1. Kyle Tanner KYLE TANNER The space I'm lying in is rigid and tight. Head to foot, shoulder to shoulder, no space for movement. It smells of fresh planed wood. A box. I look up. At first I can only make out darkness against darkness but I concentrate and eventually realize there's no lid to this box I'm in. I then differentiate the darkness above me, divide it into trees and night sky. Stars. A full moon. But distant, like looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Nearer to me are walls. They smell of earth, roots, loam. My heart flips as I work out where I am. In a coffin. In a grave. I don't know how I got here, don't have the time or the energy to think about that now. Answers can wait. I just have to get out. Escape. I try to wriggle my upper body free from the wooden confines, writhe, arch my back, and push my shoulders upward. I try to move my arms, get my hands free, work up to gripping the edges of the coffin, lever myself out that way. But I'm wedged in so tight I can't move. Like this coffin has been built around me while I slept. The more I struggle, the harder it becomes. Like the wood is pushing farther into me, tightening. I'm sweating and gasping but getting nowhere. I can feel myself begin to panic. Breathing becomes harder, movement more difficult. I pull and push, but the wood seems to move with me, expanding and contracting as I do. Then the darkness above begins to move toward me. Fast. It hits me, hurts me. Increasing in weight and power all the time. I flinch, try to breathe, to see, but can't. Stones and soil and mud begin to cover me. Someone is filling up the grave. My panic ramps up. I'm desperate to free myself. I scream for help, but the earth falls into my mouth, gets inhaled up my nose. I gasp, choking and coughing, spitting, more earth than air getting into my breathing passages. I move my head side to side to avoid the falling soil, but it's relentless. It's choking me. I try spitting it out, clearing my black clogged lungs. It just rains down, unceasing. I have no idea how long I lie like this, could be faster than heartbeats, could be days. My legs are soon pinned down by the weight of the earth. My arms also. I blink rapidly, trying to keep the dirt out of my eyes at least, get a glimpse of who's doing this, keep contact with that night sky. Because as long as I can still see the sky, the trees, there's hope that this will stop, that I'll be able to get out. That I'll be rescued, even. Then the sky and the trees disappear and with them all hope. I'm going to die. The thought hits me with the force of a wrecking ball. I'm going to die. No argument, no bargaining. I just have to accept it. It's so unfair and I'm scared and it's not right because this is the kind of thing that only ever happens to the other people, not me. Never me. And I can't breathe anymore and I can't see and I don't know if my eyes are closed or open and it doesn't matter anymore and I'm holding my breath and I'm crying but no one can hear it not even me and I know I have to breathe out and if I do that'll be the end and I can't stop fighting but I know I have to breathe sometime even if there's nothing left to breathe in and I want to scream again one last time and so I try to open my mouth and breathe and scream and-- I wake up. And I'm screaming. Gasping for breath. A dream. Just a dream. A night terror. A bad one that had me pinned down and paralyzed, choked. I struggle to sit up, my body slow to respond, getting signals it's still in the nightmare. Eventually I manage to prop myself on my side, panting. Shaking like I've run a marathon. The room is dark, womblike. The bed soft, welcoming. I'm slipping down inside it. My breathing subsides and there's silence. And there's safety in that silence. But not for long. A sonic boom rips the world apart. The room is strobe lit in stark electric monochrome. The windows shake to near breaking point. A storm crashes overhead. Thunder, wind, lightning all at once. A nightmare of paralysis, then a storm. My two biggest fears. Like being pranked by a cruel god. Another crash and I scream again. Once more I'm paralyzed, but this time it's because I'm helpless. I burrow under the covers, keep my eyes tight closed. Pray to that bastard god for this to end. I try to do something positive. Counting the seconds between lightning crashes and thunder cracks is supposed to gauge the distance between them. The longer the gap, the farther the distance. Lightning. One... two... three... Thunder. Almost overhead. I stop counting, it's pointless. So I just have to lie here. And then those images return and the memories