08 Oct Dead Channels

This is a dream.

The room swirled misshapen around me; the vague contour of belongings I knew to be mine —  my bed and dresser, the clothes piled in the hamper alongside them, all sat in a foreign arrangement. Askew and twisted against walls seated in the wrong positions. Everything was silent. Dark. Like the night itself had stopped to hold its breath.

This isn’t my room.

I inhaled — paper crunched beneath my ear. It came back to me.  Scattered on the desk beneath my head was supposed to be my midterm. Just like this was supposed to be my room. My new one.

Like the end of a drawn-out sigh, the night breathed back to life. The quiet whir of electronics wound quickly in the background, filling the vacuum with their gentle, cicada hum. The flash of my clock slithered between the glass bottles that shared the desk with me — the aftermath of my getting through the first months of college.

My room – a place in a city I didn’t know. Surrounded by people I didn’t know. Even the roommates I’d never had the courage to truly speak with, just left as strangers who lived on the other side of my door. It was a place I’d wake up sometimes still, and realize after a moment I wasn’t home.

I left my head down, letting it swim as the light flashed in and out. Midnight, it told me: 12:00 in big green numbers. The room would appear in the brief moments of lucidity, distorted through the bottles. Then blink out.

Rhythmic. Rising and falling. Awake, not awake.

Real. Not real.

Maybe I actually was dreaming.

Until the hiss of static flooded from my television, churned by a light that drowned out the dark. Uneven, flickering like a thousand struggling candles. I pulled my head from my desk, half flailing to protect my eyes. I fumbled around, searching for the remote as the gray haze blared from the glass. Thick noise poured like gravel through the speakers. I felt the small rectangle underhand, quickly pointing it at the screen.

Nothing happened.

I clicked it again, and again. Tossing the useless thing aside, I scooted up close, groping along the side of the box. Snow and thunder filled my senses, the rush of light turning sickeningly in my sleep-deprived and beer-sloshed brain. I felt the power button depress under my finger, cutting the signal out.

Everything plunged into darkness, except the screen. It didn’t quite die, just clicked with electricity under its grey surface. Lines of flickering static crept slowly in, as the blurred outline of an image appeared in the glass. Cutting through, fading into a sickly green.

Until it drenched the room.

Lingering white cuts hissed as the image slowly pieced its way together, stuttering like a tattered VHS. Forming into the outline of a room at night, with dark, vague shapes of furniture. With a television set against the wall, flickering erratically between dead channels.

My eyes slowly grew accustomed to the brightness, the room emerging further into solidity through a haze of scan lines. Grain crackled. I licked my tongue against my dry lips. I studied it. Everything —  the pile of clothes, the posters on the wall, the desk with stacks of bottles arranged in an unruly mass — felt familiar.

A chill crept through me as I looked at the desk. The bottles, the tv; everything placed on the screen just as they were next to me. Everything the same — down to the dark mass that slumped in the very chair I sat in.

The silhouette of a man, slunk low, his head turned toward the television. Motionless and obscured by the screen that burst and crackled with light. I turned instinctively in my chair, half expectant to find someone standing on the other side of my room. Only my bed and the wall stared back, as empty as they’d always been.

I turned back to the man on the screen, his features hidden in a drape of shadow. I thought he might be dead, the way he sat. Near catatonic and with his head fixated on the screen. Sitting and staring. Only the gentle rise and fall of his shoulders betrayed a sign of life.

What the hell was this?

Hidden camera flashed across my mind. I’d read about that on a forum. Stories about two-way mirrors in sleazy hotels, and pervy landlords with holes drilled in bathroom walls. Recording illicit videos used for blackmail. Or sold on the internet. The idea of a camera placed in my room before I moved in had crossed my mind, along with a thousand other horrible scenarios.

I found the place in an online ad. Roommate wanted. Cheap. College adjacent. I couldn’t afford student housing,  so cheap was good. And unfortunately, cheap can also mean sketchy. But this was it: my big, brave first steps into the real world. First time on my own, in a new city.

All my worrying about secret cameras, of kidnapping and serial killers — it was just paranoia, I’d convinced myself.

I was quickly having second thoughts. That wasn’t all that twisted into a pit in my stomach. It lingered in the room like an unseen presence — that I was watching all of this unfold in front of me as it was happening. That this was real. There was a man there, in my room, sitting in the very chair I felt against my back. Like I could reach through the screen and touch him.

