I can tell you the happiest and the saddest day of my life very easily because they were the same day. June 8, 2007—the day I was given my son Sam and the day my wife was taken from us. Having him, being responsible for him and needing to focus so much time and energy on taking care of a baby…well, it saved me. Kept me sane and alive at a time when neither were very appealing. Raising him alone, I never had a moment where I didn’t miss Viv, but I also never forgot to be grateful for what I had left.
And then last year, Sam drowned in a friend’s swimming pool.
It was all over by the time I got the call. All over except the pain and the paperwork and the guilt and the loneliness. My best friend Jackie tried to help, but what help is there for something like that? I didn’t even know how to feel about it. It was as though Viv dying in labor had been the set up for some horrible joke and Sam sucking in too much chlorinated water was the punchline. I wasn’t sure if what I felt was some numbing species of anger and pain or just…relief. Relief that I could finally stop waiting for the hammer to drop and take away the last thing that meant anything.
Every week afterward that I kept on breathing seemed like both a triumph and an act of cowardice. Jackie was spending a lot of time with me now—constantly checking up and taking readings on my emotional barometer. I could see her own relief every time I answered the door instead of waiting to be found in the bathtub or the bed, and I hated myself for it. It wasn’t fair to her, was it? I was making her miserable and eating her life a day at a time as she tried to help me find a way to keep going. Maybe that’s what made her so desperate.
Maybe that’s what led to her carrying me to a psychic.
“They’re not a psychic. Not exactly.” She rolled her eyes at me. “They just…well, I’ll let them explain. But I talked to him on the phone last week, and the two people I contacted after reading their accounts, they say he’s legit. So…” Reaching over, she gave my arm a squeeze. “Just give him a shot, okay?”
I nodded. “Sure, yeah. I will.” And I would. Not that it would matter. I’d already decided I was giving myself to the end of the month, and if things didn’t get better, I wasn’t going to spend another month going on like this. And I doubted some new age scammer would be the answer to my problems.
Not that this looked like a psychic’s shop or a new age store. I didn’t smell incense or see crystals hanging from the ceiling. No trippy pictures on the wall or mellow instrumental music playing in the background. It was just a normal living room in a two-story country house three hours away from home. We’d been let in by a middle-aged woman and told to have a seat, and then she’d disappeared into the back. It wasn’t until we had lapsed into a period of silence that a younger man stepped in from another doorway and introduced himself as Brian. He had a round, boyish-looking face that seemed at odds with his long arms and skinny frame. As he was sitting down across from us, he began to talk.
So, as your friend told you, I’m not a psychic. Growing up, I used to joke that I could just see around corners some times, and I think that’s still a fair description of a portion of my sensitivity. Some people would call that clairvoyance. They might call other things I see or hear precognition or telepathy. Sounds like psychic stuff, right?
But I’ve come to realize that all of that doesn’t come from some internal psychic power I have, at least not directly. Instead, it comes from the other part of my sensitivity. My ability to see across barriers into other worlds.
I frowned at him and broke in. “What, are you saying you can see my little boy in the afterlife?” I felt my jaw harden. “I don’t believe in any of that.”
He smiled and shrugged. “With respect, your belief or lack thereof has little impact on the reality of things, but to answer your question, no. I’m not a medium either. The worlds I can perceive are not what I would call the afterlife, and the people there aren’t ghosts. Rather, I can see into other versions of this world that run right along next to our own.”
I felt a combination of anger and confusion welling up inside me despite my resolution to see this through for Jackie’s sake. “So what, like some kind of science fiction movie? Another dimension or something?”
Brian nodded. “You can look at it like that, yeah. I look at it like a big ol’ pie. If you take a pie and cut it into a million tiny slices, all of the slices are still pie, right? And to a large extent, they’ve got the same stuff in them. But every slice is different too. Things get changed and jumbled around. Someone goes left instead of right…” He offered a small, embarrassed smile. “Or someone lives instead of dies.”
