Looking Through You

"I wake up screaming. The room is dark except for a single spindle of light that stretches from the doorway of the bedroom across the hall, slicing through the darkness, taunting me. Shadows of things harmless in the daylight now seem to dance in the gloo

I wake up screaming. The bed is damp with my sweat. My breath, ragged and wheezing, leaves my lungs in bursts.

The room is dark except for a single spindle of light that stretches from the doorway of the bedroom across the hall, slicing through the darkness, taunting me. Shadows of things harmless in the daylight now seem to dance in the gloom and become stretched and contorted, almost evil. My softball trophies. That stuffed armadillo my mother brought me back from San Antonio when I was a kid.

It’s hot in my room, stiflingly hot, but I shiver as the sweat begins to dry from my skin. The feeling that someone is here, or was only seconds ago, seeps into my bones. I can’t explain it, but yet here it is.

I am certain that the door was closed and the light in that room was off when I went to bed. I am more than certain.

I close my eyes and roll away from the doorway, praying for daylight to break.

◊

The next day, I tell my girlfriend that I think my guest bedroom is haunted. I tell her about that creepy, hinky feeling I get when I go in there to get the vacuum, about the sounds I’ve heard. Then I tell her about last night, and how sure I’d felt that someone was there with me, and the light that was not on when I went to bed.

She laughs at me.

“That’s ridiculous, Kurt,” she says munching a bit of lettuce. We are seated at one of those outdoor cafes in the historic district of town. People rush past us along the sidewalk. I feel like they’re all staring at me. “And it’s just the guest bedroom? The one where Jonathan sleeps when he comes down from Jersey?”

“That’s what I said.”

She shakes her head and spears a grape tomato with her fork. “Is this because of what Charlie said?”

Charlie is her brother. Last week, he asked if I was afraid the antique mirror that hung in my hallway was haunted. I laughed it off at the time, but since I haven’t been able to so much as glance into the murky glass. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Too many of those creepy Netflix movies?”

“No, I don’t think that’s it either.”

She pushes a strand of blond hair behind her ear and smiles at me. “What then?”

I realize that I can’t explain it to her. Clara has never lived away from home and has no idea what it’s like to wake up in an old house all alone, shiny with your own sweat, your pulse hammering in your neck while the darkness threatens to suffocate you. As far as I know, she’s never even spent a night in a hotel alone. I feel stupid for even trying. “Forget it.”

“No, now don’t give me that. Let’s talk about this. You wanted to talk about your boogeyman so we’re talking.” She’s mocking me now, I can tell. Goddamn it.

I look down at the club sandwich sitting in front of me, untouched. Suddenly, the thought of eating makes my stomach roll. I slide the toothpick from one triangle of bread and use it to poke my fries, shifting them around the plate. It’s the best way I can think of to avoid eye contact. “Look, I said forget it. Let’s just, let’s just talk about something else, alright?”

“Maybe you’re a sleepwalker. Maybe you got out of bed in the middle of the night and like, went in there, turned on the light, and just went back to bed. That could have happened, yeah?”

I shake my head. Aside from one isolated incident when I was a child, I’ve never been a sleepwalker, at least as far as I know. I tell her so.

“Well that doesn’t mean it’s out of the question,” she says.

“No, I guess not.”

“Or maybe there’s a short in the wiring or something. Your house is like seventy years old, right?”

“Yeah.” I sit a minute, biting my lip. “But what about the door?”

“Geez, I don’t know. Maybe, like, the air conditioning cut on and it popped open or something.”

“That’s the most inane thing I’ve ever heard. Is this your way of trying to be helpful? You know, sometimes all I ask is that you just freaking agree with me, that yeah maybe something we can’t explain happened, rather than argue with every goddamned word.”

Her expression doesn’t change. “But isn’t it at least possible?”

I throw up my hands. “Yeah I guess anything’s possible.”

