“go, bearcats!”

by Johnny Byutorie

The lobby was quiet as rain pattered mournfully on the glass of the Zephyr Heights Condominium where Fernando Esperanza managed as night watchman. In his heart he was a “Ferdie,” but everyone called him “Frank” on account of that being what it said on his name badge. His eyes glazed over the camera monitors peering at various access points of the building as his thumb swept across the Gram feed just below his line of sight.

Half-naked models causing crushing self-esteem problems across the country glided past alongside cute animal videos and violent police altercations. His boyfriend Micah gave him a hard time about his social media usage, but at least he left The Pit after someone doxed the moderator.

The Pit was Micah’s pet name for the forum designed for reasonable arguments by people on either side of the spectrum. Naturally, it was overrun by Nazis white supremacists and the experiment went down in flames and a flurry of slurs, so it wasn’t like Frank had much of a choice. At least The Pit gave him something to do besides dwelling on the glory days of his derelict youth once a fateful injury killed his promising future at a first-string linebacker. He had a broad frame, with a barrel chest and a barrel everything else. At a certain point he got comfortable and the phrase “Giving up” came with a complementary pair of grey sweatpants and a second-hand Members Only jacket. Looking back on the past was something he tried not to do, so Fantasy Leagues were out and arguing with bigots online was in. That and fielding the CrossFit propaganda his delightfully well-meaning partner ruined his algorithm with. One of these days Micah was going to come home wearing a fucking cult robe and a matching onesie for their son Waldo.

“Giving up” is what cost him his divorce from his high school sweetheart Francine (Yep, Frankie and Francine; their serendipitously similar chosen names being what made them a “power couple”; that, coupled with raging hormones made it seem like a good idea to get married—Fernando and Franchesca didn’t quite have the same ring). That and him realizing he was into men more than ten years later will do it. At the custody hearing for Waldo post three miscarriages, Francine did a bump in the bathroom and started hurling homophobic language at her baby daddy, making it easy to rule in Frank’s favor. She didn’t even bother to finish powdering her nose. Or wiping the powder off. Either way.

Frank swept his hand over his balding head as he tossed his phone aside and reached into his desk-side cooler to grab a protein shake, rocking it back and forth before taking a heavy slug. It tasted awful, but Micah swore it would get him back to his fighting weight. He reached further into the cooler to pull out a hoagie and as he did, a mini-can of Diet Coke fell and rolled out. He frowned at the 8oz. can and thought a moment before throwing it in the trash. Bobby should know better than storing his crap in Frank’s cooler. Frank hadn’t had a soft drink since high school. He couldn’t stand all the bubbles.

In between surreptitious sips, his phone screen lit up with a gif of Kevin James zipping on a segway displaying the lyrics for Chamillionaire’s “Rollin’” and a text below reading: “How’s work *winky face emoji*” Micah kept telling him that “Paul Blart” isn’t a body type. Frank was hurt by this and said, “But I thought you loved my mustache.” Then Frank proceeded to show him why he loved his mustache. Micah thought he was being cute; their own little in-joke, but the comparison still hurt. Besides, Frank actually was from Queens. That rich bitch James was from Long Island, and if there was anything all the boroughs collectively could agree on, it was shitting on Long Islanders.

Frank writes and rewrites a response three times before settling on: “I like my work like I like my literature—Inconsequential.” Micah was on a trashy media kick, raising their boy on reruns of The Bachelor. Would rot the kid’s mind, but at least he’d have better taste when he got older. One could hope. At least it wasn’t Caillou. Micah responded with a cry laughing emoji. Still got it. A strong gust hit the outer doors of the vestibule, triggering the autos with a rush of rain that slowly dissipated as they came shut again. The stark change in atmosphere left a somber emptiness, one with a sort of presence. Frank watched the rain hitting glass like a distant memory. An unpleasant memory that would never end.

Frank picked up his phone again and it gave a soft haptic buzz as he glanced at the elevator doors. He needed to start making his rounds. They could wait a little longer. He glanced at the notification that popped up, apparently from a high school reunion app he forgot he had downloaded. The twenty-year graduation reunion was coming up in about a month, and people were losing their minds about the star quarterback Joey DePalma. The guy was always tight with the faculty so much so that after a stint in college, he came back to his alma mater to coach Corey Rodriguez High School (aka, Co-Rod High) to several non-consecutive championship participations. Two of them were wins, even—non-consecutive. Apparently, he’d been chasing out some students hanky-panking behind the auditorium bleachers when they suddenly retracted on their own, crushing him to death.

‘I can’t believe he’s gone! *crying waterfalls emoji*’

‘I know! What will the kids do without their coach? smh’

‘What a way to go: getting smashed where we all smashed before’

‘Have you seen the video going around about it?’

Then he saw a link to Twitter from Lawrence Wheeler. Wrote for the school newspaper and now he turned into a whacked-out conspiracy theorist.

Frank clicked it.

