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nanowrimo_lj(the story so far ... 6,725 words)
(3,230 words)
Marin could just see the edge of the screen as its image flickered, flipped, and rolled past the bored eyes of the security guard posted behind the check-in desk.
Only 12 years old, he was short for his age, his feet only just reaching the floor as he swung them and continued to wait. He was wearing his favorite “three dollar” T-shirt, which Daddy Rabbit had given to him on his birthday, a year ago.
He’d grown a bit since then, a fact he was secretly pleased with, but not enough to force him to send it to the box in the attic with his other cast-off clothes. In fact, since he’d learned how to sew two years ago from Rachel, the nice girl who rented the basement walk-out of their duplex, he’d even taken the initiative to patch his shirt and give it a strip of cloth down the back that mostly matched the cool green of the rest of the shirt.
Today, he wore a rainbow colored button on the left side, with the word “Family” written over it. He figured that it would make Father Wolf smile.
The crowds of people continued to file in, mill about, and leave either through the emergency doors through which they’d entered or in to see a doctor by way of one of three smaller, wooden doors bearing the words, “Authorized Personnel Only.”
Marin glanced at the clock on the wall behind the nurse’s desk.
It was a quarter past six; he’d been waiting for forty-five minutes.
Miller’s Park Regional Hospital was often busy and he’d spent many hours waiting for Father Wolf to get off work. However, despite his familiarity with waiting, Marin was getting annoyed. Today, of all days, Father Wolf should not be late ... both he and his older brother Patrick had been working all day on a very special anniversary surprise.
He knew that his father had to help people who were sick or hurt but he couldn’t help but think it was terribly unfair that any doctor should be late going home on the one day during the year that the whole family got together for dinner.
Sure, there was Thanksgiving, the Fourth of July, and Christmas but Marin always loved Anniversary Day the most.
He kicked the toes of his shoes over the surface of the tile floor and looked up as a man came out of the back room.
It wasn’t Father Wolf.
The stranger looked around with a blank expression on his face and seemed almost lost. Despite Marin’s youth, he’d seen that look on people several times; mostly in places like this. Usually it meant that the person had just gotten some bad news.
Tall with short, blonde hair and eyes that were curiously deep in their navy blue hue, the stranger’s appearance was an odd blend of perfection and tattered shambles.
While slender, fit, and by all appearances, healthy, his clothing was drab and shabby, having the look of attire acquired from a dumpster or homeless shelter. He wore a threadbare coat with the right sleeve shorter than the left due to a missing cuff, and several patches tried desperately to hold the lining back from numerous escape attempts.
His pants were faded and torn at the ankles, revealing mismatched socks and shoes. One of them, Marin noticed, wasn’t even a shoe: it was a stained and soiled slipper.
For all of his eccentric wardrobe, the stranger didn’t stand out as much as some of the other transients and impoverished locals who filled the waiting room of the emergency ward. Rather, he was more distinct because of his healthy features than clothing that resembled something stolen from a back-alley corpse.
Still, no one stared as the stranger raised his head and looked out over the room, eyes seeming to glide over those assembled in a vain effort to make some sort of connection. Apparently seeing no viable compatriot, he straightened his shoulders and walked towards Marin.
Marin turned his eyes away and stared at his shoes.
Wishing, under his breath, that Father Wolf would hurry and come out of the back, he made a stringent study of how his laces were tied.
A shadow fell over him accompanied by a smell of mildew, sweat, and garbage.
Marin kept looking down at his feet.
The figure stepped past Marin to the empty chair on the boy’s left and, heavily, sat down.
Marin looked slowly to his side at the stranger.
Despite the smell, the man looked clean and healthy; his expression, however, was lost and without direction.
He turned his head and Marin looked back at his shoes, studying them intently while wishing, over and over, that his father would come and rescue him from the uncomfortable situation.
“Were you looking at me?” asked the stranger in a quiet, melodic voice.
His tone had no malice in it, but possessed a detachment, instead. He sounded ... blank.
Marin looked up into his deep blue eyes, shrugging. “Just lookin’,” he said, muttering.