I flipped the VHS deck open on the bottom of the TV.  Empty. I could scratch recording off the list.

Movement on the screen caught my attention. Not from the man — but the door. It’d crept open at some point, just behind him. There was no sound, only the hum of my television. The door opened wide into a pitched murkiness that I knew to be the hall. There, in the dark, something stirred. The indistinct outline of shoulders and a torso, given away only when the TV would flash just bright enough to land over them.

Someone waited, faceless in the heavy grain, a slight sway to their figure. Standing like a drunk. The man at the desk moved for the first time — a twitch, then settled deeper into the chair. Unaware of the observer in the hall. They seemed to sense that, and stepped into the room. The light cut jagged shadows over his features.

I jumped in my chair — standing up to look back at the door in my actual room, only feet behind me.

Still closed. Of course it was. A shiver tickled through my spine as I gazed over it a long moment. Like I couldn’t trust leaving it alone. As if I could feel someone just on the other side — waiting in the darkness.

I pushed that feeling down and left the door. Back to the screen. I recognized him. My roommate, standing in the shadows of my room.

Ed and Sam, the strangers I lived with. I didn’t even know their full names.

I’d met Ed first, spoken to him on the phone before I’d made the agreement. He was at least my age, and went to the college, too.

We’re a bit of a party house, he’d said. Good, I thought. Burst my way out of the bubble, I told myself. Not sit in my room while they blasted music all night, yelled drunkenly, and fucked the place up. Littered the house with detritus, old food, and bodily fluids.

Then there was Sam. He lived on the couch for all I knew. A burnout, with a hairline thinning into an unkempt scraggle and a sparse goatee. A man who stood well over a foot taller than me.

I don’t think I’d ever seen him sober, not that I’d ever really spent time with him. Just the passing what’s up in the hallway, on a good day. Said he went to the college too, although I’d never seen him there.

The first week told us a lot. That we weren’t friends. That we simply existed in the same building out of convenience, because it was the only place any of us could afford. That I’d made a huge mistake. How much can you really get to know a stranger in a few months? What they’re capable of?

Now, Sam stood in the grainy video. In my room. Unmoving, the entire time I’d watched — just swaying with that drunken stagger.

Until his head lifted, came up to stare. Blank and expressionless.

The round, dark circles over his eyes watched forward, through the distortion of degraded tape. Looking right at the screen. Unease probed along my skin as I watched him back.

Like he was standing right in front of me.

He smiled. A grin, all too wide. Toothy and pointed. Stretched like rigor mortis on a cadaver. He turned, stopping as his eyes came to rest on the man at the desk. With a glance back — as if to make sure I was watching — he took a step.  Coming to stand within arm’s reach.

The man didn’t stir.

It took a second for it to come into focus. Something dangled from his hand, a long strap with a metallic glint at the end. The glimmer came into view as he raised it. A belt. I knew it instantly. Sam’s pride and joy — a gaudy, oversized buckle emblazoned with a steer skull.

What the hell was he doing? I leaned close to the tv, half-standing in my chair as Sam lifted the belt, holding it taut between his hands.

My pulse climbed into my throat as the man twitched in his seat. He wasn’t going to—

The man shifted. Just a small twitch. Wake up, damnit. I thought at him. Wake up.  A shake of his head —  like he was coming to. Agonizingly slow. Sam hovered the belt just behind him.

I was almost out of my seat, leaned so close to the TV static crackled against my nose. Get up for fuck’s sake. Get up. I wanted to yell at him, to slap the screen till he heard. Get up, goddamnit, get up, turn around. Behind you. Look behind you. Look at hi-

Like a starter pistol, the thought had turned to words, slipping out in a half-scream, half-groan at the set.

Look at him!

Nothing as gentle as a stir this time —  the man jolted his head straight up, swiveling.

Turning the wrong direction. Toward me.

Away from the belt that just as quickly cinched over his throat. Wrenching him back. A shudder coursed through his body, arms jerking out in surprise, pulling at the sudden garrotte. Sam held the thrashing man tight, noose securely locked, pinning him against the back of the chair. There was nothing on Sam’s face. No look of struggle. No sign of the exertion clearly visible in the knotting muscle in his arms, nor the belt wrapped so tight over his hands they turned red.

He held the man there, legs kicking. Thrashing against the desk, sending the television set onto the ground where it spilled out a distorting light over the two figures. The man writhed, the desperate struggle in his limbs slowing, as lethargy crept in. The belt dug deep against the soft tissue.

He was dying.

