Notes by Anthony; Photo by Michael Key

Zachary had always had trouble with the shower in his apartment. Not with the water pressure, surprisingly. That was fine at 2pm when Zachary first screamed himself awake after his long shift at the station. His night terrors usually left him sweaty and gross and in desperate need of a hot shower. But he had to remain alert in case anyone else in the building so much as sneezed in the direction of their sink or toilet. No matter how hungover or exhausted he was, the second he’d hear a flush he’d have to leap for the cold tap, lest the water briefly burn his eyebrows off. 

But now? Though the water steamed off his chest and condensation hung thick in the air, it did not scald him. It didn’t even warm him. He wanted to feel the pain. He wanted to wake up in bed, screaming from another nightmare. He wanted Ben to rush in and hold him close and tell him that everything was going to be okay. That it was all just a dream. Ben would drive them out to an all-night diner and put too much money in the jukebox. They’d eat burgers and drink milkshakes until the sun came up and burned all Zachary’s terrible visions away like morning mist.  

Zachary flinched, thinking of the fiery air that had scorched his vision and, nearly, his flesh. Zachary’s foot shifted with the movement and landed on something squishy. It squelched under his weight, but when he leaned back, the thing sprung back into its initial shape. Without looking, he nudged it towards the drain. It was resilient, but no match for his new-found strength. It popped loudly as he pushed it down the drain. Zachary breathed in, trying to feel disgust as the heavy scent of blood and organs and bile and shit filled his nose. He tried to make his stomach churn, to make the nausea bubble up his throat and fill his sinus until he retched last night clear of his system. 

Wednesday, November 29th, 1994, had started out as a normal day. Well, normal enough when one usually wakes up screaming in terror. It was the same nightmare as before, but Zachary felt more present in it. He’d been in the cornfield again, though this time there was an illusory farm that hid the temple from his vision until he approached. He recognized the old man trapped in the pillar this time – President Roosevelt, of all people. Roosevelt had cracked open, and the same woman emerged from his corpse. This time she carried a skull with glowing green eyes. Zachary wasn’t sure if the severed head had flesh last time. Ice sculptures and towers burst forth around him, teeming with animals. Then there was a fire, and the animals fled. The egg man with the crown fell from the temple wall and into the sewer again, dragged down by muddy arms. The Monument made itself known then – looming even larger under a blood red sky. A strange sigil was carved into it. The Monument watched him with malevolent intent. And then, worst of all, Ben was lying in front of him. Bloody, disemboweled, and completely dead. Zachary clawed at his corpse and the cries of a baby filled his ears until they were replaced with his own screams.

Was it fucked up that Zachary’s first thought after regaining his composure was that he couldn’t sell the same dream to his listeners twice? He’d showered off the night sweats, needing to turn on the cold water on twice after his upstairs neighbor flushed and washed their hands. After the gentle, and not-so-gentle, comments from his parents over Thanksgiving he’d gone out to the grocery store and picked up vegetables and salad along with the usual TV dinners. His mom, Esther, had called then. Zachary was annoyed that Ben had ‘fessed up about the creepy caller last night, but ultimately couldn’t blame him. Zachary would throw Frieda under the bus in an instant if his perfect, married, kindergarten teacher sister had ever done anything his mother could be disappointed about. Ben was practically part of the family at this point, given his presence at all the major holidays and high holy days, so his mom probably felt justified putting the same guilt-trip on Ben as she did on Zack. Mom needled Zack on the same shit as usual – when would he get a real job, a girlfriend, a sleep schedule, and a diet? Zack deflected with the same platitudes that he was mostly convinced she didn’t believe. But she played along like she always did, and Zachary played along like he’d work on his New Year’s Resolutions this year, so maybe that was as much of her blessing as she’d ever give his lifestyle. At least she knew he was happy. 

And Zachary had been happy. He’d been happy with the late afternoon TV dinners and baseball games and diners with Ben before driving out to station. There was a change to the routine last night, however. Ben had been approved for welfare! Zachary was glad, of course, but felt guilty that he didn’t realize how bad Ben’s situation had been. Ben always kept up a bright smile and took care of Zachary, not the other way around. When Ben mentioned he had written up career goals for the social worker and was going to job training, Zachary could feel the burger doing pirouettes in his gut. What would his life be like if Ben wasn’t there? What would happen if Zack couldn’t lean on Ben’s warm shoulder every night and laugh on air about the latest band gossip or entitled caller? 

