Chapter Text
{Simon & Garfunkel - The Sounds of Silence (Audio)}
The streets of the town of Poldi Point were teeming under the afternoon rays, 3 in the afternoon and on a Friday, so the local kids and teens were officially out and about to enjoy their week of playing around and hanging with their friends before the coming of another Monday. Poldi Point was cosmopolitan, a colorful neighborhood of diverse cultures that attracted young professionals and students from various backgrounds. An historic town of ~12,000 people, it was a pretty decent sized town, complete with a school district, a pediatric and veterinary clinic, a Walmart and a small mall with several restaurants here and there in the town’s shopping district. It was the idyllic town where every summer, families flocked there due to having been drawn in by its serene landscapes and friendly community. The town also took pride in preserving their historical buildings and heritage, such as Poldi Point Central Square and its olde fashioned cobblestone streets and charming, vintage shops, and the semi-cramping of its many colorfully painted half-timbered houses and gothic architecture, the medieval flares of the bricking and the round-arch style. It also included the public park, known simply as Darby Park; one of the historical figures of the town who fought in the Civil War, whose statue was the center point of the entire park and was tall enough to be used as a sundial and a compass combined.
…But sadly this also included other kinds of heritage. The town was red, red to the point that the term ‘red-neck’ would’ve been just ‘neck’, and always the people voted as conservative as possible. Sure there were some blue voters scattered around, but in the end they all voted for the most conservative one on the ballot. That then takes us…to her.
She lived alone in a house on a street she'd named '001 Desolation Lane,' a self-proclaimed title for the lonely gravel road that cut through the forgotten outskirts of a town 10 miles west of her own home. It was a simple, small, two-story home she'd built with her own hands, its foundation of rough-cut fieldstone and its floors of worn mahogany planks she'd salvaged from an old barn. The roof was a clumsy patchwork of slate she'd hauled from a collapsed quarry nearby, its odd angles a testament to her inexperience. A short front porch of raw oak timber, complete with railings and steps, was her proudest achievement. Inside, she had the basics—bathroom, living room, kitchenette, and a bed. It was all hers, made by her own labor. And though she knew it wasn't perfect, it was something she'd made do with. Because what choice did she have? She also had the pen for her livestock. But lately, something had been getting into it. She'd have blamed wolves, but wolves couldn't tear through wire fencing, and they usually went for the sheep, not the cows. At least her other animals seemed safe for now, and her garden was still producing.
She tugged her wide jade green shawl idly with her thin fingers, her dress leaden in color, like the bags underneath her eyes. She was working—she misplaced her glasses earlier in the day—but she kept working, even when she couldn’t see past 6 in distance. It was stolid behaving work, something to keep her nerves about her, she had yet to have an episode from the act of gardening that hadn’t gone beyond looking at the stone hoe in her hands and zoning out to the contemplations of smashing the sharp end into the skull of the first thing that she saw of an abnormality. Her skin felt tepid under the afternoon sun, cooling from the neighboring snows close to her humble grasses, and the weather was starting to look rather grim. Her back grew sore as did her legs, and her stillness at the garden made her foot grow swollen leaving her with a limping gait when she hefted herself towards the carrots. She grew into her own malaise when the last of the new seeds were planted before the first settling of rainfall began to drop down over the bleak landscape, and she lumbered on over to the porch before overall collapse. On wet wood. In the rain. “fffffuuuuuuuuck…” she moaned directly into the rough oak of her porch, wearily reaching to grip the woodwork and drag herself toward the plain birch doors of her drab little house, forcing herself upright by grabbing the edge of the wooden bench she'd built, and dropping the hoe before pushing her way inside.
The doors closed with a soft thud, her eyes immediately greeted by the mismatched furniture she'd cobbled together. A single chair made from a wooden crate and scrap lumber sat centered near two overturned buckets serving as end tables. One had a stack of old books on top, the other held a stone paperweight and a framed photograph. Against the wall, by the wooden stairs that curved right halfway up, stood an old record player and a chest containing only three vinyl records from some long-ago passage of life. The back wall she faced daily was bleak save for two landscape paintings she'd found at a flea market, and a certificate in a frame reading Bloxton College; BSc ED APA. On the other side of the stairs was the kitchen, with a single wooden stool for a dining chair and a thick slice of a tree trunk serving as a table. Below the front left window were the wood stove, a workbench, and a pantry filled with canned beef, pickled beets, dried bread, flour, carrots, both raw and baked potatoes, and sugar and preserves. She went up those stairs, heaving over about the thoughts of food, but with the cows dying and there being a lack of pigs and chickens, and the weather mocking her vegetation, she needed to preserve what she could obtain until a later moment in the day.
