“The man at the counter,” I said. “Purple suit.”

  “Purple?” Boas looked confused.

  “Yes, strangely outdated.”

  “Interesting. I don't see him at all. And you don't see the old woman two tables to the left?”

  “No.”

  “What about the child wandering about? He can barely walk. See, he just fell again.”

  I chewed at my lip and again surveyed the room.

  “No,” I said weakly, “there's no one.”

  “Don't move,” Boas said. “He's coming this way.”

  I still didn't see any toddler.

  “You should probably keep looking at me,” Boas said, looking uncharacteristically nervous. He laughed lightly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You didn't feel that?”

  “Feel what?”

  “He bit you.”

  “You are a liar if you expect me to believe…”

  There was a dull pain from my left shin.

  “And now he’s—” Boas grimaced. I winced and jerked my right leg hard, jamming it into the table with enough force to upset the creamer. “Davis, you should leave. Go outside. I'll pay and meet you.”

  I did so, letting the diner door swing shut behind me. I limped away from the building. Sitting on a nearby bench, I checked my right ankle. A ring of tiny marks bent around it. I rubbed at them with my thumb. Indentations were palpably grooved into my skin.

  I waited a long while for Boas to join me outside. He never did.

  * * *

  The next morning I awoke at my apartment and went through the normal routine of gathering the paper, watering the plants and checking the news. I even picked up the phone and called Boas. He didn't answer. He rarely did, so it was hard to read anything into it.

  I didn't understand why he left last night, but I didn't understand a lot of things, not in the way that he did. I really needed to speak with him. I called again without success. That's when I saw her.

  She was in the living room, sitting quietly and staring at my potted ivy. At first I didn't recognize her. I hadn't seen her since she vacated the apartment nearly a decade ago. The left side of her face hung loosely, like it had slipped from the bone. Her eye was completely covered by her sagging brow, and the corner of her mouth curled wetly downward.

  “Mrs. Carmichael?”

  She twitched.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked. “How did…”

  She rose and turned slowly, pivoting on her heels in a manner that was less than pleasing. She stopped, with her toes pointing at me.

  Half of her face ran like wax, even its wrinkles drooped smooth and slack. The right side was focused and feral, with a glaring, pin-prick eye and lips drawn back from empty gums. She hissed.

  “Did you keep your key? You shouldn't have, though I'd be happy to—”

  She moved in the most perplexing manner. Her limbs pedaled backward, but she skated forward with each motion. She fell once, sprawling forward through the coffee table. Its glass surface cracked but didn't shatter. She sank downward and in so doing rose back up.

  It was an affront to Newtonian motion. My insides seized at the thought of it. She was following physical laws that were alien here. Blasphemy. Her good eye wobbled in all directions before locking on me again. I ran.

  * * *

  After a frantic trip via cab, I arrived at the university. The grounds were mostly empty. Maintenance crews were occupied with ambitious projects as department colleagues made their last minute rounds. A handful of students looked strangely out of place. A young woman sat in the middle of the walkway, staring at her knees. Another was perched on the edge of a high balcony. An emaciated youth lay face down in the sodden grass. I pressed on without pause, ignoring his muffled sobs.

  The Physics offices were deserted and, even more opportune, the labs as well. I'd formed some working theories on the ride over. Boas claimed the mist was from a cellular boundary. If it was still on me, then that meant I was now some sort of boundary too, a human buoy.

  I tested a film sample under a microscope. It was confounding. I could feel the substance, but couldn't see it. A nervous test for radioactivity proved negative. Hours went by. I tried every method of detection available: solvents, dyes and reactants chosen with increasingly jittery disconnection. Finally, it dawned on me.

  The substance had a sheen, which implied refraction. A simple UV test and the evidence was plain. From fingertips to wrists, my hands crawled with them, by the hundreds, if not thousands. With glassy bodies like string and a thousand legs of thread, they coiled over and around each other, biting and scrabbling to reach my skin and dig into my pores. Under the UV light, they rolled about in an iridescent ecstasy.

  My hands shook. My whole body seized. Scores of the creatures slipped from my hands, tumbled loose, and fought on the flooring. The victors raced up over my shoes and disappeared under the legs of my slacks.

  I cried out and whipped my fingers in the air. The creatures fell like rain, over the tables and the floor. They bounced about noiselessly, cartwheeling, but always skittered back toward me.

  I'm not an easily unsettled man, but I stood there and unabashedly wept. I pulled my shirt loose and watched them squeeze up from under my beltline. I tried to grab them, but couldn't. They were ethereal. An awful realization was dawning. They favored my hands because of the exposure, but that wasn't the only part of me that had been affected.

  I somehow steered myself to a mirror without tripping. Several times I was light-headed from the expectation—no, the knowledge—of my dire state. I didn't want to see, but I had to. I needed to know what they were doing. I aimed the UV light at my face.

  The world was instantly obscured behind a seething froth of legs and segmented bodies. Glimpses through the mass showed it all too clearly. They had cocooned themselves about my head to spill over my mouth and lap at the corners of my eyes. My nose and ears were clogged. My hair was a nest of them, and others: a spider with legs like darning needles, creatures that were a fusion of wasps and sparrows, a fist-sized beetle covered in eyes that even now deposited its brood.

