/yesod

Author: T.M. Camp

  • a tornado, two corpses, and a leather sofa

    Inside the house, people are starting to panic. The sky outside is dark and green, the wind bending the trees to almost impossible angles. We can hear the sirens and, in a house this old, there is no safe place . . . every room has windows, the elderly frame flexes and creaks in the wind just like the trees outside.

    Women huddle with their children, people cover in corners and try to stay out of the way as pictures fall from walls, little knickknacks shatter to the floor. 

    I can feel a pressure in the house, a suction that ebbs and flows as the storm overhead rages on. I move from room to room, peeking out of windows as I pass, making sure they stay open so that the suction won’t blow them out completely.

    Through one window, I watch as a massive trees outside comes down. The entire house shudders under the weight of it. People are screaming now.

    I look up to the mass of gray swirling in the sky, like ink in milk . . . funnel clouds dance around each other, like strands of barbed wire twisted together. I count five of them, shouting out to the people to take cover. The funnels move in.

    I head into another room and suddenly the house is vibrating, a low hum that slowly builds to unbelievable intensity. I can feel it in my eardrums, in my molars, in my gut. 

    People are praying, people are crying.

    Looking back on it now, I am surprised I did not think of the gods.

    The ceiling of the room I am in begins to peel away, I move quickly to the other side of the house . . . Just in time to see something so odd, my eyes have trouble making sense of it at first.

    It is a rubble in the suddenly still air of the room, a wavering column of distortion that runs from floor to ceiling, as wide as a refrigerator and spinning. It moves across and through the opposite wall without leaving a trace of its passing.

    Then all is quiet once more — save for the sobs and cries from the other rooms.

    Later...

    The specific circumstances of it escape me now, but at some point I am helping out with a local theatre company in town. One of the actors has an old van that we need to pick up to haul props. I volunteer to go over to their house and collect it.

    They live in a seedy part of town, their house is a hoarder’s nightmare. Out back in the tall weed a is a rusty van, engine idling.

    I go to see if they’re inside, ready to go . . . only to find that while they are inside, they’ve already gone.

    Her face is bloated, her lank gray hair matted to her skull with sweat and vomit. There’s no way of telling how long she’s been this way.

    Repulsed, I back away.

    And later still...

    “I need to talk to you,” my son tells me. I nod and suggest we go out back where it is quieter and the people at the party won’t bother us.

    Why we are having the cast party in the dead woman’s house, I don’t know. It didn’t seem odd at the time, but I have a vague recollection of being worried that she might be discovered back there and somehow spoil things for everyone.

    On the rickety back porch, I see the van in the weeds — the engine has long since run out of gas — and I suddenly remember that I never called the police.

    My son is already down the steps, trying the side door of the van. I call to him to leave it be but he is curious. Something dark and vile has pooled at one corner in the grass below, running from the door frame like a faucet accidentally left on.

    He opens the door and I hear his disgust. He starts to move the body, to try and get her out but she’s become a liquid, gelatinous mess. I tell him to leave things as they are, otherwise the police might suspect him of trying to cover something up.

    He runs inside to call 911.

    Standing there in the dead grass, I turn my head to look down the broad alley at the back of the house. A few yards down there is a splintered wooden fence, leaning to one side. A large dead tree bends low over it, the skeletal boughs hanging over the alley.

    Caught in the boughs is the body of a small child. 

    And just before I wake...

    My wife and I are walking through the house, we cannot believe that we are so lucky to have a place of our own at last. In the attic room we find an old leather sofa that the previous owners have left behind. I flop down on it in exhaustion. Under my hand, the dull surface gleams as I wipe the dust away.

    My wife stands at the gable window and looks out onto the street below. She turns and raises her blouse over her head, tosses it aside. Her jeans and panties follow. By the time she gets to me, I am ready for her.

    She straddles me and we begin to move, the old sofa creaking under us.

    Somewhere down below in the house, we hear a door slam. A woman calls out, we hear the voices of children, little feet running up the stairs...

  • dark ride

    I am surprised to see a Ferris wheel looming over the downtown district, pale against the darkening sky. As evening descends, we make our way towards the carnival.

    It is dark everywhere. There are no flickering lights, no music — just the mechanical clack and clank of the rides, the muted murmur of the crowds.

    (This seems ominous now, awake. But at the time, dreaming, it did not seem so.)

    Bright rings of neon dart overhead, flying saucers, small and almost toy-like. I remark to my companions that the adult rides are further down.

