Someone was knocking on the door.

It was almost noon. Annoyed for having survived another stale gray morning following a placeholder for a proper night’s sleep, Ivan left the TV on as he got up from his chair in what felt like forced labor.

As hangover and exhaustion ganged up on him by holding back his body like a patch of quicksand, Ivan slumped toward the front door and opened it. Across the gray-ish haze of the filthy screen door, he was greeted by the familiar nervousness of his neighbour Bill.

“Oh, hey Ivan”, said the short, balding man, looking slightly more disconcerted now that he got a good look at his face.

“Bill.”

“H-how’s it going?”

“Not too bad”, he shrugged, his tone doing a lousy job in selling this version of the facts. “You?”

“Yeah, same…” Bill agreed in his best artificial tone.

There was a brief, awkward silence. The sound of the TV behind Ivan only made it more noticeable. He had no idea what he must’ve looked like at that moment, but he could guess how bad it was from the tension all over his facial muscles, coupled with Bill’s visible concern in staring at them from just a few feet away.

On a desperate save, Bill pretended to clear his throat.

“So”, he continued. “Are you doing okay?”

“You already asked that.”

“Oh yeah, I did”, said Bill, which wasn’t entirely true but he wasn’t going to disagree. “It’s just that…”

“I woke you up last night”, Ivan fired back. He knew that was the reason for the visit, and Bill dancing around it was only making him more annoyed.

“Oh no, of course not”, Bill was quick to add. “I mean, I did hear some noises at one point, so…”

“So you’re just checking.”

“Yeah!” he said, betraying a clumsy smile of relief. “That’s it, I thought I’d check on you, make sure you were doing alright and all…”

Ivan just stared back across the screen door, his expression of thinly-veiled contempt feeling stiff on his face like tree bark on an old oak. As if mustering to say at least a single positive sentence in what would probably be his only human interaction for the remainder of the day, he carefully professed:

“Thanks a lot for dropping by, Bill, but there’s nothing to worry about. I’m sorry if the noise bothered you, but please don’t let that get you worked up over nothing.”

“O-okay Ivan, if you say so…” he mumbled half to himself, after a second or two. “But you know how it is, don’t you?”

Ivan’s frown didn’t move an inch.

“Do I?”

“I mean…” Bill added, with the least natural of shrugs. “With the stuff that’s been going on lately, you can never be too sure…”

Something about the honesty in Bill’s voice as he made that statement got under Ivan’s skin in a way he wasn’t prepared to just let slip. Leering from across the screen door like a wildcat ready to pounce from behind tall grass, Ivan just said:

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I mean, it’s all over the news…” he said, offering that slight shrug once again. “You know, those poor kids and all… Still no sign of them. I hear they’re gonna start sending in the helicopters again.”

“You need to stop losing your sleep over shit you see on TV, Bill” he retorted, starting to sound like his usual bitter self. “It’s their job to make stuff look worse than it actually is.”

“Yeah, I know, you’re right… Sorry, it’s just that…”

“It’s just that you’re worried, yes, I get it. Good day, Bill.”

He was about to close the door when the short man leaned his face toward the narrowing breach and said:

“Oh, Ivan…”

“What is it, Bill”, he said in a loud, nasal pitch, not sounding like a sincere question in the slightest.

“Oh nothing, it’s just…” he said as Ivan opened the door back again. “Rent was due last Friday, and we didn’t have a chance to talk, so…”

“I’ll pay you, I’m just waiting for my paycheck to come through.”

“Oh”, he sounded surprised. “You mean it hasn’t, already?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean by waiting for it to come through”, Ivan said, annoyed that he felt like he was explaining to a child how money works.

“Oh boy, that’s such a hassle…” Bill said half-heartedly, resting one hand on his hip while scratching the back of his head with the other. “Have you tried calling them?”

“Yes, I have”, Ivan hammered down, in the same nasal tone he did earlier. “And they just tell me the same thing they say every time. Which is basically ‘just wait longer’.”

“I see. That really is such a hassle, I’m sorry you’re going through this…”

“Yeah, it’s a real hassle, now if you’ll excuse me…”

Ivan was about to close the door once again when he just heard Bill’s voice saying:

“Are they giving you a hard time, Ivan?”

