Chapter Four
Grant must have fallen asleep at some point, because the sun’s return woke him from a strange dream. His hazy mind recalled an old house, cobwebs and dust, silent and still. But he was back in his apartment now and had to shake the creeps from his head. He got up and looked around. There was nothing unusual about his room—his sweat-stained mattress on the floor, clothes gathered in a heap, a glass bong beside it. The window was locked, no sign of his visitor.
In the bathroom, he wiped the grit from his eyes and flipped on the light. The face in the mirror wasn’t his own—it was white as bleached bones with sunken eyes like silver dollars. Blood-red lips and saw teeth parted in a scream stretching his jaw so wide it hurt.
Grant recoiled and collapsed into the bedroom, grabbing his face with sweaty hands. On the floor, everything seemed normal—his stubble, his broken nose, his lips, his jaw. He panted in a quivering heap until he caught his breath. Then he stood and looked into the bathroom mirror. It was just him. He shut the light off and closed the door. Grant didn’t want to see the mirror again.
He lifted his mattress and found a plastic bag with a small dose of coarse powder settled in one corner. He bought it from the man in the car. It was always a good time, but as his heart raced, he began to contemplate its side effects. Rolling the last of it back and forth in the bag, he thought about going down to South Street and confronting the bony bastard. You sold me a bad batch. I’m seeing things! He’d probably get himself killed.
But if it wasn’t the drugs, then what? Had something followed him from South Street? Was it really there in the dark, or in his head? Grant could still vividly see the grotesque face from the alley, and now the mirror. He wondered if Ferrill had seen it too.
***
Ferrill was moving slow that morning. The phone rang and he staggered after the sound. His body ached all over, thanks to Grant’s knobby limbs, and his mind felt like Swiss cheese. His feet padded softly down the plush carpet of his family’s home. Now he didn’t want to leave it again.
From the comfort of his room, Ferrill could hear his mom visiting with friends downstairs and the noise of his dad’s TV, the volume always too loud. He realized for the first time that he found the sounds soothing. He had seen enough of downtown’s cruel underbelly. It wasn’t for him. He lost his interest in shady deals and back alleys. Ferrill didn’t want any part of whatever got into Grant. He took his time answering the phone.
“Hey …uh.” Grant’s voice was uneasy.
“Morning, douche.” There was no trace of levity Ferrill’s greeting.
Grant felt his face warming red, thankful that Ferrill couldn’t see him. “Hey, I’m sorry about yesterday, My bad. If it makes you feel any better, I think you broke my damn nose.”
“That’s great,” Ferrill laughed. “But I’m walking like an old man today.” The beginnings of a smile tugged at his lips. Without looking him in the eye, Ferrill remembered that he enjoyed shooting the breeze with Grant. Maybe he won’t write him off just yet.
“You started it with that sucker punch,” Grant waded into a tease. “I’ve learned my lesson. No picking a fight with you.”
“Don’t take me back to that street and we’ll be fine,” Ferrill’s tone darkened momentarily.
“Don’t worry,” Grant said. “I think I’m done with all that. I don’t want to go back either.” He paused for a long breath. “When we were in the alley… did you see anything?”
At once Ferrill recalled the disappearing figure. First as faintly as a dream, now flooding back to him. “So that was real,” he spoke to himself.
Grant’s heart pounded in his throat, “Did you see its face?”
“I couldn’t see anything but its back,” said Ferrill. “And then it was gone, into thin air.”
“It was horrible,” Grant’s voice dropped to an whisper. For a moment, he debated whether or not to divulge everything. He wondered if it could hear him now. “I still see it. At first, I thought it must’ve chased me home, but then I saw it in the mirror this morning.”
Ferrill didn’t want to believe him. It should be easy to dismiss Grant as delusional, but he felt his skin crawl at the thought of that thing. Creeping, following. I’m glad it picked you, Grant.
Grant began to speak, but his voice choked. The bloody fluid draining from his nose irritated his throat. His sputtered gasps carried over the phone and Ferrill began to worry.
“Sorry about that,” Grant regained his breath. “Hey, listen. That thing’s got me pretty creeped out. I need to get out for a while. Want to split a case?”
Ferrill opened his sock drawer and dug out a ten dollar bill from the bottom. He delayed a moment, then responded. “Sure thing, see you at the wall.”
Grant thanked him and held on to the phone long after the call had ended. When Ferrill’s voice was gone, he grew wary of the silence. How pitiful, he thought. Scared of being alone and the only friend you have to call is a kid. He turned to the door slowly, afraid he might glimpse something awful. Not this time, but he had to leave. His apartment felt haunted and his nose burned with the presence of dust and the mineral scent of blood.
***
The alley wasn’t so bad in the daylight. Helms had arrived with the Detective Marshall to give the scene a definitive examination, in case something had been overlooked in haste. Helms pulled the lopsided barricade tape away as Marshall passed underneath.
“It looks like the crime scene techs were as anxious as you,” the detective said. Then he looked back to Helms and felt a hint of his shame. “I guess I can’t blame them.”
As they made their way down the desolate corridor, Helms noticed that the entire atmosphere of the neighborhood had changed. It still stank of smoke and garbage, but the lingering sense that he was being followed had gone. The difference between night and day, perhaps.
Marshall surveyed the surroundings, up and down the walls, to the fire escapes, around every corner, but Helms kept his eyes trained forward. The detective noticed. “Ease up,” he said.
“Nobody ever saw it in the daylight.”
Helms would rather avoid the subject, but he also felt the need to unload the burden. He hoped the detective wouldn’t find him crazy. Or naive. “Always in the dark. Always in a place they shouldn’t look.”
“That’s what they said,” Marshall replied.
“Do you believe that?” Helms asked, forcing an incredulous tone. It wasn’t convincing.
“Well, I find the whole story hard to believe,” Marshall sighed. “All those murders are related. I’m sure of that. But the walking nightmare bit? The face in the corner of your eye, damned if you look? I probably shouldn’t take that too seriously.”
“Of course,” Helms spoke. “But I see where they’re coming from. You’ve worked some damned-awful cases around here. Dead folks stuffed under the floorboards for months. Heads in the freezer. People trapped in burning buildings…” Helms swallowed hard. “Do you ever see something so terrible that it sticks with you?”
The detective grimaced, like he held something bitter under his tongue. “You should know better than to ask that,” he reprimanded. After a long while, he spoke. “I have dreams sometimes, like we all do. But I don’t let it get to me. Everything I see in there is already dead.”
