Transcription

by Ike Hamill

  “That’s horrible,” Chloe said. She turned to Bo and Danielle. “Guys—I think we should have a quick chat. Will you excuse us, James?”

  He nodded.

  They stood and moved to the kitchen. By some trick of the acoustics of the building, he could hear almost every whisper.

  “If he had a virus, or any other type of infection, we would politely ask him to leave,” Chloe said. “I don’t see the difference.”

  “It’s not his fault,” Danielle said.

  “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,” Chloe said. “He’s infected with murder.”

  Bo’s voice sounded calm and even. James didn’t catch a word of it.

  “You seem to forget,” Danielle said. “I’m the one who spread this thing to the masses. It’s just as much my fault that we’re here. Are you going to kick me out next?”

  “But you’re not still a danger. He’s cranking out a new nightmare each night. It’s just not safe.”

  Bo spoke. Again, James couldn’t hear him.

  “Yeah,” Chloe whispered. “I know. But what if he can’t.”

  “I think we can,” Danielle said.

  The three came back in the room.

  James didn’t wait for their judgement.

  “Listen,” James said. “If one of you can give me a ride, I’ll stay at the Macomber place. I don’t need to put you at risk.”

  Bo looked at Chloe.

  “No,” Chloe said. “You’re going to stay here. Bo and Danielle want to find a way to put a stop to all this.”

  “I only wish that were possible,” James said.

  CHAPTER 21: EVENING

  IT WAS THE STORY about the babies. James knew it. Until he’d told them about that, they had almost seemed on his side. Afterwards, even Bo was quiet with him.

  They ate from cans and boxes in the afternoon.

  They sat in silence at the square table.

  “When’s sunset?” Bo asked.

  “Twenty minutes,” James said. He didn’t have to consult his watch. He had a sense of it.

  “You sit down and write all night?”

  “Yes. Well, I copy, really. I use one of my father’s stories as a template.”

  “What if you have to go to the bathroom or something?”

  “I just don’t,” James said, shaking his head. “I never do.”

  “What will you do tonight?” Danielle asked. “Your father’s stories burned up.”

  James pulled the folded papers from his back pocket.

  “I took one,” James said. “Tomorrow will have to be original content, I suppose.”

  “Why can’t you just use the same one?” Chloe asked.

  “Mostly because they lose their charge,” James said. “And also because stories seem to be connected to a particular date. I could use the same story again a year from now, but two nights in a row would never work.”

  James had often wondered something about his father’s baby story. What if he had waited a year and then burned it the day before the story’s proper night. Would it have been even more powerful? Would the mothers have committed even more atrocities? He didn’t mention any of that at the table, of course.

  “On the best days when I’m writing,” Danielle said, “it feels like I’m not even the one coming up with the sentences. Everything simply flows through me, and I’m only the willing conduit. I wonder what’s flowing through you when you write.”

  “I’m basically copying,” James said. “I’ve tried to write my own stuff. It was troubling. Tomorrow night will be troubling.”

  Danielle nodded.

  “I should get set up,” James said. He pushed back from the table. “Where do you want me to work?”

  “Go upstairs,” Chloe said. “You’ll be through the last door on the right. There’s a box of candles up there and I found a couple of legal pads.”

  “Thank you,” James said. “And thank you all for letting me stay.”

  “Do you need anything from us?” Bo asked.

  “No. Please don’t disturb me, and of course anything I write should be considered very dangerous.”

  “Of course,” Bo said.

  He rose and moved towards the stairs. They all held still, waiting for him to go. They were waiting for another opportunity to discuss their situation—to discuss him and his curse. James thought about what Chloe had said. There was a house on the other side of the pond that was probably empty. When he was finished with his story in the morning, he would take a walk. Maybe he could find that house. Maybe he could remove himself from the others without forcing them to ask.

  CHAPTER 22: WATCH

  WHEN JAMES HAD DISAPPEARED up the stairs, they waited for the sound of his footsteps in the hall and the closing door.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Bo said. “Does your dad have any weapons or anything?”

  “Dad doesn’t, but Mom sure does,” Chloe said. She got up and opened the pantry. It was a shallow cabinet next to the refrigerator that held a percentage of the stockpiled cans. Chloe felt around in the back of the cabinet for a second and then they heard the CLICK of a latch. She pulled and the whole shelf of cans swung away to reveal a gun rack. Chloe pulled a shotgun from the rack and checked the barrel. “We can use this one.”

  Bo nodded.

  “I’m not going to shoot anyone,” Danielle said.

  “You just yell,” Chloe said. “I’ll be right in the master bedroom when you’re on watch. You yell, and I’ll bring the shotgun.”

  Bo pointed to Danielle. “Tell her your theory.”

  Danielle nodded. “I was talking to Bo while you guys were out getting the spring water. I was thinking about James’s father. His father, Thomas, was researching The Big Four killers, and how they stayed in the cell. It occurred to me that those four infections just went away, but Thomas’s stayed.”

  “They all died,” Chloe said.

