"The Hotel Harris" by Eryne Thibeau

“How did you come to know Catherine Cormier?”

“Kitty? We both lived at The Harris.”

“The Hotel Harris, downtown?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“And what brought you to the Hotel Harris?”

“The same thing that brings anyone there. Bad luck.”

“You think it was luck?”

“Call it what you want.”

“But you call it bad luck?”

“A lifetime of it. Yuh.”

“What was the bad luck, exactly, that led you to live there?”

“I moved in there after I got out of prison. You pay by the week. You know, a flop house. It was cheap.”

“And Catherine. Or Kitty. She lived there?”

“Yeah, she had been there for years.”

“So you two, you became friends?”

“Sure.”

“You seem an odd pair.”

“How’s that?”

“Well you're, what, 35? An ex-con? And she’s in her 70s, little old French lady.”

“Ex-con? Man, you got a lot to learn about this place. I did time for writing bad checks, stealing chainsaws, and possession. Lots of people round here end up in jail.”

“It was prison, Cato, wasn’t it? What about the assaults? The armed robbery?”

“Sure.”

“So regardless. You became friends?”

“I told you that.”

“What kind of friends?”

“What the fuck are you asking?”

“I just mean. Can you tell me about your friendship? I’m having a hard time…understanding it.”

“There’s nothing to understand. We drank. Whiskey will make you a fast friend. If you’re down on your luck, and you’re at The Harris, you got nothing but time on your hands. You find ways to get through it. To hang your days on something.”

“I see. So you drank together?”

“We were known to have a few drinks at her kitchen table. Sometimes down at Peppermints.”

“And sometimes other people drank with you?”

“Sure.”

“Who would that have been?”

“I don’t know. Whoever.”

“Like Timothy Richmond?”

“Timmy? Sure I guess.”

“How about Jason Davis?”

“Who?”

“Jason Davis. Worked at the mill.”

“Everybody worked at the mill.”

“Jason had a dog. A rottweiler I believe.”

“Oh. The big guy.”

“Yes. Did he drink with you?”

“Probably. I mean sure. He was around. He was at Peppermints a lot. For awhile. What’s he got to do with anything?”

“Well that’s what I’m trying to figure out. I’m trying to understand who all was involved.”

“Involved in what?”

“Well, Catherine Cormier went missing more than 6 months ago. No one has seen her, nor has she touched any of her assets. Her family believes she’s dead.”

“Family? Who is that?”

“Her brother’s daughter. Her niece.”

“Never heard nothing about her.”

“Well, we are trying to find out what happened.”

“Ok.”

“Do you know what happened, Mr. Bond? To Kitty?”

Cato Bond

Some people inherit money. Or a perfect face. But in my family you inherit bad luck. More like a curse, to be honest. A life of hard work, pain, loss. My old man died in the military, and not in an honorable way. I’ll just leave it at that. My mother had me at 19, and she bounced around from one bad boyfriend to the next. I stayed with her sometimes, but mostly with my Grammie. She was nearly blind, and she took in piece work to make money. Grammie sat on an old brown stinking sofa, chain smoking, and sewing leather together for shoes. Her hands were so calloused and worn she could jab a needle into her palm and not feel a thing. She used to throw glass ashtrays at me when she was pissed. She drank sherry. 

Everybody works at the paper mill around here. And when I was 13 I got my first job there. Sorting rags. Then I moved up to Hole Watch. The mill is a beast. Big like a mountain. You can’t ever really see the whole of it, unless you’re way up, like a bird. Inside it’s loud, and dark, and filled with heat, reek, and men who have worked themselves into their own damnation. It was my lot in life to work there, and the weight of that lay heavy on me, even before I could buy a drink. I hated that place. The smell of it. The way it never slept, never rested. It ate men. Chewed them in it’s metal maw. Gummed them down into the pulp they made the paper from. It sits in the center of town like a monster, clearly sentient, clearly malicious. It eats the poor and spits out money, money for someone else. It’s a filthy system.

So I got into the pills. I won’t bore you with the details, but by the late 90s I’d been in the game long enough to ride the Oxycontin wave to something that felt like freedom. Higher than fuck all the time, dealing, flush with cash. I got a new truck. Claudia and I had a place, a little trailer. Quiet little spot. She used to hang the laundry out in the yard. But the good times dried up quick. As they always do when you’re playing that game. I don’t know. But, I lost all of it. Her, the truck, the little trailer with the bed of daffodils in the front. In and out of jail, sure. Sleeping on people’s couches. I ended up in prison on a aggravated narcotics charge. They got me coming back from Lynne, Mass. with 100 grams of H. I was already on probation. There was stolen shit in the truck, the tags were expired. There’s more to the story. But, you get the idea. I was fucked.

When I got out of prison I had nothing. I didn’t even have clothes to wear as they’d “lost” the shit I came in with. I left in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. It was January. I would have liked to have left town. Left Rumford. But I had probation. I didn’t have a job, or a dime, or a car. Nowhere to go. So ended up downtown at The Harris. It’s a boarding house. You rent a room. Each floor has a shared bathroom. Laundry in the basement. Payphone in the lobby. People from away might think it’s fancy. The exterior is. Grand and imposing, with a sign on the roof that lights up at night spelling out Hotel Harris. But they probably haven’t been inside. It smells like piss and is full of broken, sick folks. Sometimes they’re dangerous, because sometimes when you push someone against a wall, they attack. It’s just nature. Human. Dog. Nothing likes being cornered like that.

The Harris was, at one time, a grand hotel. Built during the boom time, when Rumford was alive with industry, and families were coming in for jobs at a mill that couldn’t make the paper fast enough. Well, those days are long gone. And if you’ve driven through Rumford of late you’ll see that she has lost her shine. Not just the Hotel Harris but the whole damn city. The Harris still stands, a beautiful building if you see it from a distance. The entire top floor was shut down when I was there. But it had two floors of rooms, and a grand lobby downstairs. The rest of the downstairs was a restaurant, which was permanently closed, and a department store, also permanently closed. My favorite thing was the front desk, a big wooden thing with a series of cubbies behind it. Covered in dust and deserted. But I could picture a well-dressed person waiting there, a shiny bell, a brass trolley for bags. Some nights I swear I saw the shadow of those things. But then someone upstairs would holler, or some pile of rags would shuffle in, use the pay phone, and ruin it. You could sense something below the surface there. Something that glowed kind of golden and soft. But then the shabbiness was back; the stink, the fluorescent lights buzzing. Time as thin as the carpet.

