Album Review: Micko and the Mellotronics - 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon

 

 

Generally speaking, I don't do album reviews.  I'm worried that by assigning a grade or a number to a record, I'm passing some kind of judgment on it, and quite frankly, who the Hell am I to say your album is six out of 10 "good" or nine out of 10 "good"?  If I rate an album nine out of 10, I don't want to cost a band some sales by perfectionists who only buy albums that get perfect 10 ratings.  And maybe my nine is their 10 and they miss out on a new favorite?

What I can do instead of reducing an album solely to a points system is to provide my credentials - I played bass guitar pretty seriously for about 17 years, taking lessons for about 10; and I own 1,000 CDs - and I can tell you what a certain record sounds like and whether or not I think you should buy it.

Run, don't walk, to the Landline Records website and buy Micko and the Mellotronics' debut LP 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon.  Links on the album's rundown page will take you to a vinyl ordering page on Rough Trade or a digital ordering page on Micko's Bandcamp.  You should get it on vinyl because the vinyl release is beautiful and sharp and it sounds lovely and warm on a turntable, but if that's not in the cards, no harm in adding an album to your Bandcamp collection for 8.99 GBP.

However you buy it, what you get is a collection of 10 smart tracks of bright rock 'n' roll and new wave - part Britpop, part post-punk, part early ska.  It's hard to pin down, but at times it seems to pull inspiration from The Stooges, The Strokes, Supergrass and The Specials.  It's an energetic romp of rock music that utterly ignores rock star ego, ingenuine celebrity appeal, desensitized "extremeness" and hipster snobbery, some of which seem to have been a feature of rock music since its inception.

Micko Westmoreland, guitarist and lead singer, guides his band like a captain navigating a ship through a storm.  He's joined by Jon Klein (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Specimen) on guitar, Vicky Carroll on bass and Nick Mackay on drums.  Mackay's drums are energetic and lively, Carroll's bass helps ground the album from start to finish and Westmoreland's and Klein's guitars make a delightful pair.  Guest stars include Terry Edwards, Neil Innes and Horace Panter.

It's fun.  It's unabashedly, unapologetically, incessantly fun music played by four bandmates with a taste for various subgenres plucked from the '60s through '80s.  Where so many groups of the post-punk revival scene locked onto certain aspects of these classic music movements but failed to grasp others (Jet and The Hives come to mind), Micko and the Mellotronics feel right at home.  From the four-on-the-floor "Noisy Neighbours," which could find a comfortable home on The Strokes' Room on Fire; to the backbeat-heavy "The Fear," which for my money is heir apparent to The Clash's "Bankrobber," the 37-minute record walks the careful line of avoiding nostalgia while maintaining a continuation of genres long since past.

On the subject of nostalgia, there's a very admirable point to make about the lyrical topics on the album.  Thematically, 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon spends much time looking back on specific moments in recent history or at unique characters in its lyrics.  "Imelda" is written as a sort of odd love letter by a distant admirer to Imelda Marcos, an extraordinarily and almost comically corrupt First Lady of the Philippines whose heyday ended in the mid-1980s.  "Psychedelic Shirt" recalls a time in Micko's first psychedelic shirt, which he bought in his teens, was trampled and ruined by school bullies.  Even lead single "The Finger" was inspired by a grumpy sort of barfly Micko used to see at a pub whenever Micko would get off the bus at his usual station.

The thing is, though, there is no nostalgia on this record.  Fans of HBO's The Sopranos may remember an episode in which Tony Soprano stands and leaves a poolside conversation.  When his friend Paulie asks why he's bored, Tony shrugs and says "It's just that 'Remember When' is the lowest form of conversation."  Whether intentional or not, 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon takes this lesson to heart.  Each look back has a specific point and a real purpose, and none of them have the purpose of giving us the warm fuzzies about yesteryear.  "Imelda" is a meditation on the unbelievable depths of human greed; "Psychedelic Shirt" may not be an anti-bullying anthem but it does offer a teachable moment about letting your antagonists define you or not.  Call it meditation or call it therapy - though whether Micko is our therapist or we're his remains uncertain - but its goal seems most obvious in "The Fear," which is about getting rid of the negative connotations we have with the unknown and simultaneously finding a use in fear.

"Feel the fear and flow with it
Feel the fear and go with it
Live each day like it was your last."

Although being written before 2020, it feels especially relevant under COVID lockdown and with political turmoil in the U.S. and the U.K..

Whatever you take from 1/2 dove - 1/2 pigeon, it's a fantastic record and an excellent way to close out a nightmarish year.  It's definitely one of my favorites and you can't listen to it without finding something - or, more likely, a lot of things - to love.  For much more information on the record and the formation of The Mellotronics, please read my exclusive interview with Micko Westmoreland and Jon Klein for my music journalism website soundcoma by clicking here after you pick up the album.

Facing the Pandemic with Arms and Sleepers.

On April 14, electronic duo Arms and Sleepers posted online that they had recently released a surprise album, Leviathan (In Times Of).  Lead A&S architect Mirza Ramic said the album was “written during my mandatory quarantine in Latvia.”  He said he had had to “quickly leave Russia after canceling a few of my remaining shows there and before the borders closed.”

Clocking in at a short-but-sweet 31 minutes, the dark key-based ambience of Leviathan (In Times Of) is a haunting and emotional minimalist photograph taken by a world traveler from inside a global medical nightmare.  It’s tantamount to music as journalism, like Janáček or Woody Guthrie with a laptop.

I had the opportunity to speak with Ramic about the album, how it came to be and the effect that the coronavirus lockdown is having on independent musicians and their livelihoods.  First and foremost, the way he ended up in Latvian quarantine – the impetus for Leviathan’s creation – reads like a spy novel.

“I started my tour of Ukraine, Latvia and Russia in early March, and while I could sense that things were getting weird, nothing was actually closed or canceled yet,” Ramic said.  He played the Ukrainian leg of the tour and a show in Latvia, but after his third of six scheduled Arms and Sleepers shows in Russia, he heard that some of the countries he had planned to visit after the Russian leg of the tour were closing their borders.  With escalating coronavirus concerns locking down countries, Ramic played one more of the six planned shows in Russia and made some hard decisions.

“I had to think quickly and decided to cancel the remaining two shows in Russia so that I could get to Latvia, which is in the European Union (EU), before they closed their borders,” he said.  “I had lived in Riga, Latvia, for a few months back in 2017 to write my solo record, so I was familiar with the city and thought that would be the best place to go.  I bought a last-minute flight from Moscow to Riga and flew from the last city I played in Russia – Kazan – to Moscow.”

The trip from Moscow to Riga may have been the exact moment that Leviathan was born.  Ramic said the Moscow airport was well on its way to desertion, the air heavy with the threat of COVID-19.

“I travel alone all the time, but this time I really felt alone,” he said.  “You could feel the weight and the uneasiness of the situation at these airports.  It was a surreal 24-hour period, and that was certainly a big part of my desire to work on this album once I got settled in Latvia.”

Ramic ended up on one of the last flights from Moscow to Riga and arrived on March 15, just two days before Latvia closed their borders entirely and canceled all international flights.  When he arrived, he said passengers were greeted by medical staff in full-body protective gear.  Since he had traveled from abroad, he was placed into mandatory quarantine for two weeks.  While he was there, he began to put his experiences and feelings about the coronavirus pandemic to music along with a couple sketches he already had in tow.

“As the situation in the world was deteriorating – and as I began feeling more and more uncertainty, I had the urge to quickly get some of the anxiety out of my system.  I had some of the older ideas in the back of my head as pieces that needed the right context to be released, such as the last song on the album, ‘Those Who Labor and Those Who Love,’ while other pieces I wrote from scratch on my little MIDI keyboard.”  He counted the moody “How It Was, How It Will Be” and the ethereal “The Very Difficulty of It Is Why You Must” among the latter, while some of the other songs on the album were combinations of existing ideas and new material.

