The Witness Of The Cosmic Pawn

The rain had been falling for the past three days.

Leo stood at the edge of the railyard with his hands in his pockets. Water kept dripping off his hood onto his nose. He wiped it away. His boots were soaked ages ago. It didn't bother him. Leo grew up in the Ironbound district of Newark, New Jersey. His father Emil Vasquez used to repair tracks in the subway systems. He was a quiet man who believed in diligence and consistency.

Leo was watching the old church from across the street.

It's been empty for years. Every window boarded up. The steeple leaning left like it had been meaning to fall and just kept putting it off. The sign out front still said St. Augustine's even though the last service there happened before Leo was born.

No birds ever landed on that roof. No pigeons. No sparrows. Nothing.

He'd been out here about twenty minutes just waiting for one bird to come down and sit up there. None did. They never did.

He didn't know why he kept looking. Habit maybe. Or he just kept thinking one day it'd be different.

His phone went on.

He pulled it out. It had a crack across the top corner of the screen from last week when he dropped it. His mum's message showed through it.

You coming home or what?

He typed: Later.

She didn't reply. She never did anymore. Just the one message every night to check he was still around. Then nothing till the next time. Leo's mother Rosa Vasquez used to be a very vibrant woman until her husband, Leo’s father, Emil Vasquez went missing twelve years ago. She searched for him for three years before giving up. Leo also dropped out of college. Now, Rosa works a second job at a warehouse and has not been happy ever since.

He put the phone away and crossed the street.

The churchyard was in a state. Weeds pushing up through every crack. A big branch had come down across the front steps at some point and just stayed there, soft and green with moss now. Leo stepped over it and pushed his palm against the door. Before then, he had already taken a picture of the church. He would post it later on his blog. Forgotten Thresholds. That's what he called it. Three hundred and twelve followers. Most of them were bots. He didn't care. He wasn't doing it for them.

He was doing it because someone should remember these places.

His father had told him once: "The city forgets everything. That's why someone has to remember."

It was locked. It has always been but Leo kept hoping it wasn't everyday.

He walked around the side.

The dead air got him as soon as he came around the back.

He stopped breathing.

It happened every time. One step everything was fine. Next step the air just went still. Not quiet. Still. His ears would go strange, reaching for a sound that wasn't there. His skin went cold all at once. His chest tightened up like something had just sat itself down on him.

He stood there. Ten seconds maybe. Could've been longer. Time went funny in these spots.

When it cleared he checked his phone.

Four minutes

He called them dead air pockets. Not a great name but he never came up with anything better. He found the first one at seventeen in an old Catholic school on the south side. Third floor hallway. He stood there, lost four minutes, came back with nothing. No memory, no idea where the time went.

He started finding more after that.

The church on Fifth. The playground behind the shut down public school. A stairwell in a hotel nobody had used in years. A bathroom in a gas station that hadn't sold gas in God knows how long. A hallway in a hospital that still had the beds but none of the patients.

Every one of them felt the same. Still and cold and hungry somehow. Like whatever air was in those spots had been waiting a long time for something to walk into it.

He never told anyone. Who would he tell? His mum barely looked at him. His old friends stopped ringing years back. Just him and these places, and the places kept getting bigger.

He left the church and walked back toward the railyard.

Someone had cut the fence in three different spots over the years. Leo knew every gap. He went through the second one behind the old switching station and walked out across the cracked asphalt.

The chemical plant made that low groaning sound in the distance like always. Same steady noise he'd grown up with. He didn't hear it anymore.

He usually comes here this late because it was always empty. No people, no cameras, nobody asking questions. But the quiet felt off tonight.

He stopped walking.

The dead air was close. He could feel it pressing against him, cold and patient. Not a big one, maybe the size of a room. But it was there.

Right where the old employee parking lot used to be.

He walked toward it.

The lot was broken up. Weeds coming through everywhere. A rusted pole with a faded sign still on it. GRAND STATION — EMPLOYEES ONLY.

Grand Street Station.

Where they found his father's boot.

Leo pressed his hand to his chest. His heart was going too fast. He took slow breaths. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He'd stood in this exact spot so many times. A hundred at least. Walked every inch of it. Checked every grate and access door he could get into. Found nothing. Just dust and rust and the smell of old rain in the concrete.

But the dead air was here now.

