How to Disappear Completely

by Melody Ann Ross

  And, as ever, for Cyrus there was an element of truth interwoven between the two. The previous century had taught him that demons really could inhabit devices, that there really were ghosts in the machines.

  He no longer deliberately summoned the powerful spirits that he named in his service menu, as they left him weak or damaged for too long afterwards. But he did sometimes encounter such things in his work and found it necessary to engineer a solution. A binding wouldn’t work with a customer there to witness it, and he couldn’t take the chance of any direct, unfiltered contact with a spirit that would leave him addled and vulnerable.

  Through careful practice in his garage, he contrived a way to capture a small part of a spirit’s essence so that he could later redirect their full energy and presence elsewhere. Taking a long piece of string between his hands, he wove it into complex patterns while muttering phrases and promises that would get the attention of the spirit inhabiting the computer.

  When he felt an exploratory spirit tendril enter his string, he tied it off at the ends, trapping a small part of the spirit within the web. Most spirits did not mind this slight discomfort and were docile and willing, content to wind around the web in search of whatever promised thing Cyrus had used to entice them. Others crackled and sparked with anger, shocking his hands.

  With his magic accomplished, he would then install a program on the computer that was the digital counterpart to the web of string, leading the spirit around and around the hard drive in search what it wanted. Cyrus called it his Trojan Goose, and added in a little extra module that made the computer screen go completely haywire, fizzing around and spitting out screen after screen of occult nonsense. A little attention to aesthetics went a long way.

  After he finished with the client, he left them with instructions.

  “So this program needs to run until midnight. Midnight tonight, you need to come in here and unplug all this. No, don’t even turn it off first, just unplug it while it’s still on. Cut it off completely from the source while it’s distracted. Then, tomorrow morning, plug it all back in and turn it on as usual. Give me a call if it isn’t good as new.”

  Then Cyrus would spend the remaining time before midnight looking for a place to unleash the web containing the small piece of spirit. He learned which spirits reacted well to certain environments; Anger could be redirected to a 24-hour gym, Hunger to a shopping mall, Chaos enjoyed the airport, and elemental spirits just wanted to be with their own kind; Heat was the most common, and he always deposited it in an art studio with a kiln or glass-blowing shop.

  Cyrus was ever mindful of directing spirits to places where their presence wouldn’t make anything worse, but that they would be satisfied. He knew that the larger part of the spirit would eventually get frustrated with the program he installed, would sense the satisfaction emanating from the smaller piece, and would abandon the computer to join it. It wasn’t exactly a binding, but it did solve the computer problem without forcing Cyrus to interact overmuch with a damaging spirit.

  Of course, the majority of the time he was just wiping client’s computers of the countless viruses they’d downloaded from the internet, or reinstalling operating systems, or recovering corrupted files, and giving them a stern lecture about security.

  Nothing scary, nothing arcane, just the normal mysteries of a computer that was piloted by someone who was mostly incompetent and irrationally terrified of the thing.

  Chapter 10

  Spring Cleaning

  The stars looked down on the stillness of the earth, bathing it in warm light. There was just enough of a chill in the late summer air to create an enchanting steam on the surface of the swimming pool. The eerie light cast a romantic glow to young couple seated on the steps, bodies touching tentatively, carefully.

  She was outside at night. She was alone with a boy. Her body was sinfully exposed. None of these things should have been possible, and yet here she was. She was living this moment.

  Anthea had never felt anyone touch the skin of her torso before, and his hand was around her waist, tenderly stroking the soft skin under the water. She was electrified.

  They’d spent all summer together, riding bikes and playing in creeks, engaging in nonsensical childhood wars against the other neighborhood kids that ended in truces, everyone jumping in the pool to clean off before being called home. Today was the same, but all the other kids had already gone home. They were the only two left. They were the only two people in the world.