“More possible than spooks or specters or whatever?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe probably, right? Look, my point is that it’s nothing to worry about, Ace. Now eat your lunch. I want to stop by that fancy dog food place before we head back.”

I force a smile but keep my eyes on my sandwich. “You’re right. I’m sure it’s nothing.”

◊

Two days ago I found four dead baby birds in the backyard, all lying in a nice little row, halfway buried in the grass. I almost stepped on them taking out the trash.

They hadn’t been dead long I don’t think. They didn’t really smell too bad, just a moldy, dirty smell that was sort of like the Tyson chicken plant down the road smells in the summer. The littlest one was ripped open, straight across his belly. Black and green flies had already started to chew on his insides a little, swarming, and buzzing, and fighting. The other three seemed pretty much intact with their fluffy thin feathers and gross looking bald heads, not all that much different from the baby chicks you see at the State Fair.

I had to grab a garden rake from the shed and scoop them up one by one and dump them in the trash. The flies followed the little one and dove into the trash after him, like a mother would dive into a raging sea after her child.

I can’t imagine what could have happened to them.

Does that seem like nothing?

◊

“How about him?” Clara points to a bison trapped just beyond the chain link fence in front of us. The animal stares at us for a moment with one round, billiard ball eye before turning back toward his lunch.

“Fibromyalgia,” I say. It’s a game we play. Every animal here in the city zoo has some type of disability that keeps it from living in the wild. We can spend the whole afternoon thinking of reasons each animal cannot live on its own, each one trying to top the next.

“Good one,” she says. She smiles at me as we walk along the paved walkway toward the petting zoo.

The day is hazy, overcast, and hot. Our hands, thin with a sweat that lingers in the humidity of the afternoon, feel as though they are sealed together as we walk. I look at her and return the smile. It may be the most genuine thing I’ve ever done.

The petting zoo is little more than one rundown looking barn and a single field encircled by a three foot high wooden fence. It smells like the dairy farm I once visited on a school field trip, a thick and dirty stench that makes my throat want to squeeze shut. Despite the smell, the place is brimming with kids, nearly overflowing. A crowd has gathered just up the path in front of us, surrounding a goat with its head poked through the slats of fencing. Tiny hands rub the goat’s head as it eats dried pellets from one child’s hand.

“What about that one?” I nod toward the goat as we pass.

“Completely and totally illiterate.”

“Mean thing to say about that little kid. I bet he tries hard.”

She slaps me across the shoulder, barely hard enough to feel, and laughs. “A*s.”

We continue on past the petting zoo without stopping, heading toward the shade of the path ahead. I take a breath and squeeze her hand.

“Did you think any more about what we talked about?” I say.

“About your boogeyman?”

I wince. “No, not that. The other thing. You know.”

“Oh. No not really, I mean like, yeah a little, but nothing’s changed you know? What’s there to think about?”

“I don’t know. Just hoping maybe you’d reconsidered, given it a little more thought.”

She stops and turns toward me, squinting through the hazy sun. “Look, Mom needs me at home right now. That hasn’t changed and it’s not going to, at least not anytime soon.”

I look down at my feet and kick a pebble into the grass. Now I wish I hadn’t said anything. I don’t think this will end well. “I’m sorry if I thought maybe you’d think about me for once, what I want, instead of her.”

“Excuse me?”

I want to stop but it’s too late. Words spill from my mouth. “I’m just saying, it’s pretty goddamned hard competing with her all the time.”

“Is that what you think? That you’re competing with her?”

I look away. “Sometimes, yeah, sometimes I do.”

“Well sometimes I really don’t get you. I really really don’t.”

“Hey, I’m sorry alright? But if you want me to be honest with you, there it is. I’m just telling you how I feel. It’s just, it’s like, I’m a lower priority. Everything else comes first and I get the Clara that’s left over.”

“You want to know what it feels like to be my lowest priority? Because I can do that.”

“Now don’t get all pissed. Look, I’m sorry I said anything, alright? Can we just forget it?”