Kitty lived on the second floor. She had a corner room. Bigger than mine. And she had a window. Big nice window looking over the street. My room had no window.  A dark shitty room, with a moldy carpet, a single bed, a sink, and no fucking window. My cell in Windhoek was bigger. But having a key to get out is nice. She had her kitchen table there by the window, and one day I helped her get her laundry cart up the stairs. Cause the elevator was out. Again. I helped her and she made some coffee, and we sat and smoked at that table. And when I left she said she had a drink from time to time. She pointed to her mini fridge, atop which sat a bottle of whiskey. Expensive. The big bottle. Well I nodded, and I took note. And I guess you could say we became friends that day.

I’d walk out to the side alley and smoke, as I couldn’t stand to do it in my windowless room. But if it was poor weather I didn’t want to stand out there, so I’d knock on Kitty’s door. She was always up. And we’d sit at her table, have a few drinks, and smoke. She had that window. So there was that. She told me about how she’d pick blueberries with her whole family in the summer when she was just a kid. How they’d stay in a cabin, sleep on the floor, no running water, and spend all day in the baking sun raking blueberries, covered in bug bites, poison ivy, and filth. How she hated blueberries. Thought they tasted like pain. I told her how I once saw a baby fawn get swept down the Androscoggin, when the river was roaring after a rain, and how the doe dove in and rescued her baby. Swam the rapids and got the tiny fawn onto the other shore, the little thing bleating like a screaming child. “Well there,” Kitty said, her eyes shining, “I like that story.” 

We’d walk down to the store to get another bottle. Or some beer. Or some smokes. The town would be nearly deserted in the night. And come winter, with the snow sifting down and the streets void of tracks of any kind, the whole place looked like a sound stage. An empty set. The Harris was one of many impressive buildings downtown. And though it was desolate, those structures still communicated grandeur. Walking around out there you’d feel like you’d slipped right out of time. And we’d talk about albino moose, and men who killed their whole families, and her Grampy kicking a bear in the head one night when he was blind drunk and the little bear attacked their dog. Or all the weird ways people have died in the mill. Back in Kitty’s room, she’d put on a kettle for hot toddies and we’d find a movie on TV. She liked Bruce Willis and I liked watching her work her knitting. What can I say? We were comfortable with one another. She never asked about prison, I never asked her about her marriage of 40 years to a man I knew to be a wicked little piss-ant. With a temper. We just kept time together. It seemed natural.

I had gotten work at The Mill. Back in the beast. Hating every moment of it. I had a checkered past at the mill and I was a felon, so they let me know that I would need to prove myself. Well, that didn’t sit right with me. And about 3 months later I was laid off for being late and missing work. Cause of the drink. Cause I didn’t give a shit. Cause I hated that place. Cause it’s what I do. And once I was out of work I guess I started drinking more. Long days. Longer nights. By that second winter at the Harris Kitty and I drank together most every night. And it wasn’t uncommon for us to take a walk, like I said, to get something more to drink. Jeannie’s store on the corner across the bridge, off the island, was open all night. It was a bit of a walk. But it was one we took many times. Peppermints, the local bar, saw our asses from time to time, but if you’re on a budget you go wholesale. You go for a bottle.

Sometimes we’d open the bottle on the walk back. Not at first, I don’t think, but at some point, it happened, and then it became more common. Then we’d sometimes meander back down to the end of the main street. The Mill would be running. Always. Day and night. Every year it’s a smaller and smaller crew, but it’s running, those machines never stop. There’s a little car bridge down at the end of Main. It kind of runs through a little patch of woods back there, so if you’re walking you suddenly turn into a dark tunnel and it’s dark for a bit before some lights from The Mill hit the road. Off the bridge, you see the slurry pits, and they are all lit up. They have sort of fountains spinning round down there, stirring up the mix. It stinks, but it’s pretty. In the winter the steam rises up over there so you’re in a putrid fairy land. We’d stand there watching the slurry and sipping our drink and not saying much. The sky some nights was inky and purple and odd, other nights it was dark and awash in a billion sharp little stars. Those were nice nights. Those were nice walks.

Kitty Cormier

They say drink will make fast friends. I don’t know that it’s true. I’ve seen drink make much faster fights than anything. But I do think when you are a real drinker, a professional drinker, you find those like you. You can find them fast. I’ve had many, many drinking buddies over the years. More than I can count, more than I can remember. I’ve probably forgotten the names and faces of people I spent hundreds of hours with. That might make some people sad, but I count forgetting as a gift too. I’ve been around seven decades now, and the drink has touched six of them. 

I met Cato on the stairs in the Hotel Harris. I was hauling my laundry cart up, cause the elevator was broken again. He spotted me. jogged across the lobby, and hoisted that cart like it weighed nothing. He was a tough, sinewy guy with a little weasel face. I’ve seen many like him. No chin, tiny eyes, all angles. This town manufactures them it seems. Muscle, grime, greasy hair, thick work clothes, and nowhere to go. Caged. Pent up. With a shadow of fear sketched on his face. He brought my cart into my room. He commented on my windows. He had one of the small rooms in the back hall. No windows. He told me he was just out of prison and the room he’d come from wasn’t too much different. Only he could walk out his door. Which is a difference. It is. Well, I poured him a cup of coffee, watered my geraniums, and asked him about his plans. He had just started back up at the mill, of course. But I sensed it wouldn’t last long. They’d put him on hole watch. Which is a sorry position for a grown man. His skin bristled like an animal’s when he spoke of it. His eyes went to a bottle I had atop my mini fridge. Makers Mark. A gift. When he left I invited him by for a drink sometime. He nodded like he wouldn’t come, like it wasn’t going to happen. But I knew he would. And he did.

Well, we met in the summer, but by the following spring, an ugly one, as always, he was out of work. And he did what most men round here do with time on their hands, he set into the drink for real. Like it was his job. He lost weight, which did not suit him, and he slept in ‘till late afternoon. I had things to do. Errands, people to stop in and see, laundry, cleaning. But by the evening I’d be free to have a few drinks. And that started to be a regular routine.

Now I’m an old, old lady, and I have more ailments than I could list here. Bad hip, knee, eyes, stomach. The whole works is going down. But the thing about old ladies like me is that despite the body failing, I am resilient. I don’t stop. And with fresh whiskey in my veins, I can find my energies again. We’d go out to smoke, we’d go down to Peppermints if we happened to have a twenty in our pockets, and we’d walk off the island (as they call the area round the mill) and into town to buy a bottle or some smokes. Long night walks. It was soothing and quiet. Just keeping time with one another. I never thought too much about it. I try to not look too deep into much of anything anymore. That’s a young man’s game. Life happens and you just go along to get along. Friendship is probably the sweetest gift the world might give you. Take your bits of sweetness and hold them close, cause most of the time it’s hardship and pain that will be walking your road with you.