  He moved in to kiss her, his mouth pressing clumsily, sloppily, urgently against hers. This was somewhat familiar territory and she followed his lead, wet lips and tongues feeling around inexpertly. Assuming her acquiescence, his hand moved to fondle her developing breast beneath her swimsuit. She felt a complicated emotion rising in her throat, and her body trembled somewhere between a revolted shudder and a triumphant laugh. She stifled it down and tried to signal her compliance with her body, head tilted slightly, arms stiff at her sides instead of pushing him away like she wanted.

  He was slightly older than her and was strong and wiry. He lifted her easily and settled her in his lap, shoulder against his chest. The warm water rippled between them and Anthea felt a poking hardness against her thigh. Surprised, confused, she reached her hand down and encountered her first penis.

  The thick, poking erection shocked her so thoroughly that she froze completely with her hand still lightly gripping the foreign object. She’d briefly thought he’d put a stick in his swim trunks as a joke, but the warmth and smoothness of it was human. It was almost as though he’d grown a random finger in his swim trunks. She couldn’t deal with it. Anthea put her hands on his chest and turned away to let out a gasping laugh.

  He put his hands around her upper arms and dug his fingers in, twisting her to face him again.

  “What?” he demanded in a hissing whisper.

  “What is that?” she breathed. She couldn’t stop laughing. “It’s so weird.”

  He didn’t answer. His eyes turned hard and black. Dark color began to rise from his chest, staining his neck and cheeks.

  Anthea stopped laughing.

  He stood suddenly, still gripping her by the arms, and she came up with him. Embarrassment had twisted his face into a grotesque mask of anger. His jaw was clenched and his teeth were bared behind his rounded, protruding lips.

  Bending, he thrust Anthea roughly under the water, pinning her head against the steps. A sharp pain issued from the back of her skull. Her arms flew up to try to pull his hands away, but he was too strong. She slapped and thrashed, still not entirely sure if he was just teasing her or not.

  When he readjusted his hold to put his hand on her neck, clamping down on her throat, she knew that he was not. He caught each of her thrashing hands as she flailed, gripping her wrists painfully in his other hand. He straddled her body possessively and brought his thighs together to pin her legs, trapping her with the force of his own weight.

  Her chest was beginning to ache and panic was setting in. Her mouth opened to say something. She was sorry! She really was! She shouldn’t have laughed!

  Her words died in precious bubbles before her blurry eyes. She choked on an involuntary gulp of water. He did not loosen his grip. The hand on her throat was an iron claw.

  She tried to buck her body away from him, to kick him, to wriggle out from underneath him but he was iron. His hips moved suggestively with her writhing. Nausea and understanding settled in her, hot and roiling.

  She began to lose her strength, lose her hope. Her eyes felt too big for her face and her temples were pulsing in pain. She grew still, and the surface of the water calmed. Her vision began to dim but in the clear water she looked up at the boy she thought she knew. The first boy she’d ever kissed. The boy she had laughed at. The boy who had his hand locked around her throat. The boy who was now moving to manipulate her clothing.

  The last image she saw was his face, lips spread wide in a toothy grimace, malice and pleasure in his eyes. B
efore she faded into merciful oblivion, she thought, “This is all my fault.”

  For as long as Anthea could remember, she’d hated sleeping. She had golden memories of soft, restful places but they were hazy and ill-defined, as though she’d imagined them.

  Almost every single night of her childhood, Anthea was plagued by dark dreams so terrible that she awoke shaking, sometimes in a shamefully damp bed. Her mother was always quietly furious and Anthea was even more afraid of her mother than of the dreams. Her mother’s anger was a frozen glacier of fury that would suddenly crack and break, destroying everything before it in an unstoppable wave. Anthea stood small and fragile before the coming danger and was crushed under the deluge of rage. She dreamt about this, too.

  Her earliest fears had been the same as all small children. The unknown movements concealed by the darkness, the sudden fear that your caretaker had abandoned you, the monsters under the bed. As she had grown, her mind explored the many primordial terrors that humans carry in their genetic memory to teach them to fear death. Drowning, fire, predators, famine, plague. When she was becoming a young woman, her dreams also educated her on the fears of adults. Rejection, failure, other people, men.

