I think I'll start with Aron coming back. I'm not a very social person, but that doesn't mean I can't get lonely. Aron is my only real friend, so I don't like thinking about the months where he just ghosted me. No, I'd much rather just skip all that.
"Hey, Sammy." Aron said, standing on my step with a backpack rested in front of him and smiling like he hadn't just been cop-knocking on my door after his ridiculously long absence. He looked really bad; He had always had nicotine stained hands, patchy stubble, fuzzy teeth and greyish, greasy brown hair, but the deep dark circles under his eyes and the moist, sallow anti-tan he was sporting were new.
"Uh... Hey. Where the hell have you been?" I said, trying to swallow my anger. I was kind of happy to see him, but I did not appreciate the way he had disappeared without notice.
"That's why I'm here, bud. You gonna let me in?" He said. Asking to be invited was so uncharacteristically polite I might have thought he was a vampire if the afternoon sun hadn't been beating down on him.
"What, not going to just barge past me like usual?" I asked, a seriously angry edge bleeding through. He rubbed the back of his head and groaned.
"Look, don't be a dick. I just... I might actually feel bad for putting our friendship on ice. I aint saying the 's word' though." He said. I practically fell over in shock, before Aron grunted and walked in anyway. "I'll take you not slamming the door on me as a 'come on in'."
"Okay, so you're still the same asshole." I said, sighing and closing the door behind him. He grinned and lit up one of his foul menthols, spoiling the air in my apartment just like old times.
"More so every day." He said. One of his catch phrases I refused to admit I found cool. We sat at my dinner table and talked over the eye-watering blue smoke pouring from his mouth.
"So, what do you want?" I asked. Aron mocked shock and hurt in a cartoonishly over the top way, but quickly dropped it with a chuckle.
"I want to show you the coolest shit ever." He said. I was already shaking my head.
"I told you, dude, I'm never going to touch crystal, and you shouldn't either." I said. He had been mulling over the idea of finding some meth just before he dropped out of my life, so I was pretty sure that was the explanation for his worsened appearance.
"No, no. I tried that shit and fucking hated it. Well, the first couple hours were great, but I got to enjoy the company of invisible bugs running all over me after I came down. Not worth it. This isn't a drug, its way better." He said. I quirked an eyebrow at him. Tough to imagine him being the type to 'just try' meth, but I moved on.
"This from the guy who never wanted to do anything but smoke weed and drop acid?" I said. I wasn't straight-edge because I would do most of what Aron did, but I had been sober for the months he had been gone. I actually hadn't missed the chemicals, just his company. He waved it off.
"Nicotine and caffeine are my only drugs, now." He said, punctuating the statement with a huge plume of his remaining vice. I blinked my burning eyes and batted at the smoke.
"What the fuck? Oh shit, are you going all Jesus freak on me?" I asked, bracing for a sales pitch about Jehovah or something. He tilted his chair back and roared laughter until he started coughing and wheezing, nearly tipping onto the floor before clutching the table and righting himself, tears in his eyes and a big smile still on his face as his coughing fit slowly subsided.
"Sammy boy, you're killing me. Shut the fuck up and listen. There's an extra hour in the day." Aron said.
It made so little sense that I didn't say anything for a long, awkward moment.
"What, like... the day is really 25 hours long?" I asked, becoming convinced that he was lying about the drugs he was using.
"Kind of. The missing hour is weird, its as long as you're over there." He said.
"...Cool. And how did you figure this out?" I asked, deciding to humor the story. He had some weird conspiracy theories, like the moon actually being a decommissioned alien spacecraft or the Lost City of Atlantis being buried under Dublin, Ireland, so this was actually on brand for him.
