8:00 p.m.
It was freakishly quiet around here, but the sounds of mayhem rung from the far distance. Jerry and I took to the streets with our flashlights, where broken trees, branches, and phone cables crisscrossed and overlapped each other along the flooded sidewalks. “I slept through this?” I said.
“Have you ever seen it this dark before?” Jerry asked, attempting to conceal his nervous twitch. I had not, not since the blackout a few years ago, but at least there were people around back then, not like this. Where did everyone go?
“Hello? Hello?” we called out, stepping farther into the dark maze of 158th street.
Our street still had a little power, but others didn’t. It was like gazing out into dark matter as the beams from our flashlights guided us through the night.
“Hey, don’t Reggie and Joanne live on this block?” Jerry asked. “You think they’re okay? Wow, that tree speared the front of that house.”
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore at that point. It looked like people hauled ass because no one was here.
“Ah, come on! There’s still no service on my phone? Can you believe this shit? Goddamn AT&T!” Jerry bitched as he toiled with the four hundred dollar smart phone he had bought for himself when the Ingrid left.
“Who cares? Let’s go further down,” I said advancing into the darkness. Terrified as I was, there was something exciting about venturing out into the darkness with our flashlights like the Hardy Boys.
“We’re the Hardy Boys, Jerry. Let’s go on an adventure!”
“No way, we ain’t no Hardy Boys,” Jerry shook his head, slowly retreating. “This is freaking me out, man. Let’s just go back to the house, Chico. I don’t like your adventures.”
Jerry called me Chico. It was a white man’s poor attempt at speaking Spanish, and it always came out sounding like Cheeek-hhoo.
“How old are you and you’re still afraid of the dark, you big baby. Come on, we might find some dead bodies over there,” I teased.
“That’s not funny, you dick, what if there are dead bodies down there? You don’t know!” Jerry whimpered, obviously not sharing my enthusiasm for exploring.
The air was brisk with a touch of burning wood and musky dew. I inhaled with one long pull into my lungs and exhaled—refreshing. I know people were dying, but it was relaxing, like camping.
“Ah, just like camping, remember that, Jerry? We would sneak out of our tents in the middle of the night to go out into the woods to find raccoons, otters, or some shit. Even then, you were a little crying bitch. ‘Come on, Charlie, it’s not funny, we have to go back, we’re going to get into trouble. I’m not scared, I’m just tiiirrred.’ Then I would turn my flashlight off and hide behind a tree so you couldn’t see me while you took a shit in a bush, and you’d start crying—that was great, remember that?”
“Yeah, yeah, har-har—eat shit. I wasn’t crying. I was tired from you dragging my ass all over God’s green earth in the middle of the night, like you’re doing now,” Jerry answered. He was too easy when he spooked, and when he was nervous his voice cracked like it did during puberty.
Jerry slept with all the lights on in the house when he was alone, which is all the time now, since the Ingrid left. He claimed he left the lights on for the dog and would never admit otherwise.
“Wait—shush! What’s that?” I asked blinding Jerry with my light. “Wait…listen...be quiet.”
It was a medley of angry tires, screeching in the distance like a band of howling banshees. It wasn’t close enough yet to know which direction it was coming from, but it was approaching quickly. The vehicle sounded like it was tearing up the street occasionally sideswiping and bouncing off a parked vehicle—gunning it. It reminded me of my Dad’s driving. Here it comes, any second now right behind us, rounding the corner.
“Holy shit, Charlie, what the…”
The car finally came hurtling down the street like a bat out of hell, tail spinning right past us, crashing into a brick house on the corner.
“Fuck, should we go see if they’re okay?” Jerry asked, but I knew he would be okay if we turned back and went home instead. “We should go see if they’re okay, right, Charlie?”
“Yeah, alright, come on,” I answered, but we took our time getting there. I hoped the driver was wearing a seat belt, because if they looked anything like the car then they were in big trouble.
