Letters #78

Letter #38 Once again, I've finished my daily trip outside to the mailbox to dispose of yesterday's letter. As always, there was nothing to take in. I wonder who is receiving my letters, if they are reaching anyone at all. Perhaps they simply vanish once I walk away. I've tested that they are still there if I close the mailbox and reopen it before going back inside. I don't know when the letters are taken after that. The door doesn't open after I come back inside the house until the following day, whenever that day actually begins. But they are gone when I'm allowed back outside. I've sat by the window facing the front yard until I fall asleep. I've never seen anyone else go up to the mailbox. I don't know if it takes them to play with me or if something else does. Right now, it's watching me from the corner of the room near the back door. I try not to look in its eyes. The form shifts too much when I do. It becomes something incomprehensible. A mix of mist and matter neither here nor there, colors flashing and vanishing like fireworks, beast and man merged as one only to be split into two. Only when I look at it out of the corner of my eye does it maintain a consistent shape, but the shape is always different when I glance at it again. I know it is the same being each time though. I can feel its presence without needing my eyes. When it is near, the air is cold and thick. A strange moisture lingers around from something I cannot source beyond being part of it. There's a distinct smell of something earthy. As best I can describe it, it's a blend of wet dirt, earthworms, beetles, ants, and rotten meat. The smell of worms and ants stands out the most. It's sickening. The smell makes me feel like insects are crawling all over me. If I pay attention to the smell for too long, I start to see them on me. When I look closer, they're gone. Sometimes, when I avoid looking at it for too long, I can feel it on me too, on my skin. Sharp teeth softly gliding up and down my arms and legs, across my stomach, on my neck. If I try to ignore that, then I'll see the teeth, but I can't stop them. My hands go through what I see. Lately, it will show me hands as well. Just yesterday, when I was trying to ignore it, I felt a hand on my thigh. When I looked down, I could see the shape of a hand through my pants. I pressed down on the shape and it went away, only to then touch me on my cheek. I put my hand over its, and it stayed for a while before disappearing. It wakes me every morning. In the at least thirty-eight (or, if I am counting correctly, seventy-eight) days I have been here, I've not once recalled a single dream or falling asleep. I only remember waking to afternoon. There is no morning and there is no night. The sun never sets or rises, or it never lets me see it. It's still autumn here. I'm certain it should be the dead of winter. The same dead leaves fall from the trees every day. Or at least, it appears they are the same ones. I tried sketching them to check the next day, but my sketches would disappear the same as my letters once I woke. I don't know why I keep writing these letters, beyond it giving me an excuse to leave this house at least once a day. I can't stay out for too long. I've tried. It will open the door when it wants me to come back inside. Several times I've tried to see if it will shut the door on me and let me leave from here, but the wind will eventually blow me back inside if I resist. I can't jump the fence without the wind bringing me back down into this yard. I can't open the gate. There's no lock, but the gate won't budge at all. I'm not allowed in the back yard either, or upstairs. I can only peek at them through the windows and the stairwell. I'm not sure either space really exists. Tallulah, if you are getting these letters, are you sending any back? When did you last see me? Is this hell? Am I dead? I wish I could see you. -Jacob Letter #42 Nothing has changed since my last letter. I tried to draw again, but it took everything the next day. I mostly spend my time at the desk. It doesn't seem to like me sitting in the living room for long. If I sit on the couch, it always approaches me as a dog when I look at it out of the corner of my eye. It'll sit its head on my lap with its empty eye sockets, then gently open its mouth and slide its teeth through my pants against my skin until it starts to hurt the way a needle or a knife lightly and repeatedly pulled across the skin will. That's what it's teeth feel most like, a scratch from a needle that leaves no blood, only a mild stinging sensation. If I keep ignoring the pain from its biting, it will get bigger and turn into a man to bite at my neck. When it becomes like this, I can smell that earthy scent so strongly it makes my entire body itch. Inevitably, from being so close to my face, I end up looking in its eyes. In that shape, it always has eyes. Beautiful, dark, sad eyes and even sharper teeth. Looking in its eyes then is when I feel the most dread being here. It looks so sad