GONE

Greg Everett sat up in bed, soaked in sweat and eyes bulging in reaction to the all too vivid nightmare that had wrenched him from sleep. His body ached, his mouth was dry and dreamland vacated his mind abruptly. Looking at the alarm clock that mocked him from the nightstand, panic took over once more. He had overslept.

The quickening of his pulse shocked him completely awake, heart galloping. Cursing as he stumbled his way out of bed in a jumbled mess of blankets, he nose-dived to the floor. His hands flashed out instinctively to break his fall, his left wrist absorbing most of his weight. Grueling pain spiked up his arm, but he felt fortunate he had not broken anything. Grimacing, he freed himself from his blankets, regained his balance and sprinted down the hallway. Maybe the clock was wrong.

The microwave oven’s digital readout confirmed that it was twelve after seven. Rather than brew a pot of coffee, take a shower, and eat breakfast, he opted for deodorant, cologne, and Starbucks. He needed caffeine, and quick.

Food would have to wait.

He threw on a pair of wrinkled black slacks and a musty white dress shirt he found in what he believed was his pile of clean laundry, finishing off the ensemble with a crusty pair of socks which caused him to wrinkle his nose in disgust. He was not going to worry about it, though, as it was seven seventeen already, and time was of the essence.

Where were his work shoes? One was lying next to the front door, but the other was nowhere in sight. He slipped his foot into the available shoe. A gripping wave of déjà-vu hit him so strong it buckled his knees and nearly made him collapse to the floor a second time. To keep himself from falling down, he placed his hands flat against the front door. The room spun around him crazily for a minute. He was on an out-of-control carousel. Only spooky pipe organ music was needed to complete the scene.

After a moment, the instability subsided and the room stabilized around him. He was shaken, but still determined to make his morning a good one, and not let this setback ruin it.

In the living room, he dug to the bottom of a heap of laundry—he knew he should have a hamper, but he also embraced his status as a slob with no great shame—searching for his missing shoe. He scattered garments all over the room, then ran to his bedroom and did the same thing with another pile of clothes. Greg knew he might not be the least organized man on earth, but he wouldn’t have been surprised to find himself in the top three. Frustration mounted as his shoe continued to remain unfound.

The next stop was the bathroom. There was a mound of smelly towels on the floor. A few pokes and prods revealed nothing but the tile floor underneath.

A large palmetto bug crawled out of the disturbed blob of neglected towels. It scrambled behind the toilet in anticipation of a crushing blow that would smash it into oblivion, but there was no time to clean up guts this morning.

“It’s your lucky day, pard-ner,” he drawled in his best John Wayne imitation, aiming a finger gun at the little pest, firing an imaginary bullet into its sleek brown carapace. “You’ve got ‘til sundown to get outta my town.”

Back in the kitchen he checked the refrigerator, knowing that it was ridiculous to expect his shoe to be in there. Still, he figured it was worth a shot. There was a half-eaten burrito from Taco Bell, an empty two-liter soda bottle and a squeeze bottle of mustard, but no shoe.

Instead of shutting the refrigerator door, he grabbed the mustard bottle. Grant loved mustard to a fault. He flipped the crusty cap open and squirted an enormous yellow glob into his mouth. The tart condiment triggered his gag reflex and he nearly puked.

After a moment of indecisiveness, he conceded defeat. His shoe hunt had cost him precious time and he knew he had to go if he was to get any coffee. There was simply no choice but to break dress code on top of being late. An old grass stained pair of sneakers would have to do.

On his way out the door, he stopped to look at his messy living room for a moment. It was cluttered, as was the norm, but there lingered a feeling of inexplicable emptiness here that he had not previously noticed. Before the strange feeling got him off balance again, he dashed out the front door, and hurtled himself into the car. It was coffee or death at this point, and Greg’s only hope was that there would be no line at Starbucks.

Blanding Boulevard was the main artery between the small town of Orange Park and the metropolis of Jacksonville, and Greg was speeding down it within two minutes. The heavily traveled road was usually a bumper-to-bumper mess during rush hour, but traffic had been thin so far. Then he rounded a long bend and the main drag came into sight ahead. Dismayed at what he saw, he jammed his palms into the hard plastic of the steering wheel. The line for Starbucks didn’t just wrap around the building, it snaked out of the parking lot out onto Blanding Boulevard, a twisted tangle of vehicles spilling out into the main flow of traffic.

