The old pick-up truck rolled over parched gravel, kicking up blankets of dust that settled over the boxes tied in the back. Jostled together, heavy. Cardboard blanched from the sun. Five hundred miles of dust robbed everything of color. Except the one box, jolted open, and the old antique radio in it gleaming green and white like a corpse. The dial, a wide green eye, stared blank at the sun. A peeling blue house on the corner, that was the place I would stay in for the summer. It wasn't home and never would be, but I felt nothing particular. Past is the past. I can't even call it to mind most days. Don't look at something long enough, it hardly exists. Like a dream, a nightmare leaving nothing behind but the unease of forgotten terror.
The roommates were on the porch, lounging like dogs in the panting heat. They looked suspicious as I rumbled the truck into the drive. I got out, starting untying ropes keeping the boxes down. Then they figured I was the one meant to move in. Must be the guy from the ad, I heard them. Looks younger than he said he was. Never mind, he's paying cash up front. Saw them saunter over, beers in hand. Offered names, handshakes and to help unload. Long trip? Not really, drove straight from Blair, Nebraska, no stopping. Boxes got heaved out the rusted truck bed, oof. Carried, shoved through the back door, scraped onto the linoleum. It was sparkling. Not a speck of dust. Somebody took pride in it, keeping things neat. Someone else explained how the air conditioner broke and as I had the attic room, it was hotter than Hell. I could sleep on the sofa til it was fixed, if I didn't mind. I didn't mind. The TV was broke, too. That's all right, I didn't bother with TV. I had my guitar. Just as well, I saw that old TV set in a corner. The butt end of a bottle sticking out the screen. Must've been a rough night for somebody, I said. They laughed. Some of them didn't have all their teeth.
They brightened up over the old radio. I'd hoped they wouldn't see it. Damn box wouldn't stay closed. Got rained on last night. Did it work? I hope not, I said. Of course they didn't know I wasn't joking and laughed. They set it on the dining room table, plugged in the old cord. I stood in the kitchen doorway looking in. It popped and whined, the old tubes glowing red in back. Hoped they'd bust in the heat, but no. The round green eye glowed, staring at them. Gathered round, they sucked on sweating beer bottles, stared back. Like primitives beholding the eye of the oldest god in the world. They were dumb, in awe of it. That talking box. Forget Top-40 shit, someone said. I wanna hear the game. Suit yourself, I said. Don't touch that middle dial, or you'll regret it. They didn't hear me. The game squawked on without nobody changing the dial. I heard them marveling at it but walked straight out the room. Hauled my stuff to the attic. Up and down stairs in the heat. Couldn't help listening for what happened in the other room. Nothing, just the game. Their voices, cheering their team, booing the other. Just as normal as could be.
###
I stopped in the attic room, heat coming up through the floor. Radiating down from the roof. Old house, no insulation. It cooked like an oven. Sucked my wits out with my sweat. Sweat poured from under my arms, made rivers down my sides. The blue denim of my jeans turned dark, soaking in my skin's tears. I didn’t unpack, stood at the window and stared at the big empty yard. The patch of dirt for a vegetable garden growing nothing. Gravel road beyond. No neighbors. Too far to walk into town. Nobody in the whole town of Winteset had seen me, since I drove in on the back roads. Nobody would know when I left, either. Guitar was all I carried downstairs, and a wad of cash to pay the rent in advance. I stopped on the last step, empty kitchen in front of me. Sparkling linoleum.
Round the corner, everyone had gone quiet. The game wasn't on. Instead, just static laced with piano music. Old timey stuff. Every last note twanged out of tune. Sophisticated and childish at the same time. But rhythmic. Building. Those off tune notes clanged and rang. Mesmerizing. Communicating. I peeked in. Roommates were staring, dumb as corpses. Like kids getting foggy before nap time. I wished I'd never bought that damned device. Some things end up in your life like they been stalking you. Can't get rid of them, either. Not without trouble.
The dining room was hotter than when I left. All the windows open, fans running constant. Flies swarming in. Floorboards creaked under my feet as I stepped in. Joined them. The radio jumped to static. Roommates came to, saw me. Came back to life like resurrected figures. Might storm later, somebody said. He always says that, said another. Well, that would be a blessed relief, I said. I'd forgotten their names already. Switched off the radio like it was nothing. Got the last few boxes out the truck in case it rained. Heavy ones. Stiff and wooden like bodies. Six of them. My burdens, I called them. Hauled them upstairs, came back down again. A time would come, maybe soon, I wouldn't be able to move them no more. Took a beer from the fridge, ran it over my forehead, neck, bare chest. Put it back unopened. Never touched the stuff. Man's more civilized inventions were not man's at all—but knowledge handed down from the gods. And everything the gods handed down was nothing but an open door for evil. Not the evil in men, but another kind. The kind with purposes all its own.