  The dreams of men were among the worst, and Anthea feared them in her waking life just as much. She dreamed of being followed for miles and miles, the air in her lungs burning as she began to run, panicking, but the man behind her never slowed, never tired, only gained a little more ground every time Anthea turned to look. She dreamed of being lost and alone in endless dark tunnels and turning a corner to find a figure blocking her path, eyes wide and grinning hideously. She dreamed of being trapped in a house with a man who raged and hit without warning, felt the walls shaking with his anger. She dreamed of men who smiled as they pinned her down and sent hot pain shooting through her, over and over. She dreamed of being grown and married, and a man she thought she trusted twisting her arm behind her, damaging and destroying her body, stealing away with her children.

  And in every dream, she knew in her bones that she was responsible, somehow, for what was happening. The anger, the abuse, the stalking, the pain, these were all punishments that she deserved for doing something wrong. She said the wrong thing. She was late. She was too loud. She argued. She dropped something. She used too much hot water. She got her clothes dirty. She didn’t have dinner ready on time. She made him look foolish. She wasn’t respectful enough. Always her own fault.

  She did not always understand the very real situations that she found herself living out in her dreams. But she learned about men. They were tireless, they were endless, they were strong, angry, unpredictable. And every single one of them was dangerous. Even Cyrus.

  But as time passed, Anthea began to enjoy her bizarre position working with Cyrus and their easy friendship. Her careful routines were relaxed somewhat as she grew more comfortable in her quiet, strange life in LA. Her days were still filled with her deadly dull bureaucratic job stamping permits. But now her nights were now filled with seances, meditation, blessings, exorcisms, yoga, cleansing, and all manner of spiritual and otherworldly events. She still found the entire thing hilarious, but she wore the robes and lit the sage bundles, cleansed the faithful and collected their money on Cyrus’ behalf. She would never admit this to Cyrus, but she would have taken on this job for him even if he hadn’t paid her. It was really that entertaining.

  Cyrus was also interesting, in ways that she couldn’t quite pin down. He was always honest with her and patient in teaching her about his work, but she was always waiting for him to reveal some secret punchline he’d been setting up for his entire life. Anthea was fascinated by his easy manner and paradoxical mixture of honesty and trickery. She had long suspected that he was so good at the deceptions he spun for his devotees because he honestly believed he was telling the truth.

  He seemed resolutely determined to have her as his friend, which she also didn’t really understand. Cyrus had lots of friends and he spoke of them often. He seemed to know someone in almost every country of the world, and had travelled nearly everywhere. He couldn’t possibly need a neurotic hermitess with little to no relevant cultural knowledge as a friend, could he?

  The heat of the summer months approached and Anthea, who was not technologically inclined, began to learn the tools of Cyrus’ trade. He had a keen mind for gadgetry and could quickly diagnose most computer problems. Anthea had been confused as to why he didn’t just make money that way and had asked him as much one afternoon. They were taking a lunch break on Cyrus’ back porch and he was explaining to Anthea how hard drives worked over tacos and Tecates.

  The afternoon heat hinted that even in spring, Los Angeles could pack a searing punch. Anthea had been so relaxed by the warmth and the beer that she’d intentionally ventured into a conversation she might otherwise avoid.

  “You know everything about computers, so why do you need all the other stuff?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?” he smiled at her, obviously knowing exactly what she meant.

  “I mean, why all the voodoo and woowoo if you could just fix the damn things?” she pressed. “Don’t you think it’d be easier on you? You wouldn’t waste so much money on supplies, and you could probably see twice as many clients in a day.”

  Cyrus stifled a frown. “It’s not about the money, for me. I thought you knew that by now.”

  “I do know that, but I haven’t figured out what you get out of it,” she tried again. “Why go to so much trouble to create such an experience?”

