by M. Raiya
I wrote It’s fine. Then, really not sure why, I typed I saw a man standing on a table in the rain. Naked.
I don’t know exactly how I expected Hal to react. Probably some combination of shocked surprise and confusion. But instead he swallowed hard and shook his head. “I’m sorry about that. I’ll speak to him. My brother is a bit disturbed.”
Now it was my turn to react. I wasn’t going to forget the look of rage on the guy’s face for a long time. It wasn’t comforting to know that he was “disturbed” and allowed to roam at night. And he did it often enough that his brother knew about it, probably from other reports. On the other hand, it was good to know I hadn’t made the whole thing up. That would have been a little crazy even for me.
I wrote He looked extremely angry to be interrupted. Would you tell him I apologize?
For a very long moment, Hal stared at me, his face utterly frozen in shock. What the hell? I’d meant to be nice, that was all. And, in part, to keep the brother from slitting open my tent with a knife in the middle of the night, and maybe my throat too. So why was Hal looking like I’d just written the most shocking thing he’d ever heard? Did he want me to call the police and have the guy arrested for indecent exposure or something? That’s what I just didn’t get about people. Hal wasn’t fazed by what his brother had done. But he was shocked that I was decent about it?
Hal took a death grip on the counter in front of him. “He saw you?”
I’d been kind of hard to miss in a car with headlights blazing, roaring up a steep bank after plowing through a mudhole. So why was Hal looking more surprised that his brother had seen me than that I had seen him?
I didn’t need to type anything; Hal could tell by my expression that yeah, his brother had seen me.
“What happened?” he asked, holding on to the counter like he was about to faint.
I shook my head and raised my hands slightly, signifying that nothing had happened. Why, had I really been in danger? I wrote quickly to reassure Hal that I’d come to no harm. It was right before that bolt of lightning. When I could see again, he was gone.
Hal read. His face went from red to very pale in a second. “Right before? You were really close?”
I nodded and gestured to the back wall of the office. About that close.
For another long second, Hal just stared at me. Then he cleared his throat and swallowed, letting go of the counter. “Well, as I said, I’m really sorry about that. I’ll speak to him. Enjoy your stay here, and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you, Kyle.”
I liked that he used my name, that he remembered it from the form. Lots of people didn’t bother naming me, since I never named myself. But it didn’t take the weirdness away from the situation. Still, Hal had clearly dismissed me, and I frankly wasn’t sure I needed or wanted to know any more about his disturbed brother. So I put my phone back in my pocket, my way of showing that I, too, considered the conversation over, and left with a nod. As I shut the screen door, Hal was already heading through a door that probably led into the living area.
Was his brother back there? I hadn’t felt like there was anybody else in the building, hadn’t heard anyone moving around, but I hadn’t really thought about it. I shouldn’t have brought the whole thing up. Worried, I set off toward the lake and my waiting site. After all, I still had a tent to pitch and a shower to take and a breakfast to make before I settled down in the sun. All I had to do was make small and quiet and stay in my site and mind my own business, which was why I was here in the first place. And I was damn good at being quiet. I didn’t have to go near the store again until I needed more ice tomorrow, and—
Shit. I’d forgotten my ice. And I almost never forgot anything.
IF I hadn’t had some meat and a jar of mayonnaise in my cooler, and a bottle of wine I wanted to have chilled with my dinner tonight, I would have kept going. But I made myself turn around and slip back onto the porch. I did not want to announce to Hal that I was back in case he wanted to keep the conversation going for some reason, or thought I’d come back because I wanted to talk about his brother some more. The freezer was right next to the screen door. I’d lifted the lid silently and had my fingers on a bag to lift it out, wondering if it was going to be too cold to carry all the way back to my site, or if there was enough bunched-up plastic bag above the twisty that I could hang on to to keep my fingers from freezing, when I heard Hal’s voice. It wasn’t loud, but it was just on the other side of the screen. It was so intense that I paused.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Jon? You let him see you! Do you not get what this fucking means?”
