/yesod

Author: T.M. Camp

  • nemesis

    Talking with my wife today about recent events, particularly those involving our daughter. Making plans for when the exorcism should be performed, discussing when she might be able take our daughter out of the house for an hour or two. So I can work.

    She remarks that we should time it with the next full moon phase. Personally, I don’t necessarily see that as a requirement for this particular sort of entity but we’re in this together, she knows what she’s talking about, and it can’t hurt to check when the moon will be full next.

    Eight days away.

    So we have to keep it tamped down for about a week. A few simple cleansing rituals, push it back into the corners and make sure not to give it anything to gain strength from — no negativity, fear, stress.

    Fair enough.

    Starting in on some work at the office, Spotify’s “Your Discover Weekly” playlist queues up a song I haven’t heard (or even thought about) in almost two decades. Shriekback’s “Nemesis”.

    I have a faint memory of seeing the video for this song on MTV, recalling a vague sense of unease and dread that it instilled in me — the feeling that something dark was being invoked.

    “No one move muscle as the dead come home.”

    Okay then. Thanks Spotify but if you’re going to be like that I think I’ll just go with Sirius XM for the rest fo the afternoon.

    The song playing on Sirius XM is, you guessed it, Shriekback’s “Nemesis”.

    That’s… odd, I think to myself.

    And then the next song is Depeche Mode’s “Blasphemous Rumors”.

    After that, it’s INXS “Devil Inside”.

    Makes you wonder, wonder, wonder…

  • not a bat

    “She says she saw something in the back stairwell,” my wife tells me.

    Our daughter is eight years old and not prone to flights of fancy or making things up. Also, we have been very careful to not let her overhear any of our conversations about what is going on here at home.

    When I talk to my daughter, this is what she tells me:

    She saw something hanging from the wall in the back hallway, up near the ceiling. A big dark mass, something solid. About the size of a cat. It reminded her of a bat, curled up and hanging there. It was alive, “kind of like an animal.” She ran to get her mom, thinking it might be a bat (we get them sometimes in the house, especially during the summer) but when they got back it was gone.

    If there was a bat that big in our house, I tell my daughter, we would know it.

    “You did the right thing,” I tell her. “If you ever see anything like that again, just come and get me or mom right away. We’ll take care of it.”

  • sick girl

    My seven-year-old daughter has been sick for a couple of days. High fever, probably the flu.

    She woke up tonight, sometime around 9 o’clock, frantic and consume dwith a fear that she could not (or would not) articulate.

    Glassy eyed, staring… Looking from my face to the face of her mother… She would not answer our questions.

    What’s wrong?

    Are you going to be sick?

    Did you have a bad dream?

    Her hands shook. Her feet trembled. She did not answer.

    Finally, after much questioning, she said “Tomorrow. I’m scared of tomorrow. The flashing lights.”

    Unsettling.

    Maybe it was just a dream. Night terrors that she inherited from her mother or for me.

    But I pray she didn’t inherit something more from me, that intermittent precognition that sometimes comes to me in dreams.

    In my mind, her half dreaming words made me think of nuclear war.

  • a voice on the wind

    Coming home late tonight, long after midnight…

    As I was walking up the driveway, a few stray flurries of snow in the air around me…

    I stopped.

    A voice, far off . . . one word, harsh and cold and drawn out breathless like the frigid night air.

    My name.

    Not my real name. The name I grew up with, what I was born with. The name no one calls me anymore.

    I wait, listening.

    Nothing.

    Fair enough, I think to myself as I head inside. You can get back to me when you’re ready.

  • Winterly

    My wife, her best friend, and I decide to drop acid for the first time.

    We lay back on the couch and each of us take the squishy pink pill and chew slowly.

    I only eat half of mine. I’m worried about what might happen if I take a whole one.

    In time, I stand up and feel my balance shift and sway like I’m on a boat.

    There are stars, drifting in the air right in front of me — like dust motes. I wave my hand and watch them scatter and dance.

    My wife has fallen asleep. So her friend and I decide to go outside and let her rest.

    We walk, talking of little things that I no longer remember.

    When I look over to her, she is no longer who I thought she was. She has become an actress that I know well from movies in the 80’s and 90’s.

