A few years ago when I was invited to a dinner party, and it
wasn't that fancy, just a few odd friends reconnecting people I hadn't seen since
high school. Some of the people on that list were people I hadn't seen
or heard of for years, so it'd be a nice opportunity to catch up.
My wife couldn't come, though invites only she didn't mind. I looked
forward to it all week. I dug out my old Tomscog high school baseball
cap and went through the guest list. There were a few names I recognized
at the drop of a hat, and a few that I didn't. I
figured some people had changed their names over the years. While it wasn't a
proper reunion, more I could get together of old friends, I still got
the sense that there was something more to it. There was no anniversary coming
up, so it sort of came out of nowhere. I got the impression
that maybe something else was up, like a proposal or some other announcement.
The big night took place on a Saturday at a rented venture just outside of
town, some old clubhouse, nothing big of fancy, but enough to house
the eight party goers that had pressed the I will the tind button. I
got there a bit early, dressed up in my favorite jacket, sporting the
classic baseball cap. It smelled a bit like mildew, but what the hell.
If there ever was a time to wear it, this was it.
Rolling up to the house, the first person I ran into was the host
herself, Jerry, short for Geraldine. She was the de facto head of
the A V Club back in high school. The elected president of the club
was often missing or off doing their own thing, leaving Jerry to take care
of the practicalities. If there was one person I'd bet on to arrange a
night like this, it'd be her. She swept me up in a big
hug, pulling a little on my baseball cap. Oh we're bringing out the
big guns, eh, she laughed. Should have kept my club sweater.
Got to represent the Tugs, the stupid name we used for the locals.
It was still around. Over time, the others dropped in Nellie the overachiever,
Olly or o Ley, who was on the student council, Chris and
Corey the twins Omar who didn't move in until the final year but instantly made
himself part of the group. Finally, we just waited for Tess. It
was getting late, so we figured she could catch up later. We had
a couple of drinks and got snacking on some appetizers Jerry had arranged for a
catered meal. It didn't take long for us to fall back into our old
rolls, finding our way back to each other like we'd never left. There
is a saying that the better you know some one, the less you need
to talk to them. It really is true. It was just a matter
of minutes before we were right back to where we left things all those years
ago. But Tess was a no show. I figured she'd run into some
sort of last minute issue, but Jerry wasn't convinced. If anything, Jerry
was being a bit strange about it, avoidant. Halfway through the main course,
Nellie choked her phone. She fell silent all of a sudden. It
was hard to tell since everyone else was laughing and chatting about but I saw
her lift her hand to her mouth and her eyes stopped blinking. She'd seen
something, something shocking. I gently elbowed Omar next to me, who noticed
the same thing. Once the two of us quieted down, so did the
others. It didn't take long for the entire table to notice. Nelly looked
up at us. She's there's been an accident. I think she tests it's
not, she sniffled, putting down a phone. She buried her face in
her hands, trying her best to hold back the tears. Everyone picked up
their phones, trying to see if what she'd said was true, checking local
news, social media, anything. But I kept my eyes on Jerry.
She was unnaturally quiet about this. It didn't take long for the room to
devolve. Nellie was openly weeping. Oliy just went pale, staring into the
wall. Chris and Corey started arguing about the details as they differed from one
source to the next. Omar just shook his head over and over, trying
to convince himself it wasn't true, but of course it was. Turns out
Tess had some kind of aneurysm earlier that day out like a light the moment
she sat down in a car, completely unavoidable and undetectable. It just took
some time for people to notice, since it looked like someone just sitting in
their car. But Jerry just sat there sipping a whine. She didn't look
at her phone, and she didn't join the conversation. There was a shake
to her hand, like she was suddenly nervous. I wanted to pullar aside
and ask her about it, but there was no space. People were talking
over one another, calling out demanding my attention, all the while Jerry didn't
move a muscle. Then the power went out. It went completely dark.
