Seeing is Believing

by V.A. Odell

Clyde Merryweather stood gawking at the indescribable figure before him, ax long forgotten in his grip as his scruff covered jaw dropped. Words escaped him as he stood, frozen, mind blank as the being shifted away, like a trick of the light and was gone. Just as suddenly as it appeared and had glued him in his tracks, it vanished with no trace of ever having existed. Clyde let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, catching the ax as it nearly slipped from his palms. With heavy breaths he looked around, recentering himself to the time and place. 

A low sun on the horizon meant later in the day. When did he leave? How long was he here?

He shook his head, taking a few steps on unsteady feet. The large oak trees rose impossibly tall around him. Clyde searched forward a few more steps, looking where he was so sure that the being had stood. No disturbed brush, no footprints were to be found, even for his skilled hunting eye. 

“This town will be the end of me,” he said to no one in particular, hefting his ax over his shoulder, and retrieving his forgotten bundle of timberwood. 

Clyde trudged south, keeping the sun on his right-hand side to ensure he would run back into the town he had called home for nearly a decade. His steps grew weary, slowing as he finally met the train tracks that bisected the left and right side of town. With a deep sigh, he paused, looking down the rail, listening for the sounds of life. None met him, which was not too surprising, Aldrich was a quiet town, only people who lived here really knew of its existence. 

A few moments to catch his breath, and Clyde was on his way. He passed by a small cemetery, built into a hill at the beginning of town. Further down the tracks was the mail depot, where Clyde never went. No one sent him mail here. 

He trudged past the looming, dilapidated building with faded letters that never failed to send shivers up his spine. The Asylum. The place of decrepitation and death. Clyde walked quickly past the building that was a black hole for Aldrich’s troubled kin, loud clangs and unusual sounds commonplace at any time of day or night. He mentally crossed his chest, unable to actually do so with the load he carried. 

Further down the line, Clyde stopped at the boarding house, dropping his load like a bag of rocks. He stretched noisily, gripping his ax above his head to deepen the stretch of his back. He shook his head like a dog, moving his body to get blood back where it belonged. 

Long legs brought him to the desk, where without greeting the boarding house keeper handed him keys to his regular room, one he was in almost as much as his real house at the south eastern part of town. His home was barely more than a room and kitchen, built by his fathers hands nearly 60 years ago. Here at least, cleaning and cooking were provided. 

He grunted thanks at the boarder, taking the keyring with a fatigued hand. Slow steps took him down the hall behind the boarders desk, down to the third one on the right. Clyde toed off his boots, not bothering with the rest of his clothes as he fell face first into the bed, and let sleep take him. 

Clyde thought he awoke to a sound outside the boarding window. He rolled to his side, looking out to the main street out his fogged window. A faint glow on the horizon caught his eye, something that seemed familiar, tickling the back of his mind. With soundless steps, he padded in socked feet out of the room, down the boarding hallway and out to the street. He watched, transfixed, as if under a spell as he followed the point of light. No matter how far walked, and how close he thought he got to the figure, it remained the same size. Just out of reach, just outside of his grasp. 

He reached out for it, feet stumbling in the muck of main street, catching on the rocks that made up the cobbled road. 

It’s right there, he thought, staring off to the glowing shape that seemed to drift only a few feet from him. 

“You are here, aren’t ya,” He asked the apparition, continuing into the woods with steps he didn't realize he was taking. Soon, Aldrich was far behind him as he drifted into the forest. 

“Find me,” hissed the being in a cacophony of voices, not male, nor female, but all. Like a chorus of inviting sound.

“We are here for you,” the amalgamation continued. “Find us,” they repeated. 

Clyde drew forward, callused hand reaching out towards the figure, finally close enough, nearly touching the towering shape, many heads above his own. As his hand shortened the distance, a buzzing sound filled his body, starting at the tips of his fingers, like the electric crackling of lighting on a tall hill. It filled his head, building from a soft buzz to an unbearable din, deafening him and sending him backwards in pain, fingers touching his ears, certain there would be blood. 

He awoke with a start, hand rising to touch his ears, sitting up and examining his unmarred hand in the dim light of dawn. 

“Find us,” echoed in his head, and he was uncertain if it was truly a dream, or a memory. He shook his head, coming back to himself. To the rough texture of the boarding blankets, a tan and plain wool. To the wooden paneled walls that smelt faintly of pine. He looked down at his socked feet, caked in mud. Was it real? He clenched his eyes closed, trying to remember the steps. Out of the boarding house. Out to the street? But which direction, and how far? Was the mud from his earlier hike? It couldn’t have been.

Questions swam in Clyde’s head as he peeled off his socks with unceremonious flings towards the door, rubbing his face to clear the sleep from it. 

He had been so close to touching it. So near and yet so far. 

Clyde dressed in new clothes quickly, discarding the old in a pile, where the laundry service would collect it and replace his clean ones to the drawer where he currently grabbed a new flannel and dark, rugged jeans. He shoved his feet into new socks, and into his dirty boots, he dropped some money off at the hosts counter, a stack of ruffled bills paid for the rest of the week. His cabin was too far away, too hard to keep clean since Savannah had passed in that freak train accident near the asylum in the west part of town. She had gone out with her handler to get some fresh air, testing her fortitude to the outside.  She never made a recovery. 

Clyde pushed said thoughts out of his mind, squinting at the treetops, trying to recall which direction he had headed. Where was the moon last night? He closed his eyes again, trying to remember. All that came to his mind was the bright, not quite white, not quite blue light of the figure. Perhaps it was more than one light, poured into the shape of a being over eight feet tall. Something that defied reason, defied explanation, even visual understanding. A mirage that buzzed in his brain like hundreds of hornets. 