"Well, that little experiment with crystal actually has something to do with it. Hey, stop shaking your head, I wasn't psychotic. It just fucked with my sleep really bad. I couldn't sleep all night while I was shaking it off, and I was up all the next day and still couldn't sleep the next night either. Not a wink. I was done with the shit because I didn't want to get deep with something that messed me up so bad, so I was taking a walk to cool off. That's when I found it." He said, clearly baiting me to ask. I rolled my eyes and played along.
"Found what?" I asked.
"A door. A weird damn door just standing in the middle of the road. I opened it up and it was just the same alley on the other side. I walked through it, thinking it was just some modern art, but things got beyond weird after that, like my phone saying the same time, and after a while I noticed the sun wasn't coming up. There's way more to it, but you've got to just come check it out with me." He said. I shrugged.
"Yeah, man. Sure. Let's go see this door of yours." I said. Aron tutted at me.
"Its not so easy. You've got to skip a night of sleep. No napping. I'll help you stay up and we'll go tomorrow night." He said, and I groaned.
"That sounds miserable. I'm pushing forty, I do not like missing shut-eye." I said. Aron smirked and got up, drifting into my kitchen and brewing up some coffee. Apparently I was in this whether I liked it or not, and I was feeling annoyed because I would lose my weekend of rest just to humor Aron's delusion.
The sun wouldn't go down for another few hours. Aron explained that he had figured the doors out to a science; If I took a nap now, it would still work as long as I was up before sundown. The key was just being awake for a whole night and day. This did not help me since I was wide awake, not the type to sleep during the day.
We chatted and watched TV over pot after pot of coffee, the air in my apartment taking a progressively heavy tint of acrid smoke as Aron burned through cancer sticks. Disgusting habit. The sun went down without fanfare and Aron kept an eye on me, pushing caffeine on me at strategic times. My bedtime came and went, hot scratchy tension building behind my eyes and the beginnings of a headache following soon after. This already sucked. Midnight arrived and I heaved a mighty yawn, which Aron somehow didn't mirror.
"Dude, you're such a weenie." Aron said, chuckling. "Come on, let's take a stroll to the gas station. I'm out of smokes and you need some air."
He wasn't wrong. The air in my lungs felt hot and stale, and I could feel involuntary sleep creeping up my limbs as I sat on the couch. Getting out and moving made me feel a bit more fresh, but I was still feeling grumpy at this weird game Aron was putting me through. The harsh florescents in the gas station made me squint and heave for breath again, an oily sweat joining my other fun symptoms of sleep deprivation, and we loaded up on snacks and drinks, and of course Aron's obnoxious cigarettes.
And so we kept going, with Aron dragging me to my feet for another trip to the gas station any time the conversation and caffeine weren't enough to keep me from trying to close my eyes. As the sun rose, Aron dragged me outside to soak it up. I was very reluctant to keep this up, but I have to admit that the sun did more than the caffeine could to put the fight back in me. We went mall crawling and at one point Aron even talked me into going for a run; This crazy bastard was completely serious about making sure I didn't get any sleep at all, and he was doing a frustratingly good job at it.
As the afternoon waned I blinked my salty, burning eyes and looked forward to the moment when Aron could shout 'pranked you, bro' and laugh at this sleepy fool, because then I could curse him out and finally get some rest. We were back at my place, once again chatting over coffee as the sun set, the last rays of light faded, and my pitiful remaining strength drained with it.
"On your feet, soldier." Aron said, lifting me up yet again. I nodded and tried to firm up my lip and force my eyes all the way open.
"Yeah... Let's do this quick, I've got nothing left." I said. Aron shook his head while shouldering his backpack and guiding me out the door.
"Naw, this is just another convenience store run. You're flagging real bad." He said.
"Let's just do the fucking door thing right now." I said, my voice shaking with uncontrolled emotion. Aron slapped his forehead and smiled sheepishly.
"Oh, did I forget to mention? They only show up between 3 and 4 in the morning. If we nap at all, no love. So march." He said.
This was seriously pissing me off, but instead of shouting at him, I shocked myself by beginning to cry. Aron looked the other way, but told me it was normal after this long without sleep.