Clara shakes her head. Her eyes are like fire and her lips are pressed together, thin and white. A single drop of sweat beads on her forehead and begins to drip toward her cheek. “Let me ask you something. Do you want me to move in with you because you don’t want to be alone at night, or because you don’t want to be without me?”

I want to tell her that of course it’s her, that being alone has nothing to do with it, not in the least. But I can’t. “I don’t know,” I say.

“That’s what I thought.” I watch as Clara storms down the path the way we’d come, back through the petting zoo and toward the parking lot. Her legs carry her in short, angry strides.

I stand there alone until she’s out of sight.

◊

I heard my first ghost when I was nine years old.

I was in my room, a cramped space on the second floor of my parent’s house. The walls slanted inward, following the slope of the roof, making the ceiling feel low and confining. The air was always still and heavy from the heat that rose from the first floor and became trapped by the shingles and insulation. That day was no different. It was stifling.

I was at my desk, my back to the door, hunched over a book. The room was dark except for a reading light that sat clipped above my head. The cone of light shone down over me, framing me there in the center of the room.

At one point in the night as I read, I heard something behind me, like a scuffling of bare feet against the carpet. I looked around the room. It was empty. But yet there was that feeling, the same feeling I would experience years later lying alone in bed, that crushing sense of dread and a steadfast certainty that I was not alone. It was as if my stomach was rolling in my gut and the skin on my arms was alive and tingling. Adrenaline poured through my veins.

“This isn’t happening,” I whispered to the darkness. “There are no ghosts.”

“Oh no?” The voice boomed in the dark room, deep and confident.

It was then that the world seemed to fray a bit at the edges and strain at the seams, like a worn piece of cotton that’s been stretched to its tearing point. I remember trying to scream but only being able to manage a squeaking sound. It was as if whatever had spoken had stolen my voice and used it to make his stronger. I sat in silence, waiting for the voice again, unable to move.

After a moment, my paralysis broke. I stood and I ran, streaking through my room and down the steps, afraid to look back for fear that something would be following close on my heels.

No one believed me when I told them.

I know what I heard.

◊

I stand in my front hard, rake in hand, pulling piles of grass clippings into little mounds. It is cooler today. Billowy, black thunderheads have been building just beyond the tree line to the west all afternoon and the air has taken on a sweet, almost earthen smell. The wind begins to whip the two maple trees that frame the yard. A rumble of thunder rolls toward me.

I have not heard from Clara since she ran off at the zoo yesterday. I want to call her but know that I shouldn’t, certain that I’ll only screw things up even worse than they already are. Maybe it’s for the best anyway. She never believed me.

A cracked and fragile voice calls to me,. I look up to see Mrs. Cartwright waving to me from her doorstep across the street.

“Kurt?” She waves again. Her curls of white hair ripple in the breeze. “Can you come over for a minute?”

I nod, drop my rake, and cross the street. Mrs. Cartwright is very old, nearly ninety I think, with deep set wrinkles that give her face a long, droopy look, and bright, kind eyes. She spends most days seated in front of her big picture window, watching traffic zip by and rocking back and forth in an old La-Z-Boy recliner. I do my best to return her warmth as I walk up to her. “Ma’am? Something you need?”

“Oh no, just pulled a pound cake from the oven, thought you might like a slice while it’s warm. Oh I’m not interrupting you, am I?”

“No, I mean not really. I’d love to have a slice, but it’s just that I wanted to finish my yard work before the storm hit.”

“Storm’s hours away,” she says, grabbing my arm.

“Alright, but just a few minutes, okay? I really need to get back to work.”

“Oh you and your work.” She leads me inside, sits me down, and shuffles off toward the kitchen.

Her house is stuffy and cluttered and smells of dust, like it’s been closed off for decades. Yellowed furniture that looks like it belongs in a thrift store rather than a living room fills the house. The air feels thick and wet, almost slimy, and my head begins to hurt right away.