I started to stand up. “This is bullsh…” I stopped when I felt Jackie’s hand on mine. Looking down at her, I saw the fear and sadness on her face. I could give her this, at least. Let her feel like she’s tried everything to save me. Sitting back down, I tried to keep my voice even. “Sorry. Go on.”
The man sighed softly. “I understand. It does sound like bullshit. But I can tell you that it’s real. I know because I can see them. Some of the slices. My guess is I’m seeing a few that are closer to ours in some way I don’t understand. I definitely don’t see all of them I don’t think. My guess is it’s a pretty big pie and maybe it gets weirder the further out you go from where you start. For my part, I’ve identified seventeen distinct realities so far.” He laughed awkwardly. “Eighteen if you count ours.”
I nodded. “Okay. So what does that mean? Say I believe you. I don’t, but let’s say for argument’s sake that I did. So what? How does that help me?”
His smile was warmer when he answered. “Because I think I can help you find your son again. Not your version of Sam, of course. Again, I don’t do seances or talk to the dead. But I might be able to find one of these other versions. Give you insight into a version of him that still lives.”
Despite myself, I was leaning forward now, my voice tight with emotion. “Are you saying I could see my boy again? Is that what you’re fucking saying?”
Brian’s smile faltered. “I’m not saying anything for sure yet. First I need something that belonged to him. I have to try to connect with him and find him in one of these other worlds next to ours.” His eyes cut to Jackie. “I think you said you had something?”
I turned to her even as she was reaching out to hand her wristwatch to the man. It was a child’s watch, a robot’s open mouth framing a liquid crystal display that didn’t tell time anymore. Trembling, I grabbed her arm. “Jackie, no. He gave you that.”
Her eyes were glassy with tears as she met mine. “Don’t you think I know that?” She tugged her arm free. “You’re not the only one that lost something when he died, you know?” Looking to Brian, she held out the watch. “Will this work?”
The man took it gingerly, running his fingers over it and sniffing it before nodding, his eyes drifting off dreamily for a moment before coming back to us. “I think so.” He stood and started to leave the room. “It’ll take a few days for me to check for a potential version that will work. I’ll call you when I’m ready to meet. Be ready to travel when I call.”
I shot Jackie a look and she shrugged at me, wide-eyed. When I turned back, the man was gone.
“This is fucking stupid.”
“Mike, you promised you’d keep an open mind.”
Grimacing, I stared back out the window. We had been sitting in the empty parking lot for over half an hour waiting for Brian to show up, and that was after driving another five hours to get there in the first place. He claimed he’d used the watch to locate a spot where he could see Sam, and best he could tell, the spot should work again today when the time was right. And yet, despite time supposedly being so important, he was fucking l…
“There he is.” I could hear the relief in Jackie’s voice. I had to try and stay civil with this guy. Let it run its course, whatever this con was. When he started asking for money, I’d just politely tell him no and we could go. Getting out of the car, I saw Brian was already out of his and heading toward us.
“Sorry, sorry I’m late. I’ve been tracking him today, but they took a detour before coming here. I worried I would lose them, so I’ve been riding around the area for the last hour or so.” He smiled broadly. “But he’s here now.” Turning, he pointed to a spot over a few feet past our car. “Right over there.”
I followed his gesture to stare at the bare patch of cracked asphalt before turning back to him. “So in this alternate reality, Sam is hanging out in the parking lot of an old shopping center on Sunday morning?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “No, of course not. Over here it’s a crappy parking lot. Over there it’s a park. They went there on Thursday, and I heard them talking about coming back today. I could see ahead that they did too, so I knew it would be a good spot.”
I felt my stomach turn to ice. “Who…who’s ‘they’? ‘Them’?”
Brian’s expression grew more serious. “I don’t know for sure, but from what I can tell, it’s Sam and your wife.” Swallowing, he went on. “I guess over there she’s still alive too.”