and human, so vulnerable, but everything in my body is telling me I am the one in danger. My body wants to run from its presence. Since it is always in front of me on the couch, I try to move back and will fall as if there was never a couch there at all. Then, I come back here to my desk. It will follow me to the study and assume its usual place in the corner after that. I wondered if it was a vampire, but it never draws blood and I get the feeling neither the man nor the dog shape are its real form. I don't think there is one. There was another day it appeared to me as a bear. That was when I tried to look in the bathroom. I haven't once needed to use it since I've been here nor the kitchen. I'm never hungry or thirsty. I don't know how I'm alive. I know this should bother me more, but I don't think on it much. I'd opened the bathroom door mostly out of curiosity. The bathroom is just past the living room near the stairs. It let me peek inside, but I couldn't enter. I could sense it was standing behind me when I was in the doorway. I looked in the mirror to see what shape it might have if I viewed it through something reflective. It stood taller than me as a bear, fur blacker than any black bear. The shade of black was so dark it looked as if I was staring into a void with two circles dangling near the top of it where its eyes should have been. Rather than eye sockets or eyeballs, the "eyes" were more like a drawing of two circles in white chalk. The circles vibrated up and down, and briefly at an angle. It opened its mouth to show me more drawing-like shapes. All its teeth were white outlines like the eyes, crudely scribbled on. The tongue was not. It was the only part of it that appeared normal. Well, mostly. It was around triple the lengthy it should have been, and dripping wet with a neon orange, sticky substance. Afraid, I turned toward it and started backing away into what I thought was the bathroom, but I found myself back in the study. When I looked at it again, it was bursting with colors and breaking apart into floating bits of flesh. Another day, early on before I realized all these shapes came from the same source, it appeared to me as a cat along the fence of the front yard. This was its only entirely normal appearance. In this form, I first heard its voice. The shriek it made reverberated through me with all the force of an earthquake. Covering my ears could not drown out any of its loudness. It took this form the first day I tried to not put a letter in the mailbox and again every other time I didn't put a letter in the mailbox. Terrified as I was after each of those incidents, I didn't write any letters when I went back inside those days. I immediately found myself waking up again at the desk. I'd write a letter, but it wouldn't let me outside to drop it off until the next day after I slept again. Those days when I tried experimenting with what would happen if I didn't write is part of why I'm not as sure about how many days have passed since I first encountered it. I think my count is right, but I can't be certain. But I've also started to wonder if my memories of how much time has passed are correct, or if the days have blurred so much I've been here even longer. All I can be certain of is the number of days I've sent letters. I always make a point to number the letters. It's been forty-two days of letter writing. When I drop this off in the mailbox tomorrow, I will start writing day forty-three. And so far, I have had forty-two days of no letters in return. Lately, I've been wondering if my memories from before here are even real. If I ever get out of this, will you still be there waiting for me or was there never a Tallulah Weaver at all? I wish I could see you again. -Jacob Letter #49 Today, it took the shape of a man again. Mostly, anyway. The edges of the body were made of black smoke. If I looked closely at it, the human body shifted further into smoke. It sat at the desk while I sketched. I don't know why I bother sketching. It's only going to take them away again. As I was sketching, it reached down and touched my face with its hand and forced me to look up at it. It had those same big, sad eyes. I couldn't move. It kept caressing my face until I screamed. Then, the body broke apart and turned entirely into smoke. The smoke wrapped around me and took hold of my right arm to force me to keep drawing. I drew for what seemed like hours until it finally let go of my arm. Then, it changed shape back into a man and took my drawings away. I thought it was done with me for the day, but its made me sit here and write for it now. Am I a pet for it? A toy? Am I a meal for another day? While it held me, I felt hungry for the first time since being here. The feeling has gone away now. I wish I could see you. Picturing you in my mind is getting harder. I can't remember a lot of things anymore. I've forgotten the names of the schools I went to. I know we met in college, but I can't remember what college we attended or what our majors were. We did go to college, didn't we? It's still autumn. I think it will let me stop for now. -Jacob Letter #60 Autumn, autumn, autumn. It's always autumn here. Every day, there's no night. Every day is afternoon. I'm hungry. I'm so hungry and it won't let me eat anything. There's no food in the kitchen. There's no water in the sinks. There's no hose outside. There's no road on the other side of the gate. There's no houses beside this house. There aren't any trees outside this yard. There isn't anything else but this house. There is no upstairs. There is no back yard. