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Had the wendigos always been there? The more Josh thought about it, the more he saw them. He saw them in his periphery, the dark places he didn’t want to look. He looked looked instead at something else, anywhere but at them. Deep down he’d had to know that wouldn’t work forever. Right?
The first time Josh saw a wendigo might have been when he was young. Exactly how young was fuzzy. Josh only knew that his feet only barely touched the floor of the private screening room of the Blackwood family lodge. A horror movie was on. Josh couldn’t remember which one. He’d been averting his eyes anytime his dad looked away. “Not bad, right?” asked Dad. Hannah and Beth sat on the other side of him, watching the movie though their fingers and shrieking every time there was a loud noise.
Back in those days Josh hadn’t developed a taste for horror movies yet. He liked the idea of liking them. He liked the way his father turned to him and smiled. “Don’t tell anyone, but there’s a rip in the suit. See right under the creature’s arm? We didn’t catch it until we were finished shooting,” or “Maybe you can come up with us on the next shoot. Would you like that? Your sisters are still a little too young, but I think you’d like it.”
Bob Washington liked to involve his kids in his work when they were young, liked sharing his passions with them. He’d take them out on the front lawn with a bucket full of Karo Syrup and food coloring and chocolate products for mixing. The twins liked that. Dressed in a worn out pair of clothes she was already outgrowing, Hannah would situate herself on the main path to the house and flop down in a puddle of the combined mixture. It wouldn’t be long before there were approaching footsteps, then a shriek. It never failed to get Mom. Sometimes she even dropped her shopping.
“It’s just a joke, Honey,” Dad would say, unrepentant.
“It’s just a joke!” Hannah would echo, dripping. And then she’d chase Beth like she was going to hug her.
Josh would help Dad hose off the walkway (and Hannah). Mom would be over the prank by dinner. She always got over it. “What am I going to do with you?” she’d ask, looking fondly around the dinner table.
But then the sun would go down and the day would be over and the children would be sent to bed. Nighttime was its own animal, somehow louder and more quiet. You couldn’t anticipate words. There wasn’t anything to listen to but new sounds, inhuman sounds. Bugs, frogs, deer, monsters maybe. Sometimes Josh would convince himself to go to the window and look out of it, out into the deep woods and the shadowy blackness of the mountainside against a starless night sky. Sometimes he thought he saw something looking back at him. Sometimes he was sure it was waiting.
It was years until it got bad and longer still before it got worse. Maybe it was his fault. He didn’t want to tell anyone in case it was. The meds made him feel foggy and lost. It was the easiest thing in the world to skip one here and there. It wasn’t like it was even doing anything for him. The older he got, the more aware he was. People didn’t like unhappy things, upsetting things. People had their own problems and didn’t want to hear about yours. All told, sometimes Josh wasn’t so sure he liked people much. Sometimes he wanted to be alone. Often he wanted to be alone.
Chris would call him up with a question like, “So, what are we doing for Spring Break, bro?” and wait for Josh’s excitement to match his own like it normally did. Hell, nine times out of ten Josh was the one with the plan.
Josh would suck air in through his teeth. “Sorry, man. I got this family thing up at the lodge,” or “Wish I could, but I’ve got a sick aunt,” or “I asked my dad if I could go with him to scout out some new locations for a movie.” It wasn’t that he didn’t like Chris. It was that he didn’t trust himself to hold it together around him. Better to be alone when he couldn’t trust himself. Privacy was easy enough. His sisters assumed it was teenage angst, something Mom said teenaged boys were wont to slump in to. Dad wasn’t around as much. He was more invested in his work these days, like the novelty of being a parent had worn ever so slightly thinner than it had been before. Josh couldn’t blame him. The man had to work. It was what kept them living like they did. He had no delusions that he wasn’t lucky as fuck. They all had to be, right? Shit, they had two houses.
One night he got drunk in the game room downstairs. It very rarely made him feel any better anymore, but it did make him tired. The hangover in the morning would eat up his focus, quiet his thoughts some by making everything impossibly loud. His parents were out of town together. No need to worry about getting a lecture.
Except he did get a lecture. Beth was kicking the sofa and started in the moment his eyes opened. “Are you kidding me? I’m having my friends over tonight. How often do I do that?” She put her hands on her hips and frowned down at her brother. “I’m going to tell Mom.”