Greg watched with bitter disappointment as various people attempted wild maneuvers to navigate around the congestion and get on with their morning commute. A dark gray Hummer, the driver too impatient to wait any longer, jumped out of the Starbucks line right into his path. For a split second, the sun reflected off the gigantic vehicle, and he had to put a hand up to shield his eyes. He stepped on the brake pedal and the oversize SUV was able to speed away without incident. The Hummer had left a wide gap in the Starbucks line, and he was going to fill it. Immediately, Greg removed his foot from the brake and gunned the accelerator. He navigated into the empty spot and began his wait in line for a precious cup of morning blend with a double shot of espresso.

He waited for an interminable amount of time, finally accepting that his quest for caffeine was futile. Since he had still not gotten off of Blanding, he glanced over his should and jumped back out into the flow of traffic.

He caught a glimpse of reflection in the rearview mirror, surprised by how haggard he appeared. His brown hair was messy. There was a modest growth of whiskers on his chin and upper lip, and a few spider legs of hair peeked out of his nostrils. The bags under his eyes were so big and dark they resembled steamer crates more than carry-on luggage. Overall, he looked as if he had been ridden hard and put away wet.

A full-blown panic attack began to tighten around him, gripping his mind in a steel vise. His heart thumped like a thrash metal bass drum soundtrack to his morning drive. The thought of being at work soon, surrounded by other people, was reassuring.

Apparently, mustard was substantial enough meal for breakfast and his stomach gurgled uncontrollably. He figured the weird morning events were a side effect of skipping breakfast and coffee.

With Starbucks no longer in the equation, he would have to settle for the off-brand sludge they provided at work. Arnie, one of the higher paid accountants at the office, was a speed freak who methodically arrived fifteen minutes earlier than anyone else so he could brew a double-bagged pot unchallenged. Arnie’s was a desperate brew for a desperate caffeine junkie.

At this point in the game, Greg felt he fit that description very well.

Without any further strangeness, he finally pulled off Blanding Boulevard and angled into the parking lot. The large building that housed Princeton and Associates came into view. He had begun to wonder if the office would even be there. That was ridiculous, but today had proven unequivocal in its weirdness so far.

A parking space was available about fifty yards from the front. Greg veered into it, barely able to wedge his little Volvo into the cramped space. He turned the car off, and attempted to straighten his hair with his fingers. Then he hit the ground running.

Despite the fact the thermostat was set to sixty-eight degrees, Mr. Princeton propped the front door open with a gaily painted rock during the summer. Greg used this quirk to his advantage and was able to sneak into the office and get to his desk without alerting anyone to his late arrival.

The place usually bustled like a hive inside, and today was no exception. His coworkers were all present and already hard at work.

He logged into his workstation and glanced down at the clock. He was only a few minutes late, perhaps things would be okay after all. A helping of unexciting work would be enough to calm him down a little.

Data entry was perfectly monotonous. He rattled away at his keyboard, quickly filled in a dozen spreadsheets with their appropriate figures and hoping to distance himself from the weirdness which had settled over him like a blanket of dense fog.

The menial task his job provided did have a calming quality. At first, he expected Mr. Princeton to materialize over his shoulder, but he had not seen his boss among his coworkers this morning. After a while, Greg surmised his boss was, in fact, absent.

The man never missed a day.

Maybe he called in sick . . . maybe I should have!

Without the boss stalking around pitilessly under-appreciating the productivity of his staff, the day took on almost a pleasant quality. There was a sense of freedom in the office.

No one bothered to strike up any meaningless banter with him throughout his shift. It wasn’t as though he’d become a full-on persona non grata. The simple reality was that none of his coworkers had much to say to him.

There was no love lost there. Most of them rightly considered themselves to be his intellectual superior. It was Greg’s estimation that water cooler talk was overrated anyway.

He was there for one reason only: to earn his paycheck. It was a waste of time for him to try to get to know his coworkers on a personal level. There was no future in it.

He focused on his workload, trying to eliminate all distractions. His fingers moved deftly over the keys for a few moments until he couldn’t resist taking a peek over the top of his cubicle at Kirsten, Princeton’s secretary, who was leaning against her desk near the front door.

