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Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

By: GeneralBethlehem



Copyright © 2006 De Rozario Jesse

All rights reserved.

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*

1

Travis Born stirs. 

He rolls over and then is wide-awake. He half-sits, looking at the greenish glow of the digital display on his bedside desk. 

3:13, Mr. Casio tells him in mocking cheer. 

Travis groans. He thinks of knocking the damn thing off the table, but then remembers it had been his wife's clock, and leaves it alone. He buries his face in the goose down pillow and screams. 

3:13, he thinks. What's going on here?

These bouts of insomnia started two weeks ago when his wife disappeared, a month after the nightmares began. 

Karen Vernon. Twenty-three, blonde shoulder length hair, green eyes like javelins. A shape hot enough to burn the pants off the devil himself, he'd oft boast after a round too many of Chivas Regal. Tall, slim. Shit, Trav, you should get her to pose for Playboy, one of his brilliant friends remarked. Travis laughed, agreed, then gave that intelligent friend a bruise for his wife to question. Good ol' Chivas probably had a part to play in that. 

Travis thought about going to the cops with this vital data and submitting a Missing Persons Report (a code 2-14 as they called it in this part of the world) when he first came home and found her vacated from the premises. But after mulling it over (this thought process quickened by about half a bottle of Jim Bean, another favorite), Travis decided it wouldn't do any good. The cops would talk to her friends, relatives, other people she may have got into contact with within the past couple weeks or months—standard police procedure, really—and the truth would burst out, magically as a green rabbit from a hat. Only differenece was that everyone would (think) know she'd left him. He preferred it this way. Let her walk out nice and quiet with no one the wiser. But he thought that everyone would find out sooner or later. Seemed everyone knew him. Of course they did. His house was the highest on the hill. But better this way. Save him the humiliation—and terror. 

He wants to go after her and see if she can be saved—but after that letter, Travis changed his mind. 

Give it the full two weeks. 

This dark, ungodly, insomniac morning was Day Fifteen. A few minutes more and he'd find out if it was all true...or just his wife's freaky way of leaving him. 

They said two weeks, and Travis wants to wait two weeks. Right now, he is too afraid. 

He thinks about the past year. 

Travis had been the general manager of the city's largest bank. A boring job, some would say, but being a banker paid well. Well enough that he can afford a suburban home with a pool and a yard and what Karen liked to call 'the view'. Of course, this view is nothing more than three miles up on a hill looking down at the rising fog of pollution weave clouds through their city's skyscrapers and slums, but it has done him fine. Done Karen fine as well. The Lotus he bought her for their second anniversary suited her fine too. 

This is a second marriage for both of them. Some say experience is the best teacher, and their previous tie-ups has taught them a thing or two. 

His first wife left him because he 'didn't listen to her enough'. Mike Furl, Karen's first I Do, quit when he figured that if she wasn't going to provide certain favors, well, he could find it elsewhere—and cheaper, too. 

That was then. This was now. Travis finds her ex's accusation silly. During the first year of their marriage, Karen and he were making regular practice of the horizontal mambo—sometimes vertical, diagonal, or whatever which way you might imagine mechanically accessible—at every possible opportunity. It was great, just great. He felt young again—though thirty-eight was not an age he liked to consider old—and hadn't been able to go so long since he was in high school. She could go and go and go all night. Their sex life was great, their social life was outstanding, even their occasional arguments and fights were one-of-a-kind. 

And then one day, Travis got promoted, and that, really, was the beginning of the end. 

Travis's work hours stretched, home hours shrunk. Out-of-towns became more frequent. But Karen never protested when it meant he'd be bringing in an added fifty percent to the already ungodly amount he was raking in. 

Travis and Karen had discussed this one night after a light dinner and a heavy bottle of wine. The weather was running riot outside, canceling their plans to go out dancing. She'd agreed that he take this new position now, worry about the commitments later. They decided to celebrate. 

Other than the promotion and their first anniversary being only five days in the making, there was another issue Karen noted to him that needed discussion. She didn't tell him, but knew he'd better be in a good mood before she dropped it. Blasted weather for ruining everything. If you looked at it from the right point of view at the wrong time, the weather might have been to blame for everything. If not for the weather, Karen and Travis might still be alive. 

But the weather mocked them. 

2

"Damn the weather," Travis said. "Doesn't look like it's going to let up anytime soon. Look at the sidewash blowing over my wall! I just had that furniture revarnished!"

Karen walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He could tell from the way her breasts pressed against him that she wasn't wearing any bra. 

"Too bad," she said. "I really did want to check out that new Salsa place Celine told me about." 

Travis turned around and looked at her. "Hmmm," he said, though he didn't sound very deep in thought.

"Screw the weather," Karen announced with that impish gleam in her eye. "Just fuck me." 

He did.

First over the kitchen counter, which was the nearest location to the back porch—dinner at the half-way stage of preparation, the water in the sink running—both of them fully clothed. It was just before the moment of truth that Travis first remembered to ask her what her important announcement was. But it was hard—Have a pun!—with her legs dangling over the edge of the counter while her top half squirmed and responded. Besides, he had an idea what it was, and didn't feel inspired to talk about Travis-Karen miniatures just yet.

He dropped the thought and put his mind and soul into the task at hand. 

Later, after a dinner that was too rushed and the drink too generous, they continued the charade upstairs in the willowy comfort of their feather bed, sans clothing. The thought was still creeping around in his mind like a dark beast (What is it what is it? You stop taking the pill? Mr. Jones from the business center make a pass at you?), and he was about to lean over into her ear and whisper something horribly unromantic but horribly pressured on his mind. His lips reached her neck and opened to speak. As if sensing him, Karen spoke instead. She locked her ankles tight around her husband's hips and whispered, "Do me do me do me," into his ear. All rational thought vanished. Then she grabbed the back of his head and stuck her tongue into his mouth as he came. 

That, really, ended the night. 

Of course, the celebrating couple took in a few more rounds of the bad and naughty, but by then, Travis had forgotten all about what she was supposed to tell him. Karen, however, did not—she remembered wonderfully, oh yes.

That was after their first anniversary. Following it, Travis found himself ensnared by his work—almost to the point where he oft thought of quitting. He was home less frequent, but upon discussing it with Karen, telling her he would would drop it all at, well, the drop of a hat, if that was what she wanted. She did not want that, she had affirmed. She wanted them both to be (piggishly rich!) happy, and was willing to make sacrifices. Ten hours in the office a day, he found, really was a sacrifice. 

With his new working hours, the once happy couple rarely had time for more than an hour (meals usually being consumed 'le solitaire' prior to his return) before dropping off to sleep. As the sun was still breaking the horizon on the next morning, he would be gone again. And that was the routine, day after day, week after week, month after month. And then Travis realized, with an enlightening horror, that their second anniversary was approaching—and that he had seen more of his secretary and coffee boy than of his wife. A whole year had escaped them both without an inkling of their suspicion. 

This sudden remembrance caused him to recall something from that last anniversary. What was strange, was that though the wild sex on that first anniversary should have been the most memorable thing of that celebration (really, it was the only time he'd been able to come five times in one night—first time more than twice, anyhow. Oh, the things she could do to him...), there was something else that held a greater hold on his memory. 

What was it she had to tell me?

He found that though a whole year had passed since that night, the burning curiosity had not diminished. 

This memory had even occurred to him a few weeks back when he was sitting in the high-backed leather recliner—phones ringing all about like a madhouse (he personally had four in his own office), enough stacks of paper surrounding him to condemn a small forest—and he had, of all things, been thinking about life. Now that he remembered, it was the closest he'd ever come to a breakdown. 

Amid this contemplation, his secretary had come in, her pressed three-piece suit rustling with every move (the skirt's hemline a liberal two-hands' breadth above her knee, a couple jacket buttons left open for a generous view), gold-rimmed spectacles resting on the tip of her nose like costume jewelry, another stack of papers in her arms that ended inches under that generous bust, blabbing on and on about how he was going to be late for something or other, that he had this to do, so and so to call, arrange, meet, pick up and so on ladida dida. 

Travis wasn't listening to her. He was thinking about what a movie character would do. He felt like screaming, but didn't think the management would look too kindly on that one. Travis Born thought about laughing and laughing—just laughing himself silly—and figured that would be a more Hollywood reaction to all of this, but then he realized the management would most probably not appreciate this either. In fact, they might form a more suspicious conclusion to mad laughter than simple screaming. 

This thought squeezed a fat, liquid chuckle from him, prompting a question from his secretary if he was feeling well. Yes, he assured her, he was. He hadn't caught the flu for over a year now, and he'd been faithfully taking all his medicines too. He was eating well, sleeping average, he supposed, taking occasional trips to the gym, and doing his wife the service from time to time. That counted towards good exercise also, he did not say. He did not say the rest of that thought either, which amounted to how much he would enjoy tossing those papers from her hands, laying her over the desk, and 'showing her who's boss'. Ha-ha. In truth, Miss Rosa really did have the figure and costume of an adult film star. He thought she might prove better than a week at the gym, but failed to enlighten her on that as well. 

This thought led to another and another. Soon, Travis found himself reminiscing on the night of riotous action he and his wife shared that dark and stormy night five days after their first anniversary. But the memory that followed wiped away all trace of humor from him. 

Travis remembered the feather bed (and the kitchen counter, and the rug under their wedding picture...and the barstool...the bathtub too...jeez!), and this jolted memories of that special something Karen was supposed to tell him. 

Then he realized that she had not told him until now. 

The part of him that wanted to contribute maniacal laughter to the stressful working environment was subdued. His mind was all of a sudden alert and sensitive. Pricked like feelers. 

What did she want to tell me oh what was it what what?

The more he thought, the worse the answer became. 

She wanted to pursue her own carreeer and you stifled that. 

She wanted a baby...well, not too late, is it? 

And this one convince him with a dread that she had been pregnant at the time, but decided—under the turbulent circumstances of his upcoming career—to terminate the pregnancy. Oh, that one scared him more than anything. Travis had been raised a Catholic, and though he liked to think of himself as liberal, the thought of ending a life over a reason petty as work commitments filled him with a fear few other things could have— 

Until a month ago, when the nightmares started. 

