Rotten Wood
It all started a year after graduation and a bit longer since the car accident that claimed the life of his girlfriend. An accident that he’d shared with her.
He’d forgone the idea of college; the notion of further education frustrated him. Instead, he moved out of his family’s home and into a loft apartment in the city. There he resided quietly off of the settlement money from the lawsuits that were filed after the incident.
It was a simple life. He’d read his books, attend concerts, exercise his thumbs with games and occasionally visit the National Gallery-it was sufficient. When not doing any of those activities he napped or watched television and speculated a good deal on various topics, occasionally he’d write what he considered a well thought out blog. Life was sufficiently good.
One night after he’d finished the last page of his book his eye grew heavy and he decided to turn in. He undressed in front of the large mirror by the foot of his bed, went through his evening routine and opened the window allowing the cool summer air seep into his bedroom. It was then he sat down on his bed and turned out the light before pulling his covers over his head.
It was very still. The outside world was unusually quiet that night. He could hear his even breathing and the slow rhythmic beat of his heart as he lay quietly. He slowly stretched his legs out, his toes dragging on the underside of his sheet as whatever tension that was in his body slowly began to melt away.
A lazy, content smile slowly spread over his face as somnus’ comfort slowly caressed its way up his body. The world started to fade. It was perfect.
His eyes shot open in an instant.
Something ephemeral had caressed his cheek. It was as if a thin breeze had caressed him and with it the sweet smell of rotting wood. It was a smell that could not be mistaken.
His hand quickly jerked out from under the sheets. His fingers grazed the wall and he could feel the breeze from his window. Under the covers however, there was another breeze. What had once been warm and comforting had been replaced by the damp and sickening smell of rotten wood.
He threw the covers off of his face and promptly sat up. His breath was heavy and little beads of panicky sweat clung to his brow. His glanced about his room. Nothing was amiss.
In his mind he laughed but a groan escaped his lips. It had been nothing more than some sort of nightmare. His story and the greasy chicken he’d had at dinner were the likely cause he reasoned.
After a few minutes he slowly sank back into his bed. He pulled the covers up to his shoulders and then shut his eyes. Sleep soon found him.
The next morning it was as if the previous night had never occurred. He sat down to breakfast and ate heartily. Then, almost as an afterthought, he decided to go to the Gallery. It was there he spent the rest of his morning. He visited the rooms of some of the contemporary landscape artists and eyed their paintings. As he gazed at the pictures he imagined that he might take up the trade.
As he was about to leave a particular painting caught his eye. It was a picture of an old barn at dusk out in the country. In its loft there was a faint glow as if lit by a lantern. It was certainly nothing too spectacular when compared to some of the other pieces, yet the more he gazed at it the more he felt drawn to it.
His heart began to pound heavily in his chest and his breath grew heavy. His hands slowly wrung the program that he’d received before entering. It was completely idiotic; he thought after a few moments, that a painting should cause him to react so.
He turned away and headed for the exit but stopped in his tracks. Slowly he turned back to face the painting. As he looked at it again he realized that it was the barn that had scared him. Only a barn, he thought. It was completely irrational.
After dinner he returned to his apartment. No sooner had he opened the door when memories of the dream from the night before flooded his mind. He bit his lower lip and decided to make it an early night. No reading. He readied himself for sleep.
Once he had he climbed into bed and pulled his covers up. He shook them violently several times. Yet, the smell of rotting wood did not persist. He felt silly.
Before he’d gone to bed he’d made sure to leave the window closed and instead trusted the cooling of his apartment to air conditioner. It was in poor shape but at least might make the air move on occasion. He turned the light off and pulled the covers over his head.
It was comparable to the previous night. The room was silent. His breathing was slow and even. Even the creeping comfortable warmth of sleep was the same.
Then it began again. The breeze rustled his hair. The smell of rotten wood permeated his sheets. His eyes under the covers were wide open yet all he could see was blackness. He breathed through his mouth so as to avoid the scent of the wood.
In the darkness a small square of light slowly came to be. The purplish gray of night crept through. It was obviously a window. Suddenly there was a flash of light. He listened as his heart pounded to the ominous sound of rolling thunder.
He gasped and he could smell the rotten wood. From above him he could hear tapping. He became frightened and yanked the covers from his head.
The hot room surrounded him. It was not raining. The strangled squeak of the air conditioner turning on called out through the dark room and the musty air slowly began to spread from the vents.
He stared at the beam that ran across his ceiling and wondered why he was suffering this dream. His foot sheet covered foot tapped the mirror idly. He muttered a swear to himself.
Slowly he pulled the covers above his head to make sure. He held his breath and closed his eyes. He laid as still as he could and waited.
