Authors: Brian Keene
The apartment was buried beneath it. Piles and drifts of gray ash covered the furniture and the floor, and dust motes floated in the rays of the dim bulb in the ceiling. It swirled in and out of the broken windows, and out the open door behind her into the hallway.
She shut the door and sat her bag down next to the coat rack. The can inside the bag clanked against the tile, and the liquid sloshed again.
Dallas stared back at her from the wall, frozen in time behind the glass frame. Their trip to Alcatraz, when they’d visited Gene and Kay in San Francisco last year. Dallas was laughing at the camera with that smile. It was his smile that she’d fallen in love with first.
In the kitchen, something caught her attention. A yellow post-it note, stuck to the dirty fridge, with her name scrawled on it in his handwriting.
Laura,
I had to go in early. Grubman was on CNBC this morning, and he’s saying that Worldcom and Quest will bounce back today. Tried calling your cell but I got your voice mail. My turn to cook dinner tonight. How’s fish sound? Hope you had a good night at work! Love ya!
Dallas
Laura sobbed. She reached out to touch the note, and her fingers came away gritty. It, too, was covered in dust.
“I miss you baby. I miss you so bad.”
The wind howled through the broken glass, kicking up mini-dust clouds all throughout the apartment. The dust swirled toward her, encircling her ankles. Laura turned, and for just a moment, she heard his voice in the wind. The dust hung suspended before her, twirling in mid-air, and she saw his face within the cloud. Dallas smiled at her, and even though it was gray and powdery, it was still his smile. The one she had fallen in love with. More of the cloud took shape now; shoulders, arms, his chest. Each muscle was chiseled perfectly from the dust.
“I want to hold you, Dallas.”
She reached for him and her fingers passed through his center. As suddenly as it had begun, the winds stopped and the ashes dissipated, floating to the floor. Laura pulled her hand away. The center of the dust cloud was cold, and the tips of her fingers turned pale. It reminded her of when she’d been a little girl, and built a snowman without wearing her gloves.
“Dallas?”
There was no answer. She knelt to the floor and scooped the ash in her hands, letting it sift through her fingers. Another gust of wind blew through the room, gently carrying the dust away.
“I miss you.”
She went back out into the hall and knocked on Doris’ door.
“All set dear?”
“If it’s okay with you, Doris, I think I’m going to hang around awhile.”
“I understand, Laura. Take what time you need. It’s important to do so. I’ll be off for the hospital then. Jack will be grumbling if I don’t get back soon.”
“Give him my best?”
“I surely will. And you must come see him soon, yes?”
Laura nodded, unable to speak.
She went back to her apartment and shut the door, waiting for the sounds of the old lady’s departure. When she was sure Doris had gone, she rummaged inside her shopping bag and pulled out the gas can and the pills. She swallowed the pills first, and waited for them to kick in. Then, as she grew drowsy, Laura unscrewed the lid and splashed gasoline all over the floor, the walls, and the furniture. It carved little rivulets in the dust, and the smell of it wasn’t at all unpleasant. It was welcome. The odor blocked out the stench coming from the pit below.
She was getting sleepy.
Laura lit the match.
“Dallas.”
The wind answered her with a sigh, and the dust began to move again, caressing her arms and face.
She was asleep before the flames touched her.
***
The fireman wiped a grimy hand across his brow. “Christ, like we needed this on top of everything else?”
“Least the building wasn’t re-occupied yet,” his partner said. “And the fire was contained to just a few apartments.”
“Wasn’t re-occupied my ass! What do you call those? Squatters?” He pointed at the two mounds of dust on the floor. They were both human shaped, lying together side-by-side. He let his eyes linger on them a moment longer, and swore that the dust piles were holding hands.
The other man shrugged. “Optical illusion? A joke? Fuck, do you know how hot it had to be in here to reduce a human body to ash like that? Couldn’t have happened, man, or else this entire building would be toast.”
“So what the fuck are they?”
“Just one of those weird things, like the photos you see in
The Fortean Times
. Simulacra they call it, or something like that. The security guard said there were only a few tenants that had come back to get their stuff, and he was pretty sure they were gone.”
“Well, it still gives me the creeps. Let’s go.”
***
After they left, the dust began to swirl again. Sheets of heavy plywood had finally been put into place, sealing up the burned apartment, but the air moved. A wind blew through the room. It came not from the windows or from the hall, but from somewhere else.
The mounds of ash rose and embraced. Then, still holding hands, they fell apart; floating away until there was nothing left.
