The Narrows, page 17
He sent his message, then read Noah’s one more time. He breathed in, his nose sniffling with mucus. On the table was a plate that he’d piled various hors d’oeuvres on, as well as a stained, crumpled napkin that he used to wipe away his tears and blow his nose. He slid the phone back into his pocket, then rose to grab another plate of food.
~
The drainage ditch in the real world was bereft of any water. Unfortunately, Oliver’s clothes were still drenched from the water he had tumbled into in the Narrows.
A harsh breeze chilled him and his teeth chattered. Oliver stared at the spot where Eric’s corpse had been—or still was, he wasn’t sure—then stood and swiftly ducked back into the neighborhood.
He marched past the rows and rows of houses, then past his own car, until he was outside the neighborhood on Keystone Bend, putting as much distance between himself and the knave as he could manage.
Once he had calmed down (the freezing cold lending a lot of aid), Oliver realized that he was probably safe from the knave. It could appear anywhere, but even if it chased after him, it couldn’t harm him in this world. That was why it needed him in the first place to obtain Christopher’s gem.
It would be foolish for the thing to make an appearance; he had nothing to worry about.
He meandered aimlessly down the road in the dead of night, his arms crossed over his chest to retain warmth, shivering with every meager step. There was no destination in mind.
He hadn’t accomplished anything he had set out to in the Narrows. All he had done was nearly die, which was not particularly something to brag about.
The knave had made a mistake, though. It taught him how to enter the Narrows on his own.
Surely it had assumed there was no harm; he was supposed to be dead within the hour, after all. But he wasn’t, and he could go back.
As he cycled through it in his head, Oliver thought the knave might not expect him to return anytime soon, if ever. But especially not the same night.
If he could sneak up on it, he could perhaps subdue the thing, or better yet circumvent it entirely and track down Noah’s gem undetected. It had to be in that desk drawer the knave was guarding.
Oliver planned a few different scenarios, but each one ended with him being overtaken by the knave again. He wasn’t arrogant; he knew his limits. This time he had gotten lucky. At some point, his luck would run out.
There was no more avoiding it.
He needed help.
Off in the distance was an intersection, with all of the businesses darkened for the night, the lights of their signs powered down. Except for one, which shone its glorious yellow light upon the world.
Oliver ambled toward Shumard’s newest Waffle House and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, praying that it still worked. When the screen lit up, he whispered, “Thank fuck,” surprised by the hoarseness of his voice.
He placed his first call and breathed deep as the phone rang.
SATURDAY 01/05/19
The Gem
It was just past midnight when Davontae and Sophia swung open the smudged glass door and were enveloped by the unnatural yellow fluorescence. It radiated from the bowling ball-sized orbs dangling from the ceiling every couple feet, their light hum putting Oliver on edge.
Oliver was sat in a booth at the back of the restaurant, as far away from the employees as possible, trembling from the air conditioning blowing on his soaking wet clothes (which had garnered some wary looks from employees and patrons before everyone seemingly agreed to ignore him). Line cooks chatted with waitresses behind the counter, tapping greasy metal spatulas on the griddle, awaiting new orders. The smell of freshly-cooked hashbrowns was intoxicating, but Oliver’s stomach flipped at the prospect of keeping food down. He was still reeling with thoughts of the knave’s arm lodged in his throat.
His friends both waved a polite greeting to the employees as they strolled past the counter and situated themselves in the booth across from him. His leg bounced up and down beneath the table, his fingers interlaced on top of the laminated menu.
“Hey,” he said, barely above a whisper.
“What’s goin’ on, man?” Davontae asked, skipping right to the point. His brow furrowed with concern. Even putting aside the frantic tone of voice on the phone, he knew that Oliver being awake at all at midnight, let alone out and about, was highly unusual and indicated something was wrong. His appearance, with his face haggard and his clothes wet, surely did nothing to dissuade that assumption.
Noticing the two new customers, their waitress Laura returned to the booth with a toothy smile, stained yellow by coffee or nicotine or both. “Can I get y’all somethin’ to drink?” she asked with a heavy southern drawl.
“Waters are fine,” Davontae said, wanting to quickly end the interaction. Laura nodded and shuffled off to fetch the drinks.
No one looked at the menus scattered across the table. Oliver’s water glass was already sweating, creating a puddle of condensation at its base. He looked back and forth between Davontae and Sophia, who waited expectantly for him to begin speaking.
He remained silent until Laura brought the waters and asked if they wanted anything to eat. “Three hashbrowns, for now,” he said, with no intention of eating but not wanting to rudely sit there with only water and nothing else. Laura gave them another nod, grabbed the menus, and went to put the order in.
Davontae shot another suspicious look at Oliver.
He didn’t know where to start. The beginning was probably best, but his chest tightened with anxiety. The words weren’t coming to him.
The front door swung open again, letting in a gust of freezing night air. Ash stepped inside, glancing around for a second before spotting Oliver and the others. Her long, blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She smiled and approached the table.
She scooted in next to him, saying hello, then introduced herself to the two people sitting across from her.
