Homeless

Homeless

Nicolas Wilson

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: You Can't Go Home Again

I walk because I can’t sleep. The night air makes me tense, from a youth I can scarcely recall. I remember being told not to go out when it's dark, to fear the unknown beyond your walls, and to stay indoors. Funny, how wrong some old advice can be.

I'm roused from my contemplation by an old man swearing. The hairs on my neck bristle. It wouldn't be the first time someone used an old man to bait a trap for me. It's a new world we're living in, one where we make the rules as we go along. And we can either forge a world where the needy find help, or one where the bastards have made us all so cynical we let our neighbors freeze to death for want of a moment's kindness.

But I don't want him shooting me, either, so I make a lot of noise on my way toward his fire. A shoe scuffed against the curb here, a little whistling, some heavy breathing. He's old enough that none of that does the trick- which might just be the torrent of swearing coming off the man canceling the sound I make.

So finally I call out. Hello? I ask loudly. But he doesn't hear. Hello! I bellow, and he starts.

Good lord, he says. Scared me half to death. Don't you know not to sneak up on a body? He’s old and old-fashioned enough to be clean shaven within the last day or two- rare because without water it requires a strong degree of determination and masochism.

Sorry, sir, I say, in my most apologetic tone. You having some trouble?

Stupid goddamned tent, he says, kicking a pile of tarp, spikes and poles.

I can lend you a hand, I tell him, and I can tell before I get the sentence out that he means to refuse, so I bend down and pick up the pole and start to thread it through the tarp before he can protest. Up close, I can tell it's a nice tent, the kind you could buy in a store, when you could survive a trip inside one of them.

He sighs. He's annoyed, by my presence, by his impotence. He shivers in the cold, and puts his arms around himself for warmth, and maybe a little more security. That's my home, he tells me, and points to the building not twenty feet from where his tent is. The grass is dead in a rough square where he's been raising it regularly in the shade of an evergreen tree.

I don't respond. I know if he wants to talk, he's of an age he will, without any prodding from me. And I don't know mine's the most sympathetic ear on offer.

I bought it with my Josephine when we were both just children, he says, fresh from out of school. We never meant to stay there. It was too small to raise a family, and we had plans- such plans.

The bow in his posture becomes a little more severe, the history weighing down on him as much as age and gravity. He takes in a deep breath, and continues, But if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. He shakes his head. Josephine was barren. And our careers- well, by the time we retired, we were damned grateful to have bought our little home when the market was weak and we could afford it.

I manage to get the poles both through, and realize he isn't going to help with the tent at all, but it's hard to begrudge him that. I'm Lionell, by the way, he says.

Mitch, I tell him, reflexively clipping off the second half of my name to keep our names from rhyming, anything to put distance between us- even phonetically.

It's the house Josephine died in, he says gravely. His face contorts. He's used to folks judging him for that, pretending like we weren't all of us caught unawares to at least some degree.

Oh, we heard the warnings, he says, "from out east, on the television. But they seemed like so much insanity. Don't know if you've seen them things, but houses getting... haunted by them isn't exactly the thing, but inhabited. Becoming dangerous. The government told us that it wasn't safe to stay inside, that we'd need to sleep outdoors, in tents. We bought this one, in case, because Josephine was practical, in that way. She bought all kinds of rainy day supplies, bottled water, canned foods and all the like.

But I didn't like putting up the tent. It hurt my hands, he raises them up to show me, they're crooked and craggy, with skin so papery I'm surprised the bones don't break through as he claws the air. "I've got arthritis. So did she, but I think mine bothered me more- or maybe I just complained more readily.

"So we slept most nights indoors. We went places, trying to live by the edicts we were given, staying outdoors, but this is the Pacific Northwest, and the outdoors is no place for old bones, especially not in the winter time.

