Strange is the Night Read Free

massive wing thrown up along the wall in the piece of glass the flare hadn’t obliterated.
    Robert would walk all over with the shard on him; as he traveled in his world so he traveled in the other world. The day before he left for college he wandered into an overgrown field on his family’s property. In the surface of a disused cow pond, Robert saw the ruins of what he could only assume was a village; thatched pieces of rotting roofs peeked from the tall grass that grew up around them. There were trees there as well, but they were blasted, blighted things and the grass itself was a strange and unsavory shade of pus yellow; creamy and wrong. The wind blew lightly and made the whole scene ripple, but it wasn’t strong enough to tear it apart.
    Robert stood on the shore looking on as the grass in the other world also moved. At first he thought it was windy there as well, but then he realized that the malformed limbs of the trees were not moving, their trident shaped leaves did not shiver on the branches. Whatever it was came through the grass like a snake, pushing it into a constantly repeating S-wave as it zipped toward Robert.
    He had the sick feeling he had been seen. Whatever it was, it did not want Robert there and it was coming to get him and if he didn’t do something then he was going to regret it. He didn’t want to see whatever it was winding through the grass toward him. He couldn’t run away though, he was stuck there, staring with his heart climbing into his mouth and his whole body shaking. If he could disrupt the reflection on the surface of the water then he could break the hold the world had on him. Ripples in a pond would destroy the image, not simply break into smaller pieces like when he broke a mirror. He had nothing to throw into the water though except his shard of mirror and he would not part with that.
    On the verge of panicking, Robert dug through his pockets and found a handful of change. He threw the money into the water with a strangled cry just as something began to rise up from the grass; a thing as twisted and blighted as the trees, but made strong by whatever sickness fed on that place. Two dollars and seventy four cents hit the water like heavy rain, broke the image into ripple after ripple and took the horrid thing in the grass away from his sight; the lumpy, tumorous back, the lifting of the heavy head and the dull pink of a gimlet eye. He thought he heard a phlegmy growl rattle from the water.
    Robert fell back in the grass, panting and shivering, making soft whimpering sounds. For the longest time his mind was an empty corridor, nothing but fear buzzing inside of his head like fluorescent lights. When he got up again, he rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up and away so his back was to the pond. All the way through the field it felt like there were two heavy hands on his shoulders trying to pull him up and turn him back—trying to make him look at the thing in the grass.
    Robert bit his bottom lip and kept walking, sliding into the tree line. He vowed to himself that he would never go back to the field and the pond there because he knew that forever after the thing would be waiting for him just out of frame. It was the first time his special reality had ever frightened him. Sure, it was strange and empty, but it wasn’t scary; the emptiness of it made it better to Robert, made it more mysterious. More beautiful.
    He made it home early in the evening and smiled at his mother when she asked if he was okay. He lied and said sure, said he was fine then he went upstairs and popped two of the anti-anxiety pills his doctor had prescribed that he almost never took. Then he stood under the spray of a cold shower until the first tendrils of drowsiness crept across his mind.
    Robert barely roused himself to have cake and supper with the family at his farewell party. He was still so doped that he no choice but to tell his parents he’d taken a pill then lied and told them it was because