Shit, I thought, wanting to back away as silently as I’d come. I lifted my bag and let the lid close soundlessly. Jon, I thought. The David’s name is Jon.
Then I heard his voice. It went right straight inside me like no voice ever had before, like a knife, but it didn’t cut me; it filled me and left me rooted to the porch. I wanted nothing more than to listen to that voice forever. If anything would ever be able to make the memories go away, that voice could. I knew it as surely as I’d known the stock market was going to crash.
It was also an utterly horrifying feeling. I’d sworn I would never give control of myself to anyone ever again. I would never even speak to anyone ever again! For five years I had not said a word, and I was damned if I was going to let anything into my heart now. Coming here had been a mistake. I should have stayed in my little apartment in a basement and kept going back and forth to my office in my car and only let myself be around people who knew to leave me alone.
But I kept listening.
“It means nothing,” the voice that touched my soul said. “It means utterly nothing. I do not remotely care. I have no interest in such things, nor will I ever. How long is he staying?”
“Five days.”
“Then I will leave for five days. He will depart none the wiser, and we will never see him again.”
“It’s not that simple! A bond formed! Just because it’s never happened before, you can’t ignore it.”
“Those traditions mean nothing to me, nor have they ever. Nothing has changed.”
“But, Jon, he seems like a nice guy. He can’t talk—I think he’s deaf—I don’t know. How the bloody hell could you be so—stupid? It took! He saw the light.”
“I told you, it doesn’t matter!” The voice deepened, sounding even more intense and somehow wilder. “He won’t be affected unless we meet again, and I’m leaving right now. He’ll be none the worse, and I keep telling you, I don’t have time for love or any of that shit. I don’t give a damn if some ancient tradition got triggered or not. It doesn’t matter to me. Some disembodied face behind a windshield is not going to make any difference to my personal life, which I don’t even want to have, ever! I’ve got far more important things to deal with. Stay here and play in your little playground. I’m leaving.”
Footsteps started toward the door.
Terror filled me. I didn’t know what was going on. I knew I was about to be discovered, but I couldn’t move.
“Jon, in the name of the past, will you listen to reason?”
Almost at the door, so close I saw a swirl of something that looked like a black cloak, Jon turned and went back to his brother. “You don’t have a fucking clue what’s going on out there!” he said in a low, rough voice. “Sometimes it takes everything I’ve got to hold things together. Believe me, I’ve got no time for anything but trying to keep alive. Don’t you get that?”
Somehow his moving away broke whatever had been holding me still. Clutching the bag of ice like it was a lifeline, I turned and swiftly, silently fled.
Chapter Two
MY HANDS shook so badly it took me three tries to get the twisty off the bag. Or maybe they were just numb from carrying it. I hadn’t even felt the cold all the way back to my site, but now my fingers wouldn’t work. Finally I got the bag open and dumped it in the cooler. The ice I’d bought yesterday was mostly cold water with a few cubes
floating around. There was an open debate about whether to drain a cooler and dump in fresh ice every time, or allow the water to stay and add new ice to it. I’d done some research about camping before setting off on this trip. Nobody seemed to agree, so I’d decided to leave the water for a while and then drain it. Certainly that made sense now, because I didn’t think I had the strength to lift the cooler over the lip of my back hatch before pulling the plug.
Seeing some floating bottles reminded me that I was thirsty. I grabbed a bottle of orange juice, closed the cooler, and sat down at my table with my back to the water, facing up the road. No one in a black cloak came running down.
What the hell had just happened? It sounded like when I’d seen the guy on the table—Jon—and he’d seen me, some ancient tradition had gotten triggered. Hal had said that the lightning I’d seen meant it had “taken.” Whatever that meant. Jon hadn’t seemed to care. As long as he didn’t see me again, then he could just leave and nothing would happen? No, that wasn’t right. As long as he didn’t see me, I would be all right. The damage, or whatever, had already been done to him.