They came one night. It's likely they arrived in the morning- I heard things stirring in the attic, things I dismissed as just a rambunctious squirrel. But the noise grew. Jo laughed and said maybe it was two squirrels- amorous ones, and even suggested we- he paused, and flushed. She was a playful woman. Competitive. He swallows. "But the noise got louder. She begged me to put up the tent, so we could sleep in the yard. I could feel the cold in my bones even through our insulation, and our comforter. I told her we could weather it another night, and that I'd put up the tent come the morning.

I woke up to her, bleeding, he says as I pound the last stake into the ground. "I heard sobbing, and she had night terrors, so that's not all that unusual. But I sat up and I stroked her cheek, and started to tell her everything was going to be okay. Only my hand came back warm, and wet- far too much for tears or snot or drool. I groped for why that could be, and landed on she must be sick, and she'd thrown up. I grumbled at having to take time out of my sleep to launder sheets, and put on a new set, when I realized I didn't smell anything. I'd never known throw-up not to stink. I rubbed my fingers together, to test the consistency of it, expecting that gritty, almost sandy texture. But it was slick, and I don't know how but I knew then it was blood.

"I rolled over above Jo and shook her. She looked at me, which made my world make sense for a few more seconds. That's when I heard a sound, like insect wings, that kind of a buzz, or a hum, but bigger, like there were hundreds, maybe thousands, enough that they were everywhere. And it shot terror straight through me. I pulled on Jo's arm, and she stumbled out of the bed after me, but she couldn't keep to her feet, so she fell, and blood went everywhere. I realized, then, she'd been holding a cut closed in bed, and in pulling her up I opened it wide. She wasn't moving.

"I dragged her two feet in as many seconds, before I realize that the flow of blood was already slowing down. She'd lost pressure. A sliver of light cut across her face, enough that I watched the life go out of her eyes. 'Go,' she whispered to me as that happened, but it was so weak I can't ever be sure it wasn't just her last breath escaping her lungs.

It killed me, he says, to leave her like that, but I knew she was dead, or at least that I couldn't help her if I was bleeding out beside her. So I ran, out onto the front lawn. I took my phone, and I called the police. Nobody picked up. That seemed strange- that I'd never heard of. And that was when my ears pricked up, and I heard the screams. All around the neighborhood, people were screaming.

I wanted to be useful, run door to door warning people who maybe hadn't been hurt yet. But my legs were jelly, my spine a jam. I collapsed in the grass, in what I was pretty sure was ground zero for my neighbor's shih tzu. And I couldn't move from there. One of my neighbors found me in the morning, in the same damn spot, staring at my house, weeping. I wasn't blinking, just staring straight ahead, sobbing.

"I got my garage open that next day, fetched out as many of the supplies as it was safe to get, and this tent- this goddamned tent. He kicks it, and dislodges one of the poles from the spikes. Sorry, he says to me. I'm used to being able to take out my frustration on this damn thing without it hurting anybody else."

It's all right, I tell him, and bend the pole enough to get it attached back to the spike, though if he kicks it again, I'm in a mood to kick him in return.

It was hard to remember all the things they said on TV, the new rules, he says bitterly. "We lost about half the neighborhood that first night. And in the days after, we lost another quarter, while we figured out the things we’d forgotten. That it isn’t safe inside, no matter how bright it is outside. That you have to take down the tents, every day, or they get infected, too. And the cars, too, unless you got a moon roof," he remembers it all, now, and recites it out of habit, because his wife and neighbors paid for that knowledge with blood.

"Because of Jo’s squirreling, I had more supplies than most. I kept that fact a secret, because in those early days many good men took to looting. But I helped my neighbors, as I could. Because… it was what Jo would have done. She loved having neighbors, having their children in our yard. I’d complain to her, that I spent all that time and effort and money fertilizing, and planting, manicuring and mowing- and that I didn’t go through all that to have our yard trampled by brats I wasn’t even related to. She laughed at me, told me yards belonged to children; they existed for them to play on."

