Vacancy

by Fredric Shernoff

  Even as he said that, he wondered if getting out would be possible for any of them. His own words confused him. It wanted Clyde to be someone else. What did that even mean? How could the past want anything?

  “There’s something wrong with the sky,” Clyde said. “It’s purple. When I woke up it was just a tinge of color, but already it’s much darker.”

  “I noticed that,” Magen said. “That’s how it is here?”

  “No!” Clyde said. “That’s not how it was before. All the resets I did, the sky looked normal.”

  “What does it mean?” Jim asked.

  “It means we need to go home as soon as possible,” Magen said. “We need to get you back in the store, Clyde.”

  “I don’t see it,” Clyde said. “How can I get in if I don’t see it?”

  Jim thought he heard a hint of something troubling in the tone of his friend’s voice. Just a tinge, like the way Clyde had described the purple in the sky. Still…something.

  “Since we’re here,” Magen said, “let’s see if we can scrounge up something to eat. I’m not used to burning the midnight oil without a snack.” He looked at Clyde. “It’s late where we came from, and I’ll think better if I eat.”

  “Your credit cards won’t work here,” Clyde said. “No Apple Pay either, obviously.”

  “I’ve got plenty of cash,” Magen said. “I always keep some handy for poker nights. Different denominations too.”

  “Won’t the bills look suspicious?” Jim asked.

  “The smaller amounts aren’t too funny-looking,” Magen said. “In this time period, people weren’t on the lookout for counterfeit money. Not even the hundreds. Just have to present our illusion with confidence.”

  For the first time, Jim felt the slightest tickle of humor. “The policeman is teaching us how to steal with counterfeit money,” he said in a dry voice. “This is special.”

  Detective Magen’s strategy worked perfectly. Sitting in a café with his old friend at his side, Jim felt almost normal. It was hard to disregard Clyde’s strange appearance or far-off gaze, but there was something positive about it. The sandwiches were good, too.

  Clyde’s mind wandered a little bit but his memories were intact, and his usual personality emerged as he told Magen some of the ridiculous exploits of a small commercial real estate business.

  “So we were buying this Wawa down in Glenolden,” Clyde said, “and this guy selling the building calls the morning of closing to say that he thought it over and doesn’t like our contract anymore. Says he won’t sell unless we modify the paperwork to reduce a couple warranties or whatever.”

  “So what did you say?” Magen asked. Jim didn’t know if the detective was genuinely curious, but he did have that incredible knack for getting people talking.

  “What did I say?” Clyde laughed. “Jimmy, tell the man what I said.”

  Jim smiled and let out an exaggerated sigh. “He said, and I quote, ‘that gentleman can stick his deal up his fat ass.’”

  “Damn straight,” Clyde said. “And what did he do?”

  “He closed… after I called our attorney and had him explain to the guy the repercussions of walking away.”

  “Well, fuck, Jim, you take away all my fun,” Clyde said. “He’s always like this. We have this assistant, Nia, and I’m always saying I don’t know how she puts up with this stick in the mud.”

  “And I’m always saying I don’t know how she tolerates the nonsense. She’s a trooper, that’s for sure.”

  “Hell, Nia,” Clyde said. “I guess she doesn’t remember me either?”

  “I don’t actually remember talking to her after all this went down,” Jim said. “She knew you were missing before you got erased. I guess it’s likely she doesn’t know you. I’m not entirely sure she still works for us, to tell you the truth. You were the reason we hired her.”

  Clyde turned a sly grin to Magen. “Detective, I assure you, I pushed to hire her because of her numerous qualifications. Not because of her…” he trailed off, and again Jim got the sense that something was not right with his friend. Clyde turned to the window. “Boys, it’s getting very dark out.”

  “It’s that purple in the sky,” Magen said. “It’s coming on thick as night. You’re sure this didn’t happen before?”

  “I’m sure,” Clyde said. “You’ve had your meal, my friend, so with all due respect, please do some detective work and get us all the fuck out of here.”