In my rucksack was a jar of honeycomb. I unscrewed the lid, took a couple bites, then hid it away. I had come to know through the years that my habits were unusual. It made living with people difficult sometimes, even when it all went well.
Conversation ran dry as the dirt road sprinkled in hot rain. Radio wouldn't play, not when I set both feet in the same room. They couldn't figure it out. Played with the tuning knobs. It was too old to have an antenna. I sat in the corner, strumming the guitar. Music breaks apart the spell, you see. The green eye still glowed, but it wouldn't play. Not even static. Hell, this damn thing! I'll go crazy if it don't play something, somebody said. What about that middle dial? What's it do? They looked at me, remembering what I'd said. Wondering if it mattered. Wondering what regret tasted like.
I watched them, cool as a bottle from the fridge. Sometimes people know better. They know better but help themselves. They hunkered down, staring at that middle dial made of ebony and carved with letters. One of them reached out, touched it.
My fingers clenched up, guitar strings twanged off tune.
Are these channels or something? A, Z, O. They tried each one. Click. Silence of a black hole on channel A. Click, click. Microphone dropped into the ocean on channel O. Click. A human sound on channel Z. Faint, disturbing. We strained to listen. Whispering voices but not loud enough to make it out. The volume got turned all the way up but no difference. A violin played just beneath, one constant note. Off tune. My hands went limp, nearly dropped the guitar. Familiar. Couldn't tell where I had heard it before. Lately my memory had more and more blank spaces. Gaps like vast stretches of ocean. A surface gray and shifting. Like old blankets draped over rooms full of furniture. Couldn't tell what was underneath. Months? Years?
Everyone’s eyes turned hollow. Expressions blank. Turn it off! It was barely my voice. A croak. No one moved. Heavy like too much dope. The sluggish feeling of a dream body unable to take another step, get out the way of a speeding truck. The whispering got louder, voices in any language. Couldn’t make it out, but there was snarling underneath. Animal sound. Someone came home from work, found us like that. Ripped the plug out the wall. We blinked at each other. Wary. Animals in a zoo: cautious, measuring each other up. Friend or foe.
The hell you guys listening to? Nobody had an answer.
Somehow it was dark. Near midnight. Rain blasted down. Thunder brought our wits back. The radio sat dead on the table. Forgotten. We went to our separate rooms, the doors left open for the cool air roaming the house. I took the couch. Guitar on the floor beside me. Didn't think about pillow or blankets. Just sank down into sleep like a tomb.
Day hot as ever, house empty. All of them gone to work I guessed. Sprawled in the shade outside, shirt off, propped against a tree, guitar strumming lazy. The notes jangled and jarred, like I’d forgotten what music meant. Fingers moved on their own. Whispering over the strings. Strange whispers. Off tune. I'd catch myself doing it. Willed it to stop Then my thoughts would wander, get caught in the shifting leaves above me. Then I'd hear it again. My fingers working against me. Fed up, I went in.
Found myself minutes—hours?—later on my knees beside the kitchen table. Power cord in hand. It was frayed, the plug half ripped off. An easy fix, just copper wires. Thought about getting my tool kit out the truck. Stood up and then I saw it.
Strangest thing. Someone put flowers around the radio—not proper in a vase, just strewn all over the top and in front. Marigolds.
Hello? I called, thinking one of them came home early. No answer. A floorboard creaked somewhere. A rusty hinge on a door shrieked—cut off. Silence held its breath. Went and stood by the hall that lead to the bedrooms. Listened. Imagined one of them crouched behind a door, listening back. I didn’t go looking. Went outside, sat on the porch swing and rocked, the guitar sitting next to me. If I could play one chord, remember one song, I might snap out of it. Just couldn't trust my hands.
The sun set, sky blanketed in red. Crickets started a tune, synchronized from across the yard. Cars came home. Headlights blinded my night-calmed eyes. Dust rose up as one by one they parked in the drive. Footsteps and voices in the house. Normal. Civilized. Laughter. The hiss of beer bottles being opened.
Hey, look! The power cord got fixed, somebody said. The radio turned alive. An angry hiss and crackle. Old timey music blared, out of tune.
My body protested moving, standing. I pushed myself to go in. Held onto the door frame of the dining room, looking in. It blazed with light. Everyone stood round the table, attentive as disciples. Their faces shone green in the light of that glowing eye. Hungry for them. And they were hungry for it. I wanted to laugh, but couldn’t make my face move. I felt dull and heavy. Started craving that off tune note of the violin. The whispered voices. The animal growl. How long we all stood there, I don't know. Somebody came home late, found us like that. Frozen. I looked at him, pleading. Mute. He didn’t say anything, switched off the radio and cleared away the flowers. There were dangerous eyes on his hands. Large and work-tanned. A mole on his right thumb. A thick, steel chained wrist watch.