His mind had been racing away from that interaction up until this point, but at that moment he could feel it freezing in its tracks. For some reason that sentence struck a nerve. Suddenly, he wasn’t in such a rush to shut the door anymore.

“What do you mean?” he asked, giving Bill a look that seemed equal parts puzzled and offended.

“The government people…” he tried to explain, sounding almost sorry. “You know. With the money and stuff.”

“What’s it to you if they are?”

“I mean… If you’re in a rough spot right now you don’t need to worry about the rent, is all. We can wait a few more days.”

Ivan kept staring at Bill with a sort of contempt he wasn’t able to mask at this point, nor did he want to.

“I said I was gonna pay, didn’t I?”

“Y-yeah, you did, it’s just—”

“So? Why are you trying to give me a handout?”

“A handout…?” Bill said as if he was sure he hadn’t heard it right. “No, it’s not that, it’s… You’ve been living here your whole life, Ivan, so…”

“What does that have to do with what I just asked?”, he fired back. He was now entirely immersed in his usual mood, which was bad enough in itself.

“I mean, our families have known each other for a long time. My father knew you, he never complained about you… I know you’re not just gonna leave without paying, so…”

“So you just wanna give me a handout, is that it? Help me understand.”

Bill looked almost sad in the sheer state of confusion in which he was by now. There was a shade of concern in it, which only made Ivan angrier.

“It’s not a handout, Ivan, what I’m trying to say is that I know you, you always pay as soon as you have the money, I jus—”

“You’re not making any sense, if you know that then why are you doubting me when I say I’m gonna pay?”

Ivan was just about to open the screen door and get on Bill’s face, but at the very least he still knew that sort of behavior was uncalled for.

“I’m not doubting you, I—”

“I don’t need any favors from you, Bill, or from anyone else for that matter”, he added, still putting some effort into appearing less angry than he actually was. “I’ll pay the rent as soon as I cash my check. Stop stressing over nothing like I need help dealing with it, because I don’t.”

“Okay Ivan, I believe you, I just said that because—”

“Look, thanks for the chat, but I’m busy right now, so—”

“I mean, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Sorry again for the noise last night, I’ll be more careful next time. I’ll pay you as soon as I can. Have a good rest of your day.”

“I— Okay, bye…”

Ivan shut the door with a brash motion, which he felt betrayed how angry he was. But then again, how much did he even manage to hide it? All he did was make a fool of himself over a minor nuisance, a personality trait that was almost starting to look like a signature. His lack of control over his anger was obvious to anyone paying attention. If Bill hadn’t realized by now, then he was either blind or as much of a fool.

As he slumped toward the kitchen, he could feel the sharp, almost timed stings of his chronic pains stabbing at the side of his hip, its brittle ramifications spreading down the back of his thigh. The pain crept up on him unannounced, usually during his moments of vulnerability, being only noticed when their effect was already taking its toll.

It was time for his pills once again, so he poured himself another cup of coffee and went through the usual hassle. He sat back on his TV chair and pretended to watch the morning news while he reminisced about Bill’s clumsy words, and how much they got under his skin for what seemed like no reason. Screwing up interactions and then spending several hours overthinking them had become one of his favorite pastimes during that particular segment of his career in misanthropy.

Bill was an awkward person to have any sort of interaction with, however. For the longest time, he was the closest thing to a neighbour Ivan ever had while living all his life in the far end of Weaver Parish Road. Old Man William, as Ivan and all his long gone relatives used to call him, was the original landlord over forty years ago, when Ivan’s family first arrived in what wasn’t even New Pretoria at the time.

Scrambling for anything resembling an opportunity in that new land, and with four children and a sickly wife in tow, Ivan’s father was quick to leap at the deal. The old man had agreed to help build the house basically for free, as long as he’d get a chance to rent it for less than it was worth. William, an old-fashioned man with a respectable black moustache and a long history of hardworking ranch hands in his family as well, probably saw in Ivan’s father, that strange Eastern fellow, a kindred spirit of sorts, and the two old boys shook hands on it.