I was across the distance between us in a second. “Listen, you son-of-a-bitch, I’ve had all of this I want to…”
“Mike, stop it…”
I whirled on Jackie. “No. I’m fucking sick of this. Listening to his shit. Don’t you understand how insane this is? He could tell us anything. It’s some magic thing that only he can see, right? But just give him some money and he’ll tell me what I want to hear.”
“Mike, if you’ll just…” This was Brian again, and when I turned back to him, I could already feel myself tensing to hit him.
“You want to fucking stop talking right now, or I swear to God I’ll..”
He held up his hand. In it was a black piece of fabric. A sack or hood of some kind. His expression was patient and kind as he spoke to me softly. “Just put this on to block out the world. Do that and hold my hands. I’ll do my best to show you your little boy again.”
I took a step back, disoriented. He seemed so sincere. Maybe he was insane and actually believed what he was saying. I glanced at Jackie. She was nodding at me, tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Just try it. Please.”
Taking a deep breath, I took the sack from him wordlessly and slipped it over my head. The world went black, and when Brian was suddenly holding my hands, I had to stifle an urge to recoil from the alien contact.
“Just relax. It’ll take a moment, but soon you’ll start seeing what I see.”
My internal clock was already ticking. How long did I have to wait before I could take this off and go home? I figured I’d give it five minutes at most, and then Jackie would just have to accept that…
I could see light.
More than light. I was seeing shapes and motion, everything growing sharper and brighter as though I was breaking the surface of some darkened sea. Finally able to see the sun and breathe again.
Because…oh God…it was Viv and Sam. She looked a little older than I remembered, but my memories of her were from years ago. And Sam? He’d grown since I’d seen him last, but it was clearly him. They were playing with a dog that clearly belonged to them—it would chase down the ball they threw and alternate bringing it to one or the other as they laughed.
Distantly I could hear myself crying, punctuated by watery words as I mumbled what I was seeing and wondered at how it was possible. Out of instinct I tried to pull free of Brian and approach them, but he held my hands tighter.
“No. You can’t touch them or speak to them. And if you aren’t holding my hands, you’ll lose sight of that place entirely.”
I let out a sob as Viv walked closer to me. I tried to lean my head, my entire body, to the side just so I could try and feel her arm or brush by her hair.
“B-but…she’s close enough to touch. She has to know that I’m here. That I-I love her.”
I heard a sniffling sound from close by as Brian spoke again. “I know, but she can’t see you. None of them can. And you can’t touch each other.”
Shaking, I nodded. The next few minutes were quiet as I watched them, drinking in every moment of laughter and joy between them. Then a thought occurred to me.
“Where am I?”
“What do you mean, Mike?”
I frowned under the hood. “I mean, is there a version of me over there? And if there is, why aren’t I with them?”
His hands tugged upwards on mine in what I guessed was a shrug. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen a version of you the times I’ve watched them. Maybe you’re out of town, or maybe over there you aren’t alive anymore.”
My heart quickened as they gathered up the little dog and started to walk away.
“They’re leaving! We need to follow them!”
Suddenly Brian’s hands were gone, and with them, my view of that other world. Ripping off the hood, I stared at him. My voice was raw and hoarse when I spoke.
“Why did you do that? We have to follow them. I can’t lose them again.”
Brian’s eyes were sad as he glanced at Jackie and then back at me. “Mike, you never had them. They aren’t your Vivian and Sam. Not exactly. The point of this wasn’t to get you back what you lost. It was to show you that, despite what you’ve lost, they’re still alive in a way. I don’t claim to understand death or how the universe works, but I feel like part of why I have this gift is to show people there’s more to both than we realize.” He reached out his hand and grasped my arm. “And there’s hope in that.”
I pulled away with a scowl. “Show them to me again. I’ll pay you. I don’t fucking care how much. Just show them to me again.”
He took a step back. “That…it doesn’t work like that. I don’t do it for someone more than once. Not anymore.”
I snorted. “I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. I swear.”