The man smiled thinly, and nodded. “I don’t mean to scare you; I’m just feeling a bit lost, right now.”
“Don’t you know where you are?” Marin asked, misinterpreting the man’s statement.
He shook his head. “Actually, I don’t. I brought a friend here but didn’t even notice the name of this place.”
Marin nodded, still wary of the stranger but not feeling quite as threatened as before the quiet tones of the man’s voice had been uttered. “Miller’s Park Hospital,” he said. “Where you from?”
The man shrugged in response and looked at his hands. “I honestly don’t know. The doctors here, they couldn’t tell me anything.”
“You don’t know where you’re from? At all?” The young man’s eyes grew wide. “You got amnesia or something?”
“I think I must,” the stranger said. “I don’t have a name and I can’t recall having a home, either.” He looked back down at Marin, his lost expression all the more profound for his furrowed brow. “I can’t ... I don’t have a name or ... or anything...”
“Wow.... That’s weird,” Marin responded, at a loss for what else he could say.
The man just nodded, softly. “I would imagine it must seem that way; to me, however, it’s just ... frustrating.”
Marin looked towards the doors that led from the emergency waiting room back into the hospital, proper. “My dad could help you,” he said, confidently. “He’s a doctor, here, and works with all sorts of people. I bet he could cure amnesia...”
The stranger followed Marin’s line of sight to the doors and shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anyone back there who can help me. That’s why I left.”
Marin looked up, surprised. “You left? You just ... walked out? You’re not supposed to do that.”
“I was in the way,” he replied, simply, looking at the center of the three doors as a nurse came out and called a name. “I’d been back there for over four hours; if they could help me, they would have.”
“What about your friend? The one you brought in?”
The stranger looked down and his eyes met Marin’s with an air of dismay. “He’s dead.”
Marin felt like his tongue had swollen up and weighed a ton. He didn’t know what to say.
The stranger, his demeanor still lost, turned his head to stare down at his mismatched footwear. Marin looked away to gaze at the woman sitting across from him, her eyes on the stranger’s features with a look of appreciation that belied his clothing. A million thoughts seemed to flow through his head, not the least of which was the return of his unease at the strange man sitting next to him.
Silence fell on the two as the clock ticked by.
Marin felt increasingly uncomfortable and, finally, looked back at the anachronistic stranger. “Do you know his name?” he asked, finally.
“What?”
“His name. Your friend’s name. Do you know it?”
The man nodded. “His name is ...was... David. Doctor David Sutton.”
Marin nodded. “Did he work here?” he asked, trying to think of Father Wolf had ever introduced him to anyone named “Dr. Sutton.” “My dad is a doctor, here, and he knows everyone on the staff.”
“I don’t think so, but his home was nearby. That’s where I brought him from.”
Marin stood up and nodded. “I can ask the nurse,” he said, indicating the main desk. “She’s busy, but she knows me. She can check and maybe find out if your friend...”
“Dr. Sutton.”
“Yeah, Dr. Sutton; she can check to see if Dr. Sutton worked here.”
“I doubt that will help anything...”
Marin turned away to go see the nurse at the check-in station. “You just wait here; I’ll go check.”
Marin walked up to the desk and leaned against it, looking at the harried nurse on the other side. She had a phone cradled in the crook of her neck and was simultaneously trying to sort through a file folder and reassure the person on the other line that their appointment had been made.
“Yes, sir; we do have your re-schedule confirmed for next Wednesday... Yes, sir; I’m sorry, sir. Yes, next Wednesday at 1:30pm.”
The nurse on receptionist duty was someone Marin had met many times. She was a big woman with auburn hair pulled back in a bun. She wore slender, stylish glasses that made her face look extra-large but didn’t quite do enough to hide the fact that she was rather pretty. Her nametag said “Nurse Sorrel” but to Marin and his family, she was affectionately known as Nurse Squirrel. She looked frustrated as she pulled out a piece of paper with a couple charts printed on it, and scanned it while finishing her conversation.