Dying.

I couldn’t watch. I jumped from my chair, sending it to the ground as I mashed at the power button. It wouldn’t turn off, even as I jammed my finger against it, the plastic circle digging against my skin. It wouldn’t turn off. I should have turned away, then. That’s all I had to do. Just move my head, just close my eyes. Just don’t look.

But I didn’t. A deep, morbid pull glued my eyes to the screen —  forced me to watch. As the man’s body twitched, the last of his life silently choking out in front of me. Bottles spilled from the desk, rolling and crashing into each other.

Up until the body slumped over. Sam held the belt. Until the form stopped twitching.

He let the body fall against the desk in a heap.

Where the dead man’s face finally came into view.

That wrench in my gut tightened. The one I’d had since first seeing the screen. Roiling in my stomach, working its way into my chest. Like I was going to throw up.

Glassy eyes stared out from a face already bloated. A dark bruise straddled his neck, up to the edge of a jawline that sat off-kilter, pressed at an angle away from the face that revealed the broken structure beneath.

He stared lifelessly toward me, the tv on the ground gracious enough to keep the entire thing lit. To show its details with a sick clarity.

To show that it was me.

What I’d felt since the video first started:  the shape of his head and shoulders, the way he held them. How he’d slumped in that very chair, the one now at my feet.

I’d watched myself die, right on the screen in front of me.

Killed by him.

Sam knew it, too. The way he turned back, sedately, belt hanging loosely in his hand. The mechanical dragging his body took to move — and that rictus grin plastered over his face. Something unnerving lived behind it. A distance in his expression. Like the plastic smile of a doll, set beneath eyes that knew nothing of what he was doing.

An expression that didn’t belong to a human being.

He watched me back with it.

Something like a shiver pulsed through him, giving to quick, jutting convulsions of his chest. Rapid and shallow. A mirthless, almost painful movement.  It took me a moment in the silence to realize what it was — he was laughing.

Everything cut to static. White noise choked out of the set in a rasping wheeze. I only stood, blankly watching the flickering black and white specks. Still seeing the outline of that last image, burned into the glass.

I rubbed my eyes like it could possibly wipe that picture away.

I reached over and turned the TV off.

* * * * * *

It was a dream.

I sat in the lamp’s glow, contemplating. Wishing my door had a lock. Adrenaline still lingered in my chest; a tangled mass snarled over my lungs. Just breathing felt labored. Short.

I was still drunk, maybe. Or — my drink had been spiked. I looked over at the cluster of bottles, not really believing the words in my head. It had to be a dream.

The TV sat silent, its screen empty. It couldn’t be real, none of it. The whole scene had the tinge of imagination. I could almost believe it’d been a dream. Despite the taste of iron on my tongue and the throbbing in my head.

I looked at the door.

A dream. Everything was fine. I listened to the night outside my window, full of crickets and traffic and the city. As it always was.

I wished that damn door would lock.

My clock flashed twelve. Anxiety crawled over me each time the damn thing blinked. The air was always stagnant in that room, hot and suffocating. Even with the window open, not even a breeze dared cross inside.

I wasn’t going to fall back asleep anytime soon — and I sure as hell wasn’t about to see if there was anything on TV. I should just unplug the damn thing, I thought. Throw it away tomorrow.

This place. Those two words rolled in my head, caught in my teeth as I chewed over them. Blink, blink, blink, went the clock.

Nothing. That’s what was tying me there. To that apartment. The musty, dank, cramped hole I’d walled myself into. Nothing at all – other than money, the constant mental drain of school, all the useless shit that I bought just to feel better, that I’d kept in that miserable little room that I didn’t even like.

I slammed my fist on the desk, scattering the papers onto the ground. I wasn’t even on the lease. I could just walk out that door, never come back — there was nothing stopping me. Just walk out and forget about everything. Walk until I’d found myself somewhere new. Then what? Curl up and die, probably. But I’d be free of this place.

I looked down at my hand, clenched into a fist on the desk. It was shaking, coaxed on by something that lived deeper than the anger boiling through my veins. Fear.

As hard as it was to admit even to myself, I was scared. Too much of a coward to stand up for myself. To look Sam in the eye. To just get up and go. Out of the nest, and truly, deeply afraid for the first time. Ever since I’d stepped into that apartment.

That first week, after finding out what kind of house this was, I bought it. Slept with it leaning against the bedpost by my head: a baseball bat — three feet of dense maple formed into a crude club.

