Inkd Publications: Cthulhu Dreams: That Sinking Feeling

Cthulhu Dreams: A short story anthology of horror influenced by or reflective of Lovecraftian themes. For sale at Barnes and Noble online.

My contribution, “That Sinking Feeling,” is a quasi-memoir of the time I lived in a commercial loft space built by family members. The place was horrific, an abandoned call center, and we did our best to make it livable but instead left during the demo process due to 1) my grandfather going back on a yet another deal with my dad relating to the property and 2) vibes. Someone else moved into it after that, and then once they were gone my uncle demoed the interior and found a gun in the ceiling, which apparently he just…kept (??!!??) … I don’t know, man.

And yes, my partner at the time did claim to have felt a ghostly presence when he played blues guitar. And I did work (very briefly) as a phone psychic for Miss Cleo. And we were a mile or so away from President Bush on 9/11. Everything else may or may not have happened.

I’m reprinting my story for you all here. It’s sort of a long one, enjoy!

That Sinking Feeling 

Up until that day, the things that I knew were just a junk drawer full of notions in my mind. Needles that never seemed to thread right. Thimblefuls of whispers I’d overheard as a child…scraps I didn’t know how to sew together. I used to open the drawer every now and then with the intent to purge it all from my mind but never could bring myself to do it. I’ll need these things someday, I’d think. Until then, best to keep them hidden. Undisturbed and locked away.

But over the decades, these things began to protest their disuse. Threatened to assemble themselves of their own initiative, threatened to stitch themselves into a ragdoll, a dear sweet baby with broken button eyes and a red-thread mouth drawn up in a scream. An heirloom, unwanted, and yet- my responsibility. 

And then one day – that day – in a jolt, the doll found life. On that day she was born and she cried. And oh, how she cried. And that’s when I realized I’d known everything all along. Me, my family, we’d all known.

We’d known about the bones underneath Tenth Street Lofts. 

#

Part I: 2001

The Tenth Street Lofts complex was an anomaly in the rapidly gentrifying Rosemary district of Sarasota, Florida’s historically Black north side. Built by my father and my uncle Boss thirty years ago, it was a cobble job, the two being in the salvage business. It featured glorious red brick construction – they’d come into some, a late nineteenth century Woolworth’s tear-down on Main Street – with stonework flourishes and Spanish revival ironwork that had, in the ‘80s, fallen from taste. All of it, saved from the dump. It fit in neither with Rosemary’s 1920s Cracker shacks nor with the brand new cookie-cutter townhouses that had, one by one, been coming to replace them.

 Dad and Boss retained the property’s wealth of old growth oaks and had reused all the brick pavers they’d unearthed from what used to be the lot’s side streets for their new walkways and parking lot. Each brick was stamped 1905 and in no time the soles of my shoes became stained red with Edwardian clay. In a very real way, every day my body was carried through this place by the past. 

The place spooked me, always had. But we – David, my partner and I – had gotten a family discount on the end unit. Because of one of those old oaks, they’d built it disconnected from the row. We liked the privacy. It was basically its own little home. 

Except it wasn’t a home. In all that time there’d only been one previous tenant – a commercial enterprise, a small call center. An appointment setting service, I believe. On move in day we were greeted by the hollow buzz of fluorescent lights, green nylon carpets glittered with termite wings and wood paneled walls decorated with garlands of telephone wiring. The space’s saving grace was the light that came in through a fifty-foot run of north facing floor-to-ceiling pane glass windows. The view outside wasn’t much – the back side of a warehouse, a stormwater runoff ditch, more old trees – but the expansive view of the sky above all of that – the violet and salmon Florida sunsets, the Wedgewood blue early mornings with their nonstop rush of candyfloss clouds – was privileged. Just keep your chin up, and paradise was yours. 

We shaped it up quickly into one expansive, open living area and kept intact two separate rooms in the rear of the loft, one for David’s music studio and the other for my work.

As for my work. The job market was shit. For months after we’d moved here I had been searching the papers in vain when I came across the ad: 

CLAIRVOYANT? PSYCHIC ABILITIES? 

JOIN MISS CLEO’S PSYCHIC READERS NETWORK!!!