Josh sat up too fast. His head swam and something hot rose up in his throat. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger while he tried to formulate a response.
Beth sighed. “Okay, I won’t tell Mom. Hurry up, though. Everyone is waiting upstairs.” She proceeded to lead him around the long way, outside and up the stairs to the deck rather than through the house.
The arm she had around him wasn’t a whole lot of help in the balance department, but he didn’t mention that. “Hannah coming to this wild party of yours? Think she'll be into it?”
“First off, it is not a wild party. Otherwise yeah-” She hesitated. “I think so. No one she really likes is here, so she might try to sneak up to her room. You know how she is. Not everyone can be the charming social butterflies we are.” She gave Josh a light shove through the threshold of his bedroom. “Now go be in your room alone for a while.”
Josh took a single stumbling step into his bedroom. He tried not to laugh, because that seemed like it might make him sick. “Yes, ma’am,” he said instead, giving her a mock salute. It seemed to him like he was asleep before he hit the mattress, though probably not for long. Beth woke him up with a bottle of water from the fridge, told him he’d regret it if he didn’t drink that. She meant well, but getting back to sleep after she closed the door was a bitch.
The air was still. It wasn’t the time of year for a fan or a heater. There wasn’t much in the way of sounds. The house was too well insulated for that. The party downstairs might as well have been two blocks away. For a little while there he considered crashing Beth’s party. But he couldn’t do that. It’d be too mean. She didn’t throw parties much, which gave Josh the impression this might be some kind of attempt to socialize her twin in a controlled environment. Let her have at it. Josh would stay right where he was and do his best to fall asleep, although sleep was looking unlikely now. He was sure something was watching him again, through the window. He could hear it, whispering. Its words were indecipherable.
Hospitals were always boring. They were fine at first, when things were bad enough to warrant a hospital, when it was just somewhere to be. Sprawl out on an uncomfortable bed, get your meds liberally adjusted while you were there, skip group and snooze. Eventually, you had to venture out, willingly talk to the staff, make an effort. Otherwise it was a shoelace-free life for the foreseeable future.
“What are you in here for?” asked the guy sitting across from him at the craft table. He looked tired, blearily coloring a mandala with a limited selection of felt tipped pens.
Josh smiled. He liked how blunt people were in here. “Me?” He rocked back on the rear legs of his chair. “I’m not even sure why I’m here. There’s not anything wrong with me.”
But there was something wrong. Therapists didn’t help it. Pills didn’t help it. Josh was beginning to think there was just something wrong with him. He could try to dull it with meds and distract himself from it, but it was still there inside him, dark and mean and waiting since always.
“You know, I get depressed sometimes, too,” Mom said, glancing away from the road to offer her son a smile.
Josh was looking at his wrist, working at getting the plastic bracelet off without much motivation. “Oh, yeah?” He made a practiced effort to sound interested, but given the way his Mom looked away, he was afraid it just sounded sarcastic.
She began again. “Your uncle had…” she paused here and swirled her hand in the air like the word escaped her, “…problems. I only met him a few times back when your father and I were first dating. He never talked about it. You father told me in private later. I would never had guessed if he hadn’t.”
“That’s cool.” Again Josh tried to sound interested and wasn’t sure if he pulled it off or not. He couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that he had never seen this uncle or the fact that Mom only talked about him in the past tense. He looked out the passenger side window instead. “Seriously? They’re building a new Taco Bell.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” Mom made a show of complaining, even though her voice had brightened noticeably. “Well, at least you and Chris will be happy about that, I guess.”
There was more small talk until they got home. Josh began to get out the car and Mom caught his arm. “Hang on, let me get that for you, Sweetie.” She removed a pair of cuticle scissors from her purse and nearly broke them snipping that wristband off. “Are you feeling better?” she asked, her mouth a straight and serious line as she shoved the bracelet into her purse.
“Yeah,” said Josh. And then more convincingly, “Oh yeah. I think this really helped a lot.”
Inside, Hannah was the first to greet him. She shifted her weight at first, her hands clasped behind her back as she struggled with what to say. “Well, look who it is."