Cato Bond

I can’t say I trust my memory. But I can tell you how I remember it starting. I’m not sure when, exactly, but Kitty and I had come into the lobby after walking to the store for smokes and some beer. Chasers for the bottle upstairs. It was late, dark, but it’s winter so it’s dark all the time. It was late though. There hadn’t been anyone out. We started up the stairs to the second floor when Kitty stopped. She was looking up to the second-floor landing, where a balcony overlooks the lobby downstairs. There was a little common area there, some tables, and a few upholstered wingback chairs. I stared at her a minute, then I looked up to where she was looking. There was someone sitting in one of the wing-backed chairs. Which was odd but not unheard of. It was late, but it’s the Harris, you’ll see any manner of folks wandering the halls at any hour of the night. Like us for instance. I was about to turn back to Kitty and ask her who it was when my eyes blurred a bit, then refocused. Or maybe the woman blurred and then refocused. I don’t know. My eyes are good. Always have been. Never had glasses, still don’t. I used to spot deer out in the field better than anyone in my family. My Mother told me I had eagle eyes. Seemed to please her. But I had been drinking, it was late, I can’t say for sure. The person in the chair was clearly a woman. Long dark hair, light clothing, pale face. But the whole thing was blurry. I don’t know how else to state it. Also this woman; I didn’t recognize her. It’s mostly men at the Harris. I felt something shimmy along my skin, down my spine. My stomach did a slow slide.

“Who is that?” I murmured, not even meaning to speak.

Suddenly Kitty started moving up the stairs at a rapid clip, and I followed her. She turned hard at the top of the stairs towards her door, away from the chairs. I didn’t turn and look. I wanted to. I felt a strong need to. But Kitty was pointedly not looking, and walking fast, so I did the same. I felt something back there. Kitty unlocked her door.  We went in and Kitty slammed it behind her, locked it, and engaged the chain, which she never used. Or not when I was there. I went and sat on the couch, dropping the beer onto the floor. My knees felt loose. I was trembling a bit and I rubbed my hands together. I waited for Kitty to say something. She stood with her back to me, facing the closed door. Listening maybe? Or just regrouping. She then went and got two juice glasses. She poured out some whisky and I pulled two cans off the sixer and cracked them, sitting them on her coffee table. We sipped the warm booze and the cold fizz. She sat at the table. I sat on the couch. We didn’t speak of it. And as I sat there I talked myself out of it. Someone was in the chair but not a long dark-haired lady. Just some old bum. Or maybe no one was in the chair. Perhaps someone left a sweatshirt hanging on it. It was dimly lit in the hallway, and the common area was in even deeper shadow. So we didn’t speak of it that night.

Besides drinking with Kitty I was spending time drinking alone in my room. And I found myself pacing and thinking about the past. Imagining different outcomes. Imagining running into some people from back then and having them admire or desire me. I put music on and ran over these “stories” again and again, circling the tight edges of my room, stopping to take another sip as I passed the nightstand where my bottle of old granddad sat, and imagining my ex leaning in, asking how I was, looking me up and down, liking what she saw. In these scenarios, I wasn’t unemployed and living at the Harris. I wasn’t scrawny and dirty and drunk at 10 in the morning. I felt the warmth of being wanted, of being strong, of having all those fuckers who walked away from me (bosses, stepfathers, girls, so-called friends) want me, or better yet be jealous of me. I could feel it. Even though the reality was that I wasn’t admired or desired, no one was jealous. I was alone in a room, pacing and drinking like a crazy person. I felt weird about the ritual, but I also looked forward to those sessions. It was a secret. Along with how much I was drinking in a day.

Kitty Cormier

People talk about belief. If they believe in ghosts or the afterlife. But I don’t think belief has much to do with it. I’ve seen things I can’t explain my whole life. I sat bedside with my Grammie, my Mother, my Father, and my brother, all who died in our home. All of them saw people in the room at the end, right before they went. With Grammie it was her mother and sister. She named them, seemed happy to see them. Patted my hand and said she knew she’d be ok. My Father was scared. Said a man was standing in the corner. In a suit. Didn’t seem to know him and felt afraid of him. And my Mother saw all kinds of people in the room, and a few cats. Angels, she called them. My brother saw our Mother, as she had passed years before. He was dying of cancer. Only 44 years old. Many of the men who worked at the mill died of cancer. 

When I was 15 or so I saw lights in the sky. Orbs, two or three. Not just once but several nights in a row. Cold, cold nights. They slid around the sky moving every which way. Playful, fast, you couldn’t predict it. I don’t know what they were and I never saw anything like thatagain, but one of those nights my brother was with me and he saw them too. They were there, I just don’t know what they were. And that’s it right, an unidentified flying object? I’m not saying it was an alien, I don’t know. 

I saw things at the Harris. Someone slipping around the corner of the hall on the third floor, up towards the stairs. I would hear someone walk up to my door and stop, and thinking it might be Cato, I’d pop the door open. No one. And in the common area. Yes, many times I saw someone up there, usually from the lobby down below. A woman. I was with Cato when I saw her. I didn’t bring it up and thought I’d wait for him to bring it up, if he did notice. Or not. Like I said, I’m not one to make a big deal out of these things. They are. We are. What’s the fuss? And we’d always all been drinking.

The woman though. She was specific. I kept seeing her in that common area.  And one night, when Cato and I were coming up the stairs something different happened. I saw her, and when I looked at her she turned her face and looked at me. At us, in fact. Right at us. It was the first time this had happened and it changed the whole thing. I felt her see me. I felt her look at me, as I had looked at her many times. We saw each other.  

Cato Bond

I started having nightmares. The content of these dreams is bleary, but the terror I remember vividly. I would wake up from them screaming, or making moaning sounds that sounded like they were coming from an animal.But that animal was me. I was in the Harris in these dreams. I was walking the halls. Moving up and down stairs, and up and down the corridors. But always converging, or being pulled, to that second-story landing. I would fall through the dream in layers, awakening in my room, and suddenly realizing it was still a dream when I saw a stranger standing near the door, or a strange cat with limbs bent the wrong way. It would happen over and over, each layer I fell into more bizarre and twisted than the last. A few times I had sleep paralysis, waking up and being completely immobilized. Just awash in terror. But that’s the DTs I guess. Or he Harris. Or both monsters, dancing in the dark of the night. It is hard for me to separate the nightmares from the reality. My dreams were always in the Harris. There aren’t clear lines of demarcation. My days were often spent in a trance in my room. There but not there, pacing the floor. It all becomes very blurry.