MAKE OWN HOURS CHANGE LIVES GAIN FINANCIAL FREEDOM

BASE PAY + COMMISSION BIG $$$ GUARANTEED

Attesting to the belief that I was in possession of psychic abilities was a condition of employment. I signed, fraudulently, a document to that effect. As a skeptic, I assumed every other signatory was faking it, too. Not only was I not a psychic, but I also didn’t know the first thing about reading Tarot, a skill the callers expected, thanks to Miss Cleo’s commercials. The World Wide Web saved me. Online, I found and printed “educational” Tarot spreads with accompanying interpretations. I read the print outs verbatim.

I was pretty good at sounding authentic. I took my time, pretended to lay out the spreads, hmmming and ohhhing all the while. The routine worked because without exception not one of my callers cared one shit about the cards once we started talking. They weren’t believers, either. Not really. My callers were common people with common worries. They were lonely, lost, and desperate to unburden themselves to someone who could assign cosmic importance to their problems. I – or, the cards – offered empathy, encouragement, and common sense disguised as celestial wisdom. Was I a psychic? No. But I think I really did help some people.

Recently, a woman with terminal cancer asked the cards if she should leave her abusive boyfriend, even though she’d been relying on him for her care. 

“The Six of Swords,” I said. “This indicates a journey of great transition and healing. It has been placed in reverse, which shows me you are feeling trapped and overwhelmed. It will take incredible courage to end this relationship, however I’m seeing that doing so is the only way you will have a chance to heal.”

I had no idea of her prognosis, but it was clear to me she already knew what she needed to do. Most callers did. Again, they just needed permission. From the universe. From God. From fate. 

I took a day off after that. Walked ten blocks west down to the Sarasota Bay harbor, sat on the dock, and watched the sailboats come in until sunset.

#

David hadn’t been spending time in his music studio lately. I asked him about it on Sunday morning while we ate breakfast in bed and watched the Washington Journal on C-SPAN. 

 David sighed deeply. Turned down the volume on the remote and put down his coffee. 

“Well. I didn’t want to freak you out, but…I felt something in there. A presence. Right behind me, while I was messing around with Cross Road Blues.” 

I stared. 

“Robert Johnson,” he said. “You know, just…the blues.”

The presence was male. And unfriendly. It filled the room with a cloud of rage. 

“I stopped playing, turned around, and it was gone,” he said. “So. I’m going to bring my stuff out here in the main room. I’ll put up some drywall and soundproofing insulation. I’m not going in there again.”

#

I assembled my stack of Tarot spreads and dialed into the network. 

“Psychic Readers Network, This is Julie. To whom will I be providing spiritual guidance this evening?” 

There was a loud, long, sucking inhale. As if someone were coming up for air.

“Hello? Are you okay?” 

The caller began to cry. Not the first time. 

“They took ‘em,” she said. 

“Excuse me? Took what? Who did?”

“They,” she said. “They took them. My daddy. Sam. My husband.” 

She was heaving. I thought she must be having a panic attack.

“Hey, listen to me. I’m going to need you to hang up and call 9-1-1. Can you do that for me?”

“Nine one what?” she said. “No, just…come out here and help me find them.”

“What do you mean? Come out where?”

“Look outside.” 

This person was very confused. 

“Look…I really think you need to call -”

“Right. Out. Side. Look. Out front, out them big windows of yours.”

Ice water flooded my veins. 

“I’ll wait,” she said.

I threw down the phone and pulled the cord from the jack. 

I sat in that room for a long time.

#

Eventually I got myself together and left. I had to eat. Pee. Sleep. I walked into the main room, keeping my head down to avoid the windows.

Look outside. 

No, phone demon, I don’t think I will. 

David was working a graveyard shift. Adrenaline was pumping through my body and it took two Xanax for me to fall asleep. I sunk into its velvet fully. 

I dreamed I was throwing rocks at a small bird. It evaded them successfully until it didn’t. One ripped a wing clear off and it cried and cried and cried. When I picked it up, I noticed I was wearing many dozens of gold bracelets. They clinked and shone in the sun. The bird dipped its beak and drank from them, draining the bracelets black. When it was done, it looked up at me. Its irises were pure gold. As it died in my hands, its pupils grew large. Its eyes were the sun at the height of an eclipse. I went blind.

I felt so sorry for what I had done. 