  I dropped the light and retched.

  * * *

  It took a long while to gather my wits and stagger upright. I moved in a dreamlike stupor, grasping for equipment with numb fingers. More than a few items slipped from my fingers and shattered against the floor.

  There had to be a way to neutralize the condition. I had dozens of theoretical cures, from weak acid washes, to infrared exposure, to iodine baths. My mind raced to form new approaches.

  “Davis.”

  In all of this, I'd forgotten about him. I spun about.

  “Bowie!” I exclaimed. “Do you know what you've done?”

  Boas leaned in the doorway, looking like he'd awoken in an alleyway. He came forward and examined my work.

  “I knew I'd find you eventually. See, you do have a new perspective. I could have used you.”

  “I've been calling you all day.”

  “I couldn't answer.”

  “Why didn't you just ask? This…this…contamination didn't need to be spread.”

  “I didn't know, at the time.”

  “I thought we were friends.”

  “We were.”

  I narrowed my eyes at this pronouncement and set the equipment back on the table.

  “I'm covered in these…things.”

  “Yes, I'm aware. Insects. Myriapods. And many new subphyla, I'm certain. They may have lived here once, though they could very well be extra-terrestrial. In fact,” he stared at the ceiling, “assume that they are.”

  I shook my hands and imagined the creatures slinging away. I'd turned off the UV light, but my mind was morbidly eager to fill in the missing details. I reached to my face but stopped. All that would accomplish was to smear them about, agitate them.

  “But, why?”

  Boas sat on a lab stool and slumped over the table. “Insects outnumber all other living forms, and hence all other spirit forms. Probabilistically, they're the most likely to find you. They have the best sense of smell too. The ectoplasm is like nectar to them.”

  “I'm getting rid of them. You must help.”

  “No.”

  My mouth hung open. Imagining those creatures pouring into me, I clamped my lips shut. I sputtered in frustration, in disgust. “Boas, this isn't a joke. They reflect UV—”

  “No, the ectoplasm reflects it. I think they get it inside, or on, themselves. Even if you could remove it—”

  “A UV table at a tanning salon, or a sub-dermal laser, for tattoo removal. I will burn my skin off before I accept this.”

  “It wouldn't do any good.”

  I marched up to him and glared. Something about what he just said didn't make sense. “Wait. They're gathering it?”

  “Yes?” He grinned and flashed that expectant figure-out-what-I-know look of his.

  “They should remove it all on their own.”

  “Like ants after a sugar cube.”

  “Then this will end.”

  “No.”

  “What? Why not?”

  “Well…” Boas pushed himself to his feet. “This is a first-aid station?”

  “Clearly.”

  “Have you listened to your pulse?”

  I didn't answer. I flew to the nurse's cabinet and dug through the bandages and saline washes. After finding a stethoscope, I put the plugs in my ears, wincing as I imagined those insects crawling inside them. I held the microphone against my wrist.

  Music. Brittle precision. I'd heard this before, when the omniscope started.

  “Are you familiar with string theory?” Boas asked.

  “Balderdash! I don't subscribe to that.”

  “No matter. It subscribes to you. Parts of it, anyhow.”

  “You're mad. Quantum vibrations don't operate—”

  “No, that would change your structure. Your condition is at the cellular level. That's why the insects are so excited.”

  I shook.

  “They'll get inside you, fill you up like some sort of ghastly piñata. If they haven't already.”

  I clenched my fists. “We can reverse it. We'll use your omniscope and dial in to a different frequency. Something to cancel it out. Some sort of white noise.”

  “Ingenious, Davis! I salute you. It would work, but…this is hard for me to say.” Boas rubbed at the back of his neck and laughed. “You never asked what happened to me last night.”

  “I waited for you, but I couldn't find you.”

  “I know. I understand a few things now. Such as that child, the one who bit you? He attacked you because you doubted him. You were told specifically that he was there and you disbelieved. That is impossibly insulting. But I didn't believe either,” Boas said, “so they took me.”

  “They? Bowie, you're not making—”

  I thought Boas had looked the worse for wear, and now that I was able to study him without preoccupation, it was clear. That dark stain at his abdomen. His punctured jacket. I took a step back.

  “Please, don't waste the effort.”

  I rubbed at my mouth, but remembered the insects and fell to the floor convulsing. Boas laughed heartily as I knocked over chairs and banged into tables.

  “Enough,” he said. “Listen. I've always wanted to make my mark. You know that.”

  I spit and choked and flapped my fingers.

  “It would have been so nice to have my own place, here.” Boas walked to the window and stared outside. “Didn't realize we'd lost so many students. Sad, in a way, but not really.” He watched through the glass for a long while before turning. “I cast away my regrets. I embrace a new purpose.”

  I picked myself up and eyed him warily.

  “I wanted to prove…well, you know. It would have been fascinating, but nothing compared to this. You see, I was the only one who wanted to knock at the door. But, you've already seen how eager the tenants are to get out.”