We went to Peppermints the night of the incident. Kitty and I. A little hole-in-the-wall bar about 100 feet from the Harris. It was owned by a guy named Randy. He’d lost an eye at the mill. He’d been a teenager when it happened, 35 years ago or so. A machine busted and a long, thin piece of metal went into his eye. Famously, it was sticking out several inches, buthe said it didn’t really hurt initially. And he could still see out of the eye, even with this metal rod in there. But the eye was ruined, and he quickly lost all the vision. The eyeball itself was so damaged they had to remove it. He tried to wear a fake eye for a while but gave it up. Said it was damn uncomfortable. So the socket collapsed a bit over time, and then his entire face on that side collapsed a bit over time. He doesn’t wear a patch either. Now at 50, he is some kind of goblin. Rough looking hole in his face, everything sliding to the right. You get used to it.

Randy is a friendly son of a bitch and he was in a good mood that night. Kitty and I had several rounds up at the bar, and the place filled up. And then, at some point, she was there. This girl. She wore her long hair in a braid, had a dark hoodie on, and jeans. She said she was passing through. She said she was a hiker. She drank some whisky with us. Bought us a round I think. She was sitting next to me, on my side, and told me about her hike. Up White Cap. I didn’t listen. I was drunk. And not in a good way. Sometimes I’d go a stretch where the booze just hit me bad. I’d feel sick off just a drink or two, but I needed more to not get shaky and terrified, so I’d have to power through, and it just made me feel worse and worse, even as it kept the real DT’s from setting in. It was ugly. But then, a few days or weeks later I’d seemingly snap out of it, and I could drink again, normally. Or not normally, not to any normal person, but normal for me. I could get drunk. I could enjoy it a bit before the greasy slide. But that night it was all greasy. I felt like trash. I couldn’t even pretend to give a shit about the girl. Things like getting laid had fallen away. I was in the shit with the drink.

We went outside to smoke. We went back in. We probably did that a few times. There were other people there and Kitty was chatting with a few. She knew everyone in town. I guess I do too, I just don’t get friendly with no one. But everyone loves Kitty. Eventually, we were back outside and Kitty and I decided to head back. We were out of cash and had been bought all the drinks we’d likely get that night. We walked up the street. It was freakishly warm. Almost misty. We rounded the corner and went into the Harris. It felt ice cold inside. One of those weird things where it gets oddly humid in the winter, a warm snap, and then inside feels cold. There was condensation forming on the big windows that looked out the lobby. Drips had run down the glass here and there making it streaky. I was so drunk I couldn’t look at the windows without the whole scene starting to spin. I felt pretty low.

I was in my room. Alone. In bed. And then someone knocked on my door. I thought it was Kitty. I wanted to ignore it but thought maybe she needed something. I’d be useless to her, was feeling worse and worse, but got up to check. She was old after all. It could be something serious. When I stood to walk to the door, it felt like my foot sank into the floor. Fuck. This wasn’t good. I was all fucked up. Normally I could drink and drink without losing my balance. It tightened up my balance if anything. But tonight everything was sideways. I was low. It had turned on me.

When I opened the door it wasn’t Kitty. It was that girl. From the bar. Dark hoodie up, shadowing her face, hands jammed in pockets of jeans. And then she was in my room. We were sitting on the bed. She had taken the hood off but it was dim and I couldn’t see her very well. She was talking. I think. But I couldn’t really hear her. There was a weird humming sound. But it was just in my head. I was sick. I felt hot and then cold. The room was swaying. I could hear this mumbling, which I think was her. But I couldn’t make out any words. I tried to focus, but it was no use. It was like another language. I think I apologized. I think I tried to tell her I was sick. But I don’t remember what I said, or what she said.

And then she was touching me. I’d feel…something along my arm. I sort of looked but she wasn’t there, but then she’d be right in front of me somehow. Movement. I felt her hair on my face. I felt her breath. But I couldn’t track where she was. Shadows moved around me. I tried to reach out, touch her, to push her away, to be honest. I felt so sick, and whatever she was doing, this weird vague touching, I couldn’t handle it. I felt my hand brush something, but I couldn’t find her really. I slid off the bed onto the floor, but she was still there. Sort of flowing around me. I saw her face, for a moment. Her sharp nose. Her long hair. My eyes hurt. My head hurt. I was covered in cold sweat.

And then my door was wide open. I looked up and saw a big black hole where my white door normally was. Kitty was in the room. There was a commotion. I crawled to the sink. It felt like my hands and knees were sinking into something thick and dense, sinking down below the level of the floor. I curled up under the sink. I might have been out for a minute or two. Suddenly I was back, staring at a pipe. It was very close to my face. I looked around. Kitty was fixing my bed. She turned and saw me. She had turned on my bedside lamp. The room looked normal. White walls, brown carpet. My bed looked so appealing. But hadn’t I just been over there? Hadn’t something terrible been happening? Kitty patted my pillow.

“Get in here, Cato.”

I crawled to the bed and pulled myself into it. Kitty tucked me in. Like a mother. She smoothed a hand over my forehead. I felt the tension ease out of me. I felt myself sink down, down, down.

Kitty Cormier

That night at the bar Cato had seemed off. He sat by himself, staring straight ahead as all the people pressed in. He seemed absent. He’d been quiet lately. But it was late winter. Everyone gets blue round here at the end of winter. Time seems to grind to a halt in March. It might be a nice month in some places, but for my money, March is the ugliest, dirtiest of months in Maine.

When we walked back it was warm out. Oddly so. Fog was oozing out of the snow banks, forming halos around the street lights. Back at the Harris, the big lobby windows were coated in condensation. Warm out and cold within. And something seemed off inside. I couldn’t track it and wrote it off as the weird little warm snap. But something wasn’tright. Cato stumbled up to his room and his door closed. That was unusual too. He was always steady on his feet, even on nights when we worked through a bottle, and tonight had not been that. But who knew what he’d gotten up to earlier in the day? Let him sleep it off.

In my room I felt ill at ease. I put on my electric kettle for tea. It wasn’t unusual for me to have a hard time finding sleep. I’d spent many nights awake at my kitchen table. Working some puzzles. Listening to the radio on low. Just thinking. It looked like this would be one of those nights. I got my cup of tea and sat on my little couch. But I was nervous. I got up and sat at the table. Then I was just pacing around. I felt real nervous. My joints were hurting. This weird weather. And at some point, when I was standing quiet over by the window looking out at the strange misty alleyway down below, I heard someone walking out in the hall. I looked towards my door and I saw a bit of light slip by, on the bottom. It was her. I stood there listening. I could hear her walking down the hall. I heard her stop. A long, long pause. I thought that was it. But then I heard a knocking. Someone knocking on a door. 