***
***
***
This story appeared in my second short-story collection,
Fear of Gravity,
and was reprinted in
A Little Silver Book of Streetwise Stories
and as a promotional chapbook (along with a story by author Kelli Owen). All three are out-of-print.
“Dust” bounced around in my head for a year before I wrote it. One month after the 9/11 attacks, I went to New York City to do a live appearance at the Housing Works Bookstore. As I was walking down the street, I happened to glance up and spotted a turkey buzzard flying between the buildings. Then another. And another. Turkey buzzards are a common sight in rural areas like the town I grew up in. Any time there’s a dead animal in the field or on the road, you’ll find them circling. But I’d never seen one in the city. Especially New York City. A newspaper vendor told me the birds were going to Ground Zero—the wreckage of the World Trade Center. In some ways, that image of the scavenger birds, and the newspaper vendor’s explanation for their presence, chill me more than the footage of the planes hitting the towers or the Pentagon ever can. A year after, in October of 2002, I tired to write it out of my system. “Dust” was the result.
FADE TO NULL
She woke to the sound of thunder, lying in a strange bed with no memory of who she was or where she was, and panic nearly overwhelmed her. Her stomach clenched. Her breaths came in short gasps. Frantic, she glanced around the room for clues, but familiarity eluded her. The room was small, equipped with a dresser, a writing desk, and a chair with one leg shorter than the others. Atop the dresser sat a slender blue-glass vase with some flowers in it.
The flowers soothed her, but she didn’t know why.
She studied the rest of the room. Looming overhead were the cracked, yellowing panels of a drop ceiling. The carpet was light green, the wallpaper pastel. Framed prints hung on the wall—Monet, Kincaid, Rockwell. She wondered how it was possible that she knew their names but didn’t know her own. The closet door was slightly open, revealing a stranger’s clothes. There was only one window, and the blinds were closed tight. If the room had a door, other than the closet, she couldn’t see it.
The sheets were thin and starchy, and rubbed against her skin like sandpaper. They felt damp from sweat. Clenching the sheets in both fists, she raised them slightly and peered beneath. She was dressed in a faded sleeping gown with a dried brown stain over one breast. What was it? Gravy? Mud? Blood? Except for her underwear, she was bare beneath the gown.
She considered calling for help, but decided against it. She was afraid—afraid of who, or what, might answer her summons. Despite the fact that the room seemed empty, she couldn’t help but feel like there was someone else in here with her. Someone
unseen
.
The thunder boomed again. Blue-white light flashed from behind the closed blinds, and for a moment, she saw glimpses of other people in the room with her—a man, a woman, and a little girl. They were like the images on photo negatives, stark against the room’s feeble light, but at the same time, flickering and ghostly—composed of television static. The man stood by her bedside, dressed in a white doctor’s coat. A stethoscope dangled around his neck. He held a clipboard. The woman stood next to him, wearing a simple but pretty blouse. She seemed tired and sad. The little girl sat in the wobbly chair, rocking back and forth on the crooked legs.
“It’s okay, Mika. Grandma is just having a bad dream.”
The voice was distant. Muted. An echo. And female.
She tried to scream, but only managed a rasping, wheezy sigh.
The three figures vanished with the next blast of thunder, blinking out of existence as if they’d never been there at all.
Maybe they hadn’t.
She was dimly aware that she had to pee.
When the drum roll of thunder sounded again, the drop-ceiling disappeared as quickly as the ghost-people had. Everything else in the room remained the same—the drab furnishings, the dim light—but in the ceiling’s place was a purple, wounded sky. Boiling clouds raced across it, but she felt no wind. Although the temperature hadn’t changed, she shivered. The pressure on her bladder increased. She relaxed, and felt a sudden rush of warmth. Then the violet sky split open, revealing a black hole, and it began to rain desiccated flowers.
‘Flowers,’ she thought. ‘There are flowers on the dresser. Ellen brought them.’
Then she wondered who Ellen was.
Dried petals continued to shower the bed, tickling her nose and cheeks. She sighed. The feeling was not unpleasant. Then, as quickly as it had begun, the rain of flower petals stopped—replaced by something else. Her eyes widened in terror. A squadron of bulbous flies poured from the hole in the sky, buzzing in a multitude of languages. Their bodies were black, their heads green like emeralds. They circled the room in a swirling pattern. A flock of birds plunged out of the hole, giving chase. The thunder increased, inside the room with her now. The noise was deafening. The flies scattered and the birds squawked in fright. A black, oily feather floated gently towards her.
She tried to sit up, but her fatigue weighed her like a stone. All she could do was lie there and watch. Listen. Wonder.
Where was she? What was this? What was happening?