The smell invaded his nose again. The sound of rain beating on the old wooden roof above echoed throughout the room. He opened his eyes and watched it through the square of light as the lightning burst brightly outside. He reached about and felt hay.
He was in a barn.
His eyes widened as he realized that that was why the picture had frightened him. But what about a rainstorm in a barn could be so terrifying? It didn’t make any sense.
The storm’s cool breeze blew through the barn’s loft. It was then an idea occurred to him. He wanted to stick his head out into the rainstorm. He wondered if it would be possible for him to then pull his sheet off and have a wet head. It would at least prove he wasn’t going mad.
Slowly, he began to get a sense of the space surrounding him. The tightness of the bed and its covers slowly began to ebb out of this existence. Now only his upper back felt the mattress while the rest of him felt the straw and wooden boards beneath. The wind picked up again and on the cold breeze the scent of rotting wood assaulted his senses. It was too real.
He reached above him and tugged down the sheets. He was drenched in sweat. He flipped on the light and shakily walked about his bedroom. In spite of its best efforts the air conditioner had failed miserably.
He looked at the mirror. Its position had shifted. Instead of facing the wall it now faced his bed. He wondered how long it had been that way. He quickly turned it to face him and saw his own reflection. He was pale, unnaturally so. The sweat hadn’t just been from the poor a/c system but fear.
His body began to ache and his limbs trembled. Slowly he made his way to the bathroom for a glass of water, his throat now dry. After a couple of glasses he peered out from the bathroom over to his bed.
Nothing was amiss. The sheets were a nasty tangle of sweat and cotton but besides that his room was the same as ever. He muttered to himself about how the cleaning service he’d hired probably curse his name due to how thoroughly he’d soaked the sheets.
He sighed and left his bedroom for the living room. There he revved up his Playstation. He sat on the couch and played games, not wanting to go back to bed, until dawn broke. Then he slept on the couch.
Around noon he returned to the gallery and looked at the painting of the barn once more. What was it about this picture?
He tried to recall the last time he’d been in a barn. The accident had made certain parts of his memory more than a little hazy. He rocked back and forth slowly as he stared at the picture in the vain hope of relieving his back pain from the night on the sofa. He closed his eyes.
Hazily a memory welled up from deep within his brain. Then as if flicking on a light switch it all came back to him. He opened his eyes.
It was March, two months before prom. He’d suggested to his girlfriend Sunset that they take an evening drive out to Bosc farms. Old man Bosc never visited that barn after his stroke so the local teens had taken to using it and the surrounding orchard for their secret rendezvous.
Sunset had blushed quite noticeably at the prospect but didn’t object. When it started to rain they’d made a mad dash for the barn and eventually to the loft. Once there they giggled some. They kissed several times and eventually one thing led to another. None of their parents would have been pleased. From up there the smell of old rotten wood was noticeable, even if their focus was on something else entirely.
But why was he dreaming of this now? Why was he scared? There certainly wasn’t a reason for it.
That night he puttered about his apartment. He played video games. He listened to music. He even started considering applying for colleges with dorms. He even cleaned a little and found a few dollars that he stashed with his bank info. He also discovered that the foot of his bed ever so slightly slanted in the direction of the mirror. Yet, try as he might he couldn’t stay up forever.
Eventually he fell asleep on the couch, nightly routine and bad back be damned. He didn’t use a cover. His sleep was heavy and dreamless.
It was very early in the morning when he awoke. It hurt to breathe. His back throbbed in agony. He needed his bed. He went to his bedroom threw back the sheets. He flopped on the bed and pulled the sheets up.
Instantly he was back in the barn.
The rain had stopped. The gray of the early morning peeked through the loft’s window. It was quiet. He wondered if somehow he had imagined it now morning in the barn.
It seemed like the beginning of a beautiful day. He smiled wistfully and gazed up at the ceiling. Maybe he could catch a nap later on and see what the barn’s loft looked like in broad daylight.
He started to inch his way up his bed and tugged the covers from his head when he heard a rustle by his side. He held his breath as his heart stopped in his chest. Beads of sweat began to form on his brow.
He heard a small feminine sigh and felt something warm and moist brush over what he thought was his arm. He glanced over then down at where he felt it and expected to see an arm, but he didn’t.
Where his arm should be was a short, blue foreleg with a hoof at the end. Where the wet thing had touched him had darkened the hairs on the limb.
He screamed and tumbled out of bed. His heart pounded fiercely. He stared at his place of supposed repose as he gasped for breath. He gripped the sheet that he’d dragged off the bed with him as he slowly began to sob.
For the next two weeks or so he slept on the couch, if one could call it that. Mostly they were just painful naps. Eventually though he couldn’t stand no more of it and went back to his bed.