The turnaround on Leviathan was even more rapid than it sounds.  Ramic said he spent a week writing the new songs and editing together the pre-existing material, “and then a 24-hour period of mixing.”  It was entirely arranged and produced in Latvia, then sent off to Luxembourg-based Victor Ferreira of Sun Glitters for mixing and mastering. 

Sonically, Leviathan (In Times Of) is an intriguing and often lonesome endeavor.  Although Ramic attests that it was made entirely on his laptop in Reason and Ableton with his MIDI keyboard, most of it sounds more like he recorded it on a piano in a 200-year-old church, microphone and ivories placed at opposite ends of the chapel.  All nine tracks are loosely structured, with reverb-heavy keyboard lines that tumble and shift around nervously.  It’s like if you kidnapped the piano parts from Radiohead’s “Glass Eyes” or “Fitter Happier,” then forced them Clockwork Orange-style to watch footage of this spring’s empty city streets in London and Montreal.  It’s a rarity for the band, who have often focused on albums with downtempo or trip-hop elements, though Ramic was quick to point out that two previous Arms and Sleepers releases – 2007’s Cinematique and 2011’s Nostalgia for the Absolute – also shared dark ambient qualities.

Thematically, the album is clearly not just put together during the coronavirus pandemic but also written about it. The keyboards often exude isolation and uncertainty – the occasional trappings of Roger Waters-esque dialogue clips make it even more lonely (is it any wonder that songs ended up with titles like “Good Luck to Us All”?).  However, the other side of the coin is optimism, which shines through at unexpected points throughout the album.

“Unlike in the past, we have Internet and we can actually maintain a sense of togetherness despite technology’s limitations,” Ramic said.  “This album was definitely a way for me to release anxiety and feelings of uncertainty.  I think one other emotion that I wanted to convey was hope, because difficult times always carry hope on their back.  That may not be apparent from the fairly dark and moody sound of the album, but for me, hope is always found in darkness – and confronting darkness and adversity directly is the ultimate expression of hope.”

One thing that listeners won’t find on the record is politics.  Ramic said that in recent years, Arms and Sleepers have felt freer to express their political views here and there, but the American government’s hotly-contested handling of the coronavirus outbreak didn’t influence Leviathan.  According to him, “I think for me this was a very personal testimony of my journey and of being far away from home, family and friends."

Ramic told me that offering Leviathan as a surprise release gave him a sense of freedom.  “[It] didn’t carry with it the stress of a marketing campaign / album promo cycle / extreme advance planning.  I work in the music industry and make music for a living, and there is always this stress of when and how to release an album.  This time, I just didn’t care about it at all and released music because it felt like the right thing to do.  So in that regard, this album became a brutally honest release with no marketing pretense of any kind.”

Ramic’s work as a professional musician put him in a unique position to discuss one of the most difficult situations regarding bands during the global pandemic: how lockdowns, social distancing, stay-at-home orders and travel bans are affecting their livelihood.

Pelagic Records, who have released several Arms and Sleepers albums, posted on Facebook in March about this problem, which hits self-sufficient artists harder than you may think.  That post said, “All of these bands have prepared for the tours which were cancelled…they rented vans, booked flights, drove long distances to the tour start and now have to return home after only a few shows.  They ordered merchandise and are now sitting on a bunch of stock which must be paid but won’t be sold any time soon.  These are difficult times for artists and self-employed creatives making a living off of music.  Please support the bands who won’t have an income in the following weeks.”

Ordinarily those expenses are recuperated through ticket and merch sales, but – much like restaurants sitting on an excess of food waiting to be cooked – artists are now stocked up on inventory and facing down bans on public gatherings that are killing in-person sales.  Arms and Sleepers not only had to cancel their final two shows in Russia in March – one in Ekaterinburg on the 15^th, the other in Kaliningrad on the 20^th – but also a monthlong European tour that would have begun in mid-April and a Central American tour in late May that would have taken them to Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica.

To help absorb some of the financial damage, Pelagic Records made a move in March to offer some of their most affected bands’ digital releases on Bandcamp on a Name Your Price through the end of that month.  Arms and Sleepers and labelmates Årabrot, Astrosasur, Herod, Hypno5e, Neck of the Woods, SÅVER, The Shaking Sensations and Pelagic founders The Ocean Collective had albums go on sale for the final two weeks of March.  However, nothing can quite make up for shows that don’t come to pass.

“I would say canceled tours are the major disruption for me, which is especially difficult with so many new releases out this year.  Touring is still one of the best ways to promote new music and sell merchandise, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be possible again until 2021.  The financial setback stemming from canceled shows and tours is simple: thousands of dollars of lost income.  But because I do most things myself –“ Ramic listed booking, managing, performing and writing the music – “it’s also countless hours of booking tours, promoting shows, managing travel logistics and coordinating every single detail of a tour with concert organizers and other artists.

“It’s just a lot of work, and all that is now for nothing.”

Ramic lamented that all that work will have to be done again if he’s able to reschedule shows in most of those countries, but he has a lingering concern that if he schedules make-up shows this fall or winter and another wave of COVID-19 surges, he’ll have to cancel yet again.  It’s a dangerous prospect for any musical act – a second wave of lost time and money could cause some bands to go bust.

If there’s a silver lining to this cloud, the pandemic has freed up some time for the band to manage their 2020 release schedule.  Leviathan may have come as a surprise to fans and the band itself, but part of what makes it so unexpected is that Arms and Sleepers already has other albums coming out this year – six, to be exact.

Take a look at their Bandcamp page and you’ll notice that their January release Safe Area Earth is described as “First in a six-part music series to be released throughout 2020.”  The second part takes the form of an EP called Eastern Promises, which released on April 3; it was followed by Memory Loops on July 30.  Four releases remain this year.  Ramic cited self-destruction as the theme of all six albums, adding that the pandemic hasn’t shifted his perspective on the three remaining in-progress releases in the series.

“In some ways the coronavirus outbreak affected these releases in a positive way – namely, I have more time to work on new music,” Ramic said.  “The six releases were on top of about six months of touring in 2020, so time was tight and I was struggling to keep up with everything.  The unplanned break from being on the road has meant more time in one place to focus on these releases, which is certainly nice.”

This silver lining is reminiscent of their new album itself.  Leviathan (In Times Of) offers an honest snapshot of difficult times – through hardships brought on by the disease spread, Mirza Ramic and Max Lewis have faced uncertainty in search of the good.  Amid the loneliness, isolation and fear of the novel coronavirus, shimmers of hope and togetherness make appearances when we need them the most.

Check out Arms and Sleepers at http://wearearmsandsleepers.bandcamp.com .

La Llorona de Amatitlán.

[The following is an interpretation of a Guatemalan urban legend known as "La Llorona."  I hope you like it.  -j.L.]

Marisol Guzman shut her bedroom door behind her so hard the walls shook.  She fell face-down onto her bed in tears.  She didn’t know if her mother could hear her crying – part of her hoped she could.

A sophomore at Universidad Autónoma de Santa Ana, she had a full load of courses and worked full-time waiting tables at Café Tejas on avenida independencia.  She’d been saving for a long weekend vacation with her best friend, Ana del Castillo, for several weeks.  Marisol had been anticipating the trip since they planned it just before that.  Now a cruel memory, she recalled when the trip first came up – Ana had burst into the women’s restroom at the restaurant to give her the news, beaming.

“Mari!”

Marisol nearly jumped out of her skin as she checked her make-up in the mirror.  “You scared me half to death, puta!”

“Sorry sorry sorry.  I just ran into my cousin Benito and he said that he and Carlos are going to Lago de Amatitlán for All Souls’ Day!”

“Lago de Amatitlán?”

“In Guatemala, Mari.”

Marisol sighed.  “Good for Benito.  Now get out of my way; I have tables to serve.”

Ana coolly waited for Marisol to pass her and open the door before telling her the rest of her news in a sing-song voice.

“He said Tomás will be there.”

Marisol stopped in her tracks.  Ana grinned but made sure to put on an aloof expression before Marisol turned back around.

“Tomás from Geology?”

“No, Tomás Jefferson, idiota.  Of course Tomás from Geology.”

