She licked her thumb and rubbed something thick and gummy off my cheek before popping it back in her mouth. Sucking on it, she closed her eyes with a contented sigh. I think that’s enough, Clint.”
“You said my name was Tony.”
“Did I? Well I told you there was a world outside of here too, didn’t I?”
I felt fear welling up in me again. “You did.”
She giggled, her eyes hard as little chips of glass. “I can’t believe you believed me.”
The world fell away just then, not into darkness but into a swirl of too-bright lights and colors as my eyes and brain tried to adjust to what I was seeing. Where was I? A bedroom? There was a painfully thin woman hovering above me, her face drawn down in a look of worry and fear. I felt like I knew her, but I couldn’t remember for sure.
“Clinton? Are you back with us?”
I heard a man’s voice off to the side, gruff but not unkind, and threaded through with the same anxiety I’d sensed in hers. “Of course he is. We can’t see through him any more, can we? Give him room to breathe and come to.”
The woman shot him a look. “He could have died. Or worse. And I don’t know what effects the Elixir might have on someone that’s not infested. We need to get him checked by a doctor.”
Grunting disapproval, the man stepped closer and peered down at me. “Kid, do you know where you are? Who you are?”
I blinked. I did, didn’t I? I hadn’t at first, but seeing them both together, I thought I might know now. “You’re Mr. Holliman. And she’s Mrs. Graves.” I looked between them uncertainly. “That is right, isn’t it?”
He was grinning and nodding as Mrs. Graves leaned forward to touch my head. Something about it made me recoil in fear, and seeing that, she withdrew her hand back to her lap. “Yes, that’s right.” She paused a moment and then continued. “And do you know who you are?”
I felt a moment of panic that the answer wasn’t on my tongue immediately. This was stupid. Of course I had to know who I was. Fumbling in the shrouded dark of my mind, I finally found what I was looking for. “I’m…I’m Clint Thurman. Aren’t I?”
Holliman chuckled. “See? He’s going to be fine. No doctors needed.”
“I think I’m an investigative reporter?”
His face fell. “Fuck. Well, he’s bound to be a bit scrambled after…just give him some air.”
Graves shot him another dark look before turning back to me. “You aren’t a reporter, no. You work for us. You help us help people and stop bad things from…well, you help us stop bad things.”
I frowned at her. That sounded right, but it was more of a feeling than a memory. “What’s wrong with me that I can’t remember?”
Holliman crouched down again. “You got your bell rung, kid. Attacked by one of these ‘bad things’. But we got you sorted out in time.”
My heart was pounding now. “Attacked? Is the thing that attacked me still here?”
Mrs. Graves’ expression darkened. “No, it escaped. After it attacked you, we weren’t sure where it went at first. We were focused on trying to get you back. And in those few seconds it found some break or flaw in the seal and crawled out through the crack. So no need to worry. It’s gone.”
I heard myself responding with words I didn’t entirely understand. “I sealed the room though. I double-checked everything.”
She reached out hesitantly and patted my arm. “It’s all right. It was very powerful. We’re still not sure how it was able to break through.”
Holliman had started pacing a few feet away, but he paused and looked at me again with a frown. “Yeah, mistakes are going to happen, kid. We all fuck up from time to time. Nothing to worry about. Just glad you’re okay. Seems like you’re remembering more too.”
I nodded as I began to sit up weakly. “I think I am, yeah. My head is splitting and I kind of feel like everything I know is…loose? Like it’s a bunch of melting icebergs.” I looked past him to the bed. “Is the client…did it get him?”
Holliman glanced toward the bed and back to me. “No, he’s fine. Sleeping like a baby.”
I jumped a little as I was struck by the memory of seeing the man’s head split open as the nightmare crawled free. “But…I saw him die. His head burst open. I remember that now.”
Graves nodded gently. “We all do. But it’s like…well, you may not remember this yet, but I’ve told you before about how these things…well, they warp reality when they come into this world. I call it afterbirth, but you might think of it as a black hole. Everything bends around their point of entry, and not everything you see or hear is real. Or if it is real, it’s only real for a short time before normal reality snaps back into place.”
I was interested in what she was saying, but I was also distracted by how terrified I felt. Not just scared, but chilled to the bone like I’d been dipped in a frozen lake. “I…can we leave now? I want to leave now.”
Holliman squatted down and slapped my leg. “Sure, sure. Let’s get you out to the car and then I’ll wake this poor bastard up and get everything squared.”
“I’m awake.”