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm hungry. I'm not dying. I'm so hungry. I wish it would kill me already. Please, why do you make me write these stupid letters? Just kill me or let me eat. You don't even talk to me. Stop touching me. Give me water. Let me take a bath. Let me sit anywhere but this damn desk. Kill me. Please, just kill me. Letter #64 I'm hungry. I don't want to write anymore. I wrote a letter. Are you happy? Letter #68 We talked for a bit today. I guess I've accepted this. I'm learning to ignore the hunger again. The hunger doesn't kill me. I suppose I'll keep sketching when he wants me to. He likes to keep them in his room upstairs. I finally went up there. It was an ordinary bedroom. I don't think he'll make me write about it. I wish he would give me water. The thirst bothers me more than the hunger, but being bothered by that makes him happy. I doubt he'll give me food or water so long as I'm bothered by the lack of it. He did say he might release me one day, if I stop making him happy. My terror pleases him because it makes him feel sadness. He enjoys getting to feel the pain of causing me pain, which causes him more pain and more happiness. It is strange, but it seems the only way I can be released from this is if I cease to be bothered by him. I've started to ignore his biting more. It makes no difference if I hide what I am afraid of from him in my letters because he can read my mind. I can't hide anything from him. So, I've tried thinking more about you. He enjoys this too, because my longing gives him sadness, which gives him joy. He at least doesn't bite me when I think about you. The pain I feel from missing you, according to him, is much greater than pain he can induce in my body. It is much more enjoyable for him. For me, it at least momentarily distracts me from here. I know there used to be a time before this when I was happy, when we were happy. My memories continue to fade. This makes him happy, because my suffering at losing those little details here and there is even greater than the pain I feel from missing you. I think he is the reason I am forgetting. He can't let me forget you completely though, because if I couldn't remember you at all, I wouldn't have anything to long for. The pain would simply end. He won't allow that. In that at least I can draw some comfort. My pain allows you to stay in my mind each day as my only comfort. He wants me to come upstairs again now. I will write you tomorrow, as always. Love, Jacob Letter #69 I did a lot of sketches today. I tried drawing you from memory. It's getting harder. I think he may take your face from me. He can't take your name though. After all, I must know who to address my letters to. He expects me to write them every day. I'm sure I'll never see you again, but I've made peace with that. If you came here, I'd have to watch you suffer with me. If keeping you safe from this hell means I never see you again, then so be it. I hope wherever you are, you've moved on from me. I hope you're not even getting these letters. I hope you think I'm dead or walked out on you and you're now with someone else in a nice little house somewhere you don't have to worry about anything. I hope I'm never on your mind. With all my love, I hope I never see you here. -Jacob Letter #72 Things have become more routine. When I wake, I drop off yesterday's letter outside, then I come inside to sketch for a while before writing my next letter. After I finish my letter, he takes me upstairs for a while, then I come back down to sketch for the rest of the afternoon until I sleep. I don't think much during the day, except when I am writing my letters. Then, you are all that is on my mind. His form has stayed clear since we first spoke. He speaks to me regularly now. I don't think I have seen him as anything other than an ordinary man since that day. I've wondered if I should ask him what he is, and if he's trapped here to. I'll write to you what he answers if I do. Haha, I don't know why I write like this. You're not getting these. I'm just writing to myself for him to read over. That's really all this is, a daily journal where I have to dispose of yesterday's entry every day. I should ask him what he does with all the pages. You're reading this too. Are you storing them somewhere like my sketches or are you destroying them? Letter #73 I can't think of anything to write about. I suppose I could describe yesterday, but I don't see what the point