Marisol paused.  “Does your father still have that piece of shit Chevy he lets you drive?”

“Mhmm.  And it’s springtime weather all year round.”

“I’d need to get a new bathing suit.”

“Does that mean we’re going?”

“And I’d have to pick up some extra shifts for motel fare and food even if we split it.”

“Does that mean we’re going?”

Marisol turned over the math in her head before finally an excited smile spread across her face.  “You better get ready to see this hot bitch in a bikini!”

The girls grabbed each other’s hands and tried not to squeal.  After that, Marisol picked up every extra shift she could.  She got a new swimsuit, set aside money for motel, gas, food and drinks and counted the days until All Souls’ Day weekend.  Now, three days before the trip, her mother made the worst statement of Marisol’s young adult life.

“Your abuelita fell in the bathtub and I have to go to Ciudad Barrios to look after her this weekend, so I need you to take your brother to Guatemala with you and Ana.”

She screamed and fought, but in the end Marisol was stuck with her baby brother, Little Miguel.  They called him Little Miguel because he was named after his father, Miguel Guzman, who apparently couldn’t look after Little Miguel because he was stuck working all weekend.  Yeah right, Marisol thought, wiping the tears from her eyes.  He probably heard mama had to visit Abuelita Rosa and volunteered to work the extra hours.  The only consolation was that Mari’s parents were giving her money to cover her brother and then a bit extra for the trouble.  She was glad to have some extra spending cash but it didn’t do much for her mood, especially with her thoughts dwelling on Tomás.

To make matters worse, Ana was thrilled to have Little Miguel come along.  Ana loved him, since she’d always wanted a little brother.  From the time Ana picked them up in her father’s Chevy until they approached the east side of the lake, Marisol’s unhappiness with her brother was only exacerbated by how well Ana treated him.  Mari soon found herself angry at the six-year-old taking up her front passenger seat.  She stared at his shaggy, curly black hair from behind and when he talked, she could almost hear how losing some of his baby teeth had affected his voice.  By the time they’d checked in and got to their room, Marisol had to stop herself from throwing her bags onto the floor.  Her brother followed her into the room and started jumping on the bed.

“Miguel!  Stop, dammit!”

He ignored her.

“Miguelito, now!”

Something clicked and he realized she meant business.  He stopped jumping on the bed, so she took a seat in a nearby chair and took her smartphone out and started looking at her Instagram.

“Good job.  Now sit down on the bed; I don’t wanna hear a sound out of you for like an hour.  Play your DS or something.”

Ana crashed on her bed and her thumbs flew all over the screen of her smartphone rapidly.  Before long she was giggling and taking selfies to post on her Facebook.  Both girls knew they were waiting for word from Ana’s cousin that the boys had arrived so they could all meet up.  In the meantime, there wasn’t much to say.  As time passed, Marisol occasionally peeked up at her brother.  He drew in coloring books, played video games and made up scenes with his action figures.  Some of them were even funny in that way that kids’ stories are – always awkwardly paced, no context and sometimes using surprisingly grown-up dialogue or themes.  Marisol chuckled.  Little weirdo, she thought.  Maybe she’d been too hard on him.

After what felt like an eternity, Ana’s text notification went off again and this time she shot up out of bed. 

“They’re here!”

*      *      *

Marisol and Miguel followed Ana into the restaurant.  Ana’s cousin Benito, Benito’s friend Carlos and Tomás had already gotten a table; they flagged the girls down and Marisol made sure that the new dress she got with her extra money was on straight before rounding the corner around the hostess’s station.

Then her heart sank.

Tomás was sitting next to a girl – a pretty girl with cropped black hair and reddish-purple highlights in a tube top shirt.  She was laughing at something Tomás had said and she playfully slapped his bicep.  Marisol did her best to stay chipper, but the emotional rollercoaster of the last week exhausted her and it was an uphill battle.

Introductions were made as the girls and Miguel sat at the table.  The other girl’s name was Carmen, a local who Tomás and Benito met while shopping at a nearby convenience store.  She was a cashier there and the guys had asked her to be their unofficial tour guide.  It was clear that Tomás and Benito were both interested in her.  Marisol had begun regretting the entire trip.  She’d spent as much time quietly thinking about what else she could’ve done with her time and money as she did talking to anybody.  She was idly poking her salad around with her fork when Miguel said he had to go use the bathroom.  She nodded her head upwards and towards the restroom, gesturing Go ahead.

“Don’t wander off too far, little man,” Carmen teased while looking at her fingernails, “or La Llorona will get you.”

Miguel stopped dead in his tracks.  So did the conversation at the table.

“The fuck?”

“Who?”

“La what?”

“La Llorona,” Carmen repeated.  “Everyone knows about the ‘weeping woman,’ yes?”

Miguel trotted over to Marisol and hid behind her.  Carmen looked around the table waiting for a reaction.  When none came, she sighed in mock exasperation.

“Don’t they teach you nothing in El Salvador?”

“They teach us not to stare at our fingernails at the dinner table; it’s rude,” Marisol said.  She hadn’t meant to say it; it just slipped out.  Ana laughed and slapped her shoulder; the boys chuckled and cooed in response to the burn.  Carmen reddened and refocused her attention on Miguel.

“You want to hear about La Llorona, Miguel?”

Miguel nodded shyly from behind his sister.

“Once there was a beautiful woman named María who lived in Guatemala.  Some say she lived in Quetzaltenango, to the west, but all of us locals know she really lived right here in Amatitlán.”

“She lived in the lake?” Miguel asked.

Carmen laughed warmly at him to win his attention.  “No, the lake is named after the town Amatitlán, which is on the western edge of the lake just two miles from here.  Anyway, María was married to a handsome trapper and together they had four children – Alejandro, Camila, Valentina...and Miguel.”

Marisol heard her brother gasp and she rolled her eyes and scoffed.  She could tell Carmen didn’t know any of the kids’ names but she let her keep going.  She was still angry about how the vacation had played out, confused about her jealousy of Carmen and Tomás, bored of Ana’s and Benito’s endless “Remember when” talk since they sat down.

“One day María’s husband came home from trading his furs and kills in El Obrajuelo just like usual and he told María he had met a woman there.  Younger and prettier than María, the two began seeing each other and they had fallen in love and were going to have a baby together.  So he packed up his things and left her alone with their children and some money to get by.  He promised he’d come by sometimes with money and supplies and to see his and María’s babies, and even though she told him she never wanted to see him again and that she didn’t need his charity, he still visited.  Only every time he visited, it made María angrier and angrier to see him.”

The table was silent.  Carmen held a hand out to Miguel, and as if in a trance, he slunk out from behind his sister and approached her, offering her hands.  She brought him in close and continued her story.

“Now remember I told you the lake is named after the town Amatitlán?”  Miguel nodded.  “It’s because the town of Amatitlán is so close that they just named the lake ‘The Lake of Amatitlán.’  In fact, it’s so close you could walk to the lake from town.  So since María was crazy with anger and jealousy, and her idiota husband visiting their lakeside town every other weekend, do you know what she did?”

“Did she drown him in the lake?”

“No, silly boy, nothing like that,” Carmen said, comforting him.  She paused for dramatic effect, taking a sip of her ice water, then holding Miguel close.  “She drowned her children in the lake.”

Miguel shrieked and wrestled free of her grasp.  Carmen feigned surprise at his fear.  Carlos, Benito and Tomás all sighed or cringed in discomfort.  Ana crossed herself and mumbled a blessing.  Marisol was still annoyed as she comforted her brother, but she felt like if she told Carmen to stop her story, everyone would think Marisol was scared and tease her.  Worse, she felt like Carmen would win.

“Soon she snapped out of her anger and realized what she’d done.  María was so angry with herself that she filled her pockets full of stones and waded into the water and drowned herself.  Suddenly, her eyes opened and she was at the gates of Heaven but St. Peter stopped her at the entrance.  ‘Where are your children?’ he asked her.  ‘Where are your children?’  Since she didn’t know where they could have gone, she didn’t have an answer, so St. Peter told María that she wouldn’t be allowed into the afterlife until she found them.  Then he sent her back down to the Earth, her spirit reborn as La Llorona, to look for her children.  He sent her here, to Lago de Amatitlán, where her ghost still searches for her drowned babies.  They say if you listen close at night you can hear her crying from the lake as she wanders – ‘Mis hijos!  Mis hijos!’

