[{"id":6821,"date":"2026-09-01T00:04:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T00:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thedarkmagazine.com\/?p=6821"},"modified":"2026-09-01T18:35:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T18:35:49","slug":"cul-de-sac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedarkmagazine.com\/cul-de-sac\/","title":{"rendered":"Cul-de-Sac"},"content":{"rendered":"Ruth thought she no longer measured her life in weeks or months, but in bin collections and laundry. Her days and nights were punctuated by bouts of washing up and differentiated by what type of vegetable peel was blocking the plughole, in the way they used to be punctuated by dancing and drinking and art shows. Drying-up cloth still in hand, she told this to Tom.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. so I tried dancing while I washed up, but I just ended up getting water everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t really go out that often,\u201d Tom said, staring out of the window\u2014a double-glazed, plastic-framed window which neither leaked nor rotted. \u201cIt just seems that way.\u201d Ruth opened and closed her mouth at his back, unable to vocalise the answer to such a stupid and obvious comment. Tom raised his hand, easily shaped his expression into wide-eyed welcome and waved energetically to someone outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0?\u201d she asked, peering over his shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThingy from next door,\u201d Tom said, still waving. Outside, Thingy\u2014real name Maura\u2014waved cheerfully and endlessly back as she passed by. As always, she was neatly dressed, walking slowly on swollen ankles. She had a full bag-for-life clutched in one hand and leaned slightly against the weight of it. She pointed at their driveway and gave a thumbs up, then waved again. Thomas kept waving too. Ruth wanted to throw a brick through the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer arm\u2019s going to fall off,\u201d she said instead, petulantly. \u201cAnd it\u2019ll be your fault.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, she always waves to us when we walk past her place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s because she\u2019s always watching. What was she pointing at?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI trimmed the fir tree this morning,\u201d said Tom. \u201cDidn\u2019t you notice?\u201d He finally stopped waving, turned to her, looking slightly hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course I did. Lovely.\u201d Ruth leaned past him to turn the blinds closed, not so much to block out the sight of the beautiful tree cut down to a skinny nub, but to limit the scrutiny of the house that the trimmed tree invited\u2014their window now easily viewed from the road. A movement across the street caught her eye. Another older woman, one they hadn\u2019t met yet, stood in her front garden. She walked right up to the low hedge that marked her territory. The sun reflected off her glasses so her eyes were white circles. Tom raised his hand again.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, don\u2019t,\u201d said Ruth. \u201cDon\u2019t encourage them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom nudged her, grinned, and waved anyway. The woman raised her hand too, and flicked it twice from the wrist, as though shooing him away, then hurried back inside. Ruth laughed and closed the blind.<\/p>\n
\u201cTold you,\u201d she said. \u201cNow she thinks you\u2019re up to no good.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s because of the weeds,\u201d said Tom, who liked to be liked. \u201cI\u2019m going to get some weedkiller today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut that\u2019s bad for the pollinators.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re letting the street down,\u201d said Tom. \u201cWe need to at least try for a little while.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was true that their driveway could be mistaken for a would-be lawn. Not as bad as some places they had lived, but the wayward dandelions seemed somehow more yellow and the couch grass more ragged against the perfectly sealed red brick that surrounded them. It wasn\u2019t Stepford, not quite. Just, when they\u2019d taken the place, with its surprisingly low rent, they hadn\u2019t realised they\u2019d be surrounded by pensioners\u2014real pensioners, who had real pensions, with time to focus on the little things she and Tom struggled to keep up, and money to spend on getting other people to do those little things for them.<\/p>\n
Thingy next door had informed them that their arrival had caused great excitement. Young blood. Out-of-towners. Everyone expected they\u2019d be out all hours. Would they be throwing parties? They were welcome to come round for tea in her garden. Did they realise their guttering was blocked? It\u2019d been spilling water in the rain for months now. Very loud. Not to worry, though, she\u2019d had her handyman fix it for them.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we only moved in a week ago,\u201d Ruth had said, at the same time as Tom said, \u201cThanks!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust smile and be nice,\u201d Tom had said later. \u201cShe means well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe does not. She means, don\u2019t make a mess, don\u2019t make noise, don\u2019t rock the boat<\/em>. It was like an old-person mafia warning. You\u2019re just too nice to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cParanoid,\u201d said Tom, but ever since then he\u2019d been obsessed with keeping the garden tidy in a way he hadn\u2019t done at their old place, and even with his efforts their house stood out as a probable den of iniquity among the set-dressed, screen-ready perfections of the houses around them.<\/p>\n
That was, except for the house across the street, which didn\u2019t quite match up either, though in a less conspicuous way than theirs. It was, Ruth decided, dishevelled with a dignity bestowed by the owner not giving a hoot, rather than a mess because the young whippersnappers can\u2019t stay on top of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome with me to the garden centre?\u201d asked Tom. He was already pulling his trainers on. Ruth shook her head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got this report to read for work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it\u2019s Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, and I want Sunday off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tom shrugged, pecked her on the cheek and slammed his way out of the house and into the car\u2014always slamming. He still carried with him the puppyish enthusiasm of a teenage boy who didn\u2019t know his own strength. Ruth peered through the living room window, keeping behind the curtains. The car coughed to a start and she flushed slightly at the unmistakable rattle of the loose exhaust. Tom raised one hand as he drove carefully past. He\u2019d grown a beard this past month, and trimmed his hair. It made his profile unfamiliar, but there was no mistaking the careless lift of his hand, with its square fingertips and the long fingers and the little scar of a dog bite on the back.<\/p>\n
The report was sticky, stuffed full of statistics described by long, clever words used in unexpected ways. It made Ruth\u2019s head hurt after just a few minutes, and a few minutes after that she got up to make a cup of tea, and a few minutes after that she felt a short walk might help her digest the information. There was a wood nearby, easily reached through a cut on the other side of the street. A beech wood with concrete and dirt paths, and territorial rooks, and children hanging off rope swings and setting fires, and treasure hunts of painted pebbles. It was one of the reasons they\u2019d chosen this cul-de-sac. She would do a quick circuit and then try to read the report again.<\/p>\n
She had reached the cut when she realised\u2014no keys. Had she even locked the house up? She started back, cursing herself for not thinking, still patting her pockets. She was nearly home when she found the rough shape of the keyring nestled in the corner of the deepest pocket, so light as to be invisible. She realised she was still, a month later, looking for the heavier set of keys of their old flat. This new house did not need multiple locks.<\/p>\n
She pulled the keys out, triumphant, and was startled by a sharp rap on the window from the house behind her\u2014she was stood by the no-hoots-given garden, and the old lady from earlier was peering through the living room window. She tapped on the glass again and gestured at Ruth, scowling. Through the smear of the double-glazing, she seemed to be on tiptoe, reaching for height she didn\u2019t have. Her gestures were ferociously unwelcoming.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m on the pavement, thought Ruth, stubbornly. Public property. She smiled contrarily, her nicest smile, waving, mouthing exaggeratedly: \u201cFound my keys!\u201d The woman lurched forward and smacked both hands against the glass, hard. Ruth took a step back. The woman\u2019s face was made long by her shouting, her eyes larger than the lens of her glasses, white-rimmed. Her voice came faintly: \u201cGet away! Get away!\u201d<\/p>\n
The woods no longer seemed very appealing. Ruth raised her hands in her surrender, and sauntered insolently across the road, trying to disguise the tremble in her legs. The front door was locked after all, and once she was inside she relocked it and decided it was not too early for Irish coffee. She tried to figure out why she felt so unsettled\u2014she, who had snapped back when grabbed at in the street, and yelled at a harasser on the bus until he\u2019d scrambled off at the next stop\u2014shaken up by an old woman having a rant. While the coffee pot burbled, she peered through the kitchen blinds, squinting to see through the brightly lit glass whether the woman was still there. The window was a square of reflections. She couldn\u2019t tell.<\/p>\n
Ruth texted Tom. \u201cWhy so long?\u201d<\/p>\n
He sent back a zipped-mouth emoji and a wink. She threw her phone onto the sofa and paced the length of the tiny bungalow, tidying as she went. Always tidying these days. They had told themselves less space would be easier to keep clean, which it was, but it also felt as though they were forever tidying up and rearranging their belongings in an effort not drown in essential clutter. Six months<\/em>, she reminded herself. We are here for six months and then we move on<\/em>. There was the possibility of Tom being offered an extended contract, of course, but it seemed unlikely. That possibility was there with every job he took, but though he was good at his work, there was never enough budget to keep him on. She, of course, could work from anywhere.<\/p>\nShe took a long drink from the Irish coffee, imagined the burn of whiskey soothing her racing heart, picked up the report again. Immediately, the statistics turned to ants in front her eyes, moving across the page in complicated patterns that she couldn\u2019t decipher.<\/p>\n
There was a knock on the door. A pause. Another insistent knock. Ruth froze as though whoever was out there might hear her. Could the woman have followed her over? What could they possibly have done to offend her so badly? She sidled to the front door and pressed her ear to the cool wood. There was another knock, this time from the glass of the window in the room she\u2019d just left. She held her breath and uncovered the spyhole. She hated spyholes\u2014could never shake the feeling that it would be something or somebody unexpected looming there, or worse (or better) a different world altogether.<\/p>\n
Thingy\u2019s face peered back at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cYoo hoo, Ruth! Are you in?\u201d<\/p>\n
It was fiercely tempting not to open the door, but Thingy must have seen the light through the spyhole.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello pet!\u201d sang Thingy\u2014she was always singing out greetings, never just saying them. \u201cI thought you were in. Are you busy?\u201d Thingy did not really believe in freelancing as a job, Ruth had discovered, but she tried all the same\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually I\u2019m just in the middle of reading something for work\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, you like reading, don\u2019t you? Me too. I like those Jack Reacher books. How are you settling in? Is your hubby around?\u201d She peered past Ruth, looking hopeful, and something else. Hunger that might be loneliness. \u201cI tell you what, I\u2019ve just been into town and I picked up this lovely deal at the shops, three for two, look, and then I thought you might like one.\u201d She held out a glittery, clear plastic tea light holder, shaped like a tulip. \u201cIt\u2019d look dead nice in your side window. I know you keep the curtains closed, but you could get one of those little electric tea lights, and it\u2019s a comfort for me, too, to see the lights in the windows, a woman living alone. Lucky you stay awake so late. You\u2019re so lucky to have a nice young husband.\u201d Ruth had learned quickly that there was no point correcting Maura\u2019s misunderstandings. \u201cYou know Bill from two down? He\u2019s getting a new car today, very excited about it, he is, he was telling me all about it. It\u2019s going to be one of those ones with the roof down. He was saying, Maura, I\u2019ll take you out in it and this, that and other\u2014that\u2019ll put the wind up you. All in fun, you know, I\u2019m friends with his wife. Have you thought about getting a new car?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t at the moment, Maura. But\u2014\u201d Ruth thought she might as well take advantage of Maura\u2019s visit. \u201cWho\u2019s that, lives over the road?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, her<\/em>? Bethel. She\u2019s lovely, you know. But lonely. Has some turns. Her children all moved down South, and they come up occasionally, but not nearly enough. I keep an eye on her.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t think she likes us much,\u201d Ruth said, without thinking. \u201cShe was shouting at me through the window earlier.\u201d She caught the swiftly hidden gleam in Maura\u2019s eye, and realised too late that the whole street would know about that in the next half hour.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you can\u2019t take it personally. She sees things, you know. Once I got home, and she came outside, and she told me, \u201cMaura, they were dancing on your lawn, you know.\u201d And I said, \u201cWho, pet?\u201d and she said, \u201cAll the little ones, the pixies, they were picking the flowers. And there was the young lad, too, only he\u2019s asleep now, just over there.\u201d And I said, \u201cOh yes, yes, I see.\u201d She was pointing at my rose bush, you know, and there wasn\u2019t anything there, but I thought it\u2019d make her feel better. Sometimes she goes out walking in the night in her nightie.\u201d She paused for breath, saw Ruth\u2019s expression and patted her on the forearm. \u201cWhat I\u2019m saying, is, don\u2019t worry about it, pet. It probably wasn\u2019t even you she was seeing. I\u2019ll go round once I\u2019ve dropped this home and check she\u2019s okay.\u201d She picked up her bags, swept a look across the driveway patio.<\/p>\n
