“The misery-loves-company school of retribution?”
“Yes. But it’s not like a conscious will on their part. It’s more like they become an aspect of—if you can comprehend this—the spiritual ecosystem of the world we move through.”
“How do you distinguish them from regular sleepers?
“They glow like us. They look like us in every aspect except their eyes are cold. You’ve got to be fairly close to them to see this, though. If someone approaches and they have an empty affect, jump away quickly. They’re earthbound and have lost the power to leap like we can.”
“What happens if you don’t notice their eyes?”
“Their fingers are capable of piercing your incorporeal form, usually through the chest, and unhooking your cord. And an instant later, you’re one of them. Sometimes they hunt in packs. Remember, there’s nothing human about them. Whatever seems human, speech, facial expression, gait, is all unconscious mimicry.”
“I thought sleepers couldn’t touch. So, how do they unhook your silver cord? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I can’t explain it,” she said. “The night world has somehow allowed this to happen. My teacher told me to think of it as a mutation promoting evolutionary change in that it sets up a serious challenge to the quality of sleepers. I’m not sure what she meant.”
“Have you ever seen someone lose their cord?”
“No. But what I’ve heard from those who’ve witnessed it, it’s accompanied by a stifled gasp, like an expression of great agony, inhibited by the fact that the sleeper becomes something wholly other.”
“Jesus,” said Owen. “The entire thing is like a convoluted nightmare. How often do you run into cord-cutters?”
“I travel every night, so maybe every couple of months. Because I’ve been crossing over to the world of night since I was a teenager, I can hear them as whispering static at a bit of a distance. You, though, will have no warning.”
“It’s a lot scarier now than it was.”
“Look up,” she said. They were in the park and heading toward the cemetery. He looked up, but instead of following her pointing hand, he looked into her eyes. She smiled. “Don’t worry, I’m not a cutter.”
“I wasn’t looking at you for that reason,” he said.
“Then why?”
“The glow makes it difficult for me to clearly see your face.”
“There’s nothing important to see,” said Melody. “But out there, across the field, do you see the yellow cloud hovering a few feet above the ground?”
He shifted his gaze and saw what looked like a small cloud come down to earth, wisps of a sulfurous shade roiling and drifting slowly above the field. “What is it?”
“The miasma. If any part of it touches you, you’ll be disintegrated—erased out of existence. Not just in the night world but in your waking life, and the strangest thing is that no one will remember you. It’ll be as if you never existed in the waking world. All I know is that this cuts deeply across many dimensions and through many planes of existence, but reality will somehow rearrange itself and blot out the wound you are, and no one—even your parents—will be the wiser. The only memory of you that will still exist will be with other sleepers who knew you in the night world.”
“Sounds like a fairy tale,” said Owen.
“Don’t worry about it making sense,” she said. “You’ve got to keep an eye out for the miasma. It’s slow-moving but stealthy and is attracted to sleepers. The good news is it can easily be outmaneuvered. The bad is you can’t hear it approaching. I once saw a sleeper taken down by it. It looked horribly painful and slow as the ethereal body went up in smoke. It looks insubstantial but once it’s got you, that’s it. So, keep your wits and watch your back.”
Owen felt his hair stand up and a chill run down his spine. He turned quickly, only to wake in bed with the first light of dawn showing through the bedroom blinds.
6
DESPITE ALL THE GALLIVANTING around through the night, Owen felt unusually refreshed, as if his sleep had been deeper and more sustained than normal. He was often still yawning and stretching until he had a cup of black coffee, but on this day, he jumped out of bed, feeling a reserve of energy. While sitting at the kitchen table, having breakfast, staring out at the birds and the feeder that needed restocking, his mind was on Melody and the night world. The prospect of visiting it again excited and scared him.
Melody presented herself as some kind of adept, like a guru of OBEs. He considered the possibility that she was—even though he’d run into her on successive nights—just a dream, along with the rest of his sleeping adventures. But he had to admit everything about the experiences seemed utterly real. He felt that he needed to check something he’d witnessed only in the night world against the reality of the waking world. The first thing he thought of was that he’d been to Helen Roan’s grave as a sleeper but not when awake. He would go to the cemetery after work and see if there was a tree with ribbons and deflated balloons near her grave. If it turned out to be so, then he would have some kind of verification that the night world was legitimate. It was Saturday and the library closed early at three o’clock, so he’d have time to walk over before dark.
On his way to work that morning, he went through all Melody had told him about the night world. He had a fleeting thought as to whether he should trust her. Who was to say that she was not some evil entity drawing him into a situation from which he’d never return? He weighed what he knew. It was the reason he was trying to see the details of her face. He trusted his ability to read whether people were good or not. From what he’d seen, he had no reason to doubt her. As he was walking along, lost in his thoughts, he came up short at the very last second before running into someone.
The neighbor whose house he was in the previous night, the man with the ailing wife, stood before him. The fellow was dragging his garbage can to the curb. In an unguarded moment, Owen blurted out, “Hello. How’s your wife doing?” and instantly regretted opening his mouth. The man’s stony expression melted, his glaring eyes went soft, and he said, “As good as can be expected.” Surprised he’d gotten a response, Owen moved quickly around him and down the sidewalk before he could make another blunder. He turned and said to his neighbor, “Have a good day,” and the fellow lifted a hand to wave and smiled. Only then did Owen realize he was trembling. A few more feet farther down the sidewalk, and he wondered if this was the proof he was contemplating at breakfast. Something verified from the night world to the waking world.
By the time he reached the library, he realized his encounter was really not proof of anything except that the man had a wife. The question he’d asked and the answer the man gave could mean a million different things. It didn’t necessarily indicate that his neighbor’s wife was relegated to bed, every breath perhaps her last. Maybe she simply had a cold or her mother had passed away or their dog had died. Owen would still have to make his way to the cemetery that afternoon to check the tree near Helen’s grave. For the time being, he put the thought out of his head.
It turned out to be a beautiful spring day, and at lunchtime he went outside and sat on the bench. There were no patrons inside, and he’d finished his important work. The calm stillness of the afternoon was suddenly broken by a sound like an asthmatic demon. “What the hell is it?” he thought, and turned to look up the road in the direction of the din. He saw Mrs. Hultz’s dilapidated 1990 maroon Cadillac Brougham. The car was in about the same shape as its owner. He was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Hultz’s longevity, seventy-five years, had something to do with the gin.