“We’re sorry for the inconvenience, sir; Dr. Klein will be more than happy to see you, though, and we do have you scheduled for 1:30 next week.”
With that, the nurse sighed, hung up, and put the documents down in front of her.
Marin waited for a minute before clearing his throat. “Excuse me,” he said, quietly.
The receptionist looked up and then down at Marin, her annoyed look evaporating as she saw the young man before her.
“Oh, Marin... I’m sorry, didn’t your father come out to get you?”
“Not yet,” he said, sighing. “But I was hoping to get some help for that guy over there...” Marin pointed at the stranger across the room.
The nurse’s eyes narrowed and she nodded. “Is he bothering you?” she asked, sounding a bit suspicious and tired.
“Oh, no; not at all! It’s just that he -well- he said that the friend he brought in a few hours ago died and now he doesn’t even remember who he is. He said his friend was Dr. Sutton.”
The nurse stood up and looked curiously at Marin. “He said what?” she asked, concern and suspicion lacing her voice.
“He said he has amnesia. He doesn’t know where he lives or even what his name is. I was hoping that the person he came in with -well- I was hoping Dr. Sutton worked here and that someone who knew Dr. Sutton also knows this guy...”
The nurse bent forward and motioned Marin to lean closer.
“Marin, I think that man’s either pulling your leg or is sick. Now, I want you to stay away from him, Ok? I’m going to get an officer to go and talk to him.”
The boy shook his head. “He’s not sick; he’s just confused. I don’t think...”
“Marin, please. Just go over there for a moment, all right?” Nurse Squirrel pointed to an empty chair by one of the doors and waited for Marin to nod in assent.
He felt uneasy, his stomach twinging the way it did when he told on one of the other students at school. Marin felt like a tattletale, but it was clearly out of his hands. He watched as two uniformed security guards emerged from the back rooms of the hospital and went over to talk to the nurse.
Marin turned away and sighed.
Sitting down, he picked up a kid’s magazine that had a date on its cover from a year ago. Flipping through the pages covered with doodles, crayon coloring outside the lines, and half-filled in mazes, crossword puzzles, and connect-the-dots, he tried his best not to think about getting the stranger in trouble.
Stealing a glance, he looked back up after a few moments and was relieved to see the two officers not leading him out of the room. Instead, they were walking slowly past him -in “patrol-mode”, Marin observed- and just doing that cop-thing of nodding politely to everyone, making quiet comments.
He watched for another couple minutes, wondering when they’d walk back to confront the man directly, when a shadow fell over him from one side.
Looking up, he saw the heavy-set frame of Nurse Squirrel.
“Marin, I’m afraid you’re father’s left for the day,” she said, bringing him back to his original reason for being here.
“What?”
She nodded and took off her glasses. “I don’t know what happened, hon; I really don’t. I was sure that someone told him you were out here but, well, he seems to have gone for the day.”
Marin’s face looked frustrated and sad, eliciting a compassionate pat on his shoulder from the nurse.
“There, there; I get off work in an hour and a half. I can take you home.”
“He wouldn’t just leave...” said Marin.
“Oh, honey; I’m sure he just didn’t know you were here. He probably just got busy and didn’t get the message...”
“But it’s his anniversary!” Marin exclaimed, looking up at Nurse Squirrel with big eyes. “We were going to surprise him with dinner and ... and everything!”
“Oh, dear... You and your brother were going to surprise him?”
He nodded. “Rich was going to get Daddy Rabbit from the theater while I got Father Wolf.”
The nurse sat down on the short coffee table and it’s out-of-date magazines. Putting a hand on his shoulder, she smiled. “I know it seems like a tragedy when your plans get spoiled like this, but don’t worry. Both your fathers know you love them and I’m sure they’ll be just as happy to have you there with them as they would have to see you shouting ‘surprise!’”
“But...”
“Shhhh... No ‘but’s,” the nurse said, smiling and trying to comfort him. “Look, you’re almost a teenager, now, right?”
Marin nodded. “In five months.”