    I note that this is odd but I am distracted by the little village we’re walking through and I say, with some excitement, “I need to remember this so I can include it in the book I’m writing.”

    “Yeah, you should.” Her voice is wry and I realize that’s why she brought me here.

    We go into one of the little stucco bungalows. It is dark inside, Spanish tile floors and deep red wall hangings. Little faux candles flickering in wright iron wall sconces.

    I feel a little self-conscious being with her. People are coming up to her and asking for her autograph. One woman, bursts into tears when she recognizes her. “Is it really you?”

    My companion takes it all in stride, gracious and kind and gentle with each of them. She gives the crying woman a hug and the woman’s handbag falls open, spilling out onto the dark tile floor.

    I stoop and collect the scattered items. I don’t remember much of what was there. A wallet, I think — pale leather with a gold clasp. But I do remember the handful of jelly beans, picking them up one by one.

    I also remember feeling the actress’ approving gaze on me. And I’m a little proud of myself for being chivalrous.

    When we go back outside, the actress inspects a little scrap of paper the crying woman gave her and says something I don’t quite understand about pie.

    “How sweet,” she says. “She said I can have it on my wheels.”

    I realize it’s a joke. Not “pie” but “Pi” — there’s a bicycle there, leaning against a low concrete wall.

    As she swings her leg over the seat of the bike, I ask the actress if it’s hard having all those people know who she is?

    “Who do you think that I am?”

    I’m flustered for a moment. There is a frankness in her manner and I’m embarrassed by it.

    “Uh, you’re my wife’s best friend?” I say, faltering at the end as I start to realize…

    She gives me a pitying, kind look. She steps off the bike and comes back to me. Placing her hands on my chest, she stands up on tiptoe to kiss me.

    It’s a light kiss, brief and gentle. The kiss of a sister or something an old flame would give you, long after your time together.

    And then she is gone… Away on her bicycle I suppose. I’m not sure because I’ve woken up, wondering why I would have a dream about Winona Ryder of all people.

    Then I realize who it really was.

    It hits me like a blow… but the thought is surprisingly comforting.

    Winterly

     

  • danger

    A kitchen, a house in the country — dry and dusty, very little greenery.

    A little boy with dark hair and a baby face sits at the kitchen table playing with an old wooden birdhouse.

    I see a yellowjacket crawl sluggishly over the back of the birdhouse. Inside I see the telltale paper comb covered with more yellowjackets.

    I shout a warning to the boy — he is my son in this dream — and he laughs at my fear. I command him to take the birdhouse out of the house.

    He does grudgingly.

    I turn to see a girl — his sister, my daughter in the dream — sitting on the floor by my briefcase. She is playing with another hunk of honeycombed nest. She digs her finger into a hole, tearing at the gray papery mass, and draws out a still pupating larva. 

    She tells me it’s safe.

      
     

  • David

     My assignment for the magazine put me into his inner circle, where I could sit and observe first-hand what his life was like. I had five days with him.

    It was fascinating. 

    He was remarkably laid back and kind. He answered my questions thoughtfully and, to my eyes, didn’t try to hide any of himself behind a facade.

    I particularly remember his delight when “Satellite of Love” came on, he sang along for a bit.

    “That’s one of my all time favorite songs,” I told him.

    Smiling, he said “Well, I didn’t write it..”

    The biggest surprise were the young, cynical and utterly ordinary guys who made up his inner circle. I could tell they resented my presence there and caught one of them sneering, weasel like, on more than one occasion.

    …when I woke up today, I felt a lingering sense of wonder and gratitude for having the opportunity to spend that personal time with him.

    And then, looking at my phone, I saw the news.

      

    I don’t know why I dreamt of him.

    I puzzle over it.

  • daylight come and me wanna go home

    Sitting alone in the couch tonight, I slowly realize that I can hear someone singing. 

    Somewhere in the house, a man is singing.

    It has a muted quality, as though it is coming from very far away.

    I stand for a moment and listen. 

    I recognize it. The clear voice, the calypso intonation is unmistakeable.

    Someone is listening to Harry Belafonte, somewhere.

    But, of course, no one in the house is listening to Harry Belafonte, not tonight.

    And yet, there it is.

    After a few minutes, the music fades.