“What didn’t recognize me for a second there? Do you need new glasses? Mom, you can’t buy your own daughter new glasses?”
Mom rolled her eyes and shrugged her purse onto her shoulder. “I’ll see you kids in a few hours. I have to run some errands.”
The moment she had gone, Hannah closed the space between herself and her brother and hugged him tight. “It’s good to have you home.”
“It’s good to be home.” For the first time in a while Josh felt like he meant that. He hugged her back.
Everything was pretty good for a while after that. Josh’s friends all seemed happy, Dad’s work was good, Mom hadn’t had any nasty surprises in a while, Hannah was looking forward to a party she had been begging for. Beth had some reservations, but what could she do? Hannah was a big girl. She had to get out there and spread her wings sometimes.
Josh’s pills seemed to be helping. A little. It was hard to tell. It was easier to sleep. Hanging out with Chris wasn’t a chore. He enjoyed it again. He’d even started hanging out with Sam some. She’d come along on crowded outings and he’d catch himself watching her a little longer than the rest. At first she’d seemed to notice. She’d sit by him at the movie theater or ask if he liked vegetarian food.
“I don’t,” he laughed, trying not to let on that she’d caught him by surprise.
“Well, what kind of food do you like?”
“Why? You trying to wine and dine me over here? I’m flattered, but my schedule is just booked. Alll booked up. With ladies.”
“You’re hilarious.” Sam walked past him, giving him a playful shove on her way past.
“I can pen you in!” he called after her. “I have it on good authority that I’m worth the wait!”
“I doubt that”
She was kidding, but Josh hung on to it anyway. It didn’t hurt him now, but it was like his mind wanted to file it away for a rainy day when it would. He smiled now. He went off to find Chris shamelessly flirting with Ashley between the glowing movies posters of all the films they’d already seen. Josh gave him a minute to make a move but, God, he was just showing her something on his phone. Probably his Twitter feed. “You making a new best friend over here? Come on Cochise, it’s past my bedtime.” He rattled the keys and gave a yawn for emphasis.
Chris and Ashley said their awkward goodbyes. Awkward goodbyes that went on for, at least, ten more minutes than awkward goodbyes are supposed to go. Those two were going to hook up someday. Josh would stake his life on it. And it was a good thing. He approved. He liked his friends… until he didn’t.
He’d still felt a little drunk. More constant than that, he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder. He tried to swat them away, but they persisted. “Josh, something… something happened. Her voice sounded far away. She couldn’t pull off eye contact for long. “We got in touch with someone and they’re sending a search party and getting the police, but-”
Josh sat up straight on his barstool. That had sobered him or, at the very least had made him a more alert drunk. “Is someone missing? Who’s missing?”
Sam told him and things changed. It changed in ways you didn’t think about a life changing. It changed his Mom and his Dad. It changed the toothpaste in the bathroom and how fast it took a basket of laundry to fill. Mom and Dad maintained that their daughters were still alive. After a while, Josh decided they had to be dead by now. He felt guilty for not searching anymore, but that hope that they were out there and the ache that you weren't doing enough. It was too much. It was too much to fit inside.
And that was when the dark things from the woods would speak to him again. It knew what would fit inside, it said. His friends didn’t have anything to say that was near as compelling as that voice was. It was too awkward to talk to Chris. He’d offer some generic stilted apologies. He’d offer a smile. Josh knew he meant it all, but he wasn’t ready to cry in front of Chris. That was the kind of line you couldn’t step over backward.
Sam was a little better. “Any time,” she’d say. “Call me any time. I’m here for you.” Like Chris, she seemed to mean what she said. Unlike Chis, it didn’t make her nervous. “Seriously. You’ve got my number right. Just give me a call.”
Josh took her up on that a few times. He usually showed up at her house late, just a short text message announcing that he was on his way. Sam really had meant what she said. She opened her door every time. Sometimes she was wearing pajama pants and a t-shirt, the makeup all scrubbed from her face. That didn’t phase Sam. Why should it? There wasn’t much that phased Sam outside of what had happened at the lodge.
“I’ve got some green tea.”
“Yeah, no thanks.”
“You could at least try it.” There was always that lighthearted song and dance before they both sat down. “How have your parents been doing?” Sam would often ask. It was one of her favorite jumping in points.