“But over the years, La Llorona has become so desperate to leave the lake that every once in a while, she grabs a little boy or girl who gets out of bed at night or wanders around when they aren’t supposed to, hoping that she can trick St. Peter into thinking it’s one of her little ones.  So don’t wander off, Miguelito, or La Llorona may snatch you up.”

Her story finished, Carmen’s apparent spell over the table was broken.  Everyone quickly realized with the supernatural element of the story that in all likelihood, the entire story was probably made up.  There had never even been a María, of that they now felt certain – everyone except Little Miguel Guzman.  Marisol smelled something foul and turned around and looked at her brother, who was making a small puddle on the floor.

“Jesucristo Miguel!” Marisol groaned.  The rest of the table reacted empathetically to the boy wetting his pants; an embarrassed Miguel began to cry.  “C’mon, let’s get you back to the room to change.”  She stood and picked him up and turned back to say goodbye when she noticed Tomás stood anxiously from his seat.

“I can help him,” Tomás said.  “I mean, since you can’t go in the men’s bathroom, I can at least help him get cleaned up here first.  It may be more comfortable for him until he can get changed.”  Tomás addressed Miguel.  “Hey, capitán, you want to get dry quicker?”

From her shoulder, she heard Miguel mumble, “Llorona…”

Tomás stifled a laugh.  “Don’t worry about La Llorona.  I’ll stay real close to you the whole time, ok?”

After a pause, Miguel nodded and Marisol set him down.  As Miguel crossed over to Tomás, Marisol reached out to Tomás and grabbed his hand and squeezed it, mouthing an emphatic “Thank you!”  Tomás smiled warmly and nodded back to her before disappearing into the bathroom with Miguel, talking the whole way in the manner that adults kindly and without malice patronize children.  Marisol sat back down and she and Carmen exchanged glares.

Looks like you have your work cut out for you, bitch, Marisol thought.

Good luck getting him to sleep tonight, puta, Carmen thought.

*      *      *

When Marisol was sure that Miguel was asleep, she crept out of their room and crossed the parking lot to Benito’s van where everyone was waiting for her.  She knocked on the sliding door and it opened, smoke billowing out and upwards, drifting over the roof of the vehicle to the moonlit sky above.  Carlos giggled at the sight; Ana chided him for failing to roll the windows down earlier so the smoke could leave the van less conspicuously.

“Estúpido; someone will think the van’s on fire!”

This made him laugh harder.

“Mari, come in and take a hit before we finish smoking all this shit without you!”  Marisol was surprised that Carmen had warmed so much to her, but between her glassy eyes and the empty beer bottles clinking around on the floor of the van, it made sense.

Marisol leaned into the van, her feet still planted firmly on the blacktop of the parking lot, and wrapped her lips around the joint that Carmen held out to her.  She took a significant drag off it and held her breath.  Nearly everyone waved her in, except Benito, who seemed incredibly zoned out.  Marisol shook her head.

“I gotta –“  The smoke caught in her lungs and she coughed for a long time, much to the amusement of everyone in the van.  When she recovered, she felt stoned.  Oh great, she thought.  I was hoping for a smoother transition.

“I gotta keep an eye on the room in case Miguelito wakes up,” she said.

“Stop worrying so much; he’ll be fine,” Carmen said.  Ana stood up for Marisol.

“Mari’s probably right,” Ana said.  “If she has a feeling Miguel should be in eyesight, maybe he should.”

Carmen dismissed the conversation and reached for a beer from the cooler.  Tomás noticed this and decided to reach out to Marisol.  He could tell she was upset about something – probably having to take her brother with her – and he hated seeing people so down.  He grabbed two beers from the cooler and got out of his seat, moving carefully through his friends and towards the door.

“Where you going Tomás?” somebody asked.

“The night air feels pretty nice,” he said.  “Maybe I should step out and breathe in something a little less pungent.”

“It’s just weed, Tomás!” Carlos said.

“I was talking about that little matchstick you call a dick, pendejo!  Why don’t you rinse that fuckin’ thing off sometime?”

Everybody laughed except Carlos, who looked humorously down at his crotch.  “I showered yesterday…”

Upon exiting the van, Tomás handed a beer to Marisol.  She held it curiously and then he remembered it wasn’t a twist-off.  He retrieved his green Bic lighter from his rear pocket and opened both their beers then leaned his back against the front door of the van.

“Thanks,” she said.

“How are you liking Geology?”

“It’s…” Marisol searched for polite words but soon they were both laughing.

“Boring as shit,” Tomás said.

“Right?!  Oh my God; I feel like I spend half the class poking myself in the face with a pen to stay awake.”

They both laughed and took sips of their beers.

“What’s your major?” she asked.

He shrugged.  “I don’t know yet.  You?”

“Business,” she said.  “I want to run my own business after I graduate.”

“What kind of business?”

“Sex toy store.”

Tomás nearly spit out his beer.

“Or a brothel,” she said.

“Like a whorehouse?”

“More like a whore Wal-Mart.”

He laughed.  “Ooh!  You could advertise a ‘buy one poke one free’ sale!”

“Nah, man.  ’Everyday ho prices guaranteed,’” she said.

When they stopped laughing, she remembered her brother and cast a furtive glance to the door and window of their room.

“Thanks again for helping out with Miguel earlier,” she said.  “You’re his new best friend, y’know.  You may be stuck with him for life.”

“He’s a good kid,” Tomás said.

“He’s a little shit,” Marisol said jokingly.

“Any news about your abuela?”

Marisol checked her phone.  “No.  I think mom would have called if something serious were happening.”

Tomás nodded towards her room.  “It’s really good of you to watch him for your parents.”

“I mean, it’s the least I can do…”

“They made you, didn’t they?”

“Oh yeah.”  Again they both laughed.

The door slid open behind them and they both jumped.  It was Ana.

“Mari, I think Benny’s having a pretty bad high.  Carlos is gonna take him down for a walk around the lake; can you help?”

“I can’t, Ana, I –“

“I can stay here and watch for Miguel if you want,” Tomás said.

“No, no, it’s sweet of you to volunteer again but Miguelito will lose it if he can’t see me.  And I couldn’t ask you to watch him again.”

“It’s no trouble,” he said.

“Thank you.  Even still, I really need to stay here.  What about Carmen?”

“She passed out,” Ana said.

“Too bad,” Marisol replied, not feeling the least bit upset about that.

Ana turned to Tomás.  He knew what she was going to ask before she said a word.

*      *      *

“Marisol?”

Miguel woke up thirsty for water – so thirsty he could barely speak.  He realized with a start that he was alone in the room.  Carmen’s story came back to him and he froze.  After a moment, he heard what sounded like two women’s voices and he remembered that Carmen said if you listened you could hear La Llorona crying for her children.  But he realized since there were two voices, they had to belong to real people.  He crept out of bed and cautiously looked out the window to their motel room.  He spied Benito’s van in the parking lot – and Marisol and Ana sitting on its hood, talking.  In a way he was comforted, but now that he had a goal in sight he was terrified and desperate to get to it.

In a flash he was at the door.  He twisted the knob and ran out of the room.

“Mari!”

Marisol spun around and acted as sober as she could.  “Hey, Miguel!  We just stepped out to, y’know, talk…”

He seemed spooked.  Fucking Carmen, Marisol thought.  Miguel was closing the distance between them quickly.

“It’s ok, buddy; I’m right…”

Miguel stopped in his tracks and his face got calm.

“…here,” Marisol said.  She started walking towards him instinctively.  “Miguel?”

He blinked and a black wisp of shadow the size of an adult human appeared behind him and reached his back, then disappeared along with him just as quickly, leaving only a quickly-dispersing mist of gunpowder black in its wake.  The entire thing happened in a half a second.  Miguel Guzman had vanished.