      

  • morse

    We awake to a burst of static from the baby monitor. This is not uncommon. It seems like almost anything can set it off, if we don’t put the damn thing in just the right spot.

    I reach over and shift the monitor on the nightstand, hoping to move it out of whatever signal is causing the disruption. The noise subsides and I lay back.

    The room is dark. I run through the usual late-night fears and paranoia in my head: Home invasion, ghosts, something worse than either of those…

    It occurs to me that the static had structure, a vaguely familiar rhythm.

    Not musical. Not a heartbeat. I can’t quite place it.

    I’m just about asleep when it screeches again.

    That rhythm. I recognize it now.

    Three short bursts. Three long bursts. Three short bursts.

    I grab the monitor and head downstairs. I won’t be sleeping anymore tonight.

     

  • comfort

    “You were crying in your sleep last night,” my wife said this morning.

    “I was?”

    “You were whimpering. It went on for a while. I couldn’t get you to wake up.”

    I remembered then.

    I remembered waking up, her hand on my shoulder.

    I remember hearing myself crying in the dark.

    But I don’t remember why.

  • music again

    In my office tonight, getting ready to sit down and write… I stop.

    Music. Unmistakeable.

    Somewhere, someone is playing music.

    The house is asleep. I’m the only one awake. 

    Yet there it is. Unmistakeable.

    I go out and stand on the front porch, just in case it’s a neighbor.

    Nothing.

    Back inside, the house is quiet. 

    I stand in my office, head cocked… waiting.

  • interpretation

    Lovecraft on the Interpretation of Dreams

  • forearms

    Napping this afternoon on the couch, I dream…

    …we’re sitting at the dining room table, my wife and I.

    I hear someone call “Tom” from the back hallway. I turn to see something there, down at the bottom of the steps — small and pale, almost like a child.

    “Don’t look!” my wife says just as it rushes up towards me…

    …awaken with a gasp, lying on the couch with my arms across on my chest.

    I cannot open my eyes. I cannot breathe. I cannot move.

    Something is holding it’s hands on my forearms, pressing me down.

    My breath hisses out between my bared teeth. Little gasps push out of me. I can hear myself whimpering as I struggle to rise, to open my eyes, to speak the name of my God.

    Panic. I can feel my body shaking with the effort to move, those hands holding me down . . . something over me, drawing the breath out of me in long, hissing strands.

    Finally I manage one word: “Ssssssssasssssstop.”

    Immediately, the pressure on my arms lightens and I sit up and open my eyes.

    Alone in the room.

    Even now, writing this, my shoulders and forearms ache as though I’d been carrying a great weight.

    And I can still hear that hissing whimper in my ears. It sounds a little bit like laughter.

  • switch

    (null)

    Sitting in my office this afternoon, working.

    A few moments ago I heard the distinctive sound of the light switch in the back hallway snapping on.

    A few moments later I heard it snap off.

    My wife and youngest daughter are napping upstairs.

    Before I heard the light switch, it was quiet and peaceful. No telltale sounds of someone coming up or down the back stairs.

    For all intents and purposes, I’m the only one down here.

    But, I suppose, I might not be alone.

  • bathtime again

    Downstairs, I run a bath for my daughter. I kneel down to check the water.

    When I rise, the old woman is standing in the doorway. She is hunched over, watching me.

    “Fuck.”

    And then she’s gone.

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  • light

    In the house behind ours, the light in the high attic window keeps turning on and then off again every few minutes.

    Disconcerting.

  • in the bathtub

    Gus Was A Friendly Ghost
    “What’s a haunted house?”

    My daughter is four years old and, a few days before Halloween, she’s decided to start asking questions.

    I wring out the washcloth, buying time. We don’t talk about these kinds of things around her. She has a couple of picture books, but…

    “What honey?”

    “What’s a haunted house?”

    “Well . . . that’s a house where ghosts live.”

    For a minute I think I might have dodged the real question.

    Nope…

    “And what’s a ghost?”

    “Well…”

    That’s not so easy to answer.

  • a fall

    When I get home after work, my youngest daughter meets me at the door. I’m late and phoned ahead to say they should start dinner without me.

    A plate of half-eaten food waits at my wife’s place at the same able. But she is nowhere to be seen.