I’d felt so stupid even buying it. In what idiotic fantasy did I see myself springing out of bed and wielding it against some intruder? The truth was, I’d never even swung the damn thing. The reality of barreling this thing into another human being hung too heavy at the far end.

The idea always seemed easier — when you see it in movies and books —  but there was a realness to feeling it, holding it out from my arms. It felt heavy in my hands even then, I knew I’d never have the guts to use it.

The bat soon found its way underneath the bed. To be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind; buried alongside the embarrassment that filled me every time I’d see it.

Looking over my shoulder, I could almost see the handle peeking out.

I waited there, playing with my thoughts for an indeterminate series of moments. Fretting, swaying in my seat, thinking, half-standing, worrying, sitting back down. Until there was no choice left. I finally forced myself to do it. I got up, as quietly as I could, and walked to the door. Cracked it open just enough to peek out, to ease my mind.

I looked down the hallway toward the trickle of light coming from the living room.

With small, measured steps, I entered the vacuous dark of the hallway, my hand lingering on the safety of the door handle and the lit room at my back. I had to force myself to let it go and walk out.

Sporadic, flashing bursts of light drifted from around the corner, splashing color against the wall. Like a TV set flicking through a series of channels. The edge of the living room began to peek into focus: the exaggerated shadows of empty pizza boxes, beer cans, and a bong flickered and danced over the carpet. The table came into view, along with the back of the couch. Already, the musty smell of body odor and weed swirled in the air, mixing with the stench of puke coming from the bathroom.

Home sweet home.

Over the scene, the television flipped through a rapid series of disjointed images —  marred with the pulse of static lines. Scanning through the channels, the signal choked in and out as it came through. I shielded my eyes to see the back of the couch against the light of the TV.

A foot slumped over the end.  I leaned forward, the floor groaning beneath my weight. My heart skidded in my chest — and for a split second, I regretted not bringing the bat with. The foot didn’t move. Not even a twitch. Careful of where I placed my foot, I leaned further until Sam came into view. Sleeping. Ed slept just on the other side, crumpled on the sofa chair.

I almost snorted with relief, the sound coming out louder than I’d anticipated. Sam’s eyes fluttered for a second, slowly coming to. Opened to look at me, a glassy look of confusion in them. We shared a look.

He dropped his head back onto the couch, letting his eyes close again.

Idiot. I let my breath out, realizing only then I’d been holding it. I could almost laugh. You stupid idiot — half directed at him, half directed at me. Of course he was sleeping. Of course these two were harmless. They’d blasted themselves into such a stupor they couldn’t even stand if they’d wanted.

My palm stung. I looked down, forcing my hands to unclench. Four little crescents were pushed deep into the skin. I let out another sigh, the feeling of relief fleeting. My chest had loosened a bit, but something still clung over it. I found myself staring at the front door, just on the other side of the couch. The only door out of this apartment, unless I wanted to risk three stories from the balcony.

A deep longing welled in me. Home. I wanted nothing more than to just run: get the hell out of this tiny apartment, and away from these strangers.

Sam wasn’t a bad guy, I told myself, looking down at his sleeping form. Probably has his own demons. Ed too. I never really thought they would actually… I didn’t know for sure. But the thought of it didn’t feel real then, looking at him. That was something you’d only ever hear about, read in the paper. It wasn’t something that’d actually happen in your life.

I was homesick. It’d been there from the moment I’d moved in. The cutting, intuitive wrongness that dwelled inside, waiting like an impending freak-out that threatened to push its way through the skin.

I didn’t want to be here — I hadn’t ever wanted to.

Instead of taking that step toward the door, I pushed the discomfort down, forcing myself to think about other things. Like the drink I desperately needed.

I wandered my way into the kitchen: more a narrow hallway stuffed with cramped cabinets, a stove, a sink, and just barely enough room for a fridge. Then there was me, in the middle of it all. The clock on the stove greeted me, blinking as well. The whole apartment must have lost power.

It couldn’t have been for long  — the beer I grabbed was cold. All I had to do was find the bottle opener. I fumbled through the cluttered silverware drawer. Tossing over loose forks and spoons, digging for it. I stopped. It wasn’t there. The large, heavy-bladed knife that sat on the left side of the drawer.

I looked over to the sink, brimming with the pile of dishes. It could be there. Somewhere at the bottom. It could be somewhere else. My stomach was sinking: a slow, but precipitous drop.  I found the bottle opener and popped the cap, attempting to talk myself down. Foam spilled from the top and over my fingers. Halfheartedly, I held it over the sink.