“I brought you a Coke too,” she says entering the room again. In one hand she holds a plate with a wedge of cake four inches thick, in the other a glass bottle of Coke  the style I only recognize from old magazine ads.

“Thank you, but I don’t really drink Coke.”

“Nonsense. Boys love Coke.” She hands me the plate and bottle and takes one step backward to watch me eat. I take a bite. “Good? You know, that’s the recipe that won the blue ribbon at the church bake off last winter. I hope it came out alright.”

I tell her the truth, that it’s one of the best pieces of cake I’ve ever eaten. She thanks me, slides over to her La-Z-Boy, and sits down with a wheeze. “You been busy?” she asks.

“Trying to be. You know how things are though.”

“Well I see you’ve done more work on your house. It looks so nice.”

“Sweet of you to say. Thanks.”

“Clara been helping you out?”

“No, she’s not much for manual labor, you know.”

“Jim certainly did like that little girl of yours. Haven’t seen her around for a few days. She must be busy with her schoolwork.”

The mention of her late husband sends my head spinning. Did he die here in this house? Does he still keep tabs on her somehow? My eyes dart around the room and I suddenly feel as though my mind has lost its focus. “Yeah, she is, she’s very busy.” I set my plate on the floor beside me, half eaten, and take a swig of the bottled soda. It’s flat and tastes far too sweet.

“I don’t hear wedding bells, now do I?”

“No, no I don’t think so, not now. She wants to finish school first I think, and I don’t know, then maybe we’ll see. To be honest we haven’t really talked about it much.” I want to be out of this house, anywhere but here. My heart is pounding and I’m sweating. Why does it seem like I’m always sweating lately?

“Well I certainly hope you do talk about it. You can go a long way and not find a nicer girl than that one.”

I’m not sure how to respond. Instead I stand and begin to slink toward the door. Beads of sweat are rolling down my forehead now and dripping down my back. I feel shaky and lightheaded, like there’s not enough air in the room. A crushing sense of doom seems to fill my chest. “Thank you for the cake,” I say. “It really was delicious, but I do have to get back to work.”

Mrs. Cartwright hauls herself up from the chair and walks over toward me. She takes my hand in hers and looks at me with those eyes, eyes that seem so much younger than she. “Take care, dear. And thank you for coming by.”

The skies open as I leave Mrs. Cartwright’s house, spilling fat, cold drops of rain. I scurry across the street just as a torrent of water begins to pummel me. By the time I reach my front porch, I am soaked and shivering and alone.

I go inside and try to call Clara. Her mom answers and tells me she is out, but I can tell that she’s lying.

◊

There was a door in my grandmother’s kitchen that lead down to Hell, tucked away between the pantry and refrigerator. She used to hang cooking aprons there, as if somehow they would make the door less terrifying, less foreboding. It didn’t work, at least not for me.

I only had the courage to walk through that door once. Behind it were fifteen rickety steps that twisted and creaked downward to a fruit cellar carved from the dirt, tucked away beneath the house. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, dripping yellow light across the center of the room but leaving the edges trapped by gray, untouchable shadows. Roots pushed themselves through the walls and dangled in the air there like thin, pale fingers. The place held a dank, cool smell, even in the summer. Cobwebs seemed to drape across every corner and eave. Shelves pressed into the dirt walls housed rows and rows of jars–canned green beans, stewed tomatoes, peaches from the orchard around back, and pickles of every size and flavor imaginable.

My legs shook with each step as I followed Grandma downward. When I reached the bottom, I froze and wrapped my arms around the banister.

“Come on,” she said, coaxing me toward her.

I stood there, my feet planted to that last step, my bottom lip tucked behind my front teeth, and shook my head.

“Grab that jar over yonder for Grandma.” She pointed to a Mason jar of beets on a shelf along the far wall. Five feet of darkness separated me from it.

I shook my head again, this time more violently. As I stood there, I imagined what it would be like if a bony hand shot out from within the hollows of the darkness and wrapped itself around my wrist, pulling me into those shadows. I was sure if that happened I’d never be seen or heard from again.