When Travis remembered that night and her 'Forgotten Agenda', his mind stayed blank for a long time. 

"Something the matter?" Miss Rosa asked again, and Travis had to once more stifle that urge to tell her how perfectly he could perfectly see her splayed across his glass table—papers scattered, hose tattered. 

And I am a poet, and you did not know it! Ha-ha, bring on the madness!

Travis assured her he was fine (going mad, perhaps, but fine), but owing to circumstance he would be taking the rest of the afternoon off. 

Let the management deal with that one. Ha!

Despite the pleas and objections of Miss Rosa, Travis went down to Central Park, sipped coffee, ate a slice of twenty-cent pizza (God, the free, reckless taste of dirty oily street food was liberating!), and watched the sun disappear behind the mosaic sky of the west metropolitan. 

And he thought. 

He thought of a lot of things. 

This led eventually to the pressing question of Karen's Agenda. The more he wrestled with it, the more he could not let it go. After an hour of sitting exposed to the pigeons' rectal bombings in his three thousand dollar suit—though he was lucky enough to not find himself the target on this not so pleasant evening—Travis came to the conclusion that he would ask Karen about it tonight. 

He would go back, open an expensive bottle of wine, then 'pop the question'. Something helped him wonder why he was making such a big deal about it, but he told that impish part of his mind to shut it. And shut it the mind did. He carried on in his planning on what would go on after the questioning and the bottle of wine. The prospects were encouraging, though he doubted he'd be able to beat his personal record of five after all the stress he'd been taxing himself with. 

Three's more like it, he thought, then laughed out loud. Nah. Who am I kidding? I'd be happy if I get any at all. And then he laughed again. 

The idea formed that maybe she would have no recollection of what he was talking about. That was okay, he told himself. The more he thought about this, the more he realized that this was just an excuse for him to get 'reacquainted' with his wife. God knew that needed doing. With that wonderful plan in mind, Travis Born, general manager State City Bank (North-Western Central Branch), husband of Karen Vernon Born (home maker, and just about the biggest bombshell this side of the GMT Line), stood from his splintery park bench and straightened out his Armani suit. He was smiling. He knew there would be a new spring in his step when he walked off. 

But then, his cell phone rang. 

It was one of 'the management' on the line, demanding an explanation as to why he'd gone out without prior notice on a day that had so much in store for 'the organization', and that in future, it would do him best to bear this in mind before acting rashly. 

After the initial tongue-lashing that Travis received in relative silence, there came words of encouragement from 'the management', praising his work so far, and that if all went smoothly tonight with 'the deal', then he could be assured of a 'worthy reward' as a 'token of our appreciation to your selfless contributions'. They also did not fail to mention that his second anniversary to a certain Miss Karen Vernon (Mrs. Karen Born, he thought of correcting them, but did not) was nearing, and that there was a certain 'luxury automobile' they were aware she was intent on receiving. Travis assured them that this was his wife they were talking about, and that he knew her well enough. In an equally friendly manner, they advised him that should he wish to be able to afford that wine-colored Lotus, and more in the future, it would be in his best interests to keep his loyalties in the right places. 

They asked if he had any problem understanding that. 

With the white flash of smile that had closed billions of dollars worth of contracts (and won Karen Vernon's heart), Travis assured them that he did not have any problem, and that he would promptly return to his office on the forty-second floor, and, furthermore, they could expect no more of such activity on his part. With the management, it was always best to play convinced. 

The line cut, and with it, went the bottle of wine, the night of passion intended, and The Agenda. Again, forgotten. 

The meeting went as planned, the deal cut magnificently over dinner—even before coffee was served. In contradiction from what Travis himself had expected, his mind was not occupied with the afternoon's plague. By the time Mr. Jenkins (his face of 'the management') and Mr. Delcrout (some Frenchman with obviously too much money) arrived at the St. McClean's Steak House, all such questions were forgotten. His mind pushed out all other things and focused itself to the task. 

The deal was sealed with remarkable conciseness, and even Mr. Jenkins praised Travis for the transient dealings so that he'd be back home in time to watch the hockey game with his son. Travis smiled pleasantly, then returned to his own son-less home and no hockey game. 

What happened that night between Travis and Karen is something better left for those pizza-face dorks with nothing better to do than write Internet porn and express their explicit fantasies on paper. But you will be granted the liberty to know that the bottle of Montagut '67—Rosette—was produced in due time, and that surely served to spice up the evening. It was how Travis had planned, with the one forgotten exception: The Agenda. 

A few days later, their second anniversary dawned on them clear and crystal with a sudden feeling that the whole past year had been worth the effort, and now the hard times were over. It was time for fun and play. 

The couple planned a small, private party in the lawn of their hilltop home, with only their best friends and select relatives invited. Travis invited his parents, but was more than a little surprised when Karen informed him that none of her relatives would be coming. 

"Can't make it in time," she explained. "Business engagements."

"I see," Travis said, though he did not see. In all of their two years of marriage (and three years of sex and dinners before that), Travis suddenly realized that not once had she even mentioned her parents or siblings. 

Travis brushed it aside and went on with the preparations for the luncheon. All in all, there had been nothing to mar day so far. It seemed there could not possibly be a better day for celebration—except for one thing. 

It had happened late in the nine o'clock region—past nine thirty, not yet ten—when Travis was heading down to the basement to locate a bottle or two of champagne. Into the steamy cave of the cellar he went—it was a false cellar, actually still above ground level—with a lit candle and wicker basket. Small as the basement was, Travis was discovering great difficulty in locating what he wanted. 


Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep



"Perhaps this will help you," a voice surprised him from behind. 

Before he could scream, two soft hands were over his eyes and a pair of even softer lips were nibbling at his ear. His heart still pounding and wedged in his throat like a disobedient piece of apple, Travis forced out a laugh. Then he chased Karen round the basement cackling and threatening to tickle her before they settled on the top of a sturdy beer cask. It was empty, but heavy enough to support their weight and, um, momentum. 

Upstairs, the phone rang. 

Karen jumped as if a hand had come out of the barrel and goosed her. Wriggling out from under him with an apology and a promise to compensate him later, Karen straightened her skirt and ran up the short flight of stairs, babbling something about tablecloths and cherry pie. Her face and arms were still flushed. With a sigh and a smile, Travis adjusted his own clothes and continued his wild champagne chase. 

When he found the first bottle, the phone—with its old-fashioned bell blaring loud as a fire engine—had just stopped ringing.

"Hello?" 

Karen. 

Travis heard nothing after that. It was sooner than a minute later that he emerged from the cellar. He closed the door, latched it, and turned around. The phone was located on the wall in front of him. Karen was still talking. 

Travis saw it all and nearly dropped the wicker basket. 

3

3:15, the clock says. 

Jesus! All that recollection only took two minutes?

Grunting more from frustration than discomfort, Travis heaves himself out of bed. Normally, he tucks his feet into the carpeted slippers and puts on his robe. But not now. It feels so—what was that word?—pointless. 

God, even my brain is starting to decay. 

Travis laughs. 

It isn't a laugh to contest that one at the bank a few weeks prior, but Travis finds that sound frightening. Touching nothing, careful to make not a single sound, Travis walks to the broad windows overlooking the front of his house. Lately, he's been scared of creating sounds when he wakes up. Any slight noise frightens him senseless, so he finds it best to be able to rule out that the source of noise is from himself. But so far, it's been quiet. Travis steps to the windowsill.

Thankfully, the curtains are open, how he'd left them last night. There is no breeze, but even if there was, it wouldn't have made a difference. The windows are sealed shut. Travis looks out. 

The view that greets him could make most homeowners jealous. He is looking out over his lawn—vast, green, lit starkly by the moon's light that this early morn is horribly vivid—swimming pool in the left, swings set under the shade of a full-grown Elm Tree he'd imported all the way from Lebanon. 

Shouldn't that be 'Cedars' of Lebanon?

Shut up.

Okay. 

It is a spacious garden, but so far, he and Karen haven't been able to find any children to fill it. Funny, though, how she never mentioned the desire to have any. That sounded contradictory to what he's always thought of wives and women. He honestly doesn't mind either way, but thought Karen would. 

Now, the perfect, undamaged green looks blue in this light, through this glass. He glances over it, to the end, where the double gates stand looming. They're handmade from wrought iron, fashioned after those manor houses he'd been fascinated with as a boy. A two-lane driveway joins this gate to the front door straight as a runway. He can't see the front door from here, though. It's right under him, a bit to the right. 

The awning shades the silver Bentley and jet-black Jaguar—X-type. There is space for a third car, also filled. Thinking of that last car is like the egg and chicken question. It's a puzzle with no reasonable answer. 

Beyond the gate is what really has his fellow suburbanites bristling with jealousy. Though several dozen of the Moswich Hilltop villas are planted on the face of the hill, his is the only one that can really overlook the entire metropolitan from his own bedroom window. Grey buildings aren't exactly the pleasantest of views, but people find reason to envy under any leaf. 

But the nighttime view is spectacular. 

The city lays spread below him, aglow with the flashing specks of neon lights, filled in with the velvety blackness of the streets and smog that is a pale sleet color in the day, but a deep, comforting black at night. He can see the stadium from here—its floodlights blazing at full strength like Christmas. 

The road from his house to the city is visible, clear under tonight's (morning's, really) moon. It snakes in a more or less straight path from his house to the borders of the city, where it disappears in the sky-like blackness. Under normal circumstances, he would be able to see a car coming up that road from a mile away—more, if its lights were on—or a walking pedestrian from half that. Today, however, the world is a sea of light. He can see the shadowed sign of the McFlippy Bakery, and a person walking right in front of it. The moon was indeed bright. That shop-house isn't anything closer than two miles downslope from here. 

Travis looks closer. 

It's hard to tell the features or even gender of the person walking, from what it appeared, right to him. But he can see that it is dressed in a long robe—a trenchcoat, most likely—that covers part of their head like a hood. The cloak is a dark color. Well, definitely not red. Nothing that can reflect the moon's painfully bright light.

