Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

‘I know everything you’re thinking.’

She wipes her eyes again.

‘Because you’re not real,’ she says. ‘That’s how you can do it. You’re not real.’

‘You can never leave.’

‘You don’t want me to leave because if I leave I won’t need you anymore.’

‘You can never leave.’

‘But I don’t need you anymore now.’

‘You can never leave.’

‘You’re not real .’

‘You can never, ever leave, Sarah.’

She closes her eyes and tries to remember when she first saw Borden. It was before she ever came here. It was before she was kidnapped and brought here. She’s sure of it. It was at the petting zoo. She was seven years old and she had just lost a tooth and she was with Daddy and Jeffrey and the sun was out and the world was bright and beautiful. A ten-year-old boy with Chuck Taylor basketball shoes and cuffed Levis and a red button-up shirt that he kept tucked in was there. The shirt was rolled up to his elbows and his hands were in his pockets. She fed the last of her carrots to a miniature horse and the boy pulled a hand from his pocket and in his palm was a piece of celery and he handed it to her and said his name was Danny Borden and she said thank you and fed it to the horse. Danny Borden: a normal boy with freckles on his cheeks and brown eyes and bangs cut straight. This Borden is only a Nightmare World copy of him.

Not the real thing. Not real at all.

She looks up at him. He flickers a moment, vanishing from the room like an image on a TV that’s losing its signal in a storm, like a light just before it goes out. Then he returns. His eyes roll in their sockets and then lock on her.

‘You can never leave,’ he says.

‘You can’t scare me anymore,’ she says. ‘You’re not real.’

Another flicker.

‘You can never, ever leave. If you try, I’ll tell on you.’

‘You can’t tell on me. You’re just pretend.’

He takes a step toward her, a step out of the shadows. He flickers again and she can see through him. She can see the stack of boxes behind him. Then, once more, he is solid. Except he flickers now and then as he takes another step toward her. He seems to be falling apart. An arm becomes a smear before coming back together. A leg flickers out, then returns.

‘You can never-’

‘You’re not real .’

She grabs the plate from the floor and lifts it over her head and throws it across the room. It arcs through the air wobbling like a poorly thrown Frisbee and if he were real it would strike him in the head, right between his eyes, but he is not real, so it flies through him, hits the cardboard boxes stacked against the wall, falls to the concrete, and shatters.

Borden is gone.

After a few minutes she gets to her feet. The concrete is cold beneath them. She walks to where the pieces of shattered plate lie, spread outward from the point of impact. She walks with great deliberation, being very careful about where she sets each foot. She doesn’t want to cut herself. Once she is standing among the shards she looks down at them. She will probably get into trouble for breaking the plate.

Don’t think about that. Nothing can be done about it, so don’t think about it.

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve.

She bends down and picks up the biggest shard of plate. It’s about nine inches long and forms a crescent, made mostly of the outer edge of the plate, and ends in a sharp point. It is lined with painted vines and at the tip a blue flower. If she has to she will plant it in Beatrice. But not tonight. She carries it to the back of the stairs. There is a cavity beneath the bottom step filled only with darkness. She sits on her haunches and reaches the shard toward it, to hide it there, but hesitates as she imagines a large claw emerging from the darkness and grabbing her wrist and pulling her bodily into the shadows. That’s silly, of course, and impossible. There is nothing in the shadows but more shadows. She knows that. Nothing bigger than a cat could even fit beneath that first step. Even so she simply sets the shard of plate on the concrete and pushes it into the shadows, not allowing her fingers to touch the darkness. She will have to reach into it to get the shard back out, but she’ll worry about that then. For now she just wants it hidden and she doesn’t think anybody will find it there. Not unless Borden is watching from the shadows.

He’s not real .

That’s right: Borden is not real and she does not have to worry about him.

She is just getting to her feet when the door at the top of the stairs squeaks open and the light comes on. Feeling sick and guilty, caught, she walks around to the front of the stairs and looks up toward the door.

Beatrice stands silent looking at the shattered plate on the floor. Her hair lies flat and dull on her head, framing a sad round face. Her wide-set eyes droop on the outside, her mouth at both corners. It’s like invisible hands are pressed against her cheeks and pulling down. Her shoulders are round, dresses always hanging from them lifelessly before catching on her heavy lower body and bulging outward with lumps and ripples, making her look to Maggie like a poorly stuffed toy animal.

She turns from the plate and looks at Maggie. Her mouth hangs open for a moment and she breathes heavily from it. Finally she shuts her mouth, swallows, and says, ‘What happened?’

‘I dropped it,’ Maggie says. ‘I’m. . I’m sorry.’

‘By accident?’

Maggie nods.

‘It don’t look dropped.’

‘It was.’

‘Looks like you thrown it.’

‘I didn’t. I promise.’

‘How’d it get way over there?’

‘I’ll clean it up.’

‘You don’t have no shoes. It’s not safe. I’ll clean it up.’

She turns back to the stairs and walks up them, each plank sagging beneath her weight. Her thighs brush together beneath her dress, making a swishing sound with each step. It makes Maggie think of her daddy sanding in the garage. She would help him sometimes. She liked the feel of the fine dust from sandpapered wood on her hands. Beatrice pauses at each step, inhale exhale, and goes one more. She walks through the doorway to the kitchen.

Maggie walks to her mattress, away from what she is hiding, and sits.

When Beatrice returns she is carrying a broom and a dust pan with her, and a small plastic grocery bag crumpled in her fist. She walks down the stairs the same way she walked up, one step at a time, standing on each with both feet and taking a breath, inhale exhale, before moving on to the next. She stops at the bottom of the stairs. She breathes heavily and with great effort. Her face is pale and beads of sweat stand out on her oily skin.

Maggie stares at her with great concentration. Please die please die please die.

She hates that she has those thoughts, she feels like a bad person for having them, but she can’t help it. She doesn’t think she could kill a person-she knows she couldn’t; the very idea makes her sick-but if Beatrice were to just die, that would be different. She knows she would feel guilty for thinking it if it happened, but she feels guilty for thinking it when it doesn’t happen, so it might as well. It would make her life so much easier.

Part of her feels sorry for Beatrice. Part of her feels that in her own way Beatrice is as trapped as she is. But even so if she would just die all Maggie’s problems would be solved. If she died at the right time, anyway, with Henry gone for work and the door unlocked. If he was home and Beatrice died he might take it out on her. He certainly wouldn’t have any reason to keep her alive.

‘Oh, Lord,’ Beatrice says, large chest rising and falling, rising and falling.