Okay, Kirsten certainly was a distraction. Extremely attractive, he would gladly engage in conversation with her anytime.

Unfortunately, on the spare occasions he had summoned up the nerve to speak with her, she always became immediately preoccupied with something, anything else. A strange bug on the acoustic tile ceiling or a tiny chip in her fingernail polish held vastly more appeal than whatever he was saying. He had even followed her gaze a few times, hoping to catch a glimpse of whatever was so much more interesting than him.

Greg knew if she would only give him a fraction of a chance to prove he was not some dweeb, she would end up lost forever in his eyes and they would surely fall hopelessly in love.

Greg resolved to gather up what little courage he possessed and pay her a visit today.

The hours ground by slowly and methodically, as though his noon lunch break would never arrive. When he was finally able to leave his desk to eat, he was determined to ask Kirsten out on a date. He leaned back in his chair, daydreaming about what he would say and how she would react. The last meaningful relationship Greg was involved in ended badly. His heart had been broken. Since then, he’d managed to secure a few dates, but nothing had come of any of them.

But Kirsten was different. She possessed an air of confidence about her which shouted independence and stability. He was all for that. The girl who’d broken his heart had been exactly the opposite.

As Greg stirred from his reverie, he was startled to find it was already five minutes until noon. Time had been dragging, but now it felt as though it had only been a few minutes since he got to work. He hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet, and it was already lunchtime. He rubbed weary eyes with his fists, ready to get out of the office and clear his head.

He crept slowly toward the front door, like a condemned man taking his last walk to the execution chamber. He struggled to maintain his composure as he approached the reception desk.

Kirsten stood there, regal in a pink cashmere sweater and a knee-length black skirt, side slits accentuating her sleek curves. The skirt also revealed a demure, but sexy amount, of her thighs.

Her long auburn hair was tied in a bun and pinned to the back of her head. Little wisps of loose hair had escaped the clutches of the hairpins and had fallen loose, framing her face like an exquisite portrait.

His confidence flagged as he approached her. His palms began sweating and his heart felt as if it was about to explode in his chest.

Forgetting that he looked like hell, he screwed his face into what he hoped was a convincing smile as he attempted to speak to her. To his dismay, when he opened his mouth all that came out were a series of clicking and cracking noises.

Once again, Kirsten declined to acknowledge his presence. Not even his strangeness managed to intrigue her.

Humiliated by his ineptitude, he rushed outside to get away. Feeling so much the fool for being unable to even speak intelligibly to Kirsten, he headed to his car.

His stomach growled like a lion. He decided he would have two double cheeseburgers today. Hold the mustard.

McDonald’s was busy, but the line moved fast. When it was his turn to order he felt for his wallet, but it was missing. Shit! He patted his other pockets, realizing there would be no wallet. This was not good. A shoe was one thing, but it was murder when a wallet went missing. The stomach pangs became daggers of hot pain.

Greg hung his head and shuffled away from the counter without speaking to the frazzled looking cashier. He nearly collided with a little girl who had been standing too close to him. Luckily, he did not knock her down.

“I’m so sorry,” he blurted out.

She gave him a curious look and shrugged. “It’s okay. I knew you would look out for me.”

Greg thought that was an odd thing for a little girl to say to a stranger and he stared at her for several long seconds, perplexed. His vision swam in and out of focus, and a new wave of pain stunned him. This time the piercing pain blossomed in his chest and radiated out to his limbs, doubling him over.

The little girl smiled at him, obviously unimpressed with his show of agony. Maybe she thought he was faking it.

“Lilly!” A man’s voice boomed from behind the girl.

Greg realized that since he had first laid eyes on the girl, he had forgotten everything else around him. His chest pain ebbed and then vanished almost as suddenly as it had set in. There was a man in his forties staring at the little girl with a mix of concern and impatience.

The man spoke again, more harshly. “Please, Lilly, let him go.”

He pointed at the bored looking cashier and gently propelled her forward with his hand. Greg felt an unexplainable pang of resentment toward the man.

Oddly, the fellow showed no interest in him. Greg thought he would have said something to a strange man showing even a small amount of interest in his own daughter if he had one, and felt more contempt for the fellow than before.

