The Unseen

by Bryan, JL

  He decided to test her out.

  “Meaning,” Peyton said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning and purpose,” he said. “Our world is just a random biochemical swamp. We’re the slime on the skin of a tiny rock floating in an empty space so large we can’t even comprehend it. Our minds are just the side effects of neurons firing in the brain. We all die, and in the end our species and planet will die, our sun will die, and it will be like none of us ever existed and nothing we did ever mattered. Now hand me my painkillers.”

  “But what if that’s not true?” Reese found the brown plastic bottle of codeine pills and unscrewed the cap as she brought it to him. “How many?”

  “Four.”

  “Four pills? That doesn’t sound—”

  “Three then.” Peyton held out his hand. “So what do you know that biologists, chemists, geologists, and astrophysicists just haven’t figured out yet? What’s the big secret?”

  “Science can only measure the seen world, the world of the senses.” Reese walked to the kitchen, grimaced at its condition, then poured him a glass of water. By the time she arrived with it, Peyton had already swallowed all three pills, which left her perplexed, but he smiled and took the water anyway.

  “Science can reach far beyond the senses,” Peyton corrected her. He was getting warmed up, ready to argue as he sometimes had with the preachers who showed up on campus to warn the sinning college students to repent. “Telescopes, microscopes, spectroscopy...”

  “Whatever.” Reese waved her hand dismissively, standing over him now, her blue eye boring into him. “My point is that there’s an unseen world. I believe it, and most humans for all history have believed it.”

  “Most humans for all history have been ignorant. People today are intentionally ignorant,” Peyton said. “They love announcing how ignorant they are. They take pride in how little they know, as if they’re above knowing anything about the world around them.”

  Reese gaped at him for a moment, as if unsure how to respond. Then she composed herself and cleared her throat, sitting on the arm of his chair and kicking off her shoes.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’ve seen and experienced things far beyond what science has discovered.”

  “What things?”

  “When something from the other side reaches into you, you know what it is,” Reese said. “You know it’s evil, and it’s real, and it’s ancient beyond anything you can imagine. You can feel power all through your body, incredible power.”

  “What are you talking about, exactly? You said something evil?”

  “I told you, I used to be like you. I was wild all the time, high all the time. When I had my first encounter with real supernatural power, with real evil...I knew I had to search for the light. And I found it.”

  “In your church.”

  “Yes. In my discipleship.”

  “So you thought you saw a ghost one day and it scared you into going to church. That’s your story?” Peyton asked.

  “It’s not just what I saw. It’s what I felt, how it got inside me and changed me—”

  “That’s just in your brain, though. They have medication for that.”

  “I’ve seen doctors, taken pills...” She slid down to sit beside him again. “None of them understood it was real. Then I met people who did understand. I had been touched by something horrible but incredible, in a way. I had a special purpose in my life and I knew it. And now I’m serving it out.”

  “What purpose?”

  “Being a Disciple,” Reese said, her face dead serious as her eye looked into his. Peyton could hear the capital D in her voice.

  “A disciple of whom?”

  “Of the messiah.”

  “Right.”

  “Not the one you’re thinking of.” Reese’s voice dropped to a whisper, and she leaned her face close to his. “The messiah to come.”

  “So you’re waiting for the Second Coming.”

  “Not the Second Coming. The First Light.” She was fervent, her breathing fast through her parted lips, the skin of her face radiating heat onto his.

  “What does that mean?”

  She pulled back and stood up.

  “I know you don’t believe, and we don’t have to talk about it unless you want to,” Reese said. “I’m not one of those people who needs everyone around me to believe exactly what I believe. I just want to be your friend.”

  “Sure. There’s no proselytizing involved at all.”

  “Come on.” She offered a hand to help him up, but he didn’t move.

  “Come where?”

  “The park.”

  “I don’t feel very good.” Peyton shook his head.

  “It’s a blues concert, so that’s kind of perfect. You’re a DJ, right? This will be good for your music education.”

  “Because I’ve never heard the blues before,” Peyton said, but despite his sarcasm, he was feeling tempted. He’d wanted to see the concert anyway, a performance of six different Atlanta blues artists and groups meant to help raise money for music education in the city’s poorer schools. Georgia blues, a lesser-known species that had evolved far from the Delta and Chicago, tended to a mellower, more country sound. Peyton liked to think of himself as a free thinker who appreciated more obscure, “real” music and generally turned up his nose at whatever was popular, though he made a few exceptions like Daft Punk.

  “You get a free ride there and back,” Reese added.

  “Okay. But I’m only going for the music, not the religion.” He took her hand. “Let me go put on a shirt on over this stupid brace.”

  “I’ll go get it for you! Let me help.”

  “It’s okay. My room’s kind of messy...”

  “I don’t mind!” Reese insisted, but he started up the stairs.

  “I’ll just put away these groceries since you don’t have an appetite,” she said.

  Up in his room, Peyton walked first to his workstation, where he cut out and snorted an extra-thick line to load himself up for the evening. Then he put on a long black shirt to cover his brace, a drawn-out and difficult process because he couldn’t raise his arms higher than his shoulders yet. His heart beat like a racing rabbit’s, his entire brain urging him to hurry up and get busy doing something.

