Gray (A Short Story)

Gray

        Something was moving in Gray’s mind. For thirty-seven long years it had been there, and strangely enough, he was just starting to take notice of it now. He didn’t react much to the feeling, maybe a little itch or a slight trembling of his fingers, but other than that he was quite comfortably still. The world was so silent beyond the walls of his home, silent and green, and it put him at ease. Most of his friends would often complain about living in the suburbs, how nothing ever happened and they wanted to see more, and that was fine for them—but as for Gray himself, he rarely ever allowed ungrateful words to crawl out of his mouth; considering his home, anyway. It was quiet, and that was all he needed. The quiet had saved him many times before in his life, as it was saving him now from this thing that was creeping in his head.

        Gray didn’t question the feeling. He let it have its way, knowing that if he gave it the right amount of time and patience, it, like most of his other dark feelings before, would leave him. Sinking back into his couch, he sealed his eyes closed in an attempt to drift away. But much to his displeasure, rest refused to take him. “Damn it,” he snarled as his eyes snapped back open defiantly. They were nearly red at this point; he hadn’t gotten a whole lot of sleep last night, what with all the drunken howling his twenty-year old neighbors had been doing. 

That was the one exception—his neighbors spent so much of their time being soundless and hardly noticeable, when they did decide to let loose they were complete heathens. Gray could recall one time late last September when he’d been submerged beneath his bed sheets, caught between a blurry world of consciousness and a tranquil world of rest, longing for his entire self to soon be pulled into the peaceful dark, only to be yanked back into the world of full consciousness at the sound of glass smashing against the side of his house. 

At that moment, though it had been such a small detail in the vast night, Gray had felt as though the shattering of the bottle had been in perfect sync with the shattering of his own personal night. The electric blue of his eyes had flared in his rage, and Gray could remember losing himself to anger….

            Out of his small, red-ocher home he’d charged, straight into the street where the human parasites had been busy at their obnoxious, senseless games. They’d seemed to freeze in time once they’d taken notice of him, which, Gray needed to admit, had made him feel instantly better. Instead of taking a moment to collect himself, though, the power had gotten to him, and he’d cursed them out for...oh, he couldn’t really recall how long it had gone on now. It had gone on a long time, though, and he did recall that when he’d finished up he’d marched over to the nearest pest and forced a half-empty bottle from their hands. He’d slept quite well the rest of the night.

            But that had been one of his darker moments, and he didn’t usually have those, so the next time they threw a party (quieter this time and not in the street), he let it slide. The time after that it had gotten a little louder. And then a little louder. And then a little louder. Now they were back in the street, and Gray was beginning to realize that they knew he wasn’t going to do anything. “I should teach them a lesson,” he growled. And his fingers began to twitch. “Oh, but I can’t do that.” He felt the broken springs in the couch cushions starting to bother him, but he ignored it. “Yelling isn’t enough, yelling didn’t do me any favors...they’re still giving me this bullshit.” The silence was dead now. All he could hear was their drunken screams; so he plugged his ears and whistled to block them out. “They haunt me even when they aren’t there...don’t they know I need peace?” Soon enough, it wasn’t just their voices, but the voices of his father and mother clashing downstairs, and his brothers hissing evil things to each other...they couldn’t ever just get along...they couldn’t ever just be quiet…. “I need a drink,” he spat, and lifted himself up. But when his foot made contact with the floor, the sound of it was cut off by the snarling of what sounded like some kind of dog outside. Immediately concerned, Gray looked through the stained glass of his window to see the blurred image of a creature sleeping outside in the street. Gray began to sweat. He knew he shouldn’t go out there, but something was pushing him—he needed to see it closer.

        As the itching in his brain started acting up again, violent and almost painful this time, he forced himself out the door and stood cautiously on the front steps. His eyes narrowed and he could see it clearly now: It was a large thing, about the size of an adult great dane, and every inch of it was covered in mangy, black fur. Its snores sounded an awful lot like growls, which to Gray made it even more unsettling.

It was just lying there, right there in the middle of the street, as though hoping for the neighbors to run it over when they returned home. At that moment, Gray did something which he was absolutely certain hadn’t been his own decision to do: He called out to the sleeping animal. “Hey!” he shouted, and almost a second later, the thing lifted its great, wolfish head and fixed its crimson gaze on him. “Oh, God, no….” Gray shivered, wanting to beat himself senseless. The thing seemed more embarrassed than anything, though. “I’m sorry, was I too loud?” it said in a gruff tone. Gray nodded slowly, unsure of what else to do—the thing was talking to him. “What are you?” the man demanded, but the creature looked away from him. 

