Sylvia Schwartz 34 D.W. Davis

TWO WAYS TO DIE by London Chastain

TW/CW: suicide, depression, self-harm, eating disorders, parental abuse, neglect, graphic imagery (blood and vomit)

1.

It cannot land or walk easily, or, like an eagle, teeter on telephone wire for its legs are weak, and so its wings are always beating,

but the hummingbird landed beside my body under the pine.

The scene required stillness from the living thing as blood ran from my cut wrists.

2.

Hunger is a routined kind of suicide. The only meal the body allows is dinner, but in the bathroom after, fingers down the throat until dinner is in the toilet --

I do this every day, I’ve a calling.

I’ve done it since I was seven; I learned it from my mother who ate nothing except dinner; she taught the mind as dangerous, the body as fragile. I will die cleansed of fat, living.

A CRAWLING THING by D.W. Davis

He awoke with a start, from dreams that bordered on memories that bordered on

nightmares. The room was in almost total darkness; moonlight streamed in through the open

window and stretched valiantly across the floor before dying halfway to the bed. His breath

momentarily caught in his throat, eyes on the ceiling, as he struggled against the grip of sleep.

And there it was again. What had awakened him.

He came fully alert. What was it? Something. Something off. Something that had not

happened every night since he had been in this house, since he had lost everything that had made

this house worthwhile. Something he could not identify but could sense, on some primal level, an

instinct triggered somewhere deep down.

Movement.

Scott blinked against the night. He glanced at the alarm clock beside the bed. 1:37. He had

to be at work in just under six hours. He thought, I’m gonna be dead in the morning. He thought,

Guess it’ll be a video day, the kids will love that. And he thought, What the hell is that?

Something just underneath the window, down where the trickle of moonlight didn’t quite

reach. Black on black. A slight shimmer. And the sound—a faint, almost hypnotic rustling. He

couldn’t place it. Softer than leaves in autumn, more insistent than a hummingbird’s wings. Dry,

too. It was so anathema to anything he associated with this house, he wondered if he was still

dreaming. He wasn’t prone to lucid dreams, but Darla had told him about hers, how she could lay

in bed almost fully awake, and yet the world didn’t seem quite right, she felt disassociated from it

somehow. That was how he felt now.

And yet.

He felt himself. Pinched himself. And still the movement under the window continued; still

he heard the rustling. His eyes were open and they stayed open. He was awake.

Scott pushed himself up. The bedframe rattled. The movement momentarily ceased. His

breath caught. Whatever it was had reacted to him. It was as aware of him as he was of it.

It. What the hell are you thinking?

He was thinking he was no longer alone in his bedroom.

The thing started again. The shimmer disappeared as the thing—thing—disappeared

beyond the reach of the moonlight. Scott threw off the sheet, his body caked in sweat from fear and

the summer heat. Clad only in his boxers, he fell out of the opposite side of the bed as the rustling,

now more a scuttling, grew steadily closer. Scott half-crawled, half-stumbled towards the open

door, reached the wall. Hand shot out in the darkness, fumbling around until his fingers brushed

over the light switch. Tried flipping it, realize he was pushing the wrong way. Reversed it, and the

room was flooded with light.

He spun around, not sure what to expect, but expecting something, except nothing greeted

him. There was his bed, and the nightstand, and the dresser. Closet to the right of the window,

sliding door pulled closed. Chair in the far corner, with his slacks for the next day folded over the

back. A map of the world hanging askew on the wall above the bed; on the wall nearest him, to his

right, a faded square where a picture had once hung. Beige, rumpled carpet between him and the

furniture.

And nothing else.

You dreamed it, he told himself, and he almost laughed. He’d had a lot of moments over the

past year and a half, most of them bad. He’d had dreams and bursts of panic. He’d frozen in the

middle of one of his classes, and had been forced to stay home a week. He’d forgotten the names

of friends and extended family. He’d been pulled over for speeding and hadn’t been aware of his

speed. This dream, this waking hallucination, may have taken the cake for the most embarrassing,

but at least he was alone. At least no one else had to find out about this.

He swallowed. That was a hell of a dream. He only remembered scraps, so similar to other

dreams he’d had recently, but he couldn’t associate any of them with something crawling in the

dark. But wasn’t that how dreams worked? Broken, fractured and frantic. Only fools and German

shrinks tried to make sense of them. Neurons fired and misfired in random patterns; one could go

insane trying to give it any discernible meaning.

Here he was, in his underwear and soaked through, halfway across the room from his bed.

The entire floor lay exposed to the light, every inch of space, and he was the only living thing in

the room. Stupid and silly, but no harm done.

No, that wasn’t quite right. His hand, still near the light switch, trembled. That wasn’t right

at all. The light wasn’t everywhere, was it? There was still one area of impenetrable shadows.

Under the bed.

The certainty from a moment ago evaporated. Reality folded in upon itself. You have to be

dreaming, he told himself. You can’t be awake.

But he felt awake. He felt more awake and alert than he had in months. Even though the

darkness under the bed seemed to beckon him. He squinted against his own wishes, trying to see

into the shadows. Was something moving under there? He couldn’t tell. He didn’t want to know.

