Lyle

Surely his eyes deceived him. Everything around him would soon dissolve, leaving him panting and gasping for air within the confines of his bedroom, a puddle of sweat forming. He started with the double take, then blinked his eyes a dozen times, then finally pinched his arm; the man still stood there, a perfect match for the one he had known all those years ago. The one he had known as a friend. The one he had lost. The man was directly across the street. Ryan Feller’s eyes were wide and bulbous, taking over his entire face. A cab blew by, but the humming sounds of the engine and the tearing of rubber against asphalt were lost in a sea of disbelief; one that Ryan was stranded in. The man across the street turned his humble little smile into a massive grin, from ear to ear. His teeth glistened against the midday sunshine. People walked by, but he stood still, like a large stone in the middle of a creek. Ryan was pummeled by a wave in the sea of his mind, thrusting him deep below the water’s surface. The purple light of insanity was swallowing him up, unless he fought it. He started walking down the street, heavy sweat on his forehead and a trotting nervousness in his step. 

It had happened years ago, and Ryan was just about to the point in his life where he would forget about it. He had grown up in Fort Bradley, Minnesota, a couple hours south of St. Paul. It was a rather small town compared to the capital, as the population was just over fifty thousand. Crime was by no means abundant, as the picturesque groves and beautiful snowy fields almost seemed to ward off emergency situations. Everyone was obsessed with the natural beauty of their hometown, Ryan included. Perhaps if the townspeople had been more accustomed to unfortunate happenings, they would’ve been better prepared for one. It was three o’clock as Ryan remembered it, and the day was just as regular as usual. He had woken up at five in the morning, gotten dressed, brushed his teeth, eaten a quick meager breakfast of cereal and blueberries. The bus had taken him to Fort Bradley High School, where he thrived in math and science, then went into the second half of his day. English was next up after lunch, where he had forgotten all about the quiz over Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. It was frustrating, sure, but nothing too bad. With his grades and favorable impressions on his teachers, the occasional flunked assignment didn’t carry too much bearing. History was next, however, and that was what drove him over the line. Ryan had walked into a pop quiz, which infuriated him to the point of a complete temper tantrum. He had smashed his pencil in half the second he had circled the last answer, certain of his own failure. He walked right out of class then, thirty minutes before the end of school. Ryan had just emerged from the building, steam on his glasses and cheeks burning red, when the fire alarm had gone off. This was what he remembered of the incident. Oh how it had howled and echoed through the day, its eager screams accompanying those of the students it badgered. Ryan had sprinted through the parking lot, narrowly avoiding a car driven by Mr. Rutherford (The father of one of Ryan’s friends, Mr. Rutherford was a short baby-faced man whose neck seemed to be nonexistent) who screamed curses at him. The next morning, the Fort Bradley News had proclaimed the death of a student. He had been trampled to death in the flurry of panic, the likes of which their town had never seen before. A shroud of silence had been casted over the Feller household that morning. A silence of blessings and prayers towards that child, a silence of grief and sadness (Which wouldn’t fade until several days later), but most of all, a silence of complete shock. Ryan’s face had gone completely red, shame, shock, and a bit of guilt slapped across his face. If I hadn’t stormed out, he had thought, that could’ve been me. This is what Ryan remembered of the incident, among sobbing parents and a picture of the coffin being lowered. 

Lyle Watchley, Ryan’s classmate since Kindergarten, had been killed that day. The kid had always been so full of energy, so full of spirit. There was never a day when Lyle had been sad or down in the dumps, as some put it. His parents had said this, which the News had eaten up with a spoon. They published headlines like, SPIRITED BOY TRAMPLED, or, HIGH SCHOOL OPTIMIST KILLED. It was sickening for Ryan to see those headlines; the News was simply stirring up pity for the most drama they could possibly milk out of the situation. He was a happy kid and a perfect friend: the kind of friend you want to play games with, or go to the movies with, or just be around. Ryan had loved that kid like a brother, and there he was in a closed casket after having his spine broken and the back of his skull busted open. It was a tragic event for Ryan, and one that had been a key moment of change in his life. He wasn’t a great guy, never had been, but the death of Lyle just made that so much more real for him. He had spent the next several days, wondering what could’ve been if he hadn’t stormed out of history class that day. His parents had told him to get out and make some new friends, to find some other positive people.