with them. Summoned up from the depths of my mind, playing out once again on the insides of my closed eyelids. Movies I can't look away from. Storms always trigger that horrible time, that horrible place. Thunder and lightning take away my control. I just stare at the images, relive the memories. Plead for them to stop. After what seems like agonizingly long years, the storm passes. I open my eyes once more, banishing those memories, shaking like I'm overcaffeinated. I'm alone once more. I remove the bedclothes from over my face. And something that I barely had time to register when the lightning lit up the room returns to me. Where am I? I get out of bed quickly. Look around as best I can with only the dim light of the moon. This is still the dream. It must be. I've jumped out of my night terror into... this. Yes. I'm still dreaming. I have to be. Because this isn't my bedroom. This isn't any room I've ever been in before. Beside the door there's a light switch. I flick it on. A large chandelier in the center of the room throws out illumination. It's like a film set from an old Hammer movie. The kind of a room an unwary traveler stays in before something horrific happens to them. The walls are dark, wood paneled. An unlit stone fireplace at one end of the room. Intricately patterned rugs cover the bare floorboards. A lead-lined paneled window set in stone looks out into darkness. A heavily carved armoire dominates one wall. The bed has four massive posts at each corner. I had been lying under heavily brocaded and embroidered eiderdowns. The pillows are deep and downy. A large china washbasin and matching jug rest on a wooden console table. An ottoman is at the foot of the bed and on the bedside tables are candles. A central table holds a huge candelabra. I look up. The ceiling is bowed and covered with wooden struts. The whole room is heavy, oppressive, Gothic. I try the door. Locked. I pull harder, an air of desperation in my grip. It still doesn't give. I turn and face the room once more. Something catches my eye. On the bedside table, exactly as it would be in my flat, is the book I am currently reading, Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe. This room could have been re-created from within those pages. I turn around again, feeling like an animal trapped in a cage. It's a dream. It must be. A more insidious night terror than the one I'd just had, but a dream nonetheless. I do the thing I always do when I'm drunk and trying to decide whether I've had too much. I bite my inner lip. I read somewhere that if you do this when you've been drinking and you can't feel it, you've had too much to drink. If it hurts, you can still keep going. Student logic. I've lost count of the times I've woken up the next morning with a bleeding, chewed, and bitten inside lip. Figuring if I'm dreaming it won't hurt, I bite down. Hard. It hurts and I draw blood. So if this isn't a dream, what the hell is it? And something else--and I can't believe I haven't noticed this before--I'm fully dressed. My jeans, boots, T-shirt, and hoodie. I open the armoire. It makes the kind of creak you would expect. I stare at what I see. Inside are my clothes, neatly hanging up and folded on shelves. Shoes underneath. I have palpitations. I feel like I'm struggling to breathe. I can feel a panic attack building. Inside me, terror battles incomprehension. Who brought my clothes here? And my book? Who brought me here? I look out the window. Darkness. The storm's gone, the rain's stopped. There's weak light coming from somewhere because I can make out a garden below. It's large, with different sections for trees, lawn, and flower beds, separated by high almost mazelike hedges. Something catches my eye. A flash of light against the darkness. A figure moving about. I peer closer, cup my eyes against the glass, blot out the immediate light from the room, focusing on the scene below me. Definitely movement. Someone is dragging something heavy along behind them. I'm squinting now, trying to make it out, but the darkness doesn't help and the trees and hedges get in the way. Perhaps it's my mind playing tricks but it looks like the heavy item is... no. Just the trick of the light. Must be. And then there's a flash of lightning. I shout, jump away from the window. Wait for a few seconds, heart pounding. It wasn't close. Definitely wasn't close. Definitely. Or at least I hope so. But it did do something. It illuminated the scene in the garden before I jumped away. Definitely a body. Excerpted from The Other People: A Novel by C. B. Everett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