"Its like a pressure release valve. Those tears are loaded with toxic shit, so let it out and you'll be able to keep fighting through. Just don't get carried away, since crying can get exhausting if you overdo it." He said. I was shocked. He was being surprisingly nice... And it sounded like he was admitting that he cried too? Even if this was a prank, it was getting weird.
"You were right... I feel a bit better. More awake." I said, using my shirt to dry my face of acidic tears and thick, greasy sweat.
"That won't last. You're going to hit another wall in another twenty minutes or so. Brace yourself for hell, buddy." He said, and we trudged to the gas station for yet another perusal of the snack aisle.
As I was debating between chips and cookies as fuel for this bizarre experiment, Aron's prediction came true. I felt like a chasm open beneath my feet and I stumbled drunkenly, a vortex of numbness and tingling ripping through me. My eyes felt like balloons and I wondered how my body was staying in one piece. It was like a drug trip, except instead of euphoria it just absolutely sucked. I blinked in an attempt to kickstart more tears, hoping to drain this feeling from me, but Aron interrupted me.
"You're losing it. Shit, I was hoping you could hold it together better than this." He said. I loopily spun to face him, only to see an undefined smudge where he should be. I usually had good eyesight, so it was alarming to note how out of focus everything was. He told me to breathe for a while, and eventually his image started to sharpen again, though not to my usual acuity.
"My blood feels like acid. Am I dying? Jesus, man, just let me sleep." I said, all dignity forgotten. He was torturing me, and I was desperate to be done.
"It'll all be worth it. Take this." He said, handing me one of his cigarettes. I slapped it away with a growl, and Aron grit his teeth in frustration as he picked up the coffin nail and handed it to me again. I huffed, both in anger and exhaustion from the effort of the slap, but took the cigarette.
We rang up our provisions, and Aron lit up my smoke once we were back on the road. I gingerly puffed on it, never having a lung for these things. It barely helped, but in combination with an energy drink it kept the shutters open for now. In my confusion it took a very long time to notice we were nowhere near my apartment, and my legs and back were starting to ache from all the walking.
"Where are we?" I asked. I checked my phone and saw it was a bit past 1 am, officially Sunday. "Holy shit, we've been walking for hours?"
"Yeah. You're past the point of no return. If we went back you'd be out like a light, so we're just gonna keep moving until the doors show up." He said. I stopped, shaking and grinding my teeth.
"Motherfucker! This isn't cool! You show up after ages to put me through fucking hell? Why, 'cause you think it's funny? I hate you, you piece of shit!" I said, finally spewing my bile. It felt bad, but justified. Aron took a deep breath and nodded.
"Yeah, I get it. You don't believe me, so this seems like pointless pain. But you gotta trust me and keep going. We're so close." Aron said. I laughed harshly.
"Trust you? You've never given me any reason to do that. I was convinced you ditched me for designer drugs, and this magic doors bullshit is just the kind of nonsense you always go on about. I was fine with your theory about the Jersey Devil, but I'd also want to knock in your teeth if you made me crawl through rose bushes looking for the bastard!" I said, new tears flowing from my eyes. I could see hurt in Aron's eyes, then once again he spun around to face away from me. When he spoke, his voice was shaky and thick.
"Buddy, seriously, I get it. But we've gotta keep moving or sleep's gonna catch up with you." He said, and kept walking. I flapped my mouth pointlessly a few times, not done shouting at him, but after a moment of shaking off the growing weight filling my legs like sand I followed him, sinking back into a hypnotic pattern of plodding painful hiking.
The streets were quiet, passing cars going from rare to nonexistent, and I took more of Aron's menthols with my energy drinks to keep going. Every so often I would break up in hysterical laughter or shudder with chills, and after a while my legs just gave out and I sank toward the ground, the concrete sidewalk seeming to transform into a downy mattress under me, and I sighed with relief, wanting to just give up. I was hauled back up and a ferocious point of pain on my arm shocked me away from the promise of long-denied sleep, and an impressionist watercolor of Aron poking a lit cigarette into my arm greeted my confused and malfunctioning eyes.