For a brief moment in time, perhaps just as brief as a handshake, there was no Old Army, no Gray Fever, no Triangle and no local superstition built on the back of generations of natives and settlers alike seeing stuff they couldn’t fully comprehend. All there was, then and there, was that handshake, and the promise of all peace and prosperity that was to come, and sure enough never did.

As decades poured down the drain, Ivan’s father had fallen through a manhole where his liver should be, and Old Man William was now a relic of an era of which there wasn’t much left besides a white moustache and a frame that rested upon an old rocking chair on a porch.

Ivan, himself having become a bitter, lonely man not at all unlike his father, had come back from the war looking for a place to call home, where he could rest his broken body and halfway-corroded spirit. William, not entirely senile yet, was happy to have young Johnny Boy return to his family’s old home, where he’d hopefully spend the rest of his days paying as little as his father did.

The years, however, have their own way of going by ever faster, and just a few winters later Old Man William was no more. The house stood empty for a while, before young Billy showed up again for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. Ivan remembered seeing Billy playing around the property when the two of them were twelve and six, respectively. Billy was a pudgy kid with massive eyeglasses, while Ivan looked like a veteran child soldier looking to be reintegrated into society.

He could tell William Jr. was scared of him, his stringy build and the intensity of his gaze, and that had always bothered Ivan. He never managed to get over just how much he hated it: the way people in his family’s new country looked at him like some sort of native species from a colder, more violent planet than theirs. Which deep inside he knew he was, and that was the tragedy of it.

Billy had been sent to live with his grandparents many years ago, apparently thanks to his father’s hope of having his only son pursue an education. Ivan had forgotten about him before the day he showed up again, well into his thirties, saying he’d be moving into his old man’s home after the passing. Him and Ivan never shook hands on anything, however, and when Ivan just kept paying the same amount his father did, adjusted to inflation, Bill just said “sure” and dropped by to pocket the money once a month.

Now the years had raced by once again and Ivan found himself half-asleep on his TV chair feeling offended by the perspective of owing something to a man he never respected.

“Who the hell does this guy think he is”, he thought to himself, struggling to pretend he was paying attention to whatever slop was on TV. “I don’t need help with the rent. I’ll pay as soon as I have it. That’s not needing ‘help’. That’s just common sense.”

He could almost perceive his reasoning becoming more childish the closer he got to dozing off.

“I don’t need ‘help’. I just need this month’s check. That’s not ‘help’.”

A solid six hours after a two-hour night of sleep, Ivan’s exhaustion catched up with him as he sank on his chair to the sound of the TV.

Once again, thankfully, he didn’t dream.

—

He woke up to the blue hue of the silver screen against his closed eyelids, feeling slightly disoriented by the indistinct chatter that came along. It was dark, and for a brief moment the light of the TV made him feel like his favorite spot for entertainment looked like an interrogation room.

Frowning at the light, his tired eyes darted around the dark living room looking for the green glow of the digital clock. It wasn’t that late, barely a quarter past eleven. He had no idea how much time he had slept, but that didn’t matter. In his mind of someone rudely awakened by a television they forgot on, the most important thing happening in the world at that moment was trying to make sense of what the people on the screen were talking about.

“So what you’re saying is that it’s all related, somehow.”

“Absolutely”, said a voice with a strangely familiar Eastern accent. “In my book, I go into detail about famous reports throughout history, theoretical studies by world-renowned researchers and even lesser-known publications in esoteric science that corroborate the causality between the phenomena and its secret origins in the field of semiotics. You see, Charlie—”

Ivan couldn’t tell for sure, but apparently Charlie Howard had one of his flavor-of-the-week nutjobs over at his late night talk show. True to form, tonight’s snake oil salesman was looking to peddle some new book about whatever people panicking over the recent events would pay to pretend to be informed about.

There was, however, something particularly off about this guy, Ivan thought to himself. He was a shifty-looking old man, probably pushing eighty at this point, all skin and bones tucked inside a skinny black three-piece suit that made him look like a typecast coffin salesman from a Bucky Roswell production. A shady character, to be sure, but what bothered Ivan wasn’t the man’s appearance nearly as much as the fact that he knew exactly who he was.

