by Jeffrey Ford
“I saw it,” said Owen.
“Gangs in Westwend,” said Mrs. Hultz, and shook her head.
5
OWEN STRUGGLED AGAINST THE inertia of his body for what felt like an hour before being released to the night. Out on the street, he decided to head toward town, hoping since there were more people in that direction, there would be more sleepers. He desperately wanted answers about the dark world he roamed. A few steps along the sidewalk and he noticed something up ahead. A pale blue glow, passing through the wall of a neighbor’s house.
The man who owned the house was a forbidding fellow who never waved when Owen greeted him, yelled at the kids not to play on the sidewalk in front of his place, and had a nasty-looking pit bull. Although Owen had promised himself he wouldn’t spy on people in their homes beyond looking in the lighted windows, his curiosity got the better of him. What’s the point of this special power if not to see what is otherwise unseen?
He trod across the man’s lawn and went to the side of the house where he’d seen the other glowing figure enter through the wall next to the chimney. I’m not only a coward but now a pervert as well, he thought as he took a step forward and passed through the wall into a darkened dining room. The first thing he noticed was the light in the next room. He crept, though he didn’t have to, to the doorway and peered in. There was the man, a grimace upon his face and his hands covering his eyes.
Owen toured the downstairs—the kitchen, the bathroom, a disheveled bedroom. The place was poorly taken care of. There were dishes in the sink, and dust balls as silent as Owen rolled along the wooden floor of the hallway. He wondered why he’d decided to invade the man’s house. What he found was a life as lonely as his own, though not as neat, which he wasn’t sure counted for anything. Instead of wonder, he’d discovered a shabby reality.
There was one more room at the end of the hall. A light from inside streamed out into the dark through the sliver of door that was ajar. Inside the room he could faintly hear the sound of rhythmic, raspy breaths, or perhaps some mechanical device laboring steadily away. He was intrigued enough to pass through the door. In front of him was a bed holding an emaciated woman. She was dressed in red satin pajamas and had a green kerchief around her head. She slept peacefully, breathing in and out with the help of a machine standing next to the bed. There was a plastic mask covering her mouth and nose with a tube attaching it to the device. A small table in the corner of the room was crowded with pill bottles and a vase containing a red rose. Although Owen really couldn’t see what she looked like, he saw enough of her cheeks and forehead to see her color was ashen.
At her feet lay the “menacing” pit bull with his head resting tenderly upon her ankles, breathing in time with the breathing machine. Owen felt his emotions well up—first, surprise at the unexpected nature of what he discovered behind the walls of the house; second, his heart went out to the dog and the man and the poor woman. He knew now why the fellow didn’t want kids hanging out making a racket on the sidewalk, and why he was always too preoccupied to wave back or say hello.
Owen heard the heavy steps of the home owner in the hallway behind him. He felt a burst of panic in his chest, forgetting his invisibility. Turning quickly, he looked for a place to hide. A pale blue arm aglow like Owen’s appeared from out of the center of the closet door in the corner and motioned for him to follow. Just as his neighbor entered the room, he stepped through the closet door. In the dark, he saw the other sleeper pass through the wall of the house and out into the night. He followed.
At the back of the property two houses down, just in front of a line of tall hedges, the dimly glowing sleeper sat at an old picnic table. Owen drew cautiously closer until he could make out it was the woman he’d met at the cemetery the previous night.
“We meet again,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to whisper,” she said in a normal tone. “Most in the waking world can’t hear you.”
“May I sit down?” he asked.
She motioned with a sweep of her arm for him to do so. Now that he was just the table’s width away and neither of them was moving, he got a better look at her face. It was still difficult to read detail, what with the glow, but he could tell she must be a little older than he was, perhaps seven or eight years, in her mid-forties. She was a big woman, not heavy but solid, with broad shoulders. As he scooted into the seat opposite her, he noted she was an inch or so taller than him. Her face was deadpan, and her hair, which he had believed to be short, actually came to her shoulders and in front was cut into bangs. It now revealed its waking-world color as dark brown or black.
“How did you get here?” she asked, and the earlier deadpan expression turned into a smile.
“I seriously think it was from a knock on the head,” he told her.
“I’ve heard of it before. OBEs are uncommon, in and of themselves, but that scenario among those who travel by night is not. Trauma, physical or mental, can set off an episode.”
“My name is Owen,” he said, and put his hand out across the table.
She put hers out as well and the two open palms passed through each other.
“That didn’t go so well,” he said.
“Sleepers can’t touch.” She drew back her arm and said, “I’m Melody.”
“How did you get here?”
“I can get here anytime I want, through mental training and meditation. I studied with some very knowledgeable people. In most cases, I can also control when I return to my body. I bet you can’t.”
“True,” said Owen. “I could get pulled back to myself like a yo-yo at any second.”
“Because you’re an accidental sleeper.”
“Accidental?”