    We find ourselves in a queue, jostled by children at every side. At the front of the line I watch a kid climb into a small bucket-like car and rattle away on a track into the darkness.

    “It’s a ghost train!” I exclaim. “I love a good ghost train.”

    I realize I’m speaking in a British accent and make a conscious effort to drop the Doctor Who act.

    At the front of the line, two queues feed into the start of the ride. Everyone fumbles in the darkness, taking turns to climb into the little carts. I let one of my friends go ahead of me and then wait for a small child to take their turn.

    As I’m getting ready to take my turn, a fat middle aged couple shove ahead of me dragging their little pig-faces son with them.

    I step back and watch in amazement as they try to squeeze their combined bulk into the one-person cart. An impossibility, so the husband lays down over the cart and his impossibly bloated wife lays on top of him, her doughy face turned up to the sky. Their son scrambles on top of this quivering bulk and the cart spins off as they lie there like starfish with their limbs out for balance.

    My turn. I do my best to fit my lengthy legs into the next cart. It’s a bit cramped and I consider making a joke about having to fold myself in half but I realize that everyone is waiting for me. So I do my best and soon enough I’m off in my little cart.

    It’s a bit of a disappointment, too dark to see anythIng. I rattle along, vague shadows passing by.

    There is a little pause at a station, where a worker waits before sending me on through the last bit of the ride. 

    This point in the ride is staffed by a young woman with long dark hair, her pale skin glows in the semi-dark and her soft voice has a light English accent. 

    She flirts with me for a moment while we wait. I feel awkward and self-conscious all folded up in my little cart. And she’s too lovely, I can barely look her in the eye.

    It’s a relief when the ride moves on — the final sequence is a rolling section of track, a child-sized roller coaster. The ride opens up and the sky is lighter now. I coast through a landscape of unkempt hedges and stunted topiary animals as the ride comes to a stop...

    . . .

    The morning after the fair, I wake in a hotel suite overlooking downtown. The sky outside is pale and the light is cold, even harsh.

    The woman from the ride is there, wrapped in a thick white robe. As she passes by the bed on her way to the bathroom, I pull her down to me. 

    She protests as my hands slide over her hips, exploring. “I have to take a shower,” she gasps as I slide my thumb into her. I feel her constrict around the base and she closes her eyes for a long moment. 

    But then she pushes off of me and heads to the shower, leaving me there to throb with frustration.

  • the shadow project

    Over fifteen years ago I wanted to try a build a site that could collect dreams — the natural extension of my mild obsession to record my own for the past twenty years or so.

    Alas, my technical capabilities weren’t up to the challenge. But it’s very cool to see all these later that something like The Shadow Project isn’t just possible but actually becoming a reality.

    20131124-155956.jpg

    It’s also a big regret that I didn’t have the resources to participate in their Kickstarter campaign. But I’m looking forward to seeing the app when it’s ready and being a part of the “community of dreamers”.

  • kitchen door

    For some reason, I am holding a bottle of olive oil in my hand while my daughter and I take a walk around the block. 

    (We are not at home, this is not the neighborhood where we live in the waking world. This is someplace else. I do not recognize it from either my dreams or the waking world.)

    Midway through the walk, she becomes scared and tries to hide between two hedges. Losing sight of her fills me with panic and I cast about, calling her name. Her whimpering draws me to her and I coax her out: “Let’s go home. We don’t need to finish this.”

    On the way back I notice that the olive oil is bubbling, almost boiling. The cap on the bottle is venting, spitting like a soda bottle that’s been shaken up.

    The house is dark inside, cheap paneling and shag carpet. The furnishings are mismatched and poorly constructed. My daughter runs through a low doorway looking for her mother. She is still terrified and I am starting to feel the same. There is an oppressive presence in the house. 

    I feel it everywhere. For some reason my daughter hides under a low curved desk — a terribly tacky paneled affair with a curved return to one side. I try to climb below it to get her out but it is a maze of panels and pressboard beneath. I discover an electrical outlet bristling with jerry-rigged extension cords. 

    The door to the kitchen opens before my hand can reach the knob. I attempt to pull it closed and I can feel the strength of an unseen hand pulling back against me. 

    It is far stronger than I.

  • little girls

    Reported by my wife:

    A few days ago she and our daughter were in the back stairwell, getting ready to go for a walk. Once she got our daughter into her shoes, my wife sat down to put her own on. While she was doing this, our daughter went down the three steps to the back door.