We saw small flames and smoke rising from the hood of the car and fluids spilling out from underneath. The front of the Subaru Outback was crushed in like some funny looking accordion, with a single working headlight and the driver was missing.
“What the hell?”
“Uhm.”
“Hmm.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know.”
“Huh?”
“Uhm, yeah.”
Jerry looked under the car with his flashlight, down the street, against the house, in front of the vehicle—no one was there.
“You wanna’ just go home? This is bullshit, seriously,” Jerry asked as a startling ruckus coming from inside the house interrupted him. We heard dishes and glass breaking; a lot more glass breaking, and someone in horrible anguish screaming at the top of their lungs.
Jerry pointed out that the screen door to the side of the house was wide open and slightly broken off from its hinges. “You see that? I AM NOT going in there,” he said backing up away from the house.
“I didn’t say anything.”
We were both trying to make out the commotion coming from inside, and all I could make out was—“Fuck! Christ! Please! Oh, God! Fuck, it hurts, please!” and grunting. Then there was silence. Jerry and I watched each other to see who would make the first move to go back home.
“They sound like they need help,” I said.
“Oh, goddamn it, I knew it! Why is it every time we leave the goddamn house you always get me into shit?” Jerry cried.
“What? Okay, listen, we’ll see if they’re okay and then we’re gone—we go back home, I promise.”
“Do they sound like they’re okay, Charlie, really?”
I knew Jerry was kicking himself for allowing me to convince him to leave the house that night or any other night.
It’s not my fault every time we leave the house, whether it’s to go to Clinkers or detour from going home, something always happens.
“You go first,” Jerry said cowardly filing behind me.
“Fine, keep your flashlight up, please.”
We approached the side entrance to the house cautiously. “Hello, sir? Hello, are you in there? We’re here to help you, buddy? Ma’am?”
“Maybe they’re taking a shit,” Jerry said.
“Shaddap. Whose house is this anyways, do you know?” I asked.
“Nah, no clue, come on, let’s hurry up, I wanna’ get out of here. Speaking of which, I’ve got a baby turtle I need to drop off at the pond.”
“Unbelievable. Why do you always need to take a shit whenever we leave the house?”
“What? I have a high metabolism.”
“No, it’s because you’re always stuffing your face, you animal.”
The side entrance lead directly into the kitchen where we found various utensils and drawers thrown onto the floor on a bed of broken glass, thumbtacks, and rubbish. To the right was a hallway that led to the dining room, and to the left, I assumed were the bedrooms and bathroom at the end of a longer corridor that I volunteered to inspect.
“You check the living room, and I’ll check the bedrooms,” I told Jerry, tipping my head towards the front of the house. Jerry spun and looked at me as if I had ordered him into a death trap.
“Can you come with me to the living room?” he pleaded, like a child too afraid to go to the bathroom by himself in the dark.
“No, just go, we’ll meet back here in the kitchen.”
“What if something happens to me?”
“Nothing’s gonna’ happen to you. I’m going to be twenty feet away. Go.�
��
I continued examining the hallway as Jerry cursed me under his breath, keeping my eyes and ears peeled for any sudden movements.
The lopsided frames hanging along the wall contained generic photographs of the New York City skyline, and another of three kittens playing with a ball of yarn. It was the décor an unimaginative homeowner would pick out at a local pharmacy and proudly called it art.
I came across and stepped in something indistinct, dark, and wet spotting the carpet, but it was hard to tell if it was blood or shit and ended halfway into the corridor.
The house smelled like mothballs and aged cheese. I reached the first bedroom on the left, which looked unlived in, possibly a guestroom or the bedroom of an anal-retentive bore (or someone who had died).
The opposite bedroom—the master bedroom—was a cluttered pigsty, stinky, very untidy with dirty laundry sprawled all over the mattress and paper jumbled across the floor along with ketchup packets and fast food wrappers crumbled up into wrinkled balls.
I picked up and glanced over the hi-gloss cover of the latest issue of the Black Porn magazine “Choc’lit Hunniez” I found left conveniently next to some Jergens on the night table beside the bed. I pondered taking a look-see, but anyone that filthy strikes me as someone who lets his juices fly on the pages and doesn’t clean up after himself.
