Tyler Has Words is the blog of Tyler Patrick Wood, a writer/musician from Texas. You'll get free book excerpts twice a week. On the other days, you'll get words. If you would like an original take on everything by an expert on nothing, this might be a cool place to hang out.

About The Follower

About The Follower

Post 632:

The Follower (The Dusman): A Short Story

 

Part One: Mirrors and Notches

 

            Gavin Brace stood in the front walkway, pleading and penitent. His wife appeared before him, balanced and complete, holding full suitcases in each hand. “No,” he tried, once more. “Please.”

            His slight frame wasn’t enough to block her path. A sharp little push of the shoulder and out the door. His eyes were overrun with tears as she pulled out and drove away without ceremony. Across the street and two houses to the left, Gavin noticed that same face, blank but interested, the face of someone watching a fire already raging beyond control.   

            “I’m calling the police!” he yelled. “Again!”

            “Rena just leave for good?” The question forced his focus right, away from the figure across the street.

            “Hey, Spence.”

            “You okay, buddy? What’s with the mirror?”

            “She didn’t want to hear it.”

            Spence scratched his sunburnt bald spot and walked over to the waist-high hedge separating their front yards. Gavin felt the heat on his bare feet and squinted toward the expressionless man. He was no longer there.  

            “Look,” Spence said, posing nobly with a hand on his belly. “Linds and I will come by in an hour. She’ll cook you up some Italian. What are you looking at over there, chief?”

            Gavin turned and walked back inside. He heard Spence inviting himself over another time before closing the door. Leaning the mirror against the entranceway wall, he walked to the big window in the front dining room, hoping to see the man through the curtains. “You’re scared, is that it? I know how to stop you. I remember the stories.”

            A few fretful moments ticked by before he grabbed up the mirror and made his way to the bedroom. The closet door was opened. He slumped to the floor when he saw how empty it was inside. For two weeks Rena watched as his reactions became more and more dramatic. He couldn’t say what was really going on. That morning, the last straws. He started carrying around the heavy mirror that hung on the hallway wall, offering no explanation.

            Gavin didn’t know all the rules or how much to tell her. The last thing he wanted was to see her hurt. Though he was crying next to the closet, a part of him was glad she went away. There would be time to win her back. After. After. After.

            Another sighting. He had to mark it. He stood up and went to the kitchen, pulling a length of paper towels from the spool next to the sink. The knife was clean, still sitting in the basin from last time. He made a notch on the inside of his arm, biting his lip as the blood leaked to the paper towel. Two weeks. Twenty-three cuts. Rena hadn’t seen them until a few hours ago. They argued. She left. Another sighting. He’d get her back. After. After. After.

            It could be stopped. He was finally remembering the stories.

           

Part Two: Hump

            Gavin walked clumsily into his office building the next morning. He boarded the elevator holding the heavy mirror in his weary hands. They were blistered and cracking. A heavyset woman from accounting named Lita nodded and he nodded back while everyone else wondered in their own way about the man in the suit holding the large decorative piece of glass.

            Each time the ding went off and the elevator stopped on a new floor, he tensed up a little, expecting to see him. He almost wanted to. It was time to face the enemy. Time to slay the dragon.

            When he took his threadbare seat, Humphrey Simon spun around in his rolling swivel chair, like always, a little too close for good form. Humphrey worked in the cubicle opposite Gavin. The two had grown friendly over the years despite being very different calibers. Humphrey was boisterous and jowly. His bones sagged when he walked, but one got the feeling he would get on, come what may. Gavin was wanting for flesh. He had high, sharp cheekbones and walked with light, springy steps. “Hey, old man,” said Humphrey, “what goes it with the mirror?”

            Gavin looked up and down their row before sitting down. “Hello, Hump.”

            “You been getting any sleep, pal?”

            “No. Rena left me yesterday, and I’m still seeing him.”

            “Whoa. Info dump. Look out for this guy.” Simon held up his arms as an awkward attempt at comedic deflection. “I hope you punched his lights out. Remember what I said. One to the nose, straight off. Then a couple kicks to the bits and that’s all she wrote. No more Mr. Whoever.”

            “He’s not coming around for Rena. This is about me. Why else would I see him here? The park? The grocery?”

            “I don’t get it,” Simon said, looking up at Gavin’s stark face. “What’s he want with you, then?”

            “He wants to torment me.”

            “Torment,” Humphrey repeated, rolling up the sleeves on his Monday dress shirt. He had bear arms, fat and completely wrapped in coarse hair. “You know me, Gav. I like to be the fun guy in the next cubicle—it’s my office role—but I have to say—you’ve got me a little bit worried. The whole vibe here isn’t inspirational.”

            Gavin closed the remaining distance between their faces. “You should be worried about me. He’s a demon. Extremely dangerous.”

            “Okay…”

            “That’s what this is for,” Brace said, tapping the glass with his fingernails. “My grandmother told me the stories. Pieces are coming back. I can stop it with this.”

            “Your gran told you.”

            “Yeah. I was little, but I remember.”

            “Okay…”

           

Part Three: The Dusman  

 

            “Mommy’s sad.”

            “I know, little love.” Gavin put his head down, wishing he was anywhere or anyone else. The only sounds were the wind rustling the tall trees, the porch creaking as his gran rocked back and forth, and his mother’s stifled crying from inside the cabin. He was eight years old, now a lonely boy without a father. Gran Dalca had come three weeks before. They’d said goodbye to dad three days ago.

            “I don’t like the woods.”

            “Where I come from, many woods. Many mountains. Much like this place. Papa Dalca and I bought it to remind us of old country. Someday you go and visit, maybe. See the resemblance of here and there.”

            “But you left.”