  Jim thought the bizarre purple darkness had increased in just the time it took them to quickly clear their table and walk back up Butler Avenue to the pharmacy. A wind howled all around them. He thought again about Liz and wondered if she was trying to reach him. He felt his phone in his pocket and almost pulled it out before remembering that it was worthless in this time.

  “The hell kind of storm is this?” Roland called from his doorway. “Weatherman said it was going to be sunny all day.”

  Jim was turned toward Roland, so it was with the periphery of his vision that he saw a man materialize in front of the open door to the abandoned store.

  “Dr. Mike,” Roland said, “you have any idea what this is all about?”

  Jim turned and looked at the man. If the pharmacist had any clue about the purple sky, he didn’t show it. He looked downright perplexed.

  “I have no idea, Roland,” Dr. Mike said. “I just hope it doesn’t knock out the power to the block. Was hoping to try something tonight.”

  “One of your experiments?” Roland asked. “Whatcha working on there, Doc?”

  “Nothing that will win me the Nobel Prize,” Dr. Mike said. “Just something I was looking forward to.”

  He’s full of shit, Jim thought. Look at his face. He thinks whatever he’s working on is absolutely important.

  “You should all head back inside,” Magen said, slipping into cop mode. “This storm looks ugly.”

  As Magen finished speaking, the loudest crack of thunder Jim had ever heard crashed in the distance. He actually felt the ground tremble from the force. Car alarms blared. Dr. Mike turned and disappeared back into the pharmacy. Roland was gone too. The whole street was empty.

  “Fuck. We need to get inside too,” Magen said.

  “What about Clyde?” Jim asked.

  “Why can’t we reset the day? Start it all over?”

  “I told you,” Clyde said, “it wasn’t like this before! This is something new!”

  “We can’t leave you out here,” Jim said. He turned to the door, thinking of dragging Clyde with him, as irrational as that may have been, and his jaw dropped. The doorway to their version of the store was transparent. It was shimmering in and out, and the door to the 1980’s store came in and out of focus behind it.

  “We need to go!” Magen yelled. “We need to go now!”

  “I am not leaving him in this storm!” Jim called. The wind was so loud it was hard to hear his own voice.

  “You can’t risk being out here when I shut the door!” Magen hollered. “Please! Come with me!”

  There was another ear-splitting boom of thunder. The door blinked away for a second and returned, but it was now constantly transparent.

  “We need to go now!” Magen said again.

  Jim looked at Clyde. “I’m going to figure this out,” he said.

  Clyde nodded. When he spoke, Jim couldn’t hear his words, but he could read his friend’s lips. “Just go. I’ll be fine.”

  “The door is vanishing!” Magen called. “Now, Jim!”

  “Wait!” Jim said. “It’s too far gone!”

  Magen made it halfway through the doorway. Thunder boomed again, and the door blinked out of existence. For a moment, Magen seemed to stand there frozen in the doorway. Then the one half of his body that remained collapsed to the ground. Blood pooled around it and Jim heard screams. Screams from the people in the pharmacy or screams from him? That question stuck in his mind as the darkness engulfed him. Then there was nothing.

  Chapter Thirteen

&n
bsp; Dylan and Emma sat on the floor of the incredible, terrible store. The door was wide open, but they couldn’t see Clyde. Dylan knew the poor, lost man was lurking somewhere nearby.

  “The purple sky is getting worse,” Emma said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Clyde wants us to find his friend. Jim.”

  “That’s all great,” Dylan said. “I’d love to help him. But he also said that if that sky goes the way it’s going, everything is going to end. Or reset. Or I don’t know what. We don’t have time to find his friend. On top of that, the guy is fucking crazy.”

  Emma flashed him a look. “How can you say that? He’s trapped and scared and this place is messing with his mind.”

  “I know. I know. It’s not his fault he’s batshit crazy but, Emma, he is. We can’t trust everything he says. Right now this store is our only safe haven, as messed up as that is.”

  “Can you please just try closing the door one more time? Just to see?”