“You’re gonna need to slow down, Doc”, Charlie was quick to add at one point. “I know this is your field of expertise, but this is still tomorrow’s newspaper for the rest of us…”

The crowd gave a tired chuckle. Ivan had to agree, however, as it may have been his disoriented senses from having just woken up, but for some reason that conversation was sounding extra hard to follow.

“You need to understand that this is a whole scientific phenomenon in itself, ladies and gentlemen”, the old man addressed the crowd with a smile that made Ivan’s skin crawl as their gaze met across the lenses of the camera. “What we’re witnessing here is the genesis of a school of thought that seeks to explain not only the origin of extralogical phenomena as we perceive them, but also the very purpose behind such an origin.”

Ivan was already sure by this point, but it was the man’s distinct accent that really drove it home. Plenty of people from the Eastern provinces lived in the relatively newly-founded republic, but not many of them had the same accent Ivan’s father carried for the majority of his life. More so than the speech itself, what gave it away was the memory of having this same impression over fifteen years ago, when he and Willard had first been introduced.

“So this is what you’ve been up to”, Ivan mumbled to himself as he squinted at the screen, a look of disgust neatly taking shape across his face. He started patting at the table near his TV chair, looking for his cigarettes. Suddenly, he was invested in tonight’s programming.

“But Doctor Drago, I don’t understand”, Charlie continued, in a desperate bid to make that egghead talk appear relevant to his audience’s average IQ. “How do you even arrive at these conclusions? Surely there has to be something to these sightings your average layman isn’t going to catch on to just from spotting strange people, or stuff they can’t explain, or…”

“Mister Howard, as I explained before—”

“Just call me Charlie, Doc, I don’t like being reminded I’m at my job every Friday night.”

The crowd gave that same stale old chuckle. Ivan remained straight-faced, as one would expect. As was the case with most people who worked on television, Howard’s sense of humor annoyed him deeply. Few things didn’t, at this point in his life, but Charlie was definitely somewhere at the top of the list; solid Top 10 material, Ivan decided.

“Of course”, said the old man, smiling a snaggletooth grimace. “Charlie. As I explain at length in my book, Charlie, all this research is based on common knowledge. Peer-reviewed papers, public records, documents declassified through official sanctions of the Republican Branch of Containment, ethnic traditions of the First Folk and the early Praetorian settlers alike… As you can see, this is all information that has always been out there. What we do at the Institute is basically streamlining it so the public can have a better idea of what’s going on in their communities and daily lives.”

That last mention crossed Ivan’s chest like a dagger as soon as he heard it. Apparently the boys had been keeping busy with the research, and not just the usual corporate drivel they ran the Committee through in order to keep public panic at bay. This didn’t bode well, if any of what he saw in the field was to be taken into account, but he was yet to find out how much worse it was gonna get.

“So Doctor”, Charlie would say further into the conversation. “As you might’ve heard, there’s been an unusual surge in unexplained phenomena throughout the entire region. Especially in areas known for their high rate of incidence, such as the Triangle and Weaver Parish National Park, going all the way across the border to Wyatt County and perhaps even further.”

“I’m familiar with the recent occurrences, yes”, the old man nodded.

“So, what I believe most folks at home are aching to hear from a specialist such as yourself is, how concerning is the current situation?”

“Naturally, any evaluation regarding the severity of unexplained phenomena falls over the responsibility of the local authorities in the RBC. In other words, the situation is only as severe as they determine it is or it is not.”

“Of course”, Ivan said aloud to his TV, taking a long drag from his cigarette as the living room became hazier with the smoke. “Hit’em with the classics.”

“Absolutely”, Charlie agreed with a dose of fake assertion. “But what’s your opinion as a representative of the scientific community?”

“I’d say what we’re going through right now might well be the symptom just as much as the cause, in a manner of speaking. It’s no surprise to the general public that a higher rate of occurrences will be responsible for a higher number of ill-prepared, ill-informed civilians trying to take matters into their own hands, which in turn will just instigate further occurrences.”

Charlie’s boss is probably behind the curtain at the opposite end of the stage telling him to put the squeeze on the old geezer, Ivan deduced. Anything they could put a spin on during tomorrow’s morning news. To his surprise, however, this was exactly where the conversation was about to take its weirdest turn yet.