She nodded. “Your ability to achieve an OBE could disappear at any time and you might never achieve it again.”
“Well, it’s kind of strange. I might not mind.”
“It’s like being a ghost, isn’t it?” she said.
“Is that what you like about it?”
“That, and the quiet nature of the night, seeing into things you’re blocked from while awake. I’ve always been a loner at heart.”
“Me too,” he said. “Why were you in that house?”
“I used to work with the woman and wondered how she was getting on.”
“Apparently not so well,” said Owen. “Are you from this neighborhood?”
“Not too far. Down in town, more near the stores.”
“Why did you follow me in the cemetery the other night?”
“I had a feeling you were new by the way you were trying to run.” She laughed. “I wanted to tell you there are some things you need to know about being a sleeper if you want to stay safe. I was trying to warn you. Someone did it for me, so you need to pass it on when you encounter a novice.”
“I’d appreciate your help.”
“OK, then follow me.” She stood, and leaped in one smooth bound over the hedge behind her.
In her nightgown and robe, she looked like an angel, ascending and falling. For some reason, it made him smile. He slid off the bench and followed her with a bound. He landed in someone else’s backyard. Melody was already moving toward the side of the house. Afraid to run to catch up, he walked quickly, and saw her pass through a gate leading to the front and the street. She waited under a streetlight, and as he caught up, she said, “You know, since you could be called back any time, if that happens, I’ll meet you at the picnic table we just left.”
“Agreed,” said Owen.
“Like I said, being you’re here due to a bump on the head, you may find that one night you’re no longer able to achieve this state. The whole thing works mysteriously. Scientists take MRIs of people experiencing an OBE, and register what the brain does, but they really don’t understand what’s going on. Of course, they don’t heed the spiritual nature of it, and that’s definitely a big part of it—at least from my experience.” She turned and walked, with him beside her.
“How did you acquir
e the ability to achieve an OBE at will?”
“We’ll get to that, but I want to fill you in about the dangers now, while we have the chance. With your limited experience, you probably think the sum total is running around the night streets of the waking world and playing invisible hide-and-seek.”
“There’s more to it?”
“A lot more,” she said, and stopped. He could tell she was listening intently by her stillness and the position of her head. “This way,” she eventually said. At the corner, they turned again toward the park and cemetery. “There are creatures and entities inhabiting this phase of being, the night world, you need to steer clear of.”
“Entities?”
“Even though it feels like we are walking the streets of the waking world, which we are, in this dimension, or astral plane, or whatever you want to call the reality that accommodates us, there are other players.”
“For instance?”
“Well, have you ever heard of the silver cord?”
“I ran into a discussion of OBEs and such on the internet after I made my first journey the other night. Sort of a silver bungee that tethers you to your body. Right?”
“More or less,” said Melody. “If there were illustrations with the information, there probably were depictions of the cord emanating from the sleeping body’s forehead and connecting at the spiritual form’s forehead. At times, you’ll see it as emanating from the chest or the back. The odd thing is, I don’t have one and neither do you and neither do most I’ve met. And yet all of my teachers—great adepts—swear everyone has one whether it can be seen or not.”
He nodded as they crossed the street to the park entrance.
“OK, there are a number of ways the cord might be severed while the spirit is about in the night. If that happens, the sleeper’s body will die. But the spirit body adrift in the night world atrophies, shrivels, and becomes an evil entity with only one purpose: to sever the cords of other travelers.”
“The misery-loves-company school of retribution?”
“Yes. But it’s not like a conscious will on their part. It’s more like they become an aspect of—if you can comprehend this—the spiritual ecosystem of the world we move through.”
“How do you distinguish them from regular sleepers?
“They glow like us. They look like us in every aspect except their eyes are cold. You’ve got to be fairly close to them to see this, though. If someone approaches and they have an empty affect, jump away quickly. They’re earthbound and have lost the power to leap like we can.”
“What happens if you don’t notice their eyes?”
“Their fingers are capable of piercing your incorporeal form, usually through the chest, and unhooking your cord. And an instant later, you’re one of them. Sometimes they hunt in packs. Remember, there’s nothing human about them. Whatever seems human, speech, facial expression, gait, is all unconscious mimicry.”
“I thought sleepers couldn’t touch. So, how do they unhook your silver cord? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I can’t explain it,” she said. “The night world has somehow allowed this to happen. My teacher told me to think of it as a mutation promoting evolutionary change in that it sets up a serious challenge to the quality of sleepers. I’m not sure what she meant.”
“Have you ever seen someone lose their cord?”
“No. But what I’ve heard from those who’ve witnessed it, it’s accompanied by a stifled gasp, like an expression of great agony, inhibited by the fact that the sleeper becomes something wholly other.”
“Jesus,” said Owen. “The entire thing is like a convoluted nightmare. How often do you run into cord-cutters?”
