“Ssss… come on in, Roger, sss… Don’t be afraid. And please, sss… shut the door.”
I did as he said, and immediately the glittering motes of light sucked together, condensing until they formed a neat, tight orb. This orb, burning yellow and gold, became the main source of illumination in the room.
From my island of blackness I could see James’s bed in the corner. He was there, sitting up with a sheet pulled to his waist. The sight of him shocked me. He looked like a demon, some ghoul of the graves, his skin sunken and haggard, smudged with large blemishes. His eyes shone out of his head, like two oncoming headlights, set in his cadaverous face, which now displayed a wide accordion of yellow-bone teeth.
“My God,” I said. “What happened to you?”
He tipped forward, leaning into a bow, as if to show off the massive hole in the top of his skull. A jagged section of his scalp had been removed, making his head look like a jack-o-lantern with the crown cut out.
From this hole sprung the geyser of liquid blackness that had pooled around the room. I had to look closely, and when I did I saw the blackness streaming, like a forest creek, a blackness indeed organic, a living presence in the room. It took only a second to understand who that being was.
“It’s here,” I said. “Isn’t it?”
He leaned back, taking that wretched chasm from my sight. I didn’t need him to answer. I knew this wasn’t James I was addressing. James was as good as dead.
What I looked upon was the thing behind reality. The Time Eater. The cosmic entity James and I summoned on the Ohio State campus twenty years ago.
And it was staring at me.
“Ssss… I feel great,” he said. “Who knew dying could be this much fun, sss…?”
“You’re not James,” I said. “You’re that thing, that blind spot. You’re nothing. You can’t feel great. You don’t feel anything.”
“I feel the deepest,” he said. “I feel the worst of the worst… sss… and I feel the best of the best. Right now I feel euphoric, do you wanna know why—sss…”
His voice oscillated between James’s and the alien’s, creating a kind of schizophrenic hybrid. Before I had a chance to answer, he thrust his arms out in mock crucifixion, a pose humorously self-conscious in its sincerity. Up and down his forearms were dozens of syringes, needles jabbed in his flesh, stubby rubber ends sticking out firmly with trickles of blood flowing from the veins.
“Morphine, sss…!” he exclaimed, rattling his body and shaking the quill of hypodermic needles.
I realized my mouth was hanging open. Closing it, I said, “Where did you get all those?”
He shrugged. “Norma, the nurse lady. Who else? I like her best. She’s so soft, gentle, and kind. She takes care of me because no one else will. Sometimes… sss… I think she has a crush on me, sss…”
That sounds just like the old James. James and his stupid magic mommy fantasies about finding the perfect woman, all those girls he had in college, which culminated in Celeste, and yet none had ever satisfied him.
I wanted to interview James about his childhood, specifically about his mother, to find out anything related to his willful desire to die. But first, I had to make sure Annabelle was safe.
“She’s over there,” he said, reading my thoughts. The glowing orb that had settled in the middle of the room glided a few feet to the left, illuminating the area by the closet. The door was open, a menacing crack of darkness revealing two pairs of watchful red eyes.
Celeste and Jenny, crouching in there like a pair of voyeurs at a sex show.
My attention didn’t linger because directly in front of the door was a chair occupied by a frightened, trembling form, her soft pale skin gleaming, her black hair hanging over the back.
“Annabelle!” I rushed to untie her. She’d been gagged. The knots binding her to the chair were messy, childlike in their clumsiness. As I worked to free her, I heard soft chitters and snickers from the women in the closet, and, reaching over with my leg, I kicked the door closed.
Annabelle stared at me with wide, beseeching eyes. When I finally got the gag out of her mouth, she screamed—a sound that rocketed through the house. James began laughing his sick, psychotic laugh, and the sounds merged together until both became one. I thought my ears would explode from the chaos.
I scooped Annabelle into my arms, crossing the room in less than five strides, opening the door to the hall, escaping through it, slamming it, still hearing James’s haunting laughter fading on the opposite end.
We made it to her bedroom and I placed her gently on the bed, making sure her door was shut and locked. She was breathing rapidly, her chest undulating in exasperated movements. Her eyes gazed toward the ceiling as I grabbed a half-full water bottle from the nightstand and handed it to her.
She muttered a halfhearted protest, so I unscrewed the top and held it to her lips. She drank timidly, but gradually the composure returned to her face. I positioned a pillow behind her head, stroking her stomach.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
She paused as a tiny flicker of rebellion passed through her eyes.
She’s so scared, I thought. She doesn’t understand what’s happening. Probably thinks I have something do with it.
She’s right.
“Everything’s okay,” I assured her. “You can trust me.”
She proceeded to have a pure, unadulterated, emotional release, her mouth twisting in a hoop of terror as she seized the water bottle from my hands, crunching it in her frantic grip, then hurling it against the wall.
“Oh… God…” she wailed.
She broke into tears and a frenzied account of how she’d come to be tied up in the chair. Every so often, whatever she was describing became too much, and then she’d sob until she could continue. In order to get the whole story, I had to pay close attention.
