“Lots of people know that my neighbor left a weird suicide note with me before he supposedly killed those police officers and then disappeared. They looked everywhere for him. There were so many police dogs on the property after that, it was crazy. At one point, they said that they followed tracks that led right to my house. He might have been after me for all I know.”
“That’s horrible,” Jennifer said.
“Yeah,” Amber said. “Yeah. The thing is, maybe he did come. I don’t really know anymore.”
“Did you see something?” Liz asked.
Amber took another drink. She didn’t say anything for a moment and then she nodded in the dark.
“It was just after the sun went down. The note was crazy. The police clearly thought that he was mentally unstable. They didn’t see him though. He called it an infection, but it was more like a transformation. He was becoming something inhuman. He told me that he might come for me, and he told me how to defend myself in case he did. I immediately called the police and told myself that I didn’t believe any of it. But I saw him. Part of me must have believed it, because I prepared.”
“What happened?” Jennifer asked.
“I heard something break into my uncle’s house. It came through a second floor window and I turned on the radio when I heard the tapping.”
Amber paused in her story and reached out to tap on the armrest of the bench. The sound was almost lost when the wind swelled. Jennifer shivered under her blankets.
“Then, I set a trap. I was still trying to convince myself that the whole thing was crazy when I saw a shadow dart down the stairs and into the closet. The thing had some kind of camouflage and it wasn’t a person. The shape of it and the way it moved—it clearly wasn’t human.”
Jennifer and Liz were holding their breath, waiting for the rest of her confession.
“I scattered rice, like they used to do at weddings. I read about it afterwards—they say that the rice is supposed to symbolize fertility or crops or something. But I think that maybe they throw it because it protects you from things that can’t stand the disorder.”
Amber took another drink.
“When the thing came out of my closet, it was obsessed with the rice. That didn’t stop it from catching me with its eyes. They were hypnotic. The flashlight diminished the effect and I was able to stop myself from being completely controlled by those eyes.”
“It was your neighbor?” Liz asked.
“I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t know. It looked like a lizard or something. I finally saw it when I shoved a wooden stick into its eye.”
Jennifer took in a sharp breath. “What?” she asked.
Amber nodded. “It was me or it. I knew in that moment that it would kill me if I didn’t get it first, so I did what I had to do. It, like, deflated into a puddle of slime almost immediately. It was like I was witnessing it decompose in time lapse. Then the puddle evaporated.”
Liz let out a long breath and took the bottle from Amber with a trembling hand.
“You think I’m crazy.”
“No,” Liz said.
“Of course not,” Jennifer said.
“Well, most of the time I think I’m crazy. I know how it sounds. I really do. There’s no evidence that anything happened at all. It’s the perfect delusion. Ten minutes later, when I finally was able to move again, I called the police for the second time that day. When they asked what the emergency was, I didn’t know what to say.”
“What was it?” Jennifer asked.
Amber opened her mouth to answer that she didn’t know. She couldn’t find her voice. Her throat had closed up and wouldn’t emit a sound.
“I’m not doubting you,” Jennifer said. She freed a hand from her blanket and reached out to touch Amber. A tear left a cold streak down Amber’s face.
“It’s not that,” Amber said. The words burst through her choked throat. “I just realized that I dumped all that on you on your wedding night. You’re not supposed to be worried about my nonsense tonight.”
“It’s not nonsense,” Liz said. “You went through something traumatic, and we’re not going to abandon you or judge you.”
“But I don’t even… I can’t even be sure that any of it is true. It’s too crazy to be true.”
“No, it’s not,” Liz said.
“Amber, weird stuff happens. People just don’t talk about it all that much. My friend Sarah survived some really unbelievable stuff. I shouldn’t say it like that. She survived some stuff that if anyone else told me about, I would say that it wasn’t believable. But I know Sarah, and if she says that a kid in her town accidentally summoned a demon, I believe it. I mean, something for sure happened. The news said that the road was closed because there was a chemical spill, but everyone knows that was a lie.”
While Jennifer spoke, Amber managed to collect herself.
“It feels good just to say something, you know? I keep thinking that it couldn’t have happened the way I thought because things like that don’t happen in the real world.”
Liz barked out a sour laugh.
“Oh, Amber, this is barely the real world. I live here because it’s beautiful and my family has roots here, but this place is right on the border of what the rest of the world would call sane,” Liz said.
Amber covered her face with her hands.
“Or,” Jennifer said, taking a long pause, “maybe it’s the same everywhere but people are more open to experiencing weird things up here? I mean, long, dark winters and very few people living in a place that’s mostly uninhabited forests?”
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” Liz said. “I think that this is a tranquil and beautiful place, but the richness of that experience comes with a price.”
“If that’s true, then I guess it’s not a price I’m willing to pay,” Amber