is since the only person reading this is you and you already know all of that. Do you just enjoy reading me describe it? You already know what I thought. You're reading my words and reading my mind right now. How about this thought? I wish you would kill me. Letter #74 Here's another day of me being forced to write out a letter for someone else's entertainment. Now, I make him just sad. I'm not amusing anymore. I'm irritating because I stopped longing. I don't scream anymore. I don't cry like I used to. I just lie there and take everything. He's biting me right now, looking at me with sad eyes. He's changed back to a dog, but kept those human eyes. I don't care. Bite me. Go ahead and actually make me bleed if you're going to do that. Letter #75 He let me take a bath last night, to wash off all the blood. It hurts to walk. It hurts to write. I'm really hungry now, but I'm trying hard to ignore it. He told me last night that he is sending these to you. And that you aren't writing back. I don't know if he's messing with me or not. I'm not sure I believe him. But maybe it is true. I'm sure if I received these letters, I would think it was a disturbed joke or that the person writing me had gone insane. Maybe I am insane. Maybe none of this is real. It doesn't seem like it could be real. I've wondered if I'm actually dying right now. Maybe this is just a terrible nightmare that will end soon, whenever my heart finally stops. Maybe that's why I feel so much pain and he's just a dream manifestation of whatever injuries are actually killing me. And maybe you don't exist either. All my memories are getting harder to remember. Perhaps that's because they're not real in the first place. If I survive this and wake up, that's when I'll probably forget your name and remember the names of whoever is really in my life. Or at least, that's what I've come to hope. If this is real, I don't know what I should think. He enjoyed himself a lot last night. I can tell from how much he cried during all of it. He had me sleep upstairs instead of at the desk. Last night, I couldn't stop thinking about how much blood was on him. My blood. This morning, the scratches are still there. I'm bruised everywhere. Right now, he's watching me as a wolf. I think he wants me to do something "bad" so he can repeat last night. Maybe that will kill me. I don't know. I haven't eaten or drank anything in over seventy days and I'm still not dead. When I was in the bath, I thought about drinking the water, but it was so dirty it was too disgusting to try. I might try anyway if there's a next time. I don't know how I would survive a second time. I can barely move my hand to write. He's changed into a man again. Now, he's standing directly beside the desk. Apparently, he wants to repeat last night again. He says it pained him greatly to hurt me like that. He's brushing my hair while he talks to me. The only part of me I can move right now is my hand against the paper. If by some chance you really are receiving these, please don't try to find me. I love you. I'll always love you. May you never know the fear I have known. Love, Jacob Letter #77 Tomorrow, he promised me I would be writing my last letter. Once I write that one, I can come back. He told me he'll have special instructions for me when writing that one. Tonight will be painful and so will tomorrow night, but the day after that I can come back home to you. I don't care what he's going to do to me between now and then. I don't know if you'll believe me about all this. If you can't, that's alright. We don't ever have to talk about it. I don't want to think about it. We can go back to how things were before and this can all just be a distant, fading memory. I wonder what season it really is right now. Do you receive my letters in the morning or at night? What have you been dreaming of? If you have been getting these, I'm sure you think I've lost my mind. The wounds on my body should be proof enough I'm not. I don't know how to explain the rest to you. I don't know how I ended up here myself. I suppose he must have taken me here. He's never said anything about it. You know, the strangest thing about all of this is even right now, thinking about all I've experienced since I came here, none of it seems real. Especially the earliest days when I couldn't really see him clearly and he was all these strange shapes. I've been allowed to wander around the house for the next two days. There's finally food in the fridge. I drank a glass of water before I started writing this. Tomorrow, I'll be allowed to go out into the backyard. I can't leave the property. He told me if I went past the fence, I'd die and he won't allow it. He told me outside that is some sort of "nothing" and if I touch it I'll be "deader than dead", whatever that means. He described this place as something that is "there" but not "something" nor "nothing". I don't understand what that means. He says I can't understand because I'm human. I'm only supposed to exist in certain kinds of spaces. While