by Lee Thomas, Gary McMahon, S. G. Browne, Michael Marshall Smith
"What are you doing?"
Grant turned to find his wife, Debbie, looking at him from just outside the doorway.
He stared at her, his eyes blank. "What?"
"What are you doing?" she asked again, as though she'd caught him picking his nose or visiting an Internet porn site.
"Nothing," he said. "I'm just staring at the wall."
"Well stop it," she said. "Crazy people stare at walls. I don't want anyone to think you're crazy."
She studied him a moment longer, then turned around and walked into the bedroom.
Grant glanced back at the wall before returning to his computer, where he spent the next two hours staring at the vacant screen.
* * * * *
The following day, Grant sat at his keyboard, typing out fragments of thoughts he deleted as soon as they appeared. For hours he floundered, trying to recapture the feeling of his first two novels when the words had come in a flood. But now it was as if a hand had reached inside his head and shut off a valve.
Grant stood up and paced about the room, pulling books from his shelves and flipping through the pages, searching for the source of the sentences and paragraphs, the wellspring of words. Failing in his pursuit, he sat back down and stared at the monitor, then spun around in his chair and looked at the Invasion of the Body Snatchers poster. Shifting his gaze to the expanse of wall above it, Grant tried to focus, taking deep breaths while he stared at the wall, growing aware of the texture, the patterns in the plaster, the shadows that collected in the corners. The longer he stared, the more relaxed he grew. His heart slowed. His breath grew shallow and soft. His arms and legs felt weightless – buoys floating on a lake beneath a blue summer sky.
Inside Grant something opened, like an iris letting in more light, until he almost sensed something beyond the wall, beyond all that whiteness, an understanding just out of reach. He closed his eyes and felt his mind begin to drift.
A car alarm went off outside.
Startled out of his daze, Grant studied the wall, trying to recapture what he'd felt, but it was just a wall. Just sheetrock and plaster and paint. Grant shook his head and let out a bark of laughter, then turned back to his computer, prepared for another afternoon of frustration. Instead, his fingers found the keyboard and began typing, tentative at first, then with more confidence as thoughts and words came in a steady trickle.
Had he bothered to glance out the window, Grant would have seen a pair of shadowed figures in overcoats standing up the street in the shade of an oak tree.
* * * * *
"So how's the book coming?" Debbie asked, picking at the half-eaten lasagna on her plate.
"Good," Grant said, which wasn't exactly a lie. For the first time in weeks, he felt like a writer again.
Debbie washed down a bite of her pasta with some wine and cleared her throat. "Have you given any thought to what we talked about last week?"
"Last week?" Grant said.
"Diapers? Little league? Saving for college?" Debbie said. "Ring a bell?"
Early in their marriage, Grant had made it clear he wanted a writing career before he took on the responsibility of raising a family. Now that he'd tasted some measure of success, he didn't want to sacrifice his writing to change diapers or help with homework or shuttle the kids to soccer practice.
"Do we have to talk about this now?" Grant asked.
"If not now, when?" Debbie asked. "Every time I bring this up, you find some way to avoid it."
"I'm not avoiding anything," Grant said. "I just don't want to rush into anything."
"Rush?" Debbie said, letting out a clipped, humorless laugh. "It's been seven years. Define rush."
Sometimes he really hated the fact that he'd married a teacher.
"I don't have the energy to get into this now," Grant said.
"Fine." Debbie stood up and took her plate into the kitchen. "You go sit in front of your computer and do what you have to do, then come talk to me when you decide you have the energy."
* * * * *
Two hours later, Grant sat at his computer, the door to his room shut and the last word he'd written earlier that afternoon sitting marooned on the screen, waiting for a subsequent word or expression or thought to give it balance, to carry him forward into the next paragraph:
vacant
But the words had dried up again.
Damn her, he thought. God damn her.
Debbie had never understood his need to write. She read his first drafts and celebrated with him when he finished his book and when he found an agent and when both of his novels were published, but she always seemed to regard it as something he would grow out of once he found a real job. She never validated the hours he spent crafting words into pages, creating something immortal, a piece of his soul removed for public viewing.
More than once Grant wondered if his wife secretly wanted him to fail. With her renewed insistence to raise a family, those thoughts returned.
Grant stared at his monitor, at the last word he'd written more than four hours ago
vacant
and tried to remember where the thought had been leading him. But the only place his thoughts seemed to lead was a dead end.
Frustration as familiar as his own heartbeat pounded in Grant's temples. He pushed away from the desk, his chair rolling back, and spun around until he faced away from the computer, from that marooned word floating in the middle of the screen. He stared at the wall, at the vacant white space above the movie poster, then turned around and looked at his computer.
vacant
Turning back to the wall, Grant stood up and walked over to the movie poster. He lifted the poster off the hook and set it aside before returning to his chair, where he sat and stared at the wall. At first he felt nothing. But within minutes the sensation from earlier that afternoon returned, filling Grant with the sense that he'd opened a portal, stood at the edge of an awareness, an understanding just beyond his grasp.