She had been lured away from her computer earlier that afternoon, in a situation not unlike my experience in the kitchen. She’d heard James’s voice calling to her. When she’d gotten up to investigate, she found James out of bed, standing by the closet with the door ajar, peering inside. She could only see his back, and yet she understood immediately that something was wrong; most likely, he was high on morphine again and spacing out. Norma was there that morning, so he was probably experiencing the side effects.
She approached with the intent of helping him back into bed, when all at once a giant shadow passed over the room. That was how she described it, as a shadow.
She glanced at the window, thinking a cloud had gotten in front of the sun, but she was shocked to see total darkness outside, and this at four-thirty in the afternoon. Suddenly, all light drained from the room, and she even thought—as crazy as it sounded—that stars and planets were twinkling all about her, like she had stepped into outer space.
Hands came out of the black to seize her. She was so out of her wits that they managed to force her into the chair, gag, and bind her. The fear had rendered her docile, a scared and confused child who would be led anywhere.
But when she realized she was being restrained, she started to struggle. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. She looked up and standing over her in the dark was James’s ex-wife, Celeste, and some other woman, a blonde.
Jenny.
Annabelle became hysterical as she recounted this part of the story, claiming the women didn’t look real, that they were “distorted,” she said, and sickly pale. Like corpses. They grinned at her, pawing her shoulders and breasts with curled bony fingers.
She was so overwhelmed with what she was seeing that she passed out and didn’t regain consciousness until I burst into the room.
Once she had finished, I helped her take in long deep breaths and stroked the side of her head. Eventually she relaxed. She looked up at me with silent appreciation, her eyes conveying the thank you her lips could not emit. I nodded, letting her know she didn’t need to say anything.
Later, we went downstairs to have a drink and so
mething to eat. As we passed the closed door of James’s bedroom, Annabelle’s hand went ice-cold in my grip.
I got her seated at the table and poured us both a glass of brandy I’d selected from the liquor cabinet. We took a moment to sip it down as the house thrummed with eerie silence.
“Feels like a dream,” she said. “Was Celeste really there? Did it really happen?”
“It happened. It’s been happening since I arrived.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “It has?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Tell me. I want the whole story, Roger Borough, so don’t spare me because you think I’m delicate or some nonsense. I want to know everything or I’ll toss you out on your ass.”
I laughed. She made it sound like we were a real couple, like we had lived together for years. “All right,” I said, taking a sip of brandy. “I’ll tell.”
We passed three hours at that table, finishing the liquor bottle, and by the end we were both tipsy. The night grew darker in the window and every so often we’d hear a thump coming from James’s bedroom.
He’s listening to us, I thought, seeing the image of his sick, twisted form pressed against the floor, ear buried in the carpet.
I told Annabelle everything, starting with my experiences at Ohio State. I went through the ritual, Jenny, my marriage, the Time Eater, my experiences since I had arrived there—all the way up to Li Xi’s business card, which Alexander had given me earlier that day. When I finished, Annabelle’s face was pale, like she was feeling nauseous.
“What do you think?” I said.
She shook her head. “I don’t know what to think.”
“But you believe me?”
She paused. I thought she would say no. But instead she nodded, weakly. “I believe you. I must. At least you gave me some explanation. Without that, I think I would go completely insane.”
“And don’t forget, you experienced it firsthand tonight.”
She nodded. “I did. I’ve been trying to forget it.”
“Don’t, you’ve gotten this far! You can anchor me. Or else I’ll be the one going insane.”
She closed her eyes, reached her arms above her head, and yawned. “I’m exhausted. I could sleep for weeks.”
“Must be the brandy.”
She gave a dopey smile, then sort of batted her eyelashes at me, Betty Boop style. “Care to join me for a thousand year nap?”
I had become entranced by her hair, marveling at how it slithered snakelike off her shoulders, pooling at the small of her back. It was magnificent. I stood, fumbling with the chair (brandy), and stuck out my hand. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
She grinned, her face imbued with a coquettish luster. “What about you?”
“I’ll be taking a rain check, I’m afraid. I have a long night ahead of me. James and I have some talking to do.”
Her lips curled into a pout and she emitted a single word “Boo” like an indignant child. I found the action to be so irresistibly cute that I looped my arms around her and kissed the side of her cheek.
“You can kiss me somewhere else, if you like,” she said.
Her words produced a throbbing in my groin. My heart accelerated. Whenever we were affectionate it felt like a dream. I still couldn’t believe this was happening.
But then I caught a whiff of the brandy on her breath, and with it came a sober dose of conscience. So much had happened—it was taking a toll on her. On top of that, she was drunk. It didn’t seem right. I’d be taking advantage of her.
I backed off.
She recognized my change in attitude instantly and made another of those infantile pouty noises. “Okay,” she said, “fine, a rain check. I’m super tired anyway.”
“Up we go, then—” I leaned down and hoisted her out of the chair. I felt a small pain in my lower back but was able to ignore it with the aid of the alcohol. She laughed, casting her arms around my neck, letting me carry her like a bride.
“Am I too heavy?” she said, kissing my neck.
“No, I’ve got you.”