Spell broken, I shuffled into the living room and collapsed on the couch. The wind outside whipped up dust and gravel. Rattled against windows. Howling. I felt sad like a child robbed of their best toy. Couldn't understand it. Tears ran down my face as I fell asleep without thoughts or dreams.
The house was hot and empty. Bright and aching with the white noon day sun. Swung my feet off the couch and knocked over several beer bottles. Days worth. Some had mold in them. Knew they weren't mine. Picked them up in my arms and carried them to the kitchen. The flowers were back on the radio, I saw in passing. A silver platter was in front of it, antique like. A porcelain bowl, paper towel covering something wet and sticky that flies fought over. Kept walking, set bottles on the kitchen counter. Tripped over a knife on the floor all wet and sticky. Tossed it in the sink and opened up the fridge, just for the cool air.
A thud from upstairs. I looked at the ceiling, at dust filtering down. The attic room was just above. A rustling sound from up there. Heavy, like boxes tipped over. Climbed up the narrow stairs. My feet crunched on glass. Twigs. Leaves. Inside the room, I saw the window smashed in. A tree beside the house had fallen right through the window. Heavy branches covered the bed. Would have killed me if I'd been sleeping there. I checked the large boxes, secured with cords. One got open. Tree branch tore through it. Cords were cut. I stared at it, knowing that was a bad thing but couldn't say why. Come to think of it, everything was wet. Like rain got in, but no rain last night. How long since there was a storm? The night I arrived. But when was that?
Downstairs my guitar was missing. Found it on the porch. Tripped over it when I went outside. The strings thrummed in harmony. My thoughts cleared.
I should leave. Up and leave it all. The boxes, the radio. All of it. Get in the truck, peel out. Don't take anything but what's in my pockets. Okay, I decided. But somehow I walked back through the house, instead of just walking through the yard to my truck. I passed the dining room table. Flowers were back. Dull green eye fixed to the top of the old radio. My hand reached for it—like my body had its own plan, nothing to do with my head. Reached over the silver platter. The porcelain bowl. Flies crawling over it thick like a black handkerchief.
Hand clasped the smooth green eye. It began to glow, cool and liquid smooth as stone. I pulled at it, trying to rip it off the radio. My other hand went for the ebony carved dial. Neither of them were part of the original radio. They had been added. Somehow doing this disturbed the flies. The paper towel fell to the floor.
I saw what was inside the bowl.
Blood dried black against work-tanned skin. A mole by the thumb. Severed at the wrist. Thick, steel chained wrist watch still on it. Sick, I doubled over. Vomited on the carpet. Last thing I saw, my face pressed against the carpet, was cords. Severed cords, dragged round a pair of ankles. Bare feet walking towards me. Waxy brown skin. Glass, twigs, leaves.
A naked man stood over me. My gaze traced his body, strong as an ox in the sun. Instead of a face or a head, there was just a glowing green dial. He raised his hand. I flinched but he only turned on the radio.
Static. Violin. Whispers. Growls.
###
Headlights brighten up the room. The back door bangs to. Lights switch on. The dining room blares into existence. I sit up blinking. Roommates stare at me, laughing. What happened to you? somebody asks. Look at all these beer bottles on this counter. Man, you musicians. Somebody else helps me up. The mess is all gone. The carpet cleaned. Flowers cleared. Silver platter and bowl and all the rest, gone. No trace.
Girls, brightened up faces and tight jeans. Cool radio! What is that, an antique? Looks like something from Mars. Yeah those old sci-fi films. Geez, it's hot in here. Air conditioner's busted, somebody says.
Yeah let's get outta here, the girls say. You coming? We're going to Des Moines.
I get my shirt from the bathroom. Realize I've been wearing the same jeans—for how long? I change those too, join the others outside. We pile into the back of somebody's pick up. Cool breeze on the drive. Clear night sky. Stars. Where you from? Here and there; nowhere. You look kinda exotic for Iowa. Like super tan, black hair, pretty blue eyes. What are you? Human, I guess. They laugh. What are you doing here? Gotta job lined up out of state, don't start for another month. The bar is smoky crowded, lined faces and old bottles. Dusty. Old cowboy prints on the walls, steer horns at attention. What do you drink? Nothing, water. That's weird for a musician.
There’s laughter and smoke and money brings beer. I start feeling more alive. Did you ever think you’d end up like this when you were in high school? What's high school? I ask. This brings giggles. Sparkling eyes and glossy smiles. I bet you were like real popular in high school. I bet all the girls were after you. I don't remember, I tell them. When's the last time you got laid? Three thousand years ago.
