by Taylor Grand
I roamed the streets all week, searching for human connection. The city seemed…different: almost unrecognizable. Then again, perhaps it was my growing appreciation for things. Oddly, I’d never noticed the snow-dusted desert ranges, or the tall cacti that stood sentinel in the shadows of the great mountains. I was also surprised to see such a diversity of architecture pervade the city. I heard countless birds for the first time, chirping their esoteric songs from faraway places.
New scents and fragrant flowers seemed to permeate the air wherever I walked, and the endless blue of the September sky awed me.
However, what struck me the most were the people on the streets that I used to take for granted. They were filled with an energy that I found almost impossible to describe. Children glowed with it, like tiny suns. The adults and the elderly, I observed, shone with varying degrees of this radiant light.
Whatever this energy was, I envied it. When I gazed at my own reflection, I saw none. The other silent ones were also devoid of this radiance. We shuffled through the city unseen, except by our own kind.
I suspected that I might be dead—a wandering spirit perhaps. But neither of those conclusions made sense. I had yet to see a single indication of my death: a cleared out desk at my office; a boxed up and emptied apartment; a cheap funeral with a handful of detached mourners. But there was nothing.
The world remained unaware of my disappearance.
One day I walked through a local cemetery, searching for some peace of mind. My family plot had been there for years, passed down for three generations—a giant cavity in the earth, waiting patiently for its next meal. Everyone dead in my family was accounted for there.
I was relieved not to see a tombstone bearing my name. But the relief was short-lived, for it dawned on me that I hadn’t consumed anything, neither food nor water, in several days.
Somehow, I had been subsisting on…nothing.
I was not dead. I was not a ghost.
I feared I had become something far worse.
****
It had been well over a week since I had gotten out of bed at home. By that stage I had memorized every crack, fissure and imperfection in the ceiling. I had yet to sleep, eat, or even relieve myself. But all of that seemed as meaningless as my life.
Now that the distractions of life had fallen away, the inevitable introspection appeared like an unwanted guest. The inescapable questions came up: What was my legacy? What had I contributed? Who the hell cared if I lived or died?
The weight of the answers had trapped me in this bed, sweating and stinking in a pool of regret. I found myself flipping through the pages of my past to discover a mental scrapbook filled with empty paper. I returned again and again to the same forgotten dream—eons ago—before the mundanities of life had slowly pushed it aside.
I once dreamt of being a man with something to say.
I saw a lovely face, peering at me through the veil of the past. Her name was Mrs. Wainwright—my exceptionally well-endowed grade school teacher. She often praised my flair for words. And that flattery led to my naïve, but wondrous fantasies about writing the great American novel (as well as fondling Mrs. Wainwright’s breasts).
However, I was from a family of accountants, bankers, and financial analysts who not only scoffed at the idea of writing for a living, they made sure to humiliate me for even considering it.
I didn’t have the fortitude to disagree.
Eventually my great dream faded into nothingness.
And now my very physicality, my very essence was joining that faded dream.
****
I shot myself in the face with a 12 gauge rifle.
I stole it from a local gun shop, came home, wedged it against the corner of my nightstand, stuffed the barrel into my mouth—and pulled the trigger. There was a vicious explosion as the world turned blindingly white—followed by impenetrable black. When I regained consciousness I was face down in a soup of blood, flesh and bone.
By all known laws of this universe, I should have been dead. I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. It was as if this new existence wouldn’t allow me to die.
With my remaining eye I could still see dried scraps of my brain coagulated on the wall across the room. The reflection staring back at me in the bathroom mirror made me vomit into the sink. My tongue dangled from my mouth like a dried-up, broken swing and pieces of my skull jutted from my face like shards of crimson glass.
If there was a hell, I prayed I’d find it soon. Even the devil himself would have been welcome company in such a lonely room.
****
I had become a human moth.
I swore I wouldn’t return to the Godforsaken coffee shop, yet there I was again amongst those pathetic souls and that oppressive silence.
I was no longer allowed in the main eating and drinking area. When I stepped through the front door I was immediately directed towards a back room by a large and unfriendly fellow who practically shoved me inside.
This dark, smoke-filled room was smaller and even more congested than the main coffee shop. The silent ones back here were a whole other level of afflicted and forlorn.
My shocking visage didn’t seem to bother anyone except me. As a matter of fact, this night’s particularly vile looking crowd was riddled with what looked like failed suicide attempts. The blonde perched next to me at the tiny bar looked as though she may have been attractive once. But the precious reservoir of blood that pumped through her veins was long dried up. I could see crusted bones and shredded muscle through the tattered skin of her wrists: she had ripped them open with very little grace.
Worse off were two grim figures directly across from me: an obscenely bloated man who cradled his decapitated head under his arm like a mangled pet cat, and a figure to his right with skin so horribly burned I couldn’t ascertain its gender. If you listened closely you could hear the seared flesh crackle and pop as it moved. Another gruesome character slithered across the floor like a human snake, his body reduced to a fleshy pulp—presumably after taking a nosedive off a very tall building. I nearly retched watching his shredded web of entrails drag after him on the dirt-encrusted floor.
