“My God.” He brought his hands to his face and closed his eyes, as if to shut it all out just a moment longer. “But he knew?” he asked again. “He knew how and when Mom and Dad were going to die?”
Her lack of a reply answered the question for him.
“And you? Did you know?”
After a moment she offered a quick nod.
“How?”
“Because he told me. And I believed him.”
“You told no one? You just took this information and did nothing with it?”
“What would you have had me do, Seth? Please, enlighten me as to what I should’ve done, won’t you?” She kept her back to him so he would not see the pain in her eyes. “I prayed, I hoped he was wrong, I tried to speak to him of it whenever I could, to gain more information and hopefully some details. A date, a place, anything I might use to warn them. But he had nothing that specific, only visions of the mayhem to come.”
In his own pain, confusion and anger, Seth had forgotten to take notice of the things Nana had carried with her for years, but once in possession of this knowledge, she seemed small and fragile to him, as if this revelation had unmasked or disrobed her somehow, shrouding her instead with great vulnerability wholly at odds with her larger-than-life persona. And yet, it made her more human to him, more accessible. For so many years he had seen her as if from a distance, as one-dimensional, a screwball grandmother who traveled the world, had countless affairs and adventures and spoke like a character from an old movie. For so long he felt they shared nothing in common and that he would never bond with her the way Raymond had, and though that was perhaps still true, this new knowledge altered his perception of his grandmother, and therefore of Raymond and even himself. Everything had changed. Everything he thought he knew, he would have to rethink and learn again from a new angle. Neither life nor the players in it were what he had previously believed them to be.
“There’s certainly nothing new or unique about precognitive dreams,” Nana said. “There are numerous accounts throughout history, some quite famous. The Egyptian pharaohs spoke of it. Mohammed, Saint John, and Joan of Arc all claimed to have had precognitive dreams. Even President Lincoln dreamed of his impending assassination, and Mark Twain dreamed of seeing his brother dead only hours before he was killed in an explosion on a steamship. Many people dream of disasters before they happen, it’s not that unusual. But what Raymond possesses is different. His experiences are not isolated. These things always haunt him. Always Seth. Always.”
Visions of his parents refused to leave him, their faces distorted and gliding through his mind like cheap effects in a carnival funhouse mirror. “Why didn’t he ever tell me? Even now, why hasn’t he?”
“Perhaps you should ask him that question, or perhaps yourself.”
In fact, Seth knew his brother had tried to tell him many times over the years, particularly when they’d been younger, but he hadn’t listened, hadn’t heard him, not really.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. “For all of this—for all of us—I’m sorry, Nana.”
“So am I, love,” she said, the words catching in her throat. “You have no idea.”
Seth rose from the bed, slowly crossed the small room and joined her at the window. In time, he put his arm around her and left it there until he felt her lean against him.
“Pain, much like faith, is often a shared experience, but also a fiercely personal one,” Nana said sadly. “Like anyone else, Seth, I’ve known pain too. I’ve had a wonderful life, a grand adventure in so many ways I’ve no right to complain about a moment of it. But believe you me I’ve had my periods of agony as well. I’ve always prided myself on having an open mind, and I’ve strived to learn as much as I can about everything this amazing world has to offer. Once we stop learning, we cease to live, and I, for one, do not wish to cease living. I am constantly in search of answers to the mysteries and intricacies of life, and Raymond knows this about his Nana. So he comes to me with these things because he understands I not only believe what others do not, but I’ve seen what many deny is even possible. Once while traveling through Tibet I had the good fortune to witness many…” her voice trailed off to silence and her expression shifted, washing her face with a look of futility. “Well, no point in going into all that, I suppose.”
Seth gently tightened his grip on her shoulder and gave it a reassuringly squeeze.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sometimes I really am just a silly old woman, aren’t I?”
Seth wanted to be angry but could only gather an overwhelming sense of sorrow. “Never,” he whispered.
She gave him an uncharacteristically restrained smile and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “This family,” she sighed. “We’re either blessed or cursed, depending on where you’re standing, I suppose. There’s such a delicate line between evil and the divine. Both can be so frightening, so powerful. But one binds you and the other sets you free.”
“Maybe they both bind,” Seth offered.
“Maybe, though in different ways.”
“Raymond came to you with this years ago,” Seth said. “And now he’s come to you again. He’s come to tell you about his new nightmares, hasn’t he?”
“Yes. More visions, more nightmares, more impending darkness.”
Seth felt the shakes move through him again. “Did he tell you about the cabin? Did he tell you about that night last year?”
“He did.”
“Did he tell you what happened that night? What happened to him—what happened to all of us? Did he tell you, Nana?”
“Yes, as best he could from what he knows at this point.”
He reached across her, took both shoulders in his hands and turned her toward him until they were face to face. “Please, Nana, tell me what he said.”
“No.”
The sound of Raymond’s voice startled them both.
Seth dropped his arms and looked back at the doorway. His brother stood watching them, still damp from the rain, a lost soul wandered in from the rising storm and only just then free of the prison his mind had constructed around him.