“Just a stranger,” it said far too casually. It then turned its focus back on him and stood up, causing Gray to flinch. “Don’t you want me to come closer so we don’t have to shout at each other?” it questioned. Gray stopped, gave it some thought for a quick moment, and then hesitantly nodded his approval. Upon receiving the signal, the creature walked onto his lawn, moved a bit closer, and then took a seat.

“What are you?” Gray asked again. 

“I told you, just a stranger,” it replied. “But since you appear to be unsatisfied with my answer, I’ll give you a more detailed one. I am a dog, a dog who’s been lost for thirty-seven years now. I was born on the pavement and a few weeks afterward pushed into the road by my siblings. It hadn’t taken long for one of those cars to hit me, and I’m sure my siblings had been so happy then. But, see, they’d been expecting for me to die, and I wouldn’t die. I refused. I bounced right back up, and do ya know what I did then, stranger?” 

Gray shook his head. 

“I bit the driver’s fingers off soon as he got out of that car,” it continued. “I did it with my siblings watching from the pavement. They were so scared for their lives, they all ran far away and left me alone in the road. My mother left with them, but I didn’t care. Ya know why? Because I knew I was special. I knew I could live on my own perfectly fine, and they would undoubtedly die long before me. And I would never join them, because I would never die. I just kept going for years, and years, and years, never fading. Even when I was starving and hadn’t eaten for weeks, even when I was thirsty and hadn’t had a single lick of water for months, my body stayed moving.”

Gray found himself almost shaking in his skin listening to the beast’s story; he couldn’t even begin to imagine the suffering. This thing couldn’t die, even when it was dying. 

“Yup, I always stayed standing,” it went on. “The proof’s right here, sitting before you. But stranger, don’t you go getting jealous of my curse. Just because my dusty heart is beating doesn’t mean I feel alive. That day, that painful day when the car hit me, I wanted life so badly, but everything’s changed. I see what a gift death is now. Eternal quiet, no more pain and worries.” 

The man felt the itch act up in his brain again and scratched the back of his head. “I’m so sorry,” he murmured. 

“What for?” the beast asked, licking the sides of its long snout. 

“You can’t die,” Gray answered in a hushed tone. 

The beast unhinged its jaw and let out a noise that sounded like witch fingernails scraping against a chalkboard; he supposed that this was its laugh. “That’s got nothing to do with you, stranger!” it snorted. “There’s no need for you to apologize.” 

Gray laughed awkwardly with the creature for a second, and then asked, “Well, do you know why you can’t?” 

The beast looked to the side. “I’m afraid not,” it answered. “I guess it just is the way it is.”  

Gray wrapped his arms around himself. At this point the cold October air was really starting to bite at him. He couldn’t stay out much longer, but he didn’t want to leave that thing, that beast, alone. Then it occurred to him...no one else had heard the creature. 

“Um,” he stammered, not looking the beast in the eye. “So, this is weird, isn’t it?”

“What?” the beast questioned, tilting its great head to the side in confusion. 

“Oh, ya know,” Gray carried on, trying not to seem afraid, “no one else came out of their house. That means no one else heard you.” 

The dog-like thing let out its disturbing laugh again after hearing this. “Of course they didn’t!” it said, as if this all should’ve been obvious. “How could they?” 

Now it was Gray’s turn to be confused. “What do you mean?” he demanded. 

The beast suddenly put a stop to its laughing and gave a new look of understanding. “Oh, right. You don’t remember.”

“What?!” Gray snapped. He was back to being frightened now. 

“Yes,” the beast began to explain, “you were out here in the middle of the street eating at something, and I saw you. When I ran over, though, you went fleeing back into your house. I then recalled that this happens to most of the humans I cross. They run away and then they forget my face. And everything they did.”

“Wh-what?” Gray looked up and then he noticed that both of the neighbor’s cars were still there. Neither of them had left for work today. 

“I finished everything you didn’t, dragged their bodies behind their house and finished them off. I don’t know how you got so many of them. I guess they just poisoned themselves a little too much.” 

The feeling was acting up again. 

“After that,” the beast went on, “I did what I always do to those who try to get away from me. I waited outside your home, waited for you to wake up. Waited to make you realize.”

“What do you mean?” Gray refused to believe any of this. “I couldn’t have gotten rid of all of them! Not the whole block!!”

“No,” the creature huffed, “of course not. I got the rest of them. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Listen, I knew what you wanted, stranger, and now you have it. The silence, the gift of death. Those who I am near, those who have the darkness, wake up the moment they sense my presence. They do what they’ve been itching to do for so long. They set themselves free. People who want quiet, they don’t want other people, stranger. I am the only one who can take your guilt away.” But the guilt didn’t leave. It stabbed Gray over and over and over in his gut, and he sank to his knees as though someone had just stuck a blade in him. With dying eyes, he watched as the creature walked away, and thought to himself that it was ridiculous he hadn’t noticed the red pavement.