    My wife could hear her down there.

    “Who are you talking to, honey?”

    “I’m talking to the little girl,” came the reply.

    “What little girl?”

    “The one right here.”

    A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, my wife asked “What does the little girl look like?”

    “She looks like a sheet.”

  • a moment of moore

    Alan MooreOn my way through the park, I see a familiar figure heading in the opposite direction. He shambles, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun. His hair and beard are wild and ragged as the hem of his overcoat.

    I change my course somewhat to interest his. He looks up as I approach, a patient mix of puzzlement and annoyance creasing his brow.

    “Mr. Moore? I am sorry to bother you. I just wanted to say thank you. Your work has meant a great deal to me.”

    He nods politely and offers his hand, still walking.

    As I shake it, he gives me a quick look. “Have we met before?”

    I shake my head. “No sir, but I sent you one of my books a number of months ago. My photo is on the back.”

    “Did you?” He frowns, studying me. Then he shakes his head.

    “It was called Assam & Darjeeling, ” I offer.

    His shrug is eloquent and he turns to continue on. “Nice meeting you.”

    “It had a pomegranate on the cover,” I call after him, realizing that I have gone — in his eyes — from Polite Reader to Insane Fanboy Stalker in about ten seconds.

    He waves a hand over his shoulder, picking up his pace.

    I watch him go.

  • ragged

    Sitting on the toilet in the back bathroom, I hear a sound at the door — as through someone pressed against it from the outside, maybe one of the cats?

    But the door has nearly an inch gap at the bottom. I can see nothing outside.

    A few minutes later I am jolted into a panic by the sight of something coming quickly towards me — it is as if it passed through the door.

    It is white and ragged, trailing fluttering strips of cloth. I have an impression of gray hair, a wrinkled face . . . an old woman who vanishes just before she reaches me.

    I am startled. I am scared. My hair is standing on end. The akin on my arms feels prickled and tight, almost sunburnt.

    This was not a vague impression or an easily explained corner-of-the-eye episode. I saw something.

  • whisper

    As I come into the front room of our house, I hear man’s voice whisper something — a single phrase, very distinct but unintelligible.

    Cleaning up in the back bathroom, I hear voices pitched in an argument — just a few lines back and forth — again, distinctly audible but no words can be made out.

  • neighborhood watch

    ...and when the neighbors show up at our front door, they demand entrance and will not leave. Too small to be a mob, but there are enough of them to force their way in. 

    In the entryway, they shout that we are heathens and devil worshippers — they begin opening doors and ransacking the rooms. Books are thrown to the floor, pictures and knick knacks smashed, curtains pulled down.

    The ringleader is a middle aged blonde woman with the sinewy frame of someone burning away the calories with their fierce zealotry.

    She discovers “Lost Girls” on one of our shelves and shrieks her horror at “this filth and pornography” (which, admittedly, it is) corrupting the neighborhood.

    It goes downhill from there. I manage to trick them into not finding my office by use of a clever hinged double door — when it opens, it covers the office entrance completely...

    ...I wake up, the sound of angry voices and slamming doors following me to the waking world.

  • footsteps again, of course

    Standing in the kitchen, I hear the sound of someone coming down the back stairs — slow, cautious . . . almost stealthy.

    But when I go to check, of course, no one is there.

    It takes a few minutes for the hair on my arms to lay back down again. My skin is electric, almost burning.

  • gentleman caller

    ...and while my daughter plays in the tub, there’s a sudden wave of men’s cologne — acrid and sour — that passes over me. My throat closes, I am overcome with a coughing fit.

    Inexplicable. My wife does not wear perfume. I do not wear cologne.

    It lingers for a number of minutes there in the bathroom before slowly dissipating.

  • gitchy

    A strange atmosphere hanging over The Last House tonight. 

    The sky outside is heavy with rain, but it doesn’t look like any will fall. The heat is heavy, like a hand on your chest.

    Inside . . . everything feels pressurized, oppressive. 

    There are shadows moving through the rooms, vague shapes darting here and there in the periphery of my vision . . . some pop out into my line of sight, trying to startle me. 

    Almost clown like, playful. But they want me to be scared. 

    I feel twitchy, paranoid . . . glancing, looking back over my shoulder as things pass.

    It hasn’t been this bad in a long time.

    It’s been getting worse by the minute. 

    It’s going to be a long night.