    “Mama went upstairs,” our daughter tells me.

    After a few minutes, my wife comes downstairs. She takes me aside.

    “Just before you came home, there was this huge crash from upstairs. But it wasn’t like the knocking from before. It was like someone just dumped an armful of books onto the floor right overhead. And it was fucking loud. ”

    She is rattled, just a bit. I wait for her to go on.

    “I went up and Vincent” — that’s one of our cats — “Was sitting on our bed, frozen. His eyes were fucking huge.”

    She couldn’t find anything out of place in our room, nothing to explain the noise.

    I go up to check and, yeah, there’s nothing.

    Later, she notices that a framed photo on a high shelf behind our bed is laying flat on its face.

    It’s a photo of the two of us.

  • hard knocks

    My daughter an I are in my office when my wife calls from the TV room. I hear her but it doesn’t register until she calls again, a rising note of alarm in her voice.

    “What’s wrong?”

    She is pale, intense. I can’t tell if she’s angry or something else.

    “I just heard…”

    She stops, starts again.

    “Someone just knocked on the ceiling in the family room.”

    She looks at me, eyes wide. “It was like this: Bang bang bang… Bang bang… Bang bang bang. It was someone knocking on the floor of our room. Fucking loud.”

    I head upstairs. One of the cats is sitting on our bed. He starts when I come into the room, but he doesn’t move.

    There’s a little alcove off of our bedroom, directly above the TV room on the ground floor. My wife has an antique desk and vanity in the alcove. There are photos and mementos on the window sill. A large green crystal hangs from the archway leading into the alcove.

    Even still, I have never liked that part of the room. It unsettles me, open like that. When I come to bed each night, I have to resist giving any of my imagination to the mental image of who or what might be standing there waiting in the dark.

    While the cat watches, I look around. There’s nothing on the floor, nothing fell.

    Nothing to explain the insistent, deliberate knocking my wife heard.

  • ghost friend

    IMG_0745.JPG

    (Via Poorly Drawn Lines)

  • peanuts

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  • almost

    …as we’re passing through the room, I stop and take note of our surroundings: The concrete walls of the service tunnel, the exposed pipes . . . it’s all so familiar.

    Then I have it. In a flash of recognition, I turn to my companions — he is tall and dark skinned, she is waif-like and pale — and say “This is exactly what the places I dream about look like. Exactly.”

    They share a glance with each other and roll their eyes.

    We continue on through the door.

    It is only later (much later) that I realize that I almost had it. I almost had a moment of awareness there in the dream.

    But what really gets me is the realization that the other people in my dream knew I was dreaming, even through I didn’t.

    They knew. And they thought I was a fool.

  • cat below

    Working late, I hear one of the cats crying below in the basement. It is a faint, plaintive sound.

    I set aside the story I’ve been working on and get up with a sigh. Our two cats have been a considerable amount of trouble lately — skittish, fighting with each other late at night, becoming more and more territorial.

    Or, like tonight, just crying in the basement for no reason.

    I open the door to my office and stop: There in the front room are both of our cats. We regard each other, eyes wide.

    I close the door again and return to work.

    Below, the basement is quiet.

  • shimmer

    the back stairs“There was something in the back hallway,” my wife tells me over dinner. “I saw it right before we were leaving.”

    “What did you see?”

    She thinks for a moment. “It was a blur in the air, almost shimmering. Just a movement…”

    Gooseflesh on my arms, the back of my neck. “That’s interesting you say that.”

    “Why?”

    “Tell me what else you saw. What color was it?”

    “A gray-blue, a movement like…” She mimes someone passing a hand over their head. “Like someone was throwing a hood over themselves.”

    I nod, even though it’s not quite a match with what I saw the previous night.

    I tell her that when I was down in the basement, just as I was closing the door, something walked towards me… A shimmer in the air, like a heat mirage.

    Mine was brighter, nearly transparent, almost gold.

    It was there, then it was gone.

  • on the way to bed

    10441532_10152677677358637_6430375996104631477_nConversation with my four-year-old daughter…

    “Time to sleep, sleep and dream.”

    “I don’t always remember my dreams.”

    “That’s okay. They remember you.”

    I think this might be the best thing I have ever said or ever will say.