Sleep is beautiful. It’s our break from the world. Peace. A slide into the valley of the Lotus Eaters. I look forward to sleeping at night. You might say it’s my favorite hobby, which is funny, considering it’s so hard for me to do.
I don’t sleep well. I blame the neighborhood I live in. The unearthly squawks that echo across the lake are a part of the issue. Everyone says it’s a heron, and that’s exactly what the squawker wants them to think. The packs of inbred, feral cats aren’t exactly quiet. The interbreeding is so extreme that they’re de-evolving. At least I think that’s what’s happening. I saw one the other day that didn’t even have a face. My neighbor Dan likes to start up his front loader at 3 am and dig holes, then fill them up again before the sun rises. He’s a good guy.
I lay awake, staring at the faint light shining on the Bluetooth speaker. I covered the light with a shirt, but it only dimmed it. My girlfriend was asleep next to me, humming softly and speaking a language that no human has heard for several thousand years. We played rain over the speaker to drown out the noise from outside, but it wasn’t loud enough to mask the ancient spell she was weaving in my ear.
Something distant niggled at me. I reached over and turned the stormy ambiance down four notches. I scooted my head away from Vandie’s sibilant mutterings and listened. The sound picked up again, a rattling coming from the kitchen. No, the door to the carport.
In the light of my phone screen, I could see glowing green eyes staring at me–that’s the extraterrestrial noodle that sleeps on my floor at night. Otherwise known as our German Shepherd, Bert. Sometimes I swear she stands over me on two legs while I’m sleeping. She turned her head towards the sound as it grew louder, satellite-sized ears standing straight up.
“Shiiiiiit,” I hissed.
There were several things it could be. The philanthropist that crawls out of the lake to reorganize our storage shed, leaving a cyan slime trail as a receipt. A learning-disabled cat, thinking it had finally caught something to eat. That naked guy that pops up sometimes, repeating the made-up word, “willahsam,” over and over again. Oh, yeah. I forgot to mention one of the scariest things about the neighborhood: the tweakers.
“Fuuuuck,” I wiped my eyes and swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
“Dœçë çômëk væk ñâla?” Vandie asked.
“Yeah, it’s okay go back to sleep.”
“Good. I love you.”
I could see the glowing night sights of my CZ 9mm from the half-open drawer next to me. I unsnapped it from the holster. I listened hard. Sprouck, our old pitbull was awake now. He finally heard the sound and gave a half-assed bark, like he hated his only job.
“Thanks, bud,” I whispered.
The rattling stopped, replaced by another sound. A clicking. That was the door opening. A muffled bang. The doorknob bouncing off of the pantry cabinet. Oh my fuck, it’s inside. The storm door hissed closed. Irregular footsteps sounded on the creaky kitchen floor. It sounded like something crippled, a twisted, pitiful thing. Then there was another sound, a groaning. Pain. Misery. Regret. Rage. Hunger?
I stood and paced quietly to our bedroom door. The dogs followed behind me, Sprouck growling low, Bert staring at the door, laser-focused. I pressed my phone hard against my stomach and flicked on the flashlight. I cracked the door. The dogs tried to rush the breach but I blocked the crack with my legs.
A putrid smell hit me in the face like a commandeered street sign wielded by an unhinged meth head. It was a rotten, sweet reek like vomit and old mud. Lake mud. I held my breath and flung the door open. Bert and Sprouck darted out. The groaning intensified as the dogs set on the thing, their claws clacking on the tile in the tussle. I pointed my light and saw a mass of limbs and fur on the floor. I closed the door behind me and made for the light switch.
I kept the 9 pointed down while I rushed away from the fight. I flipped the switch and the lights came on. Momentarily blind, I backpedaled away from the fight. The living room coffee table slammed into the back of my knees, and I almost went over on my ass. I covered my eyes as they adjusted. That’s when I saw the thing.
It was unthinkably awful. A horror that resonates on the deepest levels of the subconscious. It was… oh my god.
It was my neighbor, Burke.
“Hey man,” he said from the floor. He was petting the excited pups with one hand and holding a whiskey bottle up with the other. A trail of thick mud tracks trailed from the door. “I hurt my hand picking your lock.”
“Hey man,” I said. “You should be more careful, I could have shot you.”
“You weren’t answering my texts,” he slurred. He got to his feet, hugging me. I held my breath to avoid the stench.
I checked my phone. “You haven’t texted me.”
“Yeah I did,” he looked down at his phone and began to read, hiccupping. “I said ‘Hey, wake–’ hicuh ‘–the fuck up or I’m going to send everyone that picture from the Christmas Party, the one where you got so fucked up you puked on that guy in thewheelchair because you thought he was a–’ hicuuuuh‘–a toilet.’”
I looked at my phone again. “Nah man, I didn’t get it.”
“Wait, oh,” he said. “…’Max Boss’… Not ‘Max Ross.’ I really gotta change that, that’s the third time this week.”
I set the gun down on the counter. Burke was so drunk he was doing “the zombie.” The guy is an inhuman freak, he was in gymnastics from infancy and he was preposterously athletic. He’s been doing nothing but drink and smoke for years and he’s still ripped. At the moment he was black out drunk but his balance was so good that he just swung around at the waist like his feet were planted in concrete. I called it “the zombie,” but only because “wacky waving inflatable arm tube man” is too long.