\u201cTom\u2019s gone to get some weedkiller now,\u201d Ruth said quickly, trying not to sound defensive. \u201cThanks for the\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0\u201d She lifted the gaudy tea-light holder as though it was a flaming torch.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh I\u2019m sure, I\u2019m sure,\u201d said Maura. \u201cBye, then.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth put the gift in the window as requested. The price label was still dangling from one of the rigid leaves.<\/p>\n
Tom came back with a barbecue set and food from the butchers, and new plants and weedkiller and a determination to use every single item in some way before the day was out. Relieved to be doing something different to the usual routine, Ruth set the report to one side and followed him around, holding whatever she was given to hold, choosing places to put the new planters, supervising the death of the weed. They glistened healthily with poison, as though freshened by rain. She was wearing shorts and sandals, and some of the back spray wafted on to her bare skin. Tom made her stand while he hosed her legs down, splashing her shorts, and she laughed and kicked water back at him, but he hushed her and turned off the tap, then conscientiously picked up the outdoor broom and swept the pooled water into the drain.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have dried. I\u2019m<\/em> already nearly dry.\u201d Actually the water on Ruth\u2019s legs was itchy, but now she wouldn\u2019t touch a towel out of stubbornness.<\/p>\n\u201cTime to build the barbecue,\u201d Tom said, as though she hadn\u2019t spoken.<\/p>\n
Between them they set up the shiny new barbecue. It looked like something from a movie, an alien object. A shame to grubby it up with charcoal, it was such a far cry from their old camping barbecue. But they did, taking it in turns to prod the flames while they waited for the coals to glow, and Ruth told Tom about her conversation with Thingy, and what she\u2019d learned about the woman over the road.<\/p>\n
\u201cBethel?\u201d Tom repeated the name as though he was offering someone a drink. \u201cWelsh, is it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWho do you think the young lad is, though?\u201d Ruth asked, thoughtfully. The smoke from the barbecue seemed to be following her around, and now she blinked blearily into it. There was some comfort to having the world made hazy and sore. It reminded her of dry-ice in clubs, of nights spent on beaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeter Pan?\u201d said Tom. \u201cThe poor woman\u2019s obviously got dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI wonder what she sees when she looks at us, then.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYoung love,\u201d said Tom, grinning. \u201cCan\u2019t stand it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, but\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCharcoal\u2019s ready!\u201d Tom dropped a mixing bowl full of sticky marinaded ribs unceremoniously onto the grill and began to separate them out. The sauce dripped onto the charcoal, hissing and spitting as though the heat hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like a murder scene.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA delicious one.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe she\u2019s psychic,\u201d said Ruth. \u201cMaybe she\u2019s seeing something that the rest of us just can\u2019t. Maybe the lad is a ghost.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe you should go and get the salad and buns and stuff from the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou love this, don\u2019t you?\u201d said Ruth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis whole domestication thing. Playing at being grown-ups.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are<\/em> grown-ups,\u201d said Tom. He looked past her and raised the dripping tongs in salute. Two gardens over, a figure did the same back.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m just going to get some paracetamol,\u201d said Ruth.<\/p>\n
The house was very dim and cool compared to the garden, and Ruth loitered, feeling blessedly invisible, like an insect when the lifted rock is lowered back down. She went to the lounge window and looked out. Now the fir tree was so much narrower, she could easily see Bethel\u2019s house from this window, too. The sun fell bright against the front of it still, and lit up where guttering was cracking, and the grass was sprouting unruly along the hedge. There was no sign of Bethel, but then the front door opened, and Thingy emerged. Ruth threw herself to the side before she could be spotted, and counted to 100 before she peered out again.<\/p>\n
Bethel was back in the window. She was staring at the cut tree. Ruth raised her hand, but Bethel didn\u2019t seem to see her. Ruth figured the sun must have darkened the glass by now so she was invisible, and anyway Bethel was still focused on the tree. Her lips were moving as though in conversation.<\/p>\n
Ruth studied the tree, too. The shortened branches rocked and moved, and Bethel\u2019s mouth still moved, too. Ruth swallowed, and squinted, trying to see what the woman saw. Narrowed her eyes and caught the shivering outlines of a hand skimming along the branches. A flock of sparrows burst from the bushes, skittering across the sky and away over the roofs, and in the split second of activity it seemed they carried the movement in the tree away with them.<\/p>\n
Over the road, Bethel turned away. She opened the door and ushered someone invisible in before her. She checked over her shoulder and scowled before she closed the door.<\/p>\n
Ruth scavenged two paracetamol from the mess on the coffee table, where she\u2019d been working. Her reading glasses were there, too. She picked them up, put them on. They were fairly new, and she wasn\u2019t yet used to wearing them regularly\u2014not wearing them would explain the headache, though. She squinted through the smudged lenses, glanced out of the window again. With the glasses on, the other side of the road became a pleasant blur, and everything nearer by was larger and sharper, as if she\u2019d stepped into a TV show.<\/p>\n
She heard Tom calling that dinner was ready, thought about telling him she wanted to eat indoors\u2014but when she turned he was there a plate already stacked high. He had opened the parasol for shade, he said. He had poured wine. He had marinade smeared down his jumper, thick and red and lumpy, as though he\u2019d killed their dinner with this bare hands, and he looked so proud of himself that she blotted out the sun and the neighbours with four glasses of the wine and too many ribs. She sat in Tom\u2019s lap and pretended they could not be seen or heard, although they<\/em> could see and hear Thingy in her garden next door, making phone call after endless phone call, telling the same story, it seemed, over and over again. Ruth couldn\u2019t quite catch the words, but the rhythm of them was that of a song on repeat, like hold music.<\/p>\nOn Sunday morning, Ruth woke to a still-clinging headache that threatened to blow into a migraine. She had the vague idea that she\u2019d had nightmares she couldn\u2019t remember, and the dark red strands of them were clinging to the nerves behind her eyes and at her temples. Tom made her tea and toast, and nipped to the supermarket for stronger painkillers.<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably the wine,\u201d she said, grasping the steaming cup gratefully. \u201cToo grown up<\/em> to be drinking so much of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI knew I\u2019d upset you with that,\u201d he replied, though didn\u2019t apologise.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat are your plans for the day?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore gardening,\u201d he replied. \u201cAnd you\u2019re to sleep until you\u2019ve shaken this headache.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the abandoned report was calling and instead she watched, twitchily, for Tom to get dressed, go outside, leave her in peace. He put a pot of coffee on, set the washing machine going, did the washing up. The duvet covers felt heavier and hotter with every passing minute. Finally, he returned to the bedroom and said, \u201cI\u2019ll be right outside if you need anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
He kissed her on the forehead and she tried not to flinch. His breath was too hot by her face. As he moved away, the doorbell rang, and then there was a knock on the door, and then the doorbell rang again. Tom frowned, even his endless patience tried.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t be that urgent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth heard him stamp through the house, and he must have used the peephole because he shouted \u201cIt\u2019s Maura,\u201d not so much to tell her, she guessed, but so as to warn her. And then his tone switched to polite and solicitous and Ruth listened as he agreed to, yes, help Maura mow her front lawn, but yes, first of all, come over to Bethel\u2019s with her and help fix a broken cupboard door, and this, that and the other.<\/p>\n
\u201cPoor thing won\u2019t tell me what happened,\u201d said Thingy. \u201cI imagine she thought she was slamming it closed on a goblin or something. I expect Ruth told you. Anyway the hinge just needs screwing back in and my handman\u2019s busy, and you\u2019re quite handy, aren\u2019t you?\u201d There was an unmistakeable flirt to her voice. Ruth groaned and laughed into her pillow.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just got a couple of bits to do in the garden,\u201d said Tom. \u201cAnd then I\u2019ll be right round to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t Ruth do those?\u201d asked Thingy. \u201cOr is she not one for outside work?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRuth\u2019s got a migraine,\u201d said Tom, firmly. Ruth groaned again. She could imagine Thingy\u2019s expression\u2014Ruth cast as yet another invalid in the street.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, shame,\u201d said Thingy.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what,\u201d said Tom. \u201cIt\u2019s okay\u2014I\u2019ll come and do your things now, and I\u2019ll do the garden this afternoon. Plenty of time. Wait here, I\u2019ll just get my tools.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth heard him trampling back through the house, rifling through his drawers for his little multi-tool. As he passed the bedroom she quickly closed her eyes, relaxed her hands and faked a deep sleep. She heard him pause for a second or two, and then he galumphed away again, and the front door closed with a heavy thud.<\/p>\n
She spilled out of bed quickly and scampered to the front window. Past the sheared fir tree, she saw Tom, walking with the sort of reigned-in speed of child next to Thingy\u2019s slower steps. He had taken the ever-present Bag-For-Life and was carrying it for her.<\/p>\n
Ruth stayed half hidden by the curtains, watching them walk up to Bethel\u2019s front door. It was a greyer day, and as Thingy rang the doorbell, knocked on the door, Ruth felt sure she caught a shadow figure flit from one side of the room to the other and vanish behind the drapes. Thingy\u2019s laugh rang clear across the street, and she pulled out a ring of keys and opened the door, and she and Tom vanished into the house. The door closed. Nothing moved in the window.<\/p>\n
Ruth drew the curtains.<\/p>\n
Ten minutes later she had forced herself to wash and dress, and settled in front of the report again. The pills were starting to work. She remember to put on her glasses this time, noise-cancelling headphones in, and what with the quiet and the painkillers and the lenses, the words were finally pinned to their rightful places on the page and this time she could make sense of them, even the parts that were, actually, nonsense. The time slipped by in increments of sentences and paragraphs and scattered punctuation, and eventually she looked up and realised an hour had gone by. Her neck was stiff, her tea cold. She got up and stretched, unselfconscious behind the material, and checked her phone. There was nothing from Tom.<\/p>\n
In the kitchen, Tom had left a message on the fridge \u201cgone next door to help Thingy\u2019, and left the rest of the room meticulously washed up and wiped down. Absurdly grateful, she messaged him two kisses and a smile emoji, and waited for his quick reply\u2014always a quick reply. But there was nothing. A bee buzzed against the window. She went to open it a crack to let the bee out, and as she did it struck her that the bee was the only sound. Even her own movements seemed deadened. She clapped experimentally and thought it sounded as though her palms were covered in felt. She tried to ignore the sweat that was beginning to tickle the back of her neck. She took her tea and went out to the front of the house, where the weeds seemed to have browned and wilted slightly under the onslaught of heat and poison. She walked up to the edge of the property, nearly to the pavement, and looked up and down the street.<\/p>\n
There was no one. No cars. No people. The landscape was slightly blurred.<\/p>\n
Except at Bethel\u2019s house: she thought she caught a movement and felt her heart pump wildly before she remembered that Tom was in there, fixing cupboards. And yes, there they were, Tom and another figure. Tom unmistakeable, always: his heft; his loose, enthusiastic wave. The other figure, she wasn\u2019t sure whether it was Thingy or Bethel. She raised her hand. Tom waved harder. Ruth rolled her eyes and flapped at him: \u201cGet back to work!\u201d <\/em>Then she turned away, taking her own advice. The front door seemed to be getting heavier, less happy to close properly and she had to lean on it to get it to click shut, which it did with a dull thud she felt in her feet.<\/p>\nIt was only when she had sat back down at the computer and her headphones beeped a low battery warning that she remembered she had her reading glasses on and basically had earplugs in, and she took the headphones off just in time to catch the noise of Thingy\u2019s tinkling laugh and Tom\u2019s deeper one again, and she rushed to the window, but they were already going into Thingy\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
Another couple of hours later, Ruth closed the computer and looked up with the light of a day off in her eyes. Now that that pesky bit of work was done, she could relax properly, take Monday off even, make it up to Tom. Perhaps they\u2019d go into town to an actual pub and go Out out. She sent him a message: \u201cFinished! Out tonight?\u201d He hadn\u2019t yet received the last message, but she sent it anyway, then thought that actually, perhaps, she could just go and knock on the door.<\/p>\n
