Returning Home
by Sam Bourne
The night streets shimmered as we walked through town. A dewy sheen left by the day's downpours coated everything, reflecting back to our eyes a world just a fraction of a wavelength away from the one we knew. Steam rose from the ground and cloaked us in a warm, sultry mist as unseen cars whispered their way across distant roads. It was soothing, this new world of ours. None of the bad things that happened in reality could enter this soft, shiny place.
We had left behind the muffled revelry of the pub and its laughing, red-faced denizens and were making our way down the road, heading towards our respective homes. Ann, Mauve and I were a Siamese triplet, joined at the shoulder blades, keeping each other upright and moving in one direction. Kevin stumbled a few steps ahead of us and began to make sounds that from a less intoxicated person might have been singing. His silhouette, prancing and shambling, cut against the thick light of a streetlamp, was unearthly: a native inhabitant of this other world. We laughed with it as we walked.
A few more minutes of our tipsy parade and I peeled off from the group. We said our goodbyes and parted ways, Ann and Mauve transferring themselves ungracefully onto Kevin's shoulders. There were no cars on the roads, but I stood at a stoplight and watched as my friends disappeared into the crimson fog.
I continued on, alone. The mist thickened, an opaque dome closing in around me until I could barely see the end of the next block. The slippery scrape of my shoes filled the lonely streets, but the sound came without echo or reverberation, flat and final, as though the buildings, rising around me like sudden barriers out of the fog, were nothing more than insubstantial projections. Giving in to what was surely just a trick of the ear, I reached out and brushed a nearby storefront with my outstretched hand. Silt and grime from window of a dry cleaning store sloughed off against my fingertips. It was a small comfort.
The humid atmosphere, so recently a close, reassuring presence, now clung to me like a cold sweat. With every breath I inhaled a lungful of stifling, liquid air and exhaled a plume of thick vapor. I increased my pace, taking the turns I knew so well without thinking, focused only on the cool relief of my destination. Shops and houses flowed past me, their windows and awnings dripping with dark condensation. Tendrils of water rolled in alongside the curb as though fleeing an oncoming storm, picking up the flotsam and jetsam of well-traveled macadam as they drifted by. My vision blurred as the droplets growing on my eyelashes slithered their way into my eyes. I blinked, wiped my face on a damp sleeve. Everything was wet. Shoes slogged and splashed with every step, spraying crystal fans of water. Only a few more minutes until home, I assured myself, a few minutes until dry clothes, warm blankets, and a soft yet supportive mattress.
The sidewalk launched itself at my face. My hands flew out in time to break the fall and I hopped up nonchalantly, checking involuntarily to make sure no one had witnessed my clumsiness. There had been a crack in the sidewalk, one edge of it tilted up a few inches higher than the other. I thought it strange that I had never noticed the crack before and initially assumed it was new, but weeds peeking through marked it as weeks old, at least. An uncomfortable thought occurred to me, and I took a closer look at my surroundings. I suddenly became aware of my heart beating. Around me I saw unfamiliar houses, signs for streets I had never heard of, and the tall man in the tall hat, standing at the end of the road, motionless except for the steady puff of his breath and the mechanical tapping of his cane. It echoed down the tree-lined lane.
I looked away, not too quickly, in the futile hope that he hadn't yet seen me, and turned back to walk the way I came. I stepped past the overgrown sidewalk fissure and walked an entire block before turning around to check. He was gone, obscured by the fog, but whether by some inexplicable other sense or just my own overpowering fear, I knew absolutely that he was still there, just beyond.
The block on which I found myself was still unknown to me, so I pressed on, stepping lightly and turning my head to listen for any sounds of pursuit. Nothing but dripping and the delicate trickle of the rivulets running alongside the road. I forced calming thoughts through my head: I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, or missed one. All I need is to continue on a straight path until I see Hemlock, or Perkins, or some other street I know. Focus on the stairs up to my building. I'll be walking up those stairs soon, closing my door, and locking it. Dry, warm, soft yet supportive. Home is minutes away.