  It took almost ten minutes to put on his shirt, by which time he worried he was losing his high and so snorted two quick little bumps to get things going again.

  “Ready?” Reese beamed at him when he returned. “You look great.”

  “Let’s go already! I’m sick of sitting around doing nothing.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  Her new, polished black Range Rover was parked inside the high brick walls surrounding the loft complex, near the disused railroad tracks that marked one boundary of the parking lot. On the other side of the tracks lay the “community garden” area, which almost nobody used.

  “This will be so fun!” Reese said as she waited for the heavy steel gate to roll aside.

  “This gate takes forever,” he growled, tapping his fingers rapidly on the armrest. “I want to be there already. I hate sitting down, I need to be out there moving around.”

  The sun was burning out as they reached the crowded lawn of the park, where the first band was already playing their set. Guitar riffs and jazzy percussion drifted over the audience’s blankets and folded lawn chairs to fade away into the tall old magnolias and oaks behind them.

  “There we are.” Reese pointed to a checkered blanket far too large for any bed, where about two dozen people loafed on their elbows or ate snacks from the picnic basket and cooler. They were a range of ages, from their mid-teens to their late twenties, and they didn’t look like the cheesy religious types he’d expected. Many of them were inked and pierced, wild-looking kids that seemed perfectly normal. At least he wouldn’t feel like he was sitting with a bunch of obvious losers in sweater vests.

  Marnie, the girl who’d first accompanied Reese to the hospital, stood an
d waved when she saw him.

  “Yay, you brought him!” Marnie hurried over, her long breezy skirt billowing, and gave Peyton a hug and a peck on the cheek. “How are you?”

  “Good, good, good,” Peyton said. His whole body was twitching—maybe he’d snorted just a little too much at once. “So everybody here is from your church?”

  “Peyton thinks everybody’s going to pounce on him and try to change him.” Reese slipped her arm through his. “He doesn’t like religion.”

  “Oh, I’m the same way,” Marnie said. “Mostly. Come sit with us! I made pigs in blankets. They’re so cute.”

  The group was friendly to him and nobody talked about their church. The conversation was normal and light—movies, video games, celebrities—and nobody acted particularly weird. Peyton noticed a guy and a girl, both of them about fifteen, wander back into the trees to share a cigarette, and nobody hassled them about it. The music was fantastic, and he was able to relax on the blanket and enjoy it after the brunt of his coke wore off. Reese lay next to him, and somehow managed to slowly drift up against his side without seeming to move much at all.

  Peyton didn’t push her away, but he tried not to enjoy the warmth and closeness of her body, or the sensation of her hips and arms and fingers touching his. He popped a few more codeine pills throughout the evening.

  By the time she brought him home at eleven, he was staggering, a little dizzy from the cocaine and opioids warring in his bloodstream. His body didn’t know whether it was supposed to be jacked up or mellowed down.

  Since he was swaying on his feet, Reese helped him upstairs to the bedroom, his arm around her shoulders. He lay back on the bed. The codeine was winning; he was drowsy.

  She looked down at him and crossed her arms.

  “You’re not well,” she said. “I think I should stay here tonight. In case you need help.”

  “Stay here?” he asked. His voice was getting slurred, and so was his brain. He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right.

  “Don’t get ideas, Peyton! I’m sleeping on the couch. I’m here strictly as a friend and as an act of charity.”

  “Whatever.” Peyton closed his eyes.

  A loud, wet crash woke him hours later. It was still very early, before dawn.

  Peyton groaned and opened his eyes about a third of the way. He was exhausted. He wanted to sleep another hour, or maybe a week or a month, but the sound wouldn’t let him. It rolled on and on, a cascading thunder.

  “Stop it,” he grumbled at the sound, whatever it was, but it didn’t stop.

  He opened his eyes more. The light was on in his bathroom, the door standing half open. It was the only interior door in his entire home.

  The relentless, hateful sound that had awoken him at a cruel hour was, he finally realized, his own shower, running at full blast. Who was in there? He didn’t remember Cassidy coming over.

  Gradually, his brain pieced together that it had to be Reese. He vaguely remembered what she’d said as he passed out on the bed.

  The shower went on for a few more minutes, and he couldn’t help but picture the girl standing naked among the pebbled shower tiles, her body steaming in the hot water, her short blond hair dripping. He wondered what she looked like without her clothes.

  When the water stopped, his heart kicked up a notch. She would be stepping out. How could he not watch? He lay where he was and kept his eyes open.

  He heard the shower door creak open, heard her bare foot touch the floor. Then he saw her—she held the towel before her, drying her face as she approached the mirror, but he was seeing her from the side. From the side, it was as if she were naked, wearing nothing but the black eye patch. He could see the side of her right breast, the light stripes of her ribs, the tight curve of her butt and the floss-thin tan line on her hip.

  He was instantly, fully aroused, the desire already clouding his brain. He couldn’t help it.

  Then she lowered the towel and snapped her head around to see him with her left eye, as though she’d felt his gaze drinking her in. She screamed and slammed the door.

  “I thought you were asleep!” she shouted from inside the bathroom.