I plopped the magazine back down onto the pile of other smut like “Big Momma’s Hole” and an interracially gay magazine called “Bear Traps”, stacked with some mail and coupon fliers. The Con Edison bill with the bold red letters stamped FINAL NOTICE on the front of it was for a Mr. Ted Wibert.
I doubled back to the bathroom where there was nothing but the bare minimum, the toiletries of a single man: towel, shaving cream, Gilette disposable razor, toothbrush and more of that generic art on the wall. This time with some inspirational Zen framed above the towel rack, where you can sit and ponder your life from the best place to do those kinds of things—the toilet.
So, this was a single man with no taste in art who lived like a slob and fancied black and gay porn. So where was he? What was all the hollerin’ and pissin’ about?
“Hey, Charlie, c’mere, I think this person has a dog!” Jerry yelled out from the living room.
When I returned from down the hall, I found Jerry crouched down on one knee facing the dining area where something hid from him between the dining room and the wall. It was definitely some-thing. Not a friendly one either.
“C’mere here buddy, we’re not going to hurt you. There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Jerry said crawling closer to the table with his friendly hand extending and searching forward. The growl from beneath the table grew more threatening, not frightened.
Dogs don’t have knees or hands, do they? I knew what I was seeing was not a dog, neither was it a man, and if it was—Mr. Ted Wibert was one freaky looking son of a bitch. “I don’t think it wants to be friends, Jerry, stop blowing kisses at it. I think you’re pissing it off,” I said.
Jerry inched closer, “Ahh, come on, he’s just a little scared, it’s alright.”
Jerry cannot possibly be this stupid, I thought.
“Oh, yeah? What kind of dog is it, Jerry?” I asked, knowing full well he had no idea what the hell he was talking about.
“I don’t know, kind of looks like a, uhhh, I don’t know, I can’t see it from here.”
Well, I could see it and it scared the hell out of me, but I didn’t want to alarm Jerry who was only inches from it.
Its beady little eyes peered at me from the darkness, not once blinking as if they were the eyes of a doll and still as plastic—like a Halloween mask. His eyes and nostrils widened with a ferocious intensity as he lowered his head, riding the tip of his tongue across the floor. A bad feeling knotted up into my throat.
“Fuck this. Jer’, let’s go!”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, just get away from the table, right now!”
“What, what’s the matter?”
“Get the fuck away from table I said!”
“Okay, relax. I’m getting…” Jerry didn’t get an inch before the table and chairs started flying. The creature lunged at Jerry, throwing him headlong over the counter top and onto the kitchen floor.
His body landed awkwardly, skidding across the broken plates and glasses stopping against the bottom of the ‘fridge letting out a funny sounding “Guhh!”
The creature stood upright and tall, revealing itself to me in the living room. When I shined my light on him, he let out a shrieking howl that rattled my eardrums.
It was the first time I could recall almost shitting and pissing my pants at the same time. My heart kicked like a steel-toed boot inside my chest, and I was still hung over— the aspirin never kicked in.
That couldn’t be real. The fear made me sick and heavy all over my body. Long, spidery threads and flesh wounds covered its snaky, naked body as it grabbed at itself in a disoriented panic. His eyes bounced around the inside of his head like lottery balls.
“Jerry! Get up!”
The creature was unsteady on his feet as it approached me like Frankenstein with new legs, wearing nothing but underwear and a sock.
“No, no, no, Jerry! Get up!”
The creature’s long fingers reached out to me for help (or to grab at me), but there was nowhere for me to run without leaving Jerry behind.
“Jerry! Get up!” I yelled.
I tried searching for something to defend myself, but there was nothing suitable enough to use as a weapon—improvise, Charlie.
“God damn it, Jerry! Get up!”
I figured one right hook to the monster’s jaw with the flashlight would do the trick.
“Jerry! Get the fuck up!”
