Psychopomp and Circumstance

By Adrean Messmer

"The Sewercide Man brings out the dead."

The town of Bandon is a simple place where very little ever happens.

Until the Sewercide Man announces himself through the Facebook feed of a dying girl. Then people begin to die. Worse, those who die become something other--bound to the will of the Sewercide Man.

But the Sewercide Man is more than just a dead guy or a monster. He is death without justice. He is destruction without remorse. He doesn't have a plan.

He just wants to play.

• Language: English
• Publisher: A Murder of Storytellers
• Release date: May 1, 2016

Book preview

The Twilight Zone used to run on some local channel at ten—an hour after my bedtime. On Friday nights my dad—my real dad, before he got eaten alive by tumors and radiation—let me stay up and watch it with him. I snuggled deep into the space between him and the overstuffed cushion of the couch arm. He’d position the big bowl of popcorn so it sat on both our laps. Between his body heat and the cuddling I never needed a blanket.

The rest of the week though, I rushed to get to sleep before it started; the sound of Rod Serling’s voice without my father nearby to protect me scared me. It was the kind of nightmare fear that would make it so I couldn’t move—except to make sure the blanket was covering everything from my chin to my toes. It would spread from deep in my gut down my arms and legs, all the way into my fingers and toes..

Rod always began his tales, as he would say, on the days when normal took a smoke break. When the ordinary suddenly became extraordinary. When a tossed coin came up neither heads nor tails, but landed on its thin edge.

That’s where I am now, feeling that fear starting in my stomach, no protective fathers for miles, in that middle ground between science and superstition, somewhere between the status quo and my status on Facebook.

Melodramatic, sure. But that’s how it is.

Danelle Lashley

32 mins ago

The Sewercide Man brings out the dead.

Thirty minutes ago, what was I doing? Shower. I was getting out of the shower. Doing my make-up. Dropping my Prozac down the drain instead of taking it. There are no likes or no shares. If it weren’t such a weird thing to say, I’d be offended. I always get likes. But there’s just a few comments consisting mostly of question marks and confused emoticons, none of them from anyone I would bother giving a name to in my episode. Except for Rolo Henshaw. Five minutes ago, he left a big oh, underscore, little oh. Dam gurl, he wrote. Crzy.

I move my cursor to the reply box and type out a snarky attack on his spelling before deciding I’d rather keep the sanctuary of his apartment than call him out for his crimes against grammar. Besides, I don’t want to answer any questions about the post. Or, rather, I’m not sure if I could. So, I just click the edit dropdown and delete it. Gone and forgotten.

It’s so easy that I smile to myself. I don’t need a half hour, give or take for commercial breaks, to solve this problem.

My phone rings with that song about being a bitch, which means I don’t even have to look at the screen to know it’s Faye.

Party @ Zack’s, the text reads. U coming?

For a minute, I think about telling her no, forget it, I’m staying home—my head is starting to hurt again. But if I did she’d want to know why and there’s not enough aspirin in the world to deal with her and a migraine.

So, I type, Yeah, pick me up, and toss the phone on my bed. It sinks into the thick, satin bedspread.

I pull on the green top that pushes my boobs up and used to make it hard to breathe. I’ve lost eleven pounds since the last time I wore it. Whatever. It’s not as tight, but the push-up bra is still doing its job. Faye, with her tiny waist and her long legs, used to be the center of attention all the time. How’s that for a silver lining?

☂

Faye’s car smells like lilies and cloves. She grins at me wickedly, smacking her gum like we’re in some eighties movie. Low bass punctuated by the rhythmic speech of a rap guy I’m supposed to know plays quietly from the speakers.

You look like a prostitute, She says, completely unironically, while wearing a low-cut, blood red faux corset shirt and pants so tight they may as well have been painted on her legs.

Good. You look like a Fangtasia waitress.

She tosses her coppery hair over her shoulder in that way that sort of makes time stretch out and stop. Like in the movies when the love interest is shown for the first time and the air is full of glitter and magic and love. I flip down the visor and check my reflection, hoping for the same slow motion.

It doesn’t happen.

To hide my disappointment, I open up my purse. My brown eyes are pretty boring, especially compared to Faye’s blue and Kelly’s green. I should have picked uglier friends. I brush more bruised plum along my lash line, light orchid under my brows. Brighten up the green eyeliner because it’s supposed to give the illusion that this shit brown has depth. I rub my finger along the edge of the shadow to blur and smoke it out. Make my eyes look big and wide. Lots of black mascara, never brown. Brown on top of brown predictably ruins everything.

I don’t have a lot to work with and, with friends like Faye, I have to play up what I’ve got. Which basically amounts to big eyes, big boobs, and a killer personality. Two truths and a lie. I’m great at parties.

Faye talks too much when she drives. Stupid little thoughts that hardly deserve the air it takes to say them. But this isn’t a conversation we’re having. It almost never is with her. I’m not really expected to participate. Faye’s voice is the ball and I’m the wall. Toss, bounce, echo. Cue the pantomimed hurling.

