Fred Hesser

“I’m here to see Wendy.”

Sounds pretty innocent, doesn’t it?

Shows what you know.

I don’t know how I knew it, but I did, from a very early age. Somebody must have told me. Over at that combo gas station/taco place on the other side of town. There is a man, his name is Leon, and he sits at the corner table near the back. You’ll see him there every day (except Thursday), from the time they open to the time they close. He never eats tacos. I’ve never seen him eat anything at all. He just sits, sipping on a tooth-rotting blend of mountain dew (from the taco place side) and cheap whiskey (from the gas station side).

I can’t remember who told me, but it was common knowledge. Everybody knows: that guy at the taco place is Leon, and you talk to him if you want to see Wendy.

But everybody knows, without a doubt, even if they’ve never asked and can’t remember who told them. Asking about Wendy is something you shouldn’t do.

I did though.

I shouldn’t have but I did. I’ve done it more than once.

I can’t help it.

I go to Leon and I sit down at the table across from him. He looks up and blinks. He doesn’t speak, but the question is there.

What do you want?

He knows of course. How could he not. It’s the only thing people come to him for. But I have to ask for her. I have to say it.

“I’m here to see Wendy.”

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“Can you hear it!? Can’t you hear it!?” the old man would cry to anyone who crossed his path. He was a staple of the town, a part of the local flavor, a landmark even. Sure he scared some people, but somebody was usually there to explain.

“Oh that’s just….what’s his name…I don’t remember. He yells at people sometimes. I think he’s homeless. Mentally unsound. I think he’s a veteran or something so nobody makes too much of a fuss. Just try to ignore him.”

On the rare occasion things got out of hand, if he grabbed someone, if someone was truly afraid, the cops would come by and pick him up. They weren’t mean to him, they’d seen him around enough to know the score. They’d take him to lock up if they thought he was drunk (sometimes he was), but if not they usually let him go. Sometimes they’d take him to the center for the homeless in town and try to get him help, but no matter what they did, they knew he’d be back on the streets in a few days. Back to shouting at people. Asking if they heard it.

Sometimes somebody would stop. Usually out of pity, but sometimes out of interest. They’d ask him what he meant. What did he hear. He could never explain it.

“It!” He would shout insistently “Can’t you hear it!?”

The charitable or curious would cock their heads. They would listen. They would strain to listen. When they did, that was the only time the old man was ever truly quiet. Most people never heard anything.

But some did.

There were strings. Perhaps violins, or something bigger like a cello, that stretched and pulled notes out until they were as thin as tissue paper. Then a drum, or a bell….perhaps a gong, that pierced the paper irregularly to force its way to the front. It was hard to make out. It was so faint.

So quiet.

Imagine music, and you know it’s being played loud. Too loud. But it’s also not close. Like a neighbor two floors down, playing music just loud enough to hear on the edges of your mind. So quiet, to the point where you can barely make it out. Your brain starts straining to put the song together. It has to doesn’t it. That’s just how the brain works. It looks for patterns, but the pattern isn’t there. The music is too distant. So your ears are desperately trying to hear more, and your brain is desperately trying to figure it out, and you are more confused and distracted than if it was blasting right in your face.

For those who heard the music, it was like that, but worse.

Because they could hear enough. Enough to get the gist. Enough to know they didn’t want to hear the rest.

Enough to hear the conductor through the orchestra.

A shiver would run down their spines, and they would lie.

Every one of them would lie.

“No, I’m sorry, I don’t hear anything.”

The old man knew though. He always knew. They would leave the old man shouting, begging, pleading on the street. Demanding that they tell the truth. Tell the others what they heard.

“Please,” he would say, “please tell me you’ll help.”

No one did.

They all went home. They went back to their lives. Most even convinced themselves they hadn’t actually heard anything, and some eventually forgot even meeting the old man on the street.

But on clear nights, when the wind was high, and the moon lit up the world, they would toss and turn in bed, kept all night from restful sleep by the distant sounds of strings and drums. Always at the edge of hearing.

But always getting closer.

Sarah was running. Technically she was ‘running away,’ but there was no ‘away.’ Not really. Sarah had finally started to understand that.

It had started after she’d seen that boy from school kill one of those dogs. She’d been up late (or early as she had told her parents) and had seen it happening. Actually seen it.

She’d tried to tell people what happened. She didn’t know the boy very well. He was a couple grades ahead of her, a Senior she thought. She thought his name was Will, but maybe that was wrong. She knew what they said about him wasn’t true. They said he was insane. They said he killed the dogs for fun, and that it was was good that he was locked up before he hurt anyone else. They said boys like him grew up into serial killers. That janitor he injured should press charges, they said.

Sarah had tried to tell everyone. She couldn’t tell them everything of course, but she told them: he didn’t do it for fun. She’d seen how scared he had been. Even if there wasn’t an actual monster like he had said, if he was really truly scared of one, that counted for something, right?

Even if there wasn’t a monster.

Sarah didn’t tell them the other part. She knew no one would believe her.

She’d heard shouting outside her bedroom, and when she looked out she saw the boy hacking away at the dog. She was shocked. She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Sarah wanted to run out to the street and make him stop, but she was paralyzed in disbelief and…something else. Something was wrong. Something beyond the inhumanity of murdering a dog.

Then she saw it. It was like a dam breaking in her mind and all that her brain had tried desperately to filter out came rushing in.

It was hideous. Grotesque. Wrong.

It was a monster.

And it was inside the dog.

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