What happened to Simon?

Neighborhoods in the old corners of the city,  places so old that history tends to grow out like a fungus.  History so convoluted with hate, fear and paranoia that it leads to thick customs of how to live your life.  Customs so deeply ingrained they can never be unlearned.  In dark corners, passing with time into obscurity still exist parts of any city that has eaten away at its inhabitants and cultivated a culture of fear one can barely understand. Live in any place long enough and people tend to become ingrained in the culture whether by choice or not.  That's what happened to Simon.

Simon was going to school for psychology and he finally wanted and needed to get a place of his own.  Being a student but living with roommates that were good friends hardly let him get any of his work done.  So he moved into a very old part of the city.  The rent was cheap and he didn't mind it was off campus since he had a car that could get him from point A to point B being a beaten down old clunker that it was.

I knew Simon, he was a good guy.  Funny and charismatic and a very good friend.  I helped him move in to his new place.  He borrowed a truck from one our friends and we got up one morning and moved the few things he had around 10am. If you asked me today to find his place I wouldn't be able to and that's what I told the police too. That morning to me is a blur of fragmented memories and grogginess that has plagued me to this day.  I remember being in the truck, going up and down hills through small residential areas on thin roads.  I remember trees and old looking houses some were very square looking and made of bricks and others of wood with high arches and pointed roofs.  There were no sidewalks, just small lawns and curbs. Most houses had no walkways, just a door and a single concrete step and two single pane windows on each side of the door.  Every single window I remember seeing had heavy curtains drawn closed.

I do remember meeting Simon's landlord but I cannot recall what he looked like or if he even said a single word to us.  He just gave us the key and that was it.  The building Simon was moving into was of the square brick type buildings, a single studio that was part of three other apartments all in a row that had their front doors outside.  His studio was one of the middle units.

The neighborhood looked very old and had a very old silence that lingered in the air.  That ominous silence still haunts my thoughts.  It was a very unsettling feeling being in that neighborhood almost like we weren't welcomed.  I don't have a single memory of seeing anyone that day beside the landlord.  No people were walking or coming out for the paper or even doing yard work.  I don't ever remember seeing a car or even a driveway.  These little details are all that's left of that day for me with paranoia now slowly eroding more of them each day.

In school, I had one class with Simon so we hung out at the library sometimes to do homework.  At first, the semester began just like any other semester, we went to class, met up at the library and maybe went for a few drinks and called it a night.That was the first few weeks then Simon stopped going to class on a consistent basis.  I caught up to him after class one day and asked him why he was missing class; he said it was because he wasn't getting sleep during the night and ends up sleeping through most his morning classes.  He was having nightmares that would wake him up and once awake it felt like there were faces staring at him outside his window.  That feeling of dread kept him up most nights.  Then he told me that he still hadn't seen or met anyone in that neighborhood and the landlord had also basically disappeared.  He said he felt alone, like it was a ghost town.

By mid-semester Simon would barely go to class anymore and by this point he looked pale and sickly with large dark rings around his sunken eyes.  He hadn't been sleeping or eating at all and he looked like he hadn't seen sunlight for months.  The very few times I was able to talk to him he seemed nervous and anxious.  Always looking around as if to make sure no one was listening.  He told me that even though he hadn't seen anyone in the neighborhood for months he knows there are people there because he could hear them whispering through the walls at night.  One night in the thin sliver of space where the curtains part he saw a pale gray face curiously looking in that quickly scurried away once he had noticed it.

Hearing him like that had me worried that his paranoia could be a result of something more serious like mental stress from school and work.  I told him to come to campus more and maybe stay at my place for a few nights just to get away but he refused; said he shouldn't be away too long because he had important things that needed attending to.

One night he called me around 3am nervously ranting on about faces in the curtains and how he caught one of them hiding outside in the bushes.  I couldn't get him to coherently talk.  After a few minutes of this he hung up the phone.  I called him back a few times with no answer until finally the next night I got him to pick up.  He could converse this time.  He apologized for not answering but he said he couldn't let them know he was awake.  He told me how he was watching his neighbors for hours through a thin sliver in his curtains and that they only came out when they thought he was sleeping.   He said he found it strange how they crawled on their hands and feet when on concrete but on the grass would walk normally.  They apparently crawled abnormally fast while crossing the street in and out of the street light.  You could also see that their heads were bent backwards while crawling so they could look forward.  It was unnatural the way they contorted their bodies.  Finally in mid-sentence of explaining all this Simon heard something in the background and stayed silent for what felt like an eternity and finally said he had to go and hung up.  After that phone call I tried calling for the next few days never getting an answer and finally his number got disconnected.

Simon literally vanished and I got really worried.  I got his family involved and once we found out the address they had for Simon didn't exist we got the police involved.  Enough time had gone by with no communication with Simon that a missing person's report was filed but it was a dead end.  We had no address, no phone number and the authorities couldn't find anyone for questioning.  He vanished.

Almost a year passed since then when I started getting the letters.  They got sent with a return address of just "purgo via strata."  The letters were always handwritten and didn't look like Simon's handwriting.  They read like journal entries and appeared to be torn out of a notebook.  The first one read:

"I can't sleep anymore, there are too many faces watching through the walls I just know it, they linger around the windows with their bulging eyes.  I wish they would just go away.  Even though I keep everything locked and closed I can still feel their huge black pupils fixed on me.  Outside here at night sees more life on the streets but only if you know where to look.  I saw a man hidden underneath the shadow of a huge tree, its branches sprawled out against the pale blue sky like spider legs.  I saw him standing there in black silhouette blowing soft clouds of breath.  I'm not sure if he was staring at me but I felt pretty hidden behind my curtains.  Sometimes you can see some of the neighbors crawl across the street and stay crouch on the other side with their heads bent toward the sky.  At least I think these are my neighbors."