“Why? Why won’t you do it again?”
His expression grew distant as he took another step back toward his car. “These things I can see and do…I think they’re good things. I try to use them for good at least. But they’re not natural. Most people aren’t meant to cross certain lines. I can do it without any problems usually, but if other people do it more than once?” He scrubbed a hand across his mouth. “I’ve seen it cause problems before.”
I stepped toward him, my face hard. “You’ll do it for me.”
Shaking his head, he opened his car door and got in. “Sorry, but no, I won’t.”
I was about to advance on him when I felt Jackie’s hand on my back. I glanced at her, and when I looked back, Brian was driving away.
The ride back was quiet. I could tell Jackie had a million questions, but after her first couple I told her I just needed time to process everything and then we could talk about it the next day. Truth was, I was preoccupied. Antsy. I was trying to not look too jittery, but I was itching to get home so I could ditch her and head back out.
Back to Brian’s house.
“Don’t…don’t do this. Please.”
I cocked the revolver and pressed it against the top of his foot. “We’ve come this far. I thought we had an understanding. You show me what I want, you take me to them again, or I’ll cripple you. Cripple you or worse.” I grimaced and gave my head a shake. “I don’t mean to sound cruel. I know this isn’t your fault. But I will see them again. Find a way to be with them if I can.”
It was half past midnight and we were back in the parking lot again. When I’d confronted him at his house, he’d still refused to help. It wasn’t until I pulled the gun that he stopped running his mouth, though even then he said he couldn’t find them again. I knew it was a lie and told him so. He’d already made the mistake of saying he’d seen them multiple times before, and that he could track Sam through the wristwatch. So I forced him into my car and carried him back to the parking lot that was also a park in another where. Told him to get to tracking down my wife and little boy.
His eyes were wide with fear as he looked around at the night surrounding us. “Mike, you don’t understand. Now that you’ve looked across…it’s like you have a mark on you. You will…”
I dug the barrel of the gun into the top of his shoe until he grunted in pain. “Get out and find them.”
Lowering his head, he pointed north. “They’re that way. They live in a neighborhood a couple of blocks up.”
Feeling a flutter of excitement in my chest, I got out and gestured with the gun. “Lead the way, Brian.”
We walked through the cold dark together, and as we made this turn and that, I couldn’t escape the image of following a tracking dog. Brian the Bloodhound, sniffing out my missing family for me. I felt guilty for how I was treating him, but that was largely drowned out by my excitement. When we stopped near a large ranch-style house, I could barely hear my thoughts over the thundering of my heart.
“They live there?”
He shook his head and pointed at the sidewalk in front of us. “No, here. The streets and lots are similar there, but shifted some. We’re standing in Sam’s bedroom right now.”
Sucking in a breath, I stepped around and grabbed Brian’s right hand with my left. I waved my gun hand at him. “Grab it. Show me. I’ll just shut my eyes.” I met his gaze. “But you let go before I say or do anything else funny, and I pull this trigger. You understand?”
He nodded, his eyes cooler and harder now. When he spoke, I could hear the resignation there. “Yeah. I understand.” He gripped my gun hand. “Close your eyes.”
Within moments I was in a room…a little boy’s bedroom. It was him! I could see his hair poking out from under the sheets, and in the dim light of a nightlight, I could see the lines of his face as he slept an untroubled sleep. Gripping Brian’s hand tighter, I crouched down. I could hear him now, lightly snoring. If I could hear him, maybe I could hear her too. Maybe I was getting closer, and they could hear me. Even see me in time. I could keep trying until…
The floor creaked behind me. Turning, I looked out into the hallway where I could see the dim outline of something moving toward the door. It walked upright like a man, but its movements were wrong and unnatural. And as it stepped into the light, I saw it had a face, a terrible impossible face…no, not a face, a mask. A mask of metal and bone and flesh, melded together to make a bifurcated face that was half upright and smiling and half upside-down and snarling. The split eyes and mouths ran into one another, with the central feature being two wide yin-yang nostrils in the center of a mound that served as some remnant of a nose.
