#001: the visitor

a short story series from keepsake

The Visitor

Something was making Robert sick. It was the fifteenth of August, unseasonably warm, yet here he was, shivering in the afternoon. For weeks, it had been happening. It started in his throat, and the next day, it ballooned up to his head. It wasn't just his head, though; his symptoms were all over the place: strange migraines, blurred vision, aches concurrent with rare types of cancer. He pleaded on the phone daily with his doctor.

“Just get some rest.” He would tell him with his very sad voice. His doctor was always very, very sad for him, which Robert appreciated. Too often he would get the bitter sting of indifference from the people he complained to: Mother, therapist, pharmacist, grocer. None of them had the sobriety of Doctor Schneider. 

“All I do is rest,” Robert would reply. “I think it's something with the house.” 

From the moment he moved in, he knew this house would be the end of him. His brother had passed away in the spring and left behind a wake of things that needed tending to. There was the old house on Potter Road, of course. There were documents from thirty years prior alluding to debt owed on a poker game and, mystifyingly, a sea of vintage suits. Robert had never once seen him wear one. Threadbare yet neatly pressed, patiently waiting to be useful.

When he arrived at the house, the first thing he did was open all of the windows. Mother said this is the best way to clean. Out with the old, in with the new. He spent the entire afternoon dusting and mopping the floors, pushing sudsy water out onto the back porch, and watching it slosh through the slats in the wood. It felt good to do something with his hands again. He had always been cautioned against being too cerebral, too delicate. The older he got, the more he understood the warning. At forty-five, he was completely gray. Soft hands gave way to a soft stomach, and his right shoulder sloped slightly lower than the left. He spent most of his life lopsided, always bending down to meet someone's ear.

“Only so much you can do about that,” Doctor Schneider shook his head sadly for him. “Such a shame.”

Robert nodded solemnly. It really was a shame.

After all his scrubbing, the place still wouldn't clean. There was some kind of smell baked into the wallpaper. He spent entire evenings following his nose around the house, always certain he was getting closer to the source. It wasn't quite sour– it was almost sweet. Sickly sweet, really. Like someone left a lemon rotting in the sun. Just when he thought it was fading, the air would stir, and there it was again. Stinging his nostrils and spoiling his mood.

When he couldn't fix the smell, he set out on more attainable projects. There was organizing the library, Robert's favorite task. The shelves were thick with dust and vacant, aside from the stray VHS tape. He read the yellowing labels as if a message would appear from beyond the grave. The only thing he gleaned was just how obsessively his brother taped The World Series from '89-'02. He cleared them off and tucked them away in the hall closet. The wood seemed so grateful when Robert unpacked his books, spines all gleaming as they tucked neatly into rows. After that, he took a day to sand and repaint the peeling shutters a cheery yellow. When he finished, he stood in the yard for a while, admiring his work. He imagined neighbors passing by on parade, weeping with joy as they thanked him for correcting the eyesore. 

Neighbors seemed scarce around here though. Once a week Robert would make the drive into town and he would watch as the road went from dotted to dense with little houses. He would pick up his medication at the pharmacy and he would check the post office for packages. Mail always seemed to go missing on Potter Road, so he had anything important routed there. He would greet his empty mailbox and wait patiently in line just to double-check if anything came for him.

“There's nothing here for you.” The woman behind the counter would say. She didn't sound very sad for him at all. 

His favorite part about town, though, was the grocery store. Everything was always so clean and orderly. He would wear a nice shirt and smile at the mothers pushing their babies around. He would take extra care to call the butcher "sir." He especially loved talking to the woman in the floral department. She was taller than Robert, definitely younger, and had the most wonderful smile. It was like each tooth was fighting to be seen first, crowding her mouth and stretching her face into this remarkable grin. She wasn't just beautiful; she was also kind. Robert had observed her grief-stricken face when a customer informed her they were out of his favorite canned tomatoes. He had even been the object of her kindness once, just after purchasing new glasses. 

“You've got new glasses.” She smiled. His cheeks were blooming all day. 

It had been so long since he felt well enough to venture into town, though. Two weeks. Or had it been three weeks? Time was passing strangely these days. When he came down with his first fever, he phoned the market for delivery. Secretly, he was hoping the woman would come deliver the groceries herself. He would thank her for the trouble, and she would insist on bringing them inside for him. She would stay longer than she needed to, and make him soup and take his temperature. He forced his damp skin into a shirt and tie that morning, just in case it was her. When the car pulled into the driveway, he felt embarrassed he had even hoped it would be. 