  “Shower woke me up,” he said, but probably too low for her to hear. He was much too sleepy to yell back to her.

  She rummaged around in the bathroom, taking such a long time that his interest began to wane and his desire to go back to sleep reasserted itself. He was nodding off when she opened the door again half an hour later.

  She had transformed into Hot Professional Woman. She wore chunky black heels, a tight black suit jacket and pants with dust-colored, barely visible pinstripes. Her white shirt looked starched and ironed. She wore a brooch with a small golden-spiral logo, probably the seal of whatever dull corporate entity she served by day.

  Her blond hair was pulled back, and she wore gold-rimmed glasses over two blue eyes.

  “Hey,” Peyton said. He was still too thick-brained with sleep to say Hey, your eye came back properly, so he just gestured stupidly at his own right eye.

  “It’s glass,” she said.

  “So why the patch?”

  “I like the patch. Sometimes feeling the fake one in there freaks me out,” Reese said. She stood near the foot of her bed, carrying a black purse, a different one than she’d had the night before.

  “When did you get clothes?” Peyton asked, waking up a little more. He pushed himself to a seated position, though his back and abdominal muscles were still weak. He tried not to let the strain show on his face.

  “I keep an all-occasions suitcase in my trunk,” Reese said. “It helps. You never know where missionary work will take you.”

  “Because that’s what this is, isn’t it?” Peyton asked. “I’ve got to say, you’re a lot more dedicated than those people who just knock on your door and give you a booklet.”

  “Every moment of my life is missionary work, no matter what I’m doing.” Reese bit her lower lip as though nervous, then she walked briskly to the side of his bed, standing over him. “Some moments are just more pleasant than others.”

  She leaned down and kissed him on the mouth, and he was far too surprised to react. If she had lingered a moment longer than she did, he would either have to push her away or grab her and draw her onto the bed with him.

  She pulled back.

  “I’ll see you soon,” she told him. “Maybe I can get off work early.”

  “Maybe,” he said, feeling suddenly overwhelmed. What was happening here?

  “I’ll call you.” She gave him a warm smile, then walked away down the stairs and out the door.

  “What the fuck?” Peyton asked nobody in particular, and then he lay back and closed his eyes again. He was aching badly, though, and unable to sleep until he found the few remaining codeine pills.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Cassidy spent her time sketching the transparent creatures that had been everywhere lately, as though the accident had made her brain worse than ever. Barb had brought her a few clothes and her appointment book from work, and Cassidy had to call clients, apologize for missed appointments, try to reschedule for the following week. It wasn’t pleasant, but it made her feel productive.

  Wednesday night, she fell asleep and slipped out of her body again. She felt a surge of exuberance at freeing herself from her aching, injured body, and her mood was suddenly playful and curious, like a child exploring a new ability or a new toy.

  She floated out of her apartment but resisted the urge to fly up above the city, remembering the large, winged monsters that she’d seen up there.

  Cassidy decided to check in on Barb and test to see whether her best friend could see her. She began flying south toward Little Five Points, but the entire scene around her quickly dissolved and changed.

  She floated in front of the two-story yellow house, where the lights were out at this early hour of the morning.

  She passed through a front window on the second floor and into Barb’s room. Barb was asleep in the bed
, and Cassidy hovered over her for a moment, trying to decide what to do.

  Cassidy lowered herself toward Barb, thinking she would try to tickle the girl’s nose and wake her up. She didn’t know how she would do that, when her own hand was just a rough pencil-sketch outline, but she tried.

  Something stopped her before she reached Barb. It felt like a taut wire across her midsection, holding Cassidy back.

  Cassidy saw it now—a few thread-thin filaments in the air, slightly glowing, drawn in a circle just inside the walls of Barb’s room. Other dully glowing shapes, lines, and curves floated in the air.

  Cassidy was reminded of the handheld sparklers she’d occasionally used at holidays like the Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve. She could draw circles and letters in the air with the burning sticks, and they would seem to hang there in a space for a moment before fading away. The glowing lines around Barb’s room were like those ephemeral fire-shapes, only these weren’t fading.

  She tried to go around it, but the circle, though essentially two-dimensional, stopped her from getting close to Barb from any direction. Cassidy remembered how Barb’s little spell had cleared the ugly transparent creatures from Cassidy’s room. Apparently the same magic created a barrier against Cassidy, too.

  Barb! Cassidy thought as loudly as she could. Barb! Can you hear me?

  Barb didn’t even stir in the bed.

  Unable to move closer to Barb, Cassidy slipped through the wall, through old wooden studs and tangled wires, and emerged into her own room. She could move freely here. Her room appeared just as she’d left it, except for a few open drawers where Barb had searched for clothes to bring her.

  Cassidy decided it might be fun to spy on her other housemates. She sank through the floor and instantly regretted the decision.

  She floated near the ceiling of Stray’s room. He snored below her, the curls of his heavy beard puffing out with each snore. There was something cartoonish about that, and Cassidy felt laughter bubbling inside her, though she had no way to let it out—the laughter was like the fizz inside an unopened can of Coke or LaCroix water, churning around but unable to escape.