Holliman’s eyes widened slightly as he turned and laughed. “So you are.” He grabbed me under the armpit while Mrs. Graves gripped my other arm. Together they lifted enough for me to stand shakily on my own, and when I was upright, I looked over at the man strapped down to the bed. He seemed fine at first, but the longer he looked at me, he started crying. My employers were looking confused and concerned, but I already knew what was wrong. Feet unsure, I stepped to the end of the bed.
“Your name is Wallace, isn’t it?”
He nodded, eyes raw and nose wet. “Yeah. It is.”
“But you remember going by Peter, don’t you?”
He nodded again, lips trembling. “I do, yeah.”
“And you remember being in the City? With me? For a long time?”
The man let out a small wail as he laid back on his pillow and closed his eyes tight. “Oh God, I do! I remember it all…too much.”
Shuddering, I turned and started walking for the door before I remembered it was still taped up. I looked at Holliman. “Please unseal this for me or I’ll rip the fucking door off the wall.” His face flushed a little but he went over and stripped away the tape quickly before handing me the car keys and opening the door.
“We’ll be out in a few minutes, kid. Just go rest, okay?”
I nodded absently as I started out of the room. Graves followed me out, and when I stopped and looked at her, she drew closer, speaking in a lower voice. “Normally the hosts don’t remember much of anything. Do you know what he’s talking about? Why he’s so upset?”
Letting out a long breath, I took her hand and pressed the car keys back into them. “Yeah, I have an idea. He remembers being trapped in the same place I was. He remembers killing himself. Just like I remember watching it.”
Graves stared at me speechless, but I didn’t give her much time to respond. I turned and walked out of the apartment, the building, and on out into the night. I felt exhausted and every step was hard, but I wasn’t going to get back in that fucking car with them. I didn’t want to be around any of it any more. And walking back home in the dark, hitching rides with strangers until I could get to a bus stop, was preferable at the moment.
I was awake for the next thirty-six hours, and when I finally made it back home, I slept for another day and a half. I’m glad I didn’t wake often during that time, because the few times I did, I was always terrified. I’d jump out of bed, check my apartment, look outside, turn on the t.v., verifying as best I could that I was in the real world and not the City. And then trembling and weeping, I would return to bed and tumble back asleep.
I didn’t dream in that sleep, but it wasn’t entirely untroubled either. I could sense that something was different, like the air pressure had suddenly shifted, but inside me instead of out in the world. And when I finally did wake up for good, the feeling was still there. I tried to tell myself I was imagining things, but I didn’t believe it. My dad used to say that there are things that you think and things that you know, and the key to being wise is being able to tell the difference.
And I knew something was wrong with me.
Over the next month, I almost called them a dozen times. Usually when the feeling of being watched or weighed down by something was at its worst, but a couple of days just because I missed them and the work, as stupid as that might sound. I had enough money saved up that I didn’t have to find another job right away, and as angry and scared and sad as I’d been when I’d left them, I don’t think I’d quite given up on ever going back either. Still, my hands would start trembling when I picked up my phone to call. And when I answered Graves’ call, I could barely breathe.
“Hello?”
“Hello, Clinton. How’re you doing?”
“Um, okay, I guess. How’re you and Mr. Holliman?”
“Well enough. Missing you quite a bit. The work you do, of course, but you as a person too. We may be bad at showing it, but we’ve grown quite fond of you.”
I swallowed and looked up at the ceiling. I could feel her trying to put hooks into me again, but I wasn’t sure if I minded or not. “Um, well, that’s nice. I miss you guys too. I just…I don’t know if I can do it any more.”
There was a pause and then. “I understand. And I don’t blame you for having worries about everything that’s happened. But before we talk about any of that, how’ve you been doing really? Any issues? Sleeping okay?”
My heart started to beat faster. She knew something. “Sleeping okay, yeah. But something seems off. I feel like something’s over my shoulder all the time.”
“Well, there may be.”
The phone creaked slightly as I gripped it harder. “There may be? What are you talking about? Do I have something after me?”
“Clinton, I really don’t know. I doubt it’s the thing that attacked you. I’ve been doing this for quite awhile, and the handful of times something has escaped, we’ve never had it come back and try to hunt us.”
There was the word. Hunt. I felt a chill go up my spine. “Have you ever had one of them attack you?”
Another pause. “Attack? Yes. I remember twice that I’ve seen Gordon get attacked and once myself when I was much younger.”
Gordon. I’d never heard her call him by his first name before. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it didn’t matter at the moment. I was scared and angry and desperate for answers. “Did either of you get attacked like I did? Pulled somewhere else?”