But they didn’t know what Ryan was really thinking about at the time.

He reached a small coffee shop, then slammed his feet down in one solid motion, bringing him to an immediate stop. He looked around wildly, his eyes darting from body to body, face to face, desperately trying to convince himself that his imagination had gotten the best of him. Cars soared by, kicking up wind and exhaust fumes (A smell that usually made Ryan want to vomit, but today his mind was stuck on something else), but he was focused on the people. One walked by in a trench coat; a tall man with golden-rimmed spectacles and brown loafers. If he hadn’t been so distracted at the time, Ryan might have made a comment about how that man looked like an elderly private detective. A woman passed by on the opposite side of the street, an exhausted expression on her face; she had four kids at home and a list of errands to run, and run she did. She was jogging down the street with two bags of groceries in her hands, but hers is a story for another time. After all, an adult Lyle was working his way down his old friend’s side of the street, his smile not wavering; not faltering in the slightest, not even when a bug smacked him in the face. He was having too much fun.

Ryan whirled around, violently now, searching for the spirited boy who had been killed those thirty years ago. He was a forty six year old man, and the newfound adrenaline was fueling him. His receding hairline was a war already lost; his hair had fallen back into trenches, but the enemy maintained its advance, bringing them ever closer to their final demise. His glasses, which he now referred to as spectacles, were finely cleaned and well-maintained in his later years. He had a doctorate in cardiothoracic surgery. His life had been everything he had wanted it to be - a great job, fantastic wife, nice house - and here he was running away from an old friend whose life he had taken away. Who was supposed to be dead. Six feet beneath the Fort Bradley cemetery. He turned one last time, sweat rolling down his face in a torrent now, to see Lyle. Good old Lyle, strutting down his side of the street, a great big grin across his face, revealing those impossibly white teeth. Everyone had always been impressed by the man’s teeth, which were even sparkling and crystal clear in high school. Ryan muttered a curse under his breath as the bus doors whooshed closed just twenty yards from where he stood. He could keep running, And break a hip when I fall down? Yeah right. So he turned and threw himself through the coffee shop door. A quaint bell rang out, and a greeting came from behind the counter, but he wasn’t listening. No, not at all. He ran down a couple steps, then finally sat down at a table towards the very back of the store. He was backed into a corner with an empty seat in front of him. Ryan held his head in his hands (Which were both shaking violently at that point) and nearly burst into tears.

And then the door opened.

The bell gave a little ting. 

And there was Lyle.

He stood there for a moment, his triumphant grin matching the jubilant light in his eyes. He wore a simple sweatshirt with his hands tucked into the single centered pocket, as well as jeans and worn tennis shoes. Just another regular person who happened to be smiling a great deal, only Ryan knew better. The man, a version of his old high school friend who had gone through adulthood without much aging at all, it seemed, stepped down the few stairs immediately following the glass door and the two windows on either side of it. His shoes slid soundlessly against the scuffed hardwood floors of a small business. It was almost as though he wasn’t really there. He made no noise, just moved wordlessly towards his target. Ryan began to entertain the motion, once again, that perhaps this man wasn’t real. Just a horrible hallucination crept into his mind and eyes from those years of therapy in his thirties. People were naturally moving past him, it seemed, as though he were just a trashcan or a mailbox in the middle of the path. But then he took his hands out of the hoody (Both of which were deathly pale and bony like a skeleton’s) and wrapped them around the top of the chair opposite Ryan, who just stared down at the table’s gleaming surface like a child nervously avoiding his parents’ eyes. The hands pulled back, grinding the chair’s legs against the floor with a sicking grinding sound. A sound that made Ryan think of taxis burning rubber, or a bus door closing prematurely or . . . or a fire alarm. In an instant, he was taken back to a quiet night just a few months ago.