“And you think that relates to Kasowitz?”

“Oh, without question.”

Wait a minute, what? Ivan’s neck stretched up, his eyes peeling back beneath his frown. Had he heard that right? His hand leapt at the remote and cranked up the volume as his feet touched the ground and he leaned forward.

“I believe what we’re seeing in Lieutenant Kasowitz’s case is no more than an extreme example of society’s natural response to a crisis such as the one at hand”, Doctor Drago continued. “To see citizens take matters into their own hands is no more than expected from the societal conditions that an exacerbated rate of unexplained phenomena will establish in close-knit communities such as the one stricken by this horrible tragedy we witnessed this afternoon.”

What the hell were they even talking about? Kasowitz wasn’t exactly a common name, and they specifically referred to him as a lieutenant, so there was no chance any of it could be just a coincidence. Since when was Jan on the news? Did something happen while Ivan was sleeping? He wished he could rewind the live transmission like a videotape, but the best he could do was to try and pay more attention.

“For the folks at home, don’t go anywhere, we have a special bulletin on today’s top story as soon as we break for commercials”, Danny said to the camera before addressing the crowd once again. “Ladies and gentlemen, this has been Doctor Willard Drago, our country’s chief researcher in the field of, shall we say, yet-to-be catalogued phenomena, let’s hear it for him one more time.”

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Charlie. It’s been an honor, and a pleasure, of course”, Drago said, raising a hand at the crowd, his reptilian smile looking almost fatherly.

“Tell us again about your book, when is it coming out again?”

Ivan leaned in on the edge of his seat as he hurriedly crushed the cigarette butt on the ashtray. The old man droned for a bit about signing dates and the names of shopping mall bookstores as he held his book to the camera, an ugly black cover with bullshit long words printed in yellow that Ivan didn’t care to read. He was just waiting eagerly for the commercial break in hopes that the top story in question had anything to do with what he feared was the case.

Sure enough, Dan Watkins came on with his signature “our top story tonight”, and Ivan’s blood ran cold when a very recognizable military portrait filled the screen.

“Lieutenant Colonel Jan Dykstra Kasowitz, an officer in the Republican Army and a decorated veteran from the Gévaudan campaign, is still at large after gunning down two private investigators of the containment sector as well as a state trooper, leading to a major police chase across Wyatt County.”

Ivan gazed at the screen as it showed footage of the outside of what apparently had been Jan’s suburban home, a thoroughly sketchy bungalow of grimy once-white wooden planks surrounded by a short chain link fence and blades of grass that seemed over a foot in length. Footage of his living room, what seemed like a personal workshop and some other room that appeared to be in the basement displayed a level of squalor and disrepair that made the outside of the house look tended to in comparison. Watkins continued:

“According to reports from the RBC, Kasowitz had been under heavy scrutiny as a major person of interest in a long-running investigation surrounding a widespread conspiracy against public safety protocols.”

The entire place seemed more like a terrorist compound than anyone’s residence: piles of dusty books, boxes of ammunition lying around, newspaper clippings stapled over the walls, blueprints of buildings and devices, plastic bottles half-filled with god knows what, wires, duct tape, watchmaker gizmos and power tools. Footage from a well-lit police conference room showed bags of evidence and apprehended weapons, some of them high-caliber long guns no civilian could ever hope to get their hands on. Whatever Kasowitz had been up to, Ivan concluded, he had been using every resource available to someone with his background to make it happen.

“Local authorities believe ex-military personnel formerly associated with the Republican Army are colluding against government officials as well as private institutions within the containment sector, in what law enforcement agencies describe as ‘a politically-motivated vendetta of yet undetermined nature.’”

A mugshot of Jan, apparently recent, took the center of the screen. The blank thousand-yard-stare of his icy blue eyes, the blonde scruff on his face and the noticeably purple eyebags gave Ivan way too many ideas of why his old colleague had been arrested the day those pictures were taken, none of them reassuring.

“Kasowitz is still at large, and is considered armed and extremely dangerous”, Watkins declared, like a priest reading someone’s last rites.