A spinning windmill caught the corner of my eye: a lawn ornament, crouched contentedly before a green pastel house. The fans of the mill spun lazily, swirling the mist motes in a subtle vertical whirlpool. I recognized it; this was the house at the end of my block. Glancing back at the street sign, I wondered how I could've missed it. Fear and caution drained away with every quickening step. Up the stairs. Open the door. Shut the door. The deadbolt locked with a solid, satisfying snap.
The waterlogged shoes suctioned off of my feet with the sound of an octopus gasping for breath. I peeled off my soaking, threadbare socks and tossed them into the trash, then replaced my shirt and pants with blessedly dry versions. As if to spite my newfound dryness, I found that I was violently thirsty.
Halfway through my eighth glass of water I began seriously to worry. My mouth was still dry, which, I supposed, might be the aftereffects of the mildly traumatic journey home, but it didn't explain the way my stomach still felt empty, or the throbbing headache that continued to beg for hydration. I finished off the rest of the glass and then drank another.
To ease my troubled mind, I decided that this condition was mental rather than physical. I proscribed for myself a healthy dose of boob tube, and settled gingerly on the sofa. Sitting there by the front window, I gave in to the urge and pulled back the curtains to peek outside. The neighborhood was empty and still, twinkling from the reflected streetlights. Even the fog seemed to have let up. A car drifted down the road. The world was at peace.
Late night talk shows and infomercials did more for my nerves than I had hoped, and even my voracious thirst seemed to have bedded down by the time I drifted into a tranquil sleep.
I woke sometime later in the night. The TV had shut off, along with rest of the lights in the house. Maybe that storm had finally come through.
Switches throughout the house did nothing. I decided to go back to sleep, that the power would be back by morning. But I was thirsty again.
So it was back to the kitchen for another round of drinks‹when I saw a foot through the doorway to the living room. It was tapping. I could hear it now, pattering some incomprehensible rhythm on my living room floor. It was punctuated by a deeper percussion, and as I moved hypnotically towards the room, I saw the cane next to the foot, tapping in syncopation.
The tall man in the tall hat looked up at me with wide, bright eyes, smiling a smile that, against all logic and anticipation, was kind and comforting. He was larger than I had supposed, seeing him without reference at the end of that lost street. An impressively gangly frame filled nearly the entire sofa, and I'm certain his hat would've brushed the ceiling if he had ever attempted to unfold from his hunched posture. It wasn't simple tallness, I realized, but every part of him was just a touch larger than it should've been: His eyes; his face; his smile; his pale, powdery hands. With one of those hands, he gestured for me to sit in the adjacent armchair. I saw no reason to argue.
"I saw you down in the byways." His lilting voice was measured and precise, as though trying to hide an accent. I secretly wished he wouldn't hide it. I'm sure it would've been lovely.
"Yes, that was me," I said, inanely.
"Why did you not approach me and offer greeting?" he asked.
"I'm not sure."
"Doing so would have been the polite course of action, you know." His hands gestured constantly as he talked, folding and unfolding like the blades of a fan.
I apologized. "That was rude, wasn't it? Would you like something to drink? Coffee, or juice?"
"I do not drink. You were lost down there, on the byways, were you not? Wandered amiss, found yourself all turned 'round?"
"Yes. I guess it was pretty obvious. I was scared. I didn't know where I was. I suppose that's why I was reluctant to approach you."
"Well, all the more reason you should have done. I am infinitely familiar with that neighborhood."
"Oh." I wasn't sure what to say. "Are you sure you don't want anything? Granola? Hi-C?"
"You really should have said hello."
"Well, like I said, I was afraid of you."
He looked genuinely hurt. "Of myself? I am taken aback. Am I not the most heinously approachable of gentlemen?"
"Yes, you're very approachable. It must have been the situation."
"Of course. One does not think in rational spheres when one is lost and frightened."
"Yes, very true." I decided to ask a question that had been nagging at me. "I hate to be rude twice in one night, but can I just ask: Why are you in my house?"
The man removed his hat and held it to his chest with both hands, his head down in a tableau of embarrassment. "I offer apologies most sincere and humble for that infraction. I desired only to make certain of your well being. You were such the vulnerable creature out there on the avenue, and all alone. I wanted to see if anything unfortunate befell you during your passage home."