I'm here, he told me I'm neither quite alive nor dead. My body is in some kind of suspension despite the fact that I move around all day. This place is within a different sort of time than our time. He called it "older time", time that was around before there was anything. I don't know if anything he's telling me is true. It doesn't make sense. He might just be playing with me for his own amusement. I hope he's not. I want to see you. I'm excited and afraid of what will happen in two days. Will he really set me free or will he keep me here longer to enjoy my suffering when he reveals he lied to me? I don't want to believe he's lying to me. This will really make me sound like I've lost it. (I probably have.) But if I really do get to go home, I think I might miss him a little. I've been here so long with only him as my companion. I know he's spent the entire time playing with me for his own enjoyment, but there's some broken part of me that feels attached to him. I'm sure it will go away. I don't know. I'm not sure if he is evil or too inhuman for me to understand in any moral sense. In all this time I've been here, I wish I could have understood him more. Or perhaps I've simply refused to see him and wish there was more to it. Maybe he is simply evil. There have been times I've wondered if he loved me, and other times if he wanted me to think that to torment me further. I'm still afraid he might eat me in the end or that this is a nightmare I'll wake from to find neither this nor you ever existed. Please, no matter what you may think of me right now, if this is real and I do get released from this prison...please hear me out. Please let me in and let me tell you everything I couldn't say to you in these letters. You can take me to the hospital afterwards if you think that's where I need to be. I won't resist. Just let me say everything first, and we can go from there. Load me up with whatever drugs, I don't care. I just want you to know this is not been some elaborate prank or anything like that. If I am losing my mind and this is all a delusion, I'll gladly accept that. Please, just don't turn me away. Hopefully, I'll get to see you soon. Love, Jacob "Well, that's definitely...something." The officer said as he tossed the opened letters down on his desk. "You say you received these about how long ago again?" "The first one, number thirty-eight, came in February. Seventy-seven came yesterday. Seventy-eight came this morning." Tallulah said. "You didn't open that one." The officer said. She nodded and pointed to the letter. "It said on the front not to open it. I didn't know why that could be. This person, if it's not a prank, is clearly disturbed. I thought there might be poison or something else dangerous in it." The officer rubbed his chin. "It's possible. You never know with these types. We'll open it later. Now, you're sure you've never met this guy before?" "I don't know anyone named Jacob Valley. At least, I can't remember meeting anyone by that name." Tallulah crossed her arms. "If I have met him before, it would've had to be a long time ago or someone I didn't know very well...he mentioned college. I can't say for sure he couldn't have been a former classmate. You meet so many people at college. I can't remember the names of anyone I met in college at this point." "And you haven't received any communication from this person until now? How long ago did you graduate from college?" The officer asked. "It's been about seven years now." Tallulah counted on her fingers. "Almost eight. I've never been contacted by this Jacob person until now. When he mentioned in that one letter that he was 'coming back', I thought I should probably contact the police. Whoever this person is might actually show up at my house, you know?" "It's possible. He clearly knows your name. He must've met you or seen you before somehow, but it may not be in the way he's remembering. If this isn't a prank, there's no telling how much of what he's remembering is related to reality." The officer leaned back in his chair. "For tonight, I'll have some officers escort you to a hotel. You'll stay there for at least a few days while we have some officers keep an eye on your home. If this Jacob Valley shows up, we'll bring him down here for questioning and a psychiatric evaluation." Tallulah's phone buzzed. She looked down at her notifications. "Who's that?" The officer asked. "Oh, it's my sister. She keeps texting me to come to this event her old job is holding about free mental health treatments they're offering." Tallulah put her phone away. The officer raised an eyebrow. "Why does she think you should need that?" "Oh, she's always thought I was crazy. She used to be a psychiatric researcher, so she thinks that makes her qualified to guess what goes on in my head without asking. She has my nephew, Eric, going there for some experimental treatments all the time. It gives him temporary memory problems every time he does it. Doesn't seem healthy to me." Tallulah rolled her eyes thinking about