The house, peeling blue, pops out of the dark, caught in the circle of headlights. The girls find the garden hose. Headlights left on, the car stereo plays Simon and Garfunkel. Sprayed water, laughter, cheerful screaming through the yard chasing each other with the hose. Their bodies dance in the headlights and halo of water. I join them. Chase follow drenched. Beautiful faces, full of life. I hope they leave before it's too late, and then wonder why. Can't remember.
Morning headache. The girls bustle about, talking, laughing, up early. The kitchen homely with the smell of cooking. Sausages, eggs frying. I can't eat flesh but take a warm plain biscuit. A bite of honeycomb. The radio is on the floor, smashed. The green eye separated from the body. Ebony dial amid the rubble. No one asks how it happened. I haul it outside to the trash can. Inside, a silver platter. A broken porcelain bowl. Wadded up paper towel, stained with red. Ketchup, I see clear as day taking it out. It was nothing, just a dream. But something falls out the paper. Thuds to the ground.
A thick steel chained wrist watch. Stained red and black.
A fly lands on it. Heart racing, I start to feel sick. Glance up at the attic window. Covered over in thick white plastic. Broken glass still in the frame. Behind it, faint shadow, like an arm. A strong body. Naked, fetal, pushing against the opaque membrane.
I mean to kill it, whatever it is lurking up there. Grabbing a thick branch from the woodpile, I run inside. Up the stairs. Slower with each step, like I'm caught in a dream. I frab the old iron door knob and twist it. The door is locked. I crouch down, peer through the old key hole. Blackness. The key stuck in it, from the inside.
Everyone’s gone out. I go looking for my guitar. The music from last night still in my head. I need to play it before I forget. Guitar behind the sofa. I take it out, hold it, about the strum a chord—then I see it. The green glowing eye. Atop the busted television. The ebony dial too where the tuning knob should be. Somebody fixed the it up. There's no way it works, I tell myself.
My hand reaches out. Fingers stretch, pulling me toward the ebony dial. To turn it on? To rip it off? My head can't tell what my body is planning.
The roommates come home. Rustling grocery bags. Footsteps linger in the dining room—confused. Something missing, they can't tell what. Anybody seen Justin? somebody asks. Hasn't paid rent in a while. Did he up and move out?
They come in the living room. See me crouched in front of the old antique box. Hey buddy, you fix the TV? Awesome! Somebody flicks the power button on. Tubes groan to life, zap, pop, casting a red glow up the wall. We glance nervously one to the other. Is it gonna explode? Here, have a beer. Just water for me. You look tired, man. A hand reaches out to turn the ebony dial. Click. Channel A glows white. Fleeing black shapes and silence. Click, click. Channel O swirls with melted blue and red like blood in the ocean. Click. I’m laughing far away and saying, ‘Don't do it now. You'll regret—' Green and black static flashes rapidly an image we can’t quite make out. Somebody adjusts the old style antenna. Wait, there it goes! Move it to the right. There! Don't touch it. Stand back.
The image comes into focus only for an instant. We kneel, transfixed. A naked man with brown waxy skin. Strong as an ox. Instead of a head, a huge glowing green eye. Faintly at first then louder, the sound of a violin. Off tune. Playing a single note. My heart freezes, craving and dreading to hear a whispered voice, an animal growl. Tired, so tired, my head drops to my chest.
Somewhere in the house, a rattling CLACK. The door to the attic room unlocks.
It's dark. We sit around the dining table. Cords tied round us, each tied to a chair. The TV plays in the other room. Green flashing light shows our faces to one another. The white of our eyes. Terrified. We listen and wait, dumb as beasts. Two of us are missing. Upstairs, heavy footsteps. Thuds. Boxes being overturned, dragged across the floor. Unpacking. The phone rings loud and terrible. Drowns out the whining violin static noise. My thoughts come back to me like dropped marbles.
Can you guys see me? Am I dreaming? somebody whimpers.
Somebody else gets an arm free. The phone quits ringing. Static violin sails over us. Our minds go blank. The one with the free arm starts to pull out his hair strand by strand with jerky movements. Another one with wild eyes looks at the open door to the kitchen, opens his mouth in a silent scream.
In the doorway, three naked men stare at us. Naked with waxy brown skin. Heads replaced with glowing green dials. More footsteps, descending the stairs slow. There are six of them all together. They communicate to one another in soft beeping.
Maybe I don't even see them, and close my eyes.