For a moment, all I could see were faces lit up by smartphone screens
like ghastly apparitions. I joined in and so did Jerry, with discussion just
died as we all looked at one another. At some point, someone turned
their phone towards the table, as if looking for something. As the light
panned across the room, we all noticed in unison her shape. It was
only there for a fraction of a second. Something tall, dark and spectral
arms that reached all the way to the floor. Something sickly thin and black
as oil. There was a shrill screech, like the cables inside the walls
were burning, screaming for help. This high pitched burn, something overloading,
bathing the room in the smell of burnt plastic and gypsum. In the blink
of an eye, the power returned, and with it the dark disappeared.
The room erupted. Nelly was on her feet, backing away from the table.
Ali crouched down. The twins just stood up, looking lost. Ohm.
I just froze, not knowing what to do, but my eyes landed
on Jerry and what she was doing. She just sat there, staring at
the space where the dark thing had stood. As the room fell silent.
I caught her attention. What's going on? I wheezed, What was that?
Jerry shook her head. As the rest of the room turned her attention
to her, She began stuttering. Her eyes shifted from one to the next,
until she finally gave in. It's it's hard to explain. So now
we got the real story. It started a couple of months ago. It
started with a woman named Gwen. She had been an acquaintance at best,
someone that most of the group hadn't interacted much with. She was part of
another clique in a way, and there was much crossover between the groups.
She had suddenly passed, leaving some former classmates devastated. Tess had heard about
it somewhere in a social peripheral. One post in particular had stood out.
In one of the memorial comment sections, someone mentioned she knew this was coming.
She'd seen the specter of death, she told me, and I think
she was at peace. After that, there'd been two more deaths, a
man and a woman, both dropping dead within a month of one another,
again vague hints to seeing something and a specter, but this time Tess knew
them a little better. In fact, she talked to one of them just
weeks ahead of their death. Two things became apparent, one that they were
being followed by something, and two that they knew their time was running short.
By that third death, Tess figured who was no longer a coincidence their
old friends were dropping like flies. She reached out to Jerry to kind of
get the gang together to talk about it. But only days ahead of the
reunion, she'd started to see the specter herself. She wanted us to go
ahead with or without her, said Jerry. She knew this would happen.
So what does it mean? Nelly asked? We all saw it? Are
we all next? Jerry shook her head as the questions reigned. What the
hell is that? Yelled Corey? What are you going to tell us?
Chris joined in, question after question after question. Finally, Jerry just slumped
into a chair, still shaking her head. I don't no, she repeated,
over and over. I I just don't know. Olly was the first
to react. He headed for the door. I'm getting the hell out of
here, he yelled, screw this. The moment he opened the door,
the power was cut again. My phone was glowing hot in my hand,
overloaded by static electricity. All the illuminated faces flickered as our phones struggled to
stay alive. In a vague flicker from one of our phone screens, I
only caught a glimpse of it, a figure so tall we couldn't see the
head as it loomed outside the door. An impossibly long arm reached in.
Olly just screamed, evolving into a series of ever repeating no no, nos,
until he was silenced. It took longer for the lights to return now.
When they did, Ollie was curled up on the floor like a dying
bug, face frozen in surprise and horror. He was already pale as limestone,
his eyes glazed over, a single tear in the corner of his frozen
eye. Dead as a door nail. The room irrupted into panic. Jerry
screamed at them to stop. The twins headed for the back door, only
for the lights to go out again. I could hear a bull pop from
the fridge, and I could smell something burning. The scene played out as
if there a strobe light. As light bulbs struggled to come back to life,
little snapshots of chaos burned into my retinas. Chris dropped immediately in the
doorway. Corey made it all the way back to the dinner table before he
collapsed, and impossibly long arm touching the back of his head. He fell
haphazardly forward, breaking the two legs at the short end of the table.
He pulled down most of the tablecloth, along with the plates and glasses.
Carefully prepared Mimosa's and half drunk wine bottles spilled onto the floor, mixing with
froth and dust. He was dead before he hit the ground. Omar panicked,
but Nellie managed to hold him back. Jerry was hiding in the corner.
