The Man From Taured

by Bryan W. Alaspa

  "Just come over here, Noble," the boy in the lead said. "Just come here and become one with us."

  "Jesus, that has never sounded creepier," Noble said, forcing his face away and putting on an extra burst of speed.

  Eveline was already at the car. Whatever pull the children were exerting over Noble, they must not have been doing the same to her. Perhaps whatever was behind them could only focus its power on one person at a time. Noble looked behind him and saw the dozen-plus children gathering in the driveway, none of them moving particularly fast.

  "We'll see you soon, Noble," they all called in unison. "We'll see you and touch you and make you one with us. Soon."

  Noble felt goosebumps run up and down his body, but he forced himself to face front and dug keys from his pocket. He pressed the button and the car beeped and the lights flashed, the doors unlocking. Eveline was inside in a second. Noble had this image in his mind that the back seat would be filled with black-eyed children and that he would see their tiny hands reach around the passenger seat and grab Eveline. There would be an instant of her screaming, her eyes filled with terror, and then she would just vanish.

  That did not happen.

  Noble was in the driver's seat and started the car. He cast one more look back at Eveline's home. All of the children were now in the driveway. Their black eyes bore through the windshield and into Noble's skull. He shifted into drive, did a three-point-turn, and floored it off of the street. He screeched around the corner and was on a main street moments later. Only then did he start breathing again and relax his grip on the steering wheel. Eveline was crying in the seat beside him.

  "How did they know your name?" Eveline asked. "What did they mean? How did they know your name, Noble?"

  "I don't know," Noble said. "I don't know, but I am going to goddamn well find out."

  They sped off into the night.

  ***

  Fifteen minutes later Eveline and Noble stood outside a hotel room door. It was the kind of extended stay hotel that had studio apartments. Eveline was shaking. She had left her house without clothing, without packing anything. She had been weeping steadily since they left and her terror was palpable.

  "I don't know how long you'll have to be here," Noble said. "They seem to only come out at night. Maybe tomorrow you can get back to your house and get some clothes, but I wouldn't recommend going back home until I can get some answers. Maybe if I get some, I can find a solution to this and get it to stop."

  "What if you can't?" Eveline asked.

  Noble sighed and gave her a hug. "I'm trying to think positive here, Eveline. I don't have any answers yet."

  Eveline hugged him back and wept a bit more. Then she let go and started to head toward the hotel. She turned and looked back at Noble.

  "Be careful," she said. "Something really bad is happening here and something really evil is behind those kids."

  Noble waved. "I will. Take care."

  He watched her head into the hotel. When she was gone, Noble immediately felt alone and like he was being watched. He looked around, studying the shadows, looking for men with red eyes and wide-brimmed hats. No shadow men. No children. For some reason that did nothing to alleviate his fear.

  He got into the car and headed back onto the road. He wondered what he was going to tell Olivia. Was she a target? Was whoever or whatever was behind all of this insanity the type of person who would go after his family to get to him? Noble felt a headache forming behind his eyes. The sheer volume of questions rolling around in his skull felt like they were going to crush his brain.

  Noble drove home without incident. He looked at the clock and was surprised to see that it was only nine. He had expected the clock to tell him it was the middle of the night. Olivia would still be awake.

  He got into his house fast, keeping his head down, not looking into the shadows. He didn't want to see red eyes. He didn't want to see a neighbor. He feared that he would look into something that appeared to be his neighbor, except for the cold, black, dead eyes.

  Noble locked the door behind him and then leaned his back against it closing his eyes. There were the familiar sounds of twelve paws running down the stairs to jump around his feet. There were the familiar smells of the home. There was the welcome from his wife, sitting at her computer desk upstairs. He was home and home felt safe.

  Except that he knew differently. Nowhere was safe.

  "Hi, honey!" Olivia called. Noble heard her chair creak as she stood up. "What's wrong?"

  He raised his head and watched her descend the stairs. He squatted down and began playing with the dogs, scratching behind the ears, petting the top of their heads.

  "Long day," Noble said.

  "You look like hell," Olivia said, putting her arms around his neck and giving him a deep kiss. "Are you getting sick?"

  Noble put his arms around her and pulled her close. Inside his head he was debating what he should tell her. Telling her he was seeing shadow men and black-eyed children would cause her to think he was losing his mind. Of course, he wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't. He had to talk to Dash and Dr. Shaw. They had to have answers. They had to. It was the one straw he could cling to.

  "I'm just tired," Noble said. "I told you that I need to take a vacation. This case is wearing me out and taking me in strange directions, babe."

  Olivia kissed him again. Then she pulled away and headed into the kitchen. Noble knelt down and petted his dogs again, trying to steady his nerves with the familiar surroundings of home.

  "Did you eat?" Olivia asked. "I made some pork chops and put yours in the fridge. Want me to heat them up?"

  "Yeah, sure," Noble said.

  Later, as he sat upstairs and they watched their TV shows, his dirty plate sitting on the coffee table, he let his mind wander. What was he going to do with Olivia? Did he mention that there might be danger? There had never been any danger before this. What would she do? How would she react? More to the point, how could he explain what the danger was without telling her that he was seeing shadow people and children with black eyes?