We reached the landing and passed down the hall. As we did there was a loud thump on the other side of James’s door. Annabelle jumped and nearly screamed, clinging to me like a scared child, her face pressed against my chest.
We entered her room and I laid her on the bed. All coquetry had vanished and she’d gone pale once more. I helped her out of her clothes, averting my eyes in a gentlemanly fashion. She got herself snugly under the covers and looked up at me with hooded eyes, drifting in and out of sleep.
“Get some rest,” I said.
“But…” She pointed to James’s bedroom.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep him busy. If you need anything, holler.”
“Thanks, Roger.” She shifted onto her side, showing me her shoulder, and fell asleep.
On my way out I hit the lights, consigning the room to darkness. Annabelle called out in a small, terrified voice, “No! Leave it on!”
I flipped the switch back on, closing the door behind me.
Chapter Eleven
What the hell is he doing in there?
The low succession of thuds vibrated the carpet beneath my feet. The door rattled gently. Every so often the handle turned left-right, left-right.
I imagined James, or perhaps one of his female sidekicks, raving in the room and running aimlessly from one end to the other, like a mental patient in a padded cell.
He’s like a rat in a cage. Anytime now he’ll start gnawing off his own feet. Maybe he already has.
I waited for the noises to stop, standing nervously in the dark hall. When it was quiet, I entered the bedroom.
Blackness, a vast bottomless ocean, greeted me at the threshold. I couldn’t see a thing. I groped for the light switch, tried it, nothing.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I muttered.
A blinding flash of illumination and there was James, nestled in bed, the sheet up to his waist, in his horribly stained t-shirt. The glow reminded me of one of those Chinese globe lamps as it hovered above his head.
“Who?” he said. The word emerged from his throat like a wheeze. His face had become unrecognizable. The skin was pale and leathery beneath his haggard five o’clock shadow. Eyes, droopy as an old mutt’s, yet startlingly intense, peered through the dark.
The chair beside the closet slid across the floor of its own accord, coming to a rest before the bed. “Sit,” he said. “I can see you have a lot on your mind.”
I crossed the room, scanning the darkness for any sign of Celeste and Jenny. I saw only distant shimmering stars and glowing planets. The closet, too, seemed lost, absorbed in the impenetrable dark. I had the feeling both girls were in there, though, locked away like beasts.
I sat in the chair and James did a very strange thing: he turned his nose up, sniffing, then said, “Been drinking? Just like old times.” He hooked a finger toward Annabelle’s room. “Did it do the trick? Did you get yourself a piece of that? Tell me all about it. Tell me how you fucked her and yanked that long ebony hair.”
My anger erupted, but I swallowed it down. I knew that was just what he wanted—to get a rise out of me. I’d have to cool my jets if I hoped to be successful at this.
“Sounds like you’re jealous,” I said.
He scoffed, and I swore I saw a blast of brown miasma vacate his mouth. “You’ve got to be kidding. I could have had her years ago. She’s always had a thing for me, since we were kids. I could’ve fucked her anytime.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He went silent, sullen. The way he contracted into himself was almost insect-like. Since I had been thinking of him as a rat in a cage, that’s just how he was beginning to appear. His body looked thin and scrawny, his nose and chin pointy, greasy bristles of his beard became whiskers, his intense eyes like a rodent’s peering from inside a sewer, his mouth full of pointy yellow teeth. I didn’t know how much of it was my imagination, but once I viewed him this way it became impossible not to make the compar
ison.
Ignoring my question, he changed the subject. “Why are you here, Roger? Do you have no respect for the dying? Do you insist on harassing me? Let me die in peace.”
“Not before you tell me what I want to know. For Christ’s sake, James, can’t you see what’s happened to you? You used to be so strong, so healthy and happy. I used to look up to you, man. I really did.”
He chuckled. “Yeah well, everything changes, nothing is fixed. You should know that. You with all your occult bullshit. Things change, time is mutable, and we ignorant humans get trapped in the past. That’s what it is all about. That’s why it came. It moves things forward, out of the past into the present. You might have looked up to me once, Roger. We might have been friends, too, and we were both even married once… but now that’s all over. The time has come to bury the past.”
He shrank even smaller, tightening the sheet around his waist, curling into a fetal position. He looked like a baby: sick, soiled, deranged, feral.
“I want to know what happened,” I said. “And I’m tired of playing your games. I get it, all right. You’re not going to scare me with your supernatural crapola. I’m starting to remember and the more I remember the more I accept this change in my reality. I’ve always known that there is more to earthly existence than what we experience. I’ve known it since I was a teenager. But I forgot that I knew it.
“So your parlor tricks won’t work. I’m telling you this now, and I’m telling that thing in there with you. The Time Eater. You’re gonna have to deal with me straight. Jesus, it’s been at least sixteen years since I last saw you. You were that guy I wanted to be—confident, carefree, social, happy. Even after Jenny left me, and I was miserable and alone, I always knew you were the okay one, out there somewhere doing your thing. Somehow that made life bearable. Now look at you, man. Do you want to die?”
“No.” His voice was small, petulant. “This isn’t what I want. They told me I have no time left, that I’d be dead in less than a month. I came in too late, they said.”
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