"No sleep! Not even a minute, or the doors won't show up!" He said, and I tugged my arm back, rubbing the wicked little burn in genuine surprise.
"You... You fucking psycho." I said, trying to feel something other than dull shock. I should be angry, afraid. I should call the cops, run away. Instead I just kept walking, unable to process how surreal Aron's dedication to his mission was.
"Sorry, bro, I just..." Aron started, but I interrupted him.
"What the... Did you put that there?" I asked, pointing to a door standing in the middle of the street. I can't say what color it was. Can doors be red? Black? Green or yellow? It wasn't very big, nor exceptionally small. It was just a door. It was, as Aron had put it, a 'weird door'.
"Finally. You've gotta see this." He said, grinning from ear to ear and pulling me to the door. He opened it and stepped through. I leaned to the side, expecting him to dramatically disappear, but instead he was just standing on the other side, waving me over. I walked around the weird door to stand next to him, but he shook his head.
"You gotta walk through. I'm pretty sure we'll get separated soon if you don't." He said. I chuckled and tried to punch him on the shoulder, but I stumbled and my head spun. I was now several feet from him and in no danger of touching him. He shrugged. It was no use questioning that, just more weirdness on top of everything else. So I walked back to the open door, took a deep breath, and stepped through.
The door closed behind me, and the first thing I noticed was I wasn't tired any more. It wasn't refreshing like a nap or even bracing like a splash of cold water, it was more like 'tiredness' was a part of myself I couldn't feel any more. I looked around and saw the same houses, same street. For a magical door, it seemed pretty underwhelming. Aron clapped me on the shoulder and tapped my arm where he had burned me. The burn was still there, but not the pain.
"Damn. You weren't kidding, there's definitely something weird here." I said.
"This is just the entrance. It gets really cool after this." He said.
I frowned and looked to either side, seeing nothing extraordinary. The few lights that people had on in their houses might have been a bit dimmer, and a TV that had been playing a cartoon from some night owl's bedroom window was now showing a mess of digital noise, but there were no gothic castles or rivers of blood. Aron was pointing up at the sky, so I looked up and saw the first sign that we were truly in a different place. There was the moon, still at a quarter as it had been, but a smaller red moon was beside it. My head spun and Aron caught me before I could lean back against the door.
"Hey, man, we should get moving. Its best not to stick too close to the doors unless you're going through 'em." He said. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion.
"Why not? Is there dangerous stuff here?" I asked. I hadn't bothered to ask that until now since I had been sure it wasn't real. He shrugged.
"Well, yeah, but nowhere's really safe. On our side you can get mugged or hit by a car, mauled by a bear if you wonder into the woods... Here you've gotta watch out for Long Shadows and the Hungry." He said.
"What the fuck is a Long Shadow, Ar..." I started, but Aron clapped his hand over my mouth and shushed me harshly.
"Woah, dude, no using our names here, okay? Those Hungry bastards get the scent of anyone who gets named for the whole night, so we'd have to call it quits already, and we haven't had any fun yet." He said, then started walking again. I shook my head and then jogged to catch up, not keen on being left alone in this bizarre place.
As we got further from the door, things started to get a bit weirder. I could still recognize the layout of the streets, and they were still lined with regular houses, but the light coming from the odd window was a funny shade of orange and seemed semi-solid, winding around like tentacles or a bored cat's tail. As bad as the light was, I found my eyes were picking up everything, as if the ruinous effects of missing so much sleep had never happened and I had gotten a low-light vision upgrade in the bargain. I couldn't feel hot, cold, or touch, but a kind of feral excitement was building up in me. What confirmed that something was happening to us was that Aron hadn't lit up a cigarette since we got here. What was actually unsettling was the quiet. No crickets, no distant motors, no occasional yowling alley cat. It started to bother me, but that animalistic tension in me kept me from breaking the silence.