“Five months,” she echoed. “Well, a teenager is usually pretty selfish and uncaring, you know. It’s like a disease that makes them act like they don’t need anyone: not parents, not brothers: no one.” She smiled with a shrug. “Truth is, I see lots of teenagers in here who like to act as if they’re big and tough and strong; not needing anyone.
“The truth is, Marin, you’re better off than most of those teenagers. You have something they’ve lost: empathy.”
“That’s what Daddy Rabbit says...”
“See?” said the nurse, patting his shoulder. “Daddy Rabbit is an artist; he should know!”
Marin sighed, looking at his shoes. “I guess. But I still feel bad about missing Wolf.”
“Marin, most kids would be lucky to have a pair of fathers like you. Now, listen, I’ll see if I can get off work a few minutes early so we can get you across town as fast as possible.”
“Wait... Oh, wait! If I call Rich, he can still be ready!” Marin jumped up, startling the nurse. “Can I use your phone?”
Nurse Squirrel smiled and stood. “Well, Ok... But then...”
“Then,” interrupted Marin, “I can catch the bus; they’re always faster than dad’s car in rush hour!”
The nurse looked dubious. “I don’t know, Marin...”
“It’s Ok; I’m allowed to ride the bus by myself,” he lied. “Besides, it’s not that far from home.”
“Marin, it’s at least six miles...”
“Yeah, and that’s not far at all!” Emboldened by his makeshift plan, Marin dashed across to the nurse’s registration desk and reached over it to grab the phone. “I’ll call Rich right now,” he said over his shoulder as Nurse Squirrel followed, “and then run as fast as I can!”
“Marin,” she said, cautiously. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“Hey, don’t worry! Trust me...”
With that, he dialed.
Rich could hear the phone ringing inside the apartment.
His arms full of groceries, he gritted his teeth in frustration and jammed the key into the lock. Fumbling with the load, he pushed to get the lock to turn while not spilling two weeks worth of food on the hallway floor.
He could hear the phone stop, inside, as he managed to get the door open.
Richard Mane was tall and lanky like his biological father but, for some reason, had the same kind of speckled brown hair as Taryn, his father’s partner. Having started college a year early, it freed him up to help around home during the inconvenient morning hours for his parents while taking classes at night.
Shrugging off the brown, corduroy coat he wore against the early autumn chill, he flipped on the light next to the door and went inside.
The home he shared with his younger brother and his fathers was spacious and clean. It had always been that way, ever since he was a boy, and he was loathe to just dump the bags on the counter without putting them away, first.
Still, he put them down and sprinted to the phone before the answering machine stopped recording.
“Hello? Hello!” he shouted, picking up the receiver.
On the other end, he could just hear the phone being hung-up.
Annoyed by the timing, he hung up and pressed “play” on the recorder.
“Rich! I missed Father Wolf at the hospital and am going to get home really quick, Ok? I think I can beat him if I run really fast!”
Rich sighed. Leave it to his younger brother, Marin, to screw up the surprise. The plan had been to get a ride with dad and then delay him with a quick stop at his school to pick up some stuff from his locker.
“I’ll be there fast! Just get the last stuff ready!”
Sighing, the sixteen-year old listened to the message reach its end, the digital voice of the machine saying “Message Played: Press ‘1’ to Delete.”
Ignoring it, he went back, closed the front door to their condo, and assessed the kitchen.
The crockpot had been cooking all day with the stew, but the chicken wasn’t even in the oven, yet.
“Great,” he said to himself. “Well, let’s see if I can pull this off...”
With that, he went to work with the groceries.
(2,383 words)
Marin hoped that Rich had been able to get a hold of their father, unlike his own trip to the hospital to pick up Father Wolf.
Jogging across the cracked, grass-filled pavement of the clinic’s parking lot, he lifted the collar of his coat up around his ears to keep the wind from making him too cold.
Originally, Marin had thought he might try and catch a bus, nearby, but -after thinking about it- decided that it would be cheaper, and therefore more likely not to incur his fathers’ wrath, if he -instead- went a few extra blocks and took the light rail.