  "So, you remember that I have to go to D.C. tomorrow, right?" Noble asked.

  Olivia was watching something on TV and said distractedly, "Mmhmm."

  "OK, cool," Noble said, clearing his throat and trying to get himself psyched to talk about what he had to say. "Look, if anything weird happens here at the house, just keep the door locked and don't open the door for anyone."

  Olivia kept watching the television for a minute. Then a strange look passed her face. Her brow furrowed and her head swiveled slowly until she was looking at him with a smirk on her face.

  "What?" She asked.

  Noble smiled back and shrugged, trying to play this off like he knew it was crazy. "I was just saying. If anyone shows up at the door while I'm away, make sure you keep the door locked."

  "What the fuck does that mean?" Olivia asked. "Do you think I normally open the door wide whenever someone knocks and you're not here?"

  "Well, now," Noble stammered. "I'm just saying that, well, just saying to be careful."

  Now the look turned from comical to one of concern. "OK, you have officially freaked me out now," Olivia said.

  "No, no, there's no reason to worry," he realized he had backed himself into a corner with this one. "Look, there's just some weird things going on with this case. Stuff I can't talk about."

  "Are we in danger, Noble?" Olivia asked. "What the hell are you into with this thing? I mean, what is going on? You've never said anything like that to me before."

  "Look, I'm just saying that weird things have been happening with this case," Noble said. “I’m sorry that I can’t explain more.”

  "What kind of weird things?" Olivia asked. "Don't give me that bullshit about this being a secret. If you think that there's a danger to me, then you need to tell me."

  Noble stood up and began pacing. "I can't," he said, pleading with his eyes. "I have to talk to Dash tomorrow and get some answers. If I get some a
nswer, I can probably explain things."

  Olivia crossed her arms across her chest and pulled away from him. Cookie raised her head, licked her lips, and looked from Olivia to Noble and then back again before deciding that whatever the problem was, it did not concern her, and putting her head back down between her paws. Noble wrung his hands in frustration. This was the scenario he was hoping to avoid.

  "This is not acceptable, Noble," Olivia said. "I don't give a fuck what your job says, or what the protocols are, you cannot sit here and scare me and tell me that there might be weird people coming to do the door and not give me specifics. You do shit like that and it makes me want to open the door the next time someone knocks."

  "Don't, please," Noble said. "Just do this for me. I promise you that when I get some answers, I will give them to you."

  Olivia's face was a mask of anger. Her lips were a tight line across the bottom fo her face and her eyes blazed. She was barely holding it together. Noble had seen this look before and she was definitely mad and very close to an all-out screaming fit. Noble figured that he might be sleeping on the couch here tonight.

  "Don't give me that look, Olivia," Noble said. "I am not the bad guy here. You always want to make me the bad guy. I'm just asking you to please not answer the door while I'm gone. If it's a delivery, they'll leave it on the porch or they'll leave one of those things attached to the door and you can go pick it up. Is that too much to ask?"

  "Fine," Olivia said. "This is just great. What’s one of the keys to a happy marriage? Communication. Right? Is this communicating? This is you scaring me, hinting that something in your job might have put me in danger, and that I need to avoid answering the door. What the fuck is that? That tells me nothing. That leaves me here jumping at shadows."

  Noble opened his mouth to speak, but there were no more words. Olivia got up and walked down the hall. Cookie looked at Noble for a moment before deciding that the momma was the more important of the two of them and headed off after Olivia. The other two dogs soon joined her. Noble was alone.

  He looked at the television. What was on was immaterial. He was barely paying attention. Inside he was filled with fear. His mind was turning over and over and over again. Too many questions, lots of weirdness, not enough answers. It was the most frustrated he had felt in a long while.

  After thirty minutes Noble got up and walked down the hall. Olivia was asleep in the bedroom. Henry and Cookie were on the bed, taking up his side. Noble crept in and changed into his pajamas. One look at the dogs spread out on his side of the bed and he knew that he was not going to be sleeping there. Noble grabbed his pillow and trudged back to the sofa. He lay down and pulled the blanket around himself.

  With the lights off, every shadow jumped out at him. As the wind blew outside, every sound was like that of small children sliding their hands along the side of the house. Every time the house creaked he was sure that both shadow men and black-eyed children would be coming through the front door.

  "This is great," Noble whispered to the darkness. "This is just great."

  Minutes later, somehow, he managed to get to sleep.

  ***

  Noble was six years old. He was in the grocery store with his mother. He liked going to the store with his mom at that age. He usually got to ride beneath the cart and the world looked so cool from down low. You saw legs and feet and people doing things from a spot that was nearly invisible.

  Today was different.

  Today his mom had asked him to move out from under the grocery cart and walk beside her. She had put several large cases of soda on the bottom of the cart and Noble had whined, but did as he was asked and clung to the side of the cart as they walked. Along both sides of the aisle there were cans of vegetables. Noble hated vegetables like most six-year-olds and he just wanted to go.

