Contents

  Ephemeral Creatures Front Matter

  Epigraph

  Part 1

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

  -14-

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  -22-

  Part 2

  -23-

  -24-

  -25-

  -26-

  -27-

  -28-

  -29-

  -30-

  -31-

  -32-

  -33-

  -34-

  -35-

  -36-

  -37-

  Part 3

  -38-

  -39-

  -40-

  -41-

  -42-

  -43-

  -44-

  -45-

  -46-

  Epilogue

  Author's Note

  Also by Gregory Mattix

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  EPHEMERAL CREATURES

  GREGORY MATTIX

  Ephemeral Creatures

  Copyright © 2021 by Gregory Mattix

  Cover design by Streetlight Graphics

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, business establishments, events, locales is entirely coincidental.

  Epigraph

  Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe:

  it gives back life to those who no longer exist.

  —Guy de Maupassant, “Suicides”

  Part 1:

  The Lost

  -1-

  The dead girl first appeared in the mess hall at breakfast time.

  Kevin Bradley nodded in thanks to the kitchen worker that dished up his plateful of runny scrambled eggs, burnt hash browns, and two rubbery sausage links. When he set his plate on his tray and turned to go find a seat, she was suddenly standing there, close enough to reach out and touch.

  The specter stared at him, her form translucent and grainy, like an image from an old, degraded VHS tape that had cycled through Blockbuster too many times. She didn’t glow like ghosts in the movies tended to, though. The dead girl was about twenty, short and slim, her head not quite reaching Kevin’s shoulder. Large tawny eyes regarded him from an oval face, and her mop of curly hair, a deep-red dye job with dark roots exposed, was sculpted high atop her head in a style popular in the eighties. The rest of her outfit was pure eighties punk: a glittery shirt hanging off one shoulder and revealing a black bra strap, along with a short black-and-red tartan skirt over holey fishnet stockings. One gold bangle earring dangled from an earlobe, but the other was missing, evidently torn out, judging by her bloody, shredded earlobe.

  Kevin barely processed the girl’s outfit, his gaze drawn with a terrible magnetism to her gory head wound. Blood dripped into one eye, and her head was cocked slightly sideways, one temple deformed and spongy, spatters of blood and brains dotting her cheek and neck.

  After that initial moment of shock passed and comprehension dawned, Kevin cried out in alarm. His breakfast tray slipped forgotten from nerveless hands and banged on the floor, plastic plate clattering and silverware bouncing across the concrete. A chunk of scrambled egg clung to one leg of his orange Department of Corrections jumpsuit, but he hardly noticed.

  The clamor caused him to glance down reflexively for an instant. When he looked back up, the apparition had disappeared as if it had never been. He stood there in the sudden glaring silence with his mouth hanging open, the heavy weight of every staring eye in the crowded mess hall resting squarely on him.

  “Guess you ain’t hungry, huh, Bradley?” Tubby finally said with a guffaw, the guard’s loud voice breaking the silence. “That’s all you fuckin’ get, chief. Better get down and lick it up if you wanna eat.” His real name was Jones according to the patch on his uniform, but the inmates all called him Tubby because of his girth.

  Chortles erupted, and Kevin was pelted with a number of insults, both good-natured and not. The normal buzz of conversation and scraping of silverware on plates resumed as the other men got on with the important business of shoveling down their breakfast.

  “What the fuck, yo?” Kevin’s cellmate, Tito, rested a hand on his shoulder, shaking him and rousing him from his daze. “Look like you seen a ghost, man.”

  Kevin swallowed hard but could find no words.

  “That shit ain’t gonna clean itself up,” Tubby growled, pointing sharply with his baton, his amusement obviously gone the way of Kevin’s apparition.

  Kevin sighed as he knelt to scoop the mess back onto the tray with trembling hands. Whether or not Tito was right about him seeing a ghost, he didn’t know. A more likely explanation would have been a hallucination.

  Whatever the cause, the worst part was that he’d recognized the girl. He was the one who’d killed her.

  ***

  Later that night, Kevin sat on his bunk, head in hands, wondering if he’d lost his mind. All day while he was working in the prison laundry, that disturbing image was searing into his mind. He was positive he’d seen Lidia in the mess hall, clear as day, even though Tito swore nobody else had seen anything. She’d been there for maybe three seconds max, but it had been her, without a doubt. At one time, her face had been as familiar as his own, if not more so, though he’d not seen her for years. Lidia Knight had been his best friend in life, and he’d killed her while driving drunk. That fateful night, she was dressed in that same eighties punk outfit.

  A turmoil of feelings he’d been mostly successful at locking away over the past ten—going on eleven—years rushed back with a tornadic vengeance, containing equal measures of crushing sorrow, guilt, and self-loathing. His stomach knotted, and he barely made it to the stainless-steel toilet. He vomited up the sparse remains of a dinner he’d barely touched. A few dry heaves followed, resulting in a thin stream of bile that burned his throat. Once he finished worshiping the stainless-steel god, for there was no porcelain in the pen, he sat back down on his bunk, hands shaking.