  He took her hand and stroked the top of it with his thumb. “Okay. And if it works and the purple sky is gone, we can go looking for this ‘Jim.’”

  She pulled herself into his chest with surprising force and kissed him. He almost fell over but caught himself. “Whoa,” he said with a grin. “Easy there.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for trying. For everything.”

  “You’re welcome. Really.”

  He got up and walked to the door. He pondered how odd it was that many doors in his life he had opened and closed thousands of times with no thought about it. But this door…this one, trouble-making door, every experiment with it was not only critically important but held a sense of deja vu.

  The door closed, and the door opened. Dylan had tried to prepare himself for what he thought was inevitable disappointment, but his heart still sank a little when he saw the purple light.

  “Goddamn it!” Emma yelled. “I was so sure!”

  “Whatever’s going on out there, it’s a level above the resets. I don’t think we can stop it.”

  “Let’s go see what Clyde can tell us about his friend. We still have some time.”

  “Emma, we’ve played enough with this stuff. Look where it got us! Maybe we’re better off just riding this out.”

  “Just come with me one more time,” she said. “Please, Dylan.”

  “Fine. Just please make it quick, okay? This sky is scaring the living shit out of me.”

  She nodded agreement. “Me too. It will be quick. Promise.”

  They walked outside. Clyde was leaning against the wall in front of Helen’s.

  “How are you feeling, Clyde?” Emma called.

  Clyde frowned. “You reset it all again.”

  “So you’re still with us?” Dylan asked. “Still remember who you are?”

  “Takes…everything,” Clyde said. “Fucking reset didn’t help.”

  “We’re sorry,” Emma said. “I wanted to give us more time to help find your friend.”

  “I had a friend. Long ago. He’s gone now.”

  “Where has he gone, Clyde?” Emma said. “Is he around this street?”

  Clyde shook his head. “Gone. I don’t know where. The darkness came and I never saw him again.”

  “He’s gotta be nearby,” Dylan said. “Why would Clyde get positioned out here right by the store but not this Jim guy?”

  “You’re assuming there’s some logic to all of this,” Emma said. “Plus, Clyde’s situation was different. He closed the door to get stuck here originally. His friend got taken by the darkness. Right, Clyde?”

  “The darkness.” Clyde pointed at the sky. The wind started to blow. “It’s coming. Once it starts it comes so fast. So fast. There’s nowhere to hide.”

  “What about the store?” Dylan asked. “Can we hide in the store?”

  “I don’t know!” Clyde yelled. “Never tried!” He turned away from them. “Stop shouting at me!”

  He’s slipping again, Dylan thought.

  “Clyde, what happened the last time the darkness came? When you lost your friend.”

  “I can’t think!” Clyde yelled. He grabbed his head in his hands. A crackle of thunder sounded in the distance.

  Emma walked up to Clyde and put her hands over his. “Look at me, Clyde. Look at me!”

  The man slowly opened his eyes, lashes fluttering, and did as she asked.

  “Breathe. You can do this.”

  “When it comes again I think I’ll be gone,” Clyde said. “I won’t remember again.”

  “We will make this right, Clyde,” Emma said.

  Dylan wondered how she was summoning so much courage as the wind began to howl and the thunder sounded again in every direction. He heard shutters from nearby houses slapping open and shut. This was going to be something very bad. He looked at the sky, expecting rain, but saw nothing but the deepening purple. The clouds were barely visible as the color dominated them from above and below.

  “Clyde, tell me what happened last time. It was like this? This noise and wind?”

  “Yes. Yes. And we went to eat! So the policeman could think. Oh. God. He’s gone. So gone.”

  As Clyde spoke, something registered in the back of Dylan’s mind. Something of some significance.

  “There was another person with you and Jim?” Emma asked. She still had her hands over Clyde’s, which were still pressed against either side of his face.

  “There was…an officer…a detective. He wanted to help. He couldn’t help himself.” Clyde began to cry.

  “Wait,” Dylan said, “go back, Clyde. What did you say before?” There was something there, Dylan thought. Something he had to put together.