Aron stopped and held up his arm, then pointed far ahead at a streetlamp with dull, blue light pouring down from it like molasses. Standing in that light was a tall, antlered thing with no face and way too many legs. I should have been scared, but instead my beating heart gave me a rush more satisfying and fun than anything I had ever felt before. I might die here, I might not, and I couldn't wait to find out which! Aron and I dipped low and scuttled with surprising grace to the cover of a privacy hedge to spy on the oddly graceful... whatever that was. It shook its antlers in the light, swishing the stuff around and leaving gooey, trailing shadows. If I had to guess, it was feeding. Also, it would probably be best not to go into any light here. We had to wait what may have been a minute or thirty, but eventually the thing was satisfied and fluttered its many legs in a beautiful dance that carried it rapidly down the street and out of sight. We nodded to each other and kept going, sticking to the shadows and giving the streetlamp a wide berth.
We saw another door, and Aron took us toward it. The feral energy in me subsided, and I risked a few words.
"What, are we done already?" I asked. Aron shook his head 'no'.
"We can't linger around the doors for long, but we also should't risk talking anywhere else." He said. "So if you have any more questions, make it quick."
"Was that one of the Long Shadows?" I asked. Aron laughed.
"It's not a full moon, so the Long Shadows are probably asleep. That was a Manifold. If they get spooked they might attack, but much more likely to run away. It might look tough, but the two of us probably coulda taken it if we coordinated. No reason to if you're not Hungry, though, they're just cool to look at." He said.
"Is the light dangerous?" I asked. Aron nodded.
"It doesn't hurt, but its sticky and hard to move in. You know those dreams where you're running your ass off and not getting anywhere? That happens if you're in the light, and that can be real bad if something's coming for you. Look, if you have the instinct to shut up out there and to ask about the light, we probably don't need to waste any more breath. Let's move." He said, and set off down the street again.
I had one more question I should have asked; Where was Aron getting all these names for things? I put it out of mind and hunkered down behind Aron, our stances shifting naturally from 'late night stroll' to 'nocturnal predator' as we got away from the door. It really was a lot of fun just being out there. The night stretched on, our tireless stalking a form of entertainment that nothing else had ever matched. I couldn't tell you how long we wondered the streets, because time didn't have the same meaning here. I knew it must have been quite a while, but my sense of time was as distant and numb as my other senses.
We saw other strange things; A kind of spiderish rabbit that stretched out into a tube when it moved. A massive butterfly with a backwards, horselike head that sang a song which hung in the air like raspberry jam. A kid's toy wagon which drifted along on dozens of swishing dog tails instead of wheels. We approached another door, but I knew we weren't done.
"Those things are weird, like dreams coming to life, but I wasn't really that scared." I said, the both of us hiking past the door, not bothering to stop for an extended chat.
"Yeah... Weird is actually good. If you see something normal after you it's time to shit your pants and fucking book it, okay?" He said, grinning and diving back into the shadows, our quick pace carrying us past the civilizing influence of the door.
After a while, our tour of the hidden hour was becoming tedious. There were more strange encounters, but the novelty was wearing out for me. I couldn't feel the passage of time, but I was pretty sure that the sun would have been up a while ago if we had been playing by the usual rules. I started to scan for doors, wanting to signal for us to make our escape. But Aron just kept going, and I grinned and tried to get back into the spirit of things. But as Aron had said, I had instincts. One of them was that we should call it a night as soon as possible, and after a while I decided to risk saying so, even though we were nowhere near the doors.
"We need to quit." I said, quietly. Aron whipped around, his eyes wide, and hushed me. Hypocritically, he growled along with the signal, making more noise than I had. He blinked in confusion and clutched at his stomach.