The second floor was bleaker still, with glass panes in two-block tall holes serving as windows. The bedroom and bathroom were separate rooms. She approached the dark wood door of the restroom first. Inside was a galvanized tub she'd filled with water, with rough-cut stone blocks lining it for seating. Across from it, against the wall, was a washbasin with a pump handle, and a composting toilet she'd built herself. A single piece of polished glass embedded in the wooden door of a medicine cabinet she got from a landfill served as a mirror. She looked into it and saw her own ghost: dead white skin, diluted blue eyes, a downturned mouth that stretched a lowercase v and a nose of He Who Should Not be Named proportions—all parts of her unadorned face. She appeared absolutely miserable. She reached for the pump handle of the washbasin, working it with practiced, weary motions until water sputtered and then flowed from the spout. The cold liquid hit her face like a shock, and she splashed it repeatedly, trying to wash away the exhaustion that had settled deep into her bones. She turned off the pump with a final creak, then grabbed the rough hand towel hanging from a nearby hook, patting her face dry before returning it to its place. The medicine cabinet door groaned as she opened it afterward, revealing a small collection of items she'd gathered over the years. Her fingers found the small tin of myrrh paste she used for her gums, and she closed the cabinet before dabbing a small amount onto them, both top and bottom. The earthy, slightly bitter smell filled her nostrils as she worked the paste into her gumlines, the taste familiar and soothing and it worked its job into the red and inflamed soreness. She reopened the cabinet, placed the tin back on the wooden shelf, and closed it once more. Half the day’s routine had ended.
Staring into the polished glass, she contemplated her reflection—this hollowed-out version of herself that stared back with vacant eyes. Who was she now? What had become of the woman who had once sat in lecture halls at Bloxton College, dreaming of a future that looked nothing like this desolate existence? The questions hung in the air unanswered as she turned away, exiting the bathroom and making her way down the stairs to the kitchenette. The tree trunk table was cold against her hands as she prepared a small meal of baked potato and preserved carrots. She ate mechanically, her mind elsewhere as she consumed the meager sustenance. Afterward, she cleaned her plate with cold water and set it to dry, then moved through her small house, tidying what little there was to tidy. The routine was comforting in its familiarity.
Upstairs again, she stood at the east-facing window in the hallway, watching as the sun began its descent, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that seemed at odds with the bleakness of her surroundings. When the last light faded, she moved to her bedroom and retrieved her simple cream-colored pajamas from the dresser. For reasons she couldn't quite explain, she found herself stripping out of her clothes in the middle of the hallway floor, leaving them in a heap as she made her way back to the bathroom. The galvanized tub was cold against her skin as she lowered herself into the water she had drawn earlier. She washed quickly, the chill of the water seeping into her bones, then dried herself with the rough towel before pulling on her pajamas. Returning to the hallway, she noticed the pile of dirty clothes on the floor and frowned, unable to recall why she had left them there. With a shrug, she gathered them up and tossed them into the hamper in the corner of her bedroom. As she descended the stairs to the living room, something caught her eye—pairs of eyes blinking all over the walls, appearing and disappearing in the dim light. She counted them methodically: seven pairs on the east wall, five on the north, twelve on the west, and three on the south wall near the door. She wasn't frightened; merely curious, as if this were just another strange phenomenon in a life full of them. After a moment of observation, she returned upstairs and entered her bedroom. The cream-colored bed with its yellow sheets looked inviting in the dim light filtering through the window. She slipped under the covers, her body finally relaxing as the day's exhaustion caught up with her. As her eyes drifted closed, she thought briefly of the mysterious predator that had been taking her cows, the strange eyes in her living room, and the woman she used to be—all distant memories as sleep finally claimed her.
[11:30pm]
Ring, Riiiiing. Ring, Riiiiing. The house phone. Most likely a telemarketer. Maybe it was her sister this time? She never visited anymore physically, and the phone calls are bitter and brief. But hearing JJ’s voice was a comfort. A fleeting, rare to come by comfort. The shrill ring of the telephone cut through the silence of the night, jolting her from a dreamful sleep. She groaned, rolling over in her bed as the ringing persisted. With a sigh, she threw back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floorboards were cold beneath her bare feet as she stood, still half-asleep and disoriented. She made her way to the bedroom door, fumbling in the darkness for the handle. The hallway was dimly lit by the moonlight filtering through the small windows, casting eerie shadows on the walls. As she descended the stairs, her foot caught on the edge of a step, sending her tumbling forward. With a yelp, she grabbed for the railing, her heart pounding in her chest as she narrowly avoided a full fall down the stairs. "Shit," she muttered, catching herself just in time and leaning against the wall for a moment to steady her breathing. The phone continued its insistent ringing as she hurried the rest of the way down, her bare feet padding softly on the wooden floor. She reached the living room just as the phone was about to go to voicemail, snatching the receiver from its cradle on the last ring.
"JJ?" she asked, her voice rough with sleep.
"Good evening," a cheerful, automated voice responded. "I'm calling on behalf of the Police Benevolent Association to ask for your support for our fallen officers fund. We're offering a special tax-deductible donation opportunity for residents in your area..." Her shoulders slumped in disappointment as she recognized the telltale signs of a scam call. Without another word, she pressed the receiver back into its cradle, cutting off the robotic voice mid-sentence. She sighed heavily, rubbing her eyes as she stood in the darkness of her living room. Her gaze drifted around the room, and she noticed that the pairs of eyes she had seen earlier had finally disappeared. The walls were now just walls—empty and silent. With another weary sigh, she turned and made her way back up the stairs, her movements slow and heavy. The brief interruption had shattered what little rest she had managed to find, and now sleep seemed even further away. As she slipped back under the covers of her bed, she couldn't help but feel the weight of her isolation pressing down on her more heavily than before. The mysterious predator, the strange eyes, the failed connection with her sister—all of it swirled in her mind as she lay in the darkness, waiting for sleep to claim her once more.