He had stood in his living room, a flyswatter in one hand and a tissue in the other. The gentle hum of his standing fan which had been oscillating peacefully all day was the only sound. He had been staring down at that flaw in the carpet; a small brown spot where that crumpled spider had fallen to its ultimate demise. Killing spiders was just another menial task to do away with, especially when the summer seasons had come into full swing. And, while he had killed hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of spiders in his lifetime, this one had found a little spot in his mind. Its legs had done a kind of twitch, creating the illusion that it was trying to swim down into the floor; perhaps to an afterlife of some sort. He couldn’t help but think of his own mortality as that spider twitched and shriveled up. It had just been one solid thwack and the spider was hurtling towards the carpet. Perhaps his death would be like that, like the spider’s and Lyle’s. One loud noise followed by complete silence not long after. A flyswatter and a horde of panicked students had grown to somewhat of an equivalency in his mind that night, just before he reached towards the floor, tissue hand outstretched. The fan blew a gentle breeze from the side, rippling the tissue slightly. Like a white flag, he had thought. Just waving. Maybe it knew what was coming. Maybe it knew and it just sat there, awaiting death. He had shoved the thought from his head (A thought that would keep coming back during nightmares and daydreams over the coming months), then snatched up the little creature. He smashed it into a formless blob between his thumb and forefinger; a blob with eight little pipes jutting out in every mangle direction. He had crumpled up the tissue and tossed it in the waste bin. It was time for bed. Today, Ryan felt like he was the spider. After the faithful day, he was left just a twitching mess on the floor.

And now Lyle was here to smash him between two fingers.

The man sat down without a single word, that smile frozen on his face. His eyes were shockingly blue, like a clear summer’s sky. As Ryan sat back and took a deep breath, he looked into the smile-glued face and felt something. It was no longer grief or shock or sadness, but fear. Terrible, twisted, mangled, black, fear. Lyle’s eyes burned into his own, and for a long while, they sat there wordlessly, before his old friend placed two white hands on the table. Outstretched and open, palms up. Ryan could not understand why that grin was still in effect. On closer inspection, he saw that the lips were chapped and torn, scar tissue built up over where blood had previously ran. And then, he stared into his friend’s eyes; they weren’t jubilant at all, but begging. Pleading. The hands shook and tears welled up in his smiling friend’s eyes. Ryan could only feel tears well up in his own eyes as he placed his hands atop those of his friend. The ghastly white ones seized up, closing around his own. They were freezing and seeping that icy cold into his palms, through his veins, into his spine, and down his back. He shivered and let tears fall. Clear droplets of salty water plopped against the shiny surface of the table. Ryan laughed a little, then wiped his eye with his shoulder, as his hands were still being embraced. He looked into his friend’s face,

“Lyle, I-I-I’m just so sorry about everything. I don’t know how you’re back here, but I’m glad you are. I’ve been in dire need of closure.”

And that was when the smile dropped. Instantly, a wave of fear washed over Ryan, his teary eyes falling wide open and his face curled into an expression of pure horror. His knuckles started popping and a huge hammer of pain slammed through his hands. Ryan let out a shaky breath, desperately trying not to scream, while Lyle’s grin contorted into a furious frown. His eyes turned a shade of grey blue that Ryan had never seen before, and suddenly the grip released. Both hands were utterly destroyed. The bones were all shattered and his fingers were mangled beyond any logical repair. He thought of the legs of that spider; he had just been smashed in the tissue. Lyle stood up, and left the coffee shop, just as silently as he had entered. 

Ryan’s hands were destroyed, thus forcing him out of his career as a heart surgeon. He lived on with his wife and thousands upon thousands of dollars in savings, but he would never forget what had happened that day with his old friend Lyle. It was fair enough, anyway, as it had been he who pulled the fire alarm. Right after leaving history class, in fact.