I’m all alone when I wake up. The TV's off, the green eye dull and blind. My arms ache, rope burns on them. The house smells like something burnt. Stuffy, rotten. I open up the windows. Flies get in. There are flowers everywhere, trails of them down the hall. From bedroom to bedroom. Little piles in front of each door. I start to sweep up, but in the piles there are bones. The doors are shut, locked from inside. Sobbing from somewhere far away. Maybe under the floor. The basement? I never did ask about it. Never seen a door going down there. Maybe there's a cellar, outside.
Hello? I call out. It gets quiet.
I head to the back door but stop at the kitchen. The floor is sticky and black. Smells rotten. I don't go in. Don't go looking to see what's upstairs.
The house has gone bad. I stay out on the porch til its gets dark. When I go in, the TV turns on by itself. Bright green flashing light. I try not to look at it. The sound reaches me. My mind starts to go. In the flashing light, I see somebody standing over me. Bare feet, pale legs. He's missing his right hand. His head is his own and he looks at me with hunted eyes. Muffled inside a room somewhere, I hear screaming.
Can you stop them? the man asks. There's a crowbar in his hand.
If I knew how, I've forgotten.
He tries to tell me things. How when he kills one of them, they replace themselves. Hunting down another. So there's always six. They take off the head, replace it with a green dial. It makes the body grow strong. Unstoppable. He's tried everything he knew. Marigolds to appease the gods. Burnt offerings. His own hand.
What do they want?
He runs before I can answer. To the cellar. Somehow I know, his is the voice I heard sobbing beneath the floor boards.
They will find him soon. Or maybe I dreamed it.
The phone rings all day. I keep to the porch, day and night now. Still hear it through the open window: the violin, static, growls. Cocooned in nothing, I lay unmoving on the porch swing. Awake without thinking. Somebody else is in the house, I think sometimes. I hear things in the day. At night, the green men look for something. Someone. Morning, the spell breaks. TV cuts out, quiet. Through the window, I see strange marks drawn over the TV. Letters or hieroglyphs. A prayer. Fresh flowers. The silver platter, polished, set before the TV. Sometimes there's a bowl covered in rags. Flies everywhere. At night, the attic door unlocks. Footsteps creep. Green lights flash through the windows. Soft beeping noises move from room to room.
I never remember what happens next.
A memory hovers out of reach. There's a reason for all this.
Twilight, a car pulls up. Girls get out. Familiar looking. They bang on the door. Look in the windows. I lay beneath the porch swing, like somebody placed me there out of sight. Hands crossed on my chest, corpse like. Their heels thud onto the porch. Busy, full of life. Nice, clean hands rattle the door knob. Faces peer in the windows. Oh my God, look at the mess! That's creepy, let's just leave. Should we call the police? Nobody's seen them for weeks. Is it really our problem, Cassie? Maybe they don't answer the phone because they didn't pay the bill. Deadbeats. Or they went camping or something. I don't think so, something's wrong here.
The car pulls out. Tears over the gravel. Music blares from the open windows. A familiar harmony. Same music the night we went out.
I sit up, cracking my forehead against the swing. The pain, the music. My mind jolts up to speed, like a skipped record. I have to get out of here! Now, before it's too late. My memories are shot, but my instincts are back. Crouched there, I know I can't go inside for my car keys. Not without passing the green eye. If it switches on, I'll be lost in the fog again. My stomach growls. My limbs are shaky, weak.
I remember what the girls said about the phone bill. The phone hasn't rang in days. Or weeks? I can only hope the electric will get cut off too. I shuffle around the house, ducking low to keep out of sight of the windows. The garden hose in back. I turn the spigot. Nothing. The water company cut the supply. Any day now, the power company might, too. Then I can get in the house, find my keys without the risk. I camp in the shed. Find my guitar, half buried in the dirt. Wrapped in a garbage bag. Like someone tried to hide it. To save it? I stare out the small, dirt smeared window toward the house. Then I see it. The cellar door hidden in the shade.
I wait until dark, scavenge in my truck for a jar of honeycomb.
In the moonlight, I see myself reflected in the car window. Skeletal, brown skin stretched over bones. Hair turned white. An old man, nearly mummified. Movement catches my eye. The attic window burns lurid green. Shapes pass in front of it. Hulking men with orbs instead of heads. I crawl in the truck bed and lay down flat. Whisper to myself half remembered lyrics. Hum. Not a full song, but enough.
My memory sputters to life.
They have been with me a long time. Ages.
I cart them from place to place, bound to them. And they to me.
Six of them, and me the seventh. The head.
They hunt for the smartest. It is a game. Only the smartest can outwit them. Prove himself worthy to serve the old god with the green eye. They will turn him into one of them, fortifying his body. Strong as an ox. Then the chosen one will turn against the weakest of the seven. Sacrificing it. Taking the head for itself.
