“What decision?” I asked.
“To claim your birthright. To help finish the work of your great-grandfather. To change the world.”
Mom sighed. “What do you want out of life, honey? Do you want to struggle? Struggle for money or to travel or through a job you hate? Do you really want to go through life avoiding people because you’re ashamed of the way you look?”
I looked at the table. My whole body felt red-hot.
“I know what you go through, sweetie,” Mom said. “I know how you feel. I’ve been there too. But now we can have it all. You’ll never want for anything ever again. No bad looks from others, no feeling ‘less than.’ The doll will take care of that, forever. How would that make you feel?”
My jaw quivered. Soon something wet was dripping off my cheeks and into my lap. The pent-up emotions broke like a dam. The truth was, I didn’t want any of these feelings anymore. Never feeling like I fit in. I always knew what others were saying. “She’s fat. Look at her.” I was tired of feeling embarrassed. My squirrel cheeks, always crimson. People could see right through me. That’s why I preferred to be alone.
What would my life look like if I continued on this path? Would I be alone forever? A damsel, afraid to go outside and face the world?
Minutes passed. Mom gave me space; she understood, and I could see she understood, and I didn’t have to say anything, and she helped me up and together we left the kitchen, the doll under her other arm.
“Take off your shoes, sweetie,” she said softly, guiding me to the entryway where I could slide them off.
I looked up. She was lit from above by those horrible yellow lights. I was ready to give in to her, to go to sleep, to let the doll take me. For all this to be over.
And then I looked into her eyes.
They were not big and brown, like normal.
Her pupils seemed painted on. Her irises, a dull color. The veins in the white parts.
They were not her eyes.
And suddenly, I felt a surge of adrenaline that bolted me awake. Why was I contemplating this? Who was this woman in front of me?
“Come on, baby.” Mom leaned in. Her eyes opened wider.
No.
No.
::shoves her mother as hard as she can::
I grabbed the doll, and the car keys on the little side table.
And I bolted.
Chapter Seventeen
It wasn’t until I’d raced out of the driveway, tires squealing, with the house in my rearview, that I realized no one was chasing me. No flailing arms, or hands with knives attached to them. Nothing. I thought it odd at the time, but only momentarily, and I gunned the car out of the neighborhood.
The doll was lying in the back seat, its stupid head bouncing with each hit of a pothole. I watched it in the rearview mirror. Unable to trust it to mind its own business, I snatched it up, screamed something incoherent, and flung it to the floor of the passenger side.
I figured I should move quickly, find a place to destroy it. Maybe Mom and Dad weren’t chasing me because they knew it would be easier to call the cops and wait for them to pick me up. I wasn’t sure. Best to keep going.
I drove up Franklin toward Hollywood, turned left on Western until I hit Wilshire. Took that toward West Hollywood, where rail-thin women like to walk rat-dogs and drink coffee.
As I passed a park on my right, a bright yellow light caught my attention. A flame. I looked closer. A trash can, on fire, with a bunch of people standing around it.
Yes. Wood. Fire.
I didn’t let myself think.
I pulled over.
I must have been an odd sight: a fat seventeen-year-old girl running toward this group of people, carrying a giant wooden doll. I know I looked batshit. I had dirt caked in my clothes and hair and I was soaked in sweat.
I held one hand up. Back away, I seemed to command. I’ve got to kill this thing.
I stared into the barrel. It seemed hot enough, but I needed to make sure. Grabbed more kindling from the pile next to the can and threw it in and fanned the flames until the fire roared and reached for the sky. If this godlike fire wasn’t going to burn it up, I didn’t know what would.
I heard a footstep behind me. A snap of a twig. I whipped around. A homeless woman stepped up next to me and stared into the fire.
I studied her face. She’d once been very pretty. Street life had taken its toll. Living outdoors does something to faces; exposure to the elements ages people. Her face was gaunt. I noticed her eyes the most, and not just because the flame-shadow was dancing off her pupils.
She stared into the fire, but not for warmth.
She looked at me, and I at her, and for a split second I saw myself. The fire seemed to dim, the air froze, and for that moment I glimpsed the true impact of what I was about to do.
Where will I go? I asked myself. What would I do without my family?
Suddenly, all this seemed ridiculous. I couldn’t expect to burn this thing to a crisp and then just waltz back home. The truth was, I didn’t see how I could return ever again. If I left them now, I left forever. Would I be a runaway? Emancipated? I had no money, no plan, and no clothes.
I looked again at the woman beside me. Was this my future? I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She didn’t have to.
The firelight reflected off the doll’s head and caught my eye. It looked quite a bit like me, actually, but skinnier. Of course, skinnier. An hourglass figure. Rosy cheeks and high cheekbones, painted on of course. A classic kind of beauty that never goes out of style.
Could it be my style, too?
