the series of r/nosleep | volume one: the {smile} series

{T}win

"You're a miserable old bastard."

He takes a drag of his Marlboro Red and smiles. "I wouldn't think so myself, but everyone has a habit of reminding me." He laughs.

"And you know why that is, right?" I ask. He shakes his head no. "'Cause no one trusts a priest these days."

"And that's coming from a dentist?" Another laugh. "I always say, fixin' teeth ain't nothing compared to mending souls." Another long pull from his cigarette. I sip my coffee and look out over the long driveway that drapes a sunken hill and disappears into the morning's creeping fog.

"If only mama could see us now."

He nods. "Two old codgers using up their last few years complaining about their flock."

"Now, I'm not that old, Eugene," I protest.

"You're as old as me!"

"No, you're six minutes older." He has something witty to respond with, I can see his lips twitch, but he's staring out into the distance and the moment passes. "Somethin' on your mind?"

"This town," he sighs. "This life. Hell, everything is on my mind." He lights another cigarette. A trail of smoke swirls his head like a halo. "I buried the Vandersons last Saturday. Both of 'em. You ever wonder if what you devoted your life to just isn't real anymore?"

"No," I say. "It's not like if I stopped believing in teeth they'd all disappear." I try to smile, but he's sulking into the fog.

"You know what I mean, Seymour," he grumbles.

"Listen, this is your third crisis of faith this year. Maybe you just need a vacation. Loosen that clerical collar for a few days. Get out into the sunshine and relax."

"Maybe you're right." He snuffs out the Marlboro and stands. "But even a broken clock is right twice a day, I like to say."

"So that's what I am? A broken clock?"

"If the shoe fits."

"Now you're just mixing metaphors." We both laugh as he walks to his car.

"You want to get lunch?" he asks as he climbs into the old sedan. "I've got a double baptism this morning –"

"Been a lot of those lately."

"Been a lot of them for years. Somethin' in the water."

"Or Reba's cookin'," I add.

"Another thing about this town. Why have one when it's so easy to have two, I say." He pulls his seatbelt across his chest. "So, lunch?"

"Can't. I'm booked solid. Maybe tomorrow?"

"Okay. Why don't you lay under my car so the tires will split you in half as I drive away?"

I blink. "W-what?"

"I said give me a call when you're free tomorrow." Eugene pulls the door shut and rolls down the window. "I want to piss in your skull as crows eat your rotting intestines. Okay?"

I trip over my feet as I step backwards. I can feel my face go cold. "Why-why would you say that?"

"Wow," he says with a laugh. "If I knew you still hated the diner that much I wouldn't have said anything." He shifts his car into drive and pulls out into the driveway. "Call me tomorrow," he says waving out the window. I stare as the car disappears over the hill kicking up dust in the shape of swarming moths.

I turn and walk back to the porch shaking the cobwebs from my head. Either he's messing with me, which is not something he's ever done, or I'm hearing things. I drink the rest of my coffee and feel my heart slowing in my chest. I laugh. "He wouldn't say that," I say to the empty lawn in front of me. "And I'm not hearing things."

Yes you are.

The mug drops from my hand and shatters on the wood floor. My eyes swim in my head as I scan the porch and lawn for the voice. There's nothing. A stray cat meows next to a leafless tree and a few birds chirp somewhere off in the distance, but nothing else makes a sound. I just need some sleep, I think. Some sleep, and something stiffer than that. I look at the coffee puddle on the floor for a moment and then walk into the house to get a broom. As I pass the brass-framed mirror in the foyer I stop and check out my reflection.

I do look old. Older than Eugene by years. I use my fingers to push out the crow's feet and massage the purple bags under tired eyes. My reflection looks over my shoulder at something behind me. I push the skin around my chin back to where it used to be when I was young and twenty and my reflection blinks. I lick my palm and press down on wild grey hairs that refuse to lie down and my reflection laughs.

There's a tingling in my arm that starts in my palm and worms its way up through the veins to my shoulder. It feels like tiny ants are marching two by two in my veins. I shake it loose, flexing and relaxing my fingers until the ants take a rest. The clock above the door chimes seven times and without thinking I grab my keys. I pull the door shut, step over the broken mug, and walk to my car. The stray cat waves to me from its position on the tree. Tiny pins stretch its skin out from the center exposing bright red curtains of muscle and organs. The chirping birds from before have turned to crows and are pecking at the cat's eyes as it squirms and lashes its tail. I smile and put the car into gear.

On the road the other drivers grin and curse out their windows. Some spit or make lewd gestures with their fingers and tongues. My horn blares a ghostly trumpet as the radio chants long diatribes in dead languages. The eyes in the rearview mirror never leave my face. They crinkle in the corner giving off the impression of a smile. Someone in the backseat hums softly and I can feel my mouth water.

As I pull into my office's parking lot the asphalt falls away to an endless pit of fire. White ash floats above the edge of the circle on sulfuric currents of boiling heat. I trot amiably around the edge, avoiding the flames and demons fused together in dual human hybrids, and up the stairs to the front door. My reflection in the glass cocks its head to one side like it's studying me, and then dips into a low bow. I return the gesture and then swing the door open and step inside.

The office is cool compared to the furnace outside, but the walls melt and drip onto the floor exposing a brown ribbed frame that expands and collapses with each heartbeat. Large rats with heads on each end and long tongues that look like red forked tails climb through the internals chewing and scratching at the insulation making it bleed pink puss out onto the writhing carpet. A framed painting of a large tooth swings on a rusted nail in a hypnotic dance as the glass reflects my other twin who dances and giggles silently. I watch for what seems like an eternity; my ankles and knees petrified and cracking under stagnant weight.

"Good morning, doctor," the receptionist says from behind a wall made of bones and tanned skin. "I hope you bleed out of every open hole until you drown in your own fluids." Here face is liquefied as her nose and eyes ooze and collapse over one another. Her mouth opens to her chin and swallows large chunks of floating skin leaving wet sores that spout streams of liquid in beautiful arcs.

I blink at her as my reflection disembowels itself in the corner of my eye. "Is my first appointment here?" I ask. She shakes her head no and a cavalry of maggots march out of her bleeding ears. "Then who is this?" I point to the man dressed in his Sunday best. A beacon of blue in the crusted scab colored office.

"Who is who?" Her mouth doesn't move. Her lips are bound together with rusted wire sewn in a jagged cross-stitch.

"Never mind," I say to her, and, "Follow me," to the man with a smile that curves around the sides of his face.

"But, doctor, there's no one there." Her voice enters my head like a moist bullet, massaging my brain and rocking the tumultuous room into a calm chaos.

I turn to her. The bone and flesh wall transforms into a wood and metal desk. Her face shimmers and settles into lovely normality. She smiles a worried smile as the man behind me puts a hand on my shoulder. I watch as her lips rupture and a waterfall of blood drapes her chin. Her canines and lateral incisors grow and expand until they push through the lower palette and out through the bottom of her chin.

A gentle fog pushes her bullet back out of my brain.

"I'll be in room 2," I say to her and walk towards the back. "Would you like any nitrous," I offer to the man following me. He just smiles that morbidly beautiful smile.