I watch the buildings go by as we drive down the one main road in Bandon. We’re surrounded on all sides by squat, large building painted in garish tropical neons. Despite being on the wrong coast and the dangerous rocks that line the beaches, the town still tries to market itself like a great beach escape. We’ve got Surf shops, souvenirs, bathing suits, hair wraps, and beaded necklaces shoved in right next to the big box, anchor stores.

Jay-Z starts rhyming as the rain makes good on its threat. I got ninety problems and this bitch is all of them. Fat dollops kamikaze against the windshield. Pedestrians and sidewalk dwellers run for shelter, producing umbrellas from inside coat pockets and huge purses. Faye stops the car with a jolt, nearly missing the light as it turns red. I put my hand on the dashboard to brace myself and make a note to haunt the shit out of her if I die because she failed Driver’s Ed.

A group of people—tourists probably, that don’t realize it’s been raining as often as they blink—cross in front of the car. One of them, a tall man in a tailored suit the same color as the grey clouds, lags behind, staring at me. Even though he’s the only one of them with an umbrella, he’s soaked through with raindrops that keep hitting him. I lean my forehead against the window to get a few precious extra inches of visual range to see that his umbrella has no webbing. The metal ribs stand out, sharp and lethal looking in the lights. The little remaining fabric it has hangs in stringy, torn strips, offering no protection at all. I frown as that Twilight Zone fear comes back, hitting me hard in the guts.

His eyes widen and a look like shock passes over his face. Then he smiles, showing more teeth than seems possible. He forces eye contact so that I know he knows I’m looking at him. A bell rings in a half-rotten memory bank. He’s familiar, but I can’t decide if I want to figure out why or bury the knowledge deep down in my brain where it will get eaten alive, just like everything else.

Something tickles in my stomach, like maybe my lunch is coming back to life to crawl back out, up through my esophagus. I almost ask Faye to pull over so I can throw up, but I don’t want to stop anywhere near him.

Instead, I swallow the lump in my throat and say, What a creeper.

Who? Faye pauses her stream of dialogue and follows my gaze, searching the crowd.

The light changes and she—thank god for her bad driving habits—guns the accelerator. I close my eyes and take deep breaths, waiting for the nausea to pass.

The guy on the corner. He was staring at us. I don’t say me, even though that’s the truth, because it makes my head hurt more to think about being singled out by him. Besides, we will appeal to her ego. Me makes it sound like I’m just an attention whore.

Don’t be weird. She scrunches up her eyebrows and drops back into her verbal exhibitionism. The annoyance in her face making it clear that we are done talking about my thing.

☂

On party nights, Zack’s front door is unlocked. Since seventh grade, Zack has been the designated party-thrower. His parents don’t mind what he does as long as the house doesn’t get messed up. Rather, as long as it doesn’t stay messed up. And there’s always some pathetic soul willing to do clean up in exchange for an invite.

Zack lives in one of those suburban neighborhoods where all the homes were planted at the same time. They grew, like weeds, bursting open their generic blooms in easy, vague reshuffles of the same three or four Dutch Colonial floor plans. Like Stepford houses, they’re all lined up in neat little rows. To add to the illusion of variety some of the houses are turned and mirrored so the garage is on the opposite side. All of the exteriors are painted in the same pseudo-tropical color family. Almost every one of the driveways has a black SUV parked neatly in it. Usually, it’s off to one side to leave room for a Challenger or a Leaf—the fun car. Or the kid’s car.

We park across the street, in front Corpsey Carly’s house, and follow the sound of the pounding music down to the basement. Swathes of jeweled colored fabric hang over lamps, casting the underground room in blues and reds and greens. Deep bass throbs from the far end where someone—fuck, I can’t remember his name—holds a pair of over-sized headphones to his ear and taps at keys on his sleek, designer laptop. I feel like there should be another word for what he is. It isn’t really DJ anymore. DJs deal with physical things. He’s all in the ether on his computer.

I want to dance. No, not dance. I want to lose myself in the music until I drown. I close my eyes, but Faye is still droning on and I suddenly can’t just tune her out. It’s like noticing the TV is making that high pitched, electronic squeal. Hear it once and then you hear it everywhere you go. I turn back to her and open my mouth to say something mean, but before I can get the words out, Kelly bounds over us like a great, dumb Saint Bernard. She’s all bouncing breasts and hips clad in bright colors and shiny plastic jewelry.

Standing at the table of drinks, suddenly left alone, is her boyfriend Ethan. Simultaneously looking uncomfortable and too cool to be here, he downs his beer and follows her over to us.

I back up as Kelly moves to hug me, but I run into Dylan. He puts his hands on my shoulders and smiles. There are so many people in this room and so few that I actually want to interact with. Like, none of them. That’s how many.

Well, Dylan could be an exception.

