Four Octobers

by Hautala, Rick

  “Yah don’t say,” the old man muttered, and he looked at Ben in a way that made Ben’s nervousness worsen. Then the old man shifted his gaze and looked past him to the ruins of the house. “You plannin’ on movin’ out here and rebuildin’?”

  Biting his lower lip, Ben shook his head tightly. How could he explain that, until a few minutes ago, he had thought that his brother was alive? How could he accept that, for the past ten years or more, he’d been…

  What?…imagining those telephone conversations with Rob?

  That couldn’t be…not unless he’d lost his mind.

  Is that it? Ben wondered as the damp chill burrowed into the marrow of his bones.

  Was he so far gone he didn’t even realize or remember what had happened?

  Had Mary’s—or his brother’s—death affected him so profoundly that he no longer knew who was alive and who was dead?

  He flinched when he remembered the figures he had seen last night down by the river…especially the one he had watched crawl up out of the water. He knew he must have imagined all of that, but at the time—and even now—it all seemed so real. In some ways, it was more real than the man standing right here in front of him, talking to him.

  “I—uh…no. I have no intention of rebuilding.” Ben shook his head, his eyes shifting past the old man to the rain-drenched line of pine trees behind him. Driven by the cold, October wind, the rain clouds were racing overhead in dense, hazy folds. The chill inside him wouldn’t ease up, and he found himself wondering again if this old man was real or just another one of his hallucinations.

  Am I that far gone that I can’t even tell anymore?

  “You’re lucky I didn’t call the cops on yah,” the old man said. “’Course, there ain’t much out here worth stealin’ or vandalizing. Still…neighbors gotta watch out for one another, y’know?”

  “Sure,” Ben said, nodding stupidly. He wanted the old man to go away and leave him alone, but he wasn’t sure how to break off the conversation. The old man’s suspicion of him was palpable, and he knew that the coot wasn’t going to be satisfied until Ben got into his car and drove away.

  But there was too much to absorb, and Ben wanted some time alone to let it all sink in. He had absolutely no memory of his brother dying in a house fire, so he couldn’t begin to think of how to explain his memories of all those telephone conversations with his brother over the years.

  Was my mental breakdown so complete that I wasn’t even aware of it?

  How much of my life that I think I remember isn’t even real?

  The truth was, there was no way he could verify any of it. Had he ever been married to Mary, or, like his phone conversations with his brother, had he imagined all of that, too? The line between what was real and what was illusion had dissolved. When a sudden strong gust of wind blew rain into Ben’s face, he was left feeling empty and absolutely alone.

  “Well, I…uh…I should probably be heading back home,” he finally said, as much to himself as to the old man. He was feeling so dissociated he wasn’t even sure if he had spoken out loud until the old man grunted and nodded.

  “Yup. ’Spoze so,” he said, but he stayed right where he was as though waiting for Ben to leave first.

  “Thanks for—ah, for keeping an eye on the place,” Ben said.

  The old man shrugged and shook his head. “Not much worth anything here,” he said. “Only thing valuable’s the property itself. You might wanna consider putting it on the market. Prob’bly get a purty decent price for it, the way property values’ve shot up.”

  “Yeah, I just may do that,” Ben said.

  His knees were stiff as he started slowly back to his car. The whole time, he could feel the old man’s unwavering gaze on his back, and he fought the urge to break into a run even though he could lie to himself and say it was just to get out of the downpour.

  This is my property, goddamnit! he thought angrily. And that old codger has no goddamned right questioning me and making me feel uncomfortable on my family’s property, no matter what has or hasn’t happened!

  His fingers were so numbed by the cold he had trouble getting the car door open. His teeth were chattering by the time he sat down behind the steering wheel and slipped the key into the ignition. He cast a quick glance back at the old man, almost convinced he wouldn’t even be there, but the black hooded figure was still there, standing stock-still, like a weather-beaten statue in the pouring rain. Ben had a brief impression that the old man was a scarecrow, draped with a black rubber slicker, but when he raised his hand to wave goodbye, the old man nodded slightly. It could have been just a trick of the light, but the old man’s eyes glowered like hot coals from underneath the hood.

  Placing his arm on the back of the seat and looking over his right shoulder, Ben did a quick three-point turn, being careful not to bump into the derelict truck before starting down the driveway toward the road. The tires bounced in the rain-filled ruts, sending up fans of tea-colored water on both sides of the car. After one last glance into the rearview mirror, he pulled onto the main road leaving the old man standing there, watching him go as though he wasn’t going to trust Ben until he was long gone.

  Heaving a sigh of relief, Ben stepped down on the accelerator and, sighing, eased back in the car seat, hoping he could loosen the tension in his shoulders and neck as he settled into the drive home. He clutched the steering wheel with both hands as he drove back to Northbrook. Even with the car heater on full blast, the chill deep inside his bones wouldn’t go away.