She wasn’t guilting me, you understand, or trying to shut me up, reminding me that it was as close to children as we would get. She just… she loved having neighbors- community. She went to neighborhood meetings. And volunteered at the school. And I… I had more food than I thought I could ever need. But we all presumed this too would pass. Convinced ourselves that science or government or god would root out our problem and burn it out.

My wife’s charity, however vicarious, might have saved me. Because I do not believe my rations would have lasted this long. Now, I survive by the charity of my neighbors. They give me food, and water, because they pity me. But one by one, they up stakes, and head east, where the food grows easier, and the weather's less miserable out of doors. I’ve had a few offer to take me- for pity, again- but I couldn’t leave. He looks at the home again, and sighs.

She's still in there, my Josephine. I... I try not to think about it, but she's been in there long enough that there's hardly anything left. Bones, and skin, perhaps. The muscle, and sinew, all of that will have dried up. I try to remember that, but in my mind, I see her, sleeping peaceably on the floor, preserved. And I’ve wanted more than anything to be able to bury her.

You can't go back in, I tell him, because I know he needs to hear it.

I know, he says, but I can tell he’s going to need more convincing.

Tent’s done, I say.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? I can’t even prepare my own shelter anymore. I’d have been swearing at that thing another half the night, before I gave up and crawled beneath the tarp. I haven’t been a man in a long, long time, hiding in my front lawn. I can't even bury my wife.

I’ve lost this discussion before, and I’m desperate enough not to lose it again that I tell him, I’m a wall-banger.

Good old Harveys, he says. But I haven’t any money- not even in the house.

I’m not offering my services for hire- just… offering.

He spends all of a few seconds pondering it over. I’ve gotten too used to the idea that our home is my wife’s mausoleum- and too used to the idea that it’ll one day be mine- to desecrate it.

"There are other places. Better places. Safer. With food."

And people to help me put up the tent? he asks me, with a clever old smile that tells me he knows the answer already. "I’m an old man. And even if this better place was a Shangri-La, I would still age, until one night I could not assemble my tent at all. And I would die of exposure, shivering and alone- only more so for having abandoned my wife and our home."

Don’t, I plead with him, not tonight. Come the sunrise you’ll feel better.

I don’t, he says. We used to watch the sun rise together, my wife and I. My neighbor says that’s the best part of sleeping outdoors- waking with the sun every day. But for me, it just reminds me, it’s another day without my Jo- another day I don’t goddamned want. He sniffles, but he straightens up, and that’s when I know I can’t save him.

I could hit him over the head, and drag him away, even to another city, and strand him there. But he’d find his way back, or maybe even just slit his wrists. And the end might well be the same, but he’d be a dead man I robbed of his last wish, and his dignity, so I don’t stand up.

"You can shuffle off, if you like. It’ll be noisy, I understand- not easy to listen to. I… remember the sounds of that night- and I wouldn’t wish them on another soul. You’re welcome to the tent; you went to all the trouble of raising it, and someone might as well sleep in it tonight. And thank you, for the chat. I know it might not be ending on terms you might have preferred, but… I think, perhaps, I simply didn’t want to die alone. It’s… a terrible burden to heap on a stranger- so please, don’t feel compelled to stay. But it was nice, having someone to say goodbye to. Mitch," he nods at me, and even smiles.

Then he walks to his front door, fumbling in his jacket for keys. It’s been long enough since he’s done it that he’s not sure which pocket they’re hiding in, and it takes a good deal of patting before he finds them. When he does, he smiles to himself, and unlocks the door. He steps inside and says, Honey, I’m back. Then he closes the door and bolts it.

A moment passes before he screams and dies. And if that was the last I heard from him, I'd have thanked a good lord. But I hear it, the sounds of them tearing at him, first ripping through his garments, with the occasional thrust carrying through his flesh. Then his tendons snap, making a sound like overburdened rope as it breaks. Maybe that god isn't all bad, because at least Lionell doesn't have to