Now, the burn of fever had left him, but the chills never did. It was beyond Doctor Schneider, who had already prescribed him everything under the sun for his myriad of symptoms: antibiotics when he was sure it was strep throat. Steroid cream when he had the 48-hour hives. Nothing was fixing him. He could feel all of them turning on him, his pharmacist letting out a poorly concealed sigh when he would call for a refill, but he couldn't stop himself. Even if nobody believed him, he knew there was something wrong.

It was late that night when he concluded he must be dying. He took an Epsom bath and two pills with dinner and tucked squarely into bed by six. Try as he might, he couldn't get to sleep. He had three layers of blankets and his winter socks on, but still, he was left cold. He stayed awake as the golden hour yawned across the bedroom wall and eventually went black again. He listened to crickets and coughed dryly into his hand. Was the cough a new symptom or an old one? It was hard to keep track anymore.

He didn't want to admit it, but it was all getting to be a bit much for him. Robert typically liked keeping track of his ailments. It was a consistent schedule he could rely on, and it even served as entertainment on his slower days. Things felt different now. His brother went so suddenly, and Mother had her fall soon after. He stayed by her side for her recovery and still sent the occasional check towards her new hip, but he missed when he was the one who was feeble. It had been decades since he allowed himself to cry, but he felt the urge so often these days. Not a sad cry either, a frustrated one. Like a child throwing a fit when he doesn't get his way. He wanted to hit and kick and cry into her chest and have her perfumed neck absorb the sobs.

By midnight, he was lying very still, finally letting his eyes flutter shut when he heard an unfamiliar sound. The house was always making noises, and Robert was reasonable enough to conclude that most of the time, it was the wind. The floors were old, and the stairs, in particular, creaked something awful. When he was first moving his things into the bedroom, he took note of the sound and likened it to a barn owl's scream. This sound was different, though; it wasn't of nature. It sounded like an electric hum. 

Too weak to investigate properly, he turned his head slowly to the door. It opened a crack, and a thin sliver of light shone from the hall. Had Robert left the light on? It didn't seem likely. He had a routine he went through every evening, and that was an important part of the checklist. First, he would secure the windows and check the lock on the door. Then, he would walk through the kitchen to ensure he didn't have any washing up to do. He would make piping hot black tea and carry it cautiously through the rest of the house as he made his rounds, the steam rising to fog his glasses. 

Robert stared and realized this couldn't be the hall light. It was brighter than that, and it was moving closer to his door. He watched curiously as it seemed to bob up and down, descending the hallway like a swollen lightning bug. He felt his hand start to shake as he pushed himself up for a better view. It was about four inches, wide as it was tall, but it looked to him like it was continuing to grow. The sound was louder now, too. A consistent buzz filled the room as it tilted towards Robert, who was, by the way, quite alarmed. 

"Who are you?" He asked. It wasn't what he expected to say.

The light said nothing, which was to be expected, though he thought he briefly saw it consider responding. Its edges began to blur and the shape changed from tightly packed to amorphous. Robert couldn't believe the heat coming off it. It felt like sunlight on the beach, like those summers growing up when they'd spend a week in the pines. It was obtrusive but warm, and he found himself basking in it as it grew larger and louder still. 

If only Doctor Schneider could see him now. Weeks ago, he reported visual auras when he bent down to tie his shoelaces, and he was met only with the usual condolences. No x-rays, no ocular therapy. Surely there was some connection here. The light was widening like a mouth in front of him, and he felt a cold sweat begin to bead at his temple. The larger it got, the more intent it seemed to swallow him whole. His breath quickened as it approached the foot of the bed, alien and exact as it traced up his leg. Perhaps it was exactly that– a being from another planet. Robert had read a comic book with a similar plot when he was a teenager. The man was alone at his farm when a beam of light shot down like a dagger and pulled him to the sky.

“Please,” He pleaded, throat thick. He was always saying that. Please, can you check again? Please take a look at it anyway. Please call me as soon as you get this. 

It was directly above him now, rattling the furniture as it hummed and glowed. He watched as his picture frames trembled before it. It seemed for a moment like it would pull him through the ceiling and whisk him away, but in his bed he remained. The sound got softer. He could hear the crickets again. The entire house was moving, and then it wasn't. A feeling rose in his chest only to sink like a ship with the tide. As quickly as this new friend came, it was leaving. A panic set fire within him. He tried to reassure it, stroked it with his fingers, but it continued to shrink. Didn't he want it to leave? He couldn't remember what he found so frightening before. The room fell back to darkness, and he was tearfully alone. It was darker than dark. Blacker than night. Something had blocked off the moon and turned the stars to soot.

“I don't want to be alone anymore.” He whispered, and the house creaked its reply.

—

Thank you for reading keepsake’s first fiction piece. Robert came to me in the space before sleep as his friend came to him, and I hope you too can keep him company.