JUST A SECOND
Charlie Malone had died, but just for a second.
It had happened when she’d been playing with her brother at the beach. They’d been running up to the edge of the water as each wave drew out, then fleeing for the high ground as the next one crashed ashore. The water was too rough for swimming at Black Sand Beach, so getting your feet a little wet was the next best thing.
Charlie’s brother tells it like this. He was winning, keeping his feet dry every time, even though he was much braver and getting closer to the water before turning to run away. He was in the air, jumping toward the dry sand when he heard his sister cry out. She’d stepped in some softer, sludgier sand, and she toppled forward, into the water. A wave enveloped her and pulled her into the deeper water. Charlie’s brother swears he saw her flip over six times before the next crash of the tide threw her limp body onto the beach.
Her brother ran over to help her. She wasn’t breathing but her eyes were open. She was just staring up at the sky. That’s when she died, but just for a second.
The doctors who saw her later said they’d never seen anything like it. Her brother said he actually saw her life leaving her body, but then she opened her mouth and drew it all back in in one breath.
Charlie had only lost a second, but she never managed to make up the time. She was always just a second too late, just a second off.
At 7 a.m. on the morning after the accident Charlie’s alarm clock began to chime. It jolted her from her sleep and left her feeling shaken, as if she’d been pulled from deep sleep too suddenly. It left her a little queasy for most of the morning. The morning before, and every morning for as far back as Charlie could remember, she’d woken up just before the alarm was set to go off.
A few days later Charlie knocked a cup of hot chocolate with her elbow and by the time she reached out to grab it, the cup had already hit the floor.
Little things like this didn’t matter so much. Not being the first one to get the right answer, coming in second in running races at school, almost getting caught by every closing door or gate, these were things that Charlie could deal with. But Charlie started to lose her friends.
The other kids thought it was weird the way Charlie would pause for a second when they said hello to her, or how there seemed to be a brief delay when she was talking, so she’d always overlap with someone by just a little bit. Teachers thought she was being rude.
Soon Charlie was eating her lunch all by herself every day.
It was a few months later that her parents decided to go back to the beach for the weekend. They knew Charlie had been having trouble in school and they thought a break might set things back to normal. Charlie’s mother had noticed how distant Charlie seemed now, but she couldn’t put her finger on why. Sometimes when Charlie was sleeping she’d watch her and wonder why the daughter she used to love now made her feel so uncomfortable to be around. The difference was imperceptible. Her mother could never have found the words to say how strange it was that the sound of her snoring no longer lined up with the sight of her breathing in and out.
Charlie’s father, who had always been a quiet and thoughtful man, found it troubling the way Charlie would trip on things one or two steps after her foot hit them. He found himself wanting to yell at her to snap out of it, and he didn’t like feeling that irritated at his own daughter, so instead he kept his distance too.
Charlie’s brother used to have a lot of fun throwing things at Charlie, but now the way she didn’t try and block them until they’d already hit her just made the game feel sad.
So, maybe that’s why they weren’t really paying attention, because they no longer wanted to. Charlie was playing on the edge of the water again, her pant cuffs soaked through from every wave that she ran ashore with. They looked up just in time to see a much bigger wave about to crash down on her. They called out to warn her, and if she’d moved just a second faster she would have been all right.
Charlie Malone died. And it was forever, because there’s no such thing as only dying for a second.
CAN I TOUCH YOUR FACE?
Vincent hadn’t been sleeping well since they got to the beach. His mother thought it was just the excitement of being on vacation, his father thought it was all the sugary drinks with dinner—but actually, it was that dream he kept having.
There was nothing really scary about the dream: no snakes crawling under his sheets, no alligators chewing his toes, no grandmother’s dentures dripping on him. This dream was just…disturbing. In the dream, Vincent would find himself standing on the beach. The dark, almost sparkling black sand felt rough between his toes. The ocean was perfectly calm. That was how he knew it wasn’t real.
The first time he had the dream he tried to find a familiar part of the beach. He’d explored it so much while he was awake that he was sure he could find his way to the safety of the house, to his family. Outside of the dream, on the real beach, there were pathways with wooden markers that led from the sand up to the dirt road. But no matter how far he walked up and down the beach in any direction, in the dream he couldn’t seem to find one. Exhausted, he sat down in the sand, wanting to cry. That’s when he heard the voice.
It wasn’t quite a whisper, because it rose and fell like a wave, almost like someone singing when they couldn’t catch their breath.
“Vincent…Viiiiinnnnncccceeeeeennnnntttt,” it would call, so softly that if he even moved, the sound would vanish. As a faint breeze picked up, the sand began to shift around him—yet another sign that this wasn’t the real Black Sand Beach, the place where the air was always perfectly still, almost stale. This was the Black Sand Beach that could only exist in a dream, the not-quite-right mirror of a place that was already not quite right—and as it did, the voice got louder.
The voice was coming from beneath the sand.