So it wasn't a growl, it was just his tummy complaining. That made sense. We hadn't had a proper meal all night. Though come to think of it, I couldn't feel hunger any more than my other sleeping senses. Aron looked terrified and started to scan for doors as well, and while it had been my wimpy self struggling to stay awake before we got here, now Aron was stumbling and making pathetic sniffing sounds, which was going to get us caught by something. I took point, the dynamic shifting as the seasoned explorer was taken low by his mysterious affliction. I kept him in sight, but I was starting to get desperate as well, striking far ahead of him in my search for an exit.
At long last, there was a way out. Several blocks ahead past a flickering streetlamp, there was a door, and I sighed softly and waved back at Aron, smiling and pointing to our egress point. My smile froze as I saw a twisted grin on Aron's face. He was twitching and clawing at his stomach, and his eyes were bulging out of his head as he locked eyes with me. With a howl he dropped low and began to sprint at me, his hands clenched into claws that I somehow knew would open me up like any mauling bear, and his low howl nearly making me brick my pants as he had suggested I might. I turned and hauled ass as fast as I could, hoping my lead was enough to take me to the door.
There were no obstacles, it was just a straight run to the exit with a monster behind me, classic nightmare scenario, with the exception of... In the middle of the street, the streetlamp I had forgotten about flickered on, bringing me almost to a stop as I slashed my arms and sodden legs through the sudden light. I didn't look behind me, but I could hear the hungry panting of my old friend as he quickly closed the distance. I whimpered in anticipation of the pain of evisceration, when the light flicked off again and I was back up to top speed in a breath. The ragged sound of Aron's breath was right behind me, but I think even in this weird place his smoking habit was catching up to him. He was so damn close, but so was the door. I choked back a sob and dived through, opening the door and tumbling to the other side in one smooth motion.
Someone crumpled on top of me and I screamed, seeing that it was Aron, and I was overwhelmed with exhaustion and terror, and just hoped he would make it quick and closed my eyes.
----
I opened my eyes again, with herculean effort, only to find myself in my own bed, though fully dressed minus shoes. Had that all been a dream? I checked my phone, seeing that it was a bit past noon. I felt like absolute shit, and as I lifted my legs over the side of my bed I winced in pain, my knees and back cramping and sore, my feet raw and bruised. And an evil little cigarette burn on my arm. I clutched my pounding head and shuffled out of my bedroom, only to find Aron at the table, eating the last of the bacon, eggs, ham... Having cleared out my entire kitchen, from the looks of it. He looked up at me and smiled.
"Jesus, Sammy. You saved my ass out there. Knew it was a good idea to bring you along." He said, then grumbled. "Did you know they don't deliver pizza this early? We've gotta go out for burgers."
"What the hell is wrong with you?" I asked. I meant 'why did you develop such a dangerous pastime', but his answer rocked me anyway.
"I'm Hungry now, Sam. Usually that means you eat something on the other side of the doors and then you can't come home, just go on hunting forever, totally unrecognizable by the next night. Not sure what it means that I made it back. Having trouble topping up the fuel tank, though." He said. I shook my head. It was all real?
"Well, there's no way in hell we're ever going back." I said, frowning and crossing my arms.
"No shit... Unless I can get two dozen White Castle burgers. I'll tell you, that would hit the fucking spot. If I'm still feeling Hungry, no way I can go back, but if I can plug the hole... No one's ever gone Hungry and made it back. The others would probably flip to hear from us about last night." He said. I sighed angrily.
"It's never enough for you. You totally would be a tweaker by now if you hadn't found the fucking doors. Wait a minute, what others?" I asked. Aron laughed and tossed me my car keys, which bounced painfully off of my still-tired face.
"I told you, bud. We were just at the entrance."
Submitted June 20, 2019 at 01:00PM by shadozcreep http://bit.ly/2Zy42mn
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