There was a filter for violent content over it advising against viewing the video, but Frank was brewed in the stew of Something Awful in the early days of the internet, so he clicked through the filter.

At first it was hard to tell what the hell was going on the vertical shot was so shaky and pointed at the floor. Occasionally a phone charm of a little frog-thing would swing into view. The gymnasium doubled for the school auditorium and gleamed to near blinding before the screen focused on the bleachers slowly closing in on themselves. Someone off camera shouted, “Get a teacher or something! Coach DePalma is still back there!”

A muffled help could be heard from farther away than it actually was.

“Oh, fuck! Is he gonna die or something?” the holder of the cell phone said with apparent tears in their eyes.

Someone turn that goddamn thing off, for the love of God came DePalma’s bottom-of-the-well shout of desperation.

“We tried! We’re trying! It’s not working!” another student yelled with the accompanied sound of someone stomping on plastic and metal.

Suddenly, Joey DePalma’s sweat-soaked face appeared above the top of the bleachers. He looked twenty-years older like everyone else, but that was Joey, five o’ clock shadow visible from however far away the student was shooting. The bleachers continued their steady march inward when they were interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a basketball bounce followed by swearing.

The camera whipped to the noise as the basketball bounced then rolled across the floor and a boy holding his face as blood streamed from his nose. Why the student thought throwing a basketball at the triggering device on the ground was a good idea was beyond Frank, but it seems like it might have made the problem worse when DePalma screamed as the sound of breaking filled the room. The camera again whipped to the coach’s face as blood gushed from his mouth as smoke emanated from the bleachers and the gears whined under the pressure of killing a man.

Joey’s eyes, filled with fear and blood from his breaking capillaries, looked directly into the camera when it happened. You know when you were a kid and played the game where you popped the flowers off dandelions and said, “And his head popped off!” That’s what it reminded Frank of when he saw Joey DePalma’s head bounce across the hardwood floor, leaving wet red smears with each rebound. A black mark across his cheek appears like a scuff mark as his face clears the screen.

The ringing in his ears was the only reason he couldn’t hear the students screaming. Frank felt a wave of nausea hit him as he backed out of Twitter. Jesus, those poor kids.

‘Holy shit! Did you see that kid kill Joey!? What the actual fuck *fire head emoji*’

‘It was an accident! They were trying to help; don’t blame the kids, blame whoever installed faulty junk into our school *red angry face emoji*’

‘Those poor kids must be traumatized *angel baby emoji*’

‘Who wouldn’t be traumatized? Did you see how his blood shot up like a geyser? Joey looked like a human juice box *volcano emoji* *water squirt emoji*’

Lawrence again.

‘Too soon, Wheeler! Have some respect! *puppy-dog eyes emoji* #GoBearcats’

Frank felt dizzy and slightly nauseous; the protein shake wasn’t sitting well at all given this new unasked for stimuli. But you clicked it. He ignored the nagging voice.

A flashing light came on his monitor, and he had never been so happy for the distraction. Frank acknowledged the notice and saw where it was coming from: the suite on floor 14 (actually 13) was ajar for some reason. He could see a strange flicker coming from the CCTV camera that looked like a water leak. Time to kill two birds with one stone, he told himself. Another part of himself said it was probably just kids fooling around, but no one had rented out that suite in a few days. The floor was quiet. Then he heard the screaming he had tuned out before as Joey DePalma’s lifeless head rolled across the shining basketball court, his jaw contorting in cartoonish fashion as it impacted the ground, his eyes rolling back behind his sweating eyelids. Screaming.

Frank walked down the hallway and unlocked the janitor’s closet, grabbed a mop and bucket, and headed towards the elevator.

Joey DePalma was dead. More screaming.

The elevator went ding and Frank stepped inside, pressing the square button 14 that gave a gentle glow against his chewed-on fingernail. Frank preferred the round button panels to the square ones, but he assumed it was a cost cutting design. He gave a smile to Otis as he always did as the elevator doors smoothly came to a close and looked around the shiny metal box as he skyrocketed towards the top of the building. Frank missed the way the old buildings’ doors didn’t quite shut all the way and you could see the glow of other floors sweeping past, not to mention the sort with the accordion gates and bellhops. You just don’t see them like those anymore. These trivia musings gave Frank something else to concentrate on other than the reoccurring screaming from the children who saw Joey’s head dribbling messily across the auditorium/gymnasium of Co-Rod High. The way it was playing in his head now his mind was trying consciously to drive it away, and by the time he felt the elevator come to a stop and noticed the doors softly opening, the sound was playing backwards as if the record player in his head rolled counter-clockwise and turned into a horrible primal roar, a banshee retaliation of malice and triumph as the gape of the thirteenth floor suite stood open and black before him. Frank exhaled and saw his breath coagulate in front of his face as he felt the temperature of the derelict room plummet as he crossed the threshold. Christ, I can feel my lips turning blue.