            “Ah,” she said, stopping her rhythm and taking off her headscarf. She had the longest hair Gavin had ever seen, white and gray all down her back. “It’s good point, clever boy. You’re using logic.”

            Gavin was sitting on the edge of the porch, swinging his legs as he looked at his gran. She was smiling, but he couldn’t understand why. “What’s logic?”

            “It’s what you did. You ask yourself, ‘Why would I go to place that you left and never return, Gran?’ This is logic, clever boy.”

            Gavin wished his friend Billy could’ve come to the cabin. He didn’t know what they were doing there, away from the city. There was nothing to do but fish in the little lake, and he wasn’t any good. Dad had always helped him get his line started. Not much now except to wander, listen to gran talk, listen to mommy cry. There wasn’t even a good place to ride his bike. No pavement anywhere. Just grass and trees and grass and trees. “This stinks.”

            She started rocking again. “Yes. I think so as well.”

            He loved his gran, but she was weird. Nobody kissed his cheeks as much as she did. She talked funny and smelled funny and seemed like she never wanted to do anything. Sit in a chair or read a book or pray with her beads. “Was my dad a gypsy like you?”

            She laughed quietly. “Not so much. Not so much as you. That comes from your mommy’s side. Our side.”

            “Okay,” Gavin said, chin flush against his chest.

            “Can I tell you a story for big boys?”

            There was something in her voice that grabbed his interest. She meant it. He was desperate to be treated like a real person and not just a little nobody kid. “Tell it.”

            “Very sure, little love. Where I come from, way over the water, our people would travel from place to place. When place got old, we say no more and go the next.”

            “Sounds fun. I hate sitting still.”

            “It was. I used to be like you. Now I like to sit, but no matter. Back then, much as we go, mountains or the woods, villages or towns, there was always man who followed us around. Never with us, but there.”

            “Who was he?”

            “We never met. Some say they met him, but believe or no. Who knows.”

            “Did he have a name?”

            “Oh yes. He was the Dusman. Not good news, this one.”

            “Sounds like a fairy tale. I’m too old for fairy tales.”

            “Probably you’re right. But I tell anyway. It is said that he would come as a test.”

            “What kind of test?”

            “The kind you must pass. There’s no choice.”

            “How?”

            “This is hard part. Either you face the Dusman with a looking glass, so the enemy can see himself—or, you try not to look. Most choose second, they say. Some of my people think this why we go all the time. So not to look when he comes.”

            “You left. The old country. You left.”

            “We did, clever boy.”

            “He’d have to be old.

“Yes.”

“But the forever kind of old. Or maybe there’s a million of them.”

            “Could be.”

            “What are you telling him, Mama?” Gavin turned around to see his mother’s stained face, hot with anger. “How dare you.”

            “I say nothing. Just talking about the old country. He is good boy. Clever boy. Much logic, like his father had.”

            “Stop talking with that bullshit broken English. I’m sick of it. You should’ve never come. This is your fault. He would still be here if it weren’t for you. This is your fault! Goddamn witch!”         

            Gavin sunk his face deeper into his mother’s belly and squeezed tighter.

            “You’re scaring boy.”

            “I’m okay,” he said, letting himself loose. “I’m not scared. I just wish dad was here. The woods stink without him.”

            “Sorry, kiddo,” his mother cried, grabbing him back up. Behind them he could hear gran’s rocking chair, back and forth.

            “Yes. Me as well. I’m sorry.”

 

Part Four: Rena Five Minutes

 

            Gavin shot up from unconsciousness, helped by an incessant tapping on the driver’s side window of his car. He scared the breath out of his lungs when he accidently hit the horn.

            It was Rena’s voice. Rena’s face. His wife had come home. “Gavin, are you okay?” The question was hampered by his semi-lucid state. Did I pass out in the drive?

            He nodded and wanly pushed open the door. Rena’s voice stopped. Rena’s face went white as a sheet. It was obvious, even in the failing light of early evening. “Gavin. Where have you been?” The question barely escaped her trembling lips.  

            He leaned against the car, not able to steady himself. He was days from a meal. How many, there was no telling for sure. “I was at the cabin.”

            “That old place up in the woods?” she asked. “What in the world. Gavin, people have been looking for you. I got calls from your work. You’re fired, if you care. The two or three friends who gave a shit about you have probably stopped by now.”

            “You came back.”

            “I’ve been here for days. Went to the police. Do you have any idea how serious this is?”

            “I thought I did. For a while I just drove. State after state. It didn’t work.”

            “What didn’t work?” She had her cell phone out. “It’s not real, Gavin. This is you, creating all this. Doing it to yourself. We’ll get you help. I know you’re scared, but you have to trust me. I’m talking about the actual world.”

            “Please,” he said, sounding like his old self and standing off the car. “Give me five minutes. After that, if you still think I’m crazy, call whoever you want. Don’t you love me enough for five minutes? Or didn’t you once?”

            She started to dial, at first unmoved by his pleading. “I don’t know what five more minutes is going to do. This, whatever—it’s been on and on for two months.”

            “Did you see those boxes back there?”

            “What?”

            “When you were knocking on the window. Surely you saw. I brought things from the cabin. Day after day of just sitting there, watching, and then it occurred to me. She showed me where she hid everything. Books and pictures. Journals. It’s all right there.”

            “I married a normal man. How long has it been since you looked at yourself?”

            “I’m looking at you,” he said, starting to cry. It was the first time in weeks he’d taken his mind off his ordeal. Every second away from the struggles sweeping over his life was a blast of warm sunlight.

            “Go inside and sit down,” she said, shoving her phone into her back pocket. “I’ll get the boxes. It better be a damn good five minutes.”

           

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