  ****

  By the time Ben turned off Main Street by St. Aloysius Catholic Church onto Spears Street, the rain had stopped. Rippled slashes of purple and orange clouds lit the western sky as darkness seeped across the land. All the way home, he’d maintained a tight grip on the steering wheel, and his wrists and the heels of his hands were throbbing. A different kind of pain came over him when he pulled into the driveway next to his apartment building. In the fading light, he saw that the pile of leaves was now pushed up against the foot of the steps that led up to his door. What looked like an arm was reaching up, draped across the first two steps.

  “Jesus God,” Ben muttered when he realized that the human shape was even more distinct than before.

  He wished he could convince himself that it was just a trick of the eye in the fading light, but he could clearly discern the sloped shoulders and the rounded shape that most definitely looked like a leaf-covered head. The trunk of the body was strangely elongated, stretching down to a thin waist and two narrow tubes that certainly looked like splayed legs. One of the legs was cocked upwards like a person caught in mid-motion, doing an army crawl.

  With the car still idling, Ben stayed where he was for a minute or two and just stared straight ahead at the pile of wet leaves. Light gusts of wind stirred the leaves, making them shift with a thick, heavy motion, like quaking mud.

  “Screw this shit,” he muttered, and he shifted into reverse and backed out onto the road. He wasn’t sure where he would go or what he would do, but the intense dread that filled him was pushing him to do something! As he started down the road, his gaze shifted across the river to the distant shore until it paused on the grove of trees where last night—

  Had it really been just last night?

  —he had seen the woman…Lori.

  She had said she too could see the figures by the water and moving slowly up the walkway, but now he wondered how real she was. She could have been another hallucination. How could he trust anything if he couldn’t even trust his own perceptions?

  Trembling inside, he ran his hand across his face, feeling the rough texture of his unshaven cheeks. He had no idea what to do next, but with daylight fading fast, he knew he had to do something quickly. Releasing a slow sigh, he stepped on the gas and did a quick U-turn and headed back toward Main Street. By the time he turned right onto Brown Street, a greasy sheen of sweat covered his face in spite of the chilled air. His skin felt tight on his scalp, and a burning itch b
eneath his skin felt like there were ants crawling all over him.

  He wasn’t all that familiar with this part of town, but he knew that he was close to what he was looking for when he passed Andy’s Tavern, so he slowed down. Craning his head forward until his chest pressed against the steering wheel, he scanned the row of houses and rundown apartment buildings on the riverside, hoping to catch a glimpse of his own building on the opposite shore through the gaps between. His heart gave a cold squeeze when he recognized the stand of willow trees down by the river. Positive this was where he had seen Lori last night, he pulled over to the curb, parked the car, and got out.

  Dusk was here. Smudges of deep purple clouds were moving in, closing over the sky like a metal lid. After making sure that he locked his car and pocketed his keys, he walked down a sloping, gravel driveway and across the dead grass of someone’s lawn to the riverbank. Standing under the willows, he looked around. The branches overhead looked like black fountains, frozen in mid-air against the sky. To his left was the small white house he had noticed from his side of the river. He was sure he was standing close to where Lori had been last night, but for some reason, it didn’t look the same. The rain and the last few cold, windy nights had stripped the trees almost entirely bare of leaves, and they lay like a sodden carpet on the ground, looking like small, brown corkscrews. They squished under his feet as he followed a narrow, winding path along the river’s edge.

  The water gurgled softly as it slid by in the darkness. A dead tree had washed up onto the shore, its weathered trunk looking like the old bones of some fantastic monster. The recent rain had stirred up sediments from the river bottom, and the fresh scent of ozone filled the air, almost burning the inside of his nose and throat. The shore—in fact, the whole neighborhood—seemed strangely deserted. Even as darkness fell, no lights winked on in the nearby houses, and there wasn’t a single person around. Ben thought there might at least be a few kids out playing until last light, before their parents called them in. On the opposite shore, he could see the blue haze of the streetlights that lined the perimeter of the town park. They reflected on the water in wavy lines. The bench he sat on was empty, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to see someone—maybe even himself—sitting there, watching the night descend.

  “Lori?” he called out.

  His voice sounded oddly muffled in the gathering dusk. A cold prickling ran up the back of his neck as he waited for a reply, but he knew, somehow, that it would never come. He was sure this was the right place. It had to be, but for some reason, something felt wrong. A sudden gust of wind made the willows sway overhead. The branches clicked like tiny breaking bones. The smell of something dead and rotting suddenly caught him by surprise, and he leaned forward, hands on his knees, and coughed, hoping he wasn’t going to throw up.

  “Are you out here?” he called, softer now.

  The light was fading so fast it was almost perceptible, like someone turning down a dimmer switch on the sky. A subtle sense of danger came over him, and he looked warily back the way he had come to reassure himself that he would know where to run if and when he had to. The thought that he might see one or more of those…creatures, crawl up out of the water on this side of the river filled him with a cold, twisting dread.

  If I can see them, they must be able to see me.

  Last night, it certainly had seemed as though at least one of them was aware of him. It made sense that, as they became more visible to him, he would become more visible to them. It was one thing to think that he was hallucinating because of sleep deprivation; it was quite another to accept that his hallucinations might, in fact, be more real than what he usually took for reality.