Ivan could almost feel his self-conscious crankiness physically taking a backseat for a brief moment as he stood in front of the TV up until the end of the news bulletin, already smoking another cigarette. As it ended and Charlie was back on screen pretending everything was alright, Ivan felt overtaken by an intense sense of dread; the depersonalizing feeling that both he and Kasowitz had become dangerous animals, to be hunted by those who were still human to the extent they no longer were, a species of megafauna too dangerous to be left alive as it prowled the fields at night.

With the TV still on, he slowly paced across the living room and stood in front of the window, pulling away the drapes and taking a peak outside.

Absolute pitch black, as expected. Only his reflection backlit by the blue hue of the TV, its light a milky haze against the cigarette smoke that built inside the living room, the outline of his features briefly lit in amber as he took another drag.

For a moment, Ivan couldn’t focus anymore on his personal microcosm of paranoia. All he could think about was the fear and desperation Jan was feeling somewhere out there in that dark, cold night. Intrusive thoughts creeping across his brain matter like starving spiders and centipedes, cold sweat gleaming against the green light of a dashboard. Bulging eyes with dilated pupils darting through rearview mirrors and between motel blinds. His old comrade’s fear was so real it could be felt by him from however many miles away.

Still staring at the reflection of his own silhouette, it finally dawned on him. Kasowitz had gunned down two spooks and a cop. Whatever it was they were close to finding out, Ivan knew it was big. Most importantly, by this point they had already found it, and regular cops were already being relegated to the grunt work of bagging evidence and setting up the stage for the understandably unavoidable showdown, all shots-fired to little questions-asked.

He paced back across the living room; the pacing, always the pacing. He was not only wide awake, he was bent on sheer anxiety. What was it, after all? What made Kasowitz decide to play his hand in such a way? Why now, after all these years? Wasting two spooks on a single move was no small undertaking, especially in a political climate like the current one, and extending that to state patrol was the kind of double down that spoke for itself.

What happened to set something like this in motion, anyway? Did they catch him red-handed? Were they onto him? But onto what, exactly? The news report did mention an investigation, after all. Not only that, it mentioned other ex-military as well, which gave Ivan a shiver down his spine as he reassessed that detail. There was no way that was gonna end well, but for him in particular it was bound to get much worse before it got better.

He sat down on his chair and turned off the TV. Between the weird noises outside and what the local news had been throwing at him, Ivan’s paranoia was starting to look less and less like a comedy bit he was the only one not laughing at, and more like a survival instinct kicking in at the tragic tail-end of a journey of self-preservation. And as that instinct drove his thoughts for a second, he catched his eyes drifting toward the shotgun hanging on the wall.

“I could end this”, he heard his voice verbalize within his mind, to which he snorted as he shook his head at himself. It was way too clear how much he had no idea what he even meant by that.

He stood up and picked the old pump action from the pair of iron hooks it rested upon, blowing off some of the dust. The texture of the wooden grip felt almost nostalgic, homely in the strangest of ways.

“End what?” he caught himself posing the question. And truly enough, what was he gonna end, after all? The danger? The fear? Guilt, pain, how long does the list even go? By ending what, anyway? Someone else’s life? An agent trying to pin on him what happened in Saint Germain? Two agents, maybe? A state patrolman as well, for good measure?

Too many questions for a guy just looking at a gun he sometimes forgot he had. Ivan felt the subtle jolt of the click as he opened the chamber, holding it up close to his right eye. The living room was dark and he was mostly just pretending to have a good look inside, however. What he actually wanted was to feel that weight on his hands, the coarse wood of the stock and the fore-end.

The old Sheffield had as much history as that house built around the wall it hung upon. Ivan wasn’t fond of that history, but he knew he was a part of it just as much as it was his own history in a sense. Making peace with it was gonna be a crooked mile, but one he had to walk to its bitter end. He clicked the dusty frame back into shape and carried it across the living room.

Before stopping by his chair’s side table to put out his cigarette, he took another look at the digital clock. Barely half past midnight. It was gonna be a long wait, but at least he knew how he was gonna spend it.

Times were hard as they were, and apparently about to get much harder. But having a clear sense of purpose, he knew, sometimes is all an old soldier needs.