My mind did a lot of gymnastics right then. All in one moment: It wasn’t her. It was someone else going to visit someone. It sounded like it was down by Cato’s door. It was her. And she was knocking on Cato’s door. It was someone else knocking on Cato’s door. It was someone else knocking on another door. There were five or six doors down there, no reason to assume… I heard a door open, and then close. Silence...It’s none of your concern. It is your concern because it’s her, and she just went in Cato’s room. But how? Why? All of this crashing down in my head at once. But what floated to the top was: she is in his room. Go.

Out in the hall that off feeling got much stronger. I looked to the left. The balcony sat in shadow. The air felt cold and damp. The fog from outside must have been oozing in. I looked to the right. The hall was empty. The red exit sign glowed from way down at the end. I looked down at the carpet, expecting to see little ghost footprints. But there was nothing. The carpet was threadbare up here. And dirty. I walked down. I was almost tiptoeing for some reason. I stopped in front of his door and leaned in. As soon as my face got close to the wood of the door I heard a hum. The hum grew louder. It felt like it was coming from in my head. I leaned back and the hum cut off. Stopped clean. I leaned forward again and it slowly started. Swelled. Got pretty loud. That’s when I reached out and opened the door.

Cato Bond

The next morning I awoke early and somehow walked down to the gas station. It was cold out. That warm weather had blown right past. I bought two sixers of cheep beer and a huge Styrofoam cup of coffee and brought them back to my room. I got back in bed and slowly sipped beer. I got a can and a half down, then added the coffee, alternating until I had two beers and half the coffee in me. One sip at a time, nice and slow, I started to feel better. Memories from the night floated up, and I pushed them back down. Wouldn’t even look at them.

There was a gentle knock at my door. I got up and stood there, hand on knob, scared.

“Cato, it’s me.”

It was Kitty. I opened the door and she stood there in a nice woolen green suit, with a jacket and skirt. She had a little hat on her head. I’d never seen her so sharp. She had her purse on her arm and a pair of brown shoes on her feet.

“I’m going to church. You want to come with me?”

“Church?” I didn’t know she went to church. Was it Sunday?

“Saint Athanasius. Mass.”

“No.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“Ok. I’ll be back in a few hours. Then we should talk.”

And with that she turned and walked down the hall towards the stairs. I locked my door and got back in bed. Opened another beer. Took a sip of coffee. Lit a cigarette. Awhile later I was feeling like myself. I went and took a shower. When I was drying off in the bathroom a saw some scratches on my arms. I looked in the mirror and saw scratches up and down both arms, and along my sides, from armpit to hip, along my ribs. They were thin but deep. I looked at my back, expecting to see them there. That’s where scratches of this nature usually show up. But my back was unmarked. I dressed, and when I got back to my room put a flannel on. I looked in the little mirror above my sink. Nothing on my neck or face, my hands were clear too. I felt the need to hide the scratches. I just didn’t know what they were, what they were from. I must have blacked out last night. Memories started to rise but I pushed them down. Nope. I opened a fresh beer.

Awhile later, another knock on the door. Kitty was back and had changed into her regular clothes. A plain shirt and a pair of slacks with pantyhose underneath. She always wore pantyhose underneath her slacks. It was something my own grandmother had done.

“Let’s go to my room,” she said, “It smells like ass in here.”

Kitty Cormier

When I was a girl, we went to church twice a week. We were Catholic. I went to a Catholic school as well. God was central in my life; a giant beam running through everything. Everything you did or said was supposed to be about God, or for God, or in the service of God. At the top of each assignment, we were to write JMJ, an abbreviation for the holy family; Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Everything was in service to them, even our math homework. Or that’s what we were told. I noticed early on that what adults did and said seemed to have nothing to do with God. Including the nuns. And certainly my parents. When I heard them muttering, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph” under their breath it was not in service to anything holy, if you catch my drift. But you weren’t allowed to ask questions about that. You weren’t allowed to ask questions about any of it, and I had a lot of questions.

Had I had children I might have taken them to church, it might have brought me back. I was a lapsed Catholic, I guess you could say. But I didn’t have children. We never used birth control and I never got pregnant. We never talked about it. My husband and I, well we never talked about anything other than what was for dinner or why hadn't I done this or that. I never spoke to him at all if I could help it. I learned early on that staying out of his way was the safest bet. Even then I sometimes got a beating, but if I flew low it was better. The beatings were for various things I’d done wrong (or said wrong, which is why I just stopped talking round him). He told me I made him beat me, by the way I acted or the things I had or hadn’t done. I tried to figure it out at first, thought there was some kind of code I could crack to get him to stop. But the thing was it had nothing to do with me, or what I did. All that darkness came out of him, it was in him. It had nothing to do with me at all. By the time I started to go through the change I realized we hadn’t had a baby, and that we wouldn’t now. And I was glad. He would have been a terrible father. He was a mean man. I was 58 when he dropped dead of a stroke in the middle of a shift down at the mill. I wasn’t sorry to see him go. I don’t think anyone was, to tell the truth.

But being a lapsed Catholic doesn’t mean I don’t think about God. I do. And the older I get, the more I think about it. There’s more to this world than could ever fit into my head, or the head of people much smarter than me. There’s more that we don’t understand than do. Death is among the biggest. We are all headed there and yet not a one of us knows what it is. I think it used to scare me, just the unknown, but it don’t anymore. I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I think we create those things here on earth. For ourselves, for others. What was Auschwitz but hell on Earth? What is laughing with a friend so hard you can’t catch your breath but heaven? But death? That’s a whole other thing. I don’t know what will happen, if anything, but I’m not afraid of it. I’m curious. And to be truthful I won’t have to wait long. I’m old. I’m worn out. I can feel the edges of this thing fraying, and fraying fast. I won't be in this old body much longer.

I went to mass that morning to ground myself in something. What I’d seen in that roomhad shaken me. I was baptized in that church, married in that church, and I had attended dozens of funerals there. It was a holy place, and not because of the teachings but despite them. The church was barely a quarter full. When I was a girl it was packed every week. I let the words and the ceremony wash over me, hearing nothing, taking in nothing, just letting it flow past. It was a cold sunny day and light streamed in through the stained glass. It was so pretty. I walked back in the cold sharp air feeling better. Feeling ready.

Cato was up and showered and clear-eyed. We went and sat in my room.

“What do you remember about last night?” I asked him.

He shrugged. Grimaced. Rubbed his face. Stood up from the couch and moved his body in a nervous way. I had brewed a pot of coffee and I poured out two mugs. He took his black. I dashed some half and half in mine. Cato took his cup and held it in his hands.

“I don’t know. Not much I guess.”

“Do you remember what happened in your room?”

His body stiffened. I thought he might get up and leave. But he just stared down into his cup. Steam rose and danced in a ray of sun shooting in through the geranium leaves. He sighed.

“I remember something. I remember…that girl from the bar.”