“I travel every night, so maybe every couple of months. Because I’ve been crossing over to the world of night since I was a teenager, I can hear them as whispering static at a bit of a distance. You, though, will have no warning.”
“It’s a lot scarier now than it was.”
“Look up,” she said. They were in the park and heading toward the cemetery. He looked up, but instead of following her pointing hand, he looked into her eyes. She smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not a cutter.”
“I wasn’t looking at you for that reason,” he said.
“Then why?”
“The glow makes it difficult for me to clearly see your face.”
“There’s nothing important to see,” said Melody. “But out there, across the field, do you see the yellow cloud hovering a few feet above the ground?”
He shifted his gaze and saw what looked like a small cloud come down to earth, wisps of a sulfurous shade roiling and drifting slowly above the field. “What is it?”
“The miasma. If any part of it touches you, you’ll be disintegrated—erased out of existence. Not just in the night world but in your waking life, and the strangest thing is that no one will remember you. It’ll be as if you never existed in the waking world. All I know is that this cuts deeply across many dimensions and through many planes of existence, but reality will somehow rearrange itself and blot out the wound you are, and no one—even your parents—will be the wiser. The only memory of you that will still exist will be with other sleepers who knew you in the night world.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale,” said Owen.
“Don’t worry about it making sense,” she said. “You’ve got to keep an eye out for the miasma. It’s slow-moving but stealthy and is attracted to sleepers. The good news is it can easily be outmaneuvered. The bad is you can’t hear it approaching. I once saw a sleeper taken down by it. It looked horribly painful and slow as the ethereal body went up in smoke. It looks insubstantial but once it’s got you, that’s it. So, keep your wits and watch your back.”
Owen felt his hair stand up and a chill run down his spine. He turned quickly, only to wake in bed with the first light of dawn showing through the bedroom blinds.
6
DESPITE ALL THE GALLIVANTING around through the night, Owen felt unusually refreshed, as if his sleep had been deeper and more sustained than normal. He was often still yawning and stretching until he had a cup of black coffee, but on this day, he jumped out of bed, feeling a reserve of energy. While sitting at the kitchen table, having breakfast, staring out at the birds and the feeder that needed restocking, his mind was on Melody and the night world. The prospect of visiting it again excited and scared him.
Melody presented herself as some kind of adept, like a guru of OBEs. He considered the possibility that she was—even though he’d run into her on successive nights—just a dream, along with the rest of his sleeping adventures. But he had to admit everything about the experiences seemed utterly real. He felt that he needed to check something he’d witnessed only in the night world against the reality of the waking world. The first thing he thought of was that he’d been to Helen Roan’s grave as a sleeper but not when awake. He would go to the cemetery after work and see if there was a tree with ribbons and deflated balloons near her grave. If it turned out to be so, then he would have some kind of verification that the night world was legitimate. It was Saturday and the library closed early at three o’clock, so he’d have time to walk over before dark.
On his way to work that morning, he went through all Melody had told him about the night world. He had a fleeting thought as to whether he should trust her. Who was to say that she was not some evil entity drawing him into a situation from which he’d never return? He weighed what he knew. It was the reason he was trying to see the details of her face. He trusted his ability to read whether people were good or not. From what he’d seen, he had no reason to doubt her. As he was walking along, lost in his thoughts, he came up short at the very last second before running into someone.
The neighbor whose house he was in the previous night, the man with the ailing wife, stood before him. The fellow was dragging his garbage can to the curb. In an unguarded moment, Owen blurted out, “Hello. How’s your wife doing?” and instantly regretted opening his mouth. The man’s stony expressio
n melted, his glaring eyes went soft, and he said, “As good as can be expected.” Surprised he’d gotten a response, Owen moved quickly around him and down the sidewalk before he could make another blunder. He turned and said to his neighbor, “Have a good day,” and the fellow lifted a hand to wave and smiled. Only then did Owen realize he was trembling. A few more feet farther down the sidewalk, and he wondered if this was the proof he was contemplating at breakfast. Something verified from the night world to the waking world.
By the time he reached the library, he realized his encounter was really not proof of anything except that the man had a wife. The question he’d asked and the answer the man gave could mean a million different things. It didn’t necessarily indicate that his neighbor’s wife was relegated to bed, every breath perhaps her last. Maybe she simply had a cold or her mother had passed away or their dog had died. Owen would still have to make his way to the cemetery that afternoon to check the tree near Helen’s grave. For the time being, he put the thought out of his head.
It turned out to be a beautiful spring day, and at lunchtime he went outside and sat on the bench. There were no patrons inside, and he’d finished his important work. The calm stillness of the afternoon was suddenly broken by a sound like an asthmatic demon. “What the hell is it?” he thought, and turned to look up the road in the direction of the din. He saw Mrs. Hultz’s dilapidated 1990 maroon Cadillac Brougham. The car was in about the same shape as its owner. He was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Hultz’s longevity, seventy-five years, had something to do with the gin.