OUT OF (TOUCH) ... eddie munson

₀⁰1

SOMETHING IS COMING.

something hungry for blood.

the room had been dark and was stained with lighted splotches of red. there was a scarlet cast against the closet wall. In that garnet-coloured cave, lucille lichen made herself small. she had been lying on her bed fully clothed from earlier-- when she had dressed for work yet not gone-- staring through wet lashes and furrowed brows at her little garfield novelty phone.

it was quiet. you could hear only the fan from the room over, still going despite no one being in there. you could hear a car every now and again, but lucille had only listened to two go by. it was a suburban town, and she lived on the outer edge, at the end of henry lane– just past the quarry and just right between downtown hawkins and downtown marion. most people had been going to the new mall that they'd installed. she had worked at a movie rental shop near there, one of three staff members in total. one of them was her friend jonah wallace. the two of them were childhood friends, along with the freckled and multi-faceted robin buckley. robin had grown up to be a great jester, and jonah a great scientist. lucille had grown up to be sarcastic and intellectual, but above all, she was an observer, and she was quiet. she did not necessarily like the quiet, but she had indefinitely become accustomed to it. she had often reflected that that was why robin and jonah were her only friends-- because they would talk and talk and talk and they would say the most interesting things, and they would pull her out and bring her to talk and she would be able to communicate without apprehension. she didn't actually like the quiet.

the phone rang. she gasped softly and with urgency, and picked up the phone. when she grabbed for the receiver, garfield's eyes would open. "hello?" she checked, tapping the receiver anxiously. she sniffled.

"hey, i'm pulling up now," the person calling had said into the phone, more muttering than anything else. he had been trying to be quiet and not sound critical or arrogant or apathetic or any of the other things lucille had accused him of just the day before.

a "kay," stumbled out of her mouth before she put the receiver down and sat up. she put her head in her hands and took a deep breath, sighing and wiping her neck and her chin and her face. "kay," she repeated, and left her room.

the sound of the fan grew louder, and the house was dry and crisp. it was summer, and the house had been hot and humid in may and most of june. just a few days prior, malcolm lichen bought a superbox fan, and he set it up in the living room, which had a private section in the corner. that spot had been shielded by a mere curtain, which flapped as the fan blew. there was a large patterned rug on the dark wooden floors, and the shades were a dark teal, which matched the curtain covering the hidden part of the living room. their house was always dark, and the curtains had shielded the natural light of the summer, but there was an amber glow from a lamp and a few candles.

she stepped out into a muggy july gust which she could only relate to steam. it was dawn, yet still the effects of the day's sun lingered like a stain on her blouse. she grimaced. there was a 1966 bronco running in the driveway of her home. she clenched her jaw, tensing as she approached the forest-coloured car, opening the door and climbing into it. wordlessly, he pressed on the gas.

it was quiet again. for a while. jonah gulped, "do you want the radio? or... a tape?..." he asked.

"i'm okay," she smiled, blinking and shaking her head. then, it was quiet again.

after a while, he wiped his nose, "i'm.. i... um sorr- i'm sorry."

she thumbed at her wrist and traced figure eight's around her knuckles. "thank you," she mumbled with a small nod, putting a nail to her teeth and looking out the window. he'd nodded, too, keeping his eyes on the road.