As the two approached the counter, the girl turned and looked up at Greg with genuine fondness in her eyes. He was suddenly sure he recognized her from somewhere, but when he attempted to figure it out, he came up with nothing.

The man who accompanied Lilly shoved her in the back again and this time, Greg made his exit.

Back in the car, he scratched his head, perplexed. He fumbled under the driver’s seat for his lost wallet, but found nothing but a couple of discarded French fries and a penny. He half expected to find his shoe under the seat.

As he pulled out of the parking lot, he glanced over and saw the little girl staring at him through the window.

There was still enough time to drive home and grab his wallet. He would hit a drive thru on his way back to work and eat lunch at his desk.

On his way back to his house, he encountered only light traffic, which was typical at this time of day on Blanding. However, there was still a nasty looking snarl of traffic around his favorite coffee shop.

There had been an accident. The two vehicles involved were metal hamburger meat. Blue and red lights pulsed from two ambulances, a fire truck and several police cruisers. With eastbound traffic completely stopped, police officers cast somber glances at those moving by in the westbound lanes, pleading that everyone be respectful and just move along.

Nothing to see here folks.

Despite earnest protestations to the contrary, there was definitely plenty for all the morbidly curious people to see.

Greg craned his neck to get a better look and check out the smashed vehicles. One was clearly a station wagon. The other twisted chaos of metal was anyone’s guess. Police officers took statements from several people on that side of the street.

Trying hard not to stare at the wreck, Greg drove along toward his house. Curiosity got the better of him, though, and he glanced over his shoulder one last time before continuing home. There was a body shrouded in a bloodstained blanket lying off to one side of the accident scene. A hand stuck out from under the soiled blanket.

Greg shuddered and averted his gaze from the scene, deciding to take back roads on his return trip.

Thirty minutes of his lunch break remained as his oil-stained driveway loomed into view. The accident he had witnessed still weighed heavily on his mind. The thought that someone had died in line for Starbucks was unimaginable; but seeing the body, those curled fingers jutting from underneath the sheet—that was the stuff of nightmares.

As he lifted the key to unlock his front door, he realized it was already slightly ajar. In his haste this morning, he must have forgotten to pull the door closed all the way behind him. The thought comforted him, but he still eased the door open tentatively, hoping he was not walking into a robbery in progress. He peered warily into the sunlit interior of his living room.

The sensible part of him tried to assert control. Why would anyone want to rob him? There was nothing of value in his humble home. The voice of reason was less than convincing, so he decided to announce his presence before entering.

In his best authoritative voice, he shouted, “Hey, you in there! What do you think you’re doing?”

He waited for a moment, unsure if he should expect a home invader to acknowledge their presence.

Feeling apprehensive, he walked inside. He left the front door open behind him, telling himself he would only be there long enough to grab his wallet. Confident that he must have left it on the kitchen counter this morning, he headed there first.

Halfway into the kitchen, he stopped walking. Something here felt wrong. His television and stereo were still present in front of the window. No one had made off with his couch or threadbare recliner. A half-finished ratty paperback copy of Clive Barker’s The Great and Secret Show rested on the arm of the couch with a chewing gum wrapper holding his place—just as he had left it. There was no evidence of a robbery.

Everything appeared fine, yet everything also felt out of place. It almost felt as if he was in the wrong house. It felt . . . empty. A wave of nausea washed over him as the taste of bile filled his mouth.

The laundry stacked against the wall made him feel uneasy again. He brushed it off and told himself it was nothing—he should just get what he came for and grab some lunch before it was too late.

His sense of purpose renewed, he continued into the kitchen. 

Shockingly, the microwave clock read 4:35 p.m. Then the digital readout faded and disappeared completely.

He looked at his wrist and noticed something strange there, too. There was a tan line where his watch should be. A nervous flutter of butterflies in his stomach overpowered even the worst pangs of hunger within him. He held his hands out and watched his fingers jitter and twitch.

With one sneakered foot planted on the kitchen linoleum and the other resting hesitantly on the shag carpet of his living room, he fought back the urge to vomit up the remnants of his mustard breakfast.