She went to Thingy\u2019s first\u2014Maura Maura Maura<\/em>, she reminded herself. Do not call her Thingy to her face<\/em>\u2014and rang the bell, but no one answered. She walked round the side of the house, where not a single weed besmirched the pristine sealed patio stones, but the garden gate was locked. So, steeling herself to be shouted at, she crossed the road to Bethel\u2019s house, marched determinedly up the path and rang the doorbell. She heard it buzz inside, faintly, and heard something like steps, but no one answered the door. She knocked, sharply, instead, and walked over to the window where Bethel had stood the day before. She peered into the dark room. There was a television, off. Shelves of books. Bright paintings on the wall. Papers on a coffee table. It looked, surprisingly, like the room of someone she\u2019d quite like, or at least get on with. But there was no sign of Bethel, or Tom, or Thingy.<\/p>\nHer headache began to bloom again. He might have been in the garden the whole time<\/em>, she told herself. It wouldn\u2019t be the first time she\u2019d been so wrapped up in work she simply hadn\u2019t noticed him come home. She fought the urge to pull out her phone and call him in a panic. She felt eyes on her, she was sure of it, and so she walked calmly across the street and was about to open the front door when Thingy appeared at the corner. Tom was not with her.<\/p>\nThingy waved, cheerfully, and Ruth hurried over to meet her.<\/p>\n
\u201cHello, dear!\u201d said Thingy, \u201cYou\u2019re looking a lot better. You did have a funny turn this morning.\u201d She carried on walking towards her house, and Ruth followed.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, just a migraine, Maura,\u201d said Ruth. \u201cThat\u2019s what comes from working on a computer all day\u2014er, I don\u2019t suppose you know where Tom is?\u201d<\/p>\n
Thingy looked at her with her head tilted, lips pursed. \u201cOh, now, love, where do you<\/em> think he is?\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d said Ruth, trying to keep her tone polite. \u201cI know he came to mow your lawn\u2014which is done\u2014and he\u2019s not at Bethel\u2019s, so I thought maybe he\u2019d nipped to the shop or something.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy lawn?\u201d Thingy repeated. \u201cTom, was it, mowed my lawn?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now the headache had moved behind Ruth\u2019s eyes, and the sun came out and Thingy was a silhouette in front of her, a wall blocking all information. Ruth grit her teeth.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, remember? You came round this morning while I was ill, and asked him to mow the lawn and fix a cupboard door at Bethel\u2019s.\u201d She pointed for good measure. The shadow looked where she was pointing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt Bethel\u2019s,\u201d repeated the shadow, nodding its head. \u201cOkay then, pet. Well, he\u2019s not at mine anymore, so suppose I walk you over to yours, and we look for him there?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s not answering his phone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0\u201d said the shadow, and Ruth realised she was being steered over the road, to Bethel\u2019s house.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo\u2014we\u2019re right next door, Thingy, you know that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCome on, pet.\u201d The shadow held Ruth\u2019s elbow firmly. \u201cA good cup of tea\u2019ll set you right, and you can tell me about what you saw on my lawn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGet off me!\u201d said Ruth. \u201cI\u2019m not interested in your lawn with your pixies or your ghosts or whatever Bethel goes on about\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0\u201d She cast around for anyone to help, but the street was empty as it had been before. The sun vanished again, and Maura stopped being a squat shadow and turned back into a little old lady. Ruth wrenched herself free, and squinted at the front of Maura\u2019s house. Through the glass of the living room window, made dim with shapes and shadows and angled light, was the unmistakable slump of Tom, asleep in an armchair, his beard smudging his chin, arms folded. \u201cIs that him? Is that him there? He\u2019s asleep\u2014I can see him! Did you drug him or something? My god, did you drug me?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u201cCalm down, pet, we can go wherever you want to go,\u201d said Maura, soothingly, but Ruth was beyond soothing. She pushed past Maura and wrenched at the front door, but it was locked, and so she tried the garden gate, but the gate had become a fence, and Maura watched her silently and would not help. So she ran to their bungalow, hers and Toms, and wrestled at the door, but it wouldn\u2019t open and the key didn\u2019t fit the lock. Maura followed her, still quiet. She pulled out her phone and called Tom\u2019s number, but the number wouldn\u2019t connect. Again and again, the line beeped once and cut off. All the time, Maura stood by, watching and waiting. She looked, Ruth realised with loathing, she looked sympathetic<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u201cBut Tom,\u201d said Ruth, finally, faintly.<\/p>\n
Maura took her hand and walked her over the road to the bungalow with the shadow behind the curtains. She took the key from Ruth and opened the door, ushered her inside and through to the kitchen. It was pin neat. There was no notes on the fridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not our house,\u201d said Ruth. \u201cThis is Bethel\u2019s house.\u201d But her voice sounded quavery and wrong. She rummaged through the fridge. There were no leftover ribs, no strange jams that Tom had collected. She opened and closed the cupboards to make her point, as though Maura would recognise the fine white china was not their IKEA crockery. She slammed the doors harder and harder. One of the hinges snapped.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh dear,\u201d said Maura. \u201cI\u2019ll have to get my handyman on that.\u201d She made tea in a teapot, and as Ruth watched Maura pour, the burbling sound of the filling cup receded, and the world receded and blurred, and she felt as though she was in a strange cloudy dream and could only live through it. She drank the tea obediently. It chilled her insides as though she was drinking ice water and soothed her voice away. Maura walked her through to the sitting room, where a pair of reading glasses sat by a laptop on the coffee table.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just going away over the road,\u201d said Maura. \u201cYou settle down. I\u2019ll be back later.\u201d She left the key on the coffee table.<\/p>\n
The sun fell in such a way that it flooded the sitting room with light and heat, and it became almost unbearably hot. She went to the window and watched people living their lives, passing back and forth, chatting with Maura, weeding their patios, and wondered if they had been there all along and where she had been. She became aware of a young woman standing just beyond the boundary of her world, poised on the pavement and still free to leave. Ruth knocked on the window. Help me<\/em>, she tried to say with her non-voice, help me<\/em>. The girl jumped, and turned frowning, then seemed to recognise Ruth, and waved cheerfully.<\/p>\nRuth didn\u2019t see the wave, only the woman\u2019s eyes, which stared at her as though she were a monster, and which were eyes she knew. She forced herself to move, smacking the window with her fists, forcing her voice up in warning, or pleading, smacking the glass until her skin split. But by then the girl had walked away, casually, to the house opposite, the one with the ruined tree and the weedy drive, and she had gone inside and closed the door, and then Maura was there in the street with her Bag-For-Life, and she waved at Ruth as though everything was perfectly normal, and then she followed the girl up the path and knocked on the door and a young man answered it, and then Ruth checked her phone again, and wondered who it was she thought might call.<\/p>\n
Originally published in Black Static<\/em>, Issue 82\/83, July 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ruth thought she no longer measured her life in weeks or months, but in bin collections and laundry. Her days and nights were punctuated by bouts of washing up and differentiated by what type of vegetable peel was blocking the plughole, in the way they used to be punctuated by dancing and drinking and art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Bisma knew she\u2019d have to\u2014in the end she always did as Mama said. Of course she hadn\u2019t asked any questions when Mama ordered her to pick up their cleaning equipment and follow her to the house at the end of the village. Hadn\u2019t even asked how Mama\u2019d swiped the keys she carried from the real estate office her uncle worked at. Her obedience was a foregone conclusion. She had practiced it for all her eighteen years.<\/p>\n<p>The building loomed gray and dismal ahead of her despite the bright fuschia smatterings of overgrown bougainvillea that furled over its white plaster walls and terracotta colored eaves. Mama\u2019s slippers left marks in the dry garden soil as she went ahead of Bisma, making cheerful strides to the house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t be such a coward. It\u2019s empty, I tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mama raised the stolen key to the front door. She winked at Bisma, expecting her to join in with her glee. Her optimism. It was rare, seeing Mama like this. Bisma gave a small smile back, swallowing her anxiety. What could she do? When Mama wanted something, everything bent to her will.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps it was Mama\u2019s childhood, foraging in the jungles close to the village, that made her so miserable. A hard life, she\u2019d tell anyone who\u2019d listen. Nobody had ever looked after her. She\u2019d been sent out every dawn to look for wild spinach and fruit. The least Bisma could do, she\u2019d tell her daughter as they folded their identical\u00a0 pastel coloured clothes together, was to not think herself above her station. Now they cleaned houses, going from door to door in the village to anyone who would pay. Bisma didn\u2019t really mind. She did wish sometimes she hadn\u2019t had to leave school to help her mother. But she didn\u2019t need books, Mama said. Mama could teach her everything Bisma needed to know. The main thing for a child to learn, Mama said, was to be exactly like her parents and their elders before. This is how the village managed to get by. Every daughter was like the mother before her. Every son like his father.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWho would eat betel nut and just spit it here?\u201d Bisma said, joining her mother by the front door. Together they looked at the splash of rust sprayed across the wall of the house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is why this new sahib needs us,\u201d Mama said, demeanor bright, turning her back to Bisma, peering at the assortment of keys on the key ring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he doesn\u2019t want cleaners. He said so.\u201d Her uncle, the real estate agent\u2019s employee who sold this place, had already tried to convince the owner to employ them to clean the house to no avail.<\/p>\n<p>Mama paused to tilt her head at her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPfft. Use your head. Is that rich business man going to squat on the ground and sweep bathroom tiles like you and me? Twist rags in buckets of bleach? Hunt and kill the geckos with a broom? Hm? These boys from the city, they don\u2019t know anything though they think they do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUncle said\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>“Your uncle is a doormat. What does he know of the fight to survive?” Her mother paused. \u201cHe\u2019s pampered. Spoiled.\u201d Her gaze swiveled to Bisma who grew warm under her scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>Just as suddenly, Mama brightened again. \u201cDon\u2019t worry. I know all about the sahib. He has history and he\u2019s taken great care no one should know it. And Sohrab sahib has <em>money,<\/em> Bisma. Enough to buy all this. A man alone with money and a house that needs cleaning. Of course he\u2019ll hire us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She unlocked the two front doors. First the metal grill door, and then the wooden one within. Dust flew into Bisma\u2019s face from the mosquito netting lining the wooden door.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was strange even then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStrange how?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut he\u2019s done well for himself, hasn\u2019t he?\u201d Mama continued, stepping into the house. \u201cThat odd little boy, now all grown up to live like a raja. And no family at all, of course. How could he have a family, after all that in the jungle. But see. Look at the state of these nice things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma stepped forward as Mama tsked and tutted. Her distorted reflection in the gold door handle grew. Mama\u2019s voice echoed from inside the house.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ve just been sitting like this since the last owners left. That boy has no idea how to live. Not normal, is he? No family to teach him otherwise, baychara. No matter.\u201d Her mother bent her wiry form to pick up the cleaning equipment by her feet. \u201cMaybe he thought the women of this village were raised on cowards\u2019 milk so they would be too scared to work here. But he doesn\u2019t know us, does he, Bisma? He doesn\u2019t know what we do to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy would anyone be too scared to work here?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClose the doors.\u201d Mama\u2019s voice carried to her, alive and excited. \u201cBolt them shut. Just in case.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma followed her mother inside, swatting all her questions aside.<\/p>\n<p>Her mother paused.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUse the padlock on the door. Don\u2019t want your uncle following us and coming in. Always looking for his cut.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">It was dark. None of the blazing heat outside was making it through except for in the most tepid, pale imitations of yellow. The windows were closed and curtained shut. Exposed net screens were coated in dust.<\/p>\n<p>Even so she could make out the large square floor tiles that spanned the corridor at the entrance. They were pretty though covered in grime. Maroon speckles against a cream background. The maroon flecks were asymmetrical in size and were probably part of the scattered silica design, appearing at discordant intervals, except sometimes they ran onto the white plaster of the wall, which was odd. The corridor from the front door led to a large square lounge.