There was a sharp whooshing sound as it sucked in a deep breath through the nose holes of the mask. Afterward, it turned its head toward the room, toward me, and stepped inside, the odd angles and rigid bulk of its body somewhat obscured by a long cloak and tattered rags.
“W-what is it?”
My voice was barely a whisper, and I was terrified it could hear me, but I didn’t want to let go and I couldn’t go on not knowing what was coming into Sam’s room at night.
Brian’s voice seemed small and distant. “It’s one of the things I warned you about. The things that live between the spaces. In the dark between the worlds. I don’t know what they are, but they can sense when people look where they shouldn’t.”
The creature was closer now, two feet in front of me, and I heard another whoosh of air as it sucked in a large breath.
“It’s…I think it’s trying to smell me.”
Brian’s voice was closer now, lower. And I could feel his face near mine as he spoke.
“It is. It can’t see you yet, but it knows you’re there. And if it can’t find you, it might start looking for me.”
I pulled back slightly, my eyes still screwed tight. “But you said they couldn’t see you.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. “No, I said they couldn’t see you. The people and animals can see me if I want them too. And these things? They can see me no matter what. They just don’t seem to mind me as much. At least so long as they get what they’re looking for.”
“What’re you…?”
“I warned you, Mike. If you’d only fucking listened.”
With that, he gripped my head and pressed his cheek to mine before letting out a ear-splitting whistle. I could feel the sound through my muscle and bones, nerves and blood, vibrating all the way down to my core. The creature heard it too. The bottom and top of its mask split briefly as twin black tongues snaked out and tested the air. They danced for a moment before retreating behind the mask, even as the thing’s bulk moved closer to me. The whistle had told it all it needed to know, and now it was inches away in that other world.
Suddenly Brian’s hands were gone. Everything went dark and then back to a night-time neighborhood as I opened my eyes. He was already backing away from me. Hands trembling, I pointed the gun at him.
“What did you do?”
He shrugged, the shoulders of his too-large red overcoat looking like flapping wings in the dim light. “I kept my ass alive is what I did. You wouldn’t listen. And you wouldn’t have stopped until we were both dead.”
I took a step forward. “Fuck you. You fucking whistled it onto me.”
His face grew indignant. “I tried to help you. And I warned you. All I did was keep you from dragging me down too.”
Waving the gun, I glared at him. “Fix it or I’ll shoot you.”
Brian shook his head. “I wouldn’t recommend that. It’s on you now. The more noise you make, the quicker it will get you. And I can’t fix it anyway. I don’t know how.”
“You said we can’t touch them. Or I can’t. Then they can’t touch me either, right?”
The other man shook his head again with a rueful smile. “You don’t get it. This thing…it’s not from that world or this one. Its outside of all that, but it can come inside for certain things. Like when someone breaks the rules or looks where they shouldn’t.”
The gun drifted down to my side as I tried to breathe. “What do I do?”
Brian looked sympathetic as he backed further away. “You run. And keep running. Very, very quietly.”
I’ve been writing all this down in my bathroom, a towel under the door to muffle the sound. I thought about going somewhere else, but what does it matter? It’s going to find me sooner or later anyway.
That’s why I’ve decided to write it all down, for Jackie and for anyone else that cares. I’m not ending this because she failed me or because I couldn’t find the will to go on. Oddly enough, for the moment, I actually want to live. But I’m terrified that, if that thing gets me, it’ll carry me somewhere I’ll never be with Viv or Sam again.
I know now there are other worlds than this. Places and people I don’t understand. And things that are worse than death.
One of them is inside the house now. Coming down the hall, sniffing for me like the evening’s meal. I hear the door creak as an invisible weight settles on the other side. I can sense it now. I’ll have to move quick and quiet, but the gun’s loaded and near.
Quick and quiet, before it knows what I’m doing.
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