I live alone these days.
At this point, it’s been for much longer than I care to remember. Or even could remember.
Ever since my wife left, and the kids grew up; I’ve been roaming these empty halls day and night alone. It’s a funny thing, getting older. Day’s begin runnin together, overlapping, getting lost in the folds of time. All the while I was Just pappy John alone with his old thoughts, not a care in the world or an exciting life to speak of.
That was, until tonight.
This night brought with it events that would make any sane person believe they’d gone mad.
Like the start of any great story, this one begins with a midnight trip to the bathroom.
You see, I keep the house damn near pitch black these days, save for the small lamp that occupies what used to be my wife’s side of the bed. Her name was Harriet. My light, and the mother to so many kids and grandkids that I couldn’t recite their names. Not even one. For some reason.
Regardless, in her memory, that bedside lamp is always kept on. Harriet would surely haunt me if I ever even tried to turn it off. As long as it shines beside me, I don’t feel alone….I don’t forget.
This night, I had literally rolled out of bed to use the rest room. It had been one of those bathroom trips where your brain is half asleep, still caught somewhere between dreams and reality.
One of those times where you’re most prone to having a waking nightmare; which I found myself wishing this was.
As tired as I was, I almost seemed to float, almost guided even, down the hallway-. The feeling of floating was most welcome because my back usually ached something horrible. My back hurt from my days of playing football, or was it golf? Good god, my knee is killing me.
I rubbed my tired eyes and reached down for the door handle when it began to turn, slowly. Damn, must be one of those waking dreams. I would’ve laughed to myself –still unbelieving–had the the door not begun to swing in with a soft groan. I could’ve sworn I heard a soft giggle somewhere in the darkness beyond.
I stood there weary; but still not fully convinced I wasn’t sound asleep.
I paused for just a moment, waiting for more oddities. I could hear the soft dripping of the sink.
drip, drip, drip.
“Hello?” I asked the empty bathroom, I chuckled at my own paranoia.
Nothing but silence answered. ”Just the wind,” I told myself. I must’ve left a window open somewhere, besides this house is older than I am and probably has just as many cracks and crevices.
I flicked on the bathroom light and saw the sink, it no longer dripped and nothing else appeared out of the ordinary. It always looks like this right?
The walls of the bathroom still adorned that horrible looking flower pattern Harriet selected. The one I hated with a passion. Still, seeing it was like seeing her again—in a way.
Once I was finished, something caught the corner of vision. The shower curtain. It was drawn back, even though I hadn’t touched a thing. Drawn back, and the tub was filled to the brim with water that steamed the room. “What in the world–”
KWISSHHHH! A rush of water filled the sink and I whirled around, dumbstruck at what was before me. A small boy, no more than six years old. He wore blue jeans with tiny suspenders pulled up over a striped green and red shirt. His long dark hair fell clumsily over his….wait
The water had overrun the bowl and was now falling onto the floor in a pool. He stood at the sink with the knob turned in his hand, and a blank look on his face that seemed to dare me to stop him.
The absurdity of the situation clouded my vision from noticing something more troubling. His face…what’s wrong with his f… ”Hey!” I shouted before finishing the thought. I lunged arms out at the small intruder.
He was frighteningly fast. With movement as quick as a blur, the boy in blue suspenders evaded my reach and made for the hallway…giggling cheerfully.
“Wait! Get back here!” I yelled. My feet slid against the wet flooring and sent me sprawling down, arms flailing grabbing for anything.
I landed hard, my body still within the bathroom, but with my head far enough that I could see out into the dark hallway.
As I struggled to get up, my eyes barely adjusted to the shadow in the hall. The little boy’s footsteps patted playfully as he ran away, still giggling. I could barely make out his shadow as he ran straight toward my bedroom.
Wait…is the shadow getting…taller? ”Don’t you go in there boy!” My voice cracked painfully. “Don’t you touch my lamp! Get out of my house!“
The giggling turned deeper and more sinister as the now adult-shaped shadow turned the corner and disappeared into my bedroom. The door slammed shut behind the shadowy grim reaper.
