The bell in Elmwood had been ringing steadily for months as Mr. Walker moved down the street, the small old lantern swinging silently at his side. Its soft orange beams cut through the dim light of the sunken twilight.
This section of the city had been all but abandoned since the beginning of September. The residents had fled, probably north to St. Louis, to escape the return of their new unwelcome neighbor. Since then, Mr. Walker had encountered a steady stream of appointments. He wasn’t the kind of person to grow weary of his profession, but even he had to admit that sometimes too much business was just as tiresome as no business at all.
He wasn’t quite sure which house he was looking for this evening, but that was the usual way of things. The wandering was a part of it, slowly pushing his way through the hot air, the ground soft and loose from the ever encroaching humidity. When he finally arrived at the walkway to the quiet Victorian home he knew he had found the right place. It was the smell. There was always the smell: the uncomfortably sweet odor of decay mixed with a sulphuric burn of bile and blood that marked the passing of the invisible visitor.
Mr. Walker passed through the shadows of the house like a dying star. The setting sun, just barely hanging in the sky, shaped deep angled beams of darkness against the flowered wallpaper of the downstairs dining room. He ran his hands along the rich table, streaking small lines of darker walnut, almost oil black in dim light, against the pollen-covered surface. The front door had been shut but unlocked when he had entered. The family silver was resting on the sideboard, untouched until this point.
Suddenly pecked by some strange curiosity, Mr. Walker seated himself at the head of the table, looking down the long room and out the large front windows onto the darkening street beyond, quiet except for some distant sound he couldn’t quite place. He sat there, watching the city turn from day to night. He had time to spare. The world beyond the glass gradually deepened until the windows become a blank slate of nothingness. Somewhere, on the far side of the unseen street, an owl cried out as the singing began.
It took Mr. Walker a moment to place it. A gentle strain rolling softly down from the ceiling, so subtle that, if not for the deathly quiet of the house, he never would have heard it. But hear it now he did: soft and low floating down from the rooms above, and, just below the song, another sound, constant and consuming: an invasive insidious buzzing. Mr. Walker, sighed deeply. This complicated things. He considered these sort of encounters distasteful.
He found them at the far end of the second-floor hall. The smell battered him when he opened the door to the girl’s room. For it was a girl’s room, red and white walls and white sheets. She lay there on the bed, small and pale and singing. He always found them singing. Mr. Walker took one step toward the child, when a rising form in the furthest corner of the room caught his attention.
“There’s nothing for you here, anymore,” Mr. Walker spoke, evenly. “Move on.”
Two yellow eyes suddenly opened in the shadows. An intake of breath, rotten and hot, filled the room with buzzing as a soft voice whispered.
“I guess not. But I’m still so hungry. And the cold will be here soon.”
“Yes. It will,” Mr. Walker said.
“Maybe next year.”
“Go.”
Walker stood there, unmoving as the thing crawled through the door, sloughing down the staircase. Walker stepped to the edge of the bed. The little girl lay there, singing in her delirium, so snowy pale, so different now from the yellow form that shared the bed with her.
Mr. Walker spoke gently. “Lily, Lily wake up. It’s time to go.”
Lily stopped her singing, her young eyes opening to see Mr. Walker standing beside the bed, patiently waiting.
“I heard singing. Down towards the river?”
“Yes, you did.”
“Can I go listen, please?”
Mr. Walker smiled and held out his hand. “That’s just why I’m here. To take you right to it.”
Lily looked out the window into the soft darkness, scared for a moment.
“Can I hold your lamp?”
And, lantern in her small hand, they walked together to the river of songs.
JEFF POSSON is a Memphis native and decade-long member of the local theater community. Jeff is an actor, Ostrander Award-nominated director, stage manager, dramaturg, and teacher. He is a founding company member and resident dramaturg for Threepenny Theatre Company. Jeff's play The Second Savior of Cambert County was featured in Voices of the South's new play workshop series and his 10-minute plays Tea Time at Kensingmore Gardens and Omnivorous will be presented at Lone Tree Project's Sci-Fi Scratch Night this October. This is his first venture in (very) short story writing.
SHORT AND SWEET (or not-so-sweet), the Very Short Story Contest welcomes entries of up to 750 words, maximum. Writers are encouraged to incorporate the city into their work. Winning stories will be published in Memphis and archived on memphismagazine.com. Whereas the fiction contest was in the past a once-a-year event, the Very Short Story Contest will recognize ten winning entries annually, every month except February and August. The Very Short Story Contest is presented by Novel, Memphis' newest independent bookstore, where each winning author will be honored with a $200 gift certificate. To submit your story, send it via email, accompanied by a brief bio, to fiction@memphismagazine.com.