her sister. "My sister's been trying to get me to do that treatment too, but I'm not going to that." "Has anyone else ever suggested you get that kind of help before?" The officer asked. Tallulah narrowed her eyes at the man. "You don't think I'm the one pranking you, do you?" "I'm just trying to rule out possibilities." "Why would anyone make this up? What would I get out of that?" Tallulah raised her voice slightly. The officer shrugged. "I don't know, Miss. People do all kinds of strange things for no logical reason at all." "No one but my sister and my parents have ever thought I needed that kind of help, and I don't speak to any of them all that often for good reason." Tallulah balled her fist under the table. "I don't care if you think I'm making this up. You can give me an evaluation in a week if he doesn't show. How about that? I'm not going back to that house without someone else being there with me." "We won't make you go back there right now." The officer looked over the letters again. "Were there no others? Given the numbers, it looks like a lot of them are missing." "These are the only ones I received." Tallulah looked down at them. "I don't know if the others got lost or if this person intentionally numbered them to make it seem like there should be more or what. After the first one, they did arrive in the order and on the dates that would make sense if there were supposed to be others." "I see. Well, for right now, we're going to go ahead and move you to the hotel. I'll probably have some more questions for you later. Please, go out that door and speak with the officer outside. She'll escort you to where you'll be staying. We'll start looking into this. There's already two officers down at your house right now. If he shows up, we'll get him." Tallulah got up and left the room. After she was gone, the officer looked over the stack of notes again. "What a bunch of bullshit. Question is, did she write these or someone else? Jacob Valley. Do you even exist?" The officer looked over at the unopened letter, number seventy-eight. The outside of the letter read: "TO TALLULAH WEAVER. DO NOT OPEN. DO NOT OPEN NO MATTER WHAT. DO NOT READ THIS. BURN IT. FORGET ME." Confident from the ridiculous details in the other letters, he was certain the whole thing was a prank. No one was going to show up at the woman's house. This was a waste of time and resources. He opened the envelope without hesitation to see what was inside. There was a letter inside along with a card. The officer looked over the card first. The front of the card had artwork of falling leaves behind the number seventy-eight. He flipped it over. On the backside was a heart against a black background. He was even more convinced this was a prank. He tossed the card in the trash before picking up the letter. It read: Letter #78 DO NOT TOUCH THE CARD. If you have touched it, burn it and forget about me entirely. If you haven't touched it, carefully pick it up with any sort of barrier between you and the card. Gloves, a wash cloth, anything that will keep your bare skin from touching it. Take it out of the house and put it somewhere or give it to someone else. If you give it away, give it to a stranger or someone you dislike. I can come home if someone touches the card without destroying it within a few minutes. But if you touch it without destroying it, it'll take you here after freeing me. Destroy it if this happens. I don't know how much longer he'll keep me if you do that, but I can't allow my freedom to cost you yours. If you don't want someone else to have my fate, I understand. You can destroy it then too. I won't blame you. I hope I get to see you again one day, but I don't want you to have to live with the guilt of causing someone else's suffering. Perhaps, it might be best to destroy everything I've sent you. I miss you, but don't think on me. He wanted me to tell you all of the rules as my final letter. I don't know what happens after today. I love you. -Jacob The officer groaned. He got on the radio with one of the officer's at Tallulah's house. "You two came come back. It's just a prank. I'll have that woman sent home after we have her evaluated." "What happened? Did she admit to it?" The other officer asked. "No, it's just really obvious. You gotta see this shit. You'll both get a laugh out of it." The officer chuckled. He spun his chair around. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something odd. Outside his window, it was afternoon instead of morning. Autumn leaves fell from a tree. There were no trees at the police station. The officer walked over to the window. The parking lot was gone. A yard with dead grass and a handful of old trees were where cars should be parked. The turned back around to get his radio. It was gone, as were the letters and the card. The only thing familiar left was his desk. A blank sheet of paper and a pen rested in the middle of it. Lingering in the air, a deep, earthy scent crawled over his skin as something half formed rose up beside him. Main