I turned over painfully. My side throbbed and my head was on fire, thoughts were coming and going like a tornado.
The boy’s face was flashing in my mind, something was so strange about it. Though I’d seen him clearly in the bathroom next to me, his facial features were distorted. His tiny face blurred as if trying to see it through a foggy mirror, two dark spots for his eyes were the only definable features. Even so, something was so very familiar about the boy. His shaggy brown hair and even his outfit stood out in my mind’s eye. Something about the ghostly apparition both warmed my heart and chilled it at the same time.
My mind cleared finally, and the rooms stopped spinning long enough for me to get my bearings straight. Everything was again calm, and as it should be. The bathroom light flickered above me as I strained to around. The shower curtain was pulled back shut, and I wasn’t drowning in overflowing sink-water anymore.
I must be asleep. I thought. The door, the sink, the boy…all just a dream. My god, what is happening to me lately? Why can’t I remember?
“Get up John.” I commanded.
Pain.
My old fingers curled around the mouth of the sink. I made it up the edge and peered in.
The bowl was dry; not a single drip remained. Both oval porcelain knobs faced outwards….both off.
“Stop scaring yourself you old fool,” I sighed. If Harriet could see you now.
“Well if she could, “ I told myself, “she’d pass out seeing this.“ I gently touched the new scar above my eyebrow. A trail of red blood ran from it, down my cheek and on to my night shirt. The grey hair (which I usually kept combed back) was now matted and falling over my forehead.
The boy might’ve been a vision, but the fall was very real.
I finally reached down and turned the sink on, splashing a few handfuls of cool water on my tired face. My let my head hang there for a few moments, feeling the drips roll off my nose and into the drain. Clear…let your head be clear.
I looked up, and my face was gone. Staring back at me in the mirror was a cloudy, undefined shape with two dark holes for eyes. At first, I wiped my hand frantically across the reflection, hoping it was only steam from the sink. The water was cold!
I panicked, wiping madly across the mirror now. I let out a frightened breath, the blurry mugshot remained.
What is happening to me?
The light above me flickered, bringing my face in and out of view before it finally failed to darkness.
My breathing was rapid now, my chest tightened as I continued to stare into the black mirror.
The light above, shot to life revealing the bathroom suddenly filled with people standing behind me. Men, women and children. An entire crowd of blurry, hidden faces. Each one seemingly distorted by floating static like a snowy television. Each bearing the same flickering black eyes, all staring at me through the mirror.
A thunderous sentence escaped the crowd. “Forgotten us all.”
They spoke in perfect unison. A haunting chorus of high- and low-pitched voices which almost sounded inhuman and reverberated through my body. Their faces flickered as they spoke.
I could only scream; at myself, and at the unknown people in the mirror. I slammed my eyes shut and fled towards the doorway, trying to shield myself from the tidal wave of voices. My feet carried me as fast as they could out of the bathroom and into the hallway.
“FORGOTTEN US ALL! FORGOTTEN US ALL!”
“NO!” I shouted. I tried shielding myself from it as I ran. Pitch blackness swallowed me as I rushed to the safety of my bed, and the warm light from Harriet’s lamp that beckoned safety beyond it.
I could feel the entire house shifting around me, I could feel the walls staring, the dark corners watching. My home was conspiring against me—-berating me.
“FORGOTTEN!” It bellowed at me, now one large entity. I stumbled against the wall, holding my frail self-up and began to move again when a second shout came.
“FORGOTTEN!” I could feel the blood from my cut hitch a ride on a trail of sweat coming from my forehead. It seeped into my right eye, stinging it.
“SHUT UP! SHUT UP! I DIDNT FORGET!” I begged, eyes and ears still desperately trying to shut out the world just beyond my mind. I tried to squint back to the bathroom to see if the crowd had given chase from behind, but only darkness followed.
What do these demons want from me? Who are they?
