Vestavia Hills

Christian Perego

VESTAVIA HILLS

Tradotto da

Annalisa Gugliotta

Pubblicato da Tektime

Copyright © 2020 - Christian Perego

I would like to make you understand who Johnathan Abblepot is, but I don't know where to start.

There are too many things to say about him. Too many to understand. Maybe you don't like mysteries, maybe you are a guy who loves to see things in the light of the sun, to define their outlines, because this way you always know what to do. Well, you'd be better stripping off of your certainties, because sometimes it doesn't happen the way you think.

It's Sunday morning, look around. Can you see the town waking up? Can you see the people who start leaving the house to go to Mass, dressed as best they can, without overdoing it. Do you see them?

There is nothing special about Vestavia Hills, it is a town like any other. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you look up, the colour of lead makes it clear that even this day could be similar to a thousand others that people here have already seen. A red streak, however unnatural, marks the sky; it's almost like a tear of blood, almost a wound that hurts. You can almost hear the thunder in the distance, even if this time they have gravity, a sound that makes you uncomfortable. Who knows what it is?

Look at the first small family who is not far from you. They too are heading towards the church. The man wears a distinct black suit, a little creased. The wife is half a step behind him, she wears a wide skirt with folds, which does not make it clear if her legs are slender and toned or worn out by time; the woman is still quite young, she seems pretty. She holds a child by the hand, his hair combed neatly and with long socks on; he looks like the son worthy of his parents.

All three, now, turn to look at you, and you realize that the deepening of their eyes frightens you: in those dark orbits, you cannot distinguish a trace of feelings; no curiosity, no irreverence, much less cordiality. It is difficult even to recognize the eyes, because they look like small dark caves.

"Emma! Don't stare at people!" says the man, also shaking you off from that vision, which now it finally turns into a natural scene.

"Sorry, dear, I don't know what got into me," replies his wife, who has finally returned to being a person with eyes.

Then the woman adds to her son: "Joshua, don't stare at people, he's not polite."

The child still lingers a moment to look at her, but thank God now he too has nothing strange.

What's wrong with you?

Maybe you slept poorly.

Last night too?

It happens to you now and then.

Rub your eyes, look away, and try to regain a demeanor.

The red wound in the clouds has not yet disappeared.

The air gets heavy. You can breathe well, without gasping, but you realize that something is wrong; it feels like breathing in metal, metal with a little rust. The breath almost becomes flavored in the mouth; it is disgusting.

As you approach the church, the number of people on the street increases. Now it is as if no one can see you. Even your mere bodily presence does not seem evident. You are an impalpable being in a crowd that appears made up of ghosts. They are like machines that walk without consistency. The women, with their long skirts down to the ground, seem to float.

Here is the church.

The building is beautiful: it would convey ease and a sense of peace, on a day different from this.

Now it's overwhelming.

No, maybe it's not overwhelming, because it attracts you.

It is undoubtedly an attraction that you feel, partly because of the crowd now even more numerous, partly because of an irrational curiosity, which tells you that something will happen there.

The church certainly attracts you, but it also intimidates you, like when your father lifted his shirt to start pulling the belt out of his pants. It is subtle anxiety at the beginning because you always hope that something painful will not happen. Still, then, slowly, the concern grows, until it becomes terror, the terror of certainty.

A rumbling, almost like a thousand hornets, comes from inside the building.

Now you would like to know who I am.

Before entering, you need to know, you think.

Nothing will change for you.

I'm not the one who brought it here; you don't need a name to blame for what you're doing.

Maybe you slept poorly last night too, I repeat it. And that's why you are cranky.

Reverend Johnathan Abblepot is almost about to start the function. You'd better hurry.

Inside the church, everyone is seated graciously. It is an army of pious people, who will move in unison at the mere nod of their reverend. Slaughter souls blissfully waiting to be dissected and condemned by a few words.

Take a seat. It is not convenient to stand; here on the left.

You wanted to know who Johnathan Abblepot is, right?

How can I explain it to you? It is not easy to explain something to those who think they already know, to those who probably, deep down, already know.

Johnathan Abblepot is a name that someone knew well, a name that lost its consistency when that man was gone, to gain something else more... unique.

Johnathan Abblepot is the man who is about to speak now from the pulpit.

Johnathan Abblepot is the one who stands before you right now.

Reverend Abblepot observes the crowd in front of him with a look of anger and inhumanity that makes you shiver.

Behind him, something starts to bleed. Almost everyone in the church begins to bleed out. Now Johnathan Abblepot's eyes are as red as blood.

The sound of hornets becomes so loud that it prevents you from hearing the words that man is saying.

However, now you realize that the priest is not speaking.