I examine my thin, wasted arms in the moonlight. Soon I will pass beyond hunger and thirst. The last piece to fall in the game.
Midnight or so, I venture out. The house is dark. Silent. Even the attic window is dark. I search the truck, find a flashlight. Now or never. Gently I place the guitar inside. Everything else, I will leave behind. My burdens. This game. It ends with me.
I walk to the house, careful not to scuff the gravel. Open the door, flick on the beam. Black grease covers every surface. The walls stained and streaked. Fresh blood stains the stairs going to the attic. I stop and listen. No sound but my own breathing. My frail body barely heavy enough to make the floorboards creak.
The living room. The TV black with paint, dead and quiet. Dead flowers everywhere. The bowl and silver platter broken and overturned. Tiny black beetles everywhere. The sofa broken, cushions slashed. Bloodied. I search the crevices, find my keys. Okay, then—a noise stops me. Gentle as a mouse. Something brushed up against the floorboards from beneath the house.
Quick, I run to my truck. Crawl in the cab. Bang the door shut. Keys. Turn. The engine roars to life.
BANG BANG BANG!
Fists pound on the driver's side window. I cry out, shine the flashlight at it.
A woman's face. Let me in! Oh, let me in, mister! My car won't start. There's somebody in the yard!
I yank open the passenger door for her. She scrambles in. I peel out before she even grabs a seat belt. Breathless, panting. She looks back at the house. I went in there looking for my friend Justin. Do you know him?
It takes me a moment to recognize Cassie, the gal from the bar crawl in Des Moines. She doesn't recognize me.
“Get in, it ain't safe,” I told her. She crawled in the passenger side and barely got on her seatbelt before I peeled out of the drive, sped round the corner and got on the back road going toward the highway. Going so fast the truck was bumping, rolling like it was tearing over corpses piled high over the road. But it was just a road, I told myself.
“Guess you're pretty spooked too,” Cassie said. “I saw you go in the house. What was in there?”
Her eyes were wide and worried.
“Nothing,” I said. “Looks like they cleared out.”
“You came running out that door like a shot.”
“So did you.”
She gave a shrug. Shivered. “Something about that place. I can't—can't ever quite remember what it is. Like as soon as I'm not there, I forget. Hey, if you take the next left, we'll circle back round to town. You can drop me off at my folks.”
I could tell it occurred to her she was in a car in the middle of the night, speeding over back roads, with a strange man. I had no intention of going back.
“I ain't stopping till we get to Grinnell,” I said. “Lots of people around. Bright lights. I just—can't be in the dark no more.”
“I got friends in Grinnell, at the college. Say, if you need a place to stay...”
She looked me up and down, figuring I was too old to be introduced to her friends. Too old to surf a sofa. I don't blame her. It was my own scent, a kind of outdoorsy funk from sleeping on the porch several nights—how many nights? Too polite to say anything, she rolled down her window to let the cool night air in. I rolled down mine and opened up the hatch in the back window.
The house has gone bad. I stay out on the porch til its gets dark. When I go in, the TV turns on by itself. Bright green flashing light. I try not to look at it. The sound reaches me. My mind starts to go. In the flashing light, I see somebody standing over me. Bare feet, pale legs. He's missing his right hand. His head is his own and he looks at me with hunted eyes. Muffled inside a room somewhere, I hear screaming.
Can you stop them? the man asks. There's a crowbar in his hand.
If I knew how, I've forgotten.
He tries to tell me things. How when he kills one of them, they replace themselves. Hunting down another. So there's always six. They take off the head, replace it with a green dial. It makes the body grow strong. Unstoppable. He's tried everything he knew. Marigolds to appease the gods. Burnt offerings. His own hand.
What do they want?
He runs before I can answer. To the cellar. Somehow I know, his is the voice I heard sobbing beneath the floor boards.
They will find him soon. Or maybe I dreamed it.
The phone rings all day. I keep to the porch, day and night now. Still hear it through the open window: the violin, static, growls. Cocooned in nothing, I lay unmoving on the porch swing. Awake without thinking. Somebody else is in the house, I think sometimes. I hear things in the day. At night, the green men look for something. Someone. Morning, the spell breaks. TV cuts out, quiet. Through the window, I see strange marks drawn over the TV. Letters or hieroglyphs. A prayer. Fresh flowers. The silver platter, polished, set before the TV. Sometimes there's a bowl covered in rags. Flies everywhere. At night, the attic door unlocks. Footsteps creep. Green lights flash through the windows. Soft beeping noises move from room to room.
I never remember what happens next.
A memory hovers out of reach. There's a reason for all this.