Dudley winding up for the pitch, but before I could connect with the creature’s jaw, it grabbed me by the throat and slammed me onto the floor, knocking all the wind out of me and destroying the feeling in my legs. The flashlight rolled from out of my hands and underneath the couch leaving us all in darkness again.
“Jerry…get…. shit, there goes my back,” — lying on the ground, flat, dizzy and floating in some dark void, while the monster hovered over me somewhere trashing the place.
As the monster tore up the rest of the living room, I managed to crawl back into the master bedroom, quickly and quietly shutting the door behind me. I sat there a long time with my back against the door, thinking about my life to the tune of Ted Wibert screeching in the living room.
I was certain he was maiming Jerry and then making his way to me to finish me off when he was done.
“It can’t end like this,”—I’m going to die, someone’s going to find my body among a pile of porno magazines and burger wrappers, and it’s just going to send the wrong message. Please, don’t let them find me dead and naked on “Choc’lit Hunniez” or “Bear Traps.”
Moments after the long silence, a soft knocking came at the door. It was Jerry. He was alive, but bleeding profusely from his arms and hands. I think he was crying a little bit, so I took him home and helped pluck the fragments of broken dinner plates from his body without discussing what happened.
As for Ted Wibert, he took off into the night and is still at large.
THE BIRDS OF BEDLAM
(Day 2-after the storm)
On occasion, a skein of geese and blackbirds flew from park to pond around here, from Kissena Park to Alley Pond and back in formation. That morning there was a prolonged wailing and squawking coming from overhead just as the sun had begun to rise, but this was no ordinary migration for the fall. This was a cry among the winged ones to flee from something very bad, something evil. Naturally, I did my best to ignore it as I did everything else when I tried to sleep, but images of Ted Wibert from the night before lurked inside my eyelids.
God forsaken birds. I had two more hours of sleep that morning before I had to wake up and sit around the house again. Granted, with my gimpy back it took me forty minutes to lever myself out
of bed on some days. What is so strange about wailing birds or the honking of geese in the early hours of the morning? Nothing.
What is strange about hundreds of birds who sounded like they were all on fire and plummeting from the sky to their deaths? Just about everything.
It started with one bird smacking full on against my bedroom window, leaving a lengthy crack in the top left pane and a brown wet smudge.
I let out a chuckle for the poor creature. There was something sadly funny and absurd about a bird who couldn’t distinguish glass from an open space. However, my cruel amusement soon soured when I heard others falling in rapid succession against the houses and onto the pavement like pancakes, one after the other.
Dunk! Squawk! Bah-dunk!
The geese, bigger birds, sounded more like dogs falling, letting out a terrifying grunt just before they hit the ground. I cast my curtains open to the sight of sickened birds fluttering in the street. Some wobbled and hopped, with broken wings dangling at their sides, as they desperately tried to flee again.
There were nine dying blackbirds and a large bird with exposed bones and cartilage in front of Santiago’s house. That bird keeled over and twitched until it died minutes later.
Later that morning Jerry and I sat on his stoop staring at the scattered remnants of fallen birds along the street and the tops of the neighbor’s houses.
Jerry lazily tended to the wounds and gashes he suffered when the monster, who might have been Ted Wibert, sent him flying onto a bed of glass the night before. The deeper cuts continued to ooze through the bandages making him look like a mummy who lost a knife fight.
The sky was miserably gray and a sea of dark bloated clouds sat above us threatening rain, but the rain never came.
I wondered if the storm had anything to do with what might have killed the birds or Ted Wibert’s painful transformation, and how long before it got us too.
Jerry argued the birds died of the sudden dramatic change of weather, but I don’t believe that would have done it. Sudden change of weather wouldn’t explain Ted going Sasquatch on us last night in that house.
I wondered how many more were out there like Ted or the birds. Jerry thought Ted was a werewolf. I thought Ted looked like a werewolf on steroids.
I'M NOT DEAD: The Journals of Charles Dudley Vol.1 Page 11