"Oh. Well, that was very considerate."
"Yes, I know." He replaced his hat, covering up the wiry black hair on top of his head. His smile deepened, carving creases into his smooth, gray face. "I do have another reason for coming, but you would prefer I kept this one to myself."
"Well, what is it? I would really like to know."
"Very well. Before I tell, let me assure you that you have absolutely no reason to fear me."
"I'm not afraid." As I uttered those words, something clicked, and I knew they were a lie. I could feel that somewhere, far beneath the bizarre calmness that had taken hold of me, I was a cowering thing, small and horror-stricken. Suddenly I was calm again, and I couldn't feel it anymore. And that terrified me.
"I told you not to be afraid." The illusion fell as quickly as it had come. The smile that refused to leave his face twisted, his kind eyes tightening, and the sinuous grace of his gestures devolved into erratic, jerking spasms, like the legs of a dying spider.
My hands cleaved to the armchair. "Who are you?"
"Why are you afraid?" He touched my arm in a placating gesture that felt like a thousand crawling things.
I jumped out of the chair and flattened against the wall. "Get off my couch!" I shouted.
The man laughed at me, an abhorrent, condescending dry wheeze that rose from his depths. He spoke in a new voice that was raspy and violent. "What're you gonna do?"
I leapt towards the kitchen but his bony hand wrapped over my shoulder and shoved me across the room onto the chair.
"No! You stay here. Don't you want to hear reason number two? The real reason that I came here, the reason you guessed from the first moment you saw me there on the street corner? What do you think it is?"
My mind strained, stumbling over thoughts and scenarios, desperate for any response that might make him leave, might put him off guard enough to‹
"Tell me now." He leaned in, his face inches away. Chips and dust broke from his giant teeth and fell into my lap as he ground his jaw tighter and tighter. Dead, yellowing eyes stared into mine, and as I looked I was drawn into the dark, magnetic voids of his pupils that breathed open and shut like the desperate mouths of drowning fish. A hot, stagnant musk that was at once both alien and somehow familiar swam up into my nostrils. It triggered some fallow fold deep within my brain and I reeled in agony as it relinquished its hold over some terrible, ancient memory, hidden from the waking world for millennia beyond reckoning. I knew what he was. I knew why he was here. And in that single, mind-rending moment, I wanted what he would give.
"You came here to kill me."
"Yes."
His hands latched onto my head, fingers twining behind my skull as thumbs reached around to pull at my mouth. Feelers and cilia skittered maddeningly beneath the surface of his skin. Trying to close my eyes, I found I could only squint, wholly unable to tear my gaze from the sucking maw of that glazed, pulsing stare. And the stench, the stench that refused to leave, refused to let me forget, surrounded us and filled the room with a putrid, greasy fog.
Cloth tore from the chair and carpet ripped from the floor as my body convulsed below my motionless head. The chair itself exploded as I kicked out with a blast of muscular energy that threatened to dislocate my limbs. Finally, just as it seemed the feral seizures would tear me apart, my eyes fell closed and his grip dissipated. He hadn't let go, however, and I had the nauseating impression that his hands were passing right through my skull. I felt something in the back of my throat, and I retched.
Water welled up and lurched out in a torrent onto my living room floor. It kept coming, by the gallon, to the point that I feared I might very well drown before it finished. I was dimly aware of people laughing. As the final, sputtering coughs expelled the last of the liquid from my system, I inhaled a long, deep sigh of relief. I was sitting on the couch, and on the television was on. That aromatic oily mist was gone, as well, and the spindly gray man was nowhere to be found. I never saw him again. For a long time, I stared at my reflection in the small pond on the floor, and wondered how I would possibly clean it up.
I used a wet/dry vac. Kevin lent it to me. It worked well enough, yet no matter how long and hard I scrubbed, and much later, after replacing the carpet entirely, I could always detect the faintest lingering hint of that uncanny odor. Even years later, visitors often find themselves with an uneasy sensation upon entering that room. They feel as though they have just forgotten something that they never before had the occasion to remember; as one newly awake grasps at the last dying memories of a dream.
photograph by laura podolnick