After a few moments, he felt better. His hands stopped shaking and the wrongness he had felt since entering his home subsided to a tolerable level. He looked for his wallet in earnest again, and was not exactly surprised to find that it was nowhere in sight. The refrigerator was completely empty now. It was warm inside, and the light bulb was not working. Greg backed out of the kitchen into the living room again, unsure why he had bothered to check in the refrigerator in the first place.

Perhaps his wallet was on the nightstand next to his bed? As he took his first steps in that direction, a cloud passed over the sun, painting the inside of his house with dark shadows. A squall of wind howled against the vinyl siding of the house as thunder rumbled in the distance.

He needed light but nothing happened when he flipped the hall light switch.

“What the hell?” he asked the empty house.

Thunder cracked. It was closer this time. It sounded sinister, malevolent, even. He toggled the light switch and the light in the hall remained dead. He gave up on it after a few tries and turned to look out the window. A large column of ominous black clouds loomed above the pines and oaks that towered above the row of humble houses lining his street. The storm had arrived out of nowhere, the darkness rolling in with it. He gaped as a skeletal lightning hand reached from roiling clouds and streaked its way across the sky, leaving a ghostly afterimage behind.

From behind him inside the house, Greg heard what sounded like the ceiling collapsing to the floor in his bedroom.

The unexpected noise made him jump, and he spun around, waving his arms wildly. He flipped on other light switches, but the power was out. He walked ninja-silent to the kitchen and gently opened the utensil drawer and delicately extracted a knife. It was only a butter knife, but it would have to do.

Now armed—albeit poorly—he snuck back onto the carpeted border of the living room and poked his head around the dividing wall.

Get out of here, Greg! Run! reason ordered him.

To remain here was madness, but retreat was impossible. He was pinned in his spot and no more able to run than the date palm which grew in the center of his front lawn. There was no running now. Today was a very important day, a day of revelations in the shadows of consciousness. Greg was not sure why he had this feeling, but it worried him.

He looked down at his pathetic excuse for a weapon. Though it felt rather useless, he gripped it ferociously. He brandished it like a sword. If someone attacked him, he was going for his or her eyeball. The thought of sinking the little harmless-looking kitchen utensil deep inside the intruder’s skull via eye socket did a lot to improve his state of mind. He pried himself free from the clutches of panic.

Again, he began the death-row march down the hall. A shrill resonance erupted from his bedroom and his fear swelled, threatening to burst inside of him. It sounded like someone was jumping up and down on his bed. Springs squeaked, groaned, and shrieked.

All the courage he had mustered went out of him, like a slowly deflating balloon. He backed into the living room and an odd thought occurred to him. He once more surveyed the laundry stacked against the wall. Hadn’t he torn that pile of clothes apart this morning?

Yes, he had thrown socks, underwear, pants and shirts all over the place, and had not cleaned up the mess. He was sure of it. Yet the clothes were now stacked and folded just as neatly as before his crazed shoe hunt had begun.

Understanding was blooming like a nightshade within his delirious mind, and Greg found himself teetering on the edge of epiphany. Thunder smacked again outside, and he almost dropped his knife and ran screaming out the door. It was a ridiculous thought, but the thunder actually sounded angry, as if nature’s fury was assaulting him personally.

Dazzling flashes of lightning grew faster and more brilliant as the storm suffocated the daylight out of Greg’s house, the bright bursts creating a stroboscopic effect on the walls. His head pounded in rhythm with the pulsating lightning.

It was growing darker in the house, save for nature’s light show, and Greg desperately began trying every wall switch in living room and hall again. None of them worked. He did not know what else to do.

Had he forgotten to pay the utility bill? He thought he must have. There was no time to be concerned with such trivial matters, though. At least, not when there was an intruder, or intruders, in his bedroom, threatening his survival.

The grinding and shrieking of bedsprings stopped. Had it even been real? He wondered if perhaps he had lost his mind. Bristling with fear, Greg began the long walk down the short corridor again, the dull blade of the butter knife shoved out in front of him. Behind him, lightning sparkled and rain hammered the roof and windows.

Halfway to his bedroom, he peeked over his shoulder and noticed the closed front door. He knew he had left it open. Instinct led his hand to his front pocket, in search of keys that were no longer there. They must be in the car.