I was just standing there like a deer in head lights, trying to
remember how to breathe. I had never been the one with a vital flight
instinct, like a genetic thing. Nellie shook her head. I have to
do regular check ups for work, she said. I got a clean bill
We went through a checklist of things, trying to figure out and answer to
why us. It was the only thing we could do. Our phones were
dead, and no one dared to leave. We just stood there, our
thoughts running away from us at the speed of panic. It didn't make sense.
We were different genders, backgrounds, ethnicities, and religions, with different
occupations, aspirations, hopes, and dreams. For all intents and purposes,
we were wildly different people. The only thing tying us together was our association
with one another and our shared time at Tomskog High. At one point,
we'd all curled up against the walls. I hugged my knees close to my
chest. I couldn't look at Jerry without my eyes crossing paths with Corey's body
curled up like a dead bug, fingers twisted and turned in a painful final
expression. I opted to just not look, instead, speaking generally to the
room. So that's it, Then, I said, there's no reason.
We're just screwed. We tried to leave and were screwed. That can't be
said, Omar, Then why wait, why not just kill us? None
of this makes sense, muttered Nelly, shaking her head. Why now,
that was a good question. We considered what had been going on in our
lives lately. I mentioned moving into a new house with my wife, who
started a new job as a realtor. Nellie talked about accepting a position in
Minneapolis. Omar was moving to South Dakota to be with her sick mother.
Jerry had been working remotely for a company in Dallas for years, and only
recently they decided to enforce a return to office policy. There were no obvious
patterns, relationships, families, jobs, It all looked very different. Omar
tried a different approach. Maybe it's more practical, he said, maybe we
have to leave as a group. Why. I don't know. I don't
even know what it is. So let's look at it rather than us.
Let's look at what it's doing. I said, it's keeping us here,
It wants us to be here. We're safe now, right. We all
looked around as if to make a point. We were indeed safe for now.
But despite it all, no matter how much logic we tried to apply
to it, I couldn't wrap my brain around what We've been looking at.
Some kind of otherworldly entity tearing through us without any kind of retaliation or maybe
was. Nellie argued that we should attack it. We'd seen it, so
it was some kind of physical entity. It had a shape, a form
that in itself should mean that it could be destroyed. Slowly. Getting off
the floor, we looked at what we had. A few broken table legs
as clubs. Jerry figured we could try using salt, and as it was
supposed to have some sort of supernatural properties on non worldly entities, oh my,
figured trying to cross wooden't earth. We armed ourselves to the best of
our abilities, figuring we should try something as a group. If it really
was a physical entity, that meant it was constrained by its own properties,
meaning it couldn't catch all of us at once. So instead of moving as
a pile of pigs to the slaughter, we would spread out scatter to the
wind. It was risky, but who was all we got. Omar positioned
himself by the front door with a table leg. Jerry got the back door
with a frying pan. Nellie and I took windows on the opposite side of
the room. She armed with another table leg, while I used the roast
pan as a shield and a kitchen knife. We reviewed the plan again.
We would go on five, heading in different directions. Once out, we
would be calling for help. If confronted by the entity, we would be
using what we had to force it back just enough to run. We hadn't
seen it move much, so maybe it wasn't that fast. It was a
risky, stupid plan, but we were desperate. Nellie counted down from five.
I held my hand on the window, watching the other's follow suit.
As the countdown continued, I could feel the strength in my arm wane,
like everything in me just wanted not to run, but to crawl into a
corner and just wait. And yet the countdown reached zero. Nelly flung the
window open, Ohmar kicked the front door open. Jerry pushed into the back
door, and me I realized my window was locked. The reaction was immediate
and violent. Out of every window and every door, dozens of shade like
appendages appeared, knife sharp, bonelike fingers reached for us. The window was
blown apart by the pressure, covering my hand in a hundred little cuts,
shattered peace as a glass boring into my hair. I didn't fight that instinct
just wasn't there. I scrambled backwards, doing exactly what my instinct taught me
to to make myself as small and invisible as possible. Omar thought Nelly too.