“FORGOTTEN!” The house bellowed back, as if reading my mind.
I strained looking forward and reached blindly for anything close. I was out of options; I needed to open my eyes and get to the bedroom before…before what, John?
My eyes opened.
The front door of my bedroom stood before me.
Everything was silent once more. No shouting, no noise, no people with blurry faces to torment me. No kid either.
I stepped through the door, cautiously. The room was still, and Harriet’s lamp yet shined with a warmth that I desperately needed. I exhaled,
“Easy. You’ve not been yourself lately and you know that. Ever since…” My voice trailed. Ever since what? I thought frustratingly. I wiped the sweat and blood from my eye before crossing the room to the bed.
“Harriet would tell me to try and get some sleep.” I said softly. “Get to bed skippy! You’re losing it!” Harriet would tell me with that smile of hers. Except, I’m not losing it. I’m completely fine.
Throwing back the covers, I eased myself back into bed.
For a time, I simply stared up at the ceiling fan. Even with no noticeable breeze, it still drifted counterclockwise as if spun by some ghostly hand. Ghosts.
My thoughts settled on the boy and not the mob. The tiny menace had seemed so familiar somehow, as if his antics had happened before. A tinge of Deja vu crept into my soul, but why?
As I finally closed my eyes, the chant of the crowd filled my head as well as the mass of distorted faces. Though after a few moments the chant itself began to fade. As horrifying as it all had been—like the boy—the crowd was filled with many presences that felt familiar.
Sleep must have taken me; because the next moment my eyes shot open to a noise at the bedroom door. A soft knock, then another. A bolt of nervous lightning suddenly shot up my body as the knocking became a full-blown pounding. Becoming more violent in nature with every second.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Dust began to shake free from the door frame and fall to the floor.
I bolted upright. Like a child looking to their parent for protection, my eyes darted to the light from my wife’s lamp. Harriet.
The lamp and its rays of light stayed true and steady despite the repeated blows. Like a vicious earthquake, the entire house seemed hellbent on exorcising me. The knocking became no less voracious.
Whatever fist (or fists) were striking the door were close to simply freeing it from its hinges and sending it across the room and onto me.
I could’ve reached for my rifle, or perhaps I could’ve tried barring the door with my desk chair. Yet the lamp was the first item in the room I instinctively reached for. I leaned across the bed for it, stretching for its comfort. And what the hell are you going to do with that? Break it over their heads?
As my hand grabbed the round porcelain body, a small, warm hand grabbed mine.
The boy. At first, I jerked away, startled. The boy’s muffled and distorted face making me stop. Wait...I paused, my hand shaking, and my mouth dropped open at the sight of him now.
His small face was now partially illuminated by the light. The beam pierced his blue eyes which were no longer the muffled, distorted horror it had been. I pointed the top beam toward his face, it made him….normal again. It made him…my grandson?
“C…Cody?” I stammered. Tears of shock welled up in my eyes as the boy smiled back at me. It was him, his expression cheerful and tiny cheeks stared up at me seeming completely oblivious from the craziness around us.
Just then Cody the child began to change, his face and body transformed to what would be an older version of himself. First in his teen years and then to him as an adult. His face grew and matured, but he remained Cody.
“Pap?” adult Cody smiled, now kneeling down to the bedside. “Yeah, it’s me…you remember?” His face flashed a confused smile.
Remembered? ”Cody, what’s happening here? What’s happening to me?” I desperately Cody by the collar and pulling him close to me. “Where’s Harriet? Cody…buddy,” I gasped, “don’t let them in here. I don’t know them.” I pointed a shaky finger toward the door. “What is happening to me?”
The lamp light began to violently flicker. Each time it went dark Cody’s familiar face went blank again. Without the light to illuminate, he was as fuzzy as the shouting mob outside the door. Unrecognizable.
“NO!” I yelled, still pleading to Cody. “No don’t leave me! I need you here with me!” I cried. “I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of being confused and afraid! I don’t have anyone!”
