by Graeme Hurry
“I don’t care,” I told him. At this point I was squinting my eyes to keep in the tears.
“The only way we can access this place is if we are accompanied by a human that has the talent of anchoring – of keeping a connection to reality. Otherwise, we would be lost forever.”
“I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!” I screamed. In a way, I meant it. I didn’t want to die. More for Mom’s sake than myself; if I died, she would have nothing to hold on to. She would come apart. In pieces, slowly, until she was scattered, and all the love she had ever held on to leaked out through the cracks.
As one, the circle of Gray Men took a step closer to me. I raised my hands, curling my fingers like claws. “Stay away from me. If you don’t, I’ll rip your arms off – you think I’m kidding? You think I won’t bite through your jelly-arms if you come near enough?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Siva growled. He took another step forward. So did the rest of the Gray men. They were barely a foot away from me, now – within scratching distance. But I wasn’t looking at them anymore. I was staring at the closed door. A sound was coming from behind it. A deep, rumbling sound. As I watched, a black puddle seeped out from the crack at the bottom and reached towards us, in rivulets that looked like fingers.
“The black water place,” I murmured. Then I turned on Siva, who had come close enough that I could see the sweat on his forehead. “Don’t, please,” I begged. “That place scares me. And something cuts me. That man, with the brown eyes and that horrible smile, he cuts me open-”
Siva’s frown took on an edge of surprise. The rumbling grew louder, and the door began to groan, visibly bulging in the middle as the water pushed against it, strained to reach us and drown us in darkness. “Siva,” one of the Gray Men said, his voice warning.
Siva stared at me for a moment. Then he lunged forward and grabbed my hand. Szürke grabbed my other hand, two others grabbed my shoulders, and the rest grabbed handfuls of my shirt.
The door burst open with a twanging sound, and a wall of black water rushed towards us. I squeezed my eyes shut.
The water came over us in a wave of chill. I opened my eyes just as the walls of the room fell away, and suddenly I was standing with my feet buried in mud. The Gray Men floated like seaweed around me. Siva let go of my hand first, and began rising to the faraway surface, traced with orange light. He was followed by the others, moving up in a cloud. Szürke was the last to leave me. The current pulled at him as he held onto my hand, until I began to feel a strain in my arm. His eyes were sad. “I’m so sorry,” he said. Then he let go.
For a time I could see their silhouettes against the light of the surface. Then the silhouettes pulled out into the place above, the place the light came from. I was alone.
“Hey-” I tried to call, but water rushed into my mouth and the rest of the sentence choked in on itself. It wasn’t that I couldn’t breathe – I could – but the water had an unpleasant taste that left me coughing. All was quiet, except for a distant rumbling… the sound when you press your hands over your ears, that rumbling sound of the muscles in your wrists.
I examined the stuff my feet were stuck in. Just like the dream – there was even that same pulling sensation beneath it, that same anxiety. I reached down and tried to wrench my feet out. No luck; the stuff was like concrete. Exasperated, I relented and took to staring up at the the light above. After some point I felt like the flickers meant something, that they were shaping pictures I should’ve been able to understand, but didn’t.
I’m not sure how much time passed. Time… I’m not sure how it applied to the black-water place. There was movement in the water, but it was a constant movement, one that lacked intervals, one that I couldn’t use to judge the passage of anything else. My thoughts moved slowly, like molasses dripping down the side of a bowl. Before long I wasn’t thinking anything at all. Just staring upwards.
It could have been years.
*
However long it was, I was jerked awake when I heard a splashing noise. My head tilted back, and I watched a silhouette appear at the surface, and begin to sink towards me. The smiling man? I thought, panicking. But it wasn’t. The silhouette sunk closer, and became the cut-out of a boy, no older than five. He wore a red T-shirt and white shorts, with sandals on his feet that came off in the water and floated above him, lost. His face was murky and dark. Instinctively I reached for his falling body; the water pushed him into my arms. His eyes were closed. He didn’t move.