Who would be walking up here, anyway? he muses calmly as he can, but his mind does not let him rest. Anyone that belongs here has a car and would be driving. 

Travis continues to watch the approaching specter, and shivers.

4

Coming up from the cellar, his pants still propped in an uncomfortable tent shape, Travis saw Karen talking on the phone. 

No. 

Not talking. Listening. 

She saw Travis come up from the stairs and her eyes bugged so far out of her head he was afraid they might never go back in. Then she mumbled something and clicked the receiver. 

"Who was that?" he asked. His voice was suspicious, but not intrusive. When he came up, her face was scared already. 

"Wrong number," she said. 

Liar! You lying conniving whore! He wanted to scream, but all that came out was, "Oh." 

Oh? 'Oh' indeed! Your brow and neck are slicked with sweat, your face is paler than a loaf of bread, and you mean to tell me 'wrong number'?! 

He tried to put that behind, but it was impossible. How could she lie to him like that? But on the other hand, how could he be sure she was lying? Well, it wouldn't take Sherlock fucking Holmes to deduce that once he'd seen her. 

It'd taken him at least a full minute to find those elusive bottles of champagne, and why would you entertain a wrong number for so long? He came out of the basement and saw her leaning against the wall like she needed support else she'd fall. One hand was cradling the phone, the other clenched into a fist and hung delicately at her mouth. Prank call? He didn't think so. And then there was her face. 

When she left the basement to pick the phone, her skin was still flushed a healthy pink from her excitement—both true and imagined (Travis also noticed that she'd rushed to take that call with an urgency she'd never manifested before). Pink. A good rosy shade. Now, on the phone, just a few short minutes later, that face was a color so pale he had no words to describe. 

If death had a color, he thought, this would be close. 

And that color soaked in deeper when she saw him watching her. There was something in her wide glazing eyes. Fear? He thought so very much. This ruled an affair, because she was terrified even before he caught her gaze. 

She being harassed? Blackmailed? Possible. But how? Some pervert taken pictures when she was sunbathing or swimming? —And now demanding money? I'll give him something, alright! I'll sue him with the best lawyers and—

He interrupted that thought. It wasn't helping his anger, and right now he really was very angry. 

God knows I've told her to get some damn blinds put up or something, but does she listen? NO! It's like being married to a mule!

There were a thousand options to choose from, and none pleasant. That was a face of fear he'd seen—he was sure of it—and there was nothing pleasant about fear.

And there was also the last part of the phonecall. 

She seemed to have been listening for most of the conversation, not saying anything to whoever was on the other end. But just before she'd hung up, Travis heard her mumble into the receiver. It was low and quiet, impossible for him to pick up what she'd said. He knew he couldn't very well ask her what it was. Wrong number is all she'd say. He liked to believe that, but it was impossible. As far as he knew, Karen had come from a typical family—a family he heard little of, nonetheless—and done particularly well in her studies (she held a MBA in Social Sciences), but there was no second language. And he was sure he'd asked her this—he was quite the linguist fanatic himself. But unintelligible and distant as those few syllables were, Travis would have sworn it was foreign. 

And in a language he'd never heard before. 

5

3:23

Yes, yes. That's definitely a trenchcoat. Looks more like a fishing coat to me, but never mind. 

Travis watches with growing intensity as the figure begins to ascend up the long, uphill road to the Born residence. Watching it holds a terrifying fascination for him, though he can't remember why. The person is looking at him as it approaches. 

He does not like that. 

Not one bit.

6

After the phonecall, Travis managed to shake off that horrible feeling, letting it fade into the corner of his mind. At first, the weird suspicions wouldn't retreat, and he silently added this to the growing list of questions on The Agenda. 

This is stupid, he told himself. This is crazy. 

Putting the phonecall aside, what if The Agenda was something simple as a dress she'd seen down at her favorite boutique, or a diamond something? Or maybe it was all about the damned car that now sat under a tarp in the corner of the lawn, tied in a bright red ribbon, waiting for its grand entry. That would be a laugh, wouldn't it? But when you added the phonecall, something didn't sit right. 

There was a strange feeling in his stomach. Not butterflies or apprehension or dread—though the latter might have been something closest to it. It was the feeling of everything—everything: his life, his marriage, his career, his very sanity—unraveling. Like a ball of yarn with the end tied to a railing, the roll falling down an endless flight of spiraling stairs that dropped into an eternal abyss, unraveling and unwinding, becoming into nothing as it disappeared into the sulfuric, shadowed depths and screams. 

Other than this thought, the lawn party went as planned. If Karen was shaken by a phonecall earlier in the morning, she did not show it. Neither did he, for that matter. In fact, by the end of the lunch, he'd forgotten all about it. 

Karen was delirious over the car Travis had gotten her. But before the handlers unveiled it, there was that fleeting moment of absolute terror that they would find not a car underneath, but a double-spaced coffin with enough room for the both of them—filled with yarn.

But there was none. 

Later than night when all was over (including a drunk Celine who insisted she be allowed to take Karen's anniversary present for a test drive, then vomited cupcakes and champagne down her blouse with a look of utter surprise), the couple began the simple task of their party's aftermath. That was the good thing about upper middle-class suburbanites: They didn't leave too much mess. Other than a smeared puddle of Celine's vomit, their yard could've passed for sale. But Travis and Karen cleaned up in utter silence, as if each were weighing something heavy on their minds. The only friendly sound was when Karen found the drunk lady's hosiery (stripped off with the rest of her clothes before she jumped bare ass into their sparkling pool), and then the couple of two-years laughed. When it died down, they bundled the trash and took it out together with a silence rarely shared between them. 

They moved upstairs to the bedroom. 

He'd previously laid out a tray of chocolate and a bottle of cherry wine (cost half of what the candystick on wheels did, he complained to Greg, Celine's husband, referring to the Lotus) and sprinkled the bedsheets with rose petals. But when he picked up the bottle and tray and dumped them in the trash without hesitation, Karen didn't notice. 

They undressed and dusted off most of the flower pieces from the bed. 

They turned off their lamps at the same time, facing opposite directions, and went to sleep. But before he blanked out for the night (and what a long, long night it would prove to be), he thought he heard her say something. 

"Happy Anniversary, darling," she'd said, and with his consciousness fast slipping away, he was able to detect something in that voice. It was not anger or hate or spite. It was sadness. The kind of sorrow saved for a woman bidding farewell to her man, telling him that it'd been a good two years, wonderful, she had no regrets, but now they must move on to their separate fates. 

"Moov onnn?" he mumbled, but they were both asleep by then. 

Travis lived the first of his nightmares.

7

He was standing outside of his towering iron gate, beholding the breadth and height of his house. It might have been early morning or late night. It was hard to tell because everything was cloaked in a drab shade of grey. A smoky fog hung in the air like thick canon smog lingering on a battlefield after war. 

The gate was rusted and broken down. A bicycle could have ridden against the gate and caused it to collapse. Travis pushed it with the absentmindedness of shock, and the great gates opened enough to let him in. Travis stepped into his abandoned property, though ever fiber screamed at him to hightail it out. 

Get out get out get out now Travis if you fear your life and more

What more is there I have to find Karen have to find her

Don't hope on it Travis it is too late

What do you mean too late no way I HAVE TO FIND HER!

She is no more she has been...unraveled...

Travis stepped in and looked around. 

The house proper was covered so thick with fog that even the silhouette of his front door or bedroom windows were invisible. He could see the shapes of the Bentley and Jag and Lotus, but that was all. Travis walked in deeper. 

The lawn that he'd taken great pride in caring for was now overgrown with Devil Weed (Devil Weed? Was there really such a thing? / Only in your nightmares, Travis) and giant creepers that wriggled higher than the three stories of his house without support. They moved and swayed with a life of their own, tendrils and tentacles thicker than his arms swaying like snakes. 

When he walked past one, it tried to grab him. 

Travis moved to what had been the pool. 

Its surface was covered with thick dross and debris. Travis had once read of how the rivers and lakes in Hiroshima and Nagasake had been littered so badly with the corpses of horses and people that the surface was impossible to find. His swimming pool looked like that, filled with fallen trees and twigs and slimy mulsh. Even the walls had caved in, flooding the water with mud and carpet grass and (Devil Weed) giving it a swamp-like look. Travis looked up and saw that the moon was a thin sliver of pale blue—ice cold and razor—grinning down at them from behind scattered clouds of grey. 

The lawn was eerily bright. 

Too dark to distinguish whole shapes, but bright enough to see their presence. A wind blew from out of the tree line, wreaking upon him a cover of gooseflesh. Something shifted and sank under the water, and Travis thought there was something about it that had looked distinctly human shaped. But he looked away before the thought could grip deeper. 

Travis turned. He screamed. 

Someone was walking to him. 

Shambling. 

That feeling to run was never so strong, but Travis was helpless. His feet stood rooted to the ground like they were growing out from the tattered ruins of his lawn, and the thing advanced upon him. It moved slowly, but with purpose. It came closer, stumbling through the shadows and fog with a desperation—desperation to flee from something, or to something. It was coming to him. 

He could not move. Travis was about to scream again when he recognized the shape as Celine—Greg's wife, the drunken woman from the party.

"Celine?" he said, squinting. His feet were obediently decided against cooperating with him. "Celine? Is that you?"

It was.

Celine stood teetering in front of him, still drunk, he could see, but more than that. Oh much more.

Celine stood in front of him, laughing, without even a fig leaf. Though she didn't look wasted to act so lewdly, there was something in her eyes that told him she didn't care if the whole world saw her this way. The moon's light reflected blue off her skin, but it was a shade too dark for normal. Celine was a pale woman, he knew, but this was too much. The blue was not the color of moonlight on pale skin, but the color of frostbitten limbs and digits left too long in the snow. 

It was the color of a corpse.

She shuddered as if she had been left out in the snow. Other than the bluish hue of her skin, there were bruises and welts all over her body. He knew she was no more than twenty-eight or thirty, but looking at her body this way she looked fifty. There were lines of something under her skin—reddish purple lines that might have been veins. She looked like she'd been whipped. 