#

The next day, I plugged the phone cord back in the jack and dialed the Psychic Readers Network’s employee line. I asked if there was any way a caller could ask for me. Could they know who I was? Where I lived? The operator assured me the dispatches were completely random. “But it’s something we’re working on, because clients have been requesting to be able to reconnect with their favorite psychics,” she said. After I hung up, I unplugged the cord again. 

#

The next morning, September 11, David and I watched the World Trade Center towers collapse on live TV. In a surreal twist, I shit you not, President Bush was two miles away from our home, reading books to kids – a photo op at the elementary school in Newtown. The town went on lockdown.

With nowhere to go, we spent the day watching people on TV running for their lives before being overcome and swallowed by clouds of black smoke. Businesspeople, mostly. I’d never seen people in such expensive suits looking so terrified. 

I forgot about the weird call. About the spirit, the stalker, the prank caller, whatever she was. This collective terror eclipsed my personal one. We all felt small. I even looked out the windows, grateful I was able to do so. I saw nothing but familiar cars parked in their spots and the swaying of tall grasses near the drainage ditch that signified the presence of unhoused humans who were trying their best to live in a world that, in my estimation, had given them more cruelty than they deserved.

I caught something moving on the closest oak; tone that made my dad and Boss have to build our unit as a standalone. I squinted my eyes and clocked a squirrel parkouring up the trunk. It scampered to the middle of the thickest branch, sat up on its hind legs, cocked its head and looked at me. Neither of us broke our gaze until the sirens of what had to be Bush’s motorcade rushing by a few blocks over spooked us both. When I looked back at the branch he was gone.

It seemed darker outside than usual at this hour. For a brief moment I thought a Boeing might have crash landed after all, its smoke obscuring the sun. The thought passed and was replaced by a renewed worry over that phone call. I turned my attention back to the TV. A video someone took from an apartment building showed the planes slicing through the skyscrapers like a hot knife through butter. And then the fireballs. I was mesmerized. Then they showed the bodies and I was sick. Still, I could not look away. The coverage was perversely comforting. Comparatively, a weird phone call was nothing. 

David, however, had had enough. He was one of those well-adjusted sorts who did not use horror to self-soothe. Despite his earlier resolution, he had been in his studio for some time, playing guitar. It was quiet, but to me, it sounded like the Blues.

#

Later that day I received a pre-recorded call from the Psychic Readers Network, asking their employees to make a special effort to be available for what was turning out to be an unprecedented spike in calls. I couldn’t avoid work forever. I assembled my print outs and dialed in. The first ring was immediate.

I was surprised that no one mentioned the terrorist attack directly. Perhaps the shock of the incident simply heightened fears and anxieties that were already present. Reminded them of their own mortality. The fragility of life. I could see how receiving counsel from someone they believed to have access to divine knowledge would be comforting.

Many calls began with an iteration of, “Life’s too short. I’m thinking of making a big change…”

The cards always said, “go for it.” 

#

It was three a.m. and calls were still coming in back-to-back. After the most recent one ended, I left the phone off the hook to go grab some leftover pizza. I could hear that David was up. We were both night owls. 

The living area was dark beyond the kitchen. All the lights were off. But by the light of the TV I could see David pacing, slowly, back and forth. 

“David?” 

He didn’t look at me – he simply kept pacing. Away from the TV, then toward the TV, again and again, disquietingly slow. The cold pizza felt heavy in my mouth and I struggled to swallow. Something felt wrong. 

In an instant, a shot of black smoke, a replay of the collapse, eclipsed the light from the television screen and David’s body was swallowed into the dark. I walked toward where I knew him to be. When the smoke on the TV cleared and the light returned, he was in front of me. I looked into his eyes. They were glowing rings of fire.

Before my brain could register that his eyes were simply reflecting footage of the fire, I screamed. 

And in an instant, I remembered everything.

#

Part II: 1981

Danny’s shovel struck deep into the dirt of the future home of Tenth Street Lofts and came back up with a fingerbone. It pointed at him, white against earth, glowing in the west-central Florida sun.

If it were just him out here he’d probably throw it down and keep working. But he had a crew, someone else’s guys, and if they found something while digging, he had no idea how they’d react. They might call the police. Or worse, the Florida Department of Natural Resources. He’d seen them completely take control of work sites, indefinitely, just because some worker kicked up a piece of Seminole pottery.

