(My first story, for anyone unfamiliar: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/sfy1fu/fataville/)
Hello, all!
Apologies for how long it’s been since I continued. I began to type up my other story that I felt you all would find interesting, but, to be honest – the situation around my friend Ondine is still something I find somewhat hard to think about. It’s a story I want to tell, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
So, in the meantime, I reached out, trying to find some people from my hometown willing to discuss their experiences.
I had a little more luck this time! No one who currently lives in town was willing to talk to me, but I found a software developer who’d moved out of state who was willing to share an experience they had, on the condition no names appeared in it. You have to be careful about these things.
I’m trying to finish the story of Ondine and thinking about going back to see if I can interview anyone. I can’t give a date, but take this in the meantime.
Copied verbatim from one “Annaliese”, aside from name changes to protect privacy:
So, this happened when I was in my twenties, right?
I know, I know the rule about sunset. Everyone knows the rule about sunset. But you know as well as I do that people stretch rules all the time. I knew you weren’t supposed to be outside after dark, but I thought – my porch doesn’t really count as outside right? It’s got a screen and everything. I thought it would be okay. And I guess it sort of was? In the end, anyway.
Let me explain.
I didn’t have any work to do, so I was curled up on my porch with a little merlot, breathing in the evening air. No one was on the streets, already – the few people I saw, I saw getting out of cars, brushing away salt as they entered their homes. It was quiet, a good night to sit and rest. You know in the evening when the air’s cool like a glass of water, and you can just sit and relax and be washed clean of the day’s cares?
It was a good night. Can you really blame me for not wanting to go inside yet? I mean. I know it was dumb. But I really thought it would be okay. I didn’t think Anyone would notice me, and I thought I could just go inside if They did. I was so close to my door.
What happened?
Well, I think I must have drifted off for a moment. The air was cool, and my chair was soft, and I just don’t know. I must have drifted off, right? I remember it like…like I fast-forwarded in a video. You know, you press the button and everything’s hazy for a moment, and then the whole scene changed. It was like that. I was just sitting there, sipping my drink, and then I looked around and it was night.
Do you remember the nights there? I saw a video once, from a sailor, of what night looks like in the middle of the sea. Blackness pressing down on you like a wall. Like being swallowed.
It was never that dark in Fataville, but it felt like that. Do you remember?
Well, when I saw it was dark, I did feel afraid then. I remember suddenly feeling like my little porch was a raft on a churning ocean. A tiny island of sanctuary in a place that didn’t belong to me.
I stood – a little unsteadily, from the merlot – and I was going to go inside and turn on the TV or something. What had looked like a good idea when the sun was up had a different face now. I was going to go back inside. My hand was at the door when I heard the footsteps.
I shouldn’t have looked. It’s rude to look, and it’s not safe to be rude. But I looked.
I saw a procession, moving slowly down the road. I couldn’t have counted how many there were – if it was the wine or something else, they seemed to swim in front of my eyes. There was twenty at the very least, although I couldn’t be sure of that – I thought I saw the gleam of bodyless eyes, their owners obscured by shadow too deep for the surrounding night. The details of the figures were hard to make out.
I don’t know if what I remember will be of any use to your story. But I’ll try.
There was a woman, I think. All crowned in flowers – my friend Adelaide, they know everything about flowers, all the names and things. I don’t know these names, but I remember how bright they were. It was weird – it was like she was lit by sunlight, even in the middle of the night. Her flowers were so bright.
I remember another woman too, I think. Her dress was white and her hair was long – past her thighs, trailing on the ground. I remember her because I could see everything about her but her eyes. I think that they must have been covered by her hair.
I don’t like to think she didn’t have any.
I thought I saw many things. But what I know that I saw was a coffin.
They were bearing it on their shoulders, their faces set and solemn. I realized, then, that many of the strange pallbearers had faces streaked with tears. Many were crying quietly, in that awful way people have when they know nothing can be done. I remember looking at them and feeling tears down my face. It’s silly to say it now, but you weren’t there – they were just so sad. I remember when my mom died, and I just felt crushed, you know? People say that a lot, but that’s really what it felt like. That sort of awful place after the first shock, where the loss is setting in, and it’s like the sun will never rise again. Like it will be night forever, and you’ll always be in a world that doesn’t belong to you anymore.
That’s what I felt, looking at them. Like a car wreck, I couldn’t look away
And then – this part is a little hard to explain. I know it was stupid, okay? It just felt right. Like something that needed to be done.
I was staring at the procession and I saw something. They’d almost passed my house, and it’s the strangest thing to say now, but it felt like there was a space in the procession. There was something missing. Someone was supposed to be here, and wasn’t, and now everything was wrong.
I had to do something. I had to. I can’t justify it now, but I had to.
I started to sing. I say I, because it was my voice, but not the tune nor the words didn’t belong to me. I’d never sung like that before, like a crack of lightning, like a wail. I can’t remember the words now, sorry – I just seemed to know them. They needed to be sang and so I knew them long enough to sing. They were heavy words, deep and dark. They ached in my throat like a mouthful of seawater.
And the procession stopped.
As one, they turned to stare at me, every head moving in unison. I wanted to run, somewhere in me, but I couldn’t. I had a duty I had to fulfill.
A man left the procession and approached me. He was tall – so tall I didn’t think he could have fit into my porch. Everything about him was stretched – his hat was terribly long, and his fingers had double the joints of mine.
He spoke to me. It’s strange – I remember what he said, but I can’t remember his voice at all.
“You come at a welcome time, friend!” he said, and a sort of shivery shock ran through me. “We lacked a keener, and so our ceremony was incomplete. You are most welcome,” he said, and smiled at me with too many teeth. “Come! Now we can lay our friend to rest with honors.”
Did I go with him?
Of course I went with him.
How could I not go with him?
I can’t tell you everything that happened – I’m sorry, I know you have a lot of curious fans on the internet, but it’s not mine to tell, right? It was a personal, private moment that I was only permitted to intrude on for a night. It’d be rude, and you know how They feel about being rude.
Suffice it to say, I did come home. My girlfriend found me on the porch, fast asleep. I had a crown of flowers upon my head, and alcohol on my breath. My face was red with weeping, she said, but despite that I had a faint smile upon my lips.
I had been missing, according to her, for three days.
Did anything else happen?
Well. Suffice it to say I was paid for services rendered, and leave it at that.
Fin.
I thought you’d all be interested - I certainly was, for how markedly different this was to my own strange experience. It’s probably folly on my part, but I find I want to know the secrets of my hometown more and more. There is so much there that hides behind the rules. I’m retired now - it’ll be dangerous, but I can’t help wanting to pry further.
Annaliese refused to explain what she meant by payment, but I have a theory – that I formed by checking her LinkedIn, if you can believe it. She’s listed as a software developer, but when I looked at her education history, it said, Otherwhere College.
Now what do you all think about that?