I turned this over in my mind. To burn, or not to burn, that is the question. This would be a character in a huge movie. Which meant that if I let it take me, it could be me in a movie. It could be me with one million followers. It could be me on the big screen and on the posters lining Sunset and Hillhurst.
Wasn’t that better than . . . this?
You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. You can’t do that. What about everything Dad told you?
No. Dad was joking, I thought. No studio would put Nazis in a movie. Don’t be stupid.
The committee in my head raged on. I held the doll over the fire. The flames licked its feet.
But I didn’t drop it. I could see myself in it, quite literally. My breasts on its narrow frame. My nose on its perfect face. It seemed to be combining all of my best features with its own, and suddenly some sap from a piece of a wood popped in the fire, and the fire belched and flung up yellow light, and I saw flash bulbs from cameras, a red carpet, and me with sparkling cheeks and a shimmery red dress. A boy on my arm. I glimpsed it in a flash, but it was more than enough, and when the flame receded, my cheeks were wet and salty again.
I thought about the school plays, the dancing alone in my room, the daydreams, the depression of looking at social media, feeling fat all the time, and—
I raised the doll over the fire for the last time. For a long time.
Chapter Eighteen
I walked into the house and set my keys on the side table. No one rushed up to greet me, nor to kill, cajole, or threaten me. I went to the kitchen and got a snack. I was starving. The sun had already risen. It was going to be a clear day with a blue sky.
I dropped the doll at my feet.
Dad entered, grabbed his bagel and coffee like it was any other day. He was late for work. So was Mom. They fluttered around, bumping into cabinets, straightening their clothes. Then there was Melinda. She was getting ready for school. I guess I had a sister now, from the looks of things.
Mom pecked me on the cheek and told me to stay home from school today and rest up. Melinda would get my assignments.
Then they were gone, and I was alone.
It always feels weird going to bed in the morning. The graveyard-shift lifestyle—I’m not cut out for it. I was so tired I could hardly think. I dragged myself upstairs, rinsed off in the shower, and collapsed into bed.
Closing my eyes,
I prayed it would all be over by the time I woke up.
Chapter Nineteen
It was, too. No half-doll jutting out of my shoulder. No wooden appendage for me to drag around all day. I noticed nothing, nothing at all.
I knew it was over right when I woke up, because I felt different. Normally I wake up with a thousand thoughts colliding like ancient armies, but this day I felt clear-headed.
If you were hoping for a triumphant story of good over evil, you may have to read something else. I’m not opposed to those stories—I like them, really I do—it’s just not exactly my story.
The movie that was never supposed to be made is almost finished. After some finagling, Dad got Melinda and Mom and me on board as actresses. Yes, we are starring. Instead of an animation, the studio decided to make it into a live-action film. Heh heh. We’ve all signed on for a three-picture deal.
You’ll soon see me in previews, on billboards all over the world. Me. My face. I won’t tell you my real name or which movies I’ll be in. But you might soon guess who I am. The message of Bill B. will live on in us. A new set of ideas will emerge in this country, then dominate it, and maybe the world too. You won’t be able to stop them, no matter how hard you try. In fact, you’ll feel drawn to them.
You’ll see the films and then go to bed. And there, while you’re sleeping, while your subconscious roams in some vast wilderness, our ideas will take root inside you and solidify. That’s how it worked with the dolls, see? They integrated with us during deep sleep. And that’s how it will work with all of you.
Some people will live. Most others will die. You’ll either be killed—or converted into a killer. One of our killers.
Yes, we will rise. You will rise. The one true race will flourish once again.
May the Fourth Reich last 1,000 years.
Epilogue: Midnight
Pushing against the floor with my hand, I sat up. The stories, thunderous and profound, were over. Gathering the more than one hundred pages, I contemplated what I’d heard. Many possibilities, most of them contradictory. Which ones, if any, were really in our future?
The faceless being in front of me moved not an inch. To all appearances, it seemed dead.
I stood, stuffing my pages into my backpack and shouldering it.
I needed to find a way out.
I had two choices. One: I could revisit the hallway and try to find another room. But this didn’t appeal to me. I figured the rooms only contained more stories.
There was a second option, which I knew intuitively.
I reached a hand toward the being and stepped forward, my shoes squeaking on the linoleum floor.
My fingertips grazed its skin. It felt like cold gelatin.
The skin parted like water around my fingers, gently swallowing them. Then my hand. Then my wrist.
I wasn’t scared; I knew the only way out was through. This was simply a gateway to . . . someplace else.
Up to my elbow now. The head was consuming me completely. My arm disappeared like it was part of a magic trick. The head gripped and sucked at me—and I let myself go all the way in, closing my eyes and holding my breath as I vanished altogether into the portal that was the thing’s head.