“About the same. Dad’s really thrown himself into his work and Mom is… staying busy.” Josh was never quite sure how to classify his mom anymore. She kinda just flitted from project to project these days. One day she involved in charities. The next day she was interested in setting up something of that sort in the twins’ names. She’d get passionate about something or another right before realizing there was something around the house that needed doing. She talked to someone in the same building as Josh’s doctors. She was doing about as well as she could be expected to he guessed.
“I have some pictures if she ever wants them,” Sam offered. “Or you, even. If you ever wanted to look at them or take them home. Sometimes it helps me, you know? Just to look at old memories.”
Josh looked down at the floor. He smiled. He nodded. He didn’t mean it. Every picture anyone had shown him recently felt too sharp. They made him envious of the people inside of them. “Well, let’s see them,” not because he particularly wanted to but because feeling better sounded appealing. He’d tried just about everything.
Sam slid off the sofa and onto the carpet. She scooted on over to the shelf below the television and took a large book from the shelf. “A scrapbook,” she explained, glancing back to him as he moved to join her. “I know that’s dorky, but I just like them. They remind me of my grandmother.” This particular scrapbook was labeled FRIENDS in big swirling font. “I did say I just liked scrapbooking, right? I’m not very good at it.”
“What? Is it a learned skill or something?”
Sam snorted at him and opened the book.It was full of pictures, most of them taken on a phone and printed out on glossed stock with artsy filters. Hannah and Beth were in a lot of these. Josh could attach stories to them. He saw the picture of the time he’d won a stuffed animal and his sisters had teased each other about which one of them was getting it. “I’ll help you with that math test you have coming up if you give me the bear.” “I’ll talk Beth down from tutoring you if you give me the bear.”
In the end, Josh kept the bear. He still had it on his dresser at home. He just kept it tucked away in a drawer he never used these days.
There were more that Josh didn’t recognize. Sam had a lot of photos of just her and the twins. She like to steal them away for girls’ nights. The pictures were pretty innocent; girls in pajamas, eating pizza, popcorn. Whatever girls did when they got together like that. Looked nice. Hannah looked happy, at any rate. Hannah almost never looked comfortable anywhere.
Sometimes they did something adventurous, something more Sam's speed. They was a picture of Hannah looking miserable on a hiking trip and one of Hannah laughing hysterically while swinging in a harness off a climbing wall. Josh remembered other pictures of those days. He remembered Hannah showing him a snapshot on Beth's phone. "See here? I made it up and Beth didn't. I am officially the superior twin."
And then there were the pictures of everyone else; people he didn't recognize and... Matt, Emily, Ashley, Jessica, Mike, Chis, Josh. With the heel of her hand, she pushed at her tears. “Sorry,” she said. It wasn’t because she was afraid of crying. Sam wasn’t afraid of much, certainly not crying. Thought it was healthy she said. No, this was something else, like she didn’t have permission to cry first with Josh here.
Josh hugged her, gave her a reassuring squeeze while he shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said, even though it most definitely wasn’t. It can’t be the same, said the voice, somewhere removed from him. It can never be the same. They ruined it. She ruined it. You ruined it.
It hit him one night while he was brushing his teeth. It wasn’t a good idea. It wasn’t a bad one. It was an epiphany that sent him catatonic with dread. It had to be done if he wanted to heal, if any of them wanted to heal.
There was someone behind him. They had his height and his build, but not his voice. It’s either this or- said the voice, and it filled his mind the pictures he had been trying so hard to ignore. Permanent solution for what could me a temporary problem, right? What a waste. You should teach your friend a lesson first. This is too much, Josh though, meaning that in every sense of the word. He closed his eyes and when he opened it the thing was gone. This was too much. He needed to do something.
Josh didn’t mention anything to his mother. She was having a hard enough time holding things together. She did smile when he mentioned going back to Dr. Hill. “Good,” she said. “Good. I think he’s good for you.”
But it didn’t feel good. The office felt cold and the leather chair stuck to his skin. Dr. Hill watched him and he wrote and prompted him to speak. “What brings you to me today?”