Frank felt another cold shudder run down his body as he took a step forward into the hall and nearly lost his balance on the door frame if not for the mop handle he held onto for all it was worth. Taking a clearing breath, he pulled out his flashlight and clicked it on, feeling a small comfort in the pudgy responsiveness of the button, and aimed it at the culprit. Unfortunately, there was some sort of leak coming from the gap in the elevator’s metal framing. Probably from all the rain. Frank walked to a nearby storage closet and checked the handle—unlocked. He’d have to talk to Jesús about leaving supplies unlocked like this; who knows what mischief kids could get up to when you left things unattended? Frank’s mind rattled with that horrible roaring unscream again and he gave his head a shake as he took out a wet floor sign and placed it in front of the small puddle, using his foot to nudge the bucket into place, blocking open the elevator door.

Frank sighed then turned towards the open suite door, aiming his Maglight into the emptiness within. A trickle of lightning in the far window seemed to emphasize his mounting sense of dread. Ominous timing, Frank thought. He waited for the rumble thunder to follow before proceeding forward across the threshold, reaching inside the lip of the door to flick the light switch, and it came on a moment before the chandelier light above the room gave a pop and returned him to darkness somehow deeper than it was before. Slowly he made his way into the room, the flashlight’s beam sweeping slowly across the suite’s tastefully tacky furnishings. The curtains’ laced gold threads glimmered starlight as did the California king’s comforter, and the above-bed painting of a landscape contorted strangely as the deep brush strokes played and warped the shadows of the bone-like trees standing in the foreground, dappled in bloody-red leaves and the red reflected in the nearly pond like coagulating gore. Frank shuddered and flicked the Maglite sideways and nearly jumped when he saw the bedside lamp that was shaped like an artisan-made vase (despite the factory stamp sealed into the bottom). In the deep dark of the room, it looked far too much like a severed head for Frank’s liking, so he turned away towards the master bath.

“Hello? Is anyone here? If you are, you should know that you’re trespassing.” Frank only heard the barely stifled echo of his own voice and the reverse scream still prickling his memory as his light peeled over the Linnaean botany wallpaper popular in the Victorian era and 1970’s era cookie cutter hotel design for some bizarre reason. They could update everything else in this leaky tower other than the damn wallpaper, Frank thought as his beam glanced over the docking station nestled next to the 70” 4K flat screen OLED SmartTV and the array of media devices on its opposite side. For all the space in this penthouse suite, the hallways felt surprisingly narrow, as if a giant were to come down and saw fit to give the plant-covered passage a pinch, you’d never be able to escape, trapped there with Lavandula angustifolia and Juniperis communis to keep you company for all time. Maybe if you were lucky you could duck into the utility closet. He paused there and placed his hand over the door knob and listened to… rain… nothing. And tugged the door open. Empty. Aside from some typical closet things; toilet paper, soap refill. Spacious, though, for a utility closet. Made him think about the times he snuck away to make out in broom closets of years past. Makes him think of high school and Ferris’ tongue and the taste of his Wrigley’s Big Red gum lingering in his mouth, his hands over his broad shoulders, his hand sliding down the other boy’s taut chest. The blue of his fingernails as their fingers laced.

Frank felt a feeling he hasn’t felt in a long while and shakes off the memories. How long ago was that? Maybe two decades ago by now. Frank closed the empty closet and moved on.

Nothing and no one in particular anywhere else: not in the shower, beneath the sink, he even checked inside the toilet and the medicine cabinet. Nothing besides and abandoned box of cinnamon dental floss. Cinnamon… Nothing. No one. Empty.

Frank made his way through the two connected guest rooms in the same fastidious way. He even checked under the bed and examined the mattress for signs of bedbugs. Clean as a whistle.

Well that was a big waste of time, he thought, reaching into his pocket automatically but finding it surprisingly empty as well. He must’ve left his phone downstairs at his station. Frank clambered off the floor and walked through the quiet hall towards the exit when a stroke of lightning hit, lighting up the entranceway and highlighting a pool of water around the open door. How hadn’t he noticed that before? Frank grabbed the door handle and tried to close it, but it would budge. It was held fast. Something was stuck under the door. Frank gave whatever doorstop was jammed in a swift kick and a chunk of ice went flying into the still open elevator. Where the hell did that come from? The fridge? Ice machine downstairs? Just what exactly was going on here? Did someone know? Were they mocking him?

Frank rushed out of the room and slammed the door shut before angrily grabbing the mop and half-assedly sopping up the puddle before standing in front of the open mouth of the elevator and seeing the down arrow light up from the call box. Shit. He didn’t think he would take this long to close a goddamn door. He stopped to collect himself and take a deep breath as he felt a nearby register kick on, pumping cool air over his sweat-soaked back. He wasn’t sure, but he assumed from the way the hair on his back stood on end that it has previously been matted and moist against his loose button up security shirt.

Frank set the mop and bucket off to the side and glanced up at the water leaking from the grate and it seemed to have slowed to a stop while another drip drip drip fell directly in the open bucket, off to the side. That’s for future Frank to worry about, he told himself as he stepped into the metal box during a lightning storm and pressed the illuminated L on instinct, even though that’s where it was already going.

