People of the Dark

by Wright, T. M.

"What in the hell are you talking about, Knebel?"

  "Just what I said. They come and they go. They pop up and they go back and they pop up again, pretty much the same as they were before. The same as us."

  "You're not making any sense."

  "Sure I am." He glanced back at Hans. "Stop that, Hans. Later." He looked at me. "What am I, Jack? Tell me what I am."

  "I don't know what you're talking about, Kriebel."

  "I'll tell you what I am. I'm an old man. I'm tall and I'm pale and I have an old dog and people think I'm not all there. My God, Jack, there are a thousand men just like me alive right now. Line us up together, and you'd have to get real close to tell us apart. But then there's the people like your wife, like that jogger and the rest of 'em. The people out there standing by themselves in the dark. They're like palmettos, Jack. They're like chips of quartz, or leaves, or moles. They come and they go and who knows who's who, Jack? No one."

  "For Christ's sake, Knebel, this doesn't have a damned thing to do with Erika."

  "Oh, but it does, Jack. It does. Go on home and see for yourself." He nodded. "Go and find out for yourself. Look hard." Then he opened his door, got Hans out, and was gone.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I remember that Erika went through a period of a couple of weeks, maybe a month, when she hated the color of her hair, so she had it dyed dark blonde. Whoever dyed it did a bad job, though. It was streaked with her own very dark brown, and the roots were brown, but since it seemed to please her, I said nothing. She didn't let on until much later that she had seriously considered having it redyed because she knew how bad the job was and she thought she looked like a clown. But she'd made a decision, had been firm about it, and so the dye job stayed until she thought the time was right to announce that her natural hair color was okay. It was a thoroughly human thing to do, an imperfect and endearing thing to do.

  I turned and drove into Cohocton. I stopped, got out.

  I saw the people standing, as Knebel had said, "by themselves in the dark."

  Some were like faded paintings on the walls of the village, and some were like the fainter of two shadows cast by two lights, and some still were whole, and some that were whole were weeping, and some were whispering harshly, and some were whispering very softly, and some were talking out loud.

  "I can't help you if you won't help yourself," said one.

  "Yes, of course," said another, "I'll throw a Tupperware party."

  And from another: "The lessons begin on Friday? How much are they, please?"

  And: "The damned train is late again."

  And: "That was nice; that was very nice."

  "Cloudy tomorrow, with a chance of rain."

  "In our discussion of phobias, we must first define the term."

  "Why did she do it, Daddy?"

  Vivid approximations of humanity winding down. Darkness had come by then, but the street lamps were good and the town was well lighted.

  Jean, the thirtyish, matronly postmistress, was coming out of the drugstore with a bag in her arm: "Pharmaceuticals; I need lots of pharmaceuticals," she told me, though I hadn't asked. She was near her car, an old Chrysler New Yorker she'd parked in front of the drugstore. She opened the rear door, tossed the bag in, slammed the door, and turned back to me. "You're Mr. Harris, aren't you?"

  "Yes."

  "What are you doing here, Mr. Harris?"

  I shook my head.

  She glanced very quickly to my right. I looked. I saw the dark suggestion of a man there, several yards away, in the narrow passage between the drugstore and the building beside it. He appeared to be standing with his back against the wall of the drugstore; he seemed to be holding his hands to the sides of his head.

  I glanced back at Jean, and she at me. I asked her, "Who are these people, Jean?"

  "What people?" she said. She repeated, "What people?"—then got into the New Yorker, slammed the door, rolled her window down. "Go back home, Mr. Harris. Everyone belongs at home tonight." She started the car and sped off.

  I glanced again at the man in the passageway. He was down on his knees, hands still at his head. I said to him, "Can I help you; do you need help?"

  And he was gone.

  "She's right," I heard from behind me.

  I turned. Larry Whipple was at the other side of the street. John stood next to him.

  "Home's the best place for us all tonight, Mr. Harris," Whipple added.

  I pointed at the passageway. "There's a man here who needs help."