Everyone was now present. He could start his story, once he figured out how.
“Well, thanks for coming,” he started, addressing everybody. “I know it’s late. I appreciate y’all even answering the phone.”
“I’m always up this late,” Ash said with a grin. “No problem for me.”
“What is goin’ on, man?” Davontae asked again, his voice brimming with impatience.
Oliver blurted it out: “I need y’all’s help with something.” After a pause, he said, “It’s something big. It’s fucked. I understand if none of you want anything to do with it, but I needed to ask.”
From the way Ash’s face shifted with concern, he knew she had guessed what this meeting pertained to. She had probably known the moment she answered his call.
“What is it?” Sophia asked. “I have to assume you didn’t call us all out here just because you’re having trouble sleeping,” she said with a knowing smirk. He had specifically requested she bring her baggie of earplugs, but didn’t say why.
Finally, after a few sips of water, he said, “After I found out about Noah, every night I went to the spot where he died. The street in Shumard Springs.”
Neither Davontae nor Sophia reacted. Ash was turned in her seat to face him and placed a sympathetic hand on his one stationary leg. The other was still bouncing uncontrollably. They waited for him to continue.
“A week ago, I went there like always, and some dude was there. It was Eric Breen.” Recognition shone in their expressions. Eric had primarily been Jez’s friend, but everyone knew him. “He started acting really fucking weird, and—”
He stopped, the words choking him, just like the knave’s arm. He licked his lips, trying to phrase the next part correctly. As he formulated his next sentence, Laura strolled over to the table with three plates of plain hashbrowns. She asked if Ash wanted anything, but she declined. They all thanked Laura, but ignored the plates after she walked away.
“What happened to Eric?” Ash asked. Her voice was soft, her expression grave, as if she already knew the answer. Oliver had told her what he saw in that neighborhood, and she wasn’t stupid. She could piece it together.
Oliver then went on to describe that night with Eric. Every last detail that he could recall. No hiding it anymore.
Ash’s grip tightened on his leg as he told the story. Tears streamed silently down her face, and she let go of his pant leg to wipe them away. He apologized, but was at a loss for what else to say. She didn’t know what to say either, and instead simply shook her head. He waited another minute for her to recover before continuing. He wanted to give her more time to grieve, but it was time he didn’t have. They needed to get moving.
He told the others about his and Ash’s investigation and the encounter with Orrum, which segued into the knave contacting him. Ash perked up a little at this; now the story was new and fresh for everyone.
With several stops and starts, he managed to divulge his incident underneath the overpass (half-confirming the urban myth, which probably would have delighted Sophia under completely different circumstances), and he was sure to impart the importance of the gem.
“I think it’s a person’s essence, or their soul, or something like that,” he said under his breath. No one behind the counter was paying any attention to them at all, but he wanted to play it safe. “It’s impossible to describe the feeling you get when you touch one, but it’s like you can feel the person it’s connected to. I instantly knew the guy’s name was Christopher Pedraza, and I…I don’t know, I could just feel him.”
No one had interrupted him yet, but Davontae cut in to clarify, “So what happened to him when you took the gem out was the same shit that happened to Eric.”
“Right.” Oliver was impressed and relieved that Davontae was, for now, accepting everything at face value and not questioning the legitimacy of the story. “I think the knave was taking out Eric’s gem, but for whatever reason, he flickered into this world and all I could see was him but not the knave.” He imagined an invisible knave latched on to Eric’s thrashing body, his arm deep in the man’s throat.
“What does it want with the gems?” Sophia asked.
Good, Oliver thought. She’s on board too. Unfortunately, but understandably, Ash had not spoken since the news about Eric.
“I have no idea,” he answered. “But it made good on its promise and showed me how to enter the Narrows.”
The next portion of the story was going to be difficult to get out, possibly even more so than the part about the overpass.
“I went back to Shumard Springs tonight and met with it. It taught me, and I crossed over, and—”
“Why?” Davontae asked.
Oliver blinked, waiting for clarification.
“Why the fuck would you go meet it? Why did you want to go there at all?”
Oliver looked around the table, searching his friends’ expressions to see if anyone had understood his reasoning. Perhaps he hadn’t explained it well enough.
“Because I think it took Noah’s gem,” he said. He waited a moment for this to sink in before going on. “If you think about it, Christopher Pedraza was working with the knave, but whatever shit it was making him do drove him to suicide. Noah’s suicide came out of nowhere. None of us have any idea why he would’ve done it. So I think the knave was manipulating him, and he thought that was the only way out.”
“And then it took his gem after.”
“Yeah,” he nodded.
“But then why was Noah’s body intact?” Ash piped up. “Why would he not be melted away? And how would the thing be able to touch him?”
Oliver looked over at her. It was an obvious question, and he felt stupid for not realizing the same thing sooner.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know or understand all the rules of the Narrows. And the fucking thing could have been lying to me the entire time. For all I know, it was perfectly capable of getting Christopher’s gem, but wanted to lure me in. I’ve just got a really intense feeling that Noah’s gem is there. I can’t explain it.” He left it at that for the time being, praying it was sufficient. “So I went to cross over and find it.”