And I have glimpses. Quick flashes of memories. Of clinging onto the being’s skull. Of it pulling me through the void of space. Then there was no void, no skull at all. Just a mellow darkness. That’s all I remember.
I felt the thumps and heard the chug-chug-chug before opening my eyes. When I did, I saw a grey-carpeted world. I tried to blink it away. Turning to my right, the foggy, dew-covered terrain seemed to be rushing by me at great speed—grasslands and, beyond them, mountains. I was aboard a train, like the one I’d taken from California to Connecticut to find Pickering Cemetery.
I stood up from the couch. I was in a private car. A bed—my bed, I presumed—was made up nicely on a bunk at eye level. Opposite that were two pieces of luggage—mine.
How had I gotten here? Had I been transported through another portal? Or had Pickering Cemetery all been a dream?
Stepping out of my car, I peered down the narrow corridor. A couple of people milled about. I walked down the hall and entered a dining car where passengers were drinking coffee and socializing. The clock on the wall read 9:03 a.m.
Things seemed normal. Two large screens on the wall opposite the tables played a commercial. Then text flashed on screen:
“SCAN YOUR CHILDREN. IT’S THE LAW.”
I squinted. What law?
A voice interrupted my musings. “Mr. Schrader—”
I turned. A female attendant smiled. “We’ve extended your trip like you requested. You can stay in your car all the way to your destination.”
Nonchalantly, I asked her what my destination was.
“New California,” she said cheerfully before excusing herself to help another passenger.
New California?
Scratching my head, I turned back to the television. A newscast had begun.
“In a bizarre display, an unknown man showed up at the Federal Army Bureau in San Francisco today and began screaming. Standing at the bottom of the building . . .” An image of a soldier, head back, yelling, flashed on the screen.
Suddenly, my train bellowed. I lurched forward as it came to an abrupt halt.
Then—
A rumble. The train shook. Pictures on the walls, silverware on the tables, all vibrating.
An earthquake. I put a hand on the wall for support and waited for it to pass.
The speaker switched on. “Folks, we’re going to be here a few minutes. Passing through earthquake country. We’ll be rolling slowly into the station up ahead, should be stopped for thirty to sixty minutes. You’re invited to stay on-board or get out and stretch your legs. The train station is earthquake-proof; there’s no need to worry if you want to walk around the platform . . .”
A few minutes later, we stopped at the next station and I exited the train with a few other passengers. Earthquakes? I hadn’t experienced any on my way to Connecticut.
Hot, damp air outside. The sky was grey; a dense fog had overtaken the station. It all had the feel of an impending nightmare.
I walked alongside the train. Everything seemed normal yet felt odd, as if I’d woken up from a long midday nap. Another earthquake struck—a small one this time.
A screen, mounted on a clear, plastic wall behind a station bench. News scrolled below a series of images. A male newscaster stared into the camera, unblinking. “Areas that suffered fallout from the nuclear blasts on the coast of the Pacific Northwest two weeks ago have been deemed ‘Safe’ by government officials . . .”
I stepped closer. The screen showed an overhead view of the coast off “New California.” A seaside town had been reduced to rubble. Broken cliffs fell into the sea. It looked like a magnificent claw had swiped up a portion of land before flinging it across the sky.
There was no nuclear blast before I left home, I thought. My head began to spin as I recounted the oddities I’d seen in the last thirty minutes: New California, nuclear blasts, families being “scanned,” a screaming man . . .
Oh, no.
I turned and froze when I saw it.
The digital billboard about fifty yards down the track, standing high above the platform.
The young girl, a face of Hollywood beauty, stared down at me.
And to the right of her face, the title:
See You in Theatres
Coming soon, the text beneath it read.
Suddenly, I knew. I hadn’t been taken back to my world. This was some alternate one, an amalgamation of the stories I’d received from the room within the walls.
What was I to do now?
And how would I get home?
To be continued . . .
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jordan Harris for the cover design and help on “See You In Theatres,” Rickey Mizuno for the cover photography, Blake Sheldon for his modeling skills, and Abby Cooper, Travis S
chirmer, and Michael Brittain for their notes. Also, Karen Conlin for her editing (she’s the best, you should hire her). Of course, thanks to ye readers.
“Croakman” was inspired by the film The Look of Silence.
About the Author
Andrew Schrader is a Los Angeles-based writer and director known for his unconventional storytelling and stark visual style. He’s the co-director of two feature films, including The Age of Reason.
He’s written for tech companies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, and his music videos for bands Oh Sees and White Reaper have been featured in Paste Magazine and Stereogum. He’s the author of three books, including What Goes On in the Walls at Night, which was featured on the Reddit No Sleep podcast and awarded Best Fantasy Book of 2018 by Red City Review.
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Escaping Midnight (What Goes On in the Walls at Night Book 3) Page 16