“Miguel!!!” Marisol screamed.  She ran to where he had been.  Ana was shrieking.  The last of the vapor trail dissipated just as Marisol reached it.  She threw her hands out and felt through the air, as if her brother were merely invisible but still within arms’ reach.  She called his name several times as Ana collapsed on the parking lot in a fit of hysterical tears, skinning her knee on old asphalt.

It was no use.  He was gone.  Marisol scanned the horizon for any sign of him, still refusing to believe what she’d seen.  Her brain scrambled for a rational explanation but found none.  Had she imagined the whole thing?  No, Ana saw it too.  Could two people imagine the same thing at the same time?  She ran to the motel room, flipped the light switch on and ripped the sheets off Miguel’s bed.  No luck.

She ran back out to the parking lot, to the van, guided by loosely-formed notions of finding her brother.  Maybe she could drive down around the lake if he’d somehow moved (or run, or – Jesus, flew?  Been transported?) down there somewhere.  But no keys were in the ignition, which meant one of the boys had them.

The boys, she thought.  Oh my God.

Marisol scooped Ana up from the floor and started walking her briskly to the path that led to the lake.  “Come on, Ana.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.  But we have to find –“

The call came from the lake bed and froze the girls stiff.  “Benny?  Where’d you get to now, puto?”  Then another voice.  “Benito?  Stop playing games, man!  Don’t make me leave your ass out here!”

Marisol and Ana called out as loudly as they could, beginning their panic and tears anew.  They heard a quick and frantic exchange from Carlos and Tomás, somewhere in the dark, then hurried footsteps.  Moments later, Tomás arrived, followed by…

No one.

“Wasn’t Carlos with you?!” Ana asked frantically.

“Yeah,” Tomás said, spinning around.  “He’s right…”

Tomás’s gaze shifted around quickly.  “Carlos?”  He took a jogging step or two to start running back to the lake to find Carlos but Marisol and Ana screamed for him not to go and the terror in their voices stopped him.

“What’s going on?” Tomás asked.  “Why are you so upset?”

Marisol and Ana both tried to recount their story as quickly as they could, speaking over each other in hurried and half-screaming tones of horror.  They’d barely gotten a word out before Tomás started shaking his head and drawing a breath to tell them to slow down.  In that moment, the black wisp came for Tomás just as it had for Miguel, but this time it was inches from their faces.  A faint breeze reminiscent of freshwater and seaweed reached Marisol’s and Ana’s faces and both girls clasped both their hands over their mouths, instantly shocked silent and motionless.

With eyes like saucers, they slowly turned towards each other.  Neither of them wanted to blink.  Neither of them wanted to move.  Neither of them wanted to breathe.  Seconds passed like hours.  In her state, Ana almost idly realized that the only thing left to know was which of them would go first.  She didn’t know that Marisol was thinking the same thing.  Then Ana felt a strange, grainy tickling at her back.  Then Ana felt nothing.

Carmen’s first waking thought was that she was in danger.  Disoriented as she was in the dark van, she knew Marisol was charging at her enraged.  Carmen raised her hands in defense and closed her eyes.  She felt one hand grip her hair – a lot of her hair – and another hand grab the waistline of her jeans at the back.  Marisol dragged Carmen kicking and screaming out of the van and threw her down onto the cold, hard parking lot.

“What the fuck, you –“

“This is all your fault," Marisol said.  “María!  María!!!  Come on!  Come take her!  Do you want another daughter or not?”

Carmen struggled to get to her feet.  She started to piece together what Marisol was talking about.  Adrenaline was on Marisol’s side, though; she easily kicked Carmen back with her foot.  Nothing else happened for several seconds.  Carmen saw the fury and the feral energy in her enemy’s eyes.  She decided to stay down and stay quiet.

“María!” Marisol shouted again.

“My God,” Carmen said.  Marisol met her gaze.  “It was just a story, you crazy –“

In an eyeblink, a grainy black mist appeared at Marisol’s back as though she were smoking from having recently been on fire.  In another eyeblink, Marisol and the mist both vanished into thin air.  Carmen froze.  She couldn’t move, uncomfortable as the ground was.  She was scared stiff.  She put two and two together much more quickly than her new friends had.

“Marisol?” Carmen whispered.  “Tomás?”  She crawled forward on all fours as though the floor were cracked glass that would break under her weight at any moment.  She was in the middle of quietly calling for Carlos when she heard the faintest whisper in her ear with a chill breath.

“Mi hija…”

Night Terrors (by S.E. Blais).

The following is a brand-new story written by S.E. Blais and published by A Carrier of Fire.  It appears in a split EP of new horror stories called Moribund Agents that can be downloaded by clicking here.  Happy Halloween!

I woke up covered in blood. Although, at first, I had no idea it was blood. It was dark and I was confused. My head was completely foggy, as if I were still half-asleep. My first thought was, “How much did I drink last night?”

My brain tried to make sense of what my body felt. I was wet, but I wasn’t cold. There was a smell that I couldn’t place at first. I couldn’t reconcile it with any of the typical smells that might result from a night of heavy drinking. But before logic could kick in and inspire me to turn on the light, I realized what it was.

Blood. Definitely blood.

And then, I didn’t want to turn the light on.

I hadn’t consumed an entire pound of chocolate last week, so it wasn’t that time of the month. Nothing on me was hurting. As far as I knew, none of the kids from high school had a ten-year-old, Carrie White-style grudge. There was definitely not a horse head in bed next to me.

What the fuck was going on?

Here is where I’m ashamed to admit what I did. Because what I did was nothing. In my defense, my brain was groggy, like I was still drunk. I was barely registering my situation, let alone capable of thinking up a rational response to it. Instead, I got up. I stripped the bed. I changed. I threw the sheets and pajamas into the incinerator chute down the hall. Blood never comes out, right? So, why bother. I showered until the whole incident was scrubbed from my body and my mind, and until my brain felt like it could comprehend coherent thoughts again. To be fair, I was well into cold-water world before I achieved that. Then, I went to work.

Full disclosure? This, sadly, is my MO when faced with a situation I can’t deal with or is overwhelming. If I don’t have a plan or a well-thought out response, I don’t just shut down, I shut off. It’s not healthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I am well-practiced in the whole “head in the sand” reaction and it’s second nature to me by now.

I was in a zombie-like state all morning. That’s the price I pay for being able to bury my feelings about things I can’t deal with. I end up burying everything.

It seemed to take forever for lunchtime to arrive, but when it did, I was anything but hungry. I immediately called my oldest-bestest-slash-currentest-roommate as my only concession to acknowledging any part of the previous night’s activities. We were not supposed to use our sales phones for personal calls, but I didn’t have any change and until they figured out a way for us to carry our home phones in our purses, I had no other way to find out what happened.

Paul answered the house phone immediately, which caught me off-guard. I had figured I’d have ten minutes of the phone ringing in my ear, as Paul is never awake at this hour.

“Hey, it’s me. What the fuck did I do last night? I don’t remember anything after meeting you for drinks.”

“Oh, it’s you. Jules, I can’t talk. I just got the most devastating news.”

“Devastating news” for Paul could mean George Michael got married, so I was surprised when he continued with “Remember Mitchell Adams? He’s dead.”

I was a bit taken aback, but more in regards to the idea that Paul found this news to be devastating. In middle school, Mitchell Adams provided no end of torment to Paul and his twin brother Mark. I never actually knew Mitchell, other than by reputation - which wasn’t good - so I felt no remorse. In fact, I was so fully on autopilot at this point, I barely registered any emotion at all at the fact that this was news.

“Wait. He’s not dead already? I assumed someone like Mitchell would have been stabbed in jail while serving time for aggravated assault against a senior citizen years ago.”

“That isn’t funny!” he replied, and for a second I felt bad, until he continued, “But, that kinda was.” He switched to an accent of an old Jewish woman. “Oye vey, Mitchell, not in my gefilte fish!” And I lost it. Paul’s really good with accents.