Checking his watch, he nodded at his decision.
The rush-hour rates still applied when coming from the downtown area where Miller’s Park Regional was located, but -if he played his cards right- by running just seven blocks to the West, he’d cross Sherbourne and be in the cheaper, “from the suburbs” area.
His Stride Rites splashed through a puddle as he cut through the alley behind Mazman’s Meat Market and headed towards Ulman Avenue, on the other side.
A loud crash echoed harshly through the alley as a man carrying a huge, plastic trash bin in his arms kicked open the door leading from an old brownstone.
Marin caught himself up short as the tall, balding fellow struggled with the heavy weight across the alley to the dumpster.
Small, black eyes took in the boy’s presence and seemed to quickly dismiss him as irrelevant before shaking the trash bin’s contents, hastily, into the receptacle. Marin dodged around him, but -swiftly- the man spun around and thrust his arm in Marin’s path.
“Hold it, shrimp,” he growled, looking down over his flattened, bulbous nose at the hurried youth. “Don’t think I don’t know what you been doin’ out here...”
Marin stepped back, shaking off the big man’s hand.
“I’m just taking a short-cut,” he replied, backing a bit further away.
“The hell you are!” the big man bellowed.
He was wearing an apron that was stained with alcohol and smelled like cigarettes. Beneath that, he wore a sweat-stained, blue, short-sleeved shirt and faded jeans, about a size too small. The man’s shoes had once been for dress with heavy soles, but -now- were scratched, torn, and water-damaged.
“I know you’re one of them kids, been rootin’ around in our trash; tossin’ it everywhere! Now th’ cops may not be able to catch you little shits, but then again, I don’t exactly see them around, now do I?”
Marin continued to back away as the thickly-built man put down the bin he’d been carrying and stood in the center of the alley with both arms crossed over his chest.
“Look, Mister, I ain’t done nothing wrong. I’m just trying to catch the train!”
“Right. You think I’m stupid?” he growled, his voice growing angry. “You think I ain’t got nothing better to do than work all day cleaning up puke in a bar and then pick up the trash after you little shits go and toss it all over the alley?!”
“I already told you, I didn’t...”
“Listen, you little punk, you tell your friends to stay away from my alley! Got it? If you don’t, then I won’t exactly be takin’ the time to call the cops...”
Marin was about to respond, again saying that he had nothing to do with whatever vandalism had been going on behind the man’s bar, when a calm voice interrupted.
“The boy didn’t do anything; leave him alone.”
Marin turned to see the shabby stranger from the clinic’s emergency room walking slowly down the alley towards him. He still had his mismatched footwear and his coat was just as torn but here, in the light of an evening alleyway, he looked ... fairer. It was probably how the shadows fell on him, but his clean-shaven features and healthy look stood out in more contrast when now surrounded by the urban terrain of the alley.
The boy felt his nervousness increase. “You ... you following me?” he asked, looking between the angry man at the dumpster and the shabby amnesiac behind him.
The man in Marin’s path blinked, eyes focusing on the clinic stranger, as if not having registered anyone coming up on them in his rush to judge the boy.
“This ain’t your problem,” the garbage man snarled, his eyes now focused, picking up his bin. To Marin, he looked like he wasn’t sure whether he should brandish the flimsy bin as some sort of weapon or just keep it between himself and the newcomer.
“I’m making it my problem,” the man from the clinic said. “Now back off and let the kid pass.”
Doubt crossed the garbage man’s face as if weighing the outcomes of confronting an obvious bum or losing face in front of a kid.
Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor -or at least the course least likely to wind up with him getting hurt- the trash-carrying man snorted and stepped back to the alley door.
“Ok,” he said, his voice still snarling. “you get a pass this time. But you tell your little friends that they ain’t gonna get by again!” He looked askance at Marin’s defender and scowled. “Not even if they got some bum watchin’ their backs...”
With that, he turned and slammed the door shut behind him.
Marin stood alone in the alley with the amnesiac stranger.
“You followed me,” Marin said, looking up at the tall man.