It had never been here before.

He stood at the edge and waited. The cold pressed in. His ears popped. His mouth filled with that metal taste, like holding a coin on your tongue.

Then it cleared.

Three minutes on his phone.

He breathed out and turned to leave.

"You going to stand there all night or say something?"

He turned around.

A woman coming from the direction of the fence. Fast, not caring about the puddles, boots going straight through them. Her name was Jin. Twenty two, about five six, blonde hair with the dark roots coming back through. She was wearing baggy cargo pants and a black hoodie with old paint up the sleeves. Silver chain around her neck with a tiny spray nozzle hanging off it. Big grin. Jin has been Leo’s good friend since he was twelve years old.

Leo breathed out. "What are you doing here?"

"Same as you." She stopped a few feet away and crossed her arms. "Looking for nothing."

"I'm not looking for nothing."

"You're always looking for nothing. You just don't call it that." She looked around and pulled a face. "This place is creepy. Why do you keep coming back?"

"You know why."

"Yeah I know." She kicked a loose bit of concrete. It skipped twice. "It's been twelve years Leo."

"So?"

"So at some point you have to move on."

"No I don't."

"Real healthy you know. Very very." Her voice was flat "Have you been sleeping well?"

"No."

"Let me guess. Same weird dream?"

He didn't answer.

She looked at him. "That bad."

"Don't want to talk about it."

"You never want to talk about anything."

"That's not true."

"Really? Alright. Name one thing you've talked about this month."

Nothing from him.

Jin laughed in that way she had when she was just done with him. "Right." She got her phone out. "Anyway you owe me. I walked all the way out here because you sent me something."

"I didn't send you anything."

"Yeah you did." She held it up to his face.

He looked. His number. About an hour ago.

Come to the railyard. I need someone to see this.

"I didn't send that."

"Leo."

"Jin. I'm serious. That wasn't me."

She looked at his face for a second. The grin went away. "You're not joking."

"No."

"Then who sent it?"

He didn't answer. His hands went cold. Ears popped. The dead air was back, closer and stronger than before.

Something in his face changed and Jin clocked it straight away. "What?"

"We need to go."

"What? No. You texted me…"

"I didn't text you." He took her arm. Not hard. Just enough. "Something else did."

She looked at his hand on her arm then at his face. Eyes went wide. "Something else. Like the thing in your dreams?"

"Just walk Jin."

"You're scaring me."

"Good. Faster."

They moved. Jin stopped asking and just followed. Boots in the puddles. Her breathing was loud and quick beside him.

At the gap in the fence, Leo stopped.

The dead air was gone.

He turned and looked back at the lot. Just asphalt and weeds and that rusted sign. Nothing moving anywhere.

But something had been there. Something had got into his phone and sent that message.

The back of his neck was prickling.

"Leo." Jin kept her voice down. "What's going on?"

"Something was watching us."

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it."

She looked at the lot then back at him. "I don't see anything."

"You wouldn't."

"Then what is it?"

He didn't have an answer. He turned away. "Let's go."

They got through the fence and walked back to the street. He didn't look behind him once.

That night he dreamed about the desk again.

Massive. Dark wood. Papers covering every inch of it, ledgers and contracts and forms with red glowing edges, the ink moving by itself writing words he couldn't make out no matter how close he got.

Something was behind it.

Nine feet at least. Charcoal suit over a body with no real shape to it. Where its face should have been, there were spinning papers and eyes blinking open and tiny clockwork hands where the mouth should be.

It didn't move. It didn't make a sound.

But every single one of those eyes was on him.

Leo tried to wake up but he couldn't. He tried to look somewhere else. He also couldn't.

Then one of the little hands stopped moving.

It spoke.

He couldn't hear the words. Couldn't hold onto them when he woke up either. But he felt them. Cold and heavy, settling on his chest one at a time.

He came awake gasping.

Mouth tasting like burned paper. His ribs were aching. He pulled his shirt up and checked his skin.

Nothing was there.

But he could feel something. Like a mark pressed into him that you couldn't see. A stamp he never agreed to.

He sat up. Room dark. Rain had stopped. Outside the sky was just starting to go light.

He checked his phone.

No new messages.

But the old one was still there.

Come to the railyard. I need someone to see this.

He deleted it and lay back down and watched the ceiling get lighter.