Jerry actually managed to hit something. I could hear the thwunk of the
frying pan, but it was quick. No screams. As the lights died,
I saw Jerry's head being grasped as she was dragged outside. Her heart
stopped before she even dropped the frying pan. Nelly got half way across the
room before they got to her, making her face plant into the hardwood floor
in a morbidly comical manner. An entire life snuffed out, ending with an
embarrassing self inflicted nothing. Omar just stood there as one of the things loomed
over him. It reached for him, and he did nothing. It was
calm, collected, even reverent in a way, but as what looked like
a thumb approached his forehead, he started shaking his head. No, he
pleaded, no, I can't not like this, and with that he fell
to the floor empty. They made no sound. Dozens of und dozens of
specters pulled into the room, surrounding me. I wanted to scream, but
my breath was stuck in my throat. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
It was so far from the world. I knew that it started to
feel like a bad dream. It simply couldn't be well and truly real.
But feeling that cold hardwood floor against my cheek made me think differently. I
looked up only to see one of the specss looming over me, so tall
that its head cut through the ceiling. It reached to me, a thumb
like appendage reaching for my forehead, and in that moment it spoke to me,
less of a voice and more of a series of impressions. It's hard
to explain. It showed me flashes of a life, me settling down with
my wife, growing little blue sunflowers in the backyard, having kids, growing
old, and dying on a park bench near Frog Lake, never leaving the
little Minnesota town where I'd grown up, a long, peaceful and uneventful life,
little spots of sunshine and joy along a gray path, one i'd willingly
bind myself too. But then it showed me something else, a different world,
full of dark shapes in an endless desert of black sand. There I
wondered as another faceless thing, saying nothing, doing nothing, and there was
no end. Learning hellscapes, where my flesh was reforming as fast as it
melted from my bones, in a perpetual cycle of pain. In another place,
I was stuck in an empty, starless void, where my being was
spread among dying stars, eternally drifting. In another I was floating on a
sensationless ocean, staring up at a night sky or a single red eye,
the sighs of a moon stared back. I was a consciousness bound as stages
of life I could never break free from. It was an invitation. They
were asking me to stay here, there and forever. That's what killed the
others they had wanted to leave. I finally understood I wasn't running, I
wasn't leaving. I was staying in this town while the others had been eager
to settle elsewhere. But this invitation wasn't just about me and they're here and
now. This was about an endless multitude of existences waiting to happen, one
where an end was not promised, A perpetual me bound to whatever form necessary
like them, Like all of them, I could feel myself shaking my head
into a no. I could feel my tongue licking the roof of my mouth,
looking to push out that n but I couldn't. I froze, Yes,
I cried, Yes, of course, a cold dumb touched me as
if drawing an invisible mark across my forehead, and that was it. One
by one they left. They gained what they came for, a recruit someone
to stay with them, to join their group at an unfathomable cost. The
final one left, with the breeze knocking over my Tomskock high baseball cap home
of the Togs. I just stood there alone, contorted remains of people I
used to know, litter the floor husks. The lights came back on,
phones buzzing across the room, pings from mist calls and messages. But after
all their notifications died down, all that was left it was me, sobbing
on the floor, doomed. You might have heard about all this, but
in another way, they blamed it all on wine poisoning. There was a
sham investigation. I think something around two thousand bottles were recalled. Not a
single soul believed my testimony, and my lawyer recommended me to retract my official
statement as it would either send me to a madhouse or get me in legal
trouble perjury. Maybe instead I said that I simply didn't drink any wine,
but I had settled for a beer that in itself was a lie. But
everyone was willing to believe it. Perhaps they all knew there was more to
it, Perhaps they didn't care. A few years down the line, now
I have two daughters, I have a nice job. My wife and I
get along well, caring for the house together. It is a good lie,
but I can't help but to get that nagging feeling that I've doomed myself,
that there was something waiting for me that I can't come back from.
That maybe at the end of all this, I am the one getting the
raw deal, and not the shriveled up corpses that I left behind in that
clubhouse. They say that you never really leave the small town life, that
it follows you through your life one way or another. I never thought it'd
be this literal.