I drew a deep breath, replaying the conversation in my mind. I stopped on the part where Jon had said, I don’t have time for love or any of that shit. I don’t give a damn if some ancient tradition got triggered or not. It doesn’t matter to me. Some disembodied face behind a windshield is not going to make any difference to my personal life, which I don’t even want to have, ever!
Love? His personal life? What was that supposed to mean? Was he implying that somehow he’d fallen in love with me last night?
He won’t be affected unless we meet again, and I’m leaving right now.
He thought I would fall in love with him if we met again?
That was utterly ridiculous, for a lot of reasons. In the first place, I was totally done with having relationships, and in the second, I was straight. I had nothing against gays, but I was most definitely not one. Whatever was going on, at least both Jon and I were on the same page.
I let the rest of the scene play in my memory. Jon’s last words were as chilling as when I’d first heard them. Sometimes it takes everything I’ve got to hold things together. Believe me, I’ve got no time for anything but trying to keep alive.
I shivered and rubbed my frozen hands together. The one thing I was trying hard not to remember was how Jon’s voice had felt inside me. While he’d been speaking, I’d been mesmerized, totally captivated. I’d never felt anything like that before. And as much as I denied it, I wanted to feel it again. Damn! There was no logic to explain this.
Therefore, as I’d always believed, it couldn’t be real. Those two brothers were both crazy. Hal especially—I’d gotten the feeling that he kind of thought this might not be a bad thing, once he’d accepted the idea. He’d liked me, which was stupid since I’d known him for all of three minutes.
Another deep breath helped me refocus. What mattered now was whether the brothers knew I’d heard their conversation. I’d been really quiet. The room they’d been in didn’t have any windows facing the way I’d run. Clearly they hadn’t known I’d come back. Since it had been ten minutes already and they hadn’t come after me, I was probably safe.
Safe from what, I had no idea. What would they do if they knew I knew? On the other hand, what did I really know? This whole thing was too fucking weird. I remembered the fury on Jon’s face last night. Yeah, he’d known then that something had happened. He just hadn’t told his brother, probably hoping I wouldn’t say anything. He must be seriously pissed at me now. Especially since it looked like he was leaving for five days because of me, taking time off from whatever it was he did that was so important.
Maybe I should leave. But if I pulled out now, they’d know that I’d heard them. And they had my address on the form.
Damn. Should I stay and pretend everything was fine?
I firmly squashed the part of me that really, really wanted to stay in case I got to hear Jon’s voice again.
No flash of insight came. This was not like the stock market. Didn’t I have enough problems without this? The longer I sat, the worse my stress got. If they were watching me and I didn’t start setting up my tent, they were going to know something was up. Whatever I did next, I had to look calm, cool, and collected.
The sudden appearance of a rainbow took the decision from me. Shit, shit, shit! I rubbed my eyes, but it didn’t go away. It started flashing across my vision in jagged lines like a lightning bolt, pulsing in time to my heartbeat. The stress had acted as a trigger. A couple of times a year, I paid the price for having a brain that functioned like a computer. It randomly crashed. At least, that’s what it felt like to me. The doctors said my spells were caused by trauma left from my childhood injury, much like a seizure disorder. I was on medication that helped some, but it wasn’t perfect.
In any case, driving in the immediate future was no longer an option.
Pitch the tent. I did not want to go through a spell cramped in the backseat of my car if I didn’t have to. I’d done that several times when I’d been triggered on the road and had to pull over. If I hurried, I’d probably have time.
I raced to my car, opened the back hatch, and pulled out the blue nylon bag that contained tent, waterproof fly, poles, stakes, and ground cloth. I’d watched the saleswoman in a camping store pitch it in under five minutes. Of course, she’d done it many times and hadn’t had a flashing rainbow to look through or a man in a black cloak mad at her.