The pulling sensation in the mud beneath my feet got stronger, and I… I could feel reality reaching through me, if that makes sense. The feeling went up through my legs, my abdomen, my arms, my hands, and it used me like a tunnel – to pull him through, back to where he belonged. The sensation hurt – like sand in my bloodstream – but it only lasted for a moment, and then the boy was gone. Maybe home, laying in bed somewhere. Maybe in his parents’ arms. Maybe crying and telling them about what a horrible nightmare he had had. Safe from Them, anyways. Safe from the smiling man.
There was another splash, and a second person fell towards me, a girl my age with soft orange hair. She fell into my open arms with the weight of a feather. I felt pain, and she was pulled through me and back into the light. Then another boy, eight maybe, with a rash on his cheeks… a little girl with coppery skin… a girl in a white dress… one by one they drifted down, and one by one I caught them. I could imagine the Gray Men above, laying the children onto the surface of the water, watching as they dropped into the darkness. Saving them from whatever feast They had planned. Assuming, of course, that Siva had told me the truth.
Why were they all so young? I wondered. Maybe They like fresh meat. I didn’t like that thought, so I pushed it out, and let it drift into the shadows.
None of the children woke when they reached my arms. I don’t know what would’ve happened if they had; suffocation? Drowning? Or would they be able to breathe under here, like me? I don’t know now, and I never will… but one of them was struggling. A boy with a shaved head and a black shirt. He was one of the last, and I watched him fall towards me with his limbs thrashing. When I caught him I held him close to me, rocking him gently until he disappeared. I like to think I helped him; I think the wince around his closed eyes relaxed away with the rocking.
Eventually the stream of children ended. Yet I wasn’t alone, not exactly. Straining myself, I could hear noises under the constant rumbling, noises from the surface. The very edges of echoes as they touched the water. Things that might’ve been shouts. In any case, my eyes were glued to the light patterns, narrowed to detect any shapes that would block the orange flickers. At some point there was a curl of black that came dripping down and turning in circles. Gray Men blood. But it was just a drop, and there was nothing more.
I need to get out of here, I thought to myself. I had a feeling that no more kids were coming; so what was taking the Gray Men so long? Was there something else they had to do before getting back to reality? Could I get back without them? My lip curled back, and I bared my teeth at the spot on the surface where the Gray Men had disappeared. Mom was probably worrying about me – had the bastards thought of that? Of the harm they were doing to her? It was one thing to get my Dad’s help… at least he had done it on his own free will…
There was a surprised chuckle. “Well, you don’t look particularly pleased to be here, do you?” My blood froze, in icy rivulets that made my fingers tremble. I knew even before I turned around that the man from my nightmare would be standing there.
There was rich light in his hair, radiance in his face, his brownish eyes. What I didn’t entirely expect was the way the shadows bent around him, beneath the light. They stretched themselves out into points, like kelp… like claws.
The smiling man stood with his hands folded in front of him. He tilted his head so that one ear was pointed towards the surface, and stood still for a moment, listening. “Hm. Sounds like they’re far away… how nice. We have some time
to chat.” He grinned.
My hands clenched in on themselves. When I opened my mouth to shout, bitter liquid flooded across my tongue, muffling the words. “Szürke! Siva! One of Them is here!” The man laughed, his teeth glinting in the darkness.
“They don’t have hearing as good as mine, honey. They can’t hear you… or help you. Comes from their physical presence within their human hosts. Oh, excuse me, volunteers.” He rolled his eyes. “Those humans gave themselves to the Gray Spirits after we finished feeding on someone they cared about – as I’m sure they’ve told you. They like to go on and on with their tragedy stories, of how the Gray Men came to be.” The smiling man sighed, then paused, examining my expression. I must have looked confused, because he said, “What? They didn’t tell you?” He cast a glance at the surface above us. “Interesting. Do you even know what they’re here to do?”