  “Well, now you’re starting to figure it out. I’m not charging people to fix their printers and iPhones, I’m charging them because their vanity requires that they experience every event in their lives. This has been a trend for a while now, according to the economists. People aren’t interested in the mundane, the necessities, the chores. They’re interested in the experience. It’s understandable. Everyone wants to feel connected to an often intangible world,” he finished.

  “Chores… so you’re sort of like a roomba and a naked maid service?” Anthea asked, smiling, chest puffing out a bit at making two relevant references in one joke.

  “Exactly,” he answered brightly, “In fact… this yard is starting to look a little... dusty.”

  Without warning, Cyrus jumped up and pulled his shirt off, dramatically stretching his long arms and torso. Anthea was alarmed at his sudden nakedness and began to look around for an escape route, or a weapon.

  In the span of a few seconds, she became furious with herself at how comfortable, defenseless, vulnerable she’d allowed herself to become with him. He’d never once made her feel uneasy or treated her as anything other than a colleague, then a friend. What had she done wrong? How was she going to fight off this much larger person? Would any of the neighbors hear her if she screamed? Why had she gotten so complacent and let him get so close?

  She was snapped out of this fight-flight panic when she noticed that he was emitting a cartoonish buzzing sound and taking jerky steps out into the parched grass of his backyard. Without warning, he threw himself onto the grass and began rolling over and over toward the fence. When he encountered it, he scooted his body to a different angle and began rolling again.

  “Who…. wouldn’t… pay… for… this?” he said laughingly between rolls. If he’d noticed her panic, he was choosing to ignore it.

  Anthea took the whole scene in silently, bewildered, and finally laughed until her sides hurt.

  Cyrus spent the next few hours itching horribly from rolling around in the dry grass, but it had been worth it to make Anthea laugh so hard. There was something so charmingly naive about her and he felt a little bit protective of his guileless, open-minded friend. She reminded him powerfully of a different time, when he was a different person. He’d very rarely met anyone with such a visible connection to Curiosity, and she had always been one of his favorite demons. One of the most dangerous by far, but still a favorite.

  He found he really enjoyed teaching Anthea abo
ut technology, and she soaked everything up with childlike acceptance, asking question after question and often forcing him to reexamine his ideas of logic. He’d gathered that she really only had a basic knowledge of computers, acquired from classes at local libraries, and that the tech she used at her painfully boring job was old enough not to be all that mystifying. What he couldn’t figure out about her was how she’d managed to get this far into her 20s without ever having owned a cell phone. The more he told her about them, the more resolute she was in her refusal.

  And so he set about delighting her in other ways. He taught her how facial recognition technology works, basic programming, circuitry, they even built a very simple laser together in his garage. Cyrus had never had children—people like him couldn’t, as far as he could tell, but he imagined that it must be exactly this much fun.

  He wondered a hundred times a day why Anthea seemed to be alone in the world when she was so obviously interested in people and hungry to learn everything she could. He tried carefully to ask her about herself sometimes, starting with the most obvious questions.

  “So, have you always lived in LA?”

  “Do you have any roommates?”

  “What are you going to do for the holidays this year?”

  She always carefully deflected his questions, offering only the barest responses. She was originally from Colorado. She didn’t have any roommates. She was probably going to go away for the holidays, possibly housesitting for some friends back in Colorado. Cyrus knew that she was lying most of the time, but he never pressed her.

  All he was able to put together about her past and her life was based on what she didn’t seem to know. Obviously she’d had a very sheltered life, away from almost all media and most technology. She seemed to be able to drive anything with wheels, but couldn’t name a single luxury car. She knew the layouts of far-off cities she’d never visited, but couldn’t name a Spice Girl. She loved animals and could identify anything that moved, but she seemed terrified of even the most absurdly tiny dog. She’d never seen a Bond film, or a professional sports game, or the inside of a casino. She’d never ridden a bike, been to a fair or theme park, written to Santa Claus. She was interested in all kinds of food, but was too nervous and frugal to order most things. When Cyrus found this out, he seized on it with his typical zeal.