"Celine! Oh my God! What happened to you?" Travis tried to reach forward and cradle her, but his feet were still playing mutinous. "Who did this? Did Greg do this? Come—"

And then he stopped. There were visible cuts and bruises on her body, not to mention other marks that Travis could not imagine what had made. Yet, she was smiling. She was smiling, and (oh no get away stop!) reaching out to him. Before he could open his mouth to protest or scream (anything I'll do anything just don't touch meee), her hands closed over his shoulders, her face leering inches from his. Her nails dug through his shirt into his flesh, but they felt spongy and bent from the pressure. He looked down again at her maggot-colored body and saw a tag around her large toe. 

Then he realized.

This wasn't the drunken Celine who'd stripped at his anniversary party after too much champagne and cupcakes. This Celine had just walked out of a morgue. 

"Hello, Travis," she said, and her low voice reminded him of a creature awakening from a thousand-year slumber. This was not Celine—dead or not—this could never have been her. It was something else inside. "Do you think I'm drunk now?"

"I—" he tried to answer, but his voice was coming out in thick, clot-like blotches. 

"Bet you think you're real smart," the Celine-thing continued, "don't you, keeping her all the way out here like this?"

"Wh—"

"Don't you be sassing back to me now, boy. Mother knows best. Mother always knows best!"

"M...mother?"

"Which part of that word doesn't your stupid whitey brain understand? Yes, mother! Now, this is your first last and only chance you'll get. After that..." 

The thing that looked like Celine drew one long nail across her throat, drawing a trail of dark bile. Travis was horrified to see that her finger was thinner than a pencil but half as long as his own forearm. But he was too terrified to scream. 

"Ch...chance f...for what?" he managed to stutter, his blood draining all the way down to his feet. 

The Celine-thing laughed, that black liquid squirting from her self-slit throat, and all the blood that remained in him turned to piss.




Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep



"Her place is with her mother," it stressed. "And if you don't give her back," her voice was rising to a painful shout in this world that seemed to hold only the two of them left alive, "if you don't give her back right now you conniving kidnapping heathen son of a pig whore, you'll be sorry! I swear, YOU'LL BE SORRY!" 

Travis was shivering by the time she erupted into this finale. He felt a damp spot in the crotch of his khakis. In the fright of it all, he'd wet himself. 

Great, just great, he thought. I'm in the middle of what used to be my house, talking to my wife's friend who's gone insane, and I've just pissed in my favorite pants. Great. I was right, things are starting to unravel. That's gr— 

Interrupting speech is easily done, but it takes the gravest, most startling things to disrupt thought. Travis took one more look at the Celine-thing and his mind went blank. Zippo. Nil. Blank file. Disc formatted. His thought train derailed forever into the wastelands of insanity. She was standing there, looking right at him, one horrendously long finger pointing up at him from waist level. He looked down at the finger, then back up at the face that would remain etched into his nightmares forever. The discolored liquid still oozed from her neck, but it flowed out more from gravity than anything else. Her livid eyes were empty glass spheres floating in the jelly of her skull. The reddish purple bruises and welts were faded away. Travis blinked, and realized that he was once more looking at the real Celine, standing in the ruins of his lawn (without even a fig leaf). He looked at her finger again, and saw that it was normal—with Greg's ring still around it. 

Travis tried wriggling his toes and was glad to find that his feet were once more on board with the rest of his body. Slowly, ever so slowly, he lifted one foot. It cooperated. Then the other. Just like its twin. He was now free to move away, free to flee, free to run like the madman he was fast becoming, just to run and run and run and not care where as long as it was anywhere from here, to get away far far away if he didn't go now he never would and he would go insane, must run go leave now!

Celine's eyes blinked, cleared, and then her mouth drew into a normal line that looked like a mouth again. Her gaze locked with his, dragging the scream to his lips from the depths of his gut.

Those are not eyes those are windows and there's no one inside them no one no thing that any sane person would want to meet!

The scream was on the verge of tearing out when she spoke to him. Her voice hit him with such a jolt of terror, breaking gooseflesh over him in shimmering waves, that his scream was forced back down, plugged it in his throat. All he could do was choke and tremble.

"Beware," the Celine-thing-turned-Celine-turned-God-knows-what said. "Everything is unraveling."

And the thing standing before him opened its mouth so wide it looked like it was preparing to swallow his head, and then it spat something round and dark and red from its throat. 

Oh my God oh my God it just vomited its guts onto my lawn

And then it stood in front of him, unmoving as a statue, a string of gristle running down her front to the black, slushy grass and rolling itself out from the ball it was. The charade was finished. Travis looked again and saw that it wasn't entrails. It was (laugh laugh the jokes on you you tensed up jackass) just a ball of yarn—a huge, red ball of yarn. If Celine having just spat out a ball of yarn as big as his two fists instead of her heart was supposed to be comforting, it wasn't. Travis watched the ball unroll and disappear till it dropped into the drain. By then, it was only half its original size. 

Unraveling, he mused. Unraveling indeed. Isn't that funny. 

Travis took a wide step backwards. His suede Hush Puppies' loafers sank ankle deep into something soft, but he didn't (dare) care to look. He wiped his brow, clearing the cold sweat that had accumulated there like bits of uncooked fat, closed his eyes, telling himself that this was all untrue, all a dream, none of this was really happening, and then he turned around, leaving the creature behind him. —Forgotten. 

No, it does not exist!

Right. It was all just a bad compilation of brain memory storage. Nonexistent. 

And then he opened his eyes. 

Travis screamed when he saw the face in front of him—wide and pale and looming mere inches from his own. He screamed for all the pent up terror in him and the frustration and that sense of everything coming apart. He screamed because when he heard the sound of his own voice it slapped that sense of reality back into him, telling him that it had all been a nightmare, not true, and now he would awake back on his feather bed next to Karen. He continued to scream, and the sound was coming out loud and clear and his feet could move, but Travis did not wake up. Even when the hands fell on his shoulders and the face spoke to him, Travis was still screaming. 

"Jeez, Trav," Greg shouted at him, then slapped his face once on each cheek—hard. "Wake up! Wake up, Trav! It's just a nightmare." 

Travis closed his eyes, expecting to open them to the loving face of his wife, Greg's voice slowly transforming into hers. Greg slapped him again for good measure. Travis squeezed his eyes one last time to clear the remnants of the nightmare, then opened them. 

"You alright?"

Greg. He was still here. 

"Scared me there for a second, man. You were just having a nightmare, and sleepwalking."

"But..." Travis stammered, blinking, trying to clear his mind. It sure felt like he'd just woken up. "But what about..." he turned around ever so delicately, ready to turn and flee if that thing was still there.

"My wife, Celine," Greg explained with embarrassment. "Sorry about that. She gets carried away sometimes." 

Travis stopped, then looked back at Greg. He was dressed in an expensive silk jacket and tie, hair gelled back perfectly as it always was—but his pants were faded jeans, and it looked like he was wearing his wife's heels. Only they were in his foot size, and he wasn't phased in the least by Travis's obvious shock. Shaking his head to try to ward off that feeling of (unraveling everything is unraveling) strangeness, Travis turned around, and Celine was still there. But she was all Celine now. No bruises, no welts, no injured throat. No clothes, either. She was clean, too. Travis was puzzled. There was too much here that didn't make sense—

"But she's right, in a way, you know?"

"Wh...what happened to my house?" Travis gestured to the cataclysmic disaster that was his property, though the house itself was still enshrouded in fog. "What happened here?" then, a new fear gripped him and he grabbed Greg's shoulders. "Where's Karen?"

Greg turned away. 

"I'm sorry about your house, man. I guess it was a warning—"

"A warning? From who? And where's my wife, Greg? Where is she?"

"Look, man," Greg said with the serious compassion of a best friend, "my wife was right. Karen is better off with her mother. It's better for the both of you."

That feeling of being trapped in a nightmare was becoming more and more lucid. Travis felt he might never wake up. 

"What? What are you talking about?" Travis was ballistic. "In all the five years I've known her, not once, not once, has Karen mentioned a single peep about any of her family members." Travis was shouting now, all the blood rushing back up to his face. "Why should she go off running to her mother now?" Now, he was sure it was real. In all his nightmares as far as he could remember, he'd always woken himself up by shouting. 

"I don't have an answer for that, man." Greg stuck his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, silk jacket rustling smooth in the breeze. "I'm just telling you what I think. The only thing I can say is, well..." he shrugged. Blue moonlight highlighted his face like an opera soloist. 

If he says what I think he is I'm going to scream and scream and I'll never stop screaming till my head blows up or I wake up in hell or—

"...well, every goddamn thing is unraveling."

Travis started to scream. 

"Like she said it would. Two weeks, man."

Travis stopped. "Wait!" he said, but Greg was already starting to turn around. "Wait, don't go yet! Who said it would? Tell me!" Travis felt a cold body brush against him, but before he could do anything about it, Celine passed him, following after her husband—both of them doomed to this forever, and not knowing it. She smiled at him and gave him a wave. Travis saw that her fingers were once again longer than the rest of her arm, and then the couple disappeared into the fog. 

Gulping down a small iceberg in his throat, Travis turned around. He was trapped, he knew, trapped in this living nightmare. Whatever had elapsed between the night after—what was it? Birthday? Christmas?—their second anniversary and now eluded him. He found himself thinking about that phonecall she'd made earlier that morning—or whenever that was. And The Agenda. Yes, most of all, The Agenda. 

But his thoughts were interrupted as something emerged out of what was once his swimming pool. Something huge. It stretched through the surface of the water like an unborn terror escaping the fetal sac. It tore out, dripping and slimy, then dragged itself onto the bank fifty yards from him. It paused for a moment, nothing but a rough, black shape under the moon on this night right out of a gothic novel. He felt like Ichabod Crane confronting the Halloween Headless Horseman. The blue light glistened and reflected off its bumpy, wet skin. It shifted, and Travis froze, unable to even breathe or blink. 

Please oh please if there is a God don't let that thing see me

It did not. If it did, it had no care for him. The thing raised itself on all four legs, and from his distance, the silhouette had a gorilla's shape. A giant, horse-sized gorilla. Travis could not think until the thing disappeared, shambling off into the thick forest behind the swimming pool. 