Combating the tightening in my chest, I leaned over to the window, sliding it open. A rush of cool air washed over me. I let it envelop me, closing my eyes, just feeling the sense of fresh air in my lungs. The night hung impenetrable outside; a tenebrous, smothering curtain wrapped over our apartment. I normally found a comfort in feeling it next to me.

Not that the view was ever anything to write home about — it opened out toward the apartment jammed in next to us. Only a wall and the neighbor’s window. Somewhere, around the bend, the light of a lone streetlamp attested to the rest of the world’s existence.

That night, a different sense overwhelmed me, looking out. Like what I was seeing wasn’t actually there, wasn’t a tangible part of reality.

I was a distant spectator, in a different world. Lethargy clung to the air, flooded my lungs. Like there wasn’t enough in the room. Like the apartment had grown smaller, the window drawn further from my reach.

I stepped back, sinking. The walls around, the too-tight kitchen, the cabinets and stove and fridge, the too-small ceiling, all spun, pulled the floor out underfoot. I tried to breathe, but my throat was closing, lungs struggling to hold on to any air.

Choking – the thought slipped through.

A groan drifted from the living room. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Sam, not fucking now.

I grabbed the counter, holding myself up. Spinning, lolling from side to side. I was going to pass out. Midnight blinked from the darkness. 12:00.

Static rushed in from the living room, creeping over the kitchen floor with a pulse of nauseating light. The click of a glass followed it: knocked off the table, followed by a slurred attempt at a sentence cutting its way through sleep. I could hear him shifting on the couch.

I heard him stop.

“What…what the f…” His words fell back into that unintelligible groan. A shifting tone slid into his voice just before it dropped out. Something I’d never heard before.

I held onto the counter, legs turning to thin sticks that wobbled and bent beneath my weight.

Fear. That’s what it was. Fear in his voice. It sank deep into my spine.

I pulled myself through the galley, trying to find purchase beneath my feet, enough to throw myself down the hall and into my room. Run, idiot. Run! I only stared at the wall ahead of me, and Sam’s shadow, standing, stretching to its full, distorted height along it.
I tried to say something, to yell, to force any words out. To plead with him — tell him he’s not that kind of person.

You couldn’t actually kill another human.

All the air had left my chest, my swollen tongue sat like leather in my throat.

Right?

This was stupid. This wasn’t real. None of it. It was a dream I’d had earlier. Sam was a lot of things – but not a killer. Neither of them were.

I found my legs, my backbone, I… kept my head down and walked to my room.  More of a skitter – past the flash of the television, and the figure standing before it.

Through the scream that filled my head as I refused to look up. To the tickle that chased at the back of my neck with each step: anticipation of the sudden, jarring blow from behind that’d crack my skull, break the bone into the soft flesh of my brain.

But how much can you really get to know a stranger in a few short months?

I turned the doorknob, slipping into the safety of the room that was not mine.

* * * * * *

I stood for a long moment, leaned against the door. Until my left hand grew numb. I looked at the beer still clutched in my grip, beads of dew dripping from its surface and running over my fingers. A vision of the man standing in the hall, sluggishly lumbering through the dark flashed as I closed my eyes. I lifted the beer to my parched mouth, wincing at its bitterness.

I paced. Drank. Paced more. Pulled the empty bottle to my lips.

All while it sat there, observed me. The reflection of my room, my figure in it, pacing to and fro, only stopping occasionally to stare into its depths. Only the high-pitched hum of its capacitors responded. Just a collection of plastic, glass, and circuits, I told myself. That’s all.

The clock blinked. Midnight. Like only a second had passed. Everything I’d seen would sear against the tv’s surface, clinging like static.

The man slumped against the desk.

Vacant eyes and that smile.

Over a bloated, purple face.

I wandered to my window, looking outside at the night. The parking lot below, the road behind it. Not a soul was out. The steady roar of the highway, dead quiet. Like the world had disappeared.

That goddamn TV. I’d given up on pretending. I turned toward it, scanning over every inch of the black mirror, expectancy bubbling under my skin. Like there was something on the other side of it. That it was giddy to flick back on and show me more.

My arm twitched with the thought of smashing the bottle right through the screen.

This was far past homesickness —  I had to get the hell out. To prove the world was still out there, that there was something beyond those walls.

This fucking apartment.