Fortunately my brain was still working well enough that I was able to recall the steps she’d shown me. I chose a level spot on the left side of the site—close to the bushes but with a view of the water—spread out the ground cloth, unfolded the tent on it, and then started putting together the three poles. Without even consciously thinking about it, I slid them through the narrow sleeves sewn into what was going to become the top of the tent. When all three were in place, I clipped one end of each pole into the metal fasteners at the corners of the tent, and then worked the long center pole farther and farther through its sleeve until the tent arched up from the ground. Quickly I clipped the center pole into place, then did the same for the other two that formed a big X from corner to corner. All the piles of fabric turned into a perfect light blue dome that was about as tall as I was. Without pausing to admire it, I threw the rainproof fly over it and clipped it in place. I’d stake it later.
My head was starting to pound as I dashed back to the car. I was running out of time. I grabbed the duffle bag that contained my air mattress and battery-operated pump. It took another few precious minutes to spread the mattress inside the tent and inflate it, and a couple more to get my sleeping bags unzipped and laid on top. I’d bought two identical ones—one to go under me, one to go over me, because just the thought of being confined inside one narrow one was too much to contemplate. Then I tossed my duffle bag of clothes inside, followed by my pillow, and I was set.
The world was starting to fade as I zipped the door closed behind me. The screen windows were open, but the fly kept anyone from being able to see in. I found my bottle of pills in a pocket in my duffle and got one swallowed before the warning rainbow gave a final pulse and disappeared. The drug would help the headache afterward. It would do nothing to prevent the blanket of darkness that fell over me. I curled into a ball, heard myself make a little whimpering noise, and remembered nothing more.
I FELT terrible. Absolutely terrible. So terrible that, if Jon had been sitting at my table ready to kill me for whatever I’d done, I would have told him to hurry up and get on with it—he’d be doing me a favor. Thank God it was getting dark out—just the twilight pierced my brain like a knife. I grabbed a change of clothes, a towel, and my pouch with toiletries, crawled out of my tent, and staggered off in the direction of the bathhouse.
Fortunately the place was empty again. The brightness inside made me throw up as soon as I went in. Not that there was anything in my stomach, which was good. As soon as I was done, I grope
d my way with my eyes shut into the dimmer shower area, stripped, stuck a couple of quarters into a little box, turned a dial, and then stood under the blessed relief of warm water. I had to put in two more quarters before I even had the energy to soap up and wash my sweaty hair. It took two more to rinse off, and then I just stood there under the hottest temperature the water got and let it work the cramps out of my neck and back.
Every inch of me still hurt when I finally stepped out and reached for my towel. What a nightmare. I was so fucked. What had I been thinking to even imagine I could handle a camping trip? I needed to go home, back to my routine and my job and the people who left me alone. Vacations weren’t for the likes of me. I was a magnet for disaster, and the things that happened to me kept getting worse and worse. I needed to give up trying to think I might have a chance at a regular life, despite what the therapist said.
I dressed in clean cargo shorts and a loose, dark green T-shirt, gathered up my stuff, and stepped into the main bathroom area just as the outside door closed behind someone. I froze for a second. Whoever had been in here had been so quiet I hadn’t known he was there. And the timing was so perfect. If I’d felt better, I’d have dashed across the room and yanked the door open to see who it was. But any sharp movement was going to set me vomiting again, and to be honest, I didn’t really fucking care. If Jon was getting off on watching me through the crack in the shower stall door, that was his crazy. I was so done with this whole stupid mess.
In the mirror my face hadn’t improved since the last time I’d looked at it. My eyes were sunken and had dark shadows beneath them. My pupils were huge. My skin looked sickly pale. Great. Maybe I was turning into a vampire. Wouldn’t it be rich if that was what all this was about? I could play the role pretty easily, the way I looked. All I needed was a black cloak like Jon’s. With a sigh I combed out my hair and then recaptured it in a ponytail. Shaving would take too much effort. I did brush my teeth, and that made me feel somewhat better. Now I needed something to drink. Preferably something with caffeine.