Perhaps this was not happening at all. There was a large possibility that he was asleep at his desk at work, dreaming all of this. This thought gave birth to new courage. This had to be a dream. How else could it make sense?

An eerie scraping noise came from the bedroom. It was like a knife drawn across a pane of glass. Greg cringed at the sound of it and slunk several steps backwards. There came the sound of someone—or something—rummaging through his dresser drawers.

The storm raged full force outside and the house was alive with dancing shadows.

Iced by fear, he still managed to put one foot in front of the other. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled into his eyes. He wiped it from his face with his forearm and then wiped his forearm on his pants leg. When he did this, he noticed his feet were bare. He had no memory of removing his shoes and socks, but they were gone. His palms were so sweaty that the cool reassurance of the butter knife clenched in his fist had completely disappeared. As he tried to switch it to his other hand, he realized the knife itself had also vanished.

Greg hesitated outside his bedroom door, listening for movement. The door was open but less than half of his room was visible through the darkness, the rest of it concealed by the hallway wall.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that caught him off guard. A large picture frame hung on the wall to his right. He was sure that it had not been there a minute ago. Upon further inspection, he realized it was not affixed to the wall, but literally hovering in front of it.

It was a collage of pictures arranged behind stark white matting. The faces smiling through the grimy glass were barely discernible, but they began to sharpen into focus after a few moments. He gaped, fish-eyed, at what he saw.

Every picture in the frame contained him, Kirsten and Lilly, the girl from McDonalds.

They were in various poses in different locales—smiling, kissing, and waving at the photographer. As more details emerged from the pictures, memories bloomed within his mind.

Another cacophonous blast from the bedroom distracted him from the lovingly arranged photos, and he decided he would study them more closely after dealing with the intruder. He gently set the large frame against the wall and entered the foreboding bedroom.

It was uninhabited, just as he had expected. His bed occupied most of the floor space and he was surprised to find it neatly made, three big fluffy pillows lined up along the headboard. A bouquet of flowers lay across the middle pillow, stems bound together by a thick blue wrap of silk tied in a bow.

On the pillow closest to him rested an envelope, the solitary word “Daddy” written in a child’s scrawl in crayon across the front. The rain had stopped its pounding on the windows, he realized, and glanced at the wall in his bedroom. It was now a smooth, flat, and solid wall. The window was gone.

Get out get out get out NOW!!!!! his ever-diminishing rationale screamed from within.

Even in the dark, an old thumbprint was clearly visible on the wall’s smooth surface near the corner, a small scar accidentally left behind when he had painted the room years ago.

This minute detail unleashed a tsunami of recollections. Without warning, a vivid memory played out like a scene from a movie before his eyes:

Kirsten flinging gobs of paint off the end of her dripping paintbrush, laughing and twirling around in her bare feet atop the layers of plastic tarp they had spread to protect the carpet. Him, dipping his brush into a pan, painting a white stripe down the front of her shirt. The room half painted and filled with their laughter, a baby wailing from a crib in another room.

The scene ended as quickly as it began. Greg was alone in the dark. He touched his cheek, half-expecting to find a glob of wet paint clinging to his face. There was no paint, but his face was wet.

His room had grown darker than the other side of the grave. He felt like curling up on the floor for a meltdown.

Instead, he walked back into the hallway, and hoisted the big picture frame from where he had set it against the wall.

He studied the photographs of himself with a family he did not remember. How could this be real? He was sure someone was playing a horrible prank on him.

Despite the fact that his hands now were trembling severely, the picture frame remained dead still in his hands. Greg stared in disbelief at his face staring back at him from the photos. Numbness started to spread through his body in an urgent, almost conscious way. Before it completely took hold of him, he made his way back to the hall and hung the heavy frame on the wall by his bedroom door. There was no nail, but the picture stayed where it was. The shuffling noise in his bedroom started again.

He crept back into the bedroom to find Kirsten and Lilly sitting on the floor, surrounded by boxes. Sanity was draining away with the speed of stampeding stallions now. The boxes held numerous familiar items. Greg noticed his wallet in one of the boxes. His watch accompanied it. The girls were busy filling a box with dozens of loose pictures, ones that had never found a home in any of the dozens of picture albums they had filled over the years.