We sat in silence for a second getting our giggling under control. Sometimes Paul and I are so inappropriate when we’re together that I feel like meeting each other in 7th grade stunted our emotional growth from that point forward. But then he turned somber.

“He was no angel, but he was BRUTALLY murdered. In his bed. While he was sleeping! The person covered him in these tiny stabs. Cut off pieces of his body and flung them all around. Apparently his bedroom looked like the set from a horror film and that wasn’t even all the blood!”

I remembered my sheets and pajamas, and how I’d felt like I, too, was in the middle of a horror film. I was about to bring it up to Paul, when he continued.

“And even if he was a dick in the worst sense of the word - and you know me, it takes a lot to make a dick bad - he didn’t deserve something like that. No one does.”

“Wow. That IS kind of intense. Is there a funeral? Will you go? I never knew the guy, but if you want to go, and want someone to go with, I can be there.”

“There won’t be a funeral for a while. I heard from Ray who heard from Steve who heard from Bruce that due to the nature of the crime, the police are doing a full investigation and autopsy. And, no, I probably won’t go to the funeral whenever it is. I hated that asshole when he was alive. It’d be wrong to go pay respects just cause he’s dead. See you tonight.” He disconnected, probably to keep the line free since we can’t afford call waiting in case any more news came in. Or to make more calls. Paul loved nothing more than adding a few links to a chain of gossip.

I finished the day just barely managing to not get fired. Paul and I worked different schedules and our paths only crossed for about an hour each day - my night is his morning. And, given our paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle, Paul danced at the club almost every night to rack up tips, only taking Mondays off and going in “late” on Tuesdays since those evenings tend to be slower. We typically tried to meet at the Pub on Tuesdays and kick off his work week with a vodka martini, the happy hour drink of choice - or in his case, the breakfast of champions.

We sat down and I considered telling him about my weird night, but the place was too loud. The tradeoff for two-dollar happy hour drinks was really shitty live bands. I didn’t want to shout out my experience, especially since he’d probably chalk it up to something rational and mortifying like perimenopause or an unknown miscarriage. And while both those ideas seemed unrealistic, they had more merit than anything I’d come up with. Besides, I really liked the sand my head was buried in. It was warm and quiet down there.

Instead, we drank to Mitchell, assuming that, despite the violent nature of the crime, he likely got what he deserved. Comeuppance for six years of tormenting underclassmen. We toasted Mark, too, as we always did every week. Three years ago, Mark took his own life for unknown reasons, and we both still felt the loss profoundly.

A few nights passed and I essentially convinced myself that everything that had happened had been a figment of my imagination, despite the missing pajamas and sheets.

Until. Until it happened again.

Full disclosure? It actually happened more than once. Three more times to be exact. I started sleeping with my Santoku under my mattress to feel a little safer. It’s the biggest knife from my Wusthof collection. My chef knives, and one semester at the Culinary Institute of America, were all the inheritance from my dad got me. Dying was still the nicest thing he ever did for me.

I finally sat down and confessed everything to Paul, asking him if he’d heard anything or seen anything on the nights it had happened. He had not. In fact, he seemed to think I was losing my mind. The pathetic thing was that I was grateful to hear that. I found it oddly reassuring. But there was no sign of blood after any of the three experiences - nothing in my room, no stains on the mattress. The only clues were the missing sheets and pajamas, which, on my budget, was getting worrisome.

Paul convinced me to talk to a therapist. He was a guy Paul knew… well, let’s say intimately. The way Paul put it was that they had an on-again, off-again relationship. “When our clothes are off, we’re on. The clothes go back on, and we’re off.” Apparently, Todd had been in our house many days when I was at work, and a few nights when I was home, but I’d never seen him. Paul said he started as Todd’s patient and swore he was good.

And Todd was good. He met with me for three consecutive sessions and concluded I was suffering from stress-induced night terrors that resulted in hallucinations and sleepwalking. I was probably still asleep when I thought I was awake and covered in blood - that would account for how groggy I felt, and why I could barely put together coherent thoughts when it was happening. This is not uncommon. Nor is stripping the bed and walking to the incinerator, thinking you’re awake. Night terrors are so realistic that you often can’t wake someone up from them because they truly have no concept of what’s real versus what’s a terrible dream when they are in the middle of one. The only thing that seemed out of the ordinary to him about my descriptions was that I didn’t lock myself out of the apartment when I was putting the “bloody” items down the incinerator chute. He thought it was either very lucky or very sensible of me to sleepwalk with my key. Most people are not that cognizant while still asleep.

Other than the wasted money on throwing away what were probably perfectly good sheets and pajamas, Todd seemed to think there was no harm being done. He suggested I set up some sort of door alarm that might help me wake up if I try to open it while asleep, prescribed me some Valium, sleeping pills, and anti-hallucinogens, gave me a few free samples of each, and sent me on my way.

The door alarm was well out of my budget, but I really did mean to get the drugs. But with an unreasonable co-pay and a significant lack of up-sell bonuses at work lately due to my constant zombie-like state, the reality of the situation was that getting the prescriptions filled would not be feasible for a little while. Especially since Todd didn’t extend any kind of “I-sleep-with-your-roommate-occasionally” discount, he wasn’t covered by insurance, and cost me $100 out of pocket each visit, thus maxing out my only remaining credit card.

After my third visit, Paul and I met for dinner for our Tuesday night Happy Hour.

“Could I get a Diet Coke?” I ordered.

“With Vodka,” he amended.

“No, I can’t.” I replied. The waitress, who knew us from more than a year of Happy Hour specials, looked at me quizzically.

“What the fuck, Julia?” Paul asked me, mock-outraged. “I can’t drink alone. That’s just rude!”

“Worried about the serial killer?” The waitress turned our previously lighthearted conversation over like a pancake. “I would be too. Lots of folks avoiding drinking lately.”

“The what?”

“You don’t read the papers?” she commented, dropping judgement like a hot rock with every word.

“Uhhh, no, I don’t do news. Too depressing.” I had shot back, unreasonably irritated at her implication.

“What she meant was,” Paul interjected, before the waitress could retort, “I get a paper and she reads the horoscopes. What is this thing you’re referring to and what does drinking have to do with it?”

This is why I take Paul out with me. He keeps my food relatively free of spit.

The waitress wore a suspicious expression, knowing she had been insulted, but not wanting to confront me over it. She looked at Paul and answered him directly, as if I weren’t even there.

“It’s been all over the tristate area! There were a series of brutal murders over the last two weeks - all people in their homes in the middle of the night. The only thing that links them is that all the victims were out drinking the night it happened and each victim was cut up with, like, a scalpel or something. Lots of deep stab wounds, body parts cut off; it’s super gory. Other than the drinking and the brutal style of the killings, there’s no connection - men, women, different ages, different locations. So people have been avoiding going out drinking like it is the plague, thinking this guy must pick random victims from bars.”

I gaped at Paul. “Like Mitchell!”

She nodded at us. “So, be careful, stick together, and don’t talk to strangers!” Then she retreated to the kitchen.

“Thanks MOM!” I called after her, and Paul kicked me under the table.

“What the hell is wrong with you,” he asked. “Denise has never been anything but accommodating to us. And we don’t tip her shit.”

“I’m sorry. You have NO idea how sorry I am. It’s been a week.” I pulled the sample cards of drugs out of my bag. “But, I really need to try these. See if they make any difference in how I sleep, and more importantly, what I dream. It says right here, clear as day, ‘DO NOT MIX THIS MEDICATION WITH ALCOHOL.’ Which, as you know, I would normally ignore. But these dreams are so real and so fucked up. And I have like one pair of pajamas left and only my shitty old flannel sheets with the cowgirls on them from when I was 12 and wanted to be a rodeo star. And I don’t want to fuck up any chances that these magic pills will help me by drinking.”

He grabbed the packages out of my hand. “Ohhhh, sleeping pills. AND! Ohhh, I think I heard of these. If you’re not psycho, nutso, or fucked up in the head like you are, these apparently can have the opposite effect and make people trippy. Can I have some? I can get serious money for these.”