This wasn’t what I expected him to say. What girl from the bar? But I waited, letting him sort it out, letting him tell it.

“She came to my door, I guess. I don’t know how she knew where I lived. She followed us I guess?”

He looked up at me. I said nothing. 

“Well I was sick. I couldn’t... and then I don’t know. I was sick and then you were there. You put me to bed. Maybe. Did that happen?” he was staring into his mug.

“This girl from the bar. What did she look like?”

“Well you saw her. That hiker girl. She had on a dark hoodie sweatshirt. She was sitting with us up the bar. It was that girl.”

“So that’s who was in the room with you? The girl in the hoodie?”

“Well didn’t you see her when you came in? Did you come in?!” 

He stood now, agitated. He ran one hand up and down the other arm, shoulder to wrist.

“Let me see your arms.”

He froze, like a deer in headlights. He looked at me. Slowly he unbuttoned his flannel. He carefully removed it and put it on the back of a chair. Both arms were covered in long thin lines, many of them, shoulder to wrist. He lifted up his T-shirt and showed me his sides. Also covered in thin red cuts. Like paper cuts. I sucked in my breath. He sat at the table with me.

“What happened last night?” he asked. Now it was my turn to sigh.

“I didn’t see any girl at the bar. Not one such as you described.”

“She bought us a round of drinks. Didn’t she?”

“No. I got a round. You got a round. Then Timmy Richmond got us a round. Right before we left Randy poured us two more.”

He stared into space, chewing on his lip. “OK.” 

I cleared my throat, clasped my hands on the table.

“When I came in your room you were laying on the floor. It was dark, but not pitch dark; I could see you. And right above you, floating above you and kind of all around you, was her.”

“The…hiker girl?”

“No. Her. That one we’ve seen.”

He stared at me. 

“Her? You mean…” he rubbed his face, rubbed all over the top of his head, mussing his still damp hair, “Wait, what do you mean?”

“I think you know. You’ve seen her.”

“So it was…a ghost.”

I nodded. Cato stared at me, blank faced.

“A ghost did this to my arms?” he pointed to the thin red cuts.

“She was…I don’t know how to say it exactly. She was cutting you. I don’t know if it was with her hands or her hair or her teeth. I thought I saw…” I shook my head, shaking the image from my mind, “I don’t know exactly how but she was cutting you. She had blood in her mouth.”

Cato sat back from the table, both hands gripping the top. He stared straight ahead. I couldn’t blame him. The sight of her bloody mouth had been horrific. She had turned when I came in the room, looking at me. Looking right at me. Black eyes. Red mouth. I was pretty sure I had seen her teeth. Sharp. But also, as I had approached her, something like her hair had drifted over and touched my arm. It had burned. A cold burn. I had a little cut there. Just an inch long.

Cato started shaking his head. Slowly. He stood and paced. Picked up his cup and set it back down. He went over to the the window and looked down into the alley. The sun shone on his face. He looked haggard. His pupils large even in the bright light. I sipped my coffee. Letting it sink in. Letting him absorb it. I wasn’t sure what he remembered. More than he’d said, but I didn’t think he’d seen any blood, or felt any pain. Not in the moment. He was too out of it. I couldn’t track this hiker girl story. There hadn’t been anyone like that at Peppermints. It was all locals. No hikers, no hoodies, no one we didn't know. But it didn’t matter. There had been no hiker girl in his room. When I’d stepped further into the room she had flown straight up. Into the  ceiling above. The room had been dead silent then. I’d turned on the lamp and Cato crawled over to the sink, curled up like a dog under there, shaking, arms bloody. I had made his bed (the sheets and blankets were on the floor with him). I’d gotten a cold washcloth and wiped his arms. They didn’t look too bad. I didn’t know about the cuts on his sides. Then I’d gotten him into bed, shut off the light and sat there. He seemed to fall right asleep. When dawn broke I went back to my room.

“I need a drink,” Cato said from over by the window.

I got out the bottle.

Cato Bond

I didn’t believe in ghosts. And I didn’t believe in vampires. And now it seemed that some combination of the two had left scratches all over me. How could a ghost scratch a person? Was that possible? Why would a ghost drink blood? Trying to find logic in any of it was…well, crazy. Because it was crazy. That hiker girl had come into my room and scratched me up. That was all. But I knew that wasn’t true. And when I dug down on this hiker girl, I started to feel the ground beneath me crumble. It felt like the reveal in Fight Club. Me at the bar, the girl in the hoodie next to me, and then suddenly, not there. There was something not right about those memories of her. Something…tampered with. Even the memory of her in my doorway. I had looked at her, recognized her, sort of. But something was screwy about it. And once she was in my room...no. It hadn’t been some girl. Not at all.

I was weary all day. Went back to bed and slept.

I wasn’t afraid of her coming back. Not then. I just felt empty, and anxious, in a general way. But that might have been the booze. On top of all this was my drinking. I was in a bad place with it. I needed to pull up. But now everything felt…out of control. And I was so damn weary. How was I going to get myself out of this? I was not up for it, any of it. What would have happened if Kitty hadn’t come in? I couldn’t even follow that thread. Didn’t want to. Could a ghost kill you? Vampires could. But. Or. I didn’t fucking know. I slept.

Kitty Cormier

That night I sat awake at my table all night. There wasn’t that feel in the air. But I listened for her anyway. She’d left through the ceiling, but she’d gone in through the door. Perhaps that was the rule? Let’s hope so. But regardless, the energy felt different. I was pretty sure she wasn’t around.

I sat sipping my drink and thinking it through. When I’d seen her on the balcony area I had thought she was a ghost. A spirit. An Imprint. Whatever you want to call it. But a person. Or linked to a person. But now I wasn’t so sure. What I’d seen in the room hadn’t felt human. And who ever heard of a ghost harming someone in that way? I’d never heard even the kookiest kooks claim a ghost had cut them up. Poltergeists could what, throw things, push you down stairs? And they were thought to be more demonic energies. But drinking blood? This wasn’t a ghost. I didn’t know what it was, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t a person. I wasn’t sure what was motivating it. Was it eating? That also felt unlikely. Was it just hurting people for the fun of it? I didn’t get that impression either. Maybe eating but in a different way. It didn’t need sustenance, but maybe it fed off some aspect of the act.

I circled round and round it as I burned through the night. Trying to conjure up every story I’d ever heard about…well anything. But in the end I just didn’t know. Didn’t know what she was or what she wanted, if anything. Would she kill him? Could she? If she could slice him up, yeah, it seemed she could. What if I hadn’t walked in when I did? What would have happened? Cato seemed vulnerable to it somehow. How to protect him?

