SHUDDERVILLE by Mia Zabrisky

 
Episode One
Be Careful What You Wish For
    A man with a goatee moved in next door to Sophie. He was lean and tan with greasy brown hair and wire-rim glasses. He surprised her one warm spring Saturday afternoon by walking into the foyer wearing nothing but a pair of baggy shorts and a yellow fishnet T-shirt. His bare feet landed pat-pat-pat against the floor.
    “Oops,” he said, nearly bumping into her. “Excuse me.” He checked his mailbox and sorted through his mail, saying, “Junk, junk, junk.”
    Back in her apartment, Sophie poured herself a glass of wine and lay down on the sofa. She rested the wine glass on her stomach, closed her eyes and tried to picture the goateed man naked. She ran her fingers through his greasy brown hair, but whenever she tried to kiss him, he melted in her arms. He kept dissolving on her.
    On Sunday, Sophie slept in with the Times and croissants from the French bakery down the block. Cassie called, but Sophie was too tired to do anything. She had no social life to speak of, but that didn’t bother her. Overwork and exhaustion had become her best friends. They helped her not to think. Sophie had decided that the combination of drinking and not thinking was a great way to get through life.
    She drank mostly at night, never during the day, always when her car was parked safely in the underground garage. She drank and stayed up late channel-surfing past Dave and Jay and Jimmy and Conan, and sometimes she found herself thinking about the goateed man next-door. Once in a while when she got home from work, she’d linger by the mailboxes, hoping he would come out and check his mail. Occasionally she heard strange noises coming from his apartment, as if he were rearranging the furniture.
    One night, Sophie had a dream she was lost in a strange city. She drove around in circles, while the tall buildings receded into darkness behind her. She turned a corner and was instantly struck by a strobing red emergency light. A crowd had gathered around a car, its steaming chassis smashed into a telephone pole, the victims inside eerily silent. The woman seemed to be asleep. Her green polo shirt was stained with blood. Beside her, a faceless man slumped over the steering wheel.
    Two firemen worked the jaws-of-life, trying to pry open the crushed door on the driver’s side. Their helmets and jackets were off, sweat popping out on their foreheads. One of them leaned into the car and held the sleeping woman’s hand. “Help is on the way, hang in there, Sophie.” In the distance, someone was weeping.
    She woke up gasping for breath. Was she dead? No. It was just a bad dream. Leaves rustled outside her bedroom window. She heard a muffled thump, and her heart pounded, but then she remembered the goateed man next door.
    Restless and bored, she went into the kitchen to get the bottle of Stoli she hadn’t killed off yet and a carton of orange juice. She sat in the living room drinking screwdrivers until the bottle was empty. There was nothing on TV but old Godzilla movies back-to-back.
    Around midnight, the room grew very long all of a sudden. “I’m wasted,” she said out loud, and the room got longer and more stretched out, like an image pressed on Silly Putty. The sofa cushions seemed to shift around beneath her, as if they were made of marbles, the fabric cold and corrugated against her skin.
    She stood up, took two steps and fell on the floor, laughing. She lay sprawled across the carpet, greatly amused by her lack of balance. But just as abruptly her throat closed around the laughter, and she started to weep. “My little girl.” Her lips trembled around each word. Tears streamed down her face, curling across her cheeks and trickling into her hair. Her life had exploded into a million pieces, and yet she was still alive. Disgustingly alive and kicking. She had all of her fingers and toes. Whoopee.
    Thwump-thump .
    “Stampede,” she giggled, getting to her feet. She grabbed the empty bottle of Stoli