felt like it wasn’t fast enough.

Before I knew if it had reached me or not, I found myself sitting on the carpet behind my locked door. I dashed to my sofa and picked up my laptop. Then I started to write. I could have had a heart-attack right at that moment.

As I write this now, the dark fog has started to engulf my apartment. The sweat on the back of my neck feels like something sickly and dying is resting on my shoulders, breathing upon me. My eyes keep drifting to my door. It waits beyond it. It lingers. Letting the darkness overcome me. I feel that it is playing with me. I have nowhere to run. The glow of my laptop is keeping me sane as I watch my apartment disappear. The darkness replaces my door and there it is. Black and horrible. White lumps the size of basketballs protrude from its dripping frame. Tumors? It’s scraping closer to me. They aren’t tumors; they are faces. The faces of Mr. Scringle and the Cajuns. The two investigators. It’s scraping closer. The darkness has blotted everything else out. Kim’s face stuck in its dripping body and my hands in the glow of the laptop screen are the only things I see now. Her face bulges from the black jelly, her eyes are wide, unseeing. SHE IS NOT DEAD! HER MOUTH IS MOVING, SAYING SOMETHING! SHE IS SAYING IT HURTS!