s13ep study

The suburb was a dead giveaway—
too many people, too few people, elm trees,
a jack-o-lantern on a porch with its mouth caved in.
A street that exists only
so something can go wrong on it.

I clocked him three blocks out.
White mask. Coveralls.
Walking like a man
who has never once been late
and resents the concept of running.

Look. I've seen this one.
Turned left. He was there.
Turned right. There again.
Stood still and he stood stiller,
head cocked like I'd asked him
a question in a language
he was deciding whether to learn.

I turned three corners
and each one was the first.
Classic. Very on-brand.

So I ran, because what else,
and the dream did what dreams do—
reshuffled the deck,
dealt me a lake.

Fog. Dock. Water slapping wood
in a rhythm like counting.

A summer camp with no counselors
and one very committed lifeguard
hauling himself out of the water
like the word "drowned"
was more of a suggestion.

Hockey mask. Machete.
Built like a vending machine
someone taught to hold a grudge.

Two? I said.
You're sending me two?

The dream said nothing,
which is the most honest thing
a dream has ever done.

I found a cabin. Threw the bolt.
Made a joke about curb appeal.
I don't remember the wording.
I remember the bolt
sliding open
under somebody else's hand
and the joke stopping
halfway through my mouth.

I ran again. Kept running
until the fog thinned and the lake
was behind me and I couldn't hear
anything following and I thought
I'm going to make it
and couldn't find a punchline
for what that felt like.

Then I woke up.
Sheets. Ceiling fan. Alarm clock.
Three perfectly ordinary things
I had nothing to say about.

The fan ticked its slow count—
the same rhythm as the dock.

I lay there breathing
and the breathing
was the only sound.

The thermostat read 112.

The walls began to sweat.
From the basement I don't have
came the sound of metal
dragging across metal,
four parallel blades singing
against a pipe,
keeping time.

A voice like a burn ward
drifted up through the floorboards:

You keep thinking
there's a door in here.

The ceiling opened like a mouth
and the air that came through
was the kind of hot
that has a taste—
copper and rust
and something underneath
like a machine left running
long past the end of its shift.

The figure stood in the steam,
the way the first one stood—patient,
tilted, sure of the room.

He had four blades for a hand
and a face like something
that happened to someone else.

I noticed that.
The way I'd noticed the mask,
the machete, the coveralls.
Same eye. Same habit.
Except now I was just
counting on his fingers.