Forest? I have no forest on my property? There's no forest anywhere here for miles and miles and—

Shut up. You have a forest now. Deal with it. 

I have a forest. Everything is unraveling. 

Amen. 

Travis walked towards his house. 

As if it had all been waiting on his attention, the fog house opened and invited Travis as soon as he'd started towards it. The clouds of fog that had just been too thick to see anything past shady outlines, blew away. Travis realized that he still couldn't see anything beyond the border of his house, and that the house was sitting in a giant puddle of fog. 

Travis went into the house. 

The entire ground floor had burned and gutted itself out to nothing but a blackened, pizza-like surface—oily and bumpy—with the occasional pillar that stood watching him like a silent predator. There was something about this utter destruction that made him smile. Travis looked up, almost expecting it when he saw that the top floor was completely unharmed, although all that separated them was thin wood and air. 

Travis stepped into his alien living room through the front door. When he turned the knob, it crumbled like burnt paper. 

He surveyed everything like a man who comes home one and finds that his house has been broken into might. Everything had that old, musty look about it. The fire had come, then the water—though a bit late—but this had all been exposed to the elements for a long time. Travis could have stayed gawking in amazement until King Arthur put the swords back in the stone, but he had business to do, and that business was upstairs. Yes, that, and someone—some thing—was coming for him. 

Travis hurried up the steps. 

Sword, Travis. King Arthur had one sword: Excalibur. 

No, swords. Two. King Arthur was a Swordsman. 

Not knowing where that absurd thought had come from, Travis crept to the door of his bedroom. 

The carpet along the hallway wasn't even singed by the heat. His feet still sunk into the plush thickness.

Travis reached the bedroom door and peeked in through the ajar gap. It was dark inside—not just dark, but black. It looked like the space behind the door was blocked by a thick black carpet. He pushed the door in on hinges that did not squeak, despite the ground floor below having burnt to a crisp. It welcomed him. 

Come in, Mr. Born. We've been waiting for you. For what? Waiting for it all to unravel, that's what. 

Travis stepped across the threshold, then stopped. This was his room, yet at the same time it was not. But it was. There were the windows, bolted shut as always (really? Since when?) with the curtains draped open to the side. Travis blinked as he remembered how Karen would strip for him then press herself against that same wall of glass, asking him if he thought the children in Central Park could see her tits if they tried. Travis had time for a fleeting thought before the sights and sounds and smells slammed into him and snuffed out that sweet memory. 

There was a smell—and the sounds were off. That was the first thing he thought. He always had the mammoth Daikin running, even if the storm outside was turning the rain to sleet and finally snow. If it got too cold, he switched it to 'Heat', but the machine never went off. Now someone had killed the power, and the silence was killing. 

Of course, you idiot! Your house went up in flames like Hansel in the oven, remember? I don't know what you think, but that'll silence your air-conditioning for sure. 

That wasn't all. He couldn't get the rest, but it was definitely wrong. Of course, his house had burnt as far as it could without wrecking his king-sized bed. He supposed that could do the life out of a home. But no, the life wasn't gone—there was another life in its place. A life that didn't want him here—or, did, for the wrong reasons. 

The arrangement of the room appeared normal, but it was impossible to shake that feeling that there was another presence in this darkness—not waiting to pounce out from behind the curtain, but creep up behind him and grip his shoulders. Everything was the same, save for the darkness. And that smell. It seemed that the farther in he went, the brighter it became. It never really got brighter than the false cellar where all this first escalated from (oh yeah, and speaking of which, you want to visit that cellar tonight, Travis? I've got a surprise for you there...haha!), but the moon tonight was bright. The clouds had been in front of it when he first went in, but now they were slowly diffusing, and light was filtering in through those wide, wide windows. 

Before the light illuminated the bed, Travis looked out the eastwardly-projected glass and observed with a mild fear that he couldn't see the other houses or the city below him—it was all blanketed in that same icing of fog—but he had the impression that there was no one down there in them. None that could help him, anyway, even if they heard him scream. 

Travis turned around, and everything hit him all at once: What was wrong with the room, the smell, the sights. It all boiled down to two things, but that could be just one, and—

Oh oh oh run Travis run run just run get out of here before your mind registers this and you'll never leave you'll go insane get out now get out! 

—it was all right there on the bed, waiting for him. 

That smell was the sharp, poison stench of burning soap and steel. Travis had once visited an abandoned slaughterhouse, and this was the smell that was bound forever in those walls. The rich, wanton smell of blood soaked and caked into everything, permeating the air like tendrils of vines creeping, seeking to grip and overpower. 

And there was a woman on the feather mattress—looking at him and smiling. 

Get out now Travis run this is your last chance you'll never run again if you don't leave now you'll never do anything else can you see her Travis do you see her fingers—

Karen was reclining on her side, wearing only a jacket that reached her knees. One leg was bent at the knee, thrusting out of the jacket, and drawn up to her waist. She had one hand on that knee, its fingers coiled around her thigh, with plenty of room to spare. The thigh was normal. The fingers were long and thin. Her once blonde, straight hair was now the color of dirty dishwater. It was frizzy, and draped all the way down to her belly. Travis saw this, but it was nothing to him. He saw her eyes, most of all. It was her eyes that called to him, speaking in a slow, hypnotic whisper. 

Travis, darling. Come to me, now. Take me!

His eyes locked with hers, that other voice screaming at him to (run Travis get out of there that's not your wife that's a Celine-thing run jump out the window if you must but don't go to her!) ignore it, but he took a step forward. The thing on his bed that looked like his wife beckoned him with her gaze. 

Lie with me, Travis. Sleep your fears away, and it'll all be over now. Mother knows best. Let it all un-ra-vel.

Travis would have walked into the fiery pits of hell itself had she not said that, but that sentence snapped his mind with a jerk. Travis looked at her again—really, really looked at her—and all the fear damned off at the brink of his mind tumbled in with an overpowering torrent. Travis staggered back and fell, shielding his face from it and screaming as the thing leapt off the bed and came to him. Its fingers slithering down, face cocking to the left and right, cackling like a fairytale witch. It came to him and stood over his chest like a predator preparing to take the plunge.

Travis screamed and stumbled back, grasping for the door handle. It was locked. It would not open. No. There was no handle on this end. She was coming now, coming harder and faster. Travis flung himself around, trying to escape her and find a way out of here. He saw the window and ran to it. 

"You won't escape! Can't! You're mine tonight! All mine!" the Karen-thing lunged for him, swinging her fingers wild. 

Bracing his arms in front of his face and closing his eyes for the shock, Travis leapt from his bedroom window. The maroon Lotus was there below, he knew. It would save him broken bones. But it didn't matter. Anything to get away from this house...away away away and never return. Already, its sounds were fading as it merged back into whatever abominable dimension it had come from. The glass shattered before he hit it, showering the gleaming hood with a glitter of crystal shrapnel before he could fall out the window. 

Travis had enough time to regard this before he saw the swaying shapes of what were once Greg and Celine reaching out for him from the bluish shadows below with ever lengthening arms. 

8

3:26

The clock sure takes its time when the sun is down. 

It is hard to believe that only three minutes have passed since he last looked at the clock, but Travis does'nt like to believe that the Swiss makers were lying about the quartz accuracy and all that. He gives the clock a sly, mistrustful look, then returns his gaze to the window. The distance the figure had advanced up the steep road to his house only helps the theory that the Swiss had been lying. 

But I just changed the batteries, Travis defends. 

Travis squints at the approaching figure. That's a trench coat, alright, and mighty unflattering too, but it is obvious that the thing underneath is a woman. The face and hair are hidden in the darkness of its hood, but there is the visible flair of hips and ample breasts. He could have been mistaken, but Travis swears those are black pumps attached to the feet. The person sways, instead of swaggering. 

Not drunk, then. That's what my father used to call the Seventeen-Jewel Movement. 

Travis casts a last spiteful glance at the clock, sees that the green glow is pegged stubbornly to 3:26, and goes back to watching the walker. Strangely, though the moon is starting to glow blue and a fog creeps over the city below, the anniversary nightmare is the furthest thing from his mind. 




Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep



9

Travis awoke from the most lifelike nightmare in his entire life of sleep, but his sheets were still dry. There was none of that screaming or cold sweat or shaking that usually accompanied such things. He found this even more unnerving. 

That's 'cuz those are nightmares, you idiot. This one was real! You went somewhere...saw something...

He squeezed his eyes tighter, still not daring to open them, going by the sense of feeling. Besides, if he were still trapped in that world, then those things would be waiting for him to see them. They wouldn't attack him in his sleep, would they? Travis thought not. But still, he waited until he was sure the soft smoothness under him was sheets and his feather mattress before he turned around. He had still been facing his outside of the bed when he woke, if that meant anything. Eyes still closed, Travis scooted closer to Karen till he could feel the warmth from her back against him. Tentatively, with ever so much care and apprehension, he ran his hands over her body. First the head, then through her hair, only his hands and fingers coming into contact—yet he could still feel that awakening exciting warmth over all his body. 

If you touch her like that, they'll know you're awake, Travis. 

He blotted out those thoughts, continuing his exploration with cold enthusiasm.

The warmth was comforting. That was a start. He ran his finger tips over her front, just enough to confirm that the shape was truly hers. His eyes were still closed, but he felt his whole body jerk when he came to the arms. Slowly, dreadfully slowly, he crossed her elbows. Then to the hands. 

Smooth, exactly how they felt after she'd treated them as she did every night. 

The fingers. That is all it would take, really, to know. And he needed to know, but didn't want to really know, if all this was still an extension of the nightmare. A prologue, perhaps. He'd escaped them all in the end, hadn't he? But what if they followed him even until here? That was just silly, and he knew it. Travis reached down and grabbed all her fingers in his hand. 

Travis exhaled a long held breath on the back of Karen's bare neck when he felt her fingernails outside his own hand. It was all right, then. Everything was all right. He opened his eyes. 

The first thing he saw, an image that would remain etched into his mind forever, was the green digital display of the faithful Casio. 