Yet he had to. There would be no rest tonight until he knew for certain that he had merely been

dreaming—

With a pop, the light went out.

Scott grunted. He felt for the switch, flipped it up and down. Nothing. A blown breaker?

Now, of all times? He laughed once, a harsh and alien sound. It echoed in the silence of the room.

He couldn’t believe it. And not just the sudden darkness; all of it. None of this could be real. He

had to be dreaming.

Something scuttled in the dark. That thing. Not fast, but steady, confident. Scott let out

something halfway between a cough and a scream. He turned and, thinking nothing of pride or

reason or sanity, fled the room, slamming the door behind him.

He fumbled his way down the hall, his hand trailing along the wall. Decorative pictures—

big cats; Darla had a thing for exotic beasts, lions and tigers most of all—shifted and clattered at

his touch. Some fell to the floor. Should’ve put them away a long time ago, but then the walls

would’ve been bare. He’d taken down the photographs; those he couldn’t bear. But the prints and

paintings had stayed.

He reached a closed door, what had been Tony’s room, and he paused. Despite the

improbability of the situation, his mind came to a full stop. His breath caught and he flashed back

to a different time. Always did, but something about the middle of the night rendered him more

susceptible to the nostalgia, to the pain, and for a moment he forgot what was going on, why he

was in the hallway in the dark at a quarter-to-two in the morning, his heart racing, his skin greasy

with sweat. He thought, Was Tony crying? And with this thought came a piercing pain in his

abdomen that almost doubled him over.

Scott leaned against the door. No. He knew better. He knew better. He opened his eyes. The

hall was still dark. The house was still humid. He could still hear his pulse in his ears. But he knew

Tony hadn’t cried. Tony hadn’t cried for some time.

From the other side of the door, a noise.

He groaned. No. Oh no. No, no, no, no, no.

A rustling sound. A scuttling? Yes. Perhaps yes. Muted, but maybe.

“Bastard,” he whispered, and he wanted to throw open the door and confront whatever

waited within there—not Tony, it’s not Tony—but that part of his mind rooted in self-preservation

took over, and he pushed himself away from the room and stumbled to the end of the hall. Tried

the switch there. Nothing, of course. He looked over his shoulder, stared into the darkness behind

him. Movement? He thought there might’ve been.

Scott half-fell down the stairs. There was a shotgun in the foyer closet. He’d bought it with

a wink. Country living, he’d told Darla, who had stared at the thing like it was a misbegotten

mutant of evolution. He’d only loaded and fired it a few times, and when Tony had come along,

the gun had found a new home on the closet’s top shelf. How long since he’d cleaned it? Two

years? Three? He had to trust it would still work, so he could kill…whatever it was upstairs.

Whatever it was upstairs that was real and not at all in his head.

He tried every light switch he passed. Not a blown breaker. Had to be a power outage, but

there was no storm. The whole fuse box, then? An old house; it was possible. They’d never had

that trouble before. He wasn’t the handiest of men, but he and a few hired hands had done a good

job of putting this fixer-upper back together again. Darla had been skeptical, but he knew she

secretly liked the idea of living away from the hustle and bustle, an isolated house on the edge of

the forest, the nearest neighbor a half-mile away. The perfect place to raise a child. Sure, it had

taken work, but it had been worth it. They’d been happy here.

Scott reached the entryway to the kitchen. Open window on the far wall above the sink, but

the moonlight filtering in was partially blocked. By what, he couldn’t tell, but the kitchen wasn’t as

lit as he expected. He could still make out the knives by the stove, though. He stepped into the

room, bare foot meeting linoleum. The knives were halfway across the room. Not as formidable as

the shotgun, but he knew the knives didn’t require regular maintenance to function. The soles of

his feet were sweaty; they slipped as he inched across the floor. He tried to control his breathing,

tried to keep his balance. Steady. Steady.

He reached the knife rack and fumbled until he found the biggest one there was. Pulled it

out, couldn’t help but smile at the shing it made as he withdrew it. Felt formidable in his hand.

Heavy. Weapon wielded, a sense of calm crept into the edges of his consciousness. He could

handle this. Whatever the hell was going on, he was ready.

Then he became aware of something else. Low, faint, distant but there. Taptaptaptap. Like

raindrops. His ears sought to place it, and his mind flashed back to the bedroom, and he put two

and two together and the calmness he felt evaporated. The sound wasn’t just here in the kitchen

with him. It seemed to surround him. Which couldn’t be. It couldn’t possibly be.

Movement in the moonlight. There, on the floor, a few feet away. Scott gasped and turned,

knife in front. A shimmery, slimy blackness just beyond sight. Rustling. Shifting. It sensed him.

Turned towards him. He could almost feel its presence, whatever the hell it was, whatever the hell

it wanted, and his hand shook as the thing slowly moved towards the light, then back out,

anticipating his movement, maybe trying to outthink him, maybe preparing itself to attack.

Scott froze. His mind flashed on various imagery from life, from movies, from nightmares.