Vincent started digging. He clawed at the sand with his bare hands, scooping up clumps and tossing them aside. The sand was dry all the way down, and the hole kept filling itself back in.
“Vincent…” the voice called, a little clearer now.
Vincent, on his knees digging, began to sink down into the sand as it shifted around him. Then, the loose grains began to part and a shape emerged.
It wasn’t quite a face.
It rose up out of the sand, fine grains trailing from its strange creases, catching in the impossible breeze.
It hovered in front of Vincent, just above him, staring straight past him. If you saw a picture of what Vincent saw, you might say it was sort of like the head of a bear, but not quite finished.
The eyes were there, black dots almost where you’d think they should be. It was hard to tell if there was a mouth, but it definitely looked like something was moving where you’d expect to see lips.
In dreams we sometimes gain perspective and understanding of things that make no sense once we’re awake. In that moment, the very first time he had the dream, Vincent knew that if he could touch the face that wasn’t a face it would make sense.
If he could just put his finger on it…
There were two flies buzzing around the hovering bear head, circling it. Vincent wondered if they’d been buried in the sand too, or if they were just drawn in by the smell.
He reached out his hand but lost balance as his knees sunk farther in. He lunged forward and just before he made contact, he woke up.
His arms felt weak, as if he’d really been digging for hours. His legs were sore, from walking up and down the beach for so long.
Vincent hadn’t been sleeping well since his family arrived at Black Sand Beach because he’d had this dream every single night.
“You look like you’ve been put through the wringer,” his dad said at breakfast one morning. Vincent’s eyes had bags under them, and his mouth sort of fell open, as if the weight of his eyelids were pushing the bottom of his chin down.
“Just
not sleeping well,” Vincent responded, reaching for the bran flakes, the box almost too heavy for his tired muscles to lift.
His mother tousled his curly black hair, dry from the sea air. She beamed down at him with her wide smile. “Well, we’ll make sure you get an early night, tonight.” Her eyes were warm and reassuring; they had a half-lidded quality that made her look like she was always just about to take a nap.
His father was chewing heavily on his toast. He was a wrinkled man, with a face like a crumpled comforter. Thick creases ran down his cheeks, but the skin between them was smooth. No fine lines had yet appeared. The deep crevices moved as he chewed, and filled in as he took a big mouthful of coffee. “I gotta say, this hasn’t felt much like a vacation yet. Water’s too rough to swim in, the woods are too overgrown for walks, and none of us are getting much rest.”
Vincent glanced sleepily at his father, who until this trip had always seemed like a powerful man.
Vincent’s mother spread some jam on a slice of burnt bread. “More bad dreams, honey?”
“Same one again, same one you’re having,” replied Dad. “That face in the sand, making me dig.”
Vincent was startled. His parents did that thing that parents do when something unexplained happens—they blew it off.
Tired and sore, Vincent left the table, now convinced that this was more than just a dream. He didn’t know what he was looking for in the sand, or why, but he knew there was something indescribable there that he needed to dig up.
In his dream he had been using his hands, but awake now, he took a shovel. He walked down to the beach and stood as still as he could to listen for the voice. The sound of the crashing waves made it impossible, but Vincent was determined. He closed his eyes and let each noise fade into the background until all he could hear were the grains of sand shifting beneath his feet.
It was faint, but it was there, that lilting breathy sound, calling out. The sound was unclear; he couldn’t make out his name now, just the rising and falling of the tone.
Vincent planted the shovel in the sand and began shifting vast swaths of loose grains. It was more like skimming off sheets of sand, layer by layer, than actually digging. But with the still air, it was much easier than it had been for the last several nights.
He wasn’t reaching anything, and grew frustrated, aggressively driving the shovel blade-first into the ground until he felt it hit something harder than sand, something with a spongey density.
Vincent dropped to his knees and began scraping the sand away. There it was, the nightmare bear, still and lifeless in the hole he’d dug. Outside of the dream it didn’t hover, and the place where lips should be didn’t move. It still didn’t make sense—it was just wrong in a way that Vincent couldn’t put his finger on and it made him feel a little ill to stare at it.
He closed his eyes and tried to describe the face in his mind. Two black dots for eyes. No mouth, but something like a mouth. The nose was just a bump and the ears were in the wrong place, too high.
He opened his eyes and reached out his hand to finally touch whatever this thing was.
When he did, nothing happened. There was no burst of light, no sound, no magic, it just lay there in the ground. Vincent looked down at it and blinked. He closed his eyes and tried to describe it again.
Curly black hair dry from the sea air, tired eyes with bags under them, a drooping mouth as if the weight of its eyelids were too much for the chin to support.
Vincent opened his eyes and realized what he was seeing. This wasn’t the thing from the dream, not anymore. This was his own face buried in the sand.
He jumped back, stumbled in the pile of sand he’d displaced. He ran, leaving his shovel behind, up to the pathway marked with the wooden post and padded down the dirt road to the safety of the house.