She was silent for several moments this time, and when she answered, her voice had a brittle sound to it. “No. Not like that. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
Sucking in a breath, I nodded to myself. Fuck fuck fuck. “Okay. What happened to me then? What did it do to me?”
“It…It jumped on you. It was so fast. And for a moment I could see it there, wrapped around your neck, breathing into your face…I wasn’t sure if it was stealing your breath or giving you some of its own. And then it just faded away. But not just it. It…you…you started to flicker.”
“Flicker?”
“I’m sure it sounds strange, but I don’t know how else to describe it. You never disappeared, but you weren’t fully there either, and as we watched, I could see you slipping out of our world like a dying heartbeat. There and then not, there and then not. I…I was afraid we would lose you for good. So I pulled out the spare vial of Elixir and gave you a partial dose. I didn’t know if it would work, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. And it worked.”
I’d sat down on my sofa halfway through her words, and now I found the phone growing heavy in my hand. “It was trying to take me all the way there, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Clint. But I think so, yes.”
“To keep me?”
“Probably, yes.”
“And you injected me with your…what is the Elixir, by the way? How do you make it?”
“We don’t.”
I snorted softly. “All right then. Where does it come from?”
“You know I can’t tell you that yet. But if you continue working with us, in time…”
“Oh, in time. That’s right. Always holding out a bone to keep the dumb dog in line, is that it? Well I’m sick and fucking tired of just going along…”
“Be quiet.”
“What? Listen, I’m just about…”
“No, you need to shut up and listen. Before this all gets much, much worse.”
It wasn’t the harshness of her tone that made me fall silent. It was what was underneath that hard, cold surface. Genuine concern, perhaps, and beyond that, something that sounded close to terror. When I didn’t keep going, Mrs. Graves began to speak again.
“This isn’t about what’s fair or what you want. It’s about what’s real. What’s happening and will happen. There…There’s no rulebook for this stuff. I learned from Gordon and now we’re trying to teach you. But we didn’t trick you into this. Or pick you for this life. You were marked before we ever met you, same as I am. Same as Gordon.”
I let out a long breath. “You had a nightmare too? Like I had? Like Wallace?”
“Oh yes. My family thought I was possessed by the devil. Had locked me in the barn when Gordon came and helped me. The same way we helped you when you were a little boy. The same way you’re helping people now.”
“Wallace didn’t look like he’d been helped when I left.”
“But he’s alive, isn’t he? And he’s doing much better now that he’s had time to heal. And that’s what we’ve been giving you too. Time to get over everything that happened. Build back up for the work ahead.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “Mrs. Graves, I think I believe you, but I still don’t know if I can do this anymore. I’m too afraid.”
“Clint, do you ever think about the tape?”
“The tape?”
“Right. The tape that you use to seal off the room. Seal off the room against these terrible things that are nesting in these people. Why do you think that something as simple as tape works against them escaping most of the time?”
“I mean, it’s something you guys do to it, right? Some kind of treatment or spell or something, I don’t know. You won’t ever tell me half of what you do.”
“I suppose that’s fair. But no, it’s just tape. We buy it in bulk online, and it’s a good quality duct tape, but it’s nothing special. Not sprinkled with holy water or etched with magical runes. Just tape. Tape that shouldn’t give these things the slightest problem at all.”
I frowned to myself alone in my living room. “Okay. So…why does it work?”
“Because we have something protecting us. Working through us. It imbues some of our actions with a special weight so we can capture these nightmares.”
“What like a guardian angel or something?”
She gave a soft laugh. “You could look at it like that, sure. But it has limitations. We’re not invulnerable. The night that Julia died, we would have probably died too if we hadn’t gotten out of the room in time. But it does gives us some edge. Some cushion. Something that you won’t have if you don’t continue the work.”
I felt my mouth go dry. “So you’re saying that if I don’t continue working with you guys, I’m going to be alone.”
“No, Clint. I’m saying that if you don’t stay with us, you won’t be alone for long. And that’s the problem.”
Two days later I was climbing back into the car. Going with them to another job. Not a house or an apartment this time. But a town named Braxton.
When I asked Holliman why we were going there, there was none of his usual jokes or sarcasm. I’d seen him just a few weeks earlier, but he seemed to have aged years since that night with Wallace. I was wondering if he heard my question when he suddenly spoke in a low, quiet voice.
“Because the town is wrong somehow. At first, everyone was laughing. Then they started killing each other. Then they fell asleep.”
“I…um, okay. But what are we supposed to do about it?”
He raised his bloodshot eyes to mine in the rearview mirror, and I felt dread pooling in my chest like poison.
BeardedCuttlefish t1_j700l8x wrote
Braxton road trip should be a great laugh