“Boys – lunch,” he said. It was only eleven but already 90 degrees in the shade and they did not protest the break. “Let’s take a long one. Back at two.”

He walked to the corner and fed the phone a dime. 

“Boss, we may have a problem,” he said.

“I can be there in ten,” Boss said.

Danny sat and waited for Boss under the biggest mossy oak. He rolled the finger bone between his thumb and pointer finger languidly. Boss pulled up ten minutes later as promised.

“Give it here,” he said.

Danny passed him the bone. Boss squinted his eyes and sucked his lips in deep, his mouth a thin pale line. 

“Well. Let’s send the crew home. We gotta find the rest of this son of a bitch before anyone else does.”

And with that they set to digging.

#

Two days later they had parts of three people, which they knew because they’d found three skulls.

Danny said they looked like they’d been thrown to dogs, given how the bones were strewn all over. Boss shrugged and shook open a garbage bag. 

Piece by piece, bone by bone, shielded from sight by the construction fence, they filled the bags. At the end of the day they’d filled up five and piled them into Boss’s truck. 

“This ain’t no big deal. Probably just some old folks buried in their family’s backyard, back when the city let you do it, or…” Boss paused, smiled, and pointed to the biggest oak. “Or some sorry kids got themselves strung up on that tree.” 

Danny winced. Boss was a special kind of fuck. 

“Call the crew back tomorrow,” Boss said. “I want this foundation set yesterday.” 

Danny looked up at the oak. He knew the history of this part of town but, like everyone else save for rednecks like Boss, he didn’t take glee in it or even think much of it at all. It just was. The less remembered about shit like that, the better. Still. He worried he might see grooves in the bark of the thickest branch like the ones the tour guide pointed out on the hanging tree outside the old jailhouse in Tallahassee. Some family vacation that was. 

He was relieved not to find them. 

#

Danny drove home and parked his truck on the shoulder of the road before he turned into his neighborhood. In minutes he’d have to walk inside his home and act like he didn’t spend the day bagging up bones. Kiss his wife and daughter goodnight and try not to think about the fact that his lips were but a paper-thin sheet of skin away from their small white skulls. 

He steeled himself, chugged up his truck, and continued the drive. When he got home he went straight to the shower.

The skulls bothered him the most. There’s no pretending a human skull came from anything other than a human. You can’t help but imagine the face; the life. And the teeth…teeth were so personal. You see those everyday. To see the yellowed few that remained attached to the skulls he’d bagged had upset him. 

He thought about this as he massaged shampoo into his scalp. He moved his fingers slowly, mapping the subtle bumps and dips of the plates that stored the meat of his consciousness. He rinsed the bubbles from his hands and brought two balled-up fists down over his eyes, rubbing them in deep circles around his sockets. He pushed in and saw stars. 

He stepped out of the shower and dried himself. In the fog of the mirror, his body was a ghost. He imagined it stripped of its flesh. Gutted. Torn apart by dogs. Swinging from a tree. He picked up his toothbrush, but thinking of teeth made him nauseous. He took a few swigs of Listerine and called it good. Then he walked to the kitchen and took a few swigs of whiskey and called Boss.

“I can’t square what we did, Boss. We should take those bones to the police.”

“Not gonna happen, Danny. Get the thought outcher goddamn mind,” he said.

“Look. I can take them back to the site. I’ll bury ‘em again, let the crew find them.”

“Jesus H. Christ, Danny. Forget it. I already took care of it. They’re swamp food. Compost. Besides, no one’s missed them for this long. No one’s missing them now.”

Danny fell silent.

“It’s late as shit, Danny. See you bright and early, now.” Then he sighed and said, “I’ll bring donuts.”

The sad sound of the dial tone journeyed along the delicate bones of Danny’s ear. He put down the receiver and when he turned around to leave the room he saw Julie standing in the doorway. 

“Bones?” she said.

Danny’s soul fell to look at her. The orbs in her sockets, searching. 

“It’s nothing, honey,” he said. “Let’s get you back to bed.”

#

The next morning, Danny pulled up to the construction site at the same time the crew was starting to arrive. Boss had forgotten the donuts. 