His mouth opened in a silent cry, a cry that even if you cannot hear, it is still frightening to see. His mouth opens wide with an unnatural movement and becomes more open and broader than any human mouth.

Lightning strikes inside the church.

Then a scream of pain, which is not in the air, but breaks out inside of you.

Johnathan Abblepot continues in his chilling cry with his frighteningly wide-open mouth.

I.F.

THE STRANGE AFTERNOON OF ROBERT RED

1.

Vestavia Hills, 2008

Robert Red woke up startled. He gasped, panted, and sat on the bed. The naked torso beaded with sweat; the back completely damp; hair attached to the forehead.

He could not calm down completely and still had his eyes wide open.

He shivered with chills at the thought of the deformed face of the man on the pulpit, the undisputed protagonist of his last nightmares;

in the world he knew, there was nothing more terrifying than those eyes, and that scream.

This time Robert was further disturbed by the voice that guided him into that hallucinated world, expecting to give him orders and commenting on everything he thought or felt.

In some of the bad dreams tormenting him for some time now, he had already perceived a baritone and slightly silent voice that murmured something; but he had never heard the words as clearly as in this last nightmare.

It sounded like the off-screen voice of a horror film. In which all the horror that happened aimed at swallowing him up, Robert.

After slowly making a reason that he was in his room and not in a hellish church, and having become aware that he had not participated in any ritual officiated by a kind of demon with a cassock, he got up.

The contact of the bare feet on the cold floor always helped to relieve him, awakening him completely and ensuring solid touch with reality.

Robert glared at the sleep pills that the doctor had prescribed for him: "Fuck the pills and the damn doctor."

He had approached him almost immediately after having his first nightmares.

Robert Red was an apprehensive type who immediately became agitated by a problem and became nervous if he didn't find a solution just as quickly.

The doctor had ruled that there was nothing to worry about having a little restless sleep.

"People nowadays live, or decide to live, in a state of permanent stress. If we take into account some worries related to your job, it is not strange, Robert, that you sleep badly," so he had ruled. After that, he had prescribed the pills.

Not that at the beginning, they didn't work. But within a few weeks, not even the double dosage that Robert had ordered himself had banished the night's anxieties.

The young man had persevered with the therapy. But now, the time had come to convince himself that it was not adequate, and to curse pills and the doctor.

Robert went to the bathroom and looked sadly in the mirror at his face, which had a swollen and half-destroyed look; it could not even appear angry, so overwhelmed with tiredness as it was.

Might as well get ready to start the day, perhaps with a walk. The city wasn't too bad in the early morning.

Robert Red took a shower, with a final rinse almost frozen to activate the mind and muscles. He shaved. Then he went to the small kitchen of his two-room rented apartment. He slowly chewed some toast and sparingly drank black and unsweetened coffee from a large cup, then sat on the sofa for a few minutes.

"If you go on at this rate, old friend, you will become a plain and simple, lunatic," Robert said to himself, smiling through gritted teeth at what he had just predicted.

Robert Red was not about to turn into a lunatic, even if, even before the problems of insomnia affected him, this sentence had been given to him twice.

The first one was a very drunk girl, with whom he had tried to flirt at a party. Therefore, there wasn't much to pay attention about. The second time had been much more painful, because it came from his ex, Jenny, and established the definitive break between the two of them.

"This chick looks a little like Jenny," thought Robert in front of the image of a seller of cosmetic products on the TV he had just turned on.

Then he looked at a book he had on the table: a rather mediocre novel, by an author who was branded by many as equally mediocre, but that he had wanted to buy anyway, to have something undemanding to distract himself with.

It was a hard-boiled story, but without the inventiveness and ease of writing that characterized the best of its kind. It was the story of a girl suspected of killing her first husband, she then remarried with the "typical" old man full of money, and avoid generating other suspicions of having murdered that one too for the common inheritance issue. But then: did the girl's friend know she had a lover or hadn't told her yet up until the chapter he read?

He couldn't remember.

But why puzzle over that nonsense? Ideas of a scribbler lacking ambition.

He took the book and flicked through a few pages; he went to the more crumpled ones, which he had read several times, because, even if lacking an exciting plot and characters, some phrases, some atmospheres had not seemed so wrong to him. Maybe they could give him some ideas.

Yes, because Robert Red was a writer. He wanted to be. He aimed to be one of those who fund a bank account with several zeros thanks to their talent as storytellers.

He wasn't too bad as a storyteller.

Or so he thought. However, his self-esteem improved thanks to some friends who encouraged him, and by a sort of literary critic's opinion, someone who his cousin Tod introduced him to, and who had decently evaluated his first job.