“She doesn’t have to tell you,” Raymond said. “I will.”
* * *
Darian froze. The door to Louis’s apartment was ajar.
Standing in the dark and narrow hallway, he watched bright tracers of light leak from the doorway. An unnatural and anticipatory silence filled the hallway and apartment beyond, as if the building itself were awaiting something of great significance.
Darian moved closer then reached out and gave the door a gentle push.
The place, unusually bright despite the overcast and rainy day, was a mess. Debris littered the floor and dishes were piled high in the kitchen sink. A dank and musty odor mixed with one of body odor and rotting food lingered in the air, and a damp and chilly breeze wafted about.
“Jesus, Louis.” Darian crossed the threshold, eyes panning across the once dull white walls. “What the hell’s going on?”
Three tall windows set against the back wall of the apartment overlooked the neighborhood and street below. Sheer white curtains danced gracefully in the breeze, indicating the windows had been opened wide, and as the curtains fluttered, Darian could see Louis casually sitting on the windowsill of the center window, staring back at him through the thin material like a ghost.
“Louis, come away from the window,” Darian said softly. “I need to talk to you.”
As the curtains swept up and out of the way a moment, Louis grinned at him. It was gone quickly, though, and he looked away, distracted by some other thought that required his immediate attention. He looked as if he’d neither slept nor bathed in days. His clothes were soiled and filthy, his hair mussed and matted, and his face unshaven and pallid. In one hand, he clutched an enormous knife. His t-shirt was short-sleeved, revealing a network of slashes and gory gashes on his flesh from wrist to bicep; many still dripping blood. As Darian moved a bit closer, he realized Louis’s face and clothing were dotted
with spattered blood as well, and his fingers were coated in it, looking like he’d dipped them in a bucket of bright red paint.
As he moved deeper into the apartment, careful to move slowly and not further disturb Louis, Darian did his best to ignore the things written on the walls. Scrawled in crimson, it was the same phrase written over and over again, a lunatic’s demented obsessive mantra finger-painted in his own blood.
Let Them Out.
“Louis,” he said, “I need you to come away from the window now, OK?”
“That’s good right there, Mother.” Louis raised the knife so Darian could have a better view of it through the curtains. The blade was stained and smeared with dried blood. “Just stay right fucking there.”
Darian held his hands up and slowly nodded his head. “OK, man, you got it. Just take it easy, all right? Take it easy and talk to me.”
“You know what the worst part is?”
“Please come away from the window, Lou.”
“I can’t ever go home. That’s the worst part. I can never go home.” He sighed, slowly lowered the knife back to his lap. “No matter what, even if Becky wanted me back—which she doesn’t, of course—I could never go home. I could never spread this to her and—and my babies.” The last word snagged in his throat and his voice cracked. His body bucked and he began to cry silently, his face bent into a shivering frown.
“It’s all right,” Darian told him, struggling to hold his voice steady too. “We’ll get through this, you and me, together. I promise you, Lou. I promise you. But you’ve got to let me help you. Will you do that for me? Will you let me help you?”
Louis stayed quiet a while, and Darian could not be sure he’d even heard him. After a moment, in a calmer voice, he said, “I met her in high school, you know. Becky, I mean. I met her senior year. She was still a junior. Hottest chick I ever saw. She used to wear these tops with one shoulder always showing, the way girls did then. Big rock-and-roll hair all teased up high, jeans with holes and tears in them—remember that look? Becky looked like that. Like a metal chick but…but she was innocent, too. She had this innocence, like all that stuff was just for show. There was something so pure about her back then. And she liked me. Right from the start, she liked me.” He looked over at Darian, his eyes red, swollen and glassy. “And I loved her.”
“I know, man.”
“I still love her.”
“She’s the mother of your children, Louis, of course you love her.” He tried a smile, but he couldn’t hold it long. “You have to think about them right now. I want you to think about Lou Junior and Danielle, all right? They need you, Louis. You’re their father and they need you. Don’t rob them of their father, don’t do that to them.”
“I’m already gone, Mother.” As the curtains blew out far enough to reveal his face, Louis returned Darian’s smile with one of his own, one equally counterfeit and fleeting. “And so are you.”
“We’re all going through this,” Darian said. “We’re all—”
“It’s that fucking freak’s fault.” His face darkened and his eyes grew wild. “Seth’s brother. Raymond, that fucking freak, he did this to us. He made this happen.”
Darian felt lightheaded but kept his focus on Louis. “Listen to me, Lou. Can you do that for a second? Can you just listen to me, please? You’ve cut yourself pretty badly in a couple spots, OK? I need you to come down out of that window and come with me so we can have somebody look at you. We can talk and have somebody tend to those wounds, OK?”
Louis seemed even farther off, like a deranged street person sidetracked by voices only he could hear. “That night at the cabin we…”
“Yes, something happened to us that night.” Darian felt himself nod. “Something happened to—”
“There was something out there.” Louis shook his head as his eyes filled with tears. “Something we weren’t supposed to see. That bitch brought it to us, exposed us to it…spread it. And Raymond—that fucking freak, he—knows more than he’s telling, Mother. Don’t forget that, your hear me? Don’t forget that.”