<\/p>\n<p>The lounge was large enough to require two ceiling fans, both trailing thick ribbons of dust which spun as Mama switched them on, scaring away geckos asleep in the cool dark on the ceiling and who now wriggled away as Mama heaved open the gemstone colored curtains. Ornate sofas were placed together in a way that might have been companionable, but they were shrouded in plastic sheets.<\/p>\n<p>Bisma looked out the window trying not to cough, made nervous at the loud hum of the ceiling fans,\u00a0 the wall clocks that had stopped a long time ago, and the echoing voice of her mother moving further away in the darkness of this house that wasn\u2019t theirs.<\/p>\n<p>All along the four walls of the lounge, doors stood in an array, shut like sleeping eyes. Winking awake one by one as her mother walked with confident footsteps, flinging each one wide open.<\/p>\n<p>Bisma started in the lounge. She dusted the windows. Tried to open the side door to let the dust out, but couldn\u2019t. Used a soft broom to collect as much dust as possible and tried to trust that with a wet mop she would finish the job. Found cockroaches behind the plastic sofas. A pair of broken glasses behind a door.<\/p>\n<p>Mama got busy in the kitchen tutting at the state of the grime, the unused stove, ordering Bisma to wipe down the deep freezer too big to fit in the kitchen and which stood in the lounge, humming quietly.<\/p>\n<p>Tired, Bisma stretched her back and walked towards one of the rooms the lounge opened up to. Bisma opened another door to a dark room small enough not to echo. A wall covered in bookshelves. Open cartons still filled with stationary and binders. A desk lined with books.<\/p>\n<p>She could read. But these books on the desk were handwritten in a messy, wild script. She paged through the thin pages on which someone had scribbled a story in blue ballpoint. In the middle of the story was the drawing of a tree. The words went up and down, it seemed, as if hanging from the branches.<\/p>\n<p>She read. The story twisted her gut. She felt her face tilt forward without her willing so. Forward, and forward, until\u2014<\/p>\n<p>A drop of red hit the page. She looked up, startled, checking her reflection in a wall mirror covered in grime. Her nose was bleeding. And now that she thought about it, the side of her head hurt. The words blurred as she dropped the book back on the desk.<\/p>\n<p>She couldn\u2019t even remember the particulars of what she had read. Or even what language it had been in. Like most school going children where she grew up, she was familiar with Sindhi, Urdu, and English, but couldn\u2019t for the life of her recall what the book had been in.<\/p>\n<p>Had the words started at the bottom of the page? And gone all the way up?<\/p>\n<p>Bisma realized she hadn\u2019t heard Mama\u2019s stolen keys for a while.<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">She closed her eyes. Scenes floated behind her eyelids. Like the names and stories behind scatterings of night time stars forced by narratives into shapes, some story her mother told her long ago rose to her memory. \u201cBe careful of the jungle,\u201d she\u2019d say, good humored as she sliced potatoes. \u201cBeware of the bhoot that hide in them wearing the skins of the dead.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe dead men hang from trees by their feet,\u201d Mama had told Bisma and her siblings. \u201cThey cluster together, sheltered from the sun, smiling away. Nodding as they move in the breeze. Making the best of things, one man\u2019s mouth sighs as the sun begins to rise, and then the body falls silent, asleep with his eyes open. The flies settle on them as the heat rises from the ground after sunrise, and the noontime putrefies their flesh. The dead men don\u2019t know this because they don\u2019t know anything, and by the time the beings within their skins awaken, the flies are of no consequence. There are dead women too, of course. Their hair streams down as they hang from the tree. They laugh and sigh and touch their faces. The beings inside are not women, and nor are they men, but they are learning what was expected of the bodies and when they walk they can fool most people.<\/p>\n<p>Habits die hard\u2014harder than life, so the dead men till the earth at the cusp of the graveyard, as if still laboring in the fields. I\u2019ve seen them. They have no seeds, and forget what they\u2019re doing in between, and besides, the beings inside them are often hungry, so they scatter away from their trees and stagger at the periphery of the village, as far away from the fires as possible, because, you see, they hate fire. Some haunt the highway connecting the village to the city.<\/p>\n<p>When they aren\u2019t hungry anymore the beings return back to their tree, slow and sated. Sometimes there are new ones among their numbers. The beings can wear the bodies of the dead the way you or I wear our clothes, and sometimes they exchange an old one for something fresh. And they walk among us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHow do you know this?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen them. I have hidden in places and watched very carefully those things that would drive other people mad.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Poor Mama, Bisma thought. She has always been hiding, fighting, foraging for food and information together in the dark.<\/p>\n<p>Bisma realized she hadn\u2019t heard Mama\u2019s footsteps for a while.<\/p>\n<p>Mama stood still in front of the deep freezer, its lid wiped down so neatly by Bisma now wide open. Her stooped figure peering down framed by the wisps of vapor escaping it. Her hand on her chest, over her heart.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMama?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her mother closed the freezer gently and turned. Bisma moved the tissue away from her nose but put it back. It was still bleeding.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMama. We shouldn\u2019t be\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s important not to be ungrateful in life,\u201d Mama said to the ceiling. Mama\u2019s hand sneaked out and dug into her arm. Bisma winced\u2014there were too many bruises on her arm already where Mama gripped her. \u201cOpportunities have to be grabbed where you find them. It\u2019s important to be brave. Women must know when to be scared, when to stand tall. When to stay and when to leave. Just do as I do. And you are like me. You will do the same. You must.\u201d Her hand dug harder. \u201cPut small hopes and dreams aside. It is the only way we will both survive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma took a deep breath. She caught a look at their reflections in the white reflective surface of the freezer her mother had so swiftly closed. She looked wrinkled and old, worn by her thoughts that circled her head as she tried to sleep at night. All the things she wanted to do, all the things she wanted her mother to have, and how it all conflicted. Her mother\u2019s hand on her arm looked smooth. Her smile now self-assured.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat was that?\u201d Her mother turned her head. \u201cIs it your uncle? It\u2019s him, isn\u2019t it? Come to whine at us about how we\u2019ll get in trouble. And then asking me to give him a cut, no doubt. Let me go tell him where he can put his cowardice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mama went off with that face that told Bisma her uncle was in for a telling off.<\/p>\n<p>She moved her head at another soft sound. Was it from the kitchen?<\/p>\n<p>The kitchen was empty. A box of matchsticks lay on the counter. Bisma picked them up.<\/p>\n<p>Bisma gave the house a quick lookover. There were doors to rooms they hadn\u2019t opened yet. One turned out to be the dining room. One was a storage space.<\/p>\n<p>The bedroom door at the end of the corridor was open.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMama?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma retreated into the kitchen. There was a bottle of bleach by the sink. A cleaning cloth on the worktop.<\/p>\n<p>Her mother\u2019s footprints marked the wet floor tiles towards the back of the house. Where had she gone?<\/p>\n<p>There was a piercing scream.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBisma!\u201d her mother screamed. \u201cSave me, Bisma!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma fled in the opposite direction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOver here,\u201d her mother\u2019s voice reached from behind her. \u201cBisma!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She couldn\u2019t leave the house. It was locked, and Mama had the key.<\/p>\n<p>Back to the open door of the bedroom. The knocking turned to scrabbling sounds, and Bisma closed the door, her heart beating fast, hands over her mouth as she retreated to the back of the dark room.<\/p>\n<p>At the back was a built-in wardrobe. It was stuffed full of clothes, hanging stiff from the overhead rod. She could hide in there.<\/p>\n<p>Someone was walking outside in slow, shuffling footsteps.<\/p>\n<p>Bisma crawled inside the wardrobe, and closed the door behind her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSohrab!\u201d Her mother sobbed outside, somewhere. \u201cSohrab, remember who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And then, a strange silence, and her mother\u2019s wondering voice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re not Sohrab.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma never tells anyone what happens next. If she did, they\u2019d know she gets chased. They\u2019d understand her terror. What she would never bring herself to say was inside the wardrobe it was very dark. So dark that she remembered the matchsticks. So she lit a light and all the clothes hanging in the cupboard cast their shadows every which way, but the first thing she saw inches from herself was a man\u2019s face. The upside down face of a man hanging from his feet between the hangers and the clothes shrouded in plastic sheathes. And behind him, a woman\u2019s. And more. Each face flat, skin hanging like an empty bag, slits for the eyes yawning like empty maws.<\/p>\n<p>The last thing Bisma did before passing out was snuff the matchstick in her fist.<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">Bisma sat at a dining table. On the other end sat the smiling man she knew was Sohrab sahib. He was eating something with a lot of gravy oozing out of it\u2014(would she like some? No? Very well)\u2014and was so impressed with how she could read even a bit of his important words in the books on his desk. Yes, he says, cutting the hard pieces of very uncooked looking meat with a fork and knife. An amber coloured stone shone dully from a ring on his right hand. She is very impressive, he continues. Not many humans can even look at his books without their brains bleeding out. Of course, Sohrab sahib is himself a human, but he\u2019s a very special one. He\u2019s been given gifts. He\u2019s been loved by the dead themselves.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0He also thinks Bisma is pretty.<\/p>\n<p>When the sound of crying came out of the jungle to these dead people, shrill and discordant, they must have wondered what it was. To many of the dead men and women it may have seemed oddly familiar, but never would they have expected it so close to their trees. As it came closer and closer, some of the dead people must have broken away to locate it. They gather around the source and the child cries louder still, keening and shrieking. Curiosity abated, the beings must have turned back\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Maybe this child smelled less like a person of blood and meat and more like milk, because this child was very new in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The dead people, think of them shuffling back with their dead heads hanging limp from broken necks, until there remained but one freshly dead woman. Some things are second nature. There are habits etched in the muscles of the dead, which is why this woman lifts the child and holds him to her chest where the fabric has already been shredded by clawing hands. She begins to sing something she had known in life, still tucked away in some remaining brain tissue. The being, however, can\u2019t access the words, and so she improvises freely. Her tongue is blue and too large for her mouth, her eyes are popping out of her head, but the child hears the vibration of her chest. Listens, and grows silent. Balls his fists, and clings.<\/p>\n<p>And he feeds from her.<\/p>\n<p>You can imagine when a half grown boy is found in the jungle, naked and with the stench of death around him, how surprised everyone must have been. You can ask them. Some of them are still alive. Bisma\u2019s mother, for example, who was the one who had told the village about him in the first place. They will tell you how something wasn\u2019t right with the boy, but how could it be, him being all alone for so long. He has a comb of bone in his pocket and he says it\u2019s for his Mama\u2019s hair. He carves strange things out of wood and he says it is to entertain his Mama. He speaks but it in a wafting murmuring, almost a song, the sound of the breeze moving dead things hanging upside down from trees. He writes with his finger in the dust and giggles because everything true is a hidden, beautiful secret, and he knows there are no real people except those who die just the right way and go on living in the skins of whoever they choose. And because he has a plan, he indicates to them. A plan to save his family.<\/p>\n<p>Poor boy, they say to each other. They have found the burnt remains of a car crashed into a pile of rocks and rubble, and the two charred skeletons inside.<\/p>\n<p>The people in the mosque are charitable and discreet where they feel it necessary. The boy rewards their patience with wisdom. He isn\u2019t a fool\u2014he surprises them with his knowledge of languages and knowledge of the world.<\/p>\n<p>He is found at the butcher\u2019s, staring at animal pelts, reaching out and caressing them gently. He becomes the butcher\u2019s apprentice. The leaders of the mosque congratulate each other. They have successfully launched a growing boy\u2019s livelihood.<\/p>\n<p>And then, one night, he disappears from the village.<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">A sliver of light.<\/p>\n<p>Bisma wished she hadn\u2019t woken up.<\/p>\n<p>Should she leave? She could leave and call her uncle. She tried not to look at the skins hanging around her.<\/p>\n<p>But what if something was out there? Something in the freezer, something that shuffled, or something that had been in the wardrobe right here with her?<\/p>\n<p>As she considered her next steps, footsteps approached the wardrobe. The door opened and Bisma peered up at the crimson stained face of her mother.