I don't know who would've sent me this letter and I doubt it would have been Simon because since my college days with him I have moved twice and I wouldn't know how he would have my address.  Whatever the case the letter made me very uneasy.  It sounded like this person was living in a very similar neighborhood Simon did.

Another week went by before I got another letter again with same return address "purgo via strata."  This one really made me paranoid.

"Where do they all go during the day?  I never see them enter or exit through their front doors ever.  Also, I can't be sure but the trees seem to be moving, not huge amounts but the big one on the corner seems to be closer to me.  I saw one of the neighbors in the alley eating something, I couldn't tell what it was it was so dark.  But he had it in two hands and was gnawing at it.  He was squatted behind a dumpster like he was trying to hide the fact he was eating from the rest of them.  I dare not go outside at night or in the daylight for that matter.  I saw a young kid walking during the day with a t-shirt that read "congratulations you arrogant bastard" get beaten to a pulp as he tried to get to his car.  They swarmed him almost instantly and left after he was a bloody mess.  I watched as he slowly dragged himself back to his apartment.  I knew before never to go outside with the intention of leaving and this kid sure knows that now.  They always know.  Once here long enough they don't let you leave.  I'm too scared to find out what I'll do once I run out of food."

Once I finished reading that letter my heart was pounding with nervous fear like I had found out terrible news. That shirt, I knew that shirt.  Simon wore that shirt or one like it on his laundry days.  I remember because he used to take me to do laundry the same day he did his.

A knot of dread balled up in my throat.  What happened to Simon?  That question seemed to find new ways to ask itself.  Who was writing these letters and sending them to me?  How did they know me and where I was? I took the letters to the police and they just said it was someone playing a sick joke on me.  I went home and that night had a dream of Simon reaching out to me calling for my help as he got engulfed in darkness.  Then a small table appeared with a single candle in the middle and a notepad and pencil.  Someone picks it up and starts writing.  Then the person gets up and checks out his windows and curtains and comes back to the table that's when I notice its me writing at the table.  The dream ends after that.

A little bit of time passed before I got another letter, I almost felt like they were about to stop.  This one really upset me upon reading it:

"Time here seems to be moving at a different speed, the nights seem longer.  I'm so tired I don't even sleep anymore.  I think I'm going to die here or become one of them like that kid.  I saw him again but this time he was crawling around just like them.  He spent most of last night squat next to the tree that keeps moving closer to me, just staring at the moon.  I don't wanna be like them but I'm running out of food and I'm scared I'm going to die.  A few nights ago I heard small whimpering on the other side of my bedroom wall, like from a child.  I listened carefully for a few minutes and then a low humming chant began.  This went on for about an hour.  I don't know what they were doing but it has me on the edge.  I see more moving shadows around me everyday.  I can no longer sit without feeling like something is behind me all the time.  I'm constantly hounded by fear.  I wish someone would help me.  I know you believe me.  Once you've been here they don't ever let you leave.  It slowly lives in your mind, just like me.  They always know who knows, I don't know how but they know.  I should have never found this place.  It always starts with the dreams.  I know you know I just hope the dreams haven't started.  I need your help."

This letter had me terrified for Simon and creeped out he referenced me.  If this person was referring to Simon in the letter then what exactly happened to him?  And what was he talking about that I knew?  I knew nothing but this world did start to begin to feel real to me as if these letters were coming from some sort of place that actually existed.  I was beginning to engulf myself in this world.  Slowly imaging myself in this neighborhood and thinking what kind of things would drive a person to this kind of madness.  A little piece of me started believing this was real and that someone could perhaps be engulfed enough in their own paranoia because of a place like this.

However real I thought it was these letters became an insurance for insanity after they found Simon dead at a small park.  They said he was found in a squatting position leaned up against a tree with his head hung low between his shoulders and knees.  They said he couldn't have been there for more than a day or two.  I found out later from the coroner that his eyes were bulging from his head like a bloated drowning victims but had no water was in his lungs.  He said the look on his face looked like pure fear killed him.  There was no medical reason or evidence of foul play, just Simon dead in the park.  I don't know what happened to Simon but that didn't stop another letter from arriving.

Two days after the funeral I got another letter, this time it was a rambling mess:

"I know I shouldn't eat that, I'm not an animal but I'm so hungry.  It tasted like metal and blood and hair.  Next time I'll find a bigger one.  I ate another one, the faces watched this time.  I like having them around, doesn't feel so lonely when they are.  The tree is very near now almost to my window.  The branches against the sky really do look like spider legs.  Like a giant spider crawling on the ceiling ready to drop down on top of me.  I'm getting good at killing them, much easier to catch now.  Those bulging eyes don't seem judgmental anymore.  I like how they look at me.  I had a dream of you last night.  I slept for once.  I saw you.  I saw other people too.  They showed me things.  I saw how they know.  I saw how they find your dreams.  I can't stay in here anymore.  I see that kid by the tree staring at something.  I think I'll join him tonight."

I can't know for sure if these letters are real or what really happened to Simon but the circumstances and my dreams haunt me every day now.  I feel so helpless in all of it, like a bystander watching a slow moving car wreck.  I keep questioning myself if its real.  The way Simon vanished and was found dead was a tragic thing for me.  I wish I knew more but I'm scared of slowly letting myself venture into that madness.  I don't know what happened to Simon but I don't want it to happen to me.   However, I do find myself looking out my windows now through the thin sliver where the curtains part.