August 1983

For the next ten months, I only continued to use up all the paper in the house. In hopes of speeding things up, I stopped by an office supplies store in Laconia, the next town over, by the sandwich shop on Main Street. I had my eyes set on one of the Macintosh computers. I had seen those ads on tv, I dreamed about how easy it would be to store everything I wrote on a single floppy disk. But my summer job wages couldn’t stretch that far. In the end, I settled for a used Brother typewriter with a jammed Q key and faded beige paint. It didn’t take me long to realize how god damn loud that thing was. The keys slamming against the paper sounded like a dogfight from one of those old war movies on T.V.

But with Sean off to college, my parents graciously handed me the keys to the Pinto. I hated that car, even before they started the recalls but my parents kept it because nothing had gone wrong, yet. Despite this, it proved to be a safe haven for keeping things quiet. I hid my stories about crazed gunmen, a janitor gone insane, a half-man creature all locked in the glove box while the typewriter slept in the trunk. It was getting easier and easier to wipe those nightmares out of existence. Most of them were smited as soon as my fingers reached those keys. 

...

On one particular summer day, the sun was being magnified by the Pinto’s windshield as I drove past the water tower. I pulled that dusty rust bucket into the Globe Plaza outside the Circle K store next to the movie theater. The pavement was so hot you could feel it through the souls of your shoes. It was Sarah and Andrew’s birthday but halfway through making the cake mom realized that we had completely run out of eggs. So she sent me out to get some as quickly as possible. I didn’t want to buy them from where I worked but it was the closest store. 

It was cooler inside, the AC was blasting throughout the building. I knew exactly where to find them, I had only stocked that section about a million times. When I turned back to the registers, I got a sense of a strange presence. 

Across the near-empty store, I watched as a single deer stepped out from one of the aisles and stopped. Its reflection gleamed off the polished floors but its hooves made no noise against the tiles. It shifted its head and stared me down. Its huge black antlers left cracks in the cereal shelves backdrop. It sent a chill down the back of my neck, it felt so real but I knew that there was no way it could be. The two of us were locked for what felt like hours before it turned and strolled down another aisle without a sound. When my stupor was broken, I found myself drifting over to the row of shelves it had ambled down, but it was gone leaving me stuck in dreamy curiosity.

“Hey, Roy.” I was jerked back to reality. A fellow employee and classmate had spotted me and was waving me over to their checkout lane.

“Hey Martha, how’s it going?” 

“Good, good,” she paused for a moment before looking around to make sure we were out of earshot. “Are you going to Jamie’s party tonight?” 

“There’s a party?” I tried to sound intrigued, I really didn’t want to go to one at the time.

“It's gonna be huge! Her older brother is stalking all the drinks!” she whispered with excitement.

“Sounds coo-”

“You should totally go!” She scanned the eggs and tossed them in a paper bag. “I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.” 

“I’ll… I’ll see if I can make it,” I said while grabbing the bag. I waved as I went out of the glass doors into the frying pan parking lot. The heat was soaking into the pavement as the day went on.

I heard the screeching tires before I saw the speeding car. It was a couple of kids in my grade so baked they couldn’t tell their ass from their elbow. One of them had stolen their dad's Mustang and thought it would be a good idea to take it for a drifting joy ride through the plaza parking lot blasting the Scorpions. I had to jump out of the way as they shot by the store exit leaving me in a trail of tire smoke, looping around another row of cars. 

This was one of those moments where you could see the collision before it happened. Like when you’re watching a car chase in a show and you can see the back tires slip just a little too much. They lost control, I could see my car, thirty miles an hour, first contact, a spark. 

I stood in the parking lot turned pale yellow while flames danced through my car. The eggs had dropped to the ground where they shattered, spilled, and cooked on the hot pavement. I could hear Them hissing and howling as the pages from each story became crisp and chard. The ink was being burned to ash and whatever words bound them to the paper were gone. Everything seemed to blur while those idiots ran from the car. I just stood there, jaw dropped, unable to comprehend what had happened.

I didn’t pay much attention to what the police told me. Something about everyone being ok and stuff. The Pinto was totaled but that did not matter to me. Some of the typewriter keys had melted together and all the paint had burned away in the heat of the trunk. There was nothing left to speak of in the glove box. 