  • early morning

    Woken by my daughter early this morning, unable to get back to sleep so I head downstairs to sit in the predawn dark, looking up from my book from time to time as little beads of shadow stream across the floor like dark mercury. 

    An hour or so later, I hear footfalls overhead. 

    They move through the laundry room to the back stairs. But they do not descend.

    Later that morning, I ask my wife if she got up earlier. She did not.

  • peeking

    Later...

    Sitting in the living room, talking with my wife while our daughter plays . . . I see someone peek around the corner of the entry leading into the dining room, a brief flash like someone pokes their head out for a quick look and then ducked back behind the wall when I looked in their direction.

    Still cheating with my wife, I rise and go to have a look. 

    Nothing. No one.

    I sit back down and we continue our conversation. Over the next few minutes the peeking face pops out again five or six times. Irritating.

    I check again, making sure no one is there. It’s starting to wear on me. I have this feeling someone is deliberately messing with me. 

    The face is round-cheeked, almost cartoonish. With high brows and a surprised expression. I am reminded, vaguely, of Randy Quaid.

    The skin on my forearms stings, as though sunburned. My hair stands on end. I am chilled.

    One last time the face pops out. This time it has changed. No longer the goofy expression, now the eyes are dark pits and the gaping mouth flaps open, an insane toothless maw. Horrid.

    When I get scared, I get angry. And I am very angry now.

    My wife asks “Are you okay?”

    “I’m having a bit of a problem at the moment.” 

    After filling her in, I burn some myrrh and juniper — offering to the gods and banishing anything else.

    Nothing for the rest of the night, but the clammy feeling left by the memory of that hideous face still clings to me.

  • mossy

    Sitting with my youngest daughter this evening, something lingers in the corner of my eye. 

    I have a vague impression of something olive green, mossy, no more than three feet tall. A spindly figure standing in the little hallway leading to my office.

    Then it’s gone.

  • comedy and tragedy

    ...when the comedian pulls up in the Winnebago, I hop in. We chat and get acquainted while his two cats prowl around in back.

    A few hours on the road and I realize we’re not going to get back home in time for me to help out with the baby’s bedtime. I’m embarrassed to say anything, I don’t want to appear unprofessional.

    We arrive at the venue — an old theater in Charleston, West Virginia. A few people are already in the balcony seats, waiting for the show to begin.

    While the comedian gets ready to go onstage, I call my wife to apologize and break the news.

    “I should be back around midnight,” I tell her. Then I remember the driving time. “Actually, it’ll probably be later than that.”

    She is annoyed, rightfully so. But she doesn’t press the point. 

    I feel terrible and offer to rent a car so I can return early.

    She hesitates before answering. “I wasn’t going to say anything, but...”

    She tells me that there’s been an accident. The father of the two girls who lives across the way fell from their balcony and died. 

    (Somehow I recall an earlier dream, while dreaming this one, in which the man’s mentally disabled brother also died. This family has seen nothing but tragedy, in my dreams.)

    I rent a car and, in time, arrive back home. A cloud of sadness hangs over the apartment complex, clinging to everything. 

    Looking across the way, I can see into the windows of the neighboring apartment where the two little girls play on their bunk bed. I worry that they might fall.

    An elderly man comes into their room — their grandfather, I assume. He moves so slowly, weighed down with age and sorrow.

    I make a mental note to go over after dinner and offer to help.

  • laundry room

    20130728-171418.jpgAs I came into the laundry room this morning, a shadow moved in the dim light from right to left — coming from the hallway and passing through the closed and locked door at the top of the back stairs.

    The shadow was large, as wide as a refrigerator though not as tall. It has a solid mass to it, depth even.

    I did not at any point feel afraid.

    This is just another episode in a growing list of sightings here in The Last House — shadows mostly, sometimes dark and sometimes pale, moving up and down those back stairs.

  • lavender dress

    My wife went to the market one afternoon this past weekend. The weather was warm and she was wearing a long lavender dress, very lovely. The dress has bare arms and drapes in a style reminiscent of a statue of a Greek goddess.

    While she was out, a flash of color caught my eye in the back hallway. I saw the lavender dress, someone on the landing above the stairs leading down to the back door. 

    I assumed it was my wife but when I went to help carry in the bags, the hallway was empty.

    This happened twice before my wife came home.

    Then again tonight, I saw someone in the dress move down the back stairs. 

    My wife was upstairs putting our daughter to bed. 