Cato Bond

I had to meet with my parole officer the next day. He was a real prick. Before I could even sit down he handed me a cup. Random drug test. He’d done it every time. He didn’t have to, but he did. The only saving grace was that he just did the 5 panel, which didn't include alcohol. I’d gone in on a narcotics charge, so he must have been hoping to catch me back on H. But I was off all that shit. For good. It was expensive, it was dangerous, and I’d had enough running around after it. I’d come out of prison clean, and I wasn’t going to let it get it’s hooks into me again. I pissed in the cup and left it on the little table in there. They did the test right then, and if you failed they could arrest you on a probation violation and that would be it. I sat in his office waiting.

“You been looking for work?” he asked as he sat down. He didn’t say I’d passed the test. If I’d failed he arrest me, but he didn't acknowledge that I’d passed. It was like he was hoping for me to fail. I always felt that way with him. He wanted me back inside. Thought that’s where I belonged.

“Not much around.”

“Where have you looked?”

“They won’t take me at the mill.”

“Yeah I know, Cato. You’ve burned every bridge over there. How about a store? Clerk work? How about construction? You know how to change oil?”

I said nothing. We’d had this talk every month. He yammered on. Telling me I had to try. I had to WORK. Telling me I wasn’t doing well. Telling me I wasn’t going to make it. I said nothing. I had nothing to say. Also I’d had a few drinks that morning to get myself in here. The smell might still linger.

I left in a sour mood. My back hurt. My head hurt. My jaw ached. That fucking little prick had read me the riot for almost 25 minutes. He wasn’t there to help me, he was there to watch me till I fucked up and then put me back in the cage. Thinking about it made my blood boil. The police station, where we met, was almost across from The Harris but I decided to take a walk off the island. It was a cold, windy, gray day, but I needed some air. Needed to move. I felt like I could smash up some shit. I felt trapped. I ran into James walking his big dog Lady down by the Swift River behind the playing fields. I’d gone to school with him. I told him about Officer Shithead and he laughed, told me he knew all about it. Told me he had a bottle back at his place. Apple Jack. Off we went.

James lived in a room above a garage in the town across the river, in the shadow of the mill. Literally. The long shadow cast by the mill fell over his place almost the entire day. We drank there for a while and then two of his brothers rolled in. Or cousins. Or friends. He called them brothers. They’d come all the way from Jackman. We drank together and then they wanted to go out. So we piled into their truck and headed to Gatch’s, a little sports bar in town. We were there awhile and then James had to go home, so he peeled off. I stayed with his brothers and we all decided to head to Peppermints. They were flush and buying rounds. We’d hooked up with an older guy and he went with us. In the truck he pulled out a flask and passed it to me. It was straight grain alcohol. 

“GODDAMN!” screamed one of the brothers.

Fucking right, I thought

Kitty Cormier

Cato’s room was quiet and I assumed he was sleeping, still worn out from the other night. I hauled my laundry down to the basement and did a wash. I went to the market and did a shop. Then I lay down on my little couch, and I guess I dozed a bit. I hadn’t slept at all the last two nights and it caught up to me. It was a restless sleep. I kept bobbing up to the surface and then back into scattered dreams. At one point I was on the coast, in a small chilly house by a restless sea. In one I was in my room here at The Harris and someone knocked on my door, and I knew something was wrong. Then I was in the house I grew up in. The little white saltbox on the edge of town. I sat at the kitchen table and the sun streamed in the little windows with the wobbly old glass. My brother was in a basket by the stove, just a baby. My mother was up at the sink, her back to me, humming. The clock ticked. It was just as it had been when I was a girl of five. But I was me. An old woman. On the table sat a white plate with a small pile of fat blackberries. We had a wild patch of bushes out back and we’d pick them for momma, and she’d make the sweetest jams. She turned and came to the table, smiling at me, drying her hands on her skirt. My breath caught in my throat. I’d forgotten her face. The little curls that came loose at her temple. The dimple on her chin. Her warm grey eyes. I came up out of the dream with tears on my cheeks.

It was getting dark. I had napped too long, I felt off kilter. I washed my face with cool water. I drank my cold tea. I turned on a lamp. Something felt off. I opened my door and poked my head into the hall. No one had turned the lights on out here on the second floor yet. It was dark and dead quiet. I looked over at the common area on the landing. It was quiet, empty. The Harris seemed to be holding it’s breath. I walked to Cato’s door and knocked, the sound loud in the silent hallway. There was no sound from within. I knocked again. The stillness was complete. He wasn’t in there. I walked back to my room. I put on a pot of coffee and poured myself a few fingers of whiskey. The light was gone from the sky now, it was full dark. And there, hanging low and bloated in the sky was a big fat yellow moon. I could see it just beyond the roof of the building beside us, that formed the alley below. I sipped my drink and stared at it. No, this was not good.

Cato Bond

The place was packed. Wall to wall people. I could feel the waves of energy move through the crowd. Loud shotgun explosions of laughter. A woman shrieking. Undulations of conversation; rolling, rising, falling, bubbling, simmering, washing over me. I had a beer in my hand. No idea where I’d gotten it. Next to me an old timer, Dickey Damon, was telling me about a parrot he knew once. He told me the bird was 80 years old and rode around on the shoulder of a guy who’d hang out in the bars of Portsmouth. The parrot had a dirty mouth. Dickey’s eyes glowed as he recited some of the things the bird would say. Somewhere behind me the brothers were flirting with Lisa Ouellette. I was floating somewhere up near the ceiling, feeling safe and secure and content. There was nothing but this moment, this place, this room. I hoped it would never end.

I went out to smoke a cigarette, I came back in. I went out to smoke a cigarette, I came back in. There was a whiskey & Coke in my hand. Then someone handed me a shot. Now I gripped a tallboy of Pabst. The room swirled, and stilled, tilted and righted itself. Harsh laughter smashed into me. A guy smashed into me. I found myself sitting at the bar. The brothers were there, telling me about their maple syrup operation. I wasn’t listening. Back outside the old guy with the flask came up to me and gave me another nip. Whatever he had in there was fire. It shot into me like paint thinner. I felt heat rising from my face. I sure was feeling fine. Up in the sky a beautiful golden moon looked down on us, bathing the street in soft, warm light. All felt right in the world.

I walked to the store at some point. With the brothers and the guy with the flask, I think. I remember the fluorescent lights, and digging through my pockets for money for some smokes. On the walk back someone lit a joint and we passed it. The brothers had a sixer in a paper bag and they loaded up in their tiny Toyota and rattled off down the road, back to Jackman. It was late, and things were winding down. A feeling of unease rose in me at the thought of calling it a night. I wanted more. And I guess that’s how the guy with the flask and I ended up headed back to my room. I thought Kitty might be up, and we could all have a drink. I had a few beers at my place too. We were keeping it rolling. Thank God. We stood outside The Harris finishing our smokes. The old guy was talking, but I couldn’t focus on the words, they kept slipping away in a mumbled tumble. Like mice running every which way across the kitchen floor, slipping under furniture, disappearing underneath a door. Inside we climbed the steps up to the second floor. The place was empty, vacant feeling. I moved to knock on Kitty’s door but the guy said something, shook his head, motioned further down the hall to my door. I dropped my hand, poised to knock, and followed him to my room. We went in.