  Clyde continued to cry. Emma let his hands go and they dropped to his sides. He looked like a miserable zombie.

  “He said the officer couldn’t help himself,” Emma said.

  “No. Not that. Before.”

  “Um… he said they all went to get something to eat?”

  That was it.

  “Eating!” Dylan exclaimed.

  “Want to bring me up to speed here, chum?” Emma asked. She looked at him as if she thought he might be heading down the same path as poor Clyde.

  “When we got food before, we brought it back to the room!”

  “Okay…”

  “We brought stuff from this world back to the room! And I bet you if those sandwiches had eyes—”

  “They wouldn’t have been able to see it. Wow.” She clapped Dylan on the back. “That is the weirdest explanation for anything I’ve ever heard but you’re totally on to something.”

  “I think so. I think us touching something here makes it like how the camera worked in the present. Clyde still might not be able to see into the store but he should be able to—”

  Thunder crashed, louder than any Dylan had ever heard. He saw Emma jump. Clyde was motionless.

  “It’s getting really dark. We need to move.” He went over to Clyde. “Clyde, you are going to come with us.”

  “Come? Where?”

  “Back to the store, buddy. The magical piece of shit that caused all your problems. We are going to get you out of this storm.”

  “No…time…the officer…”

  “Dylan, look!” Emma pointed at the door, which was no longer completely there.

  “We need to move!” Dylan said. He stepped behind Clyde, put his hands on the man’s shoulders, and steered him in the direction of the store.

  “What…what…” Clyde muttered.

  “Go with it,” Dylan said. “You are going into some version of the store. Hopefully the one we need you to be in.”

  “I can’t!” Clyde screamed. Even with his raised voice, Dylan could hardly hear him over the wind. “The officer!”

  “We’ll find all your friends, Clyde,” Dylan said. They stood in front of the door, which shimmered like a mirage.

  Clyde tensed up. “No. No. No.”

  “Emma, help me!” Dylan called. She came over and put her arms around Clyde’s legs.
“Sorry Clyde,” Dylan said. “Now!”

  He drove the man forward as hard as he could. Emma’s pulled on Clyde’s legs, and he tripped as Dylan’s momentum pushed them both through the doorway into the store. Clyde hit the ground uncomfortably and let out an “oomph!”

  Dylan landed hard on his left elbow, and rolled to a seated position. Emma was inside, struggling to close the door against the massive force of the otherworldly winds. Dylan got up and joined her, feeling his elbow throb.

  “Keep…pushing!” he yelled.

  “I’m…trying!”

  The world outside was a deep purple, and with each horrendous boom of thunder the image faded away to empty black space, then returned again.

  They pushed and pushed, and the door slowly inched closed. With one final shove, the latch clicked into place, though the thunder that sounded at that exact moment made any other sound inaudible.

  Dylan put his hand on the closed door and panted. Sweat poured from every part of his body.

  “We did it,” he said. He couldn’t hear his own voice. The air felt wrong. His vision became spotty.

  “Emma?” he called. He began to fall, and the ground wasn’t there to catch him. He fell on and on in darkness, unable to see anything, unable to hear anything, unable to feel anything. He wondered if he would hit the ground eventually, and if that impact would kill him. This thought echoed in his mind as the darkness overwhelmed him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Who am I?

  This was the first thought that entered Jim’s mind. He felt like he’d been dreaming an endless series of images and sounds and smells, but his dreams were those of two different people.

  He saw his life as he knew it. He saw Liz. Her gorgeous smile. Her voluptuous body that had captured his imagination and been the star of his fantasies from the moment they’d met. He saw her on their wedding day, and the day they had discovered that new life was growing inside her. He saw his parents, his siblings, his grandparents. He saw Clyde and Nia. These visions swirled and danced in the darkness.

  Then there was another set of dream images. He saw himself driving an old car, popping a cassette tape out and putting it in its case as he sat in a parking lot. He looked up and through the dirty windshield he saw a white farmhouse. The visions changed and he was still that same man, that same other. And that man was shaking the hand of another man, in a red polo shirt.