Issue #192 : Visitation
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At night, the house felt like a massive sound deprivation tank. Jennifer had taken Rio with her on this business trip days ago and he Henry was left with nothing to occupy himself except the walls and his thoughts. The weight of their absence was always the heaviest at times like this, late at night when he felt abandoned and lost within the confines of his own thoughts. He sat in Rio’s room, tossing a ball against the far corner, catching it on its return trip and throwing it again. The meager illumination from the night light was enough to see the ball when it bounced closer to him but otherwise, the room was lost in darkness. Watching the baseball dribble its way back to him across the floor, he grinned as he pictured Steve McQueen, occupying himself in much the same fashion in his moments of solitude. Through the thick windows of the bedroom, he thought he picked up the sound of a car driving past but there was no way to know for sure. It felt easier to draw the conclusion that the entire outside world had simply ceased to exist.
He shivered, rubbing his arms as the ball bounced back to him and began rolling slowly away. He grabbed it, shaking his arms as he tried to get some circulation and warmth back into them. The next morning, he would have to break down and finally call someone in to take a look at the furnace. This had been an ongoing problem for weeks and it always seemed to be in specific places in the house, cold spots that he couldn’t explain. As much as he dreaded the expense, he needed to get it sorted out.
The floor groaned slightly underneath him, as if someone was walking out in the hall. That was a new one that he hadn’t heard before. Or maybe he had heard it but now that he was alone, he knew for sure that the sound wasn’t that of Jennifer or Rio. It was an old house and the ground quality was just bad enough that a certain amount of settling of the structure was to be expected.
Gripping the ball, he chucked it into the corner again, listening to it echo hollowly against the wall as it bounced back. He thought that coming in here would make him miss his son less but sitting by himself was just making him feel the emptiness more acutely. Maybe he should give up and try to get to bed.
The sight before him stopped his arm, mid throw, and his fingers went numb, causing the ball to fly forward, bouncing across the floor into the dark corner. His skin went cold at the sight of an outline of a figure, rising up from a crouch into a standing position. It happened in the blink of an eye and he couldn’t be sure if he had even seen it in the first place. It was a shadow moving within a shadow and he shook his head to try and get a better look.
“Hello?” he said, feeling as absurd as he had ever felt before, speaking as if there was actually someone there to respond to him. He had been up for too long, had indulged in one too many drinks with dinner. It was time to go to bed.
The next two sounds came to him, nearly simultaneously. The first was that of the ball, now bouncing back to him, sent on its way by forces unknown.
The sound of the ball was quickly chased by that of a growl and the blinking open of brilliant red eyes, now moving slowly towards him through the last shadows he would ever see.
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