  "No, Mr. Harris. You're wrong. Please go home. Get your provisions; get what you need. And then go home. Stay home. Enjoy your home, Mr. Harris. Enjoy it for a couple of days."

  I looked again at the passageway. I looked at Larry Whipple. "Please go home, Mr. Harris!" he said.

  I saw then that John was carrying the shotgun I'd taken from him at the house. As I watched, he leveled it. I looked again at the passageway. It was empty except for a shadow that moved and shimmered. I looked back at John.

  "Christ," I screamed. "What in the fuck are you doing?"

  "Get out of the way, Mr. Harris!" Whipple ordered.

  "You can't shoot him, for God's sake—"

  "I'm shooting no one. Now, please, get out of the way!"

  I shook my head.

  John fired.

  From behind me, from the passageway, I heard a muted "Uh!" and then a quick thumping sound.

  On our third wedding anniversary Erika and I went to Toronto. I'd never been to Toronto, and she said that I hadn't lived until I'd gone up in the CN Tower, which was billed as the "highest observation deck in the world."

  "I'm afraid of heights," I told her, which wasn't entirely true. I'm afraid of ladders; I'm afraid of climbing up on roofs. But heights per se merely make me a little nervous. If I'm completely sure of what stands between me and the ground, I can adjust easily to any height.

  "Who cares if you're afraid of heights?" she said. "I'll hold your hand."

  So we went to Toronto and took the glass-enclosed, external elevator of the CN Tower first to the 1100-foot level, which was interesting but only vaguely dizzying, then climbed into another elevator, at the center of the tower, which took us to the 1450-foot level. That was more like it. It was night, past twelve, when we went up there, and there was a heavy cloud cover, so separating the horizon from the sky was next to impossible.

  "We're in a black bubble," I said.

  "You're a cynic," she said, then hurried on, "If I jumped, I wonder if they'd find anything, Jack. Maybe I'd just, phump! mix right up with whatever's down there. If it's clay, I'm clay; if it's asphalt, I'm asphalt. What do you think?"

  "I think they'd find parts of you in Schenectady."

  What could I do that night in Cohocton? I got back into my Toyota and drove home.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I did look hard for Erika, as Knebel had suggested. I decided that's the one thing I hadn't done; I hadn't looked hard—I hadn't looked hard enough. So I went back to the house, and I looked hard, and of course, I found her.

  She was in the bedroom upstairs. AND WE'RE STILL HERE said the graffiti in the closet. She was there, too. She was in the dining room, and in her music room; she was in the kitchen; she was in her garden. She walked with me a while through her garden, and I talked to her about inconsequentials.

  She liked that. She used to complain a lot that I dwelt on heavy philosophical things. So we talked about inconsequentials. About Will, who, I told her, had a very large crush on her, and about Knebel. "He's got your number, kid." And she agreed.

  I have photographs of Erika. I take them down when I'm missing her, when her smell has gone and I'm not sure at all where she's gotten off to. And after a while I put them away, because, of course, they're no substitute at all for the real thing. They're only photographs. They cannot touch or breathe or tell me it's my turn to make the dinner.

  I'm thankful that Whipple didn't get her. Not that it would have made a whole hell of a lot of difference. I don'
t think it would have made any difference at all. But I don't like Whipple, and I love Erika. And I despise the fact that the Whipples of this world can so easily get at the Erikas of this world, no matter how necessary it might seem.

  Make no mistake. I do not fool myself that she is real, that I can go with her to the sub shop or make love to her or read a book aloud with her into the wee hours. She exists in my memory. She's real in my memory. And our memories do sustain us. They give our present a backdrop, scenery.

  At last, they give the earth something to work with. And lately, in the mornings especially, I hear the sounds of children around the house, and I know that the earth is very hard at work, again.

  Enjoy the complete Strange Seed series from T.M. Wright:

  Strange Seed (Strange Seed Book 1)

  Nursery Tale (Strange Seed Book 2)

  The Children of the Island (Strange Seed Book 3)

  The People of the Dark (Strange Seed Book 4)

  Laughing Man (Strange Seed Book 5)