Zachary pulled hard at his beard. Something tore. He raised his hand to his face. Clumps of hair stuck to his fingers, coated in vomit and bile. His fingernails were black with blood. It turned out Ben wasn’t going to be the one to leave their partnership in the lurch. Like Zachary, Ben was just saying whatever he had to in order to get those in power to give him them the resources he needed to scrape by and then leave him the fuck alone. Ben was content with Zachary and the radio station and their weird little night life, and that was all Zachary could ask for. 

But things were still going wrong. At the station, Zachary found a calligraphed note from some weirdo on top of his biweekly check. The writer called him Prophet, and told him that they were truly sorry, but it had to happen. What had to happen? What were they sorry about? Weird that Patricia, their night manager, hadn’t caught the note. Zachary didn’t show Ben, though. Part of him wanted to believe it was just some prank, but the other part, the part that watched for signs of his visions in the waking world, just kept seeing Ben’s blood on his hands. 

Zachary must have fallen asleep at the mic, he must have. He was buried underground, packed tight beneath the dry earth like a dead man. He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak. He’d waken up under the desk, screaming in Ben’s face. He’d tried to seek comfort and bury his face in Ben’s shoulder, but he found himself falling through Ben’s wet chest cavity, warm viscera filling his mouth and lungs. But that couldn’t be real, that was just a memory from the dream. He’d had lucid visions before, from what his therapist called “micro-naps” when he was bored in high school biology and his head fell towards the desk until the shift in his inner ear jolted him awake. Zachary fled to the breakroom and tried to convince Ben and Patricia it was just an unlucky dream. Fortunately, Ben had wanted to believe it, and Patricia didn’t want to sub in as emergency co-host in the middle of the night. Zachary knew he was saying whatever they would buy so that things would go back to normal. Was it so bad to just want things to be normal? 

Zachary told the callers about his dream, minus the bit about Benjamin’s corpse. He asked them what they thought. Why would the universe send the same vision twice? They got the usual couple assholes and druggies, and a few of their regulars who took the questions seriously. There was that weird one, though. A little girl called in. Ben tried to head her off, telling her that this wasn’t a kids’ show, and she should get her parents. Zachary looked back at Patricia, but she’d just stared slack-jawed at the board. Zachary had asked if the kid was lost – maybe she’d heard their number on the radio and called for help? But the girl, Joan, just told Zachary that he was the one who was lost, and that she was sorry about what had to happen. 

Though the rest of the night went normally, Ben could tell something was wrong. At the end of their shift, Ben asked Zachary if he wanted to stay the week. His girlfriend, Sarah, was out of town, and they could spend the whole day on the couch and watch movies and relax. It took every last ounce of Zachary’s self-control to tell Ben that he was fine, that he just needed a good night’s sleep and a walk in the crisp November air. He was so tempted to just give in. Zachary imagined himself falling into Ben’s arms. He could cry out all his pain and fear and frustration until he was finally empty of everything but the comfortable warmth of their friendship. 

And yet – Ben’s corpse still stared up at him from beneath The Monument. Ben’s blood filled his nose and lungs. The note and the callers told him that it was soon, that there was nothing they could do, that they were sorry for what had to happen. Ben had taken care of Zachary for the past fifteen years. Ben was his best friend. The least that Zachary could do was make sure that these portents were nothing more than his paranoia, just for the next few days. If it was nothing, then the only thing worse for wear would be Zachary, and he’d bounced back from nightmares like this before. But if not? If there was truly something to these visions? Zachary couldn’t risk it. Zachary hugged Ben farewell. He squeezed tightly.

Despite Zachary’s paranoia, the homeless man jumped him before he even noticed the movement. He’d told Zachary to sleep, and he fell into an unconscious stupor like none of the dozens of medications had achieved before. When Zachary awoke in the car, he tried to open the door handle and roll out like a Bond film, but the man noticed and just told Zachary to sleep again. Useless, Zachary’s body did as it was told. Zachary didn’t really remember what happened at the park, but he knew he’d died. He’d seen the light at the end of a tunnel and knew he could just let go and he’d be free of all the nightmares. He’d be like a drop of water on the beach, slipping back into the black ocean. The surface tension that defined him lost in communion with the universe. 