  “Wait, Boas, you can't mean—”

  “Yes!” He beamed. “Think of it. Every being in human history knowing what I've done. Universal adulation. Every sentient mind that's ever existed will know my work. That's so much greater than anything I can do here. I conquered eternity. Not our eternity, but theirs.”

  I searched his face. There was no trace of jest. “You can't.”

  “Can't? I already have. My equipment was lacquered with it, ambrosia. It was quite easy to manipulate.”

  Boas leaned back with a look of smug satisfaction. I picked up my UV light and turned my back to him. Forcing my feet to move slowly wasn't easy. After closing the door behind me, I took off at a full sprint down the hall.

  * * *

  “Hey, you hear that?” the cab driver asked. We were still miles away from the lab.

  “I do,” I said. “The end is nigh.”

  “Maybe so. Damned strange thing for kids to play. You see where it's coming from?”

  “Up ahead, I believe.”

  “Catchy little tune.”

  The lights were off at Boas's warehouse, but the racket within was stunning. I flipped the power on knowing what I'd find.

  The tent was still in place. A pale bluish light bled from its seams. I moved as close as I dared. If I had soaked up a lot of that ectoplasm, imagine what that tent held. I flipped on my UV light. It was the last mistake I ever made.

  Maybe if I would have charged in, remained oblivious, I could have turned it off. But seeing what squatted around that tent, what coiled around it with a thousand mouths and a million young, what even now turned its ancient gaze toward me, it was too much. I froze. Its children swarmed and tumbled outward, fighting for the prize.

  The curtain tore. With the omniscope running at maximum, Boas hadn't just punctured eternity, he'd severed its threads. There was a snap and the spirits crawled out from behind every speck of dust.

  * * *

  I was there the day it started to rain, here, there, everywhere. I was there as our entire history spilled into the present. As amazing as it seemed, Boas was right. He was the most famous of heroes, the beloved savior. Just ask anyone. They're always in agreement. He'd given them what they wanted most.

  Author Rhodes Brazos claims to lack his wife’s classiness, his son’s genius and his house cat’s fearsome nature. His life is a simple one, Rockwellian with a touch of morbid fancy.

  He is an amiable enough fellow who never quits watching and listening, always imagining what his neighbors must be thinking. This is a dangerous path for the foolhardy—Brazos chief among them—who come to believe their own guesses have truth and that passersby are living by proxy within them. The cautious should study his mistake from afar, as he courts madness.

  Brazos transcribes these dreams into prose and shares them with unsuspecting readers. His work has appeared in venues that include Apex Magazine, Demon Rum and Other Evil Spirits, Gaia: Shadow & Breath and Spark: A Creative Anthology - Volume V.

  Brazos currently lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado and has no plans to move. Although his neighbors grouse and grumble over this fact to no end.

  Sometimes the world weeps for us when we cannot. When we will not.

  But grief is not a thing that can be stored up or forgotten.

  Grief is not a thing that can be pushed aside or ignored.

  Grief is not a thing that can be buried or banished like a ghost, even if its causes can.

  I know that now, and it's a hard, hard lesson to learn.

  * * *

  Friday morning. He asked to play catch again today. Nick, my son.

  Her son.

  I turned him down…again. He came to me, from the silence of his room to the silence of mine. He had his old, beaten Rawlings glove on his left hand, an equally scuffed baseball in the right. The ball didn’t move from one to the other; it sat like a stone in his bare hand.

  He looked old. He was only thirteen, but Christ he looked old.

  I stared at the ball's red stitches for a moment. They looked like the dead, crosshatched eyes of a cartoon character.

  It had only been a month since she passed away, and her absence left a house full of silent rooms. The only thing with the will to speak was the 60-inch plasma television she hadn’t wanted me to buy. I left it on so that there were some voices in the house, happy voices.

  Part of me, though, left it on to spite her for leaving us.

  So we lived there in our silent house, Nick and I, lived and dealt with the death of the most important woman in both of our lives in the quietest way possible.

  We let the TV do the talking.

  I heard rain outside, like the hiss of static, pattering the windows and the roof.

  I looked at him, his flat, solemn face impassive.

  “Raining, Champ,” I said, letting the impression of a smile slide across my face. “Maybe some other day.”

  He sighed, barely audible above the bright chatter of the TV and the white noise of the rain.

  “That’s what you always say.” Turning, he made his way back down the darkened hallway to the silence he was more accustomed to these days.

  A murky smudge lingered in the doorway like an echo of his presence. My tear-rheumed eyes tried to focus on it, and it seemed to coalesce, as if the air itself were weeping dark, coagulating blood.

  I blinked several times and the shadowy fug frayed away, leaving behind a feeling of disappointment and a hint of my wife's perfume.

  I heard his door close, just as Sheldon said something funny on TV.

  I turned my head back to the flickering lights and descended through waves of canned laughter that washed everything else away.

  Still feel guilty about that.

  * * *

  Monday. I was sitting in the car, listening to a mix CD I’d made a while back for one of our outings. This CD had some stuff by Adele, Tom Petty, Tom Waits. She loved to take short day trips with Nick and me, to farmers markets or state parks or little, out of the way towns filled with diners and antiques and feed stores.