It had occurred to him that the dream only happened when he pulled the sheets over his head. In his desperate state he reasoned that perhaps if he slept above the covers it would be safe.
Sleep came dreamless and black and he stayed that way for quite awhile. As he slowly awoke he could feel his body not aching for the first time in over two weeks. He opened his eyes.
He wasn’t sure what time it was, but it was still dark. He looked down at where his hands should be and a sob caught in his throat. They were hooves. He looked up at where the window was. Lightning flashed and the rain began. He was in the barn again!
He tried to stand on his back legs but his hooves slipped out from under him and caused him to land hard on his butt. He fumbled around in the gloomy barn loft; unable to find the sheet that when pulled back would lead him to safety. Then he looked to the window. It was high but if he could reach it ….
“William.”
He struggled to his hooves. He ran toward the window and pounded on it. His heart slammed hard in his chest as he looked over his shoulder through the gloom to the figure that had been lying next to him.
“William,” it called, not quite a murmur but louder than a whisper. “William.”
He tried to scream but all words died in his mouth. He choked out a squeak as his name was repeated. He continued to pound on the window until finally it popped open. The cool rain coated his foreleg. His eyes were wide as his other foreleg searched in vain for the sheet.
The lightning flashed again and in that flash he saw her. It had to be her. She was admittedly orange and had a horn that stuck out of her head but, that hair. That voice. It was Sunset.
Through the gloom she smiled at him. Even when the light of the flashing lightning wasn’t present he could feel that smile. He recoiled.
Suddenly, as if by some miracle he could feel the edge of his sheets, his bed. He forced himself upward toward the head of it. With a thud against the headboard he was back in his room.
He grumbled and turned on the light next to his bed. Next to it sat a glass of water that had toppled over. It had chipped when it had done so. He looked at his hand and saw it was bleeding. He got up, went to the bathroom and bandaged it. Once done, he returned to the uncomfortable couch and played video games until he passed out again.
When he awoke the next morning he decided against going out. Instead he stayed in. He played more video games, blogged about his abnormal sleep episodes and thought about what had been happening to him.
The thought of Sunset, even in some odd horse form, excited him. She was still beautiful. The desire was still there.
Memories of that night cleared. He recalled how she’d laid pressed against him in his embrace. They’d spoken, though the specifics escaped him and listened to the rain. He remembered how soft and warm she'd felt. His eyes dampened as he recalled how alive he’d felt that night.
He had to be realistic though, she was dead. There was no way she could come back. All of this was some mental oddity. Grief or guilt perhaps that he’d unknowingly buried until now.
He looked down at his bandaged wound and shook his head. That wasn’t her fault. She hadn’t forced him to pop out that window or knock over that glass. Perhaps, and it was just a thought he could have the best of both worlds. During the day he could have the money from the accident and at night he could have her in the barn.
As appealing as the thought was though something about it did not sit well. It had been a terrifying experience. The smell of the rotten wood in the dark, the storm and the cold breeze had all led him to this point.
After several hours of consideration he made up his mind on what he would do. He turned out his lights earlier than usual and untucked the sheet. He lay across the bed in a perpendicular fashion to allow himself more time and freedom to escape should anything go awry.
He waited, but not for long. He felt as if he were being pulled toward the foot of his bed. He was certain he’d hit the mirror at this rate. Yet, he didn't and as he was pulled along the familiar smell of rotten wood returned along with the lightning and thunder, just like every other night.
He called out to her and there was a rustling in the dark of the loft. He called her again and in a flash of lightning he saw her standing quietly gazing at him. Then she spoke, “William. Do you remember this night and the promises you made to me? No matter what happened you’d take care of me.”
He started to tremble.
Her horn glowed as she lifted something long and thin, almost serpentine. “When I told you I was pregnant after that night in the barn you made a promise to me. You promised that things would be okay.”
He turned from her and tried to run. He tried to pull out from under the sheet but couldn’t. Something had wrapped about his neck and pulled him toward her.
“When you turned in front of that eighteen wheeler William it struck my side of the car first. I never had a chance. But now I do. I’ve found a way back,” said Sunset as the menace dripped from her lips.
His hooves kicked and dug into the loft’s wooden floor. What held him slacked just enough to give him hope that he had broken free of Sunset’s grip. In his panic he jumped from the loft in the hope that he’d reach safety. Then what was loose became taut. His hooves never reached the ground. He was weightless and the world went black.
At the appointed time the lady from the cleaning service came by his loft apartment to tidy up. She found him hanging from the beam that ran along the ceiling of his bedroom a sheet over his head. The mirror by his bed was smashed.
The police were called. The apartment was searched and it was discovered that his banking information was missing. They searched for it but it was clear that whatever money William had was long gone and not to be recovered.