The shiny metal box wasn’t at a high enough luster to actually portray his reflection, but as Frank stared at the globular form that was undoubtedly his own body, he stepped back and forth and saw the blob truncate and stretch, like a body lying at the bottom of a pool, illuminated from above and shrouded by its own depth.

But then the shadow form smiled.

Frank cursed under his breath as the shade split down the middle and apparated into the scowling Mrs. Parsons and a slightly saturated Pomeranian tucked against her side. “Don’t you go busting your ass the way I nearly did.” Frank realized he was bent half backward, gripping the metal handholds at the back of the cabin and contorting his face in a horrified masque of panic by the way she laughed in his startled face. “Don’t flatter a lady, Frank. So did you figure out where the leak was coming from?”

“The leak?!” Frank managed to say before gathering his composure. “Oh, the leak. It was on the thir-I mean the fourteenth floor as well, so it must be something wrong with the roof. I set up a bucket, but I’ll have to get Jesús to look at it in the morning, or whenever it settles down out there.”

Mrs. Parsons stepped into the cage and gave Frank a soft pat of the shoulder, “You’re a saint, Frankie,” before swinging her head towards the way she came. “By the way, your phone is blowing up. I didn’t peek or anything, but it nearly buzzed onto the floor, and plastic makes Cupcake gassy, so I saved it for ya.” Cupcake growled softly.

Frank’s eyes flicked between Mrs. Parsons and the lobby and back before he realized he should probably go see where the fire was. “Thank you Mrs. P—I mean, thank you, Phyllis.”

She gave him a genuine smile for once. “Anytime, sweetheart. You take care of yourself, okay?”

He gave her what must’ve been a somewhat strained smile and double-timed it to his desk, scooping up his phone before it slithered off the desk.

2 missed calls.

10 texts from Micah.

25+ messages on the Alumnus Reunion app.

Someone let Micah know about Joey. Not like they went to the same high school; they didn’t meet until well after college. Fat lot of good that business degree was doing him now. Frank took a breath to steady himself and punched in his code.

‘Oh my GOD, Frankie, did you HEAR what HAPPENED TO the COACH at your OLD SCHOOL?’

Yep. Caps lock was a sign of sure panic attack.

‘Francine told me ALL ABOUT IT’

What the hell was Francine doing contacting Micah? Frank was pretty sure calling the partner of the parent who she lost custody to was against her parole or something.

‘Those POOR CHILDREN’

Yeah. Poor kids.

‘And did YOU HEAR about PAUL WILSON?’

…No. He hadn’t. Paul Wilson was the team’s kicker. Last he heard Paul was pushing paper on Wall Street. What happened to Paul?

‘There’s a video. [link]’

Frank clicked the play button and he saw a typical New York subway station with a percussionist in a ratty trenchcoat going HAM on a, well, drum kit would be a generous term, but it mostly involved PVC piping bound together in creative configurations banging out a rendition of the Bay City Rollers’ “Saturday Night” with a crowd nearby shouting out the call and response, “S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y—Night!” over and over as a man walked in the background towards the subway platform staring intently at his watch as an automated voice implored passengers to “Watch your step” from an automated voice, but the man kept walking. One of the bystanders turns—a masc-presenting person with a crew cut and a suit—and mouths the word Paul?, but they can’t be heard over the sound of the chanting. The walking man, maybe named “Paul,” was out of focus, but only just, and you could see the moment he stepped past the yellow line, his head craned down over his wrist before disappearing over the edge followed by a loud crackling sound moments before the subway train blazed by, disappearing the man. There’s screaming followed by something wet, black and red sloughing onto the yellow line and red splatters along the flanks of the cars. The camera moves rapidly as everyone stares in disbelief (the percussionist maybe a little late to the party) as the camera zooms in on the object lying on the ground.

It’s a severed foot in an immaculate black dress shoe.

There’s more screaming. Someone kicks the shoe/foot. There are stark black lines visible around the ankle; probably singe marks from landing on the third rail and getting electrocuted before being obliterated. An officer appears from the right of the screen and is pointing a gun at the bystanders, but especially the person with the phone. He’s shouting at them but is inaudible over the howls. The video ends.

The title Is, “Office Worker Commits Suicide by Subway.”

Frank vomits into the bin beside his desk.

Turns out, one of the standers-by, “suit dude”, was Paul Wilson’s work friend. That’s how they identified the body since the cops don’t take toe prints, but maybe they should, Frank’s intrusive thoughts say.

He wipes his mouth with a clump of tissues and sprays the bin with Lysol. Frank doesn’t know what to do, so he opens the Alumnus Reunion App to see them talking about it. But now they’re onto something else.

‘there’s no video for Soren’ Francie says.

Soren Tremblay, linebacker like Frank; went on to a fulfilling electrician career until he “fell” from a building and got skewered on a gate. The paint stained around his wounds black like muddy paws.