D:IE, it said, and Travis nearly screamed out loud. Had he told anyone about it, Travis would have sworn he saw the sticks of the digits shuffle themselves around like a toothpick game. When he blinked again, it said, 3:13. 

Just sleepy eyes, he told himself. It's still early. 

Karen's half-conscious body began to respond to the nearness of his own. She moaned quietly and backed up into him, rubbing herself against the rising tent in his shorts. Travis smiled and kissed her head. 

Not a bad way to erase a nightmare, he thought. 

Travis and Karen began to get worked up by this mid-sleep activity. Karen still had more than one foot in the land of dreams, but something told him that unlike his own, her dreams were pleasant. He draped one arm over her waist, and her hand slowly moved to stroke him in. He could feel her heart beating under his palm, and the sound and feel of her breathing was impossible to ignore. The room became considerably warmer. Travis moved slowly, kissing her neck, leaning over and watching her sleeping body. 

Then it all stopped. 

Travis shuddered when her breathing stopped and smiled to himself. Karen always held her breath when she came—even if she was asleep. But her heart had stopped too, and Travis was suddenly very afraid. The warmth of the body in front of him dropped to the temperature of a refrigerated side of beef. The purring moans from a moment ago were replaced with an icy silence. Everything was wrong. Everything was so, so wrong. Any trained professional would have immediately turned her over and begun life-saving procedures, but Travis was too petrified to do anything. 

Karen turned over to face him. 

Tavis grimaced as the pain from his groin shot up to his chest. It felt like she'd broken it when it pulled out. Then he saw her face and that pain was forgotten. A pale person standing under the eerie light of his nightmare's moon would have looked no different. Karen was normally tanned, but now her face was the blue color of death, the lips parted and purple, showing graying teeth. He looked down her body and saw that the rest of her skin was starting to fade too. 

Travis could do nothing. His hand was still draped over her hips, the other nestled in her hair. He was starting to go into shock—breathing hard and erratic, heartrate risingn like a thermometer stuck in boiling water—but he could no more move away than he could get her body to respond. He was about to scream, he could feel it coming out from the pit of his stomach, building up like a tidal wave. He opened his mouth, then she opened her eyes and Travis choked on his scream. 

"You have been warned, love," she said in a voice that was all hers, yet lacking intonation or tone. "I must go back to my mother." 

Travis looked at the real-life corpse of his wife with a mixture of horror and disbelief. Never in all their years of intimacy had he heard a single word about her mother, and now, all of a sudden, it was the word of the century. Those eyes weren't blinking. They weren't even looking at him. They were glassy and open. 

And then she dropped the hammer. 

"Or else," Karen said, "she will come get me." 

Karen turned back around, her body flushing back to that gorgeous brown of life and warmth. She was back asleep now, seemed to be even wanting to continue what they'd been interrupted from. Travis fled from the bed, leaving her asleep in frustrated dreams. 

Mother. Her mother is coming for her. 

3:13, something else reminded him. 

Travis watched Karen toss and turn on the border of sleep and wakefulness for a few minutes (16 minutes in total, Mr. Casio told him) before she succumbed to the hour and fell back asleep. But there would be no more rest for Travis. When Karen woke late the next morning, he was still sitting in the chair by the windows, watching the town dive into their routine—blissfully unaware. She thought nothing of it, and said nothing. But she didn't greet him with a kiss or 'Good morning', which was highly irregular. 

"I had a strange dream last night," she said with an impish smile—a smile that suggested pleasant detail—then it changed to a look of pure terror. 

Travis saw that look—both looks—but said nothing. 

"What was it about?" he asked with a dumb grin.

"I...I don't remember." She had the face of a woman who'd suddenly woken up the in woods and realized she'd lost all her clothes—or perhaps her mind. "Except that it was...was wonderful," that smile returned, hair mussed and beautiful, lips pouting, "and at the same time, terrible." Karen gasped and raised a hand to her mouth. She looked at Travis as if to ask if it all really happened, but his eyes said nothing. "It was...strange," she finished, then shook her head and got out of bed. 

They never spoke again of that night. It had never happened, as far as the two of them were concerned. 

Their marriage continued in a way considered normal for most middle-aged couples, but one that was abnormal for them. During the two years they'd spent in wedlock, Karen and Travis had been towards each other as two teenagers embarking on their first weekend of wild fun. Now, suddenly, over the period of one night, they'd grown into grandparents. They rarely spoke to each other—and that life and spark were gone. The bedroom life was normal—not bad or infrequent, but there was nothing special about it anymore. In fact, it was hard to say anything about anything anymore. There were no more individual moments; it had all rolled into sameness. 

From the time Travis woke from his nightmare at 3:13 in the morning, it was only fourteen days till Karen disappeared. 

Travis spent those two weeks in the office. Not working or really making milestones in his career, but just ticking the days away as if in a daze. If he happened to telephone home, she was rarely there. He found out from a mutual friend that she'd been taking the car for drives. Travis tried to pay less attention to her now, telling himself that it would all go away soon, she was just having a mid-life dilemma (not really a crisis, but a problem), and that she'd come to soon enough. He was lying to himself, he knew, but it made things easier. Things would never be the same again, and Travis knew that as much as he knew that Karen was aware of it as well. That was why when her car trips began to get longer and longer, Travis let her go. 

Karen would come back from her drives with a visible glow about her, like a child first discovering the joys of chocolate. She would ramble on and on about where she'd gone, what she'd seen. Travis never knew so much could be done and seen from behind the wheel—he'd always thought of a car as a means of transport and a symbol of power. Nothing more. But the car was somehow adding that much needed spark to their dying lives. A few nights were even made more interesting as she insisted on having it in the car. It was small inside, but cozy. With the radio on, a blanket thrown over them both, things were starting to pick up a bit—or so he thought. They might actually ride this one out, though he doubted things would ever be really the same again...but it was nice to hope. 

The fateful day came upon them—the day he'd known would ultimately descend and throw everything out the window. With one final, deciding stroke, it all came unraveling. 

Travis had returned early from work. His marriage—his entire life—had been on the brink of shattering, and for no reason either. But it was starting to improve now, and he wanted to push that along faster if possible. Travis drove home, whistling, in the open seat of the Jag. He drove all the way up Moswich Hill in a single step, his foot never leaving the pedal. 

Weather was great, really great. Bright, clear sky; lazy, floating clouds; hazy sun. Neighbors were overly friendly today, waving and calling cheerily about nothing. 

He got to his gate, and then that feeling sank like a gem lost to the mud. 

The front gate was open. Not ajar, but wide open, as if inviting in a marching parade.

Karen never did that. No matter how busy or preoccupied she was, she had a habit of closing things back—cupboards, doors, gates...

Travis sped in, his heart rate already doubling, sweat forming on his brow and under his armpits despite the dry coolness of the day. Sliding the car beside the covered body of the Bentley, he flipped the radio off, and realized for the first time how quiet everything was. He noticed the Lotus still parked. 

Travis smiled, closed his eyes, then laughed at how silly he'd been. 

Karen was just taking a late trip today. The car was still off, but the gate was open. It was obvious she was preparing to go out. He went over and felt the hood of the wine-mobile. Cold. 

Yup, going out alright. 

He was even happier now that he'd come home early today. He would join her, and who knows how much things might improve because of today? Whistling again, walking with a spring and visible skip in his step that would have probably turned a few heads had there been any heads to turn, Travis bounded up the stairs of his porch three at a time. Even if the door was ajar, so what? She was going out, right? Thinking of the surprise on her face when she saw him home early, Travis pushed the door in. 

Why he'd been expecting to be ajar, he didn't know. It wasn't. Still excited as a kid on Christmas morning, Travis turned the knob. And that's when the cold rushed into his body. 

The door was locked. 

He turned it again to confirm, but it did not budge. All the curtains were pursed together, the windows in front of them locked. The gate was open, yet the front door was locked. Karen never locked the door when she was at home. This was a safe neighborhood, which was part of the reason why this house cost close to a million smackaroos, but— 

But her car was still there, and the gate open. 

What, you mean she decided to go for a walk, and opened the whole two gates to get out? And then left them open?

Not knowing what to think, Travis fumbled for his keys and burst into the living room. He combed quickly through the ground floor, even braving his fears and exploring the cellar. She wasn't hiding in a corner among the wine, nor was she hiding in the kitchen preparing ravioli and meat sauce. The main hall was empty, the sitting room. There was a spare room behind the kitchen—originally intended as the servants' quarters—that was locked, as usual. Travis broke out the keys and searched there. It took him a full five minutes of fumbling and dropping the keys and having to start again through the ring before he managed to get the door open. The single bed and table were there, all made out and neat, but empty. There was no sign that anything had been in here since they last cleaned the room. That's when he realized he'd really covered the whole property, and began to panic. 

Travis gave himself a second running tour of his own home with a frantic madness, shouting her name. The yard was empty, and Travis had to force himself to look at the pool. He feared what he might find floating on its surface, drowned and bloated. Even more, he feared the water would be black. But it was not. There was no disturbance on the water to even suggest that the pool had anything in it. The only thing on its surface was a fallen leaf, no more bloated than his sweaty shirt. His face wretched into worry, Travis ran back in and dashed to the second floor. 

In all his hurrying, Travis failed to see the thing sitting on his sofa. 

He scoured through his bedroom, tearing curtains aside. When he got to the bathroom, that same swimming-pool feeling filled him. He ripped the showercurtain with a little scream, but the bathtub was empty and dry, no one purple and bloated floating. The beds all made. The cupboards were locked, which was strange in itself, but he was starting to give up now, starting to accept the truth, that she was gone. Really, really gone. 

Karen, his wife, was gone. 

Sweating, his heart rate and breathing rocketed up to a rate he hadn't known in some time, Travis stood at his wide windows, hands in his pockets. He thought he saw fog creeping in from the side, then realized it was only smoke. But the afternoon sun really was hiding somewhere now, wasn't it? Yes, he was sure that wasn't his imagination. He stood there, looking down over with a deepening sadness. Then he saw her car, and for some reason, that gave him the shivers. She'd loved that car, she really did. If she was going to leave him, he was surprised that she hadn't taken it with her. Well, she hadn't taken anything else from the house—not even a single change of clothes, from what he could tell—but how was she supposed to leave without a car?