My grandmother cast me an icy stare. Looking at her then, I noticed how the shadows of the cellar draped across her face and seemed to become trapped in the wrinkles along her eyes and down her cheeks. The sight made me shiver even harder.

“Damn it, son, I said come here.” She grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me along the packed dirt floor, toward the shelf.

“Can’t you get it yourself?” I asked. The walls felt like they were closing in on me, threatening to crush me and squeeze the air from my lungs.

“No, I asked you,” she said, pushing me forward again.

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and lunged forward. Through the darkness, my fingers found the slickness of the glass jar and closed around it. I yanked the jar toward me and rushed past her, back to the stairs, back into the safety of the light, leaving my grandmother alone, shaking her head back and forth like a pendulum.

I never went back down there. Being down there was like being buried alive.

◊

The air is heavy from last night’s storm and the sun has already begun to bake the earth, sending wisps of steam swirling up from the grass.

I’m nervous as I sit on the front steps waiting for Clara. It has been fifteen minutes since she called saying she was on her way over, saying it was urgent. I told her I’d be waiting. I hope she shows up on time for once. I can’t wait all day.

When she pulls up in her Cabriolet, the top is down and country music blares from it so loudly that I can hear every twangy word. She waves and I mask my smile. Better to look pissed, I think. It’ll give me the upper hand. She makes her way up the sidewalk and stops halfway, staring at me with wide eyes. Her lips tremble, but only the slightest bit. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey yourself.”

“You got a minute?”

I nod but say nothing.

“I’ve been thinking, like a lot, and I’m worried. I’m worried about you.”

“Nothing to be worried about.”

She chews on her bottom lip and pushes a clump of hair behind her ear. “No, I think there is, the way you’ve been acting lately, it’s not—“ She stops and takes a breath. “It’s not right.”

“The way I’ve been acting?”

“You’re paranoid, you’re scared of everything. You’ve been short with me. You never used to be short with me. And the dreams you’ve been having, the ones you were telling me about the other day, they’re not normal.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think you’re sick, Kurt.”

The words sound ridiculous. I feel fine, most of the time at least. The simple fact that she would even bring this up makes me furious. Who is she to talk to me this way? And Christ, since when is she a doctor? “Clara, please. I’m not—”

“Look.” She drops the stack of papers into my lap. The pages are filled with diagrams and words in italics that I don’t recognize, bulleted lists of symptoms and charts. I don’t know what to make of it.

“What’s all this?”

“I spent the whole day at the library yesterday. I hadn’t really meant to but I sort of got trapped there by the storm. Mom said you called. Sorry.”

“No big deal.” Guilt comes at me full force but I shrug it off.

“This is sort of important okay, Kurt? I’ve just been worried lately is all, about you, and I just don’t know what to do anymore. We need to talk about this.”

I riffle the pages with my thumb. “Look, Clara, I’m telling you I feel fine. I don’t get where all this is coming from.”

Her eyes seem to glisten as she looks at me. “Please? Why don’t we go inside, sit down for a while? I’ll tell you all about what I found. It’s nothing to be ashamed of–”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, why don’t you just get out of here. I’m not really in the mood to…this is just a lot to handle right now. Just get back in your little car and leave me alone. I’ll read this stuff later. By myself.”

“So, what, you don’t want me here?”

“That’s what I said.” I can’t help but think how she left me at the zoo. It feels good being able to turn the tables on her, to hurt her the way she hurt me.

“Alright, well, just promise you’ll read it alright? It really is important.”

“Clara, I said I would.”

“Can I call you tomorrow at least?”

“Please don’t.”

She turns and heads back to her car. I stay on the porch until she has driven out of sight, then head back inside. I flip through the pages but the words mean nothing to me, no more than ink and paper. I take a moment to marvel at her bravado, the sheer nerve it took to show up here, to say what she said, and then leave like that. Then I toss the papers into the trash.

It’s where they belong.

