The Possession by Michael Rutger

Author:Michael Rutger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2019-07-22T16:00:00+00:00

I went outside. It had, miraculously, stopped raining, though the lack of stars suggested there was plenty more on the way. As I wandered across the lot I checked my watch. Four a.m. Not a good time, ever. Even in the dim and distant days when I’d have been up at that time because I was having fun, it’d be the point where you’d wonder whether you’d actually had enough fun now and should go to bed.

At the far side of the lot the asphalt stopped in a ragged line. Beyond was a couple yards of grass, then a bluff that dropped down a rocky incline to the frigid river ten feet below. The water was moving fast. It’s a sound I love. Back in the days when we’d muse about such things, Kristy and I agreed that when we got old and gray we wanted a cabin in the mountains, with a creek. I’d build a deck (using skills I would presumably have acquired in the meantime) and we’d sit on Adirondack chairs and sip local beers and listen to the water and think serene thoughts. The smell of fresh bread was somehow mixed in with the idea, Kristy having presumably gone to baking school while I was learning carpentry.

This water didn’t sound that way. It was loud, but there was a sibilant note, like whispering. Running water often sounds like it’s a short sample, running on repeat. This didn’t. It sounded like it kept saying different things.

I squatted down, head cocked, trying to work out what was strange about the sound. As I did so I glimpsed something in the water. Dark shapes. Like fish.

Though they couldn’t be. They were too large. And when I tried to focus on one, it dispersed. The longer I stared into the water, the louder the sound of it seemed to get.

I heard someone coming across the lot and got out my cigarettes, assuming that would be why Ken had come out.

It wasn’t him, however. Molly stood next to me. “Where did Pierre get those symbols from?”

“A book, I guess.”

“Have you ever seen him read? And why’d you mess up the sheets of paper I’d carefully put together? Why sweep the symbols or sigils or whatever onto the floor?”

It was a question I’d asked myself. The gesture had not been planned. My hand seemed to reach out and do it of its own accord. “I’m tired. I’m worried about Pierre.”

“I know you are. But I don’t think that’s why.”

“Oh?”

“You’re a sensitive man. You know stuff. You feel stuff, too. Maybe things that other people don’t feel.”

“I don’t really believe in that kind of thing, Molly.”

“Belief is a funny thing, though. I used to get in these huge discussions about God with my grandmother. She was in the local church, forever trying to get me to come along even during the phase when I was too cool for school, never mind the freakin’ Lutherans. I eventually snapped and said, ‘Look, I don’t believe in God,” in that way teenagers do.

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