A cab, silly!

But Travis remembered what the thing in her had said that night. Or else my mother will come take me. What? Was he supposed to have had told her to go back before her mother came? That's what it would seem like now.

Downstairs, the wind blew through the open back door, and something on the couch stirred. 

It was still there when he came down, sitting on the sofa in perfect stillness. 

He froze for a moment when he saw it, but then as if an overpowering curiosity took over, he stepped into the living room and stood about twenty feet behind the back of its chair.

Not much was visible other than the back that was dressed in a coarse, black robe. Ropy lengths of electrocuted dishwater hair frizzed all the way down to the floor—like it'd been cooked with a toaster or microwave. Travis stood for a moment before he realized he was prolonging the inevitable—giving his terror time enough to build up and explode. Travis sucked in his fears and went around it to see the front—to look that thing in the eye and scream. 

There was a moment where Travis's heart felt like it had clamped up on itself and his lungs were trying to push themselves out of his throat. It was only a short moment, but it was the feeling that everything in the nightmare was coming real. 

And then he realized the creature was just a giant stuffed doll—a farmer's scarecrow. 

There was a smooth, painted face (with a spot of something red on its lips), straw spilling from through the openings in the black robe. There really weren't any feet or legs, just two broomsticks that stuck out from under the skirt-thing and didn't even reach the floor. Travis thought it odd that a scarecrow had legs at all—but, there was a scarecrow sitting on his living room couch. And every door and window in this place had been locked. 

There was something clutched in those childish, stick-hands. A large, white envelope. Not large enough to hold unbent documents, but big enough to look childish and cartoony. Then he saw the hands.

Oh God it's real it's all real it's all going to happen like in the dream her hands look at her hands

Scarecrow hands are most commonly made from tufts of straw or wood, and rarely have fingers, but this one had individual fingers crafted from wood. They trailed on the ground. 

That terror welled up in him for a moment, but Travis was more deeply filled with a sick feeling of boredom. Too much. All this was becoming too much. He knew what he would do. He would go there, take the envelope from those thing's monstrous, snake-like fingers, then he would drag it outside himself into the yard. There, after a generous washing of petrol from his wife's car, the scarecrow could join all its ancestors in the sky. He would burn it, then piss on it, perhaps throw the envelope into the fire for good measure. His wife ran out on him, left him with a terrifying toy to play with, but he was a grown man. He would get over it. And tonight, he would invite Greg and Louis and Steph, and they would have one swining bachelor party. Greg was the only married, but Travis knew things weren't wonderful between him and Celine. 

It was a great plan—a noble effort, by any measure—but the only thing Travis really did was destroy the scarecrow. 

But first:

Travis walked over to the couch, unaware of the booby trap that'd been set. As he neared the sofa, the Hush Puppies struck a thin, invisible string. It all happened so fast. 

Travis was only aware he'd triggered something when the giant plasma screen on the wall came tumbling down. The cost of a good car exploded into chips of plastic and circuitboards and grey liquid as the crystal splattered all over the white carpet. Travis saw all this in slow motion, in horror, but had that moment of anger before a shadow swept past him, and he felt something rising up from the sofa in the corner of his vision. A part of his mind saw the string attached, but that part was too slow. When the scarecrow jumped up from the seat and fell against him, long fingers grabbing and reaching, the head lolling like a broken lollipop, Travis screamed. 

Later, when the boogieman was nothing more than a smudge of wet ashes, Travis returned to the envelope. It sat on the table, inviting, so inviting. But now it was nighttime, and of late, Travis had become a man much more prone to Nyctophobia. Tucking the envelope under his arm, he trotted off to his first insomniac night. 

Coward, something told him just before he drifted off. You should have burned the letter. 

The next day, he awoke with Casio proclaiming unabashed that it was 4:30. He never got back to sleep. He thought of the letter sitting on his writing table, but it was still dark outside. Travis sat at the window instead. 




Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep



10

3:29

Thinking back on it now, Travis realizes that since that first morning after he had burned the scarecrow, he's been waking up earlier and earlier. 

The night—or morning—after that first, he woke at 4:29, then 4:28, and on Sunday morning, 4:26. He had dismissed them as mere minutes, but on Monday, Mr. Casio joyfully announced to him that it was 4:01. 

Christ, he had thought, then went down to make coffee. 

But other than the sleep loss, everything is starting to get normal again. Of course, there are nights that he cries so much from missing her that he feels exhausted and drained after—as much as he feels after a long run—and others where cold sweat and nightmares return. There are nightmares every night, but after the first on the night of his anniversary, these are like happy dreams. Most of the time, he wakes screaming, clutching his pillow in self-defense as something comes for him, but when Travis reviews the events of the dream in his mind, he usually starts to laugh. 

The only time he was truly frightened was the morning he didn't remember the dream, and he couldn't see the clock. The letter had been sitting in front of the display. 

He'd put the letter under the clock when he went to sleep. Behind it, 3:42 had told him it was time to rise and whine.

On the fourteenth morning of sleepless terror, Travis Born had opened the letter. 

11

3:33

Travis stands leaning over the letter. It is nailed into the leather of his desk by the window with thumbtacks. It has become like a game—a game that could only have been formed in a sleep-deprived mind slowly going mad—to see how much he can do without touching anything. He hasn't done much, really, other than relieve himself (misses and soaks Karen's furry toilet seat) and watch the walker come up the slope. 

That's not a trench coat. Not a fashion one, anyway. Looks more like a raincoat. The kind worn by fishermen, perhaps. 

Travis thinks of cloaked fishermen wielding hooks and has to laugh. He takes one last look at the walker then bends over the letter tacked to his five thousand dollar writing desk. At this rate, it would take another hour or more for (her) it to come up to his house. 

What makes you think she's coming here?

Oh, I know, alright. It's all ending, all going down tonight. Tonight, it all unravels.

Travis looks back down and begins to read the letter for the tenth time. He skims through the first few paragraphs. It only explains things he felt he already knew. Things about her family not originally being from this country, but having emigrated from Africa. Her ancestors had been one of the first white settlers of a country he didn't know existed, let alone could even pronounce. It comes as no surprise to him when the letter tells him that her family is the last remaining who can speak the language. 

Of course he had not understood the phonecall. 

He continues down the page, and that's when the hairs on his arms and neck began to prickle, even though this is his second read. 

In order to preserve traditions and language, the letter reads, it was important to marry only into certain families. Travis was certain his family wasn't included on that special list, so thus all the noise about mother, though he couldn't understand for the life of him why Karen had acceded to this nonsense—or, even worse, how this had turned up in his dreams. And as time went on, it continues, this list of families became smaller and smaller, as they each 'betrayed themselves and gave marriage to those outside the Ralesh'. Travis later understands that this word, Ralesh, refers to those white settlers who'd embraced the land and its dark religion—even after the original tribesmen had abandoned such witchery. The sound of that word gives him the shivers.

It's all unbelievable for him, fantastic yet creepy in a familiar way. His wife ran away. Simple as that. But to think that she'd gone through so much trouble to create such a fanciful reason is more than he can accept. 

But he has that feelinig that it is somehow true. 

Travis decides to read it word for word. It is written by hand on old, yellowing paper that looks scroll-like. But the ink is new, and a deep, dark brown—red, maybe. 

In our family traditions, it has become normal for women to be arranged into marriage with those they might have never even seen before, and who might be decades older than themselves. Many remaining Muslim nations and India and several parts of Africa still practice this. It is not unheard of. But we are not so barbaric that we marry pre-adolescents and young teenagers away to old men. No, the Ralesh simply encourages marriages between young women of marriageable age, and men whom we believe will be beneficial to the progress and survival of the Ralesh. The purpose for this is merely for the sake of procreation, for in today's society, it would be impossible to keep our blood name alive without this method. But as time passed, and the other families crumbled to corruption, it became evident that we, too, were doomed to fade away. Unless something was done. 

Our elders came together and made a decision. Their decree was that no man or woman may marry outside of the Ralesh until they had first fathered or mothered a child within the ranks of our structure. This may sound incestuous and heathen to you, Travis Born, but you must understand that this family is vast, and we embraced this new ruling with pride and joy. Of course, not all were happy to abide by such rules, but enforcement had to be carried out.

Travis shudders at what such enforcement meant, but continues reading. 

If a person married themselves outside the Ralesh before producing a child, they were convicted of adultery, and subject to punishment. We never excommunicated anyone, no. Each were too precious (but there are means of punishment, Travis, that would pain you to even think about). And if this infidel marriage happened to produce a child, that child would have to be done away with. You see, Travis, it was only by keeping such strict rules as these that we were able to preserve our name. That is also why your marriage never fathered any children, Travis. Your marriage was founded in rebellion, but not enough to risk a child. 

However, in these other marriages, the unsuspecting parties were often innocent victims of this ancient crossfire. Our women are rarely kidnapped back to us, and men almost always return without physical warning. However, the interfering spouses are warned. 

Travis understands what 'interfering spouses' means. Someone like him. 

There was no fixed method to deliver this warning, but it was always clear, and with a given timeline. 

Travis shivers. Is it possible that Karen is now being held hostage by a cult that is her own family? That would explain why she'd never mentioned anything about them? The more he thinks about it, the more it seems possible. They had warned him. They had done more than that. They'd struck the living fear of hell into him, God alone knew, but he'd chosen to ignore it. There was no clear 14-day timeline, but he'd always known that was the limit, didn't he? Travis thinks he did. He somehow knew it was two weeks. The Greg-thing had told him on the nightmare of his anniversary, but Travis had pushed everything into the corner of his mind as nightmares. 

The reason was because he loved her. He loved Karen.

Love is stronger than fear, he thinks. But stupider too. Far, far stupider. 

Travis continues to read.

Once back in custody, the men almost always see the error of their ways, but errant women are often in need of enlightenment. Nevertheless, if they are cooperative and birth a pure child to us without resistance, they are permitted to go with their other lives once more. You must understand, Travis, that there is nothing evil about this. It is our way, and must be done.