  “Yes, they all died, but somehow The Big Four didn’t pass on their curse and Thomas did,” Danielle said.

  “Why?” Chloe asked.

  “That’s what I’ve been wondering,” Danielle said. “I figure that could be for one of three reasons. First, it might have been passed because Thomas committed suicide and James was the first one to find him. James himself suggested this theory. Second, it might be because James read the stories. Instead of engaging in the crimes, Thomas wrote them down, and that could be the infection vector. Or, third, it could be a father to son thing. Personally, I think it was the nature of their deaths. The Big Four were all executed for their crimes. Two were killed by the State, and the other two were killed by other inmates. They were all killed. Thomas, on the other hand, committed suicide. The curse wasn’t satisfied, so it was passed to James.”

  “So you believe that it’s not guaranteed that the curse will stay around once James is dead,” Chloe said.

  “Wait,” Bo said, “your theory has progressed since we talked. What did you mean when you said the curse wasn’t satisfied?”

  “It’s the curse itself,” Danielle said. “It was supposed to be teaching people that life is precious, or something like that. The purpose was to make people treasure what they have. If that’s the curse, it wouldn’t be satisfied by someone who takes their own life. That’s the last thing it wants.”

  “Don’t talk about it like it’s a person,” Chloe said. “That’s creepy.”

  “People understand motivations more than they do mechanisms. It’s just a way of looking at things,” Danielle said.

  “It sounds like your way of looking at things suggests that we should kill James,” Chloe said.

  “No,” Danielle said. “I never said that. I won’t be a party to murder. My observation is that he’s only contagious if we read the stories, or if he commits suicide. We have control over the first, and we can be vigilant about the second.”

  “What’s the point of keeping him alive?” Chloe asked. “He’s a danger to all of us. Bo asked me to hear you out, and now that you’ve s
hared your theories, I think they support my plan pretty well.”

  Danielle turned to Bo for him to back her up.

  “I don’t know, Danny, I’m starting to see things Chloe’s way. If our goal is to put an end to this, it seems like there’s only one efficient way to go about it.”

  “We won’t have any trouble out here,” Chloe said. “The whole state has gone to shit and there’s nobody around. We can dig a hole out in the woods and nobody will ever stumble on it.”

  “The point is not whether we can get away with it. The point is that he’s a fellow human being, and he’s in trouble.”

  “It’s not our trouble,” Chloe said.

  “It is now!” Danielle said. “We’re stuck right in the midst of this trouble. I think there’s a much better approach that we haven’t even considered.”

  “What’s that?” Bo asked.

  “What if we can find a way to reverse this curse and use the same power to set the world right? Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to make an effort, if the result means we might be able to put society back on its feet.”

  “I don’t see how that’s remotely possible,” Chloe said.

  “The curse unmade society,” Danielle said. “Why is it so farfetched to think that the opposite of the curse could somehow remake it?”

  “Matter tends towards entropy, not organization,” Bo said. “Things want to collapse, and all it takes is one little curse to nudge the foundation.”

  “Isn’t it worth a chance if it could set things right?” Danielle asked.

  “It’s worth a chance if we can test the idea without putting ourselves in danger,” Chloe said.

  Bo tilted his chin towards Danielle. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I’m still working on it,” she said. “Let me finish thinking it through and I’ll tell you guys about it in the morning. I’ll take second shift on the watch, if you guys want.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said. “You cool with that, Bo?”

  “Yeah.”

  # # # # #

  Bo held the shotgun across his lap. He lifted it in the flickering candlelight for the tenth time, to verify that the safety was on. It had a lever that would reveal either the word “Safe,” or “Fire,” depending on which way it was swung. It was an older cousin of the guns his father had taught him to shoot. With those, the safety was always a button. His father said “Red, you’re dead.” It was a simple way to remember that when the safety button showed red, the gun was ready to kill. Bo didn’t like this lever, with its subtle stamped letters underneath.

  It seemed inherently unsafe. There was no red mark—Red, you’re dead—to tell him when it wasn’t safe.

  Bo heard another creak from upstairs.

  This was his first night in the cabin. He didn’t know the normal noises from the unusual. He didn’t know if this creak was the cabin breathing, or his former neighbor, creeping to the top of the steps with a knife between his teeth.

  Bo was tired. He decided to check.

  He left the gun downstairs. It seemed too untrustworthy to carry.

  Each stair groaned or creaked a little under his weight. He paused at the top to see if anyone else was moving. He didn’t hear or see a thing.

  Bo moved down the hall. The last door on the right was open a little. A trapezoid of yellow light flickered on the floorboards. Bo crept closer and saw James, sitting at the desk.

  His concentration was intense. James hunched over a typewritten manuscript, using his left hand to follow along with the words. His right hand moved slowly and carefully. James used his pen to carve out each letter individually.

  Bo pushed on the door. The hinges announced his intrusion. James didn’t look up. He didn’t change his pace one bit as he wrote. Bo watched him fill the page with his slow handwriting. When he reached the bottom, James flipped the page and started at the top. His movement was pure economy. His pace barely flagged as he completed the transition to a fresh sheet.