◊

That night I have a dream. I am running along the highway, fast enough to keep up with traffic, running faster and faster and not getting tired. I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m running from but I don’t care. My legs stretch with each stride. My lungs pull in the cool air.

I don’t know when I stop, I only realize that I have. I turn and realize that I’m home now, seated at the dinner table at the house where I grew up. There is a roasted chicken in the center of the table and the place smells of fresh vegetables. I look around and see my mother seated to my right. Her eyes look distant and her skin drawn, as if she if very tired or has been crying for a long time. To my left sits Clara, all smiles and blonde hair, the Clara I remember, the Clara I realize then that I still love. I smile back at her and begin to eat.

Then in a flash, I’m pulled away from them, dragged by someone I cannot see. I watch, helpless as Clara and my mother fade into the distance, becoming smaller and smaller. I try to cry out to them but my mouth does not work, my tongue won’t form the words, my throat won’t make a sound. I struggle but it’s no use. I’m helpless.

There’s another flash and I’m sitting on my bed, staring across the hallway at the door of my guest bedroom. It’s hot, my God, so hot, like an attic that’s been closed all summer. As I sit there sweating, I watch as the door across the hall drifts open, then stops halfway. Beyond it is the blackest darkness I’ve ever seen. Like ink, like nothingness.

“This isn’t happening,” I whisper.

But it is. I begin to shake as the darkness seems to come toward me, holding me immobile now, wrapping itself around me, tearing through me. I try to run but it has me trapped. The darkness drapes itself over me. It swallows me.

◊

I wake up screaming. The room is dark and again I feel as though I’m drowning in my own sweat. My pulse hammers in my head. My throat feels as if it’s full of sand.

I sit up and swing my legs to the edge of the bed to stand. I’m shaky, like my body is being wracked by chills or nervous tremors, but my legs manage to hold me. I push forward and stumble down the hallway toward the kitchen.

I make it three or four steps before a voice cuts through the darkness. “You should be in bed. You’re sick, remember?” it says.

The words seem to float in the air, to hang there. My shivers worsen, as if the sweat that saturates me dries in an instant with those words. As my eyes adjust, I begin to see the outline of my grandmother standing just to my right, dressed in the long green gown we buried her in. Her gray hair sits in perfect curls atop her head. In her hands she holds a Mason jar full beets. I take a breath. What I’m seeing cannot be real. Impossible. I turn away from her and continue on toward the kitchen, my legs threatening to spill me to the floor at any second.

I find the papers Clara gave me still sitting on the top of the trash. Aside from a strawberry stem glued to the first page with a sticky pink halo, they are in perfect shape. I take them over to the table and begin to read.

As the night stretches on toward morning, I flip through those printed pages, reading every word, soaking them in. With each sheet I finish I feel a boost of optimism. I am so engrossed that I do not see my grandmother seated at the table beside me.

“How about some soup? Will that make you feel better, dear?” she says. “I can make some, won’t take but an hour or so.”

“No,” I whisper, my eyes still glued to the papers, my head swirling. When I look up I am alone in the kitchen once more.

As the sun crests the horizon, spilling orange and yellow light across the world, I sit at my kitchen table and rifle through those pages, faster and faster, poring over the words. It’s as if the world makes sense for the first time in months.

I check my watch and pick up the phone.

© Josh Covington 2009 

Reviews

[Elizabeth Lynn]

Wow. I really admire your writing style. It's difficult to write in present tense they way you did with this story, but you pulled it off extremely well. The time element you used with the flashback to when he was nine and saw his first ghost was also well done and very appropriate. Also, this may be a weird comment, but the way you use olfactory description makes everything seem to come more alive to me--it's one of those things that so many people miss, but you took it and ran with it in quite a few places.

In a more general critique, the suspenseful/creepy element builds well throughout the story, and you have an extremely distinguished voice. I might go through and indent some of the places you seem to have skipped over when you pasted the story in here, but otherwise, you've done a really fantastic job with this!