The question felt so strange, Josh wasn’t sure how to answer it at first. It felt like it was obvious, like it was tattooed right across his forehead and everyone who looked at him could tell. I hate that my sisters are gone. I hate my friends. I hate… what that’s turning me into. “Mostly trouble sleeping,” he said instead.
Dr. Hill nodded He wrote something else down. “Are you getting out of the house much? How are things with your friends?”
Josh felt Dr. Hill’s eyes deep inside of his own, searching for something. Maybe he could tell. Maybe he could see a whole horror movie marathon going on in Josh’s brain. Instrusive thoughts the doctors called them. Normal to a point. And once you'd gone past that point what were they? Grounds for hospitalization, that’s what. “They’re great,” said Josh. “They’re really supportive.”
Dr. Hill looked at him for some time. He had a questionnaire in his hand, one Josh recognized. “Are you feeling as though you’re a risk to yourself or others right now?”
“No,” said Josh before he had even finished the question. Josh wasn't sure what he had expected It hadn't been that long since their last session. Had they cooked up some pill that would just just help. Everything. White pill, big capital letters: HELP. Smaller font beneath: With everything.
“And you would be willing to contract for safety with my before you left here today?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Yes or-”
“Definitely.”
“And you’re not sure a stay at our inpatient facility might be what’s best for you right now.”
“No thanks,” Josh laughed, even though Dr. Hill didn’t so much as crack a smile. He wished he hadn’t asked. It was going to happen. It always happened when someone brought it up, it seemed. It wasn’t on the horizon anymore. It was in a pit, and it was just a matter of time before he fell in it.
It didn’t take long to fall into that pit. It took even less time to climb out. There was never a lot to do. Josh used what time he had alone to think. He attended every group, signed every paper they sat in front of him, said the sorts of things he knew they all wanted to hear. It was what everyone did to some extent here, wasn’t it? At least if they didn’t want get get shipped off to a longterm care facility. Josh certainly did not. He had a plan, a plan that could not be enacted from inside of here.
And how hard that plan was to enact! Thank God his parents were busy with their own methods of healing. More than once, he wanted to give Chris a call, get him to help with all this tedious set up. But no, Chris might not think this was funny And maybe it wouldn’t be for some- well, most of them. The things you needed were seldom fun. Josh touched the buzz saw and moved to make sure he fit neatly into his own death trap. No, better not call Chris after all.
Sometimes while he waited for the big day, he’d hear something rustling outside of his window. Once or twice he opened it, once or twice words came rolling in on cold air. Good job. This is perfect. This will fix everything, said the wind through the trees. Psychopath, said a softer voice.
Everything went wrong. It went wrong like something goes wrong in slow motion. This is all going perfect. This is falling apart. I can fix this. Except, there wasn’t a whole lot to do one you were tied up and tied down. His friends were angry. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t understand what he’d done here. And they started to talk about something unfamiliar. The words came to him slow, getting through sentences was like trudging through deep snow banks. That wasn’t him. Jessica was dead. That wasn't him.
It wasn’t, but it might as well have been. Now he was in the dark and alone. Mostly alone. Dr. Hill yelled at him, Selfish, he said. Pushed his friends away, he said. They wanted to help, part of him screamed. The rest of him kept backing away from that guilt. He didn’t want it, didn’t need it right now. It wasn’t going anywhere.
The rest was a blur, like little snapshots of nightmarish dreams during a high fever. He remembered Sam and Mike. He remembered the looks they exchanged. He remembered… his sisters. He remembered something that both was not Hannah and absolutely was. And then it was all gone. Those incessant feelings that climbed into his chest and brain and swelled. They were replaced by new things, overwhelming things. Hunger mostly. It felt like there was an emptiness inside of him, but this time this emptiness could be filled. And not in some bullshit abstract way either. His world orbited around an all-consuming hunger, and you could fix that. You could definitely fix that. Isn’t this better? asked a voice in his head. It might as well have been his own. He wanted to disagree with it, but he couldn’t think of a single reason why it was wrong.
Chris was the first to come over once he was back. It was as weird as you’d expect. Ages with doctors and weird occult shit and undisclosed facilities and bam. Suddenly he was was, sitting on the couch in his parent's game room. I.E. Astronomically awkward. Scientists did not yet have the proper tools to capture the scope of it.