“Just a thoroughly edited photo,” Lawrence. He posts the photo. Frank doesn’t understand how a body twists in midair to land like that. Maybe an acrobat? Contortionist?

‘not like Derek’

‘There’s a before and after, isn’t there?’

‘yeah, pretty fucked up. Train too’

In the first, tight end Derek Schneider is lounging on a railroad track, evidently photographed from above, with his hands folded behind his head, a smile on his face lit up by the light of the oncoming train. In the next, he doesn’t have a face anymore and all that’s lying on the track is a thoroughly mangled torso covered in handprint-shaped bruises.

Lawrence posts a meme, something about “Eat your heart out, Richard Simmons!” but Frank is starting to feel dizzy.

‘someone said Andrew Kaufmann got mauled to death in a state park *teddy bear emoji*’ It seems like Lawrence and Francie are dominating the conversation now and everyone else is just sending reacts, but Kayla Fender chimes in with a ‘#GoBearcats’

‘GoBearcats!’

‘they’re going alright lmao’

Lawrence posts a meme of a cougar outside a door in the snow photoshopped with defensive lineman Andrew Kaufmann’s bloody stump of an arm in its mouth, reading: “If you’re cold, they’re cold; bring them inside.”

At least Frank hoped it had been photoshopped.

Next Francine started posting gifs of an armless Jim Carrey and Frank threw his phone aside and ran to the restroom and emptied what was left of the protein shake from his stomach. He didn’t bother to check if he was alone; not like last time he caught some rando jerking it on the changing table. He hoped if anyone had the gall to do that shit again that he just ruined the mood for them.

Frank backhanded the door and staggered to the sink, filling it with water before splashing it over his face before realizing how cold the water was. He turned off the tap and stared at his reflection in the stilling ripple when he saw the darkly smiling face looking back up at him. Feeeerdddiiiieee…

Frank leapt back with such force he nearly ripped the stall door he just stepped out of before looking at the mirror to make sure he wasn’t losing his mind, but that was no help as the moment he glanced up he was in the boy’s room of Co-Rod High. He felt the pressure against the door, heard the moans, heard his moans, felt the mixing chilling burn of menthol and cinnamon on his member and felt Ferris Esposito looking up at him with his bright eyes and red cheeks as he gripped the back of his boyfriend’s head and exhaled.

Ferris was looking up with him from a deep, black dark, even as he tasted of him.

Frank looked down and realized something had happened in the depths of his slacks and he didn’t know whether or not he pissed himself as he looked back up at the absurdly wide mirror of the Zephyr Heights Condominiums’ lobby bathroom.

He slowly stands up and drains the sink, wipes the stain from his pants with too many paper towels and stares at his dumbfounded expression when he starts hearing music from somewhere far off.

Tell me that nobody else touches you

It’s coming from somewhere in the lobby.

Like I do, like I do

He steps through the bathroom door, stumbling like a man possessed by a clarion call. A siren’s song.

Oh, tell me that nobody else touches you like me

Del Water Gap.

The song clip starts over.

I used to call you my best friend

It’s his and Micah’s song.

Way back before you were my everything

It’s Micah’s ringtone.

Now I’m sucking your neck

Micah’s calling.

 And you wrote my favorite song

Frank runs towards his desk, to the phone, to Micah.

Now I’m fucked up and carrying on

And he presses the Call button and hears his voice, his Micah’s voice.

“Hello?”

“Micah?”

“Where the fuck were you, Fernando?”

Frank doesn’t know how to answer this, so he says nothing.

“Something strange is happening. Are you safe?”

He doesn’t know.

“I don’t know.”

In his peripheral he sees the camera feed on the 14th floor blink out.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I—” Frank tries to say something, anything, but nothing comes out but a faint strangled nothing. He instead focuses on the scattered feed for the floor he just inspected, rolls back the time count to where he could see himself from the outside.

“Aren’t those kids you went to high school with?” There’s a pause. “The ones that are dead?”

Frank finally reaches to where he appears in the feed, but it snows out. Must be the weather interfering with things. “They are?” Fuck. He didn’t mean to phrase that as a question. “I mean, they are, yeah.”

Silence on the other end.

“Micah?”

“Frank, what are you doing? Are you in that fucking Pit again.” Not a question. “I swear to god…”

He rolls it back to him mopping up the puddle.

“No? No. No! No, I’m not.”

“I know what you sound like when you’re distracted. What are you doing that’s more important than talking to me?”

Frank sees himself slam the suite door shut, casting a shadow on the doorstep, adjusting the bucket with his foot so he doesn’t have to bend over, because that hurts too much. Always hurts, but he breathes and leans forward on his knees and something isn’t quite right. Too many shadows. Too much dark on dark.

“Frank?”

And then Frank watches himself stepping forward and he can nearly see the hair stand up on end, because he’s feeling it now too, because there’s someone standing right behind him, stepping out of the shadows.