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCome. We have to go. Shh. He\u2019s at the back.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mama moved her arm in the dark, as if to reach out her hand for Bisma\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>A lifetime of habit can\u2019t be stood against. Bisma flinched from her mother\u2019s hand reaching out, her cheek smarting in apprehension. Mama\u2019s slaps had informed most of her childhood.<\/p>\n<p>But there was no need. Beneath her mother\u2019s elbow, the skin of her hand was peeling away. And underneath it\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n<p>(from <em>inside it?<\/em>)<\/p>\n<p>. . . a man\u2019s hand reached oh so gently for her. An amber stone glinting from the ring finger.<\/p>\n<p>This time Bisma screamed. Screamed and ducked away from her mother, rushing out of the room. She ran to the door and tried it but the padlock was locked fast.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHelp.\u201d She hammered on the door. \u201cHelp me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She rested her forehead on the door and screamed. It could have been for minutes or hours until<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBisma?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She turned around slowly.<\/p>\n<p>Her uncle stood at the bedroom door, smiling at her, eyebrows raised. \u201cWhat\u2019s all this noise? Why are you running away? A big, brave girl like you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUncle? I don\u2019t\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She cut herself off. Pressed her hands to her eyes. In the wardrobe. Hadn\u2019t there been something she should remember? A familiar looking skin. Jaw hanging slack in a way she knew. Empty eye slits\u2014<\/p>\n<p>Her uncle stepped towards her. He wobbled a bit on his left.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to talk to you, Bisma. You\u2019ll understand when I talk to you. I can feel it. You\u2019re not like the rest of them. They are so like each other, every one. So many generations, just following the footsteps of the ones before. They\u2019re not like us. They cannot fathom new ways.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her uncle, his voice so determined, so sure of himself. As if he hadn\u2019t spent his whole life being bullied by Bisma\u2019s mother. As if it wasn\u2019t her uncle at all speaking to her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMama?\u201d She turned and called, voice shaking, \u201cWhere did she go?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou know where,\u201d her uncle said, with a gentle firmness. \u201cCome now, Bisma. You\u2019re not a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma collapsed, weeping and covering her face, her eyes, from what was speaking to her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTsk. Let me show you something.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He pulled her, shaking and protesting, back to the bedroom. He deftly picks something out from the wardrobe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSee this? Let me wear it.\u201d He stepped inside it, shrugged it on, and became an old woman. \u201cLook,\u201d the old woman said to Bisma in a hoarse voice. The old woman flipped through the skins hanging in the cupboard. \u201cWear the right skin and you can open any door of your choice. You can choose to do anything. Trust me. I have traveled the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to go home,\u201d Bisma crouched on the ground. Covered her head with her arms.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHasn\u2019t there been anything you wanted to do your whole life?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Me?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI can help you. Oh, it\u2019s a family secret,\u201d the old woman smiled. \u201cWait.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She busied herself in the wardrobe and stepped into another skin. Stretched.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s better.\u201d It was Sohrab sahib now who turned and grinned at her almost shyly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI learned these wisdoms at my mother\u2019s breast. How merciful are the bhoot. I am not half as skilled as those ethereal forms. But I do what I can. What wonders does my family perform with the skins of your dead! And they won\u2019t mind. They won\u2019t see you as meat. They\u2019d be happy to welcome you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re a bhoot,\u201d Bisma whispered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNot at all. I\u2019m the boy the bhoot loved so well, who gave him the gift of sustenance when he would have died. The bhoot who found my human parents, preserving them in my being by feeding them to me bit by bit. I\u2019m the boy who went away and made good, who has now come back to his village. You know you can never leave. Once you know what duty is. You know this.\u201d Sohrab looked disappointed. \u201cI smelled it from your mother, how she has trained you well. How you yearn to please her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere is my uncle?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOh,\u201d Sohrab said. “He wanted to talk about something\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. about money. So I called him in to meet my family. Most of them are in the jungle but\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. you haven\u2019t been upstairs yet, have you? I\u2019m making a garden up there. Small trees. They love trees. Some parts are probably still\u2014no. Don\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bisma collapsed, screaming, pulling into herself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t do that. We are going to make such a great team.\u201d He sighed. \u201cDon\u2019t pretend not to understand. I serve my family. All I want to do is give back to them the way they loved me. You understand family obedience. You know what it is to want to give your mother anything she wants. And that is what every man from around here wants in the end. A good girl with family values.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou killed her,\u201d she whispered. \u201cAnd you killed my uncle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn the contrary,\u201d Sohrab said dreamily, leaning forward to caress the hanging skins. \u201cIn some ways they will live on forever.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">Mama walked the periphery of the jungle. She wasn\u2019t hunched over foraging for food. She wasn\u2019t muttering to herself, remembering old wrongs bitter and severe. She wasn\u2019t forever agonizing over the ingratitudes of her offspring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cVery good,\u201d she called out to the children playing in the stream. \u201cYou are doing so well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo, they\u2019re not,\u201d an old man said, watching them. \u201cThey\u2019re disrespectful and loud and horrible.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey will live long,\u201d Mama called out as she walked. \u201cThey will be happy. I can smell it on them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mama sat comfortably at the river bank and soaked her feet. Mama sucked on green mangoes. Mama screeched in laughter when their sourness made her teeth shiver. Mama hugged little children, admired the muscles of laborers, looked up at the full moon. And then, once she was sated with happiness, she went back to the house at the end of the village, took off her skin and became Bisma again, before going to sleep curled up next to the boy the bhoot loved so much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bisma couldn\u2019t bring herself to follow Mama out of the midday sun and into the stranger\u2019s house. Bisma knew she\u2019d have to\u2014in the end she always did as Mama said. Of course she hadn\u2019t asked any questions when Mama ordered her to pick up their cleaning equipment and follow her to the house at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Boy the Bhoot Loved - The Dark Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thedarkmagazine.com\/the-boy-the-bhoot-loved\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Boy the Bhoot Loved - The Dark Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bisma couldn\u2019t bring herself to follow Mama out of the midday sun and into the stranger\u2019s house. Bisma knew she\u2019d have to\u2014in the end she always did as Mama said. 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Nondescript black, sealed with a glossy logo sticker. <em>Dark Deeds: Midnight Reads for Horror Fans<\/em>. You set it aside to deal with later. After all, surgeons are busy people. Your practice has been thriving. You don\u2019t have time to look up what to read\u2014that\u2019s why you\u2019re trying a book subscription.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not until several nights later, after a full day of surgery, that you remember the box. It\u2019s 11 p.m., and you know if you close your eyes now, your mind will fill with the frantic beep of a heart rate monitor, the convulsing of the man on the table, his blood spilling out and staining the bedsheets red, red, red\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n<p>Better to soothe your mind with invented horrors. Since residency, it has become the only genre you consume; it takes your mind off the real-life horrors you witness in the operating room and the other thing that haunts you. That time you\u2014<\/p>\n<p>No. Best not to think about that.<\/p>\n<p>You flick open a box cutter and slice through the sticker; a motion familiar after two decades of cutting into skin. This blade is duller and less precise than your trusty scalpel, but it does the job.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing you see is the printed note, obscuring whatever is packed in the nest of shredded paper beneath.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear Horror Reader,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Welcome to the Dark Deeds family! Each month, we send a handpicked horror book and a wrapped item labeled with a page number. When you reach that page in the book, you\u2019ll be prompted to open your gift.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You\u2019ll also find a scratch-off ticket in every box. Check yours for the chance to win your next month of Dark Deeds FREE! Concerns? Contact us at darkdeedsbox@gmail.com.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>This month, our theme is FRIENDSHIP. If that doesn\u2019t sound like a horror theme to you, it will once you\u2019ve read the book.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Enjoy the nightmares,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Team Dark Deeds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You toss the note aside and dig in. The cover is black with a double-exposed image in the center. Two different faces fight to occupy the same space: one staring straight ahead with a wicked grin, the other looking up and screaming. You flip to the back to read the blurbs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFull of dark humor and shudder-inducing imagery, <em>If You Say Kill<\/em> will make you consider how far you\u2019d be willing to go for your best friend\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. and just how far they\u2019d go for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts turn to your former best friend. Nadine would have loved this box. The first week of college, she invited you to her dorm to watch <em>Saw<\/em>, her favorite movie. You were a shy, sheltered boy who had never seen anything scarier than <em>Hocus Pocus<\/em>, but you were lonely enough to say yes. As your friendship grew, so did your love for horror movies.<\/p>\n<p>She hasn\u2019t spoken to you in a year. You miss her.<\/p>\n<p>You bring <em>If You Say Kill<\/em> to your room, turn on your lamp, and begin reading. It\u2019s exactly your style\u2014fast paced, engaging, and full of morbid humor\u2014but the friendship in the book reminds you so much of Nadine that it hurts. After reading a few chapters, you go to bed.<\/p>\n<p>It takes you two weeks\u2014you work long, unpredictable hours, and sometimes you\u2019re too tired to read\u2014but at last, you reach the page paired with the surprise gift. Out of pettiness, you finish the chapter before fetching it. You\u2019re used to being the one in charge; no note is going to tell you what to do.<\/p>\n<p>You tear through the black wrapping paper, revealing a book bound in tanned leather. Inside, each page is blank, made of thick, hand cut paper. There\u2019s no brand name anywhere. It looks like one of those handmade $200 journals people sell on Etsy.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>If You Say Kill<\/em>, what begins as a dare from one friend to the other escalates until they kill one of their teachers and skin him. From his skin, they craft covers for a matching set of journals.<\/p>\n<p>It was clever of Dark Deeds to include an item that feels like it was pulled straight out of the story. You run your fingers along the leather surface, wondering what animal it was made from. How human skin would feel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">You\u2019re excited when the second box arrives. Despite your initial hesitance about the first book, the ending was decent. And while you don\u2019t use journals, you\u2019ll save it for your mom\u2019s birthday. You won\u2019t tell her it was free\u2014that would make it feel less special. A little white lie never hurt anyone.<\/p>\n<p>News plays in the background, distracting you. Some solemn-faced reporter goes on about a budding serial killer who\u2019s claimed two victims. They were found laid out on picnic tables at different parks, covered by sheets. Both were stabbed with thin, sharp blades, and various body parts are missing. For this quirk, the killer has been dubbed The Harvester.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re not worried; men like you are rarely the target of these kinds of attacks. Still, you turn off the television and return your attention to the box.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s hard to believe you won another month of Dark Deeds, especially since the first box was a free trial. But you\u2019ve always been lucky, and secretly, you feel you deserve every good thing that happens to you. You cut through the sticker.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear Horror Reader,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We\u2019re pleased you decided to stick with us and promise you won\u2019t regret it! This month, we picked a theme everyone can relate to: ENVY. Whether it\u2019s at work, in your friend group, or in your love life, surely, you\u2019ve experienced that soul-crushing, frustrating-as-all-hell emotion. It could drive anyone to the darkest of deeds.