Scareship_Issue8

The streets, the subway, the streets, the stairs up to her
apartment—everything is blissfully drab and ordinary, nobody
appearing and vanishing, just the usual assortment of late night
travelers, sleepy or unsavory. So there’s a pretty good chance she
hasn’t gone insane. But of course, it didn’t happen, however real it
seemed. Still seems. She showers and brushes her teeth quickly,
and hops into bed, expecting to be terrified, but is asleep almost at
once.
She wakes once during the night, wakes sitting upright as if
she had been sleeping in that position. Slow grumble of a truck
outside prowling the pre-dawn streets, casting branch-shadows on
her curtains. It takes her several minutes to stop shaking.
She wakes again with a normal well-lit noisy normal world
going on outside. One night removed from her, the event is
something to be understood, however strange, however impossible
it was. And it was possible. She is certain that she saw him. Messy.
Kind of cute, if you cleaned him up some. And shocked. As
startled as she was. Why. And how did nobody else see him? He
can’t just have appeared and disappeared—not there, there, not
there again. But her senses disagreed then, and she disagrees now.
Maybe she is going insane. But it doesn’t feel it, and she really
doesn’t have a reason. If it’s some kind of chemical imbalance
thing, it’s a doozie. Vanishing Man Syndrome. Yes, men like that
are common, but not this way. There’s vanishing and there’s—
Huh?
OK. So what does she do? There has to be some kind of way
to track him, doesn't there? She squeezes her eyes shut: he had
dark hair, damp from the rain that had fallen earlier yesterday. But
he looked more frazzled that just from being out in the rain. He
hadn't shaved, but he didn't look like his whiskers grew in fast,
more that wispy down that some men get. Taller than her but not
by much. Big blue eyes.
Maybe he’ll return, she thinks, but somehow she is certain that
won’t be the case. For somebody who knows nothing about him,
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