“Hey, man. I got your e-mail, and I just wanted to say… No hard feelings.” Chris grimaced. “I mean, yeah hard feelings. A lot of hard feelings, but it wasn’t really your fault - Okay, some of it was, but- Shit, bro, I’ve just missed you.” He took a step toward the sofa.
“My face is gross,” Josh blurted.
“How gross?”
“Like a ten… on a scale from one to five.”
“Well, now I have to see.” Chris walked to the sofa, better able to see Josh’s face from this angle. The whole part-monster transformation look had a habit of startling people. God, his own parents had a tendency to avoid him. He’d wear something over it more, but he could always taste whatever he dressed the side of his face with. Besides, it was hot. “Are they talking about plastic surgery?”
“Seeing what they can do about the teeth right now. After that?” Josh shrugged. He’d been tired of doctors for months now.
“So, what happened?” Chris settled into the sofa, his elbow propped on the back cushion. “Conventional medicine? An exorcism? ECT? Does that work on nature spirits?”
Josh noted how tense Chris was. He felt tense himself. It was like that bond between them had frayed some when the twins went missing and had snapped after everything on the mountain.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Chris picked at a seam on the sofa.
Josh shook his head and Chris nodded like he didn’t blame him. They’d never talked a lot of touchy feely shit in the past. Josh had gotten some of his kicks out of taking a stab at Chris’ problems. This felt too different, too risky.
“Well, if you want to I’m here. For real. Like, if you need someone to tag along when you go in about that teeth thing, I’m down. Your mom looked like she might be a little high maintenance to come with, and I know I wouldn’t go alone.” He gave him a gentle punch in arm them fell silent. His smiled dropped. “Hey is it bad form to start talking about stuff that’s being going on in my life?”
“Go for it.” Sounded like a welcome distraction to Josh.
“So, about me an Ashley-”
“Did you get a spark going there?”
“Definitely. Oh geez, definitely. It’s just the thing is… I’ve got this thing hanging over my head where thinks I chose to save her on the buzz saw thing.”
“Uh, oh.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s more of thinker than I was prepared for.”
Sam came too. The first time she came, she set off the alarm. Josh had been asleep, but it was hard to sleep through a siren going off in your own house. He went downstairs and found no one there. It hadn’t been long enough that he had to talk to the cops. He just turned off the alarm. Seconds later, Sam poked her head into the foyer. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, throwing a hand over her chest. “How did you know I wasn’t a burglar?”
“A burglar at two on a Saturday?”
“I feel like those are probably a thing.” Sam’s eyes fell a bit as she drew closer. Easy to slip into awkward banter, hard to keep that awkward banter going when the person in front of you looked a hell of a lot like something you still had nightmares about. She shook her head and raised her gaze to Josh’s. “Anyway, you mom said I could come over- Which, you know. Obviously, I would have called you but.”
“Little hard to talk over the phone. Or the rest of the time, if we’re being honest.” He cracked a toothy smile and didn’t mention that the idea of answering the phone at all made him uncomfortable. He didn’t want to explain or hear how mad one of his old friends was. He just wanted to sleep.
“Yeah, well, she told me where the spare key was, and I used it, but.” Sam frowned at the alarm system.
“She’s been a little forgetful lately.”
“I feel her there. Seems like I’m just all over the place these days.” Sam walked to the sofa and sat down on it.
Josh followed her, just sort of hovering around when she was sitting. “Sorry,” he said, after pursuing his mind for anything else to say and coming up short.
“What? No. It’s not your fault. I mean, it’s not like you… It’s complicated.” Sam balled up her fists on the denim of her jeans. She took a deep breath. “I’ve been seeing someone about all this. Well, several someones.”
Josh moved around to sit in a chair across from her. “That’s good.” In truth, he wasn’t sure. He'd had his fill of mental health care professionals and plenty more on the horizon.
Sam nodded. “Your parents insisted on footing the bill for everyone, so it’d be stupid not to go, right? It’s been helpful and, you know, what’s done is done. And I can’t change what happened. I can only do what I can here and now and focus on what I want first… And what I want first is to check in on my friends, check in on them, see if they still want to keep in touch after… everything.”
“I guess you have been seeing a therapist.”