I gave in, slid up to the tv. Crawled along the side again, pressed the button. It was a dream. I was going to turn it on, prove that to myself. Then I was going to walk out of that building. I was going home.

The button depressed, clicking as a whine squealed through the circuits, brightening the screen as it came to life. A rush of air pumped through me. A brief flicker sparked, punctuated by the rapid sweep of channels. One by one, it scanned through the numbers, each as empty as the last.

My nerves grew more and more fraught, stretched with each staccato jump. Like they were going to snap. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let myself look anymore, I didn’t want to see what it decided to show me.

It stopped. Settled on an image, deep green and still. I only saw it for a second, just a flash of a few frames before I dropped the bottle, threw myself away from it. Crawling to the ground, I slid my arm under the bed, dug through the mess. Until I felt wood grain against my fingers.

Lifting it, I brought the end through the air, feeling its weight where I held it perched over the tv.

I refused to look at the screen, the movement on it.

Just put the bat through it. End it.

My forearms tensed, violence pulsing through them, rooted into my legs. A force pulled at the bat to swing, beckoned it to smash everything. I could feel my hands tightening, gripping the handle. Opening and closing. Rhythmically.

The bat shook in my grip.

It was so heavy.

I let it feebly slide down to my side, the flush of self-pity and shame a cocktail in my chest.

Something did snap then, resolute and solidified in the core of my being. I left the image, playing whatever the hell it was going to play, and slid into the hall. No matter what happened, I was going to walk through that front door.

I slowed, only a step into the hallway. That image, the brief second I’d just seen on the tv — was playing out in front of me. This moment, this very scene mirrored on the television just seconds before. The hallway. The glow, uneven and nauseating, trickling in from the living room. Flickering like tongues of flame before falling back into darkness. All with the familiarity of a recurring dream.

I held the bat low, but firm. Already feeling blisters along my palms. Whatever it had to show me, I didn’t care. I forced another step, the faint crackle of static growing louder, mixed with the hammering of my heart in my ears. I strained my eyes, pushing forward. Shadows danced across the static, like the movement of a body at the end of the hallway — perched in ambush right around the corner.

The television grew brighter, blinding. Watching.

Sweat trickled over my brow, chest thudded, as the static grew stronger. Louder. Pulsed in time with my breathing.

The bat lifted, those last few feet, mechanically. The faint shuffle of footsteps.

The door was right there. Right around the corner. All I had to do was take the turn. A few more steps. Run. Adrenaline rushed through my legs. Pushed from behind.

Home.

That feeling again, as it came into view.

Like I wasn’t there.

Turning the corner,  my entire being pulled forward, sprinting — right into the figure in stood front of me. His full frame twisted at me, ripped away from the screen, a scream contorting across his face. A glint in his hand.

I was a distant spectator, in another world.

The wood cracked with a sickening thump: a low, dull thud. Like a melon smashed against concrete.

It’s not real.

 Concussion reverberated through my forearms, stinging the adrenaline-soaked fiber. A splattering of crimson slicked along the wood and across the wall as he crumpled from the impact.

A dream.

Silence followed.  A great hush settled over the very air, perfectly still and preserved. Cold. My arms burnt, flecked with warm blood.

Sam twitched in a broken mass at my feet. Red leaked from his mouth and ears, fell from his head. Collected in a pool next to the remote — still in his hand. Glinting in the television’s light.

In the distance, someone screamed, high-pitched and wailing. Grief-filled. I looked over at Ed, curled in a hysterical ball. Rocking. Letting out that awful cry.

He was making that sound, looking at me. Pulling away like a frightened animal. A rabbit shrieking in the jaws of a coyote.

It faded as I looked to the screen. Still playing.

The last thing Sam had seen.

On repeat. Cutting back, looping a moment in the hazy light.

The hallway. The light. The figure that stands at the end, before stepping into our living room. Coming to stop over the man sleeping on the couch. The bat’s held by their side, before they lift it.

Then bring it down. Over and over. Until it’s stained and dripping.

That’s when they turn.

To look at me. To laugh.

My own face, standing over the butchered form of Sam. That smile on my lips.

The bat slid from my fingers, clattering against the floor. I left it there. The body. The television, gleefully replaying the scene over and over. I left everything sitting as it was and stepped to the door. Unlocked it and walked outside.

The warmth of blood and sweat fresh against my numbing body, my breath caught the chill night air. Slipped away in small clouds of steam that disappeared into the empty sky.

And I left the dream behind that closed door.