Cody’s blurred expression somehow felt sorrowful and suddenly he changed again. Flickering back to a boy, then to a teen, then adult; over and over again.
The chants began again, “FORGOTTEN! FORGOTTEN! FORGOTTEN!” The house bellowed.
“Cody…” I pleaded. “Where am I….”
Cody’s response came in like a radio station popping in and out of range, clearing and muffling with every flicker of the light.
“I…ere….mpa..”
Until finally it failed, and he disappeared altogether. The last form being the boy, which I fell to the floor trying to hold on to before he faded into nothing. I crashed hard, beside Harriet’s side-table, the lamp flew from my hand and toward the bedroom door.
I rolled over as the door finally gave way, bursting inward with a deafening roar of voices.
The bedroom flooded with the forgotten chants; figures spilled in with a ghostly glide. Their blurred faces gathered around me like vultures around a carcass, twisting and jumping over one another to get a look. Men as well as women and children in their tiny outfits. Some wore dress shirts, some wore hoodies and dresses, but all carried the same distorted faces of snowy terror. Pairs of black eyes spaced evenly apart surrounded me, heads cocking like animals studying.
The chanting stopped. Their eyes continued to study me, black spots burning holes into me.
I braced myself against the floor, waiting for something to happen.
A row of children lined at my feet gave me a cheeky wave of their little hands. Even with their faces obscured, I couldn’t be sure, but I think they were….smiling?
I loosened my death grip on the carpet beneath me. What are these strange people going to do?
Just then the crowd began to part. Splitting between the center two children who stood at my feet. They moved in perfect coordination. As each figure gave way more layers of people were revealed, way more than could realistically fit in the tiny bedroom. Yet here they are, I thought.
I leaned up onto my palms of my hands and cleared my throat. “Please stop” I managed. “I don’t know what you want, or who you are. Please, just leave me and my family alone.”
A voice replied sweetly, “We are your family John.”
Somewhere deep in the crowd, a yellow glow appeared. It moved up the isle toward me, gaining brilliance as it did.
The figure became more detailed as it approached, a short, soft figure. As it passed each person in the crowd, it illuminated their faces for a moment revealing them finally. I knew them now, thanks to the beam of light. Thanks to her.
“Harriet!” I cried.
She knelt down beside me, truly it was her. The bright blue eye’s I’d known so well, the long flowing red hair that rested on her shoulders.
“It’s alright,” She gently rested her hand on my tense shoulder. “We’re all here for you.”
Harriet’s glow suddenly revealed everyone now. The crowd of unknown faces morphed into sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. The light that once beamed from the lamp had now transited to Harriet herself. She was the light that illuminated everything–and everyone–in the room.
The center of the family.
“He’s calming down,” Harriet said to one of them.
It was all still so strange to me, what is she talking about? I gasped, suddenly my breath was very short, “Harriet…what do you mean honey? What’s going on with me? I don’t feel myself.”
“Shh,” She put a hushed finger to my lips. “I’m here. We’re all here, and we’re not going anywhere.” There was a murmuring among the crowd, while some appeared happy to see me; many looked at me with concern.
A calm smile spread over Harriet’s face. She rested a soft hand on my cheek. Her touch brought such warmth. Such protection…I was suddenly feeling peace of mind again. As if she herself was a touchstone for my mind, I began to resettle
Began to remember.
Harriet’s light began to dim. and her face along with everyone else flickered. Blood drained from my face; my head began to throb with a familiar feeling of dread.
“No! Don’t go!” I shouted, suddenly standing up. “I don’t want to forget again!” The light of the room began shrinking to black once more. Like the weight of a house, my mind was shrinking against the strain. As a last-ditch effort, I decided to try and scramble for the lamp. Scramble to shine its light of remembrance on the now crowd of strangers. “I don’t want to forget again,” I told myself frantically feeling the floor for the lamp. “Don’t want to forget. DONT WANT TO FORGET AGAI–”
I live alone these days.
At this point, it’s been for longer than I would care to remember. Or even could remember.