“Hell no! I have five precious anti-hallucinogens and seven precious sleeping pills.” I shook the cards at him. “And that’s it, until you find us a sugar daddy.”

“Awww, please? Can I have one? For my own recreational purposes? There’s a rave next Thursday I was going to hit after work. I’ll buy your dinner if you give me some.”

“Oh bitch, please. Your damn boytoy charged me a freakin’ arm and a leg. You’re buying my dinner anyway.”

We had a fun, albeit sober, evening, and I went to bed relatively early after taking both pills per the instructions. Nothing happened the entire week that I was on the pills and I felt both relieved that it was just realistic and terrible dreams, and sad that I couldn’t keep the meds going for the rest of the month to ward them off for good.

I scoured the papers that Paul always left around the apartment that week for news about the supposed serial killer but I didn’t find anything and decided Denise was just fucking with me.

Life went on as usual while I saved up for the meds. After my samples ran out, I had more night terrors, but since they hadn’t happened the week I was on the pills, I decided Todd was onto something. While I waited for a few credit card payments to clear, I tried to play around with more cost-effective ways of self-medicating. I drank a lot. I drank nothing. I found a yoga book in the thrift store and started trying to meditate. Self-taught mindfulness is not the best way to learn to meditate. I cut out white flour, meat, sugar… none of the efforts last very long, but none of them had any sort of effect on the night terrors either. It did help me save a little more and I finally had enough room on my Mastercard that I could get my prescriptions filled.

The next time Paul and I met, I told him I’d buy for once, because I had finally managed to afford the meds and was going to get them the next day. We toasted to my future sanity, and indulged in real food for once, not just shitty Happy Hour appetizers.

And that night, I woke up covered in blood.

But this was different. When I woke up, I was much more aware of my circumstances. No more groggy head. No more feeling like I was still half-asleep. I felt awake. I felt conscious. I felt the blood, cooling on my skin, smelling like old pennies, causing my last pair of pajamas to stick to my skin, matting down my hair.

I felt the person in the room with me.

It was still dark, but this time I was too paralyzed with fear to even consider turning the light on. The presence of this other person was solid. Heavy. The person was close to me.

“Ju Ju,” he whispered.

My heart stopped. Ju Ju was Mark’s special nickname for me. It was sacred. Not even Paul ever called me Ju Ju, and he swore he would never use the term after Mark committed suicide.

“Ju Ju,” he said louder.

It even SOUNDED like Mark. But that wasn’t possible. I took a deep, shaky breath and sat up. As I shifted my position, my mind shifted, too. This was flat out impossible. Paul can do great impressions. In a flash, I went from scared to mad.

“Paul? Paul, are you fucking with me? This is really not funny.” I reached over and turned on the lamp.

He was standing there. It was Paul … but it also kind of wasn’t. He and Mark had been identical twins, but as they grew older, they became easier to tell apart. The person I was looking at more closely resembled Mark than Paul.

He was also drenched in blood. The same blood, I presume, that once again I was covered in. His hair was sticky and his hands were stained with it. There was an empty bucket at his feet, leading me to believe he’d just doused me with the blood that had previously been inside of it.

There was something about his eyes that was off. They looked… like he couldn’t actually see out of them. My anger hit the emergency brakes and reversed back to scared, adrenaline in overdrive. I thought about the knife under my mattress. But could I use it on Paul?

“Ju Ju,” he said, almost purring. “Why don’t you look happier to see me?”

“Paul.” I whispered. “What are you doing, Paul? Why are you covered in blood, Paul?” I felt compelled to say his name over and over, as if it would remind him who he was.

“Oh, this?” He gestured to himself with a flamboyant wave. “I got a little messy.”

“With who, Paul.”

“Mr. Hicks.”

“Who? Wait, what? Our old guidance counselor? Why? Paul? What did you do to him? Why? You liked him, Paul! He was the one who helped you come out, Paul!”

“He couldn’t save me, Ju Ju. He listened to my brother and helped him. My brother was so happy after he talked to Mr. Hicks. But I told him all my problems and he told me I was just overreacting - that I should be grateful for what I had. Two parents who loved me. A twin who would do anything for me. FRIENDS, like you.”

He narrowed his gaze at me in what would be a glare if his eyes had not been completely dead of any emotion. Then, he continued.

“I told Mr. Hicks everything. About what the boys did to me and my brother. The torment. The teasing. The rejections.” He glared at me again. “And he told me I should ‘get over it.’ I’d ‘grow up and find someone who would make me happy.’ I would ‘forget everything.’ And guess what Ju Ju? I never did.”

“Paul? What are you talking about? You have lots of people who make you happy!”

“Stop calling me Paul, Ju Ju. You know us better than that.”

“Okay, whatever you want.” I was quickly upgrading - from scared to terrified. Based on what he was saying, I felt like I really wasn’t talking to Paul anymore. But if I could keep him talking, maybe I could get to my knife. I slowly shifted towards the edge of the bed. “So, uh, Mark? What is it you’ve been doing, exactly?”

“Well, I started with Mitch. Mitch the bitch. Mitch who pinned me down behind the stinky old equipment shed and made me suck his dick because he thought *I* was the faggot. Couldn't tell me apart from Paul. Dislocated my arm forcing me to go down on him anyway when he realized I wasn’t Paul.”

“What? Mitch did that to you? Why didn’t you tell someone?”

“I JUST FUCKING TOLD YOU JU JU!” Mark roared. He stepped forward. I reactively curled into a protective ball, moving closer to the edge of the mattress. “I did tell someone. He said I should just forget it happened. Move on.”

“Okay, so Mr. Hicks wasn’t the best guidance counselor. Did it help to kill him? Did it help to kill Mitchell?”

“Oh yes. Ohhhh, yes. It’s helped a lot Ju Ju. Each time, I feel so much better. Soooo much better. I rest better. Paul rests better. We are all happier.”

“Each time? What do you mean each time?”

“Oh, you think those two were the only ones who deserved it? You are so wrong Ju Ju.”

“Who else, Pau- Uh, Mark? Who else did you kill?”

“They haven’t found my mom and dad yet. They’re too far out. And some are people you won’t know. But some you will, once you read the names.”

“Why haven’t I seen the names? Why isn’t this in the papers?”

“Oh honey, it’s ALL over the papers. You’ve just been reading the wrong ones.”

“How is that possible? I read all the papers Paul gets. He leaves them all over.”

“He also never throws them away. So with his help, you’ve been reading last month’s news. Didn’t those horoscopes look familiar?”

“Goddammit, they’re always so vague. I wouldn’t have even known.”

“And I trusted your love of your own ignorance when it comes to bad news that the most effort you’d put into trying to find out any information would be minimal. I was right, I see.”

Despite the circumstances, I reddened at this. Mark always gave me shit about not being more involved with the world around me. Throughout our childhood, I refused to pay attention to current events, literally covering my ears and singing when Mark would talk about Nicaragua or yuppies or Gorbachev. He was always trying to give money to the homeless druggies and pick up people’s trash. I wondered for a while if that was why he killed himself. Always surrounded by so much hopelessness, piling up, with no chance for a solution.

I had to keep him talking. Wishing I hadn’t turned the light so he could see me so well, I pushed my legs over the side of the mattress, so I was sitting on the edge, as if riveted by his words.

“So, tell me Mark? What’s with covering me with blood each time?”

He laughed. “Oh, of course you don’t see it. Head buried in the sand again.”

He stepped closer to me. I froze the slow movements I’d been making to reach the knife under the mattress. “Tell me how you did it. You at least owe me that.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Of all the people who contributed to my eventual and inevitable demise, you were the number one culprit. Thanks to Paul’s doctor boyfriend, I was able to get my hands on a prescription pad and wrote myself a nice little order for Rohypnol, which went well with your vodka martinis. Once you passed out early, I’d reconnect with some asshole from my past. We’d go for a drink. Whatever they were drinking? It was a little special, much like yours. Killing them was easy when they were unconscious. And, when you kill them the way I was killing them, a little missing blood in a bucket was never noticed by anyone but you. I know you’re wondering why you feel different tonight. It’s because I didn’t slip you a pill. I wanted you here and present, so we could talk. And lest you feel left out, yes, I will likely kill you, the same way I killed the rest of them. But I needed to drive you a little mad first. The same way you drove me mad.”