At that time, Robert had a career without shame nor praise, in the office of a medium-small company in Vestavia Hills, so he was drawn to that dream.

He spent an entire summer and even part of the fall of 2006 to find a publisher for his novel.

In short, it had not been what you call an easy task, but in the end, he had made it.

Then, making a little effort on himself and his pride and, following the advice of his then editor, he had corrected and rewritten some parts and, something decent had come out of his pages managed to sell some copies.

According to him, not bad, as a start.

In short, he had become a writer, he thought and had decided that was what he wanted to do.

To hell with family advice and the myth of a steady job that guarantees you a living.

Sure! That guarantees you a life that is always the same, a filthy apartment in an anonymous area of the center, and a series of days as nobody; opinion that you ended up thinking about yourself too.

It was not a guaranteed career that of a novelist, but Robert felt he wanted to try it with more energy than just a hobby.

Even now, of course, he was working on a novel: "something outstanding," he always said to those who asked him about it. Obviously, with insomnia and nightmares, it was not easy at all.

The time had come to get some fresh air. Robert dressed without too much haste, still dazed by the startling awakening.

He put a cap on his head, closed the door of the apartment with so little care as not to correctly remember if he had done so, and went down the stairs. As soon as he stopped in the street for a moment, slightly dazzled by the light of the day, since he had not lifted the blinds when he got out of bed, to preserve the shade, which gave him the impression of being able to rest a bit more somehow.

The vision of a woman holding her son by the hand paralyzed him for a moment because it reminded him of the dream, the sunken orbits, and that black shadow instead of eyes. But luckily, this time, he wasn't in a nightmare. The woman stared at him in passing: she had a typical look. The boy didn't even notice him.

Robert didn't particularly like wandering, going from one shop to another just to look at the goods on display. But he tried to do it for at least an hour so that the metallic taste sensation he had in his mouth would be driven away by all the smells of the city.

Then it occurred to him that he could call Tricia, the person he was in contact with, and who was in charge of correcting and reviewing the material he sent for the publishing house.

It was only the first three chapters, but when Robert sent the first one, he was told by the selection manager, "Hey, this stuff is good! Really!" The man certainly was not Ken Follet in finding the words to express his thoughts, but, damn, that precisely was what Robert wanted to hear.

However, what could he have said in the phone call?

"Yes, good morning Miss Thompson, Tricia. I am Robert Red; I just wanted to inform you that I am a little ... well ...stuck. You know. Health problems. Insomnia. I can't work without a clear mind".

No, it would have been a very pathetic call.

"Yes, of course, I know you have a schedule. Don't worry, I'm doing a restorative therapy, and I'll be in shape shortly. You'll see!"

Even more pathetic.

He decided not to dial Tricia Thompson's number, even though he was already holding his mobile phone. He realized that it would be a phone call made solely to occupy those minutes, which he was letting go by like the first piss of the morning and, weighing on him like the bags of the food shopping, he never wanted to do.

He put the phone back in his pocket.

"Of course, I'm just wasting time like a drunkard on the sidewalks," thought Robert with a particular hatred towards himself. Now stop.

He had cooled his mind enough. He had had enough of wandering. He needed some more coffee; yes, that was for sure. Maybe a cigarette, and then, back home, once he turned on the computer, he would surely find some inspiration. Perhaps that idea he had the other day to continue the chapter ... Or maybe he could have double-checked something he had just written: there was always some detail to refine. And, how much he liked to move a comma or change an adjective! He felt like a real creative genius.

At that moment, he was passing by a literary cafe's window, those newly designed cafes that combine the consumption of drinks with a library and reading areas.

He had the desire and the need for a coffee, and he was always eager to take a look at the latest publications.

So why not go in?

Robert greeted the girl at the counter politely and gave her more attention than he ever used to. He ordered his coffee, which was served to him in an instant, and then went to the display shelf.

It was all stuff of the big publishing houses, the titles that are picked up by readers on huge pyramids where many copies are displayed. The effect is very similar to that of tons of sweets in a candy store at Christmas: if one enters it, even if he does not intend to buy anything, he is overwhelmed by that mountain of stuff, and he cannot leave the shop without having in your pocket at least a small piece. Well, the mechanism for the great titles of mass literature was identical: they managed to place the title they wanted by confronting the poor reader with an avalanche of books put under his nose.

Maybe, someday this would happen to one of his books, thought Robert.

Since he already knew what was displayed in plain sight, he glanced at the table not far from the shelves. There seemed to be good edition books but with less famous titles and less glamorous authors.

It was only for the time of a coffee. That time wasted lingering on something that Robert Red wasn't interested in doing.

He ran his eyes over the books on the coffee table.