Outside, a car alarm wailed in the distance.
Grant ignored the distraction and continued to stare at the wall. He could almost hear a low hum of indecipherable words that he might understand if only the words could get through.
Abandoning his chair, Grant knelt on the floor in front of the bookshelf and removed the books, then moved the bookshelf out of the way, leaving no obstruction, only the wall stretching eighteen feet above him. He sat on the floor and stared at the wall, at the nothingness, at the two-hundred-and-sixteen square feet of white, vacant space, listening to the steady hum that penetrated his mind, not knowing what he was hearing but believing it was real. He closed his eyes and opened his mind.
A police siren blared past outside, breaking the connection. Grant opened his eyes and stared at the wall, trying to recapture what he'd experienced, but whatever he'd heard and felt was gone.
Sensing that some important discovery had eluded him, he returned to his chair, certain he would sit impotent at his computer for the rest of the night, unable to concentrate. But when he reached for his keyboard, the words gushed out.
Several hours later, when Grant finally went to sleep, fifteen new pages sat on his desk, the best fifteen pages he'd ever written.
* * * * *
Over the next week, Grant spent every possible waking moment at his computer. With growing frequency he would sit in front of the wall and close his eyes, listening to the steady hum, trying to decipher its message. Then he would return to his computer and his fingers would type out words and phrases and ideas he barely recalled conceiving. It was as if he'd found a connection to the Creator of Thoughts, to the Lord of Words.
From the other three walls in his room he removed a framed copy of his first book cover, several photographs of he and Debbie, and a Salvador Dali print. Hi
s bookcases and filing cabinet and anything that wouldn't fit in his closet were shoved into the hallway, leaving only his desk, his chair, and his computer, with a single lamp to work by into the early morning hours. That's when he did his best writing, when the world outside his room grew silent and the walls hummed.
"What are you doing to your room?" Debbie asked as if accusing him of hiding something.
"It's too cluttered," Grant said.
"It wasn't too cluttered before."
Grant answered her with a shrug.
The next morning, Grant found his smaller bookcase and floor lamp returned to his room, along with several framed photographs hanging on the walls. He removed the pictures and the other unwanted items, then took them and everything else he'd banished from his room downstairs and into the garage. Upon returning to his room, Grant discovered that his manuscript had been disturbed – several of the pages read and replaced. After a quick breakfast, he drove to the hardware store and bought a keyed entry lock doorknob for his room.
Every day, Grant felt an awareness growing inside him, a comprehension of reality he'd never grasped, a reality he'd never known existed. But each time he sensed he was close to making that final connection, something distracted him. Car alarms went off at all hours. Sirens screamed past in the middle of the night. The phone would ring and when he answered, all Grant heard was a dial tone.
With growing frequency, Grant caught glimpses of figures in overcoats and hats standing in the shadows across the street or on his front lawn, watching him. But when he took a second glance or went outside to investigate, all Grant found were shadows.
In spite of their enigmatic existence, and to an extent because of it, Grant believed the figures were responsible for the alarms and the sirens and the phone calls. He didn't know where they came from, but he decided they were some kind of regulators – cosmic gatekeepers sent to prevent him from finding the key that would unlock the secrets behind the walls.
He didn't tell Debbie any of this. She wouldn't understand, even if she believed him. Besides, she was as much a source of distraction as the regulators. The more he thought about it, the more Grant began to think his wife was one of them.
"How come you put a lock on your door?" she asked one night at dinner.
Grant took a bite of his pork chop and mashed potatoes and stared at his plate. "Why does anyone put a lock on a door?"
He moved his pork chop to one side, and then spread his mashed potatoes out across his plate until they resembled a stucco wall.
"What's going on, Grant?" she said. "Why are you doing this?"
"Doing what?" he said, still staring at his plate.
"This," Debbie said. "Being distant, uncommunicative, blocking me out of what's going on in your life."
"I'm not blocking you out," Grant said. "I'm working."
The stack of sheets that represented his new manuscript had grown from fifteen pages to over one hundred. His supply of words seemed endless.
"God damn it, Grant! Look at me."
Grant looked up from his plate. Behind Debbie, a single floral painting hung on the wall. Grant wondered what would happen if he took down the painting, if the walls down here would talk to him, too.
"Grant?"
"What?" he said, shifting his gaze from the wall to his wife.
"What's wrong with you?"
"There's nothing wrong with me," he said, staring directly into Debbie's eyes.
Debbie produced a small, uneven smile that faltered and then vanished altogether. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know what it means," Grant said.
"I don't know..."
"You're one of them," Grant said.
Debbie stared at him, her face tense. "One of who? What are you talking about?"
"Why did you marry me?"
"Grant, I don't..."
"Why did you marry me?" he nearly shouted.
"I married you because I love you," Debbie said, her eyes filling with tears. "I married you because I wanted to spend my life with you, to have children, to grow old..."
"We're not having children," Grant said.
Debbie stared at him, her chin trembling, tears spilling down her cheeks. "I don't know who you are anymore."