But the worst by far was the festering abomination propped against the wall in the far corner. It was impossible to describe him/her/it. But the wretched thing was so dreadful that even the regulars wouldn’t go near it.
I stepped past it later, as I moved toward the back door and heard what sounded like whimpers coming from what might have been a mouth once.
I wanted to scream at the sight of it, but I never got the chance. Just then a tall brunette woman stepped up to me and gave me the once over.
“Hello,” she said.
For a brief moment I felt a rush of gratitude. I was so stunned that someone had spoken to me that I took an involuntary step back.
“Hel…hello,” I replied. Or would have if it had been physically possible; my tongue was still hanging loosely from the cavity where my mouth used to be. And yet, somehow, I had communicated this simple greeting.
“You’re new.” the woman said matter-of-factly. She was probably in her mid-40s and had been attractive once. Her mouth didn’t move when she spoke, nor did her awkwardly positioned head. It appeared as if she’d been in a serious car accident and broken her neck. I found it difficult to look her in the eyes, since they were practically vertical.
“I can hear you, but you’re not talking…”
“That’s the way it works here.”
“Here?” What…what is this place?”
“No one knows,” she said with no emotion. “A place for lost lives, perhaps.”
She smiled at me then. The smile of a madwoman.
I took another step back, wanting to be anywhere but in this hellhole of a room. A man could go mad here. Clearly, some of the denizens already had.
When I left, I knew it would be for the last time. Loneliness may be hell, but it was better than facing those things night after night.
&
nbsp; ****
My life once again consisted of an empty apartment and my tedious reflections, countless days wishing for something—anything—to happen.
And finally, something did.
A young couple named James and Susan McIntyre moved into, or rather invaded my apartment. It had been vacant for a good while (I simply came home one day to find my personal belongings gone), so I suppose an intrusion like this was inevitable. I admit that, at first, I was thrilled. Their presence added some much needed color to what was beginning to feel like my own personal mausoleum. I followed them from room to room for days, listening to their intimate conversations like a man-sized fly on the wall. Sometimes I would lie next to them as they made love, trying to recall the fading memory of that experience myself.
During one particularly passionate session, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to touch Susan. I was transfixed by her gorgeous auburn hair, which glistened with the sweat born of their lovemaking.
Her eyes locked with mine and she saw me.
She screamed, as I’d never heard anyone scream before. And it took her husband all night to calm her down and convince her that it was just her imagination.
Fortunately, she hasn’t been able to see me since.
The weeks passed and I often huddled close to them as they talked into the wee hours, discussing the future and relishing their possibilities. Possibilities I once had failed to notice and carelessly threw away.
One night, Susan discovered an old picture of me that had been wedged in a crevice on the top shelf of the bedroom closet. She didn’t recognize me, of course, and tossed it into the garbage, where it sat for several days unnoticed.
But I noticed. I noticed how the image began to fade once it had been discarded. And by the second day, my image had vanished completely.
It was as if reality itself had forgotten me.
Any initial distractions the McIntyres provided soon soured. Their joy had become my pain—their love my hate. They flaunted their lives before me with a constant torment of shameless affection. Now, when I saw them caress each other, I could only wish I were a ghost so I could haunt this place and force them from my home. But I remained invisible and powerless, unable to do anything but leave the last part of my previous life behind.
Perhaps it was for the best. Yes, maybe it was time to do something I should’ve done years ago: leave this city behind. Why not? It was high time I explored the world that lay beyond it.
How pathetic that this had only occurred to me now.
****
I discovered that time had no meaning in this indeterminate state that is neither living nor dead. How long had it been now? Days? Weeks? Months?
It felt as if I’d walked several lifetimes, and yet, no matter how far I travelled—the past refused to be left behind.
However, there was something far more disturbing that I discovered during my trek. The world vanished around me with each step I took. The tastes and smells I once took for granted had now disappeared. The infinite sounds and countless textures of the earth were also gone—evaporated like yesterday’s rain. As I walked, I would have given anything to hear my own footsteps again—anything to end the relentless drone of nothingness.
Though I clung to what was left of my sight, I noted that the once vibrant colors of the earth had fused into a dullish gray. My chance to experience all the wonders of the earth had simply…expired. There was no choice but to return to the city; there was no longer anything beyond it.
****
I am again in the darkened, back room of the coffee shop. The silent ones are all around me: the dispirited embodiment of countless promises unfulfilled, quiet desperations—and lost lives.
I glance from one hollow-eyed face to another and realize how desperately I will miss these silent figures—for the significance of their fellowship has become clear.
In some perverse way, they are here simply to connect—to bond with others somehow. They reach out to each other to keep from fading yet again—into an even deeper, more forsaken plane of existence than this one: an unspeakably lonely place that awaits those of us who choose to isolate themselves.