Kitty Cormier

I was down in the basement folding sheets and towels when I heard someone come in and go upstairs. I tried to hurry up and see if it was Cato, but when I got up there the lobby and balcony were empty. It was quiet. I went back down and loaded my clean laundry into my little hand cart, then hauled it all up to the lobby. I climbed the stairs feeling twinges in both knees, a twinge in my back. All the blessings of old age. I got the cart up to two and looked around. Quiet. Not a soul around. There was no light from the bottom of Cato’s door. I went into my place and began putting away my clean clothes.

Cato Bond

Have you ever had a dream in which you’re with someone you know, a friend or relative, and suddenly you look over and realize it isn’t them? It looks like them, but it isn’t. And as you realize this you know somehow that you can’t let them know that you know. Inside my room it was dim, almost dark. No damn window to let in that nice moonlight. I was sitting on my bed and the old guy was in the chair a few feet away. But it was pretty dark and I couldn’t make him out that well. He was just a shape. I had an opened beer in my hand, the can warm. But I hardly wanted it. I felt sick to be honest. I was drunker than I’d known. Now sitting here I felt heavy, weary, and nauseous. There was a humming in my head. I wanted to say something to him, tell him I needed to get some rest, ask him to leave. But as I sat there looking over at his shape I realized it wasn’t him. It wasn’t the guy from before. It was someone else. I wanted to turn on the light but I was frozen. I couldn’t move. Saliva filled my mouth. I should get up and go out to the bathroom. But I sat on. I even took a sip of the beer, just out of nervousness, unease, just for something to do. I needed to act normal, for some reason. I wasn’t sure why. Who was in here with me? I truly didn’t know. My eyes roved around. I could just make out my sink, and the opposite wall. The door. Then I was back to the chair, and it sat empty. He was gone. I opened my mouth to say something, when I felt movement behind me, and something touching the side of my face. He was behind me. On the bed. The humming got louder and the can slipped out of my hand, hitting the floor There was movement all around me, something touching me seemingly everywhere. I felt myself fall back, and somehow I just kept falling.

Kitty Cormier

This so called ghost, it was only bothering Cato.. Why was that? I knew all the folks that lived here. I’d have heard something if someone else was having encounters. And she wasn’t bothering me. She in fact fled from me. It seemed to me that she was connected not to this place, so much, as to Cato. Why? If she were to kill him, I wondered what an autopsy would show. The scratches would be peculiar, but I’d bet not enough to cause him to bleed out. What would it look like? Cato was drinking a lot. He was in the shit with it. All day, everyday, and it’d been that way for a long while now, ever since he lost his job. I wondered what his blood alcohol was most nights, by the time he passed out. People who drank like that, they built up huge tolerances. I’d bet he was approaching levels that would be fatal in other people. It would look like he’d died of alcohol toxicity, and his organs would have the wear and tear to prove it. It would be mostly true in fact. Was it her that was going to kill him, or the drink? Were they the same thing?

It was then, as I sat there thinking this final thought, that there was a loud pop, and all the lights went out. I sat a beat in the dark, then I stepped into the hall. The red Exit sign was missing from down the hall, and the lights in the lobby below were off. Power was out in the whole building. That’s when I heard the humming. It was coming from my right. Under Cato’s door I saw a light. It was very bright. She was in there with him. I had to GO.

Cato Bond

It’s left to me to tell the last part it seems, and a worse narrator you’ll hardly ever find. The whole thing happened so fast. I was in my room, but I wasn’t in my room. The walls were there, but not there. I’ve no other way to put it. Above and around me, sort of everywhere, was her. I saw her hair, filling all the spaces, her white dress, or robes, billowing out big enough to cover a house. Everything was in motion. Waves of terror kept jolting me. I was going to pass out, and I felt myself turning towards it. Letting it happen. I wasn’t on the bed anymore, I was floating, within my small room, but also adrift in a vast space. Not toggling between the two but both, at once. And then Kitty was there.

She was right next to me, but also across a distance. She was hollering to me, at me, but at first I couldn’t make it out. And the effort of trying to hear her words made my head ache. I closed my eyes, and turned back towards the darkness, towards slipping down underneath it all. But then I felt Kitty grab my arm. I opened my eyes and she was there, right there, face close to mine. Her face was covered in little slices, one of which had opened her cheek a bit. There was blood in her thin white hair, which was whipping around her head. It was like we were in the center of a storm.

“Cato! It’s the drink! It’s the drink that’s killing you!”

I nodded at her. She was right. It was obviously true. I’d known it for some time. But to hear it, to hear the words, here in this place. The words said aloud had power.

“The drink is killing me. I want to stop.”

My voice was barely a croak. But it came out. And Kitty heard me. She smiled. 

And then it was quiet. We were still there, kind of floating, but the noise was gone and I guess she was gone. Just all at once. I felt pain all over my body. Kitty’s face was right there next to mine. She was bleeding.

“I can see my mother and brother in the room,” she whispered.

I looked around. I could still see a vast space, and my room, existing together. I wasn’t sure where I fit into these spaces, where I actually was. I didn’t see anyone else, but there was a tremendous light off to the right.

“I’m going to go. I’m ready now,” she said, not to me.

I started to cry. I didn’t really know what she meant in the moment. But I also knew. I guess I just knew. And then she was gone. And I was on the bed. The room was just a room. Dark, quiet. And I was alone. 

“Cato, when did you last see Kitty?”

“We had drinks. I don’t know what night exactly. We had drinks at Peppermints, and a night cap in her room after that. The next day I went to parole, oh, so that would have been the 28th of March. I didn’t see her that day. Met up with some friends, got back late. And then I didn’t see her after that at all.”

“So you last saw her the 27th then.”

“I guess so.”

“She was seen the 28th, but no one has seen her since then. Where do you think she is?”

The question hung in the air. I slipped my hand in my pocket, felt the plastic six month chip in there. Ran my thumb along its edge.

“I honestly have no idea.”

“Well, if you think of anything you let us know.” He flipped the notebook shut. “You’re in Bangor now right?” He hands me his card.

“Yes. I’m hanging sheet rock with a local operation. I’ve got a place downtown.”

I stand, stretch, and walk out into a cold clear night, unencumbered, no longer haunted, free.

The End