She picked up her plate and stood up. As she walked past Grant into the kitchen doorway, he reached out and grabbed Debbie by the wrist. Startled, she dropped her plate, splattering pork chop and mashed potatoes and green beans across the kitchen's tile floor.
"I want to know the truth," Grant said.
"Let me go," said Debbie, struggling to get away. Her free hand flailed across the counter inside the kitchen doorway, knocking a dirty, two-cup Pyrex measuring glass to the floor, where it exploded into pieces that scattered across the tile.
"I want to know what you're hiding," Grant said.
"I'm not hiding anything!" she cried, pushing against the doorjamb as she tried to pull away.
Grant tightened his grip. "I want to know who those men are outside."
"I don't know!" Debbie's hand fell across the handle of a steak knife and she grabbed it, her left arm swinging up in a wide arc as she leaned back against her husband's grip. The knife came down fast, but Grant let go an instant before the blade could reach his arm.
Debbie stumbled backwards into the kitchen, her left foot coming down on a glob of mashed potatoes. Her feet slipped out from under her, her arms pin wheeling, the steak knife flying out of her hand as she fell to the floor, her head snapping back and hitting the tile with the sound of an enormous egg. The steak knife clattered harmlessly to the floor as Debbie's legs twitched three times and then stopped.
"Debbie?" Grant said. He stood up and walked into the kitchen, past the fragments of plate and glass, past the pork chop and green beans and mashed potatoes, until he reached his wife. A small, red bubble of saliva rose from between her slightly parted lips and then burst.
That's when Grant noticed the blood spreading out across the floor from the back of Debbie's head. At first Grant thought she'd split her head open. Then he saw the jagged edges of glass and realized the base of his wife's skull had landed on the broken base of the Pyrex measuring cup.
Grant knelt down next to his wife and held her hand. "Debbie," he said, searching for a pulse, for any signs of life. But she remained motionless, her eyes staring up at the ceiling, her lips parted, no heartbeat or breath.
Grant remained on his knees, eyes closed against the tears and anguish he expected would come as dozens of memories spun through his mind – he and Debbie walking on a beach in Kauai, curled up on a couch together reading, making love on the floor where her body now lay lifeless.
Then the walls started to hum.
In his mind, Grant began to see other images of Debbie, not memories but revelations – Debbie whispering into the phone, skulking out the back door, sneaking into his room and reading his manuscript.
When Grant opened his eyes, he was no longer kneeling on the kitchen tile next to his dead wife but on the carpeted floor of his room surrounded by his vacant, white walls that hummed and pulsed. Grant listened. And he understood.
Turning away from the walls, Grant sat down at his computer and began to write.
* * * * *
Night passed and morning dawned. On the kitchen floor, Debbie's body grew cold while Grant sat in his room, listening to the walls, words and concepts streaming into his head. His entire body pulsed with knowledge. He could feel it pumping through his veins, sweating from his pores, releasing from his mind – the words coming out in a torrent.
After a while, Grant became aware of a dull ringing in his ears that grew more insistent, stopping and starting again, until he finally recognized the cry of the telephone. He waited for the answer
ing machine to pick up, but the phone kept ringing. When he finally answered, all Grant heard on the other end of the line was a dial tone.
Grant hung up and went to his window, looking for the men in overcoats and hats standing in the shadows. But the sun had risen high enough in the sky to chase away most of the shadows. Still, Grant knew they were out there, watching him.
When the phone rang again a few minutes later, Grant went through the house and unplugged all the lines. After he disconnected the phone in the kitchen, Grant stepped over Debbie's body into the dining room and stood by the table, his eyes fixed on the floral painting on the opposite wall. To his right, the dining room opened into the living room. To his left, past a two-piece cherry hutch that contained his wife's collection of bone china teacups, a set of French doors led to the back patio.
Grant stared at the painting and the wall surrounding it, then looked into the living room, imagining how the room would look with nothing on the walls and no furniture obstructing his view. He thought about how pristine the walls would be, how clear, how endless.
From deep within the house a faint hum started. Grant cocked his head and listened, a smile stealing across his face as he walked to the French doors and opened them. He removed the painting and carried it outside. The dining table and chairs went next, followed by the hutch, which Grant dragged out on to the flagstone patio with disregard, snapping off one of the legs and breaking all but two of the teacups.
The living room took longer to empty. In addition to the paintings, Grant had to move two wingback chairs, an end table, a wall-length bookcase, and a couch. The couch was too heavy to maneuver on his own, so Grant took off the cushions and cut the couch in half with a skill saw before he dragged it outside.
All around him, the house hummed.
Grant moved to the family room, dragging the furniture and entertainment equipment out the sliding glass doors and removing the artwork from the walls. Debbie's body went last, dragged out through the French doors and tossed in a heap with the rest of the debris.
Upstairs, he cleared out his wife's study, shoving everything he could into the closet before dragging her roll-top desk across the hallway and into the master bedroom. When the desk wouldn't fit through the open window, he smashed out the stationary pane, then dumped the desk over the edge, shouting in triumph when the desk exploded on the patio below.