Despite my fear, my heart dropped at that. “Wha- Wait, what? How can you say that? Mark, I was never anything but your friend.”

He laughed again, this time, cruelly. “Exactly! Exactly, you ignorant bitch. Ju Ju, do you know I spent more than ten years pining over you?  I made moves - subtle, blatant, and everything in between, over and over. Every time you had some excuse, some reason, some… thing to push me away. I waited through the awkward years of puberty, when we were too young to do anything more than giggle at spin-the-bottle. I waited through your various boyfriends and first ‘loves,’ and your transitions and your college and everything. And in college, when I finally told you how I felt, HOW I REALLY FUCKING FELT, you basically blew it off like it was just a passing crush of mine. You told me that it’d be great to go out with me, but you were hoping to find someone better while you were at school, and if that didn’t happen, you’d come back and see how things worked with us. How the fuck do you think that made me feel? Did you care? Did you even notice? Jesus, it’s no wonder I killed myself!”

I gasped. “Mark! Mark, that’s not true at all. I mean… yes, I was going to school and I didn’t want to get tied down in a long-distance relationship. I wanted to enjoy the college experience, explore. And honestly, I was a stupid, dumb kid. I never believed you cared about me in any sort of legitimate way. I was used to boys just wanting to get into my pants. I assumed that was the case with you. Maybe I was ignorant. Or naive. Mostly, I was selfish and young and stupid. I’m sorry, Mark. I’m so, so sorry!”

“Me too, Ju Ju.” He said. “Me too.”

He stepped closer to me. “But it is too late for sorry.”

I realized I had no time left. I dove for the knife, plunging my hand under the mattress and digging frantically.

“Looking for this?” he asked, holding up my Santoku. “I’ve had this since the night after you hid it here. It’s been a very helpful accomplice in many of my activities.”

I cringed, partially due to the knife he was wielding in my face, and partially due to the idea that my favorite knife would be ruined because he used it to hack away at bones. As previously established, when I’m desperate, I don’t tend to think rationally. At this point, I had nothing left. “Please. Please Paul. Don’t hurt me,” I begged.

“Don’t hurt you? Why not? That’s all you did to me. AND I’M NOT FUCKING PAUL!” he yelled into my face, slashing me with the knife. I gasped as the blood started flowing freely from my left arm, re-coating the already stained pajamas, and seeping onto my mattress.

He held the knife up and licked it. “You taste good,” he said, his dead eyes focusing on the wound he just made. “I always knew you’d taste good. Certainly better than the rest of them.”

He struck me again, digging the blade into my right thigh. I barely registered the pain, but seeing the blood gushing out, I started to feel woozy. I began to hyperventilate and fell back on the pillow.

“Oh, no you don’t,” said Mark. “You don’t get to avoid this. You don’t get to tune this out. You need to be here for every last second.”  He jabbed the knife into my right arm and pulled it back out quickly. I screamed. “That’s better,” he said.

He grabbed my hand and raised the knife above his head. I shut my eyes, knowing his plan was to remove some part of my body.

“Ju Ju, you know I lo-” and he cut off midway through his sentence. My eyes were still closed. I assumed I was dead, until I felt his weight on me. I opened my eyes to see him sprawled across my legs, my Santoku knife dropped onto the floor, but another knife handle sticking out of his neck. I screamed again, pushed his heavy body off of me, and scrambled to the furthest part of the bed, still bleeding freely - but my blood now mixed with the huge pool coming from him.

I looked up and it took me a few seconds to understand who I was seeing. Todd was standing there, in the door, wearing a pair of Paul’s boxer shorts and nothing else. He was white as a sheet and trembling.

“Wha- what did you do?” I stammered between tears. “How did you even get here? I don’t… I don’t understand.”

He took a deep breath. “May I sit?” he asked, gesturing to the bed. I nodded. He shifted Paul/Mark’s body and sat on the edge of the bed.

“I’ve spent quite a few nights here, unbeknown to you. Some on a romantic level, but also some that were to keep an eye on Paul. When he first came to me, I suspected he was suffering from a pretty severe personality disorder. He knew he was suffering from blackouts. During that time, he believed his dead twin possessed him and would force him to do things. He originally asked me to sleep over to keep an eye on him.”

I sat back up, the shock of this revelation temporarily numbing my pain. “Why didn’t he tell me any of that?”

“He knew how crazy it would sound. And part of him didn’t want to believe it himself. He also knew how Mark had felt about you, and had secretly wondered for the last three years if those feelings played a part in Mark’s death. He worried for your safety, especially if you knew about what he thought he suspected.”

I nodded. He continued.

“Of course, with Paul’s schedule, nights didn’t always work out. And when the murders first started, I didn’t think anything of it because I knew he worked at night. But one night, the night of the murder of a Ms. Kimberly Mathis –“

I gasped. She had been Mark’s girlfriend for two years. She dumped him for reasons we never knew.

“I had gone to surprise him at the club, and found out he wasn’t there - and, in fact, had been missing a lot of work in the last month. And then I got suspicious.”

He sighed. “I wish I had acted sooner. When you came to me, I pretty much knew what had happened, but I didn’t know what to do. I kept seeing Paul but was using it as an excuse to keep tabs on the situation. Client confidentiality meant I couldn’t tell you, and I couldn’t even tell the police my suspicions unless he’d confessed to actually killing these people. But I truly believe Paul had no idea what he was doing during these periods. Multiple personality disorder often does that.”

“No,” I said, starting to panic. “No, Todd. I don’t think it was some sort of disorder. Paul wasn’t Paul tonight! He didn’t sound like him. He didn’t look like him. And his eyes. His eyes were…they were so dead, Todd!  I don’t know. I think maybe he WAS possessed! I think that WAS Mark. He was living through Paul. He was making him do that! Those things. Those were Mark things!” The pain, the fear, the plunge of adrenaline - it had all caught up to me. I was sobbing, and not speaking the thoughts in my mind coherently. I knew Todd didn’t believe me when I said I thought Paul was possessed, but I couldn’t stop babbling about how it was really Mark I had been talking to. How he knew things Paul never knew. Or that I assumed Paul never knew.

Todd shook his head at me. “You’ve had an insanely traumatic experience. Here,” he held up his left hand where he has a syringe. “I had this in case I could get away with just knocking him out. I didn’t need to…I didn’t want to resort to…” he nodded at Paul’s body, “…well, the other thing. But I think you might need this now, just to get yourself under control.” Before I could react, he grabbed my arm and stuck it in. My whole body was in such a state that I didn’t feel anything. And then? I felt nothing.

Epilogue

I wake up covered in sweat. Wet. Sticky. It smells. I’m strapped to the bed. Again. And I can’t kick the covers off. It’s hot. It’s so fucking hot.

There’s a rapping on the door, a key in a lock, and then the door swings open.

I can’t sit up, I can’t see him, but I can feel his presence. He walks over to me.

“How are you doing this morning, Julia? Any bad dreams?”

“Todd?”

“Dr. Todd,” he corrects me. “We’ve talked about this. You need to call me by my formal title. I’m Doctor Eugene Todd.”

“Oh. Right.” This all feels vaguely familiar, like deja vu. “Okay. Dr. Todd. I dreamed about you. You saved me from Paul. Paul was trying to kill me.”

“Julia, this is the same dream you have every night. The one about ‘Paul.’” He puts air quotes around the name. “There was no Paul, Julie, just Mark. Mark Paul Conner, who committed suicide three years ago, who was a repressed homosexual and couldn’t deal with it, who you seem to have been desperately in love with. And this, which caused your recent breakdown and brought you here, was not a dream. Julia, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that people are dead, and the sooner you take responsibility for this, the better. Let me get a nurse to release you from your room, and after breakfast, we’ll meet for a session.”

He turns and walks out the door, locking it behind him.

I start to cry.