He paused at the door, seeing his reflection in the glass pane. The face that looked back at him didn’t make sense anymore. The eyes were just dots; the mouth, which he knew for a fact was screaming, was just a blur below a lump for a nose. His ears were too high, like a teddy bear, but not quite finished.
THE MONSTER THAT HIDES IN THE LIGHT
They can’t see you in the dark, and if they can’t see you, they can’t catch you. If they can’t catch you, they can’t eat you. So, in the darkness you’re safe. That’s why they’ve worked so hard to make sure you’re afraid of it.
Think about it, think about those dark stairs to your basement, that shadowy place between street lamps on the sidewalk at night, the hallway outside your bedroom door…who told you to be afraid of those places? It’s not the stairs or the hallway or the sidewalk that scares you, it’s the darkness. The darkness is your best place to hide from monsters, but everything in your body tells you to run into the light.
This is exactly what Rebekah was explaining to her teddy bear, Rufus, in bed one night. Rebekah was a very smart little girl, and she’d figured out very early on how to keep safe from monsters. And there were a lot of monsters at the beach where she lived. If those monsters were working so hard to make the dark seem scary, then Rebekah had to work even harder to make sure people knew that it wasn’t. That’s why she was telling Rufus, and why she was leaving him in the dark on her bed to guard things while she went to get a glass of water.
The light in the hallway was on when she got to her bedroom door, so she very carefully reached her arm out to find the light switch and turn the hall light off.
Click.
She stepped out of her room and crept as quietly as she could toward the kitchen.
In the middle of the hallway was a skylight, and the silver shine from the moon was pouring in. She edged along the wall, staying entirely in the shadows until she was past it. The moonbeam was like a spotlight—if she even put a toe into it, then something would certainly nab her.
She arrived at the other end of the hallway. The door to the dining room had a shaft of bright yellow light coming from underneath it. Rebekah knew her parents were asleep upstairs, so there was no way they were in there. She opened the door just a crack and fumbled around again for the light switch. It was an old house, built from pieces of patched-up things that had fallen apart. The light switches were all different, and wired into different heights and positions on the walls.
Click.
She stepped into the dark dining room and made a beeline for the kitchen on the other side. The faint glow from the numbers on a clock, the little red light on the phone charger—these made Rebekah nervous.
Click.
The light in the hallway turned back on.
Rebekah stepped into the kitchen and tiptoed past the oven light and the little green dot on the refrigerator’s ice maker. She opened the big cupboard to get a glass, forgetting that inside it was a light with a chain. And it was on.
She leapt into the air, swatting at the chain, fumbling to catch it, pulling it sharply down to turn the light off. She jumped back and sat on the cool tile floor, her back against the dishwasher. She waited to see if anything was moving in the cupboard, but there was no one there.
She reached up to the dark shelf and took a glass. She carried it to the faucet and filled it. She didn’t press the button for filtered water—after all, there was a little yellow light there that came on when you used it.
She made her way back through the dining room toward the hallway.
Click.
The open cupboard door in the kitchen lit up.
She got to the hallway and reached around the door for the light switch. She was glad that the wiring was old and there were switches in so many odd places.
Click.
She turned the hallway light off once again.
She stepped in and edged back past the beams of moonlight.
Click.
The light in the dining room came back on behind her.
Rebekah began breathing heavily as sh
e hurried toward her dark bedroom. She knew whatever was turning on the lights behind her could light up the hallway any second.
She made it into her bedroom and shut the door.
Rebekah was in such a hurry that she didn’t even notice the soft light coming from the lamp by her bed.
She didn’t even notice that Rufus was no longer standing guard. In fact, he was nowhere to be seen.
Rebekah’s mother woke up when she heard the glass of water fall to the floor and smash. She waited, but any muffled sounds of her daughter being taken by the monster were too quiet to hear from downstairs, so she went back to sleep.
PEEKABOO
“Where’s Mommy? Where’s Mommy?”
The mother would put her hands over her face and say it over and over. The baby would stare up at the hands and its little heart would fill with fear for just a moment before its mother would take her hands away.
“Here’s Mommy!” she’d cry out, a grin from ear to ear. The baby would clap and laugh and rock back and forth.
It’s such a simple game, but to a baby it’s magical that you can make your entire face disappear by just covering it with your hands. For most babies, it’s the first time they’re ever asked a question. It’s not just the fear that their mother has vanished, it’s the worry that they won’t be able to get the answer right.
The relief that hits when the face is uncovered and the answer spews forth from the mother’s mouth is so visceral that the baby can’t help but rock back and forth.
“Where’s Mommy? Where’s Mommy?”
The game can go on all day.
“Here’s Mommy!”
Repeat until one player gets bored. Most of the time it’s the parent.
“Where’s Mommy? Where’s Mommy?”
But every now and then there are consequences for asking a question like this. Every now and then something shifts at just the right moment and a different answer is given. The hands are pulled away to reveal that Mommy has gone.
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