Taking advantage of me getting all caught up in Dylan’s stupidly amazing eyes, Kelly hugs me. Despite my best efforts, I hug her back. She does not hug Faye. For all her bleached-blond idiocy, she knows better than press herself against a porcupine.

Oh! Faye gasps when she realizes that I’m about to start ignoring her in favor of Dylan. I forgot to tell you. This is great. She waves her hands excitedly and waits until she’s sure we’re all paying attention and properly entranced. Her eyes graze over each of us, landing on Ethan last and hanging there.

He shakes his rock star messy hair out of his face and sighs as he seems to realize that she’s waiting on him. Arching one brow, he gives her a lethal glare. I get what Faye sees in him—he’s all razor edges and James Dean attitude—but I thought Kelly liked things softer.

Faye grins, relishing the spotlight, and continues, It was in the newspaper. They had to use two stretchers to get him out of the house, he was so fucking fat. And there were pictures of the inside. It was like something off A&E.

Kelly furrows her brow and sidesteps into Ethan’s arms. What are you talking about, Faye?

Sissy Chrissy’s dad. Her smile beams. He died.

Dylan, despite the glares I’m contractually obligated to give, has picked up on my silent signal to stay close. I can feel his body heat radiating through the back of my shirt. He stops pretending that he isn’t back there, eavesdropping, and grabs Faye’s arm, a little roughly in my opinion, and spins her around to face him. I get jostled out of the way. Of course she did that to me.

Was Chrissy there? he asks her.

Faye stares at him, aghast, for a few seconds. I can’t tell if it’s because she’s upset at the treatment or because, besides Ethan who couldn’t care less about her, Dylan has the most distracting, get-lost-in-them-forever eyes. I went out with him just so I could stare at his eyes without being weird. The rest of his parts were just icing.

I don’t know, Faye says, slowly, like she’s talking to one of the LD kids. Or Kelly.

Did you see him? He asks. Do you think he’s… He trails off as she pulls her arm away from him.

I read the fucking newspaper, asshole. I didn’t go to his house. Then, like flipping a switch, her face goes back to happy and smiling. Is it true, Kelly? Did he fit in a regular coffin or did Chrissy have to order a double-wide?

I turn and walk away.

Um, I don’t really deal with the customers much. I just answer phones and greet people and stuff. And I’m not supposed to talk about that stuff anyway. Kelly’s voice slowly gets lost in the music as I move farther away.

I certainly remember going to graduation. I don’t get why we all still act like we’re in high school, spreading rumors to a quickly shrinking group like any of it matters anymore. Dylan beat the crap out of Chrissy on a weekly basis, now he acts like he cares if Chrissy’s okay. Like he’s actually been wondering where Chrissy’s been all summer. Or like Chrissy’s the only one of us missing.

Scratch that. You can’t be missing from something you were never a part of. Chrissy not being here is just another Friday night. But the fact remains that this is a thin crowd.

There was a time when Zack’s parties filled this basement and overflowed up the stairs to the backyard. People packed shoulder to shoulder, writhing against each other because there wasn’t enough room to dance. Like the one he threw in May, before everyone I’ve ever known scattered across the country. It was the biggest turnout I’d seen. Everyone getting together one last time and pretending like it wasn’t really the last time. All of them making stupid, empty promises about how life would be.

But of course, most of them turned into promise-breakers. They got college acceptance letters and jobs. They started the process of growing up, becoming contributing members of society. We always said this—this right here—having the kind of fun that makes a night last for years and being the kind of best friends that never grow apart, this is what we’d do when we grew up. We weren’t going to be like them. The adults. The parents and evil stepfathers and mothers. The enemies.

And now it’s just the twenty-ish of us standing in this room, acting like everything is okay and nothing has changed. Like we aren’t a little pathetic for still being here.

I close my eyes again and let my hips start a slow, lazy sway. With the lights and shifting colors, I feel like I’m underwater and swimming. The repetitive beat of whatever techno-trash the not-DJ is playing helps me forget where I am. And who. I’m not like them. I’m going to keep those promises. I won’t grow up. I won’t grow old. And right now, I’m going to be here at this party, not thinking about the thing that forces me to be the only loyal one of us.

It took a month to convince my mother to make a doctor appointment. My headaches were so bad that I started throwing up and, for a while, she just congratulated me on losing the weight. She insisted there was nothing wrong until we were in the office with Dr. Mara sitting stoically on the other side of a vast ocean of mahogany.

I’m sorry to tell you this, Dr. Mara said.

What is it? My mom asked. She put her hand to her heaving bosom like a silent movie queen.

Outside, a squirrel scrambled around the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. Dr. Mara took a deep breath before answering the question. The squirrel shot into the road just as an expensive looking car rolled around the corner. The rodent disappeared under the wheels. No squeal of breaks, no animal sound of pain. Just a jagged red stamp left by the tire-tread for the next few feet. I couldn’t even see the body. Either it