Tomorrow they’d pour the foundation. Danny surveyed the earth, looking for any little shard of white that might indicate a bone or fragment; something he’d missed. Nope, he thought. Nothing in the dirt but dirt. 

Satisfied, he went to the oak tree where the laborers had left their tools and started loading them into his truck. When he was almost done he noticed something in between two exposed roots at the base of the tree. It was small and white and it was pointing at him. The fingertip. He must have dropped it on that first day. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. 

On his way back, his eye caught something else. Something in the dirt was gleaming. He walked over, bent down and picked up a shiny golden ring. A wedding band, from the looks of it.

He put it in his truck’s center console cup holder along with the fingertip. The next day when the concrete truck came in, he took the bone and ring and pushed them both into the dirt with his shoe. He stood back and watched the slurry cover everything.

It was done. 

#

Part III: 2001 (again)

David’s hands flew to cover his ears. Eventually I stopped screaming. He asked me what the hell was wrong with me. 

I didn’t tell him what I’d just remembered – overhearing dad’s call with Boss. Decades of whispers. Jokes at Thanksgivings. Boss could never keep a secret. We knew. I knew. It all came back to me in the fireball flash reflected in David’s eyes. 

I just said, “sorry.”

They took them, the girl had said.

I could no longer deny that I knew my family’s secret. And the girl on the phone, somehow, she knew it, too. 

And she wanted my help.

I needed to talk to her again.

#

I got my opportunity the following Friday.

The phone rang at 2:30 a.m. I had decided that this would be my last call. I was so tired. 

I heard the sound of panicked breathing. Over minutes that followed it slowed, then stopped completely for what seemed like an eternity. My watch ticked. The muted sound of the Blues floated in from David’s studio. 

Then.

“Hello Julie.”

“Hi,” I said. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Oh, I’ve long forgotten that,” she said. “I’m scared.”

Something about her tone was unnerving. Sing-song. Like she was playing with me. I hoped for a moment that I was wrong – that this wasn’t a spirit, something paranormal connected to the bones buried mere feet below me. That this was just someone fucking with me somehow.

“What’s scaring you?” 

While I waited for her answer I thumbed through my stack of printouts, stopping on one with a spread showing the eight of wands, the three of swords, and the queen of swords. It was titled, “Where Do I Go?” Where, indeed. I felt like I was floating. The room felt humid. Smelled dank. Salty. My skin felt cold and clammy.  

“Hey,” she said. “You a fortune teller, right? Tell me my fortune.”

I dutifully read from the print out. This was just another reading.

“Okay, let’s begin. The cards are showing “contradictory reactions – ” 

“What’s that mean?”

I had no idea. I always just read the print out. People usually didn’t interrupt. 

“Oh, well, a contradiction is when things…are the opposite of what they seem, or should be. Or when someone says or does something that’s the opposite of what they do or say.”

“Like you saying you’re a fortune teller when you’re just reading stuff off those papers?”

I cleared my throat. “I suppose that’s a good example. The cards – ”

“Cards,” she scoffed.

“Well, they say you’re restless. And frustrated. They say you want to make a big change…but only because…because you’re afraid?”

“I’m getting less afraid. Keep going,” she said.

“I see the Queen of Swords – a symbol of ‘a woman left alone.’ The cards say that these are the themes that will dominate your future: a woman alone, and afraid, who will make big changes.”

The fluorescent lights had started to blink. I was having a hard time reading the text. I brought the paper closer to my face and watched it grow damp and sag from the hot fog of my breath.

“They say that now that you have this knowledge, you will know how to act…but it also says, if you follow this action, it will lead to loss and sadness.”

“Fortune Teller, I can’t imagine losing more or being no more sad than I already am.”

I said nothing. What could I say?

The lights stopped blinking. Her voice perked up.

“Hey. I don’t like that one now. Read me another. A good one…read me the one on the bottom of your stack there.”

Hang up. Hang up. Hang up. Get out of here. Get the fuck out of the State.

But I couldn’t hang up. It wouldn’t be fair. Like all of my readings, this wasn’t about me. It was about her, and she’d made a point to be here, with me, in this place and time. 

So why were we talking on the phone? 

Go look out the windows, she had said. 

Because she wasn’t here. She was out there. Out there with the bones.  