He stopped by the library, some place unusual to him, but the bookkeeper was also an unusual person, and reportedly according to the whispers on the street, the person who knew where even the most unusual things could be found. 

“Hey, uh,” Clyde came to the library's dust covered reference counter. “Do….Do you know where I could find someone? Some..some information?”

The librarian didn’t move, just their eyes drifted up from the book they were reading, a thick and equally dusty tome as the surrounding area. 

“You are in the right place for information,” the librarian said at long last. “We do in fact have books here.” A vague jerk of the librarians chin behind them to the rows of literature. 

Clyde huffed an embarrassed laugh. “Well.. . the information I need might hardly be in a book. I… I'm looking for someone. Or something, rather. It's rather… indescribable.” 

The librarian smacked their lips dryly, setting an old receipt into the book as to mark their place. 

“Try me,” they said. 

Clyde exhaled, looking around before realizing no one came in here, there would be no one to overhear. 

“Well, it was like this,” Clyde started, describing best he could the initial meeting that took time away from him, and the second, which he was still not certain if it was real, but felt so real. It got him covered in dirt. 

The librarian didn’t respond, looking at Clyde for agonizing minutes before finally saying something. 

“Mr. Merryweather, your wife was lost recently, huh buddy?” They said, voice indicating it was less than a question and more of an observation. 

“You don’t want to follow her, I can say that in the least,” they finished. 

“You said!” Clyde sputtered, anger bubbling in his body like a boiling kettle. “You said try me! I thought you’d offer some direction, or something of god damn substance!” Clyde smacked the counter in front of the librarian, who startled only a little. 

“I never guaranteed that. I just said try me, and made no promises. I recommend you keep this to yourself.” The librarian turned their eyes back down to the book, idly twiddling the receipt as they continued to read.

“People don’t like talking about the being.”

Clyde’s head jerked up. “What did you say?”

“I said, I recommend you keep this to yourself.” Dark eyes told Clyde that was the end of it. 

The logger huffed, stomping loudly out of the library, slamming the door with all his might, setting it rattling on its hinges. He stalked angrily about the street, feet talking him to a small bar just off the main thoroughfare. 

Idiots. This town was full of idiots. Accusing Savannah of hysteria after she refused to speak upon coming back from the woods after nearly three days lost. Doctors from town came to see her, shrinks, medicine men. Professionals came from miles away to speak with her, to no avail. No waggling of watches, no popping of pills, no amount of persuading and psychoanalyzing got answers from the poor girl. Struck dumb from what happened, unable to express her woes, the fears. Clyde should’ve tried harder, looked further, dug deeper. Instead, he bowed to the will of the town. 

“Hide her, she is broken.”

“Move on, she is unfixable.”

“Obviously she is beyond words, beyond repair. Cut your losses Clyde. Find someone new.”

Clyde pressed weathered thumbs into his eye sockets hard enough to see stars. The barkeep placed his usual in front of him. Ambered whiskey with the scene of soft oak. 

He drank it quickly, hissing at the burn, but not minding it as much. Another. And another. Till his legs were no longer steady, and his mind swimming with anger and confusion. This place was supposed to be home, normal and plain, just a job. Just…Aldrich. 

“You can’t even see what’s in front of you!” He cried, unbuttoning one shirt button. Somehow he was outside the bar, loosely laced boots rattling on his feet. 

“Blind! So blind.” his voice broke, looking now at the setting sun. “Blind! And so dumb. You could not speak the truth if it smacked you silly! If it punched you so hard in the gut your mind would spin!” He hollered at no one in particular. To everyone in particular. 

His speech garnered outright stares, and underbreath whispers. 

“Those Merryweathers,” hissed one. 

“A few eggs shy of a dozen,” said another. 

Clyde ignored them, rant fueled by spite and frustration and liquid courage. 

Eventually, firm hands held either shoulder, keeping Clyde still and trying to guide him.
“C’mon buddy, you’ve had enough. We can’t keep doing this,” said the constable to his right. 

“Six years of this is enough Clyde,” said the other, fingers iron on his upper arm. “We’re gonna take you somewhere no one will hurt you.” 

They steered his drunken steps northward, and steadily west. Clyde hollered, tugging against the strong arms that led him. 

“They’re out there! I see them! Only me!” He shouts, breaking free of one officer, slouching downward before being caught. 

“They came for Savannah, and now appear to me. And you all are blind! So blind. Willfully so!” He coughed and sputtered as he tripped on the railroad tracks. 

“They come, they take us. See what we’re made of. They took my sweet Savannah. For days, and they took her will. They took her soul!” Clyde fought the officers with little mirth as they approached the asylum. He numbly dropped to his knees in the dark of the dirt. He was destined to be here from the start. What kind of man believes he sees a being of light, and also holds the idea of his sanity?

Clyde didn’t fight as they stripped him, showered him with a hose much like those used for fighting fire. He didn’t fight as they strapped a mask on him. 

He laughed, and cried, and muttered, banging fists on the walls of his room, looking out the small keyhole window, not more than the size of a dinner plate. 

Long after the staff had left, long after lights off had been called, Clyde stood at the window, staring off to the horizon where the moon slowly rose. Maybe it was a trick of the light, maybe a hopeful mind. He saw a figure. Bright, indescribable. It drifted closer as Clyde stared, mouth agape, hands secured to his sides with leather straps. 

Buzzing began softly in his head, the vibrations in his feet ticklish to the point where Clyde could not stand still. Closer and closer the being drew to the second story window, passing through the thick stone walls like a spirit of old. His head rang, echoing electric shrieks of pain. 

And then the door opened.