  Maybe there really were things that came out of the river at night and haunted the town while everyone was asleep.

  And then another thought hit him so hard it made him gasp and almost fall to the ground.

  What if I’m becoming one of them?

  What if I already am one of them?

  That certainly would explain why he hadn’t noticed any people around since…

  How long?

  He tried to remember who he had seen—if anyone—since he left the house to drive to his brother’s. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t remember seeing any approaching cars or any people along the side of the road throughout the drive back from Afton. And already, that event was hazy in his memory, as if it had happened a long time ago. He certainly didn’t remember seeing anyone—not a solitary soul—since he pulled into the driveway of his apartment building just at sunset. And now that he thought about it, there were no lights on in the third floor windows, where his landlady, Linda, lived.

  Maybe what was going on was as simple as that. Somehow, he had crossed over to a different plane of existence, a dimension where he could see things…where he could see people that other people couldn’t see. And he was becoming one of them. Soon, he would fade from the sight of ordinary people and spend his nights, shuffling around town in the dark.

  Am I losing my mind, or am I already dead?

  The night air sliced through him like an icy wind, blowing through a window screen. A low, whistling sound filled his ears as his panic spiked.

  He could understand that he might be a bit unbalanced mentally. He certainly hadn’t been himself since Mary died. Maybe he had died back then, too. Maybe out of grief he had killed himself, or maybe he had died in an accident.

  If I died, when did it happen?

  How long ago?

  And how?

  It seemed not only possible but inevitable the more he thought about it. After all, his brother had been dead for…what? Ten years, now, and he hadn’t even realized it. And then he had carried on phone conversations with him all those years when there was no one really there.

  How can that be?

  And what about the old man out at the burned-out homestead? He certainly had seen Ben and talked to him…unless he was a hallucination, too. And then there was Lori. What was he to make of her?

  Ben was positive she had seen the same black figures he had seen, but was she real or a figment of his imagination or just another element of a nightmare he was having?

  The realization that he couldn’t trust his perceptions and thoughts anymore hit him with a numbing chill.

  “So what the hell is it?” he asked out loud, hearing the muffled quality of his voice in the darkness like the flutter of unseen wings. “Am I dead or dreaming all of this or what?”

  Finally, not caring what would happen, he cupped his hands to his mouth and, leaning back, yelled as loudly as he could.

  “Lori!”

  His voice echoed dully from the opposite shore and was quickly swept away by a gust of wind that riffled the surface of the river, making it look like an old, gray washboard.

  Other than his echo, no reply came. As disappointed as he was, Ben wasn’t at all surprised. He knew he was entirely alone, like the last person alive on earth in an old Twilight Zone episode. After looking all around, he finally looked up at the willow trees. The black branches, etched against the star-strewn sky, clicked as they swayed gently back and forth in the breeze. The lonely feeling that taken hold of him earlier now brought tears to his eyes, but he wiped them away on the sleeve of his jacket and, after a moment, turned and started back to the car.

  There was nothing to do but head back to his place. He wasn’t hungry, even though he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten, but he figured he’d heat up a bowl of soup and try to fill up the long, sleepless hours until morning. One thought kept working on his mind. How would he react if the phone rang, and when he answered it, he heard his brother on the other end of the line?

  ****

  But Ben never made it back to the apartment. After parking his car at the end of the driveway, he looked up at the steps leading to his back door and couldn’t muster the strength or courage to go inside. The pile of leaves was still there. It now swept like a knee-deep snowdrift over the first three steps. The rounde
d pile rattled and chattered in the night breeze, and as he stared dumbfounded at it, a handful of leaves flew up into the air and swirled around in a tiny whirlwind. Even so, the shape was undeniable. The mounded leaves looked even more like a person who had fallen down on the walkway and was trying to crawl up the stairs into his apartment.

  Ben had no idea what to do.

  He wanted to go inside and wished he had the courage to walk over—and right through—those leaves, but he couldn’t help but imagine that, the instant he was near the leaf figure, it would reach out and grab him by the legs and pull him down, smothering him beneath its seething, wet, moldy mass. His throat closed off as he imagined the suffocating stench of rot that would close over him like an ocean tide. He lost all sense of time as he sat there in his car, staring at the pile of leaves, all the while imagining that, even as he watched it, the wind blew it so its shape shifted and moved up onto the fourth step.

  “Jesus, this is ridiculous,” he whispered, irritated that something as foolish as this could unnerve him so much and keep him cowering in his car. He squeezed the steering wheel with both hands until the palms of his hands ached, but he couldn’t bring himself to do something as simple as get out of the car and walk up the steps.

  His breath came in short, painful gulps, and his vision vibrated as though heat lightning were flickering in the clouds overhead. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck, making him shiver as his eyes shifted nervously back and forth. He kept glancing in the direction of the river, but it didn’t register right away that he had seen a faint hint of motion on the far shore. It was only when he turned his head again that he glimpsed something out of the corner of his eye. A person was standing underneath the willows where he had been not more than half an hour ago.