“She was on the fence about it, actually. Keeps warning me not to try and fix anyone, like I'd even know where to start with myself.” She propped her elbow on the armrest and leaned her head against the heel of her hand. “I kinda had a little script in my head for what to say to everyone, but I don’t know what to say to you.”
They sat there in silence for a while, neither of them looking at each other. The clock ticked. Pictures of Hannah and Beth looked down at them from the mantle piece. Josh wasn’t sure anyone liked having all those old family pictures up, but no one wanted to take them down either. He pulled his eyes from a picture of the twins and himself, back to Sam. “You know you’re missing an earring.”
Sam’s hand went to her ear. She cursed under her breath and simply gave the room a cursory once-over before pulling the remaining one off. “You could have mentioned that earlier.”
Josh shrugged. “I thought you were going for a new look. You were really pulling it off.”
Sam rolled her eyes. She might have smiled, but it was like that smile got stuck. “You’re a hard guy to read, you know that?” It didn’t sound like she was talking about today.
“I’ve been told that.” But Josh hadn’t. That was a lie. He’d never once been told that. Goofy, he’d heard. Prankster, thoughtless, thoughtful, a good big brother. Stuff like that. The same kind of shit on loop. Hannah was the first person to look at him with new eyes. When he’d come back from the hospital, and all the things she didn't know about Josh had clicked for her. It was like a corner of her life had fallen off and she couldn’t get it back together. It would never fit back together like it was supposed to. They weren’t the right puzzle pieces for that spot.
Maybe she could have looked at herself, found her own puzzle pieces that didn't fit. She wouldn't have obsessed and cried alone and run off into the freezing woods to find monsters, become one.
“What do you want?” asked Sam.
“Huh? Me? You’re the one who set off my house alarm.”
This time, Sam did crack a smile. “I meant more in general. Do you want to talk?”
Josh shook his head.
“Well, do you want me to stick around? Be there if you need me? Vice versa.”
“I guess… Is that what you want?”
“I guess.”
It was dark, but he wasn’t alone. Hannah was there, and Beth. Their skin was sloughing from their bones. Their mouths moved but words didn’t come out, just intentions. They were angry but Josh couldn’t hear them over the sound of the thing circling him, the thing prowling, making a circle that kept growing tighter. Psychopath, it said. I can wait. I can wait. I won’t have to wait long this time. I can wait. And Josh knew it was right, intrinsically knew. It was never going away and, God, he was so tired of fighting it. It was close now. Josh wasn’t sure he had another round in him.
Josh jolted awake. His heart was beating hard in his chest. His skin felt damp.
“Sorry, sorry,” Sam spoke quickly. “It looked like you were having a nightmare. I guess I was right.”
The room was small, lit dimly by some neon blue light coming in through the blinds. Sam’s apartment was across from a Martini bar that kept its light on at all hours but didn’t do much business. ‘Sam’s Place.’ They’d been living together going on five months now, and he still thought of it as hers. They split expenses. Granted Josh just did some behind the scenes work for his dad, work that made him feel a little tucked away and massively overpaid. Sam was interning at a conservation conglomerate she was still hesitant to do fieldwork in. The future was looking a little uncertain, but fuck. What could you do about that?
“You okay?” asked Sam with a yawn. At least she seemed happy. Not happy right now, obviously. No doubt she’d rather be sleeping than trying to figure out what his problem was this time. Josh shook his head, trying to give her more credit than that. She had nightmares too. She touched his face, angling it toward her own. The bed was small. They needed a new one, but Josh was in no rush. He kinda liked the closeness. Sam’s skin smelled like those overpriced scented oils she bought in hipster shops.
“Yeah,” Josh said finally, realizing it had been a while since he’d responded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
Sam watched him a moment longer then leaned in and kissed him. The plastic surgery and dental work was coming together slowly while still maintaining the ability to frighten small children. As Chris had so tactfully put it, “Bro, it’s a face that makes me wish we’d gone into the death metal band industry together.”
“All right,” Sam sighed. “Goodnight then.” She rolled back over but suddenly words caught in his throat. The darkness was a physical presence around him.
“Wait.”
Sam turned back around.
“Can we talk?”
“Yeah,” said Sam, turning slowly like she wasn't sure she'd heard him right. “Yeah, we can talk.”