I narrowed my eyes, but said nothing. I poised my hands in the water. When he came forward to kill me, I would be ready. He made a tut-tutting noise with his tongue. “Oh, you’re not going to talk to me? How sad. I enjoy conversations. Especially from such young humans like you. Children say the funniest things sometimes.”
A moment passed, and suddenly I felt his hand gripping my chin, tilting it up so that he could peer down into my face. I didn’t like the feel of his hand. It was… not painful, exactly, but… like the surface of a burr, the kind you get covered with when you go into the woods. It was like his fingers were covered in those same little hooks.
His eyes glowed in the dark water. “You look like the last anchor. The same hair, the same eyes. The same flavor beneath the eyes, if you get my meaning.” He beamed down at me. “You wouldn’t be his daughter, by any chance?”
I raised my arm and raked my nails across his face. The cuts were ragged, yet leaked no blood. His brilliant mouth twisted into a grimace. “Really, now. No need to be angry. It wasn’t me who killed him. It was another one of us. Then again,” he added, “I watched it happen. It was almost funny. You wouldn’t think,” he said, coming closer and beginning to smile again, “that humans have so much blood inside them. Have you ever seen blood emptying out of a person? Gallon by gallon, in big billowing clouds that stain the whole surface red? It was so funny. Me and the others, we laughed, we watched your Father bleed and we laughed…”
“Shut up,” I hissed. His smile beamed wider.
“We didn’t think the Gray Men would find another anchor so soon, not after your Father. But now they brought his daughter. And oh, we’ll get to have fun with you.”
The shadows around him parted, and suddenly I could see pairs of eyes floating in the water, grinning white teeth. The rest of Them were creeping forward to get a better look.
*
What happened next… it’s hard to remember. No, not that. Just hard to explain in words.
The smiling man stepped forward and raised his arm. I knew he was going to slash me open – like in the dream. But here, something else happened.
The hand came down, but out of the water came this… feeling. Like someone was squeezing me tight, in a bear-hug. My face was buried in someone’s shoulder.
No, not just someone’s. My Father’s. Or, at least, an echo he had left behind.
My mouth opened. Not to say something… what do you say to a ghost?… it just came open on its own, out of surprise. Water rushed in over my tongue. The bitter taste from before, though, was gone. Now it tasted like chocolate. I couldn’t quite tell what the flavor was. Something tangy, like passion fruit, or lemon, or maybe guava. Something warm and sweet like that.
The smiling man’s claws cut into Dad’s echo more than into me. I started to bleed, but the scratches were blunted – not organ-ripping, not deadly.
There was a scream. Not from me, I don’t think. Maybe from Szürke, since it was a man’s scream. Then all around me were writhing shapes, glinting black suits, leather gloves and fleeing shadows.
I pressed a hand to my chest. It’s weird, bleeding underwater. You feel warm and cold; warm, as hot blood slips around your fingers, and cold as the water rushes in. My eyes began to blur. Not enough of the blood was getting to my head, maybe.
Seven pairs of hands grabbed onto me. There was a sensation around my ankles, like something was gripping them, sucking me down.
*
I fell onto a hard surface. A wooden floor. Someone picked me up, and there was the sensation of being carried very quickly.
*
I don’t remember my eyes closing, but when I opened them, I was looking up at a ceiling. My chest was tight, my arm ached, my head hurt. That’s all I realized at first. Then the details began to filter in.
I was in a private room with clean white walls and a window overlooking the street. I could feel my lungs pushing against wraps of bandages. There was a thin, clear tube pushed into the crook of my left arm; an IV drip. A white blanket was pulled over me, and beneath the blanket I wore a hospital gown.
There was movement to my right, and then someone gripped my free hand, squeezing gently. “Mom?” I said. I turned my head and found her sitting stiffly in a chair beside my bed. Her face was older than I remembered. Or maybe it was just the lighting.
“Hey, baby girl. How are you feeling?” After a moment, I managed a smile.