But something still flickered at the edge of his vision. As he turned from the light, he saw that same vast desert. An old man with a strange symbol upon his forehead wandered endlessly. Was it the same symbol as on the monument? And Zachary knew, knew without a shadow of a doubt, that this man meant the end of the world. If Zachary went to the light, that future was sealed. Zachary thought about his sister, his mother and father. He thought about baseball and basement rock shows and album release parties. He thought about the radio station.

He thought about Ben.

Hot blood poured down his throat from a large bowl. He was so hungry. He licked it clean like a dog. Blood dripped down the homeless man’s face from where he’d vomited it up, but there was a new source. Fresher. The man had bitten open his arm, and hot blood welled from the surface. Zachary drank and drank until the man flung him off. Zachary felt alive. The park was bright as day. The man was babbling loudly in Zachary’s ear. He sounded like one of their regulars. Awestruck and sniveling and incoherent. He made for absolutely terrible radio. The man, Immanuel, called him Zachariah and a prophet. Son of Abraham and David and Solomon and other important people Zachary stopped thinking about after his Bar Mitzvah. Immanuel told Zachary that he was someone else’s vessel and voice. That Zachary had been chosen. That Zachary needed to hide, and that people would be after him. The Tower – and here Zachary thought of the Monument staring balefully down at the desert – was ever-watching, and he had to beware. He also had to avoid the brother – or was he supposed to find the brother? Zachary supposed that, if one was a brother, that necessitated at least one other sibling. Maybe one was on his side, and one was not. He needed to be wary of Daniel, Luther, and Adams. They were after him? Immanuel talked about a girl, too. Zachary thought of the young caller at the station, Joan, who sounded far too old for her years. Did Immanuel call Zachary the Harbinger of Gehenna? Wasn’t that like, hell, but only for specifically terrible people? 

Immanuel was emphatic, however, that he needed to get to safety before the sun came up. Zachary had so many questions, but Immanuel disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. Zachary was left alone in the park with the busted car. He checked his watch. He had an hour and a half, maybe two, until sunrise. Zachary found the local bus station that would eventually take him home but knew it would be cutting it close. He and Ben had seen Interview with The Vampire when it came out, and he didn’t want to be Claudia. Against his better angels, Zachary made his way across the street to the phone booth. Ben would come. Ben would fix this. 

A speeding car barreled into Zachary before he made it halfway across. He knew it should have broken his leg. Maybe even his neck. But the same fire that burned in his belly and throat surrounded his leg and he was fine. Fortunately, the man had a conscience but wasn’t particularly law-abiding, and Zachary easily convinced him to drop him off at his apartment rather than the hospital. God bless the gutting and deregulation of the American healthcare system. Easy enough for the driver to believe Zachary didn’t have insurance. The universe either had it out for Zachary or had brought him salvation in the worst possible way. Maybe both. 

Zachary pulled back the shower curtain and looked at the guts piled up on the floor and around the toilet. Had there even been that much in him in the first place? Zachary patted his stomach and flexed. He was still a big guy, but now he was more toned, maybe? His mom would be pleased if she ever saw him again. Zachary didn’t want to think about the badly-taped blackout curtains in his bedroom, the half-solidified cocoon of blood in the closet he’d clawed his way out of when the sun finally went down. As he’d metamorphosized, he’d dreamed of a lake. He knew that there was something important reflecting in the surface, but he couldn’t focus on it. He only had eyes for the woman in the center. Beautiful and serene. Middle eastern, maybe? Similar to the bloody woman in the desert. She’d reached out for Zachary. Told him to find her in the water. 

Zachary realized the shower had been freezing for some time. He hadn’t noticed the cold. Zachary stepped out of the shower. His foot slipped slightly in the congealed blood coating the floor, now slick with condensation. He needed to recenter and gain control. He’d been given far too many vague and confusing instructions and visions in the past twenty-four hours to decipher on his own. He needed someone to talk this insanity out with, to figure out what he should do next. 

And, dear listeners?

He knew exactly who to call.