Scareship_Issue8

“We’ve checked the films from the cameras at his office,” one
of the other cops says, “and nothing since the last day he was there.
His apartment doesn’t have surveillance cameras.”
She declines the offer of a ride home, and Detective Morris
walks her into the hall. “If you do hear from him, or see him again,
here’s my card. Let us know. And be careful. We don’t know...
what frame of mind he may be in.” He sighs. “We don’t know
what the hell is going on here. But you’ve seen him.” He smiles.
“We’re not sure what that means, if anything.”
She nods and thanks him—she’s not sure for what—and walks
the incredible distance to the door of the precinct and out into the
busy street, noise and sunlight and traffic and clusters of people
walking past each other. But the people seem oddly unreal,
insubstantial. Threatening rather than mysterious somehow, and
she has always taken a strange delight in the mysteriousness of
other people. And the street seems more like a cattle pen than the
fairground she normally feels it is. New York is so damned
crowded.
It’s not that her life was perfect, by any stretch. But it made
sense, it held together. People didn’t appear and fucking disappear
like that. She feels hollowed, feels like she has nowhere to go. So
she goes home.
The bar is different too that night. Chaotic, not vibrant. The
rude orchestra of voices and bar noises is like fists full of
silverware being thrown on the floor, and every face is a stone.
Two weeks later, she checks with Detective Morris. Tommy’s
still missing. She doesn’t check again.
* * *
Tommy stops by the bar every day, and even sleeps there one
night. It stays deserted, and a blanket of dust motes begins to
thicken on bar and tables and floor. The lightning flash of people
around him, of the face of the girl, so startled, has sharpened his
103