“Why?” Davontae interrupted again. “What’s the endgame here? What happens if you even find his gem?”
“I take it back to him and it restores his life,” Oliver said, understanding how childish it sounded out loud, especially after Ash had poked holes in the theory.
“You’re just gonna exhume his fucking body and stick a rock in him?” Sophia asked. “You sound insane.”
That reaction was more in line with what he’d been expecting, but he pressed on. “Yes, it sounds insane, and it is insane. But it’s the truth. So I went there to find the gem, and the knave led me to some house—I assume it’s where it lives—and the place was full of gems. Floor to ceiling, all different colors. Thousands. This thing’s been killing people for I don’t know how long, harvesting gems and storing them in its house. I don’t have a clue what it wants them for. But I think Noah’s gem is in there somewhere.” The knave’s drawer came to mind.
“So you ‘felt’ it in there?” Davontae asked.
Oliver shook his head. “There were too many. They were all clamoring over each other. I couldn’t get a handle on any specific one unless I touched it. That’s why I need to go back and do a thorough search.”
“What stopped you from doing that when you were there?”
Oliver took a breath.
“It tried to take my gem.”
No one moved. He couldn’t tell if they were nervous, tired, exasperated, or any combination of the three.
Whatever the case, they did not press him to expand further. He appreciated that, but he felt he owed his friends an explanation if he expected them to embark on this foolish mission with him.
He said, “It stuck its arm deep down my throat, and I started to regurgitate orange bile like Eric and Christopher did.” He tugged on his jacket for emphasis, showing off the dried muck on his shoulders and upper chest. They all stared blankly at the evidence.
Ash finally broke the silence. She had stopped crying a few minutes earlier, but her voice was still soft and fragile. “Why did you ask us to come here?”
He took another breath.
“I need you guys to cross over with me. Come into the Narrows, kill the knave if it comes to that, and get Noah’s gem.”
It was not a great pitch, by any stretch.
“Everything you’ve just told us,” said Davontae, “sounds like complete nonsense.” He stabbed a fork into the plate of lukewarm hashbrowns sitting in front of him. He cut a piece off and stuffed it into his mouth, thinking while he chewed. The other two plates were left untouched.
“It does sound like garbage,” Sophia chimed in. “Your logic is bad, even assuming everything you’ve said about ‘the Narrows’ is true. And that’s a big fuckin’ if.”
“I know,” he said. But there was nothing else he could do or say to convince them.
“I don’t think he’s lying,” Ash said. Davontae swallowed and gave her his attention. “When we were together, when he said he saw Orrum or whatever, he seemed genuinely freaked out. Something strange and fucked up is definitely going on. I don’t know what, but I don’t think he’s lying. I heard the buzzing too, before he ever mentioned any of this to me.”
Davontae shoveled another forkful of stringy potato into his mouth and said, “I don’t think he’s lying either.” His teeth crunched the crispiness of the hashbrowns, and he nodded toward the bile on Oliver’s clothes. “But it still sounds like nonsense.”
“That shit on your jacket is nasty, though, whatever it is,” said Sophia.
“Smells like shit too,” Ash said with a disheartened chuckle.
“Look,” Davontae started, speaking for the group, “I’m not sayin’ I necessarily believe all this. Because you’d have to be crazy to believe it. But I still think you’re bein’ honest with us. You wouldn’t drag us all out here or be out here yourself unless something was really wrong.” He took a deep breath before continuing. “So let’s go to Shumard Springs and see what the fuck is up.”
Oliver smiled, feeling relief for the first time in a long while. The pressure in his chest tapered as he looked around at his friends.
Then he said, “I left my car back in the neighborhood. Can I ride with you?”
Davontae looked him up and down before answering.
“You got a fuckin’ towel to sit on?”
~
No one had a towel handy, but Oliver’s pants had disgustingly hardened during the twenty-minute walk in the cold earlier and were mostly dry now. In addition, he promised Davontae he would pay for any cleaning that needed to be done to the car.
Sophia had grabbed a ride with Davontae to the restaurant, and Ash left her car in the lot so that everyone could ride together, despite the fact that they were returning to her own neighborhood. Sophia was in the front passenger seat, and Oliver was in the back sitting next to Ash.
“Did you go to school with us?” Sophia asked her as they cruised down Keystone Bend toward the neighborhood. Toward the Narrows.
“Nah,” Ash answered. “I met Oliver at work back in high school. My only work buddy.”
“You had plenty of work buddies,” Oliver said. “Or at least people you pretended to like so you could go on smoke breaks with them. I think Mr. Eames had a crush on you.”
“Don’t be gross. But yeah, he definitely did.”
“I could never tell how old he was. I’d believe you either way if you told me he was in his twenties or that he was in his forties.”
Sophia and Davontae both laughed at this. “Whichever it was, it sounds gross for him to be into a high school girl,” said Sophia.
“Oh, totally,” Ash nodded. “But he let me take smoke breaks and never questioned me having cigarettes in the first place, so it all worked out for the best.”