  “What the hell happened this morning?” he whispered, though no answer was forthcoming.

  The only sounds in the dark cellblock audible over Tito’s rumbling snores were an occasional cough or distant muttering.

  Kevin had thought he’d mostly gotten over the tragedy but was realizing how wrong he had been as he once more felt the huge hollow space torn out of his life. All the warmth and cheer of life had vanished with Lidia’s death, a cruel cell door slammed shut and cutting off the brightness of the world. And he had only himself to blame.

  Tears threatened, but he fought them back just as he’d suppressed almost every emotion over the course of his incarceration. He’d been spared being locked away with the most violent criminals, the murderers and serial rapists in the maximum- and close-custody facilities. But medium custody was no picnic either. Beatings and rapes still occurred with disturbing regularity. Kevin had been spared the latter but not the former. Scuffles and initiation beatings were simply a way of life in prison. He probably would’ve gotten off with just the initial beating had he not been stupid enough to identify his attackers to the guards. The second time was much worse, for it was personal and retaliatory, earning him a trip to the infirmary with cracked ribs and bruised kidneys that caused him to piss blood for a few days.

  After that, he learned his lesson. Survival was best achieved by keeping his head down and turning an unseeing eye to the brutality occurring around him. The past ten years had made him practically blind and deaf to his surroundings. Interfering in others’ matters usually resulted in a trip to the infirmary.

  Troubling memories and their associated emotions served no beneficial purpose in prison. They were simply burdensome things he’d stowed away in a lockbox deep inside—then he’d thrown away the key.

  Today’s occurrence had shaken to the core his belief in gradual recovery, as evidenced by the surprise jailbreak from his emotional lockbox.

  Need to forget that mess hall thing happened, he told himself. It was a simple hallucination. He was stressed about the upcoming parole hearing next month, with the chance to knock a third off his sentence with early release.

  Over the past decade, Kevin had worked diligently to put the events of that terrible night behind him, so eventually, with a Herculean effort, he was able to wrestle the swirling emotions into submission again and slam them back in their lockbox. Then he shoved it back down deep inside so that blessed numbness could again take over.

  It was better that way.

  -2-

  Weeks passed, and Kevin’s parole board ruled in favor of his early release. He finally allowed some small measure of hope and optimism out of that lockbox. But despite the victory, a dark anxiety lurked just out of sight, as if this was some cruel joke, his release to be suddenly snatched away at the last minute.

  A ballbuster of a judge had originally sentenced him to a maximum of fifteen years for vehicular manslaughter resulting from DUI, vehicular aggravated assault, and an assortment of traffic offenses. Kevin’s previously clean background had done nothing to dissuade a judge incensed over the recent epidemic in statewide DUIs and traffic deaths. The judge took his duty very seriously, whether he was throwing the book at repeat violent offenders or locking up stupid kids who’d made grievous mistakes. So the merciless Judge Whitman chose the maximum sentence allowable. But Kevin didn’t deserve any leniency—in his mind, he was guilty as charged. He knew he deserved what he was getting, so he pled guilty and never tried to appeal the sentence.

  Kevin kept his head down, did his time, and finally got paroled for good behavior. When all was said and done, he ended up having served roughly ten years and six months in prison. The remainder of his sentence would be paroled release. He was well aware that if he screwed up, he’d be right back behind bars quicker than he’d flushed his life, and those of his three friends, down the toilet.

  In the month since his disturbing mess hall experience, he thought he saw Lidia one other time out of the corner of his eye, standing in a shadowy corner in the laundry. When he glanced over, she’d been gone—if she’d even been there at all. He was coming to doubt his own sanity.

  ***

  On a glorious, sunny day in March of 2017, Kevin was released from the Tucson Correctional Facility. He cast off the orange jumpsuit and donned the same street clothes he’d worn at his court date immediately before being remanded to prison. The wrinkled Dockers and button-up shirt were ill-fitting due to weight loss. His other possessions consisted of an obsolete flip phone long out of service and a wallet with expired driver’s license and credit and debit cards. He had twenty-two dollars in cash, plus the fifty dollars of gate money withheld from his minuscule prison work earnings, to his name.

  As he thumbed through his thin wallet, he felt a pang of nostalgia at seeing an old photo inside, one with Chad, Lidia, and him, taken one day while hiking in Bear Canyon. The three of them were perched on a broad, smooth boulder beside a creek. Kevin and Chad were sitting on the rock as Lidia leaned over between them, arms across their shoulders, their heads together as they mugged for the camera. That had been a great time—happy, carefree youths enjoying a day in the sun during spring break in their senior year of high school. He choked up a moment at the photo of his two best friends. Chad’s girlfriend at the time, whose name eluded Kevin, had taken the picture.