“Decent. I guess.” I paused, glancing at a small table behind her. There were several bouquets of expensive-looking lilies and roses, along with several dozen Hallmark “Get Well Soon” cards, and, half-hidden beneath it all, a heart-shaped box of chocolates. I could see the logo of the special confectionery on the cover. “Where’s the Doctor?” I asked.
Mom managed a shrug. “She’s seeing another one of her patients right now. At least, that’s what the nurse said. She’s supposed to be with us soon.” There was a pause after that. A long pause. In the silence, Mom stared down at me, and gripped my hand tighter and tighter. “Siva brought you here,” she murmured eventually, her voice cracking. “He left while the doctors were busy, and called me at home. He told me what happened.”
I raised my eyes to her face. She bit her lip. “Please, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t know your Father was still involved with them… I thought it was all just water under the bridge.” Jerkily, she raised my hand to her lips and pressed it there, closing her eyes. Neither of us spoke.
Finally, I gestured with my eyes at the table of gifts. “Did the Gray Men leave that box of chocolate? ‘Cause if they did, I want you to throw it ou-”
“I bought it, baby.” I blinked. Mom attempted a smile, then lay a hand on my cheek, stroking it. “I know I haven’t been there for emotional support. But I’m going to make it up to you. I won’t be able to replace your Dad completely, but…” I smiled at her.
“It’s all right, Mom. You don’t have to replace him. You just have to be there.”
*
The nurses made Mom leave eventually, so that I could rest and recover from the blood loss. I spent some time reading the Hallmark cards. They were all from people in my neighborhood, with some from school, and a couple from the library. Most of them said how upset people were to hear about how I was attacked. Mr. Trumsten pledged to make a petition to get increased law enforcement in the area, or something like that. Marcia promised me a free book – a satire, of course, to help cheer me up. There was even one that everyone in my Chemistry class had signed.
After reading them all, I asked a hospital aid for paper and a pen. I wanted to write down what had happened. I figured the memories would make more sense if I could make them physical, pin them down in words to examine them.
Looking back, though… it doesn’t make more sense.
But at least writing about it was something to keep me occupied. There wasn’t much left to do, after reading all the letters and smelling all the flowers.
Now, sitting here… I keep thinking about that echo of my Dad. I can’t help wondering if that echo of him, if it’s lost somewhere in that black place.
If that’
s true, only the Gray Men know how to reach him. Maybe… maybe, if I agree to do another anchor job, they’ll help me find him. So I can talk to him. Maybe I can bring Mom there, too, and we can have a chance to say goodbye…
Or maybe it would be better to just forget this ever happened.
*
The chocolate box is still there. About twenty candies altogether, buried beneath drifts of cards and flowers. They’re an assortment, I think. Truffles, chocolate-dipped fruits and pretzels, caramels, mints.
I’ve decided to save them for when I get out of the hospital.
Then I’ll go to 353 Seneca Avenue, the Gray Men’s place, while Mom’s running errands somewhere. I’ll leave the box on the doorstep. On top I’ll tape a note that says, ‘When you find a new anchor, and go on another attack, take this with you. Leave it open in the water. Leave it for Dad.’
So if his ghost wakes up, and I’m not there, he can still get a kiss from me.
They’ll do it, too. That’s the funny thing. They probably don’t think he’s there, they’ll think I just want to pay homage to him. But they’ll do it.
And when their new anchor asks what the chocolate is for, they’ll turn their eyes away and not say a word.
REAL PREDICTIONS
by Regina Clarke
The warden walked down the long corridor with his first-line supervisor. The harsh fluorescent lights above them were covered with steel beams and mesh.
“Nothing unusual about the cell,” Owens was saying, his voice holding a combination of nervousness and defensiveness as he looked up at his new boss. “She was in here for life, right? No perks for long-term. This solitary stuff, though, was meant to be temporary. The last warden, Remis, a real hardliner, know what I mean? He thought it’d take her down a peg or two. She’d been acting pretty sure of herself. Kept saying she’d find a way out of here. So she wasn’t allowed any visitors. There’s been just me and the correctional officer.”