Travis bristles in anger as he imagines what they mean by 'enlightenment'. A thousand pictures come to him from cult movies of dark caves filled with a million candles and torches that never burn out, of the sacrifice being placed on a round rock and tied down as her fate is dished out to her amidst her screaming and the low chants of a thousand others. He pictures Karen chained on one of these rocks, screaming for salvation and mercy, as she is forced by men that could well be her own brothers and uncles. Travis weeps, but he continues to read. 

If the woman is found to be with child within fourteen days of her return, all is forgotten and forgiven.

If not, then she is reunited with her husband, and they are both translated into the eternal. 

Travis reads this and realizes that this is the morning of the fifteenth day. The deadline for her conception. If he isn't dead by the end of the day, then he knows he will see her at end of her term—but it will also mean that his every fear and tortured imaginations would have had come to pass. The returned Karen would never be the same woman he knew and married. Travis thinks it would be better if they were both dead. That's what they mean by 'the eternal', isn't it? Travis can see no other meaning. 

The letter goes on, explaining that no two deaths were alike. Some are painless and so quick the subject will know nothing, while others could last hours. But in all their centuries of existence, not one mark had escaped. Before Travis can absorb this in, they warn him against trying to find them. 

In conclusion, Karen's letter consoles him that for better or worse, he will know the answers in two weeks, and it will all be over. 

Travis reaches the end of the letter, and the last words run a bark of shivers down the dry bone of his spine, erasing any doubt that all this is really happening. All throughout, though the hand is slightly different, it has come across to him as Karen speaking. That makes it easier for him, knowing that she'd left the note, then walked out of her own free will.

But what about her car, Travis? And the scarecrow? You don't mean to tell me that she put that there for you? 

Travis can no longer think clearly. He looks back down again at the signature and feels his skin ripple again. 

It is signed Guinevere Hera Vernonne, and then in brackets, Karen's Mother. 

12

It's all coming unraveled. It was all real, and I knew it, but I was a fool not wanting to admit it. Tonight it ends. Karen is dead—or worse—and my own death lies just hours away. 

Dropping his hands to his side, appreciating the solitude that the darkness provides, Travis cries. 

He cries for the loss of the innocence of life, for the loss of Karen, and most of all, for the loss of his sanity. Through his tears, he thinks he sees the walker clearer in his vision, but brushes that off. He is going insane, and if that walker is coming to kill him, then let it kill a madman and put him out of his misery. He begins to think of how alone he is, how very alone. Even if he dies this morning, it might be weeks before anyone suspects anything enough to find him. No one had reported Karen missing, and honestly, there are none that would miss her. That's a horrible thing to say, he thinks—she had been the light in his life—but it is the truth. He'd taken care of everything. The people she saw won't cry murder if she fails to show up. She'd been gone two weeks already and there isn't any noise from that. 

Seeing through blurry, teary eyes, Travis resolves on a plan to end all this misery. 

He would start by returning to bed and collapsing on the white silk sheets till he feels inspired to proceed. There is a Magnum .45 in his bedside drawer—the one that is always locked because Karen hates guns. He plans to retrieve the silver automatic and blast another hole through his unraveling mind. The thought of suicide has never held any appeal to him, and as a Catholic, he believes eternal hellfire waits for all those guilty of such a heinous crime. It is only this that makes him uncertain. But then images of Karen dance through his mind, black-and-white and sepia toned photographs of their shared history, marching through his mind in procession: Of when he had first met her when she was a trainer at the tennis club, of her smile and laugh that had made him feel like a careless teenager all over again. He remembers the past two years of marriage, nothing short of a blissful glimpse of what he felt would last forever. Travis smiles, then the images turn to darker things—things of what might be happening to her at this moment. 

He sees cold, wet slabs of underground rock and torches; high priests and candles and sacrifices, and at the midst of it all, Karen is kneeling in the center, having submitted to their will, but though her head is bowed, her eyes are looking at him. They hate him, those eyes say, hate him hate him hate him. 

All your fault, they say. 

Travis is now convinced that a supersonic slug is the best choice. Either they both die tonight, or she will return in nine months—nothing but an empty shell of the woman he loved. 

Making up his mind, Travis imagines the cold weapon just steps from him, how the metal would feel in his grasp, and that final flash and bang before darkness blots out everything forever. He likes the sound of that. It feels like a decent plan. He decides he will do it. All of it. 

But he only gets as far as turning around. 

That is when he sees his bed. 

Travis opens his mouth to scream but cannot. It feels as if all the air from his body has been sucked out of him. Knees threatening to buckle under him, feeling the thumping of his heartbeat in his ears and throat and fingers, Travis can only stare.  

A man is on his bed, naked from the waist up, lying on his stomach. The sheets are pushed down to the backs of his knees and the man is leaning his head on crossed arms, staring at the clock on the opposite side of the bed that now says, 3:45. 

It looks as if he has just woken up and is checking the time. 

Oh my God oh my God this isn't happening this can't be real wake up Travis this is the worst nightmare you'll ever have if you don't wake up now you won't wake up the same ever again wake uuuup...

The man's eyes are open. Glassy. 

His head is propped on one palm, but Travis knows that if he touches the body, it would be as cold as the moonlit fog outside, and that if he rolls it over, the skin would be clammy as plasticine. The man is dead. Travis knows this, but beyond the dead man in his bed is the knowledge that he knows how the four-inch scar on the man's right shoulder blade got there. 

He'd gotten that scar trying to shimmy under a fence in the eighth grade. 

Travis Born is dead, and is standing at the foot of his bed, looking at the dead body of himself.

One of them lies stiff as the other starts to scream.

13

5:50

A mildly hazy form of Travis sits at the edge of the bed, looking at his own pathetic corpse. It is hard to sit, really, because he keeps falling right through the bed. Twice, already, he'd sat down too hard and fallen all the way through to the basement, screaming unheard at what he found there the second time. There weren't any spooks, no, but Lance was there, Karen's Bull Terrier. He'd died last February and been buried in the corner of the property. The dog was walking around now, unaware that he shouldn't be. But other than that, there was nothing wrong with it. There were no signs of decay, no rot. Everything about him that should've been there, was. When he was a puppy, he had run away from the house for a couple days. Some cruel devil had seen fit to shear off the tip of his ear with a pair of garden scissors—that part was still missing. And when Lance saw Travis, the dog ran and bounded on him with the joy of finally seeing his master again. Travis shivered and fled through the cellar's locked door, trapping the dog behind. The poor creature hadn't yet discovered how to go through solids. 

But there are other things. They are both dead—he and Karen's dog—but there is no sign of decay. No sign of time passing. 

But when did I die?

Had he not been intent on refusing to touch things, Travis realizes he might have found out earlier. But so what, then? Would that have made a difference? He is dead now, trapped in this house, and nothing can change that. 

Can there?

For the past hour or two he had screamed at the corpse, begging it to get up and move—or better yet, disappear altogether and wake him from this horrible, horrible nightmare. But reality is slowly settling in that none of that is going to happen. The only thing he profits from screaming are tortured howls from the basement, each one sounding less and less like a dog. 

He'd died at 3:13 exactly, he knows, when he first woke and saw the clock. Like that first sleepless morning when Karen had spoken to him with a different voice and the clock had spelt the letter of doom. 

It is now 5:52, or so that leering Casio says. The sun should be waiting just beyond the horizon, casting its lemonade glow over the first few miles of clouds. But either those are rain clouds in the sky, or there's something wrong with the clock. Travis is willing to bet on neither. 

At exactly 6:00, he notices the woman waiting at the threshold of his gate. He noticed another thing, too. 

The gate is rusted as a sunken ship. 

Even though she is standing but a few yards from his window, Travis is unable to make out her features. The coat is thick. The hips and bust are wide, and on any other day, under any other situation, he would have appreciated them as voluptuous.

Travis watches with a child's earnest as the thing passes through the metal of the gate and begins to walk up the driveway. Her hands are pocketed deep in the cloak, fingers hidden. 

Travis follows her movement as much as he can from the limited angle of his room, even squeezing into the corner of his window to look down as she passes under the awning of his outdoor garage. She turns, coming more into his view as she walks by the Lotus. The cloaked woman lingers as she approaches the bonnet from the rear. One hand emerges from the cloak and strokes the paintwork. 

Affectionately? Spitefully? 

Travis can't tell, but the angle hides her fingers from him. 

Get away from it! That's my wife's car! 

Travis wants to bound down and strangle that thing with the gall to walk in and molest his wife's private property. She really liked that car. Really, really liked it. And the thought of having even its paint smeared by some long-fingered specter is more upsetting than frightening. He is dead, she is gone. Can't that be the end of it? 

"Leave me alone!" he shouts aloud. 

The woman turns up to him and Travis staggers back. 

He cannot see her face. Her eyes are hidden in the shadows of the cloak, scanning his window. It is darker in his room than outside, but Travis knows, just knows, that she's seen him. 

It tucks its hand back into the pocket with a sly move that hide her fingers from him—as if she knows he is looking out for them—and moves to the front door. Though he is all the way on the second floor—a thick door, hallway, and flight of stairs separating him from her—Travis can hear the click of her pumps on the parquet floor as she slowly steps her way to the foot of the stairs. It is impossible, but it isn't his imagination—he can hear her coming. 

And...what? 

Travis...

That voice! She hasn't spoken, oh no, but still he hears her. She is calling to him—in his mind. 

Travis are you up there I bet you are...and you're not sleeping either you're awake and waiting awake and waiting for meeee

He can see her in his mind's eye, standing at the foot of the wooden stairs with the thin strip of Persian carpet running up it like a tongue, looking up the flight with her wide, hidden eyes. The hood overhanging her forehead like a cave lip, but doing nothing to hide that pointed nose. Things move in the shadows of her hood—things that are not of her own body. One long-fingered hand reaches out and grasps the railing, a nail scratching its ten thousand dollar finish with horrid ease. Still, she makes no advance, just looks up into the dark of the second floor with those wide, cunning eyes. Wondering. Asking.