“I did,” he replied.
“Look, I didn’t mean to get you in trouble back there; I just wanted to help you find...”
“Dr. Sutton. I know.”
The stranger looked curiously down at Marin, as if sizing him up.
“Well, uh, I hope you get home Ok...” the boy said, slowly backing away.
The sheer, brick walls of the alley only had a few, boarded-up windows looking out on it, and the traffic -even busy as it was at 6:30 on a weekday night- was too far away to notice the conversation deep in the cliff-like walls of the buildings.
“I don’t have a home,” the stranger said, simply. “I guess I don’t really know what I’m supposed to do. You tried to help and I guess this is my way of making things even between us.”
Marin nodded and looked, once more, at the shabby clothing the man wore.
The wind didn’t blow as hard down the alley, but the moaning of its passage was a constant reminder of how blustery the day had become. If the man had nowhere to go...
“Look,” said Marin, slowly, “why don’t you come with me? My dad -well, both of them, really- my dads know some folk at the shelter. They could probably get you in. Would you, uh, like that?”
The man looked down at Marin’s eyes and -for the first time- smiled, thinly. “Wouldn’t that put me back in your debt?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
Marin shrugged. “I don’t think so. I’m just trying to help you out...”
The stranger sighed, a look of weariness descending on his features. Marin felt a bit tense about having this man follow him to the train and even, if he was as poor as he looked, paying his way all the way back home, but he couldn’t just leave the guy here. Besides, if the clinic hadn’t been able to help him, where else would he go?
Marin really needed his dad.
A few moments passed and the stranger drew a slow breath, seeming to shrink into his oversized, tattered coat. “Ok...” he said, smiling thinly. “I think that would be best.”
Marin nodded and turned, keeping his eye on the stranger the whole time, and leading the way down the remainder of the alley onto Ulman.
The stranger, walking slowly, followed.
Rich wiped his brow as he heard the buzzer for the front door.
He glanced at the clock and sighed.
7:05. He’d gotten things done as fast as he could but one of his fathers was now home. Well, the big surprise -that he had cooked an entire meal for them all- would still be a bit of a surprise even if it wasn’t waiting on the table with the best silver and tablecloth.
Still, he felt pretty good about what he’d accomplished, anyway.
“It’ll still be a pretty good anniversary dinner,” he said, turning the crock pot off and heading to the door.
“Who is it?” he asked, pressing the security buzzer.
“Rich! It’s me; Marin! Are Wolf and Rabbit home, yet?”
Rich smiled; he had even more time than he thought! “Not yet; they probably stopped off somewhere. Don’t you have your key?”
“Uh, no; I thought I’d be coming home with Father Wolf, but... Rich, I’ve got someone with me and, well, he needs our help.”
Rich scowled. “Marin, who’s with you?”
Another voice came across the speaker, faded as if not near enough to the microphone. “Marin, please; you don’t need to help any more. I’ll be fine...”
“No,” came Marin’s young, insistent voice, “I’m going to have my dad help you out!”
“Marin,” Rich repeated, “who’s out there with you?!”
“Just let us in, Rich; he’s sick and needs help...”
Rich’s scowl grew deeper as he contemplated what his younger brother was saying. Marin rarely did anything that was flagrantly stupid, but -then again- he was only 12. He knew better than to bring strangers home, but if there were extenuating circumstances...
“All right,” he said. “I’ll be right down.”
“Rich, just hit the...”
Rich hung up and opened the door.
He walked down the hall, past the elevator, and headed down the stairs.
He could have simply buzzed the two in, but he wanted to see exactly who was at the door with his brother. He rounded the base of the stairwell and opened the fire door out into the condo’s main lobby. Through the glass doors, he could see Marin standing with a bum.
Rich stopped short but kept his face neutral as Marin waved sheepishly from the secure entryway.
“Hello, Marin,” Rich said, walking up to the door. Turning his attention to the stranger, he added, “How may we help you?”
“I’m not sure that you can,” the man said in his soft, tenor voice.