That chill, that feeling of air behind him, like a breath.

Like someone breathing on his neck.

The shadow man stood taller, was leaner than Frank, but strong; there was a presence. Long arms long hands, as if stretched or warp and it was right behind him in the dark. All alone.

Then the shadow turned and looked up at the camera.

Looked at him.

Looked at Frank.

And Frank threw his phone at the screen as he saw his body step onto the elevator and the creature smiled before the screen fell to pieces, sharp and black.

“What did you do, Frank?”

He heard those words as the green speaker function came on, gleaming on the desk as bold as day. The voice didn’t sound like his partner, didn’t sound like Micah.

“What?” Frank asked.

“I said, WHAT DID YOU DO?” the voice screeched, peaking the receiver.

“Nothing!” he shouted at the voice on the other side.

“TELL ME WHAT YOU DID!” the voice demanded, barely more than a rattling hiss.

“NOTHING!”

“FEEEEEEEEERRRRDDDIIIIEEEEEEEE…”

He shoved the phone off the desk and felt sharp stings as the broken monitor stabbed into his fingertips. Frank was crying now, tears staining his face, sweat rolling into his eyes and stinging them as he struggled to pull the glass from his hands, bleeding freely onto the once immaculate desk.

Then he wrapped his damaged fingers with tissues as best he could to staunch the bleeding, tried to dry his eyes, tried to catch his breath, then he heard crying.

He heard his son crying.

“Waldo?”

The high-pitched keening intermixed with a sniffle stuffed with snot was the sound of his son, the sound of his boy, his baby boy Waldo. But there was something else. An electronic rickety quality that made it sound… wrong.

“Daddy?” his son, his Waldo said from his damaged phone. Surely that was it. He flung his phone around with such abject carelessness and ferocity, that it damaged the speakers. That’s why his child sounded tinny, poorly processed, strange. That was it.

“I’m here, baby. I’ll be home soon.”

“Daddy! I can’t hear you! Where did you go?” His son was so desperate.

His son.

His son was afraid.

“I’m here!” he called as he struggled to stand, the pain in his hands excruciating.

“Mama told me about Greg. He was a running back. He could run faster than anyone on the field, is what she said. Well, almost anyone. But that didn’t save him when he ran headfirst into a *static* press. All that was left was his leg by the time they got the machine to stop.”

Waldo giggled.

“What? Don’t listen to her! Do you hear me? Do not listen to that woman!”

“Mitchell Mancini, he was a wide receiver. Went on to be a world-famous mountain climber before a terrible accident left him tumbling more than a thousand feet to his death. Did you know he was famous? Did you know his body exploded on impact?”

“Waldo! Waldo! Stop it!” Frank knew. He knew the voice wasn’t Waldo anymore.

“All but his left hand, covered in thumb-shaped smears.” Smear. Just like Mitchell. “It broke off at the wrist.”

He knew it was using his son’s voice to torture him.

“When he drove a piton through his arm.”

Not Waldo giggled.

“Stop! Please, stop!”

“YOU FIRST.”

Frank could barely see through the bleary smear of tears filling his vision, but he knew his phone was on the ground, on the other side of the desk, and so he stood up and gripped the counter for all the pain it caused him and peek over the side and his phone was nowhere to be seen. But a shadow sat before him.

A shadow the same size as Waldo.

That’s when the Not Waldo turned to look up at him wearing the face of the boy he loved in high school, when he was in denial, in the closet, the boy he helped to kill.

The Not Waldo broke into a grin with eyes and teeth, too many teeth and twisted too its body around, gripped the edge of the table and stood a head over him with bloodshot eyes wide, filled with tears and grinning a manic, rictus grin as it reached up and stroked Frank’s bald head and pressed its inky black nose against the side of his and consumed him with the eternal fury of that gaze.

And it said, “GO BEARCATS”

*****

It was just supposed to be a stupid hazing ritual. No big deal. Ferris Esposito was an incredible running back, faster even than Greg Ford, but what do you expect with a natural-born sprinter? Long legs and strong chest and beautiful blue eyes like chips of ice and soft lips, hair that smelled like strawberries when you pressed your face into it while you felt yourself inside of him, and when he talked to you or took you the way you liked to be taken, he made you feel like the most important person in the world as he told you how beautiful you were, even when you were self-conscious about your weight, he would brush it and the sweat away and kiss your eyes and make everything in the whole fucked-up world feel okay. Good. Just. Right. If only for those few minutes lounging in the afterglow.

They were at training camp so they couldn’t do anything. Most of the team was openly homophobic and they laughed whenever a slur rolled off a tongue they admired while slapping each other on the ass like it was cool.

Ferris wasn’t supposed to drown.

They had this full body ice bath thing, lit up with jets, the whole deal. The idea was to polar bear it, right? You get in the ice-cold water and try holding your breath as long as you can to train, get stronger, relax those aching muscles, whatever.