“Eight of Swords. The Hanged Man,” I read.

“Oh this sounds like a good one!” 

“The Eight of Swords shows a blindfolded woman surrounded by swords. It represents being trapped or stuck, perhaps due to a lack of courage. It says those feelings of being trapped are unconsciously self-imposed. Which suggests…”

Don’t read this. Hang up. Don’t rea – 

“…which suggests that you are more powerful than you think.”

She was silent, so I continued.

“Now, the Hanged Man -”

“I don’t want to talk about the hanged man, Fortune Teller.”

The line went dead.

#

The room stank with my sweat. Did I really just counsel a spirit into believing that they’re “more powerful than they think”? I put the phone down and continued reading the spread. Maybe it would tell me what was coming. Maybe there were things they knew. Maybe they had junk drawers full of notions. Casting cards or casting out a search on AltaVista. Was there really a difference?

The Hanged Man and Eight of Swords combination suggests a crisis of powerlessness. The Hanged Man asks us to let go of the need for control, while the Eight of Swords tells us not to fear the inevitable feeling of being trapped and powerless when doing so. This combination portends a time of heightened anxiety, fear, and doubts that make it nearly impossible to see a way out. The combination urges us to examine the roots of our struggles. It is a reminder that sometimes the answer is to simply let go and allow things to open and unfold naturally. Often, the very act of surrendering brings a wave of relief and opens up truths that were not previously visible. The Hanged Man and Eight of Swords is a reminder that we can only find true power in total surrender.

Alone, in my room, I softly cried. I thought about the bone. The ring. I should have said something. Done something. 

What could I have done?

It mattered little now. I could feel it. A reckoning was coming. 

Sometimes descendents are the ones who pay the bill.

And sometimes they’re the ones who collect.

#

The next morning I was shaken from a deep sleep. The entire loft was rumbling and the air was screeching with the sound of twisting metal. Somehow, through the clamor, I thought I heard the sound of David’s guitar. 

I screamed for him and the floor opened. My mattress fell through and my body went with it. On my back, falling down, I watched the windows of the loft shatter. Shards of glass and pieces of brick bounced off the mattress; bounced off my body. Water pipes snapped and twisted, shooting scalding water along the entire length of my body. My flesh curled. A javelin of rebar pierced my left eye – a perfect hit. A section of wall found my lap and shattered my pelvis. With my good eye, I watched the ceiling fan, still spinning, gain on me as I continued my fall. 

Often, the very act of surrendering brings a wave of relief and opens up truths that were not previously visible.

Scalded, crushed, blinded and finally, chopped to bits, I surrendered. 

#

Part IV: After the fall

If mercy had not then taken my consciousness, I would have felt myself being swallowed into the Earth, suffocated by concrete dust, and buried under meters of wet sand. I would have seen that beautiful old oak, and everything else within a one thousand square foot vicinity, fold into the ground along with me. I would have heard the sound of a Blues guitar and a chorus of voices singing me to sleep. I would have seen the last ray of light I’d ever see illuminate a small piece of gold lying just out of my reach and I would recognize it as the ring I had seen at age nine, slipped around a finger bone, sitting in a cupholder in the center console of my dad’s truck. 

The state’s investigation concluded that faults in the engineering of the drainage ditch system had altered the area’s natural runoff patterns which, over time, worked to weaken the underlying limestone. Shortcuts were made in the construction of the foundation, (thanks, Boss) which didn’t help. Forensic geologists and environmental engineers were called in to assess the the possibility of recovering my body. I was only a few meters deep but that was nearly sea level here, which made it out of the question. Any further disturbance could widen the sinkhole.

Oh, but they did find a body. Or, just a bone, rather – a pelvis. Female, they concluded, young adult, long dead. A root from that oak tree had grown straight through it – and when the sinkhole pulled up the tree, the root lifted the pelvis in the air like a flag. That must have been a sight to see.

After I died, my father had recurring dreams about the tree. In his dreams, it stands alone in a field of the greenest, most beautiful grass. He walks toward it. Fat white chickens skitter by underfoot; he dodges them and laughs. The air smells like the ocean, then honey, then fresh laundry. As he walks closer, he notices a brown-skinned girl laying a bouquet of wildflowers at the foot of the tree. She looks up and stares at him with golden eyes.