“What did Raymond do?”
“He knew.”
“Knew what, Lou? What did he know?”
“They show you things,” he said, gasping. “Horrible fucking things, they—have they shown you yet, Mother? Have they? They will, they will. They know Raymond can see them. They know. They know everything, you can’t hide anything from them, they—they’re watching us right now.”
“But we—we didn’t do anything, Louis. We didn’t do anything.”
“We were there. That’s enough. Raymond could’ve helped us, he—he should’ve fucking helped us but he didn’t. He let that bitch infect us and now it’s too late, we can’t stop it. Game over, man, we’re done. We’re done.”
“Who are they, Lou? What…what are they?”
“You’ll know soon.”
Darian moved a bit closer, careful not to make any sudden movements. He knew if he could get perhaps two or three steps closer, he could grab hold of Louis before he could do anything else to hurt himself. “There are some things I haven’t told you,” Darian admitted. “I haven’t told anyone. I didn’t just forget about that night and pretend none of it ever happened. I tried, I—I’ve tried so hard to understand, to make sense of it all.”
“You will. Deep down, you already know, you just haven’t freed it yet.”
Hoping the conversation would keep Louis focused on him, he continued. “I subscribed to a couple newspapers,” Darian told him. “Newspapers that cover Gull’s Peak and the surrounding areas. I poured through them from the moment we got back and they started to arrive. Every week, I’d check them front to back, looking for anything new, any mention of Christy or the man she talked about. I wanted to tell you guys, but it’s crazy. It doesn’t make any sense. A few weeks after we got home I found some articles. They found that man’s body at a cabin not far from where we were.”
“I know.”
“He didn’t die the way Christy said he did, Louis.”
“I know.”
“There are things with her that don’t add up, too.”
Louis looked away.
“What have they done to us, Lou?”
He blinked slowly, compliantly. “They’re here.”
Darian had an overwhelming urge to look behind him. “I don’t—”
“Look around, Mother. Read the walls.”
“We have to stick together.” Darian took another step. “Don’t do it, Lou. Please.”
“I can’t fight it anymore,” Louis said, voice cracking again as the tears spilled from his eyes and ran the length of his cheeks. “I just want it to stop, I—I have to make it stop.”
“Come away from the window.”
“It has to stop.”
“Please, man, please come away from the window.”
Louis dropped the knife. It hit the floor with a dull thud, and served to distract Darian just long enough to prevent him from taking a third and final step closer.
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
Darian looked up in time to see Louis offer one final sad smile just before he leaned back and toppled out the open window, the curtains swirling about like arms unable to quite catch him, fluttering in the breeze as he vanished beyond the ledge.
“Louis, no!”
Darian ran for the window but Louis was already gone, already plummeting to the street below, his t-shirt rippling in the open air just seconds before he crashed against pavement, his body twisting at impossible angles and bouncing to the curb before coming to rest near a parked car.
Somewhere further down the block, a woman began to scream.
* * *
On her way out of the room, Nana stopped long enough to give Raymond a peck on the cheek. He responded with a quick one-arm hug, and Nana escaped through the doorway, leaving them alone in awkward silence. After a moment Raymond asked, “How you feeling?”
“A little lightheaded,” Seth answered, “but I’m all
right.”
The rain outside had grown worse, its beat against the windows louder and more intrusive than before.
“Nana told me about—”
“I know.” Raymond stuffed his hands in his pockets like he’d done as a child whenever he was nervous.
“I’m sorry you had to go through that alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. I had you.”
God sees what we do. Good and bad, Seth. And He doesn’t forget either.
With remnants of his mother’s voice still dripping in his mind Seth remembered the hallway leading to the locker room in high school. Senior year. Raymond’s freshman year, and once again apart from the rest, standing out even more than the rest of the frosh population and targeted for various initiation nonsense, rituals passed from generation to generation, from one mindless and sadistic bully to another.
He remembered the hallway, how dark it was even in the middle of the afternoon, and how deep in the old school building the shadows were so thick one could hide undetected in a corner or along the stairwell leading to the nearby cafeteria.
“Keep your eyes open,” Seth had told his little brother prior to the start of the school year, already cognizant of what many would have in mind for someone deemed as weak and strange as Raymond. “High school’s a lot different, Ray. If you let them a lot of guys will bury you, understand? Try to fit in. Just try, OK? It’ll be easier for you, trust me.”
Raymond had promised to try, but within the first few days he was labeled an outcast. He spent lunch at a table alone, isolated and self-conscious, and walked the halls with his head bowed, books clutched tight against his chest. In classes, word was he was quiet and rarely interacted with anyone. He wore his hair longer than most kids even in those days, and it tended to fall in his eyes a lot, covering a good deal of his face. Seth had heard the rumblings, even seen some older kids pick on Raymond, and he’d done his best to step in whenever possible. But the pressure was mounting for both of them.
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