It was somewhere around 5am. Joey was the QB so naturally everyone followed his lead. Frank was the first to find the stopwatches, so that was his job; the rest who were in on it would hype Ferris up. Test his proverbial mettle. That was the plan.

When Ferris jumped in cool and sleek as an otter, he was fucking game, bro. He was down and ready for it, even with his teeth chattering like a giant chipmunk. Frank should have known better when Joey ripped away the goggles and chucked them across the room.

“Goggles are for pussy-ass bitches,” Coach-to-be for Co-Rod High Joey DePalma said. “You’re not a pussy-ass bitch, are you, Esposito?” He grinned that perfectly-punchable perfect grin.

Ferris giggled that manic laugh of his. “Nah, man, let’s fucking do this, bro!”

“Fuck yeah! You take a breath, and we’ll keep you from flailing around, haha.”

That’s when Mitchell and Derek came in carrying two buckets of ice each and poured them in over him.

Ferris’ nipples looked like they could cut diamonds and his eyes looked panicked.

“Hey, Joe, isn’t this a bit much?”

Joey’s face split with a grin. “Not for a badass like you! Remember: no flailing like a pussy-ass bitch.” Joey nodded to the room with intent and Ferris started to take a breath, but Joseph DePalma pushed him under before he could finish and every murderer took their place, holding his body under the water.

I was a few seconds late to press start on the stopwatch as my teammates held my secret boyfriend’s body under hypothermia-inducing water. After a minute, a few bubbles started to surface.

After two, he began to shiver and thrash uncontrollably.

I saw him look around in panic. I saw his bloodshot, terrified eyes look up towards his feet. Paul Wilson thought he was looking at him, and he looked away, stared down at the stopwatch held out in my hand, but of course, Ferris was looking at me. Staring at the only one in the room he could trust. And all I could do was watch.

Ferris desperately tried to surface, tried to take a desperate gulp of air, but Joey shoved his head back, his neck giving a sickening pop as something broke and all he got was a lungful of freezing water. After that, his eyes rolled back in his head and bubbles burbled out in a heavy stream as the nothing poured from his vessel. We waited another full minute before hands left his body. The pressure from fingers gripping his body maliciously left purple prints all over him—Paul and Greg on feet and legs, Mitch and Andy on arms, Derek and Soren on his chest and stomach, and Joe his neck. How could he possibly forget the boys who left such an impact on him? He would remember them forever.

I threw the stopwatch into the water with your body, Ferris. I never stopped it.

I never saw the time of your death.

All the blood that didn’t pool in the bruising went downward, but not all the way to the feet since Paul and Greg were forcing it up, leaving you with a post-mortem priapism (i.e., death erection, but I always liked the poetic term for it: angel lust). A last middle finger to your executioners.

Joey DePalma couldn’t stop staring at it. With wonder? Fear? Excitement?

“Fucking faggot,” is all he said. Still dunno if he was talking about you or himself. Someone threw series of towels over the water casket so we didn’t have to look at you. So we could more easily dehumanize you and the beautiful person you were and could be.

The way you looked as you looked up nothing, the water and the lights warping the shape of your tall, slender frame haunted my memory. From your grave.

I hate myself for admitting this, but you didn’t look human to me. Down there. At the bottom of that shallow pool surrounded by melting ice and sorrow and fear.

I’m so sorry.

I’m so sorry for all the nothing that I did.

I’m sorry for not loving you enough to let you live.

I’m so, so sorry for not being man enough to not be selfish.

But I know what I must do.

I’m ready.

Frank woke up in a cold sweat in just his underwear on the floor of the Zephyr Heights lobby shivering uncontrollably, surrounded by… snow?

No, hail.

No, still no. Ice cubes.

Frank looked up and out the wide-open doors leading into the frigid night.

He understood what he needed to do.

Slowly, he got to his feet, hands still bleeding, aching, and he walked towards the waiting dark before he nearly tripped on something hard and cool to the touch of his bare foot. He moved his foot aside and saw the smiling face of Waldo looking up from his undamaged mobile. It was currently 4:49am.

He smiled and reached down, picking up the phone and punching in the code. Frank walked towards the gloaming night and closed his eyes as he stepped forward and collided with the plate glass. The door had closed in front of him.

He turned around and saw a red light gleaming from his desk. He walked over and saw the silent alarm was triggered by the roof entry. The door was open.

Frank then walked towards the elevator and pressed the Call button, but it didn’t respond. Guess the power’s out, too. That seems right. Penance. Frank walked to the stairwell and winced as he pushed through the metal door and looked up at the flights of stairs ahead of him. He promised himself when he got this job that he’d never use the elevator. He’d take the stairs every single day. But days get long, people get tired, resolutions fail. Better late than never, Ferdie.

Frank went to the Alumnus Reunion app and deleted it from his phone, then he opened the Clock app, chose the Stopwatch function, and pressed start. Then, he climbed.

Two flights per standard floor with six flights starting from the lobby plus an extra one for the two suite floors made… thirty-six flights. Ten steps per flight.

