This is Part 10 of a serial horror novella. Learn more about it here.
After his shift, Barton went to Gabby's tenement, but she didn’t answer the buzzer. He stuck around for a few minutes, hoping to tailgate someone coming in or out so he might knock on her door. But he was saved the trouble when Gabriella herself came ambling down the sidewalk.
“Hey, Gabby!” He approached her. Her hair was unwashed, and he could see stains under the arms of her shirt.
“Hey, hi...” she said, timid.
He swallowed. “It’s me, your… friend. Barton?”
“Oh! Barton! Hello, good day, good day.” She gave him a polite hug, smelling of sweat and bad breath. “You in the neighbourhood?”
“Yeah. Yeah look, I thought maybe you could use some help, mind if I come with you… inside?”
“I don’t know, sir. I have to be somewhere soon.”
“I won’t make you late,” he tried.
She nodded, satisfied. “Alright then, for a quick visit then. Maybe you can help me with my timepiece.”
He followed her in and up to her little apartment, liking less and less the way she walked, the way she struggled with the keys to get in, even the way she sat down on her bed, all prim and stiff and cold. She had a bug alright, but it wasn’t anything from this reality.
“It used to have the time,” she was saying, holding out the dead rectangle of her phone. “Then, nothing. So I went to market for a traditional one, but they kept trying to swindle me. Buggers, all crooks—twenty dollars, twenty! I have a half a mind to rob them myself.”
Barton found her charger and sat down at her desk. He licked his lips and said, “What’s your name, ma’am?”
She cocked her head for a second, and seemed to have to think about it. After a moment she smiled like he was used to and said, “Gabriella. I’ll respond to Gabby, though.”
He hoped for a half a second that she was back, but then a vacancy reentered her gaze.
“I’m glad you’re here, sir," she said. "It’s, well, this place has got a strange touch to it. The market is one thing, but everything else… it moves too fast, I feel. I don’t take comfort in company, usually, but I believe you when you say you’re a friend. I feel that, yes. But lord help me when I say I’ve lost the thread on how we are acquainted.”
He plugged in the phone, and the charging icon popped up. A horrible crawling sensation ran around and through his chest, and he tried to ignore it as he said, “You’ve been busy. With the Starlight.”
It struck something with her. Her eyelids flitted as she stared up and past his shoulder. He waited. She looked down, balling her hands into fists.
Part of him wanted to run. Part of him wanted to wake up, his head aching from a fall on some tracks, her kind, sparkling eyes looking down on him as moonlight lit a halo around her hair.
“Yes…” she said after a while. “Yes, that’s maybe it.”
“Got a schedule to keep,” he whispered.
“Is this our home?” she said, peering around the place.
“Yes, and you’ve got a train to run tomorrow. Why don’t you get some rest? I’ll… be here.”
“You fixed it,” she said, nodding at the phone. She began to pull at the covers of her bed, sliding under. “I don’t fancy it though. I’ll need a new one, a traditional one.”
Her eyes shut and she settled down. Barton wondered when she had last slept.
“Goodnight, Gabby,” he said, mostly to himself.
“Goodnight Gordon,” she mumbled. Then her breathing levelled.
He sat there, shaking.
The complete story is also available as an NFT on Polygon. Includes a built-in PDF Reader.
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