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As always, we\u2019re at darkdeedsbox@gmail.com if you have any concerns.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Enjoy the nightmares,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Team Dark Deeds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Intrigued, you check out the book. Below the title, <em>To Dine with You Every Night<\/em>, is a bird\u2019s eye view of a place setting. The white plate in the center holds a human heart and the matching white mug is full of blood. One corner of the book features a silver award medallion.<\/p>\n<p>Looks interesting enough. You put it on your nightstand.<\/p>\n<p>The next night, after getting paged six times, you need a few minutes to wind down before trying to fall asleep yet again. You pour yourself a glass of sparkling water and start reading.<\/p>\n<p>Several chapters in, you\u2019re not sure you\u2019ll enjoy this book as much as the previous one. The writing is crude, and the main character feels like a caricature. He\u2019s in love with his neighbor, a woman who clearly has no romantic interest in him. As she begins dating someone else\u2014a man who seems a little too perfect to be real\u2014the main character starts stalking her and growing more obsessive.<\/p>\n<p>You feel your irritation grow with each scene. You hate when books are reductive. You know exactly what it\u2019s like to be that guy, and it doesn\u2019t always happen this way. Sometimes, the girl really does end up with the wrong guy.<\/p>\n<p>This damned subscription box keeps making you think of Nadine. You picture her in a sleek black dress and red lipstick, the way she looked the last time you spoke. That night, a year ago, when you went to her house for drinks, hopeful that it was the start of something. Instead, your friendship ended. You still don\u2019t know why. All you know is the next day, you woke with a pounding headache and no memory beyond those first few cocktails.<\/p>\n<p>Despite your annoyance, you continue reading throughout the next few weeks. As much as you hate to admit it, the story is addictive. You watch the main character\u2019s obsession turn full blown, ramping up until he attempts to kill his neighbor\u2019s boyfriend.<\/p>\n<p>As you read the climax, a chill runs through you. You try to stay focused on the page, but your mind flips back to Nadine, crying. Asking you to recommend a colleague you trust. Her husband, Nathan\u2014even his stupid name matched hers\u2014had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As a surgical oncologist, you were perfectly positioned to help find him the best doctor.<\/p>\n<p>So, you did. You offered to treat Nathan yourself.<\/p>\n<p>You force yourself to focus on <em>To Dine with You Every Night<\/em>, pushing away thoughts of the past as you finish the book. In trying to kill the boyfriend, the pathetic main character accidentally kills his love interest instead. In a wildly implausible turn of events, he manages to sneak into the morgue and steal one of her bones, which he then cleans, grinds up, and mixes into clay. He turns the clay into a dinnerware set so he can have dinner with her every night for the rest of his life.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll admit it is fun when the meaning behind a title only becomes clear at the end of the story, but it\u2019s not enough to save the rest of the book. You\u2019re still annoyed by the main character, and the ending leaves you unsettled in a bad way.<\/p>\n<p>Prompted by the book\u2019s last page, you open your gift to reveal a huge, white mug signed \u201cAsh Ceramics\u201d at the bottom. While it matches the mug on the book cover, there\u2019s nothing special about it other than its size. After long nights on call, you need lots of coffee to stay alert enough to operate, so it\u2019ll come in handy, but you\u2019re disappointed by its plainness. If this box hadn\u2019t been free, you\u2019d be really pissed.<\/p>\n<p>While it\u2019s on your mind, you email darkdeedsbox@gmail.com to cancel your subscription, adding a strongly worded suggestion to source better items.<\/p>\n<p>An hour later, you receive a reply. They\u2019re apologetic. They\u2019ve cancelled your subscription; you won\u2019t be charged for any boxes. They\u2019ll take your thoughtful feedback into consideration. And if you ever decide to resubscribe, you can use a special discount code to get twenty percent off your next box.<\/p>\n<p>You roll your eyes. You\u2019re not going to resubscribe. Ever. You stick the latest book into your bin of items to donate and think no more of Dark Deeds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">When the third box arrives, you\u2019re outraged. You cancelled. You <em>know<\/em> you did. You pull up your last email exchange to confirm, and it\u2019s all there. Evidence. Annoyed, you log into your credit card account and scroll through the transactions, searching for the Dark Deeds charge to dispute.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no charge.<\/p>\n<p>Both confused and angry now, you send Dark Deeds another email. The response is immediate. It must be a warehouse mistake. They\u2019ll make sure their system is updated. But, since it was their error, you\u2019re welcome to keep the box.<\/p>\n<p>With mixed feelings, you decide to see what their system error has brought you.<\/p>\n<p><em>Dear Horror Reader,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>We hope you enjoyed last month\u2019s selection! This month\u2019s theme is one of our favorites: MURDER. The book is about someone seemingly normal who ends up doing worse and worse things. Anyone can be driven to commit murder, don\u2019t you think? In fact, we bet you\u2019ve committed murder. You can lie to us (and everyone else!), but you can\u2019t lie to yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>As always, we\u2019re at darkdeedsbox@gmail.com if you need us.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Enjoy the nightmares,<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Team Dark Deeds<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You reread the note. What the fuck? If this is their idea of a joke, it doesn\u2019t land. Who would find this funny?<\/p>\n<p>It occurs to you that you don\u2019t know anything about the team behind Dark Deeds. You only gave the box a try because you were getting ads for it, increasing in frequency until you finally grew curious enough to click. (Funny, how easy it is to narrow down your advertising pool when you know your target audience well. Really well.) And then they offered the free trial box, and you won the next one free\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n<p>You hop in the shower to clear your head. By the time you\u2019re out again, you\u2019re back to being your regular, non-paranoid self. The note isn\u2019t personal. It\u2019s a horror subscription. Of course they\u2019d try to spook their fans. You pop a frozen dinner in the microwave and dig the book out of the box.<\/p>\n<p>The cover of <em>Cadmium Crimson<\/em> resembles a canvas splattered with red paint. Below the title, a disembodied hand holds a paintbrush with a knife\u2019s handle, blood dripping from its bristles. According to the back cover, it\u2019s about an artist who finds herself in a rut. Nothing feels fresh, and her work isn\u2019t selling. Then she cuts herself, accidentally bleeding onto the canvas. The piece becomes an instant hit, and suddenly, galleries everywhere want her inventive new paintings. She begins drawing her own blood to keep up with the demand. Soon, her body can’t produce enough blood, so she looks for supplies elsewhere\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0.<\/p>\n<p>Finally! A book with a premise that carries no personal baggage for you. You take your meal out of the microwave and sit down to read while you eat. It\u2019s so good that you end up reading until you\u2019re ready for bed.<\/p>\n<p>Later that week, you\u2019re in line for lunch at the hospital cafeteria when you hear two orderlies talking about The Harvester. One of them mentions that she doesn\u2019t leave her house after dark anymore, lest she end up \u201cdead on a picnic table like those three other women.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Someone else in line chimes in. \u201cThe <em>Times<\/em> released info about the third victim yesterday. Lorilee Sorenson, mother of two young kids. Cancer survivor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clucks of sympathy sound around you, but you stop paying attention. Why does that name sound familiar?<\/p>\n<p>Lorilee Sorenson. Cancer.<\/p>\n<p>Could she have been one of your patients?<\/p>\n<p>The Harvester doesn\u2019t seem like a distant figure anymore.<\/p>\n<p>As the cashier rings up your meal, you remind yourself that all three targets have been women. He\u2014it\u2019s a safe assumption since serial killers are usually men\u2014seems to have a penchant for killing women. He\u2019s not going to come after you.<\/p>\n<p>Still, you look up articles over lunch. The internet is abuzz with speculation on how he\u2019s choosing his victims. The first two had kids in the same school district. The second and third were cancer survivors.<\/p>\n<p>You picture The Harvester at work. Stabbing women with a sharp blade, then slicing them open and removing something, possibly while they\u2019re still alive. It\u2019s not unlike the surgeries you perform, ridding patients of unwanted parts. Organs riddled with cancerous growths. Tumors heavier than a newborn baby. You\u2019re always taking things out of people. But you operate to help others, not hurt them.<\/p>\n<p>Except for that one time.<\/p>\n<p>That night, you can\u2019t sleep. Images of murdered women keep running through your mind. <em>Cadmium Crimson<\/em> promises to be a good distraction, so you continue reading. This time, you\u2019re prompted to open the gift around the halfway mark, when the artist, compelled by guilt, uses blood to paint her first victim, \u201ca young girl lying on her back in a field of wildflowers, viscera spilling out from a hole in her chest.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You rip open the black paper to discover an unstretched canvas, furled up like a scroll. You unroll it. As you do, your fingertips brush the canvas, feeling the raised texture of paint on its surface. Based on the other gifts, you expect a painting like the one described in the book. You let the rest of the piece drop open.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, it\u2019s a man lying on an operating table, skin splayed open, organs exposed. Hovering over him is a surgeon in scrubs, looking furtive as his gloved hand touches the patient\u2019s IV pole. The three other people in the painting are busy, attention focused elsewhere. The entire tableau is rendered in monochrome, every detail a shade of reddish brown\u2014the color of old bricks.<\/p>\n<p>Or dried blood.<\/p>\n<p>You stare. The thing you\u2019ve been suppressing for a year and a half forces its way to the forefront of your mind.<\/p>\n<p><em>Your best friend\u2019s husband lies unconscious on your operating table. As you open him up with your scalpel, you remind yourself that Nadine loves him. That you became a surgeon to save lives. Soon enough, you slip into the zone, and he becomes just another patient. You\u2019ll do your best for him the way you do for everyone you operate on.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You mean to. You really do.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But the Whipple procedure is long and complicated. You have too much time to think. You start to wonder\u2014to hope, even. Maybe you\u2019ll open him up and the cancer will be too widespread. Maybe it\u2019ll be impossible to get a negative margin, and you\u2019ll have no choice but to close him back up and give them the bad news.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>But it doesn\u2019t happen that way. It\u2019s operable. You\u2019ll be able to save him.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You took an oath, so you do. But before you close him back up, you think of Nadine. You imagine giving her the good news\u2014you\u2019ve saved her husband!\u2014only to have Nathan sicken, in subsequent weeks,\u00a0 from an infection he could\u2019ve gotten anywhere in the hospital.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Maybe after Nathan dies, she\u2019ll turn to you\u2014her best friend, who did everything he possibly could for her and Nathan\u2014for comfort.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>When the anesthesiologist, circulating nurse, and scrub tech are all busy looking elsewhere, you reach out and touch Nathan\u2019s IV pole, breaking sterile technique. Your heart hammers as you look around to confirm that no one saw you. Then you continue operating, wearing your contaminated gloves. Introducing bacteria into Nathan\u2019s exposed body.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It was a momentary lapse in judgment. You regret what you did, but it\u2019s too late now. No one should lose their entire career over one split-second decision. Your chest tightens, breaths growing shallow as you remember those guilt-ridden months after Nathan\u2019s death.<\/p>\n<p>You thought no one knew what you\u2019d done. But someone does, and there\u2019s only one person you know who would go through all this trouble to toy with you. You understand, now, what Dark Deeds is.<\/p>\n<p>A threat.<\/p>\n<p>You drop the scroll, pick up your keys, and head to your car.<\/p>\n<p class=\"noindent\">It\u2019s near midnight when you arrive on my doorstep.<\/p>\n<p>Up until now, every scene has been composed in my mind, perfected, played on repeat. My imagination does not match reality precisely, but it\u2019s close enough. I know you better than anyone does\u2014and time spent peering at you through a telescope or following you in disguise filled in the rest.<\/p>\n<p>I let you in, and we stand in my living room, facing off.<\/p>\n<p>You speak first. \u201cWhy the elaborate scheme, Nadine? Inventing an entire subscription box? You always were a drama queen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBetter than what you are.\u201d I clench my fist. \u201cWhen you operated on Nathan, you infected him.\u201d I fight to keep my rage tamped down\u2014I\u2019ve struggled to keep it under control this past year. Ever since that night you came over for drinks. You\u2019d been acting strange, and I had a suspicion. Drunk and drugged, you confessed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI swear it was an accident.\u201d You sound so sincere when you lie. \u201cBy the time I realized his infection might have originated in the OR, it was too late. You were there with me through college, med school, residency. You know how hard I\u2019ve worked, how many lives I\u2019ve saved. Why should my future patients suffer over one mistake?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut there have been other mistakes, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You look confused.