*****

Somewhere around 200 steps, Frank needed to catch his breath.

For some reason it seemed like a good idea to start a voice message, so he did.

“Hah…hah… Micah, I need to tell you and Waldo the truth about something. I wasn’t… I wasn’t always a good person. I know what you’ll say, ‘Of course, you weren’t; you were a jock.’ If we met in high school, I would have shoved your pottery-throwing ass into a locker. But that wasn’t really me. Okay, so I paid a brainy kid to take my SAT; of course, I got caught. But no this is. This is worse. Micah, you weren’t the first man I fell in love with. Like I told you. I’m sure you think I experimented in college or whatever, and okay, I did. I played the field and sowed my oats and… whatever. None of that matters.

“There was a boy. A boy I knew in high school that I was madly in love with and… he died. You probably saw him on milk cartons and Unsolved Mysteries. Fuck, that theme song still gives me nightmares and it’s been off the air since forever. Ferris. His name was Ferris Esposito. All of us. He’s come after all of us, and we deserve it. We do; we deserve to die for kill… It was a hazing thing, at least that’s what I thought it was, but it was a lynching. I was there but I didn’t… but I may as well have because I never said a goddamn word.

“There’s… there’s a football training camp in upstate New York. I think I’ve talked about it, at least in vague terms. You remember the one with the shitty coaches that beat us with soap to motivate us to wake up at six am?” Frank stopped to glance at the clock.

“That’s the place. There’s a bunch of woods filled with rusted out cars and shit, and there’s a Firebird half-buried, and it always used to pool up around there when it rained a lot, so maybe it’s a fucking pond by now, who the fuck knows, but…” Frank’s voice caught.

“He’s buried there… in the Pontiac. Cold case solved. Go Bearcats.” He laughed between sniffing away tears. That derelict jalopy where I felt my lips pressed against his so many times; his body was so cold and still laid in that rustbucket coffin; the beds of his nails a stark blue.

“So, yeah. That’s… that’s not all. I want you to know that I love you. I love you both so much and I hope you remember me more for the man that I could be than the man that I was. Make sure you tell Waldo how much I love him, Micah. Daddy’s gotta go. Promise me you’ll always eat your vegetables and you’ll be nice to birdies and doggies and kitties and punch bullies in the noses when they fucking deserve it. Shit, I know I need to stop swearing so much. I just mean… be better than me, okay? I love you. Good—”

The startup sound rang through the cavernous stairwell.

The battery had died.

Frank sighed and let his phone slip from his hand onto the featureless fourteenth floor landing. The actual fourteenth floor.

Frank sighed and walked out onto the rain-soaked roof.

Blinking lights from a nearby cell tower—or a radio tower? Frank could never tell the difference—thrummed like a slow heartbeat in the distance. The rain was calmer than it had been before, somewhere between misting and drizzling. The glow of the city illuminated the night sky, making spotting virtually any stars near impossible, but he saw an amber glow, some planet or other; a pinprick on the galactic scale, the helmet of some celestial soldier serving as his only witness to doing what needed to be done.

To make things just. To make them right.

The wind gusted what remained of his hair from this height. As much pain as he was in, hands numb—and he was pretty sure his feet were bleeding but didn’t stop to check—pretty sure he concussed himself on the floor; still no idea what happened to his clothes. The wash of rain felt… good. Purifying, almost.

Frank carefully stepped up onto the rooftop edging and felt the wind hit his bare chest. It really was cold, almost cutting. Oh well, it wouldn’t hurt for too much longer.

He looked down into the city. In the gleaming neon paints of cars streaming into the night, he felt the hum of the living city pulsing in his ears, heard the howling of the world before him, tasted its hunger, and saw Ferris again from this height as he lay far, far below.

A shadow.

Waiting.

I’m coming, Ferris.

I’m coming.

I’m ready.

And Fernando Esperanza fell into the night with open arms.

*****

Ferdie…

And he opened his eyes.

Laying on his back on the roof, in the cold night air, shivering.

The shadow of Ferris Esposito stood before him, smiling silently.

Sadly.

Seeing him how he had been seen, finally, for twenty years to the date.

Frank reached out to the ghost of his love.

“Good-bye, Ferdie.”

And before he could open his mouth to take a single breath, Ferris was gone.

But where he stood, something laid on the brickwork, a small, black amulet tied on a nylon string. He picked it up.

A stopwatch.

It was blinking 00:00:00.

Photo of Johnny Byutorie

BIO: “Johnny Byutorie (he/him/they) is a multidisciplinary author whose works have been published in the Hog Creek Review (during his tenure at The Ohio State University), North Meridian Review, Cardinal Arts Journal, and FUCKUS literary journals as well as a reader for Gigantic Sequins and Grey Coven Publishing. He has just completed his Master of Arts degree in English at the end of 2024 and has a love of horror and its gradual rise as a genre worth serious literary consideration. His many influences include Pullman, Pratchett, Peele, Jemisin, Jackson, and Mothman."