This congregation of lost souls offered my last opportunity to avoid such a fate; a missed opportunity that I will regret for eternity.
I am fading fast, into a nether level that swallows me even now.
I am the festering abomination propped against the wall in far corner—and even the silent ones don’t notice me anymore…
THE VOOD
Jesus! It’s right behind—
No.
No, it was just a trick of the light, Grady thought. There weren’t any shadows anywhere.
He had made damn sure of that.
He continued his sixth sweep of the apartment. He rechecked the army of lamps standing watch in his barren living room and inspected the reflective cloth fastened over each window. The duct tape was holding strong and every light bulb was in working order.
He winced at the onset of another tension headache. Sleep deprivation, of course. He couldn’t remember what a good night’s sleep felt like anymore. Perpetual artificial light combined with an incessant awareness of the Vood made sleep nearly impossible these days.
He weaved through the maze of floor lamps methodically, and then carefully inspected the single bedroom and closet-sized bathroom that completed his apartment. Track lighting along the ceiling and sconces along the walls created an onslaught of light from every direction. Their strategic positions were the result of hundreds of hours of trial and error. It had proven impossible to vanquish every single shadow, but the handful that survived were neutralized, surrounded and trapped forever within Grady’s prison of light.
After the final sweep was complete—the same routine for as long as he could remember—Grady collapsed onto the living room floor with a dull thud. Directly above him was an abstract pattern of cracked paint that spread across the width of the white spackled ceiling. It had more than a passing resemblance to a giant spider’s web.
He stared at the weave-like pattern, imagining the last moments of a fly, knowing it is about to be eaten alive. He squeezed his red-rimmed eyes shut and tried to shake off the image. There was nothing left to do now but try and rest. He had ten long hours to kill before the sun would force the Vood back into the cracks and crevices of the world.
Grady knew virtually nothing about the homicidal thing. He’d nearly driven himself insane trying to uncover its secrets, scouring countless rare books on the occult, ancient mystical writings, and every corner of the Internet; he devoured any information he could scrounge up on demons, monsters and global folklore.
To date he’d come up with exactly zero. There wasn’t a single reference in any known language. In fact, he could count what he knew about the Vood on two fingers: it liked to hide in dark spaces, and it had an insatiable appetite for human flesh. For this reason, Grady didn’t venture outside after sundown. Any dark area could hide—
Stop it!
He curled up with a threadbare sheet and glanced around the room.
The one-bedroom apartment was nearly devoid of furniture, appliances, equipment or decorations—anything that might cast a shadow. The sole exceptions were his laptop computer, printer and portable 7″ TV, which, due to their hard angles, managed to produce feeble shadows, despite the hoard of lamps that surrounded them. To counter this, Grady kept two high-powered Floor Sunlight Lamps angled toward him at all times.
Grady had also removed the doors from every cabinet and cupboard in his apartment, even the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. A specialty of the Vood—Grady had discovered—was hiding behind closed doors, even small ones.
For this reason, Grady had avoided dark spaces for most of his life; any garage, elevator or hallway could harbor unspeakable horrors. His long-departed refrigerator had nearly been the death of him during a particularly dreary night the previous December. He’d made the mistake of letting the automatic door light give him a f
alse sense of security. A recurrent nightmare about being swallowed had awoken him that night, and he’d shuffled into the kitchen half-asleep. As he heated some chamomile tea to calm his nerves, he reached inside the refrigerator for a dash of milk.
Immediately, he noticed the burnt-out refrigerator light. But it was too late. A monstrous, gaping maw formed from the darkness and snapped onto his hand like a steel bear trap.
The pain was blinding; yet, far worse than the physical pain was the rape of his consciousness. The Vood had invaded his mind somehow, wailing its name so loudly that he couldn’t hear his own screams.
For a brief but horrible moment, Grady felt its relentless, single-minded purpose: to consume. With the mad strength born of fear, he managed to wrench his hand free—though not all of it.
That was the last thing he remembered, until he awoke face down in a tacky pool of his own coppery-tasting blood, surprised to be alive.
Grady stared at the jagged, pinkish scars of his mutilated right hand with a sense of fatalism deep in his belly…growing like a malignant tumor.
****
Grady’s body jerked at a dark kaleidoscope of memories and he awoke with a start. He staggered into the kitchen and made some chamomile tea (he’d given up milk the night of the refrigerator incident) to calm his mind.
A vivid recollection from his dream caused tears to well up and spill from his eyes. In his mind, he could clearly see the warm smile of Bette Peyton, his beloved mother and a victim of the Vood.
As a child—before the creature had revealed its name—Grady had referred to it simply as the Spot, and he’d questioned for some time whether or not it was just a figment of his imagination.
His mother, much to his chagrin, found his prepubescent fears rather amusing.
“Don’t worry, darlin’,” she’d once said with a chuckle, simultaneously flipping a flapjack over on the stovetop. “We all catch odd things out of the corner of our eyes. Those dark spots that follow you are just tricks of the light. They’re called optical illusions.”