Twilight, a car pulls up. Girls get out. Familiar looking. They bang on the door. Look in the windows. I lay beneath the porch swing, like somebody placed me there out of sight. Hands crossed on my chest, corpse like. Their heels thud onto the porch. Busy, full of life. Nice, clean hands rattle the door knob. Faces peer in the windows. Oh my God, look at the mess! That's creepy, let's just leave. Should we call the police? Nobody's seen them for weeks. Is it really our problem, Cassie? Maybe they don't answer the phone because they didn't pay the bill. Deadbeats. Or they went camping or something. I don't think so, something's wrong here.
The car pulls out. Tears over the gravel. Music blares from the open windows. A familiar harmony. Same music the night we went out.
I sit up, cracking my forehead against the swing. The pain, the music. My mind jolts up to speed, like a skipped record. I have to get out of here! Now, before it's too late. My memories are shot, but my instincts are back. Crouched there, I know I can't go inside for my car keys. Not without passing the green eye. If it switches on, I'll be lost in the fog again. My stomach growls. My limbs are shaky, weak.
I remember what the girls said about the phone bill. The phone hasn't rang in days. Or weeks? I can only hope the electric will get cut off too. I shuffle around the house, ducking low to keep out of sight of the windows. The garden hose in back. I turn the spigot. Nothing. The water company cut the supply. Any day now, the power company might, too. Then I can get in the house, find my keys without the risk. I camp in the shed. Find my guitar, half buried in the dirt. Wrapped in a garbage bag. Like someone tried to hide it. To save it? I stare out the small, dirt smeared window toward the house. Then I see it. The cellar door hidden in the shade.
I wait until dark, scavenge in my truck for a jar of honeycomb.
In the moonlight, I see myself reflected in the car window. Skeletal, brown skin stretched over bones. Hair turned white. An old man, nearly mummified. Movement catches my eye. The attic window burns lurid green. Shapes pass in front of it. Hulking men with orbs instead of heads. I crawl in the truck bed and lay down flat. Whisper to myself half remembered lyrics. Hum. Not a full song, but enough.
My memory sputters to life.
They have been with me a long time. Ages.
I cart them from place to place, bound to them. And they to me.
Six of them, and me the seventh. The head.
They hunt for the smartest. It is a game. Only the smartest can outwit them. Prove himself worthy to serve the old god with the green eye. They will turn him into one of them, fortifying his body. Strong as an ox. Then the chosen one will turn against the weakest of the seven. Sacrificing it. Taking the head for itself.
I examine my thin, wasted arms in the moonlight. Soon I will pass beyond hunger and thirst. The last piece to fall in the game.
Midnight or so, I venture out. The house is dark. Silent. Even the attic window is dark. I search the truck, find a flashlight. Now or never. Gently I place the guitar inside. Everything else, I will leave behind. My burdens. This game. It ends with me.
I walk to the house, careful not to scuff the gravel. Open the door, flick on the beam. Black grease covers every surface. The walls stained and streaked. Fresh blood stains the stairs going to the attic. I stop and listen. No sound but my own breathing. My frail body barely heavy enough to make the floorboards creak.
The living room. The TV black with paint, dead and quiet. Dead flowers everywhere. The bowl and silver platter broken and overturned. Tiny black beetles everywhere. The sofa broken, cushions slashed. Bloodied. I search the crevices, find my keys. Okay, then—a noise stops me. Gentle as a mouse. Something brushed up against the floorboards from beneath the house.
Quick, I run to my truck. Crawl in the cab. Bang the door shut. Keys. Turn. The engine roars to life.
BANG BANG BANG!
Fists pound on the driver's side window. I cry out, shine the flashlight at it.
A woman's face. Let me in! Oh, let me in, mister! My car won't start. There's somebody in the yard!
I yank open the passenger door for her. She scrambles in. I peel out before she even grabs a seat belt. Breathless, panting. She looks back at the house. I went in there looking for my friend Justin. Do you know him?
It takes me a moment to recognize Cassie, the gal from the bar crawl in Des Moines. She doesn't recognize me.
“Get in, it ain't safe,” I told her. She crawled in the passenger side and barely got on her seatbelt before I peeled out of the drive, sped round the corner and got on the back road going toward the highway. Going so fast the truck was bumping, rolling like it was tearing over corpses piled high over the road. But it was just a road, I told myself.
“Guess you're pretty spooked too,” Cassie said. “I saw you go in the house. What was in there?”
Her eyes were wide and worried.
“Nothing,” I said. “Looks like they cleared out.”
“You came running out that door like a shot.”
“So did you.”
She gave a shrug. Shivered. “Something about that place. I can't—can't ever quite remember what it is. Like as soon as I'm not there, I forget. Hey, if you take the next left, we'll circle back round to town. You can drop me off at my folks.”
