Hey guys - this is part three of a story I've been writing in parts on this blog. I realize it's been some time so there's a lot of posts in between them and this, so if you'd like to read the whole thing I'll just point you over to my
livejournal. Here we go.
***
Hen Marshall stared up at the dark of the ceiling, replaying his encounter with the old man in his head. Thinking about it made his heart skitter, like a flat stone over a still pond.
Something is wrong, he thought,
and if I were any sort of responsible landlord I’d go over there right now and find out what it is. He checked his watch, and noted that it was after one in the morning already. Too late to do anything, too late. Of course, he could have gone during the eight-o-clock movie, but it’d been too long since he’d seen the Goonies, and my, wasn’t that big weirdo a funny looking guy. At ten-o-clock he’d watched a news-magazine sponsored mystery, and that had been fairly interesting.
It was about a man who went missing in his own backyard one day; a whole search party spent a week combing the fields behind his house, and turned up nothing. Police suspected his wife, and his wife suspected aliens. Nothing came of either suspicion. Three years later one of his kids was out playing and tripped over a bit of metal sticking out of the ground. He cleared away some of the grass and found the cover to a hatch of an old abandoned bomb shelter. After his mama had called the police, and they came out to open it, everyone was pretty sure they were going to find the guy’s dead body down there. Thing is, the guy was alive. He’d found the hatch just the same way as his son, opened it, and went down to investigate and the thing got locked behind him. He’d had enough to eat, somehow, but pretty quick his brain turned to mush and they pulled him out more or less an animal. It was interesting enough of a mystery, but every time the commercials started Hen had turned his head to the window, staring across the court at the house with one light on, in the downstairs living room.
I should do something, he had thought. He contemplated calling the police, but the notion of picking up the phone and dialing 911 made him nervous. Time piled onto itself, and now it was one in the morning and the moonlight danced off his watch and onto the ceiling, but tonight he just wasn’t amused.
Will I even sleep tonight? He groaned and rolled over, stuffing his head into the pillow and trying to make his mind blank.
First thing in the morning, I’ll go over. I promise. Just let me sleep. And after an hour or so of certainty that it would not, sleep came.
***
The morning is cold, the air sour in his nostrils. He stands on Crim’s porch, heart in his throat. Another deep breath and then knock, knock. The sound against the still of morning is grand, and he shudders. Waiting, hands in pockets now, a good three steps back from the door should it swing open, waiting for the gaunt height of an old man whose eyes are telescopes. Checking his watch now, two minutes spent waiting, not a sound from within the house. Should I, or come back later? Another moment then knock,knock,knock. Then “Mr. Crim! Open the door, it’s your landlord again. I, uh…I’m back for the rent, uh, I was wrong, I need it today and not the end of the week. Mr Crim?” His voice a cracked notion of its past self, he feels in it his fear. Of what? What am I afraid of? He’s just an old man, but something’s happened. That smell… That smell charges from beneath the door and drives up at him, gathering around his head like a swarm of beastly rotting bees. Five minutes now, he’s waited long enough. The doorknob is limp and cold in his hand, and when he turns it something clicks and the door pulls open easily, like he’s said a magic word. Oh God what were they feeling when they opened that hatch, was it like this? He breathes heavily through his nose; a mistake immediately recognized as he retches, hand over his mouth to hold it in. His eyes are watering now, he’s managed to repress his gag reflex and his mouth hangs open gulping dead air. Another moment and he’s ready.
“Mr. Crim, are you here? Mrs. Crim? Is anyone here? I’m coming in now; don’t be afraid it’s just me, your landlord. I’m going to leave the door open, ok?” For me as much as for anyone else, he thinks. Three steps put him among the clutter, clothes and notebooks and dishes and half-eaten foods becoming the stagnant water through which he wades. To the left is a hallway, and a door half-open. He wades there, following a trail of notebooks. He picks one up, opens it. It is full, each page nearly black with ink, each line of writing perfectly small and even. All the notebooks are like this, all of them. Dear God. It’s that thing, where you go crazy and write all the time. What did they call that? The word escapes him and he pushes the door in and here he is, the vulture of a man slumped over a notebook, dead. Crim’s arms lay out before him, his right hand still clutching a pen. Marshall doesn’t gasp, doesn’t dare; he had to be expecting this, hadn’t he? He’s dead. Of course he’s dead. He finds himself wading closer to the body, squinting to make out the last of Crim’s writing. Reads three lines, and his vision swims. He reads them again.
I have a visitor today. My landlord, Mr. Marshall. Hello, Mr. Marshall, how are you? I’m afraid I’m busy today and won’t be able to do much talking, but I’ll have Marjorie make you some coffee. I can spare a few minutes I suppose, is that all right?
Marshall’s head is shaking now, droplets are welling at the corners of his eyes.
And then, almost immediately everything is all right again. He is smiling; it is clear. “I am dreaming. How clever. I can’t usually read in dreams.” He reads the rest of what is written on the page.
I’m afraid Marjorie is in the bath. Maybe you should go and get her, and I’ll have her make you some coffee. Doesn’t that sound swell, Mr. Marshall?
Marshall laughs. “Why of course it does! Coffee would be very good right now. The bathroom’s up the stairs, am I right?” He waits, for the man’s dead hand to move, to write a response. But of course it does not. He laughs again, amused at his own expectations and then turns on a heel, bounding out of the room.
“I’m dreaming,” he says to himself as he bounces to the foot of the stairs. “It’s not a very nice dream, but I’ll wake up soon enough.”
The stairs pose only a few moments’ effort, and now he stands at the bathroom door, which is curiously open, staring in. The smell, which he’d thought was getting better, had in fact worsened. He wrinkled his nose. “Mrs. Crim, your husband wanted me to get you out of the bath so you could make me some coffee. You see, I’m visiting.” He steps into the room, and his shoes fill with water. He can see the bathtub in the far corner; it’s filled all the way up. “Mrs. Crim,” he says as he moves closer, then his stomach heaves and his mouth fills with bile. He vomits, and looks again. “No, this is too bad.” He slaps himself, across the face. He slaps himself again, harder. He’s crying, now, sobbing to wake up. He’s slapping himself rapidly, yelping in pain and sobbing as his feeble mind lets go.
Downstairs, as Marshall begins to scream, Jordan Crim’s pen-clutching claw begins to move.
Thank you for visiting, Mr. Marshall. Come again, very soon.
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