There was something in that voice that made Rich immediately feel sorry for him. It made little sense, on the face of it, that the mere tone of someone’s voice could -in part or whole- allay his reservations. But that’s how simple it was: the man spoke and Rich immediately felt as if this was the most lost soul he’d ever encountered.
Realization of this, however, immediately made him suspicious. Despite how the stranger’s voice sounded, normal people didn’t affect Rich that way.
As far as he knew, no one’s voice -no matter how pathetic or “homey”- should have that effect on anybody.
“Marin,” he said, “step away from him.”
“I’m not going to hurt anybody; Marin invited me here...”
“Yeah?” asked Rich. “Why? What’s your name?”
“I wish I knew,” the man said, looking directly into Rich’s eyes for the first time. “That’s what Marin, here, was saying he could help with. That your father’s a doctor.”
“Amnesia? Look, pal, you need a hospital, not a 12-yeard old kid’s promises!”
The man turned and started walking away. “Yeah, that’s what I tried to tell him...”
Marin grabbed the stranger’s coat and held tight. “Don’t you dare send him away,” he shouted through the glass door to Rich. “It’s always like this: I try to do something responsible and adult, and you tell me I’m too young! Well, I’ll be a teenager in just a few months!”
“Right; that’s a load better,” Rich said, increasingly annoyed. “Look, Marin, this guy doesn’t want your help, can’t you see that?”
“I didn’t say that...” the man began.
“See?” shouted Marin. “Look, Rich; he just needs to come in and rest for a bit until Father Wolf gets home. Ok?”
Rich looked at the stranger, again, and sighed.
“He seems quite insistent,” he said, looking from Marin’s hand on his sleeve to Rich on the other side of the glass. “Listen, I’m not going to hurt anyone and -really- I’m not going to hurt anyone.”
That voice again.
Rich sighed and tried not to let it sway him. He tried to focus on anything but that voice and that face.
The stranger’s face.
It was without blemish and only had the faintest shadow of facial hair. Rich looked from his brother to the stranger and tried not to think of the impression this poorly clothed man was making on him.
Rich, unlike his fathers, was bisexual and tended to prefer the ladies. He’d even met a girl on campus a week ago, Janet, who he had asked to join him at a student production of “Do Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up.” Still, that said, the stranger was making one heck of an impression on him and that should have been more worrisome than it was.
“Ok,” he heard himself saying. “He can come in. But only until one of our dads gets home...”
“Listen, guys; I don’t know...”
“Stop making excuses; he said ‘yes’,” Marin remarked with a triumphant smile. “Come on up and I’ll get you a Coke.”
Rich grimaced and opened the door for the two, making sure to interpose himself between his younger brother and the amnesiac as they walked towards the elevators.
“Thank you,” the stranger said, his soft voice making Rich notice, all the more, his idiosyncratic contrasts in hygiene and wardrobe. “I promise I won’t stay long.”
“That’s for sure,” Rich muttered under his breath, getting into the elevator and pressing the button for the third floor.
(1,112 words)
But the reality was, this was no dream.
Brendan, cold and shivering, ran as fast as his legs could carry him, his long coat having been lost back at the theater. As he pelted between buildings and tried to evade his pursuer, he wished that he’d still had his cell phone and that, right now, someone would be able to help him.
The alleyway cracked with an abrupt eruption before him, crashing inwards and preventing his escape onto Fillmore Avenue. The bricks crumbled in a cascade of red dust and the smell of concrete.
Brendan tried to stop and slipped, instead, his foot twisting on the wet, garbage-strewn asphalt and sending him to the pavement in pain.
Before his eyes, however, the alleyway’s end closed shut.
The bricks, bending like rubber, pushed and ground against each other, the walls on either side pushing in to leave only the tiniest of apertures at the base of the surreal union and a gap at the top, four stories overhead.
His voice caught, raw, in his throat as the meager light slipping past the sliding, grinding bricks, took on a deep, reddish hue. Stumbling and trying not to put too much weight on his ankle, he pulled himself up and grimaced in pain.
Desperate, he still avoided leaning against the bulging, shifting walls and turned to head back the way he had come.