He took one, but did nothing but turn it on the back cover, without even reading what was in it.

He moved another book with his finger, quickly reading the author and title.

Of the third book, instead, he limited himself to observing the drawing on the front.

Finally, he grabbed the last book, the one on the edge of the table, slightly apart from all the others.

And his mind registered something.

It was something undefined, impossible to be rationalized. But perfectly perceptible.

Perhaps Robert's mind was unable to make a precise hypothesis as to what had triggered him to gaze at that book.

It remained an indistinct perception.

He noticed a detail that he would indeed rethink later.

What Robert felt was a kind of deeper contact than what his fingers would feel against the glossy layer of coated paper.

It was as if Robert "felt" that book as if the pages vibrated as if his gesture hadn't just been holding a book. It happened as when we touch a part of our body, massaging it, trying to perceive it from the outside, to give it importance.

It was a sensation that could not rationalize, but something physical, easy to feel.

Perhaps it had been the cover image, evidently skillfully chosen by the editor, sober yet almost magnetic.

Perhaps it had been the author's name, absolutely unknown in the scene of recent publications, at least for Robert.

Perhaps still, it was the title, which is the most captivating thing about a book: in that case, a dry, direct, easy to remember the title.

All of these things together could justify the attention Robert paid to observe that book, even if he only did it for a few seconds.

And what was the feeling that had gone through his body? What had his mind noted?

Robert, unable to give himself an answer, and not even want to look for one, shook himself off.

He went to the counter, paid for the coffee, and warmly greeted the waitress.

Then he headed home.

Instinctively, as soon as he was on the street, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and looked up Tricia Thompson's number in the phone book.

If he stopped to think about it, he would have realized he didn't know why intended to do it.

But before his brain could process that thought, the phone was already ringing.

One ring, two rings; on the third started the usual persuasive recorded voice surrounded by music that invited you not to hang up.

A few moments later, the secretary answered: "Mug & Ball, good morning, how can I help you?"

"Ah ... yes, good morning. This is Robert Red, I wanted to speak to Miss Tricia, Tricia Thompson. "

"What is this regarding, sir?"

"Here, you see, she is editing my book, so ..."

Before Robert could say anything plausible, or implausible, the secretary went on: "Yes, sure, I understand. I see if I she is available. Would you kindly repeat your name? "

Robert did so and waited. At least he had gained a few moments to think about a reason why he had called and what he could say to the woman once she answered.

At least a couple of minutes passed. Then the voice on the other side of the line returned to replace the music: "I'm sorry, Mister ... Red, Miss Thompson is busy right now. If you can be kind enough to try again later ..."

Robert said something vaguely condescending, mumbling a little and, then ended the call. Better that way, it was just an intuitive gesture dictated by who knows what.

He would not have felt so relaxed about it if he had known that, at the publishing house, Tricia Thompson, was busy reading some drafts written so badly that she was racking her brains. So at the message that a certain Robert Red was looking for her, to talk about his book, she simply said she had never heard of him and, and not to break her balls.

Robert returned to his studio flat with a sense of inexplicable euphoria. If walking had that effect, he could consider doing it more often.

He sat at the kitchen table, after roughly having cleared it. He turned on the notebook, waited for the operating system to load, already foretasting the sound of his fingers on the keys.

He felt ready to write quite a few pages. The ideas would come to him; he was sure of it.

The literary café and the thought of one of his books showing off on shelves like them. The strange sensation he felt in there, which he could only interpret it as a kind of warning sign. The music of the Mug & Ball. The air of the city that had woken up.

Everything helped to give him the fibrillation he felt at the time.

The operating system had loaded; the background of his desktop, a Caribbean beach God knows where which winked at him like a beautiful girl just to make fun of him, was staring back at him with the usual monotony.

The pages written already were in files that Robert, for convenience, had not included in any particular folder and, therefore, dotted the sea and, the palm trees of the Caribbean with white documents.

He opened the most recent one.

... illusory as the last of his dreams, the metal sky above him. He was so small compared to so much immensity: how could he think he was worth something, that he was part of a larger design, the gear that made the mechanism work at its best, a mechanism so complex that escaped even his highest understanding?

Robert reread the last words he had written down the previous evening, before going to bed. They did not satisfy him: they had a severity that did not suit the drier style he had used pages before.

He had to fix it.

The syntax ...

Or maybe it was the choice of words that could be improved?

Maybe it was more appropriate to rewrite everything.

He reread again

so complex that escaped even his highest understanding?

The words sounded strange to him.

The rhythm of the phrase, which Robert spelled several times, moved him inside.

And what he felt was very similar to the feeling he had in literary coffee.