<\/p>\n<p>I press on. \u201cMy husband isn\u2019t the only one you\u2019ve killed. You covered it well, but I pieced it together and contacted others. Patients whose operations you botched, then lied when their recovery was slower than it should be. Or, in the case of the unluckiest ones, family members of patients who died because of your <em>mistakes<\/em>. I\u2019ve gathered all the evidence I need.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never killed anyone but Nathan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At your admission, I smirk.<\/p>\n<p>Your eyes narrow, tone changing as you drop the contrite, nice guy act. \u201cYou\u2019ve obviously grown unhinged this past year. No one\u2019s going to believe you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I flick my eyes over to a corner of the room and back again, as if by accident. Your gaze follows, landing on the camera\u2019s red light\u2014recording.<\/p>\n<p>In an instant, you cross the room and tear the camera from its spot on a shelf, throwing it against the wall. I flinch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat the fuck, Nadine?\u201d You notice the other items on the shelf. A Ziploc bag containing a stained surgical sponge. Notes in your handwriting, printed from patient records. A rusty scalpel. You pick it up. In the yellow glow of the overhead light, its blade glints a sickly hue. You step toward me.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m going to expose you for the instruments you left in patients. The surgeries you botched,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I didn\u2019t do those things.\u201d You\u2019re closer now. I don\u2019t shrink away.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt won\u2019t matter. Everyone will believe you did. I found former patients of yours who suffered difficult recoveries. A woman whose sister died on your operating table. I convinced them there\u2019s a pattern. That you\u2019ve been covering up your mistakes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re an armlength away. The veins on your neck pulse as your anger builds.<\/p>\n<p>I talk faster. \u201cI\u2019m going to destroy you for murdering my husband. No one would believe just me, but they\u2019ll believe all of us, together. We\u2019ll file a malpractice suit. We\u2019ll testify, and you\u2019ll lose your reputation, your practice, your license. Everything. You\u2019ll\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Your hand wraps around my neck, squeezing, cutting off my air. Your face is a mask of rage as you lose the tight control you usually keep. \u201cWhy, Nadine? Why are you making me do this?\u201d You release your hold for a minute, and I gasp.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou deserve it. You\u2019re a murderer and\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I cry out as you plunge the blade into my throat, precise as a surgeon. It\u2019s a sound I\u2019ve grown familiar with these past few months. Each time I killed one of your former patients.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt didn\u2019t have to be this way,\u201d you say as my blood spills onto your hands.<\/p>\n<p>I collapse forward. As I lay dying in your arms, I smile up at you. \u201cHuman leather, bone ceramic, blood painting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat?\u201d You lean closer, certain you must have misheard.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDoctors make good harvesters.\u201d My words come out garbled.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re in shock. You\u2019re speaking nonsense.\u201d You sound panicked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI swear I didn\u2019t kill the others,\u201d I whisper, mimicking your voice. Savoring the look of confusion on your face as you try to understand. You\u2019ll see soon enough. They\u2019re your words to keep.<\/p>\n<p>I close my eyes, letting myself imagine one last time. When the police arrive, summoned by my pre-recorded, frantic call, they\u2019ll find the evidence I gathered in my amateur hunt for The Harvester. How I suspected my former best friend. The victim profiles I\u2019ve built; all former patients of yours\u2014or their loved ones.<\/p>\n<p>You never hurt any of them, of course. You\u2019ve always been a genuinely good surgeon. Except for the one time.<\/p>\n<p>Good thing none of them can contradict my story. Not since The Harvester silenced them and turned pieces of their body into souvenirs that now grace your home.<\/p>\n<p>I didn\u2019t want to die, but it would\u2019ve been too easy for your lawyers to poke holes in my evidence otherwise. This way, I\u2019m impossible to ignore. The world will think you went on a murder spree to silence us all and save your career.<\/p>\n<p>Eventually, you\u2019ll own up to killing me. You\u2019ll claim an argument between friends, gone wrong. My death will stop bothering you.<\/p>\n<p>But you\u2019ll never get over the death of your reputation.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll try to save it. Prove you were a good surgeon if not a good friend. Convince everyone I\u2019m the only woman you killed. I hope, then, that you remember my last words. <em>I swear I didn\u2019t kill the others.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You\u2019ll be repeating them until the day you die.<\/p>\n<p class=\"centered line-above attribution\">Originally published in <em>Human Monsters<\/em>, edited by Sadie Hartmann & Ashley Saywers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the first box arrives, you don\u2019t think much of it. Nondescript black, sealed with a glossy logo sticker. Dark Deeds: Midnight Reads for Horror Fans. You set it aside to deal with later. After all, surgeons are busy people. Your practice has been thriving. You don\u2019t have time to look up what to read\u2014that\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I Swear I Didn\u2019t Kill the Others - The Dark Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thedarkmagazine.com\/i-swear-i-didnt-kill-the-others\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Swear I Didn\u2019t Kill the Others - The Dark Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When the first box arrives, you don\u2019t think much of it. 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Nondescript black, sealed with a glossy logo sticker. Dark Deeds: Midnight Reads for Horror Fans. You set it aside to deal with later. After all, surgeons are busy people. Your practice has been thriving. 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She likes it there. The smooth curvature that dead ends into the split-level Gary bought for them back when it was enough to work at the drugstore. When the paycheck stretched far enough to pay the mortgage and keep food on the table and clothes on two kids\u2019 backs. A boy and a girl. Long gone now from the house at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, but she likes to sit at the dinette in the kitchen and pretend she can still hear them upstairs. Rustling around. Whispering even though they\u2019d never whispered when they\u2019d lived here.<\/p>\n<p>Theirs was a house of noise. Brian taking the stairs two at a time, forever talking with his mouth open, and Jennifer, the landline semi-permanently attached to her ear while she chattered on and on about tennis practice and some lip gloss she absolutely <em>had <\/em>to have that cost twenty dollars more than Paula felt it needed to.<\/p>\n<p>Now, it is so quiet. Empty rooms filled with furniture she still polishes every Wednesday and floors she mops on Sundays. She melted into her routine a long time ago, and she won\u2019t forgo it now simply because it is only her eating and sleeping and drinking and pissing in a house that the bank says belongs to her. At least on paper. She knows about eminent domain. Remembers it from school. Along with the Pythagorean Theorum and that WWI began with the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.<\/p>\n<p>Every morning, she drinks her coffee in the living room in front of the picture window. This gives her the best view of the street. The early morning dog walkers and the young mothers with their strollers and the health nuts who jog until they are more sweat than skin.<\/p>\n<p>With Gary gone, she no longer has to hide the camera.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019d been a fight when he first found the tapes. Demands that devolved into threats. For a brief time, she\u2019d thought he might leave her. He told her it wasn\u2019t right, invading people\u2019s privacy like that, but it\u2019s her street. Her right to keep track of the comings and goings of everything that happens there. And now, she\u2019s free to do as she pleases.<\/p>\n<p>On the nights she can\u2019t sleep, she takes the tapes out. Runs her finger along the hard plastic cases until something inside her tingles. Then she\u2019ll pull the tape out, plug the camcorder in to the tv, taking care to match the red, yellow, and white cords to their correct inputs, and slide the tape into its slot. Tug her panties past her ankles as the blue screen glitches, the street snapping into view.<\/p>\n<p>It never takes long. Not like this. Nothing at all like the dead-nerved years of Gary flopping on top of her like a fish and then falling asleep, leaving her to clean up his mess. Had he ever made her come? The young bride she\u2019d once been panting under his fingers as they found the exact spot. The exact rhythm. She no longer thought so, but memory is a fuzzy thing. Easy enough to confuse it with belief simply because there\u2019s nothing there to document it. No evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight\u2019s tape is old; from when the Yancey\u2019s still lived next door. The husband, Marty, fancied himself something of a handyman and was forever in the driveway, stationed behind a table saw that only ceased its whining after he\u2019d had too many beers and stumbled inside to sleep beside his mousy, mincing wife Nina who didn\u2019t understand that store bought ham salad wasn\u2019t an appropriate thing to bring to a barbecue.<\/p>\n<p>Marty appears at the edge of the screen, measuring tape in hand, and Paula grimaces, her hand slowing as she tries to re-focus on the street itself, the heat haze coming from the asphalt, the whir and chirp of deep summer cicadas, anything but that greased up lump of man, but he pauses there, in full view, and she sighs. Drops her hand. She could stop the tape, choose another, but it would interrupt the ritual.<\/p>\n<p>On screen, the scene jumps. A dark line bisecting its center, Marty somehow frozen in the middle where he\u2019d not previously been. Right? She hadn\u2019t looked away, but he is no longer at the edge of the screen. Has drifted closer to her house and the middle of the screen. He is turned to face her, his mouth stretched, one side ticked higher than the other. A tingle settles in her belly, but it is not the same tingle as when she chooses the tapes for the night.<\/p>\n<p>She doesn\u2019t remember this. Marty appearing anywhere except in the periphery. He has distracted her before, but if she is patient, if she waits a few minutes, he will vanish, and the video will be only the street again.<\/p>\n<p>But he is staring across the years at her, his face warped into that sideways smile, and she holds her breath like she used to when she was a child, cold under her quilt, watching the dark outline in her closet shift into something like the glimmer of bared teeth.<\/p>\n<p>She blinks, and the tape restores itself. Marty vanished back into whatever project he\u2019d decided was most important all those years ago, and the street returned to normalcy, even if the trees and bushes are smaller than she knows them to be now.<\/p>\n<p>Her underwear\u2019s still tangled at her ankles, but she stops the tape. Rewinds. Tugs her panties to her waist before she hits play. The screen jumps then settles on the version she carries in her memory. Marty at the corner of the screen and then gone. She rewinds again, again, a third time, but she cannot replicate the glitch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStupid thing,\u201d she says and ejects the tape. Slips it back into its plastic case and re-files it according to the date scrawled on its side. <em>April 5, 1999. <\/em>Brian would have been seven. Jennifer twelve. The year Gary bought the fishing boat without telling her, and they\u2019d not been able to go on their yearly beach vacation because of it.<\/p>\n<p>Her skin itches, the unspent energy needling at its surface, but the moment is lost, so she shoves the bin back under the bed and settles back on her heels. It was a glitch in the tape, and she\u2019s been off the past few weeks anyway. An adjustment to her blood pressure medication. The doctor had said there could be some side effects, but she\u2019d stopped listening while he listed them out because everything these days has side effects, and she has to take the pills anyway, so what does it really matter?<\/p>\n<p>She pushes herself to her knees, then her feet, and slowly makes her way to the kitchen. There is the cat to feed and a load of laundry that still needs folded and put away. A Lean Cuisine to heat up for her own dinner. She hasn\u2019t bothered cooking since Gary died, and on the rare occasions Brian or Jennifer visits, they go out to eat, so she buys the frozen meals in bulk every Sunday. One for lunch and one for dinner.<\/p>\n<p>Gary would be so proud. She\u2019s finally dropped that last fifteen pounds she\u2019d put on after Brian graduated high school. All of the clothes in her closet are slightly too big now. In the mirror, her body floats somewhere behind the excess fabric, and she pretends it isn\u2019t her behind the glass but some other woman even if her knees and hips tell her otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>But even as the meal heats, she knows she likely won\u2019t eat it. She isn\u2019t hungry. Her brain is still trapped inside that glitch, inside the evidence that has always proven stronger than memory. Maybe she <em>is<\/em> misremembering. Mixing that tape up with another. Because there are others. Marty found his way into a handful of recordings. It\u2019s possible she\u2019s confusing that April day in 1999 with the October day in 2001, but she remembers the jack-o\u2019-lanterns beside the mailbox. They\u2019d had a carving competition that year, and Brian had won with some zombie abomination that set her teeth on edge just looking at it.<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe February 1997 with all its gray sky and dead lawn. The year they got that late April snow and Jennifer spent the entire time moaning about how spring break was ruined.<\/p>\n<p>But no. She knows the tapes. The distinct anomalies of each. She is both director and watcher, and she counts her years by what\u2019s recorded on them.<\/p>\n<p>The microwave beeps, startling her back into the present, and she pulls back the film, the steam kissing her skin. Maybe she\u2019ll take a melatonin tonight. Gary had been the one with no qualms about medication for sleeping, but she always worried even the tiniest dose had the potential to kill her. Menopause had been particularly brutal, but she\u2019d had the tapes to help her through the long nights. She\u2019d managed. And it\u2019s shocking how little sleep a person actually needs.