I could tell it occurred to her she was in a car in the middle of the night, speeding over back roads, with a strange man. I had no intention of going back.
“I ain't stopping till we get to Grinnell,” I said. “Lots of people around. Bright lights. I just—can't be in the dark no more.”
“I got friends in Grinnell, at the college. Say, if you need a place to stay...”
She looked me up and down, figuring I was too old to be introduced to her friends. Too old to surf a sofa. I don't blame her. It was my own scent, a kind of outdoorsy funk from sleeping on the porch several nights—how many nights? Too polite to say anything, she rolled down her window to let the cool night air in. I rolled down mine and opened up the hatch in the back window.
“Suppose I could use a shower,” I said by way of apology. “Get me a nice motel room, after I get you to your friend's house.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, prim as a secretary. “But don't apologize. My dad's a farmer. When he hoses down out back, a century of dirt comes off him. Are you related to that musician guy? The one at the house, with the guitar. He the prettiest blue eyes.”
“We're acquainted,” I said, gripping tight the steering wheel because what if she realized that he and I were one and the same?
Over the gravel roar of the tires, I could hear the high corn rushing past with a hissing kind of hush. Whispering. A shiver crawled down my spine. Instinctively I reached out to turn on the radio—hesitated—then turned the dial. Buddy Holly sang out, filling the night with joy, living on in spite of his fate. Like myself.
The young lady kept talking about all her friends in Grinnell. Probably just nervous. Wanting me to know how many people would miss her if anything happened. I wasn't listening. Memories flipping past my eyes like an old movie. The bar in Des Moines. How long since you got laid? A thousand years. Laughter. The heavy boxes tied with cord. Six of them. Always six of them.
The green orb, all seeing eye.
Three thousand years ago it had sat in a pharaoh's tomb.
“Oh god,” I murmured, remembering the moment the ancient priests set it there. Beside my coffin. Giving me the tour before my eternal journey. Explaining the procedures of mummification. Honey. Needle and thread. Gold.
“What's wrong?” Cassie asked.
“Immortality,” I said. “There's always a price.”
She didn't know what I meant, why would she? Sat there in silence as I rambled half-remembered things. When the god Osiris was killed, his body was torn into seven pieces. His wife, the goddess Isis, put him back together again. In Ancient Egypt, the pharaohs expected that by imitating the mummification of Osiris they too would gain immortality. They buried themselves in tombs with seven servants and the eye of Ra. The priests were meant to do the ritual of resurrection. Except priests were often corrupt. They took money and didn't do the ritual, or they didn't get it right. Every mummified pharaoh ever found is proof that the priests failed. You see, the ones that succeeded didn't stay in the tombs. They walked—and they still do.
You see, the life force was divided among the seven strong, healthy servants. One became the resurrected pharaoh, and received the pharaoh's head. The other six waited in a kind of suspended animation until the seventh began to grow old. Meantime, he was meant to care for them—to keep them hidden and well fed. Then, when it was time, the six awoke and searched for another to join them—someone surprisingly strong and resilient. With survival instincts, intelligence—worthy of wearing the crown someday. That's what happened at the house, to all the others. My servants had woken and set the game in motion. The strongest, the one who had survived them up till the very end—he was one of them now. Most likely he was the one who would hunt me down.
It had been going on for three thousand years. My head, worn by countless bodies. My memory fractured. Each of my servants was my burden to bear. Mouths to feed. And once my body began to wither, and my memories knit together the soiled tapestry of my life, that was the sign of the end—and the beginning.
Cassie retreated to the far corner of her seat away from me. Her hand clenched the door handle. I realized what she was planning.
“Don't do anything stupid to hurt yourself,” I said, slowing down as we came to a T-intersection. She didn't wait for the truck to stop before she jumped. Sprawled on the gravel with a scream. Scraped up arms and legs. Then she was running, down into the ditch, up into the high corn, swallowed by the night.
“Cassie, wait!” I yelled after her. “It ain't safe! They're coming!”
I opened the door to go after her. Just then I glanced in the rear view mirror. That's when I saw it. In the truck bed. The old television. The glowing green eye fixed on top of it. Been there the whole time. Beside it, a single heavy box, the cords cut, the lid askew. Opened. How did it even get there?
Quick, I shut the door. Reached across to close the passenger door that Cassie left open. Hands grabbed me through the open hatch of the cabin. Strong hands. Violent. They pulled at my head—pulled and pulled. I screamed, with all my life. Not again. There wasn't a curse in any language that could stop it. Another thousand years, another and another—because they would never left me die.
“Come on, you sunnofabitch,” a voice growled in my ear. “This ends now!”
And in the rear view mirror, I saw Cassie's face—
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