    This time, though, the dress was pale blue.

  • the visit

    Halfway through my day I stop and reach desperately for a scrap of dream from the night before, a vague memory that my character Jee came to see me. 

    She had something important to tell me. 

    But the dream is gone, nothing left but a sense of something forgotten.

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  • in the shower

    ...as I’m washing my backside, someone peeks in between a seam in the shower curtain — old and wizened, though I cannot tell whether it is a man or a woman. They roll their eyes up at me, almost comical, and purse their mouth in a silent “Oooo...”

    ...and then I wake with a start, my afternoon nap ruined.

  • the right to bear arms

    ...I’m stunned to see the President of the United States at the door. He bustles in before I can get my head around his sudden appearance. 

    He is alone and clearly in peril. He slams the door and locks it behind him, thanking me for letting him in. It is strange to see him scared, completely alone. I wonder where his Secret Service protection has gone.

    He apologizes for the intrusion and removes his tattered coat. I notice he has a shoulder holster beneath.

    My mother comes into the front hallway and is clearly displeased to see him in her home. She informs us that his interruption is right in the middle of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and that she doesn’t “feel comfortable with that man having a loaded gun in the house.” 

    Her glare is withering.

    I protest, saying it’s our duty to give him shelter and protection. But it’s clear that she’s unimpressed, perhaps because she didn’t vote for him. She returns to her program, leaving me to apologize to the President...

  • precision

    ...with slow, precise snips of the nail clippers, I remove most of my right toenail, somewhat proud to have done it in a single, broad piece. 

    The skin beneath is tender, painful. I hope my wife will not notice.

  • the apartment across the way

    We’re living in an apartment complex, a bit run down and seedy. But this is all we can afford.

    In the apartment across the way, a young couple live with their two small children. The woman is slight, dark haired and sickly. Her husband is darker, brows constantly knotted with rage. His mentally-challenged brother lives with them. 

    It is a sad family.

    News spreads through the complex from neighbor to neighbor like crows carrying misfortune from field to field.

    I am work when my wife calls to tell me that the sickly woman has passed away, leaving the husband on his own to care for their children and his brother as best he can.

    The whispers don’t quite reach the point of wondering if he was the one who killed her. 

    I see him walking, the baby in his arms and the older daughter — just only four years old — and want to offer to help. But I do not. I have a family of my own, after all.

  • david and mickey

    It’s night and we’re driving, my friend David and me. 

    I’ve known him a long time. Since we were in sixth grade, I think. We’ve stayed in touch that whole time, mostly. 

    Well, we fall out of touch and then back into touch. We haven’t seen each other in years — almost twenty, I think . . . though I’m not quite sure exactly how long it’s been.

    But we’re back together for the evening, heading over to the old mall to see the new Mickey Mouse cartoon that’s just been released. David is excited. I’m feeling sleepy a bit under the weather. I haven’t been sleeping. 

    Most times it seems like I always haven’t been sleeping.

    At the mall, David produces a small swipe card — somehow he’s managed to clone it from one of the security guards, in order to sneak in to the movies without paying. He has one for me as well and I’m feeling a bit panicky as we swipe our way through the back door, coming face to face with a guard.

    He ignore us. In our suits and ties, I suppose we look like we belong there, behind the scenes.

    I follow David through the hallways to an area behind the movie screen. There is a small riser of stadiums seats, sparsely attended, looking down on a little orchestra pit and a small constellation of microphones. I realize that the movie soundtrack and dialogue will be performed live for the premiere, like an old time live radio show. 

    For reasons I that aren’t explained, the sound effects are recorded on the film, however.

    I watch the actors mug their way through the performance, mildly impressed at how well everything goes. I forget sometimes to watch the screen where Mickey’s antics play out in silvered, larger-than-life magic.

    A woman makes her way through the seats, selling concessions. She has the pillbox cap, fishnet stockings, and pin curls of yesteryear. But all she has to sell are oversized chili dogs in greasy wax paper envelopes — far more suitable for a ballpark than a movie.

    I buy one and, somehow, my youngest daughter is there to help me share it. Though she makes a terrible mess of it and I worry that my wife will be upset over the junk food and additives. We’re so careful with her diet...

  • frantic spider

    ...the spider struggles against the pull of the water as the tub drains, a thin filament of almost wire-like web cast out like a dark line . . . it clenches like a fist in the water, and I feel the tug of the web and pull my hand away, leaving it to it’s fate...