<\/p>\n<p>She eats half of her frozen meal and tosses the rest in the garbage while the cat stares at her wastefulness. He\u2019d been more Gary\u2019s cat than hers, and Gary would disapprove of wasting food. Even if it did mean weight loss.<\/p>\n<p>An hour later, the cat is fed, the laundry folded and put away, and the street is dark. Quiet. The sort of late fall night that leaves you chilled and looking too long at shadows. She is under the quilt but still cold. The room itself feels damp, as if she\u2019d left a window open and forgotten to close it, but she checked every latch before lying down, and now, her sleep is light. A sort of drift that catches at the edges of something deeper without ever falling fully. The sort of sleep she had when the kids were little when she was forever waiting for the small sounds that meant they needed her. A bad dream or an upset tummy or a cough that wouldn\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n<p>The noise that wakes her is not the sound her now grown children once made, but it is no less familiar. A click, a whir, and then the gentle blue cast of the television coming to life, and she blinks and blinks, but it doesn\u2019t change anything. The camera she left downstairs is now hooked into the small television Gary insisted on having in their bedroom, and the street view she knows so well skips once and then settles over the screen.<\/p>\n<p>Pushing herself up on the pillows, she traces the evening back. The camera plugged into the downstairs television. The tapes all lined up in their containers, stored in the built ins around the fireplace. She hadn\u2019t brought the camera upstairs with her when she came up for bed. And the view onscreen\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0. it\u2019s all wrong. She\u2019d never filmed the street at night. Even now, without Gary\u2019s questions and judgements, she films only during the day. She\u2019s too old now to change her habits.<\/p>\n<p>The speakers crackle, and she jumps, heart surging as she clutches at the quilt. Wraps it closer as on screen, the camera tilts, that alien, night world gone sideways, and then swings to face the house.<\/p>\n<p>She shakes her head. She didn\u2019t take this footage. Whoever is behind the camera isn\u2019t her. But the footage doesn\u2019t appear to be new. The willow tree that was her Mother\u2019s Day Gift when Brian was born is still small, and the mailbox is still painted that awful cherry red Gary liked because he felt it set their house apart from all the other houses on the street, no matter how garish she felt it was.<\/p>\n<p>She watches the varying gradients of dark\u2014blurred bits of grass and leaves against the dull shine of a sliver of moon\u2014as the camera bounces through the front yard and then toward the back of the house.<\/p>\n<p>The camera stays pointed at the ground, as if its user has forgotten it, letting it swing wildly at their side. Watching makes Paula dizzy, and her throat swells with nausea even as the camera finally steadies long enough for her to realize the camera has been set on the ground. There is a shuffling somewhere off camera. Footsteps. She waits for the person filming to come into view, but they do not, and again, that unseen hand picks up the camera. Turns it to face the house and the little door hidden in its side that leads to the crawlspace.<\/p>\n<p>She has never been inside the crawlspace. It was always Gary\u2019s domain, filled with dust and spider webs and all manner of many-legged creepy crawlies. Storage for the various tools he pretended to know how to use. The boxes of Christmas decorations he dutifully dug out every year when the kids were still home but were now left to molder in the dampened dark.<\/p>\n<p>Once, years ago, she\u2019d peered inside, arms wrapped around her body against the February chill as Gary cursed the house\u2019s mechanics because he feared there was a leak somewhere that had spread to the foundation and insisted she see exactly how right his assumption was. She\u2019d thought the leak was coming from the plumbing. In the end, they\u2019d both been wrong and had paid through the nose for a new roof their insurance refused to cover.<\/p>\n<p>The crawlspace door is open, and the camera moves, unnaturally steady now, further and further into the dark.<\/p>\n<p>Her chest rises and falls, and it\u2019s almost painful. The labor of breathing. The beating of her heart, accelerating in a way it hasn\u2019t in a very long time.<\/p>\n<p>The screen remains dark. There is the sensation of movement, of the lens searching for a source. She squints, and there is still nothing. If she couldn\u2019t hear the tape whirring, she\u2019d think it was a blank screen. She searches the edges of the screen, her brain hunting patterns, trying to create order out of chaos.<\/p>\n<p>Because there is another sound. Under the tape\u2019s noise.<\/p>\n<p>Is it possible to be afraid of only a sound? Possible to feel the revulsion creep up her throat and settle slick and foul against her teeth?<\/p>\n<p>She swallows, but her tongue is swollen, and she feels the urge to gag. Anything other than that sound filling her bedroom.<\/p>\n<p>An animal sound. That wet slurping.<\/p>\n<p>It is the sound of something nursing. Of something eating.<\/p>\n<p>Some thirty years too late, her breasts ache, the letdown she hasn\u2019t felt since Brian\u2019s infancy suddenly rushing through the creped skin at her chest.<\/p>\n<p>The light shifts into something brighter, and whoever holds the camera crouches, thrusts the lens forward into the slowly illuminating space. She doesn\u2019t know where the light comes from, but it\u2019s an irrelevant point, because it is her children in the crawlspace. Jennifer and Brian as she remembers them best. The children who stained the bathtub and requested snacks without pause.<\/p>\n<p>They are so small. Tiny fingers wrapped around something impossibly red. Fibrous. They flash stained milkteeth as they lick and chew. Their eyes glowing impossibly in the light as they glance up at the camera and then away. Dismissive. As if they are used to this intrusion, or maybe performance. Either way, they will not be interrupted for anything so simple as their mother\u2019s camera.<\/p>\n<p>Jennifer pushes her hair from her face with the back of her hand, and Paula recognizes her fastidious movement. Her little daughter, forever concerned with cleanliness, with the need to groom herself. A habit not passed down from either Paula or Gary. Something all her own.<\/p>\n<p>Seeing something so painfully familiar brings the nausea roaring back, and she stumbles to her feet, hand over her mouth, only not to make it to the toilet before the vomit comes rushing out between her fingers. It splatters against the linoleum and her feet as her vision blurs, white bursts of light in the periphery as the Lean Cuisine comes back up.<\/p>\n<p>Behind her, the tape goes dark, but before it does, while she sways, dizzy on her feet, she hears them. Brian and Jennifer\u2019s voices rising and falling through the syllables she imagines are etched in the very meat of her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMommy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The room goes channel three blue, and Paula goes downstairs, finds the lemongrass-scented multipurpose cleaner, a roll of paper towels, and a crumpled grocery bag to put it all in. She cleans so she will not think. Sops up her mess and sprays the cleaner on the floor and wipes and wipes until the grocery bag is full. Knots the top and carries it out to garbage. Closes the lid and stares at the street and the view her camera should have offered her.<\/p>\n<p>She does not think about those voices in the crawlspace or the red threads coating her children\u2019s hands and teeth, and still, her knees buckle. The driveway rises to meet her, biting at her knees, and she moans behind her teeth because it is night, and the night is built for quiet instead of screams.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t real. The video. The children on the tape are not her children. It is not their voices she heard. Not the bone deep familiar sounds of their eating.<\/p>\n<p>Kneeling there in the driveway, she says it again and again\u2014<em>not real<\/em>\u2014but when she pulls herself off the concrete and limps back into the house, the tape has not vanished or reverted back to the hours she carries in her memory.<\/p>\n<p>The unseen camera operator. The crawlspace. The darkness opening to reveal Jennifer and Brian. The reddish thing they are eating. It is all still there.<\/p>\n<p>She thinks of Gary. She would have known, wouldn\u2019t she? If he\u2019d been doing something like this? Taking their children under the house and forcing them to eat something she thinks might be some type of organ meat. A heart or a kidney.<\/p>\n<p>She would have known. They would have told her somehow. They\u2019d never been afraid of their father. Gary had a rigidity about him, a set belief in the manner things should be done, but he\u2019d never been the kind to inspire fear. There\u2019s was not a household where \u201cwait until your father gets home\u201d carried any sort of threat.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s listened to podcasts about things like this though. Women who spent their entire lives married to men who were secret killers or perverts. Women who claimed they never knew the inner machinations of the murderers sharing their bed every night. A load of horse pucky she\u2019d always thought. What these idiot women told themselves so they could keep on living with themselves after all that poison found its way out.<\/p>\n<p>But could he have done it? Even once? Taken Jennifer and Brian under the house and then convinced them, somehow, that it had all been a dream. They\u2019d been sleepwalking and never mind the strange taste in their mouths. Nothing a glass of milk and a shower and Daddy tucking them back into bed wouldn\u2019t fix.<\/p>\n<p>For so long, she\u2019s had the tapes. The physical manifestation of her memories. A record of everything she\u2019s started to forget. Could there have been something else? Some terrible secret she\u2019s managed to hold at bay because facing it, admitting it, is worse than keeping it buried?<\/p>\n<p>She considers going through the tapes. One by one. The hours and hours of footage she\u2019s gathered over the span of her life as a wife and mother. Let what she remembers play out on screen until she finds something she doesn\u2019t recognize. Another bit of evidence, another breadcrumb pointing her toward the darker possibility that she hadn\u2019t truly known Gary. Hadn\u2019t truly known their children.<\/p>\n<p>The thought of it exhausts her. She knows Gary. Well, <em>knew <\/em>him. Wherever it is that\u2019s he\u2019s gone in death, he hasn\u2019t come back to haunt her in the way anyone less practical would have promised her. As for Jennifer and Brian, they are the poster children for being ridiculously well-adjusted adults. Therapy and prescriptions for anxieties she\u2019d only ever known as a normal part of life.<\/p>\n<p>If they were going to blame their parents, they would have already done it. Called a family meeting to discuss the time Dad pulled them out of bed in the middle of the night and forced them into the crawlspace. Filmed them while they ate some tough, red thing that tasted bitter and slick at the same time. Delivered an ultimatum and then done the very millennial thing of cutting off their toxic parents after Gary and Paula both denied that such a thing had ever happened.<\/p>\n<p>She stops the tape. Stands. Moves before the exhaustion pulls her back down and forces her into a sleep that will make her forget. Before she puts the tape back in its case and pretends it hadn\u2019t happened. The role she\u2019s played her entire life. Swallow. Forget. Forgive the smallest cuts because what does it all really matter in the long span of a life?<\/p>\n<p>Her memory is a haunted house, and now, even the one stable point has dissolved into sand. She goes outside. Shuffles heavy-footed through the damp grass, tracing the same path the camera took, until she\u2019s standing in front of the crawlspace\u2019s door.<\/p>\n<p>Around her, the night opens its mouth, and she lets time dilate. Lets it stretch until she is touching the handle. The handle is unnaturally warm under her touch, and she shivers but does not pull back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNothing here,\u201d she says, and the quiet answers her with its emptiness. \u201cOnly boxes. Dirt. Silly old woman.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She opens the door, and the warmth she expected isn\u2019t there. Grave cold air licks at her as she crouches and peers inside. She did not bring a flashlight or a phone, and the moon is new, insisting on its shadow. There is no light to guide her way, but she inches inside, hands fumbling, searching for this thing that exists only on a tape from decades ago that might only be a product of her mind.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t enough to be known. Lived with. A soul can only exist if it is deeply, irrevocably seen. All the dirty cracks. The secret venoms. She has recorded it all, hoping it would be enough to drown in, but no amount of evidence can cover her trembling hands, reaching, searching, as she moves further inside.<\/p>\n<p>Her mouth waters, stomach twisting with the sort of greed Gary would have frowned at.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cDon\u2019t you think that\u2019s enough, Paula?\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n<p>She stumbles, hip clipping the edge of a box, and the tang of dirt and mold settles thick on her tongue, but there is something else, some deeper taste, that leaves her panting, her fingers clawing at the earth.<\/p>\n<p>In the back of the crawlspace, something shifts. Small movements her heart knows because she learned them when they were still portions of her own body.<\/p>\n<p>Her children reaching back for her. Tiny hands offering everything she tried to capture on film because she wasn\u2019t able to on her own. Never enough.<\/p>\n<p>Never enough.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMommy,\u201d they say. \u201cEat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paula lives in the cul-de-sac. She likes it there. The smooth curvature that dead ends into the split-level Gary bought for them back when it was enough to work at the drugstore. When the paycheck stretched far enough to pay the mortgage and keep food on the table and clothes on two kids\u2019 backs. A […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Ticky-Tacky - The Dark Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thedarkmagazine.com\/ticky-tacky\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ticky-Tacky - The Dark Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paula lives in the cul-de-sac. 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