Burke had bright red hair and one good eye. The other eye was gray and dead. His brother had been casting a fishing line and caught him on the backswing with the weight when they were kids. He said he couldn’t move it but it turned to peer at me when he was looking in another direction sometimes.
“Why are you muddy?”
“I went for a walk,” he said.
“In the lake?”
“Mhmmm. Come on, you gotta see this. Hold on, can I grab some chips?”
I knew those groans meant “hungry.”
He turned around and shuffled toward the door, bottle swinging in his hand, chips in the other. I let the door close softly behind me. We were immediately assaulted by a swarm of hummingbird-sized mosquitoes. I grabbed the Off! sitting on the step and blasted myself. I sprayed some into the swarm for good measure. Not like it mattered, I think they just get high off the stuff at this point.
We walked out under the stars and I yawned. Burke lit up a cigarette and held the bottle out toward me. I waved it away. He ate the chips, smoked his cigarette, and drank as we walked.
“Where are we going? I have work tomorrow, Burke.”
“I know. You’re going to want to see this, trust me.”
We walked around to his backyard, which was surprisingly tasteful and well-constructed. It looked like the big reveal at the end of those renovation shows that moms watch. We stepped into the pea gravel border that surrounded the stone fire pit.
“Look,” he said. He pointed up at the sky.
“Aw fuck man. You drug me out here to look at a star?”
“Watch,” he said.
I sighed, complying. Several seconds passed. It slowly hovered left, then right, zig-zagging as it descended. It wasn’t a star. It was floating in front of an oak tree, the size of an orange.
“What the fuck is that?”
He took a swig. “Tinkerbell?”
I watched it glide toward me. It was coming straight at my face. I bobbed backward, but it stopped inches away. It reversed several feet in a straight line, then stopped and returned. It did the same thing to Burke.
“I think it wants us to follow it, Max,” Burke said.
“Why would we do that?”
“Because I picked your lock and dragged you out here at 3:00 a.m., and I know you–huuc–wouldn’t make me go through all that for nothing.”
“Yeah, sorry to inconvenience you, man.”
“It’s alright. Let’s go,” he said, strolling away.
We followed. It bounced along through the air, leading us across the road and through the empty lot where the Fish Cult has its bonfires on Saturday nights. The burned bacon smell always lingers for half the week. We passed into the yard of an abandoned house Dan had bought, he’d turned it into some kind of shed where he stored big black trash bags. I swatted at a mosquito and Burke took another pull from his bottle.
He burped, turning the belch into the word “bitch,” one of his more endearing habits. “Maybe it’s a Lassie situation,” he said.
“Or maybe it’s a Pennywise situation.”
“Never–hiccuuh–listened to them,” Burke slurred.
“What? No, not the ba–”
“Shhhh,” he interrupted, trying to put an index finger on my mouth. I pushed it away. Then I heard it, a choking sound like someone badly needed the Heimlich.
The zesty orb bounced in the air, waiting. We crept along behind it. It led us around the corner of the abandoned house and zoomed steadily toward a willow tree. It stopped outside the curtain of stringy branches, backtracked a few feet, and then penetrated the canopy. I looked at Burke. He shrugged.
We approached the tree, the choking sound growing louder. We parted the branches to enter, the hovering, radiant testicle illuminating the interior, casting hundreds of little shadows. It pulled away, towards the back side of the trunk and sank toward the ground. I could see one bare, hairy thigh protruding from around the tree. That thigh looked oddly familiar, somehow.
The choking, gibbering, slobbery sound sent chills up my spine.
“Are you, uh, alright?” I asked the victim.
The sound just continued. I felt Burke peeking over my shoulder. I edged carefully around the trunk. I could see the man’s back now. It looked like he was rhythmically seizing, maybe–
I stopped. The man was completely naked. He removed his mouth from around the tree-dick and looked up at me. He pointed at the trunk with one hand, his other still on the base of the phallus.
“WillahSam,” he said in a thick southern accent.
I blinked. I couldn’t think of anything else to do but slowly back away.
The willow branches began to shake, until they were vibrating rapidly. “That’s me,” the voice came from everywhere. “We’re always looking for guys who like to party.”
“Nah man,” Burke said, taking a drink of whiskey so big it glugged. “Ahhhh, we don’t party.”
The choking sound continued. “Okay, nice to meet you,” said Willow Sam.
We exited the tree. The orb was waiting for us, shuddering. Like it was laughing, or shaking with fury. I didn’t care which.
We walked in silence, until Burke said, “What about splinters?”
“Don’t, man.”
We arrived at his driveway, and he stopped. I kept walking.
He dragged on his cigarette, “probably not an issue, I bet that thing is silky smooth by now.”
I went home. I was going back to sleep.
I entered the kitchen to find my mom pouring a glass of buttermilk. I almost gagged at the sight of it, then gagged at the reminder of the gagging I’d just been subjected to. She looked up.
“What were you doing out?” she asked.
“Burke wanted to show me something.”
“What was it?”
“You don’t wanna know.”
“Oh, was it Willow Sam?”
“What? How did you–
“That dirty old dog. I suppose I’m glad to know he’s still partying. Goodnight,” she turned and walked away. She flipped the light switch and left me standing in darkness.
“What the fuck?” I muttered.
I laid down next to Vandie, who was still murmuring like a tranquilized, half-tongued Russian. I laid there, staring at the light on the Bluetooth speaker.