Elongated, segmented. He thought of centipedes, but in horror movies, adventure movies, those

ancient, gigantic beasts. Two-, three-, four- feet long. Every inch of it rippling with movement. The

thought buckled his mind. A part of his sanity gave way, and a part of his humanity went with it.

Stage four non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Such a godawful goddamn phrase. The fatigue had

come first, and fast. Then the loss of appetite. Some slight nausea. And Scott had insisted nothing

be done. Had said they couldn’t afford the doctor bills and anyways he would come out of it. A

cold. The flu. Allergies. Every excuse he could think of, and God help him, he believed it, he

believed every single thought that entered his mind, and worst of all, the absolute worst sin

imaginable, he had convinced Darla as well, had gotten her to go along with it, and by the time

they’d realized there was something else, that there were worse things under the sun, that the

unimaginable was possible and happening, it had been too late, and Tony’s body had not been

strong enough to withstand the treatments, and the battle, once engaged, had not lasted long at all.

Some men, faced with tragedy, react. They become generous or violent. They love or they

hate or they close up or they open up. They scream and cry and pray and cheer on others who deal

with the frailties of humankind. They turn to their loved ones or they turn away. Scott did not. He

did nothing. He cried, once, he remembered it well. That was all. He did not seek help from his

family or the counselor that Darla recommended, whom she saw on her own because he just

looked at her when she mentioned it. Scott did nothing, and this was what ultimately drove Darla

from the house and from him. He did nothing. He could not even be certain he grieved. He had

continued life more or less as it had been before, with infrequent interruptions when his brain

spasmed and the world seemed to slip out of his grasp. In these moments, he found a certain

numbing solace. One could not feel pain if one felt nothing at all.

He did nothing now. He stared. On some level, his mind tried to jump to conclusions,

reaching out in freefall, looking for anything to hold onto but finding nothing. This was not

supposed to be. This was not how the world worked. The thing, whatever it was, could not be

there. Yet it was. It sensed him, too, he could feel it—it turned towards him, inched closer, in and

out of the light, glossy and shiny and dark. Beautiful and repulsive. Undulating. Its hundreds of

feet tickling the tile as it approached, speed growing steadier as it realized he wasn’t fleeing. He

thought, Hungrily, and the word sent shivers down his legs, which at last got him moving.

He couldn’t swing the knife at such a creature—it was too low. So he threw it as he spun

away. The blade clanged off the tile, but the creature diverted, and then Scott was out of the

kitchen and into the living room. From tile to carpet, his feet finding traction. He sensed, or heard

—he couldn’t tell, over his ragged breath and racing pulse—something moving to his right in the

dark. So dark—no light came in through the window, and he only had a second to think about that

before he felt something brush his ankle. Dry and cold and ticklish. He pulled his foot away,

almost stumbling, and jumped forward, colliding with the couch but rolling over it, landing on the

floor and pushing himself up immediately. He heard the creature slam into the back of the couch,

and he thanked God for Darla’s insistence that couches with open space underneath were breeding

grounds for dust and germs and therefore harmful for their future children. He had never loved her

more.

Into the foyer. The closet beckoned but he ignored it. Too dark to shoot anything. Bypassed

it and slammed into the front door. Twisted the knob but it wouldn’t give, and he finally thought to

thumb the lock and the knob turned but the door still wouldn’t budge, and he remembered the

deadbolt, he locked both out of habit but wasn’t sure why since he typically left the windows open

anyways, and he had the deadbolt thrown and was hauling the door open as he heard the things—

both of them now—hit the tile of the foyer. He flew out into the night and slammed the door shut

behind him.

Scott ran across the porch and down the steps and onto the concrete walkway. He screamed

in frustration and victory, and he cried from a mixture of countless other emotions. He bent over,

gasping and grasping, hot air being sucked into his lungs as bile fought to come up, his vision

narrowed to slits. He fell to his hands and knees and slowly his lungs and heart slowed to a more

reasonable pace, and his eyesight adapted to his condition and the night.

The moon sat three-quarters fully in the sky. Scott glanced up at it, then slowly turned

around to the house he’d been run out of. The house where he’d tried—and failed—to raise a

family. His fear gave way to anger. It was his home. What creature, of God or nature or wherever

the hell those things had come from, had the right to run him out of it? He cursed, staring up at his

house, and as the words formed themselves on his lips, something stopped them.

The house…it wasn’t his house. His house was white, or had been white; sun and time had

done their trick, and he was now the owner of an off-white farmhouse, sans farm. This house was

no such color. It was as dark as the cloudless sky above, and just as shimmery. And rippling. The

walls were moving.

No. Not the walls. Something on the walls. Lots of somethings. On the walls, the windows,

the roof. Scuttling. Shifting ceaselessly.

This had once been his house, his family’s house, but now it belonged to them. A mewling

sound escaped his lips as his sanity was crushed by the vision before him. He closed his eyes but

he could still see it, see them, and even though he tried to push it away, everything came back with

a painful clarity as he heard something tap insistently against the pavement next to him, then

slowly, almost tenderly, begin to tickle his leg.

CHICKEN by KJ Hannah Greenberg