  Bo backed away from the doorway.

  A hand touched his shoulder and Bo nearly screamed.

  It was Danielle.

  He put his finger to his lips and then gestured towards the stairs. They went down together.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I figured your shift was up. I’m here to relieve you,” she said.

  “Oh. Thanks.”

  “Can you get rid of that thing?” Danielle asked, pointing to the shotgun that was propped on the arms of the chair.

  “Sure.”

  # # # # #

  Bo fell asleep on the couch, and Danielle was glad for it. Her eyes darted over to his sleeping form every few minutes. He was her safety blanket. Also, the sound of his rhythmic breathing masked the sounds from above. After each of Bo’s exhales, if she really listened, Danielle could hear the scratching of the pen upstairs. It sounded like James was using the ball of his pen to scratch away at the surface of reality. As soon as he punched through, the world as she knew it would be sucked into the void of space.

  Danielle shook away the thought.

  She had to focus. For her, writing was the process of holding perfectly still until thoughts could move from the bottom of her brain and down to her fingers. If she didn’t stop all the noise going on at the top of her head, the writing wouldn’t flow.

  The idea she wanted to explore was based on a short story she’d written, called, “Renegade Muse.” In it, an Ancient Greek deity had gone sour, and used her influence to drive people insane. Instead of inspiring them to create great works of art, this Muse had pushed artists to paint scenes that were incredibly ugly. The sight of these works would make people depressed or angry. It was chaos spread through paint. The story seemed remarkably similar to affliction that James suffered.

  In her story, the audience of the paintings held the solution. Once they became accustomed to the ugly work, they started to understand the subtlety of the renderings. They explored the vile themes presented on canvas. They developed an appreciation for the talent behind all of the anger-inspiring works. Beauty was theirs to judge, and their perspective adapted to their environment.

  Her teacher had graded her story a B minus. It was, “Creative, but underdeveloped.” To Ms. Gilpatrick, everything was either “wordy” or “underdeveloped.” She was the one who set the length of the assignments. She was the one who required a story to be so short that it couldn’t have any depth.

  Danielle tried to quiet all that noise so the story could flow. There was an answer in that story somewhere—she was sure of it. But, she wouldn’t be able to pin it down until she had the story laid out again. She needed to spread it out in front of herself so she could dissect it, and she was on a tight deadline.

  Danielle cracked her knuckles and blinked hard before returning to the page.

  She was having trouble remembering how the story had started. She had the picture in her head of the opening of a big exhibit. A proud artist stood in front of her new masterpiece. Patrons became nauseous as soon as they entered the room. When they looked at the painting, they dropped to their knees. An older man fell and vomited on the open-toed shoes of a businesswoman. The scene ended with a teenage boy running at the artist. He held a pocketknife, and screamed for blood.

  Once she got that scene down, Danielle began to nod. That was it—she was getting back the spirit of the story.

  “Now time for a quick explanation,” she said.

  Danielle’s hand flew across the page as she wrote. It had been years since she’d written anything longhand. The form was unforgiving, and concrete. Typing was infinitely faster, but the pacing of writing each word gave her time to rearrange sentences in her head before she tried to commit them to the page.

  # # # # #

  “Are you awake?” Chloe whispered.

  “Yeah,” Danielle said. “I was just thinking.” She lifted her eyes from the page. It had been a while since she’d written anything. Honestly, she probably was pretty close to falling asleep. It was a good thi
ng Chloe had gotten up to relieve her.

  “Do you think that’s a good idea?” Chloe asked. She gestured at the notepad.

  “It’s one of my stories,” Danielle said. “I changed it completely. Nobody gets hurt.”

  “Good.”

  “How’s Dr. Frankenstein doing?” Chloe asked. She nodded towards the stairs.

  “It’s been an hour since I checked on him. I’ll go see,” Danielle said.

  “Let me come with you,” Chloe said. She didn’t follow Danielle towards the stairs. Instead, she tiptoed around the couch and lifted the shotgun from the table. Bo, asleep on the couch, stirred as she slid by him. She paused until he settled back down.

  Danielle waited on the first step.

  They climbed together.

  Danielle stopped at the top of the steps and looked down towards the door to James’s room. A band of candlelight flickered under the door.

  “What?” Chloe asked.

  “It was open before,” Danielle said. “Just a crack, but it was open.”

  “That room is drafty. The door is always shutting and opening itself.

  Danielle nodded. She moved down the hall and stopped at the door. She put her hand out and gripped the doorknob. Before turning the knob, she listened. Through the wooden door, she couldn’t hear a thing.

  Chloe lowered the barrel of the shotgun a little. Danielle swung the door inwards.

  It wasn’t him.

  The man sitting at the desk, carefully moving the pen over the paper, was old, sour, and twisted by anger. His mouth snarled at the page. His eyes, shadowed by his brow, seemed to glow in his head. He pressed the pen so hard into the paper, that the tip seemed to disappear into the page. It might be cutting into the desk.