  His mother towered over him, studying her shopping list, looking through the pouch filled with coupons that she carried with her at all times, and then eyeing the shelves. Noble was bored.

  He yawned.

  Something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. Noble turned away from the cart and from his mother and walked over to the shelves. There were cartoon characters on the side of this can of vegetables. Probably someone trying to do something to attract kids to eating nasty veggies.

  Noble smiled. He recognized the characters. They were from a cartoon he watched. There was a funny dog that talked and the people who traveled with him doing funny things. He forgot the name.

  Noble walked over to the shelf of cans, after looking back to see that his mother was still standing right there. He turned back toward the can with the cartoon characters. There were other people in the aisle, all of them grown ups, all of them looking at the shelves and their own shopping lists.

  As Noble got near the other shelves there was a strange feeling in his stomach. It was the same feeling he got in his tummy when his daddy threw up him up in the air and caught him. It was a weird, flippy-floppy feeling. It passed fast and Noble was soon in front of the can, with the attention span of a six-year-old, he forgot the weird feeling almost as soon as it passed.

  Except that now the can did not have the funny dog and the funny people. Instead it was some kind of cat creature standing on two legs. There was a smaller cat standing to the right of him.

  Noble frowned.

  This was weird.

  Noble turned around to tell his mom about how weird it was and that was when he noticed that his mother was no longer there. The spot where she had just been a second ago was empty.

  Noble felt a moment of pure panic.

  "M-mom?" He called out.

  Noble looked from face to face at the people around him. None of them looked like the people who had just been there before. Over there, to the left, was a man with wild dark hair and a beard. Noble was sure that he had not been there before. He started to breathe heavily and it felt like there was a weight on his chest. He backed away slowly, his eyes still darting around. The people in the aisle were looking at him and all of them were looking at him strangely, as if they had never seen anyone like him before. He felt like an insect on a slide.

  "MOM!"

  "What?"

  His mom’s voice was behind him. He turned and ran back to where his mother had been standing. Halfway across the aisle he felt that strange sensation in his stomach again. He had the briefest of moments when it felt like he had lost his vision, as if everything had gone white. Then his vision returned. His mother was still gone, but the people around him were the people he had seen before. He cast a glance back across the aisle and saw the familiar cartoon figures on the can of vegetables.

  "Noble, where are you?"

  It was his mom's voice. Of that he was sure, but she was not in the aisle. That sense of panic hit him again.

  "I'm over here!" Noble called. The eyes of the people around him were looking at him, but they were worried, concerned. No sense of menace.

  "I'm in the next aisle," his mom called.

  Relief washed over him. He bolted through the aisle, his little sneakers slapping against the tile. He reached the end of the aisle and skidded, nearly falling over, and then he righted himself and made the turn around the corner. There she was, halfway down the aisle, holding a box in her hand. She turned as Noble made the turn around the corner.

  "Mom, I turned around and you were gone!" he said and now the tears were coming, tears of relief, but tears none the less.

  His mother smiled at him and she kept smiling, ruffling his hair with her fingers when he tried to tell her about the strange can of vegetables and how the cartoon figures had changed. His six-year-old self did not have the words to convey the confusion, the sensation of falling, the sense of menace he got from the strange people who were staring at him. It was a feeling like he was in another world, some place else, and only her voice was able to pull him back.

  "You have such an imagination, Noble," his mother said. "Don't wander off and you won't get lost. Now stick by
the cart."

  So they kept shopping, his mother focused on her shopping list and her coupons. Noble was nervous the rest of the time, his fingers gripping the shopping cart like it was a lifeboat. His eyes swiveled from one person, one fact, to the next. He waited for that feeling in his tummy again. He was sure that the faces of the people were going to change again and that he would turn around and it would be the man with the wild dark hair and beard pushing the cart instead of his mother.

  That did not happen.

  And over the years, Noble forgot all about it.

  ***

  Noble awoke in his loft and on the sofa. He was sure that he was still in that grocery store. He was six-years-old again and he was lost and his mother was lost. He nearly let out a scream, shouting for his mother. He caught himself, but then there was a pressure on his legs and then his stomach, something walking on him, pushing him back. He nearly called out again, screaming this time for Olivia. He saw eyes glowing in the darkness, reflecting the hall light that he had left on so he could find his way to the restroom down the hall.

  Then the tongue lapped against his face and he realized it was Henry. Noble spat as the wet tongue licked his mouth and then pushed the eager puppy away.

  "Jesus, Henry," he said.

  The puppy cocked his head to the side and panted, looking like he was smiling or laughing at Noble. Then the pup leaned forward and licked Noble's nose again and let loose with a high-pitched bark.

  "Yeah, yeah," Noble said, pushing the puppy off of his chest and sitting up. He ran a hand through his hair.

  Noble looked at the clock on the DVR and saw that it was nearly six in the morning. That meant it was nearly time for him to get up anyway. He still had to pack for the overnight stay in D.C., too. He was thirsty and his hair was wet with sweat. The blanket he had pulled over himself was twisted around his legs so he nearly fell right over onto the coffee table when he stood up. Henry barked at that as if amused.