The asphalt began to bulge up, rising heavily beneath him and sending tremors through the ground.
Despite his injury, he kept his balance and stumbled away from the swelling ground and closed-off alleyway.
He could only wonder what people on the other side were seeing and -strangely- there were no signs that anyone cared. No sirens, no car alarms, no screams could be heard at the impossibility of the horror-film-like effect. Instead, normal traffic sounds echoed on the nearby street and, in the distance, normal people spoke and walked past the entrance to the alley, as if oblivious to the violations of logic and reality.
Shooting pains slowed his progress as the ground began to bulge and rumble all along the path ahead of him. His heart was already racing in fear but -now- it was accompanied by painfully cold knots that rose from his feelings of blind terror.
He felt like a child running through the woods, trapped in a dark, Grimm Brothers faerie tale. How similar it was: the feelings of being lost, the strange, barely-known streets, and the nightmare-like refusal of anyone to notice his peril all had the trappings of a dark, twisted fable. Deep within, it conjured sensations of childhood fears, long-thought buried.
It didn’t seem fair to suffer those pangs once again, after so long as a rational, confidant adult.
Before him, the aperture was starting to close.
The walls on either side, coming together, were occluding the narrow oasis of light pooled under the streetlamp at the end of the alley.
Brendan lurched forward and moved -still limping- rapidly towards the closing alleyway.
The screeching of stone on stone filled his ears as he kicked discarded beer cans and wet paper out of the way, desperate for his freedom. The light got dimmer, growing red as it had on the opposite end of the alleyway as the bricks touched at the middle.
Diving for the hole just beneath where they now joined and ground together, Brendan prayed that he could make it.
He dove for the opening.
His head and outstretched hands struck stone, sealing downwards as fast as it had on the other end.
Overhead, the tops of the buildings on either side slowly bent inwards, soon closing out the stars and semi-clouded sky, save for a few shafts of deep, red light that lit the corridor like spotlights in a darkened hallway.
His swift breaths slowed down as he lifted himself up to a sitting position and the bricks stopped moving. The long, dark corridor became silent.
A minute passed; then, another.
Far away, on the opposite end of the corridor, something moved.
At first, he hadn’t been certain, but when he squinted and peered through the narrow, deep-red cascades of light, he could see something moving.
His breaths starting coming short and sharp, again, and he felt a dread smother him as if he’d been covered in molasses. The shape was moving.
It was moving down the sealed alleyway in a steady, purposeful stride.
It appeared to be a man; tall and towering at a height that normally would make even the tallest of professional wrestlers or basketball players look tiny by comparison. His bulk -and Brendan could only guess, from its movements, that it was a “he”- was broad with shoulders that seemed to stretch from wall-to-wall in a manner that even the bent-inwards bricks could not entirely explain.
The huge man kept his head down and wore a broad-brimmed hat which cast a shadow when he passed through the pools of red light, hiding his features. Each footfall carried him closer and closer, forcing Brendan to shrink back against the barrier at his back, cringing and without anywhere to run.
His fear swelled as his teeth gritted. He forced himself to his feet again and stood his ground, wishing that he had a weapon -anything- with which to defend himself.
Booming closer and closer with its heavy, hard steps, the towering man stopped just beyond the nearest red spotlight.
Brendan swallowed, hard, and thought -for a moment- he could hear a snuff of breath; a rush like that from a bull’s nostrils just before charging.
The silhouette shifted from foot to foot, the massive man easily half again Brendan’s not inconsiderable six-foot height.
For a moment, just a moment, Brendan thought back to when he’d fooled around with drugs in college and -in that span- wondered if this could be one of those flashbacks he’d heard so much about. Fifteen years had passed, but still...
With a heavy thud, the huge figure stepped forward from the dark into the dull, red light, and raised his head, its eyes seeming to burn down into the smaller man’s soul with a supernatural fury.
The moment when Brendan thought this might be a dream or reoccurring drug hallucination passed as his voice cracked in a rasping, fear-filled cry.
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