They followed me back home that night and circled the inside of the house. The birthday party was a blur. I found Them all cramped into my room waiting for me. Muddy shoes, bleached skull, a shadow on the wall. They were getting closer. They tugged at my shirt and pushed me around. They were using me as a puppet shoving me after I had tied Them up with a typewriter ribbon and locked Them up in a glove box. They taunted, They hissed and whispered trying to push me over the edge of insanity. They wanted payback. I wanted nothing more than to be left alone. 

“Are you going to Jamie’s party tonight?” The line bounced around my head. I knew it would work. It didn’t take me long to find the wagon keys. I was out of the house in a matter of seconds and speeding down the road. I could see Them lining the pavement. Some of Them sat in the back seat of the Plymouth with me hissing and screaming.

I stormed through the front lawn, the grass was coated in a thin layer of dew from the sprinklers. I could already hear the English Beat blasting through the large windows. The house looked like a circus tent with big lights and angled, pointed, roofs. It was bright, it was loud, it was everything I needed at the moment. I stood in the open doorway trying to take everything in. The entire class of 83 was in attendance. They danced and cheered without a care in the world while whispers slipped over my shoulder to my ears. It didn’t take me long to find the drinks out by the pool. An entire rainbow of glass and shapes lined the booze stained table. I didn’t hold back. 

As for my stories? Ohhh They were there alright, every single one of those bastards. The stained tie, the narrow white eyes, the half man-creature, the bleached skull. They hid between party guests playing lawn darts and outside windows pressing against the glass. They replaced my reflection in the windows and the face at the bottom of my cup.

I was going to drown Them, push Them out in a tipsy haze. The pine floors were moving under my feet. The world shifted and spun leaving me leaning against the sheetrock wall. I tried and tried but no matter how hard I went They still watched me. I clasped my eyes shut, They were waiting for me to slip, fall into the pit of insanity. The closer They crept the more time seemed to slow down. Minutes became hours, hours became days. The Thompson Twins were distorted. I was tired of this. They were filling the house, In the hallway, in the living room. There were more than I had ever seen at once. They were in my face, They hissed, They chanted.

“Bag your face, Baker.” I hated Sally. I hated that house. I hated the muddy shoes and the bloodied ax. They were only getting worse. They were reaching out with their cold hands, They brushed against my face and pulled at my clothes. I tried to fight back but They stepped away and I would stumble to the floor like a fool. They were pulling me around and pushing me into things. 

A table lamp fell to the floor and shattered into millions of pieces. I guess that was it for me. I was thrown out of the house by angry classmates. Face first in the grass I lay there while They continued to poke and prod me. The lights from the house extended across the lawn while I stumbled to the sardine tin with wheels. I turned it over, the engine rattled to life and choked on air. I glared at the windshield but I couldn’t see my reflection in the dark glass. 

The roads were empty, I saw no other headlights other than the pair of white eyes I could see sitting in the back through the rearview mirror. They pulled at the wheel and played with the lights. I had done just the opposite of what I had wanted. Rather than drowning them out, I had fueled them to torment me more. I wasn’t watching the speedometer, I wasn’t following the lines. I tried to force Them out, make Them go away, but I only shouted and screamed at Them, with Them. They didn’t care for the words that tore through my mouth like broken glass. They had finally done it, I had slipped, I had lost.

They flipped the headlights and messed with the windows. When the lights came on again, a pair of deer’s eyes were illuminated on the double yellows. I tried to swerve. I hit it straight on and went flying off the road rolling the car.

Twenty minutes later a couple heading home from a date at the roller rink found the wagon wrapped around a tree. When the ambulance came I was pulled from the car, I should have died but through some miracle, I was still breathing. In the police report, they stated that they never found any injured deer near the accident. They claimed that it must have just been my eyes playing tricks on me.

I’ve spent a good month and a half here in the hospital recovering from my head injuries. They put me in a room with pale blue walls and a single window. My driver’s license was revoked by the state and the Plymouth was beyond repair, but none of that matters. In the past couple of weeks, I haven’t seen a single one of those bastards. No man with a stain mustard tie, no shadow with pale white eyes, no fifteen-foot creature with a bleached skull. There’s nothing. I  finally got what I wanted. But after weeks of sitting in this bed, one question remains stuck with me. Is it true that they’re gone, or can I no longer see them, just like everyone else?