  He found another photo next to it, this one black and white, clipped from his old high school newsletter. Tara looked especially beautiful, smiling with her fellow cheerleaders at a football game. Kevin had been crushing on Tara pretty hard at the time and had saved the picture. The memory brought a wan smile to his lips.

  His mom and dad were waiting when he passed through the final locked door as an unbelievable weight lifted off his shoulders with the freedom awaiting him. But he also felt a growing apprehension about his future after more than ten years inside those grim walls. Everyone and everything he had known was either gone or significantly changed now.

  “Kevin!” His mother rushed forward to embrace him. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

  He grinned and hugged her back, trying not to show his shock at how much she’d aged. She had put on weight, and her posture was more stooped, hair turned gray. He’d seen her on plenty of occasions during their frequent visits but hadn’t really noticed the toll his parents had suffered.

  “Son.” His father gave him a quick one-armed man-hug, clapping his back and releasing him. He, too, looked older, face more lined and hair and beard predominantly gray. His paunch strained his beltline, and he was wearing glasses full time, as did Kevin’s mom. “Ready to get out of here?”

  “Hell yes,” Kevin answered.

  His parents had a new vehicle, a white Toyota Highlander that seemed positively luxurious from the back seat. Other than the bare-bones prison work vans transporting him for irregular highway cleanup details, this was the first vehicle he’d been in since his incarceration.

  His mom chattered about news regarding their extended family as they drove, with Kevin only partially listening. His attention was focused on a city he barely recognized passing by outside. A curious detachment had set in when he’d been outside of prison on work details, and he hadn’t truly seen his surroundings, as though he were simply on a layover in some foreign city at the time. The ten-year nightmare felt like a surreal break from reality.

  A pat on his knee recaptured his attention.

  “We’d like to take you out to lunch,” his mom said. “Anywhere special you’d like to go?”

  Kevin thought a moment. “Is that Black Angus still open?”

  She smiled. “Let’s find out.”

  It turned out the restaurant was still open, to his great satisfaction. For years, he’d been dying for a steak. The juicy sirloin was the best thing Kevin had ever eaten, as far as he could remember. An ice-cold Coke came in a close second, shocking his taste buds with its sugary carbonation. He found his appetite, which had been largely absent over the past years, returned with a vengeance—for this meal, at least.

  His old neighborhood looked much the same though everything felt smaller than before. Kevin had never gotten a chance to move out of the family home. He’d been attending the University of Arizona his freshman year while working at the movie theater to save up money for his own place. The shocking manner in which he did end up leaving home, he never would have imagined in his wildest dreams—or his worst nightmares.

  The houses they passed looked vaguely familiar. Trees and cacti had matured in some yards, while in others, the landscaping had been trimmed back or completely redone from what he remembered. His parents’ yard looked mostly the same, only sparser. They must have paid a yard crew to come and trim everything since his father wasn’t a big fan of yard work.

  Not much had changed with the house itself. The stucco exterior looked as though a fresh coat of paint had been applied. Inside, new beige carpeting had been put in, along with updated kitchen fixtures and appliances, but those changes were fairly minor.

  After having been away so many years, the home felt foreign, like Kevin’s barely recalled grandparents’ house, which he had probably visited last when he was nineteen. Both grandparents had passed away during his prison stint. Those wasted years had also claimed a cousin from Utah who died in a rock-climbing accident. Also during that time, Kevin’s dad had battled and defeated prostate cancer. And his kid brother, Scott, had gotten married and now had a family of his own.

  As if reading his mind, his mom said, “Scott is going to stop by after work tonight. I thought we’d order pizzas.”

  Kevin nodded. His brother had occasionally accompanied their parents on visits, but probably not for the last six months or so. The two had gotten along well enough growing up but, with six years between them, had never been particularly close. Seeing his kid brother grow into a man over the course of his visits had been weird.

  His dad said, “Take all the time you need to get settled in. We’ll keep out of your hair.”

  “All right. Thanks.”

  He could feel their eyes on him as he made his way down the hallway to his old bedroom. When he walked inside, the room seemed like it belonged to someone else, perhaps a friend he remembered visiting regularly. It definitely didn’t feel like one he’d lived in for most of his first twenty years of life. His mom must have cleaned it recently, as everything was tidy and dust-free. His dated CRT television rested heavily on the entertainment center with a PlayStation 2 still connected. A large bookcase was filled with a mix of books, CDs, and movies, both DVDs and VHS tapes. A Cardinals bedspread covered his old queen-sized bed.

  Old clothes filled the closet and dresser, much of which he didn’t even remember owning. He dubiously eyed a button-up shirt that looked much too baggy. The sight of one of his old navy-blue polo shirts with the embroidered movie-theater logo hanging in the closet brought a momentary pang of nostalgia.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38