Lilly gripped a five by seven photograph, one she had apparently saved for herself. She clutched it to her chest and hugged it fiercely. As Kirsten watched her daughter’s precious display of love, tears welled up in her eyes. She placed her fingertips delicately upon her child’s forearm. Lilly kept hugging the picture, eyes tightly closed, grinning and swaying back and forth on her heels. Neither of them acted as if they knew that Greg shared the room with them.

As he opened his mouth to ask them what they were doing there, the girls and their keepsakes vanished. Only the photo Lilly had been hugging remained. Greg watched it float like a feather toward his outstretched hand. He snatched it from the air and looked upon it, again experiencing a stab of déjà vu.

In the photo, Lilly sat hunched over Greg’s shoulders, her little fists twisted up in his hair, her legs wrapped tightly around his throat for balance. The unmistakable stark white spire of Space Mountain jutted up in the background. They were both laughing and sticking their tongues out at the photographer. The goofy tone of the picture tempered his feelings of bewilderment and for a moment, he was nearly himself again. His mouth attempted to birth a smile, but it was stillborn upon his lips.

A soft thud came from behind him. He spun around to find that the door to the hallway was now gone. There was only another smooth wall in need of a new coat of paint. He looked back at the picture in his hands but it was gone as well, apparently having followed everything else into the ether.

Confusion and fear ran like ice water through his veins. A splintered realization unfolded within, and the brutal certainty of his situation was rearing its ugly head before him. This is insane, he thought.

In the shadows, the envelope still lay like a coiled asp upon his pillow. The flowers were now dried and flaking, the petals rotting away on a dusty old pillow. A folded piece of yellowed notebook paper lay next to the torn envelope. He felt himself begin to float across the floor toward it, or perhaps it was moving towards him. Nothing was certain.

Fearful of the ominous folded page, yet helplessly drawn to it, Greg exhaled sharply and willed the letter to him. It flew from the pillow into his hands. Shuddering, he rubbed his thumbs cautiously over the top of it.

A child had obviously written the letter. In the gloom, the letters on the paper were already fading away.

He read:

Dear Da   dy,

I’m sorry   had to take away

but are always my   ve.

I’m sorry y   ed.

mommy      you will be

w   hing over us

I m   ss ou.

L  ve, Lilly

 

He grasped at the meaning within the words as the letters on the page faded and blurred and erased themselves from existence. The answer still eluded him.

He worked his fingers into the palms of his hands, hoping to pierce the soft skin with his fingernails. All he wanted was to awaken from this nightmare, to see the morning sun slanting through the bedroom window. A loss sank like an anchor into his chest, so great that his heart could no longer handle it.

The bedroom walls shrank inward, transforming his inner sanctum into a fish bowl. Greg again felt as if he was moving around with no effort at all. Legs no longer under his command carried him to the bed. There, he lay down and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the ceiling was no more than an inch from his face. His hands were dead weight at the end of his arms. He tried to scream but his vocal cords no longer responded to his brain’s commands.

Violent spasms of pain erupted throughout his body. An avalanche of suffering threatened to suck the consciousness out of him. The ceiling tightened against his chest, pinning him to the bed. This was no longer his bedroom. He was back in his car. Blood flowed freely from where the steering column had crushed horribly into his chest. In terror, he saw the engine block on his legs.

The weight of the agony was more than he could bear.

Lights flashed all around him. Voices yelled for him to stay calm.

How could he be calm? He was being smashed to death.

Pedestrians clutching cups of coffee looked on curiously from the curb in front of Starbucks.

“Please, God!” He pled voicelessly. “Help me!”

If God was listening, he was not answering Greg’s prayers.

Metal screeched on metal and the pressure upon him weakened considerably. Ice water cascaded down his spine. The voices grew louder as a man’s face hovered in his field of vision briefly. The stranger looked away towards someone just out of view. The man shook his head slowly, pity filling his almond eyes.

“No, no, no! I’m not ready!” Greg tried to call out.

Everything faded away, and Greg was back in his room. Unsure if the scene that had played out before him was from a past that was real or a future imagined, he watched in horror as the room around him faded into a gray landscape of evaporating shapes and patterns. As he lay pinned to the bed that was now the only still-recognizable feature of his disintegrating home, there was only one thing of which he was now certain: he was gone.