Alone Together

George Henderson pressed the intercom buzzer, adjusting his scarf with his other hand. A faint mechanical beep pierced the snow filled air. Patiently, George waited for a reply, his breath fogging his thick glasses. Finally, a tinny voice pierced the dim night.

“George, is that you?” came the faint thin voice of his friend, Karl Winthorpe.

“Yes, yes it’s me.” he said, clapping his hands to his arms, warming himself as best he could.

“Excellent!” came the tinny reply. “I’m so glad you’re here. I’m afraid the staff has gone home for the evening. I’ve left the door open; just head on into the library, and make yourself at home. I’ll be right there.”

There was a pause, and then a harsh buzzing following a loud click as the gate unlocked itself and swung open. George stepped through the gate and began to walk up towards the massive mansion that dominated the small hill.

It was old, and very gothic. Old black slats covered the roof like scales of a dragon. The tall spires reached out like nails to scrape the sky, with drooping trim that hung like icicles. Snarling grotesqueries crouched around the entryway, glaring at George as he approached, daring him to run. Windows spread across the front of the building, all shut tightly — the only sign of life was a small light in the library. The front door was open, as promised, and George carefully picked his way in the dim light through room after extravagant room until he reached the library.

Karl Winthorpe was a rich man, George reflected. He had been friends with Karl for twenty years, ever since they met at the club, and they had shared a great deal with each other, but somehow it had never occurred to George that Karl was substantially wealthier than himself. George slowly turned where he stood, taking in the library while he was waiting. The dark oaken stacks reached almost two full stories into the air, filled with books, thick and thin. Half of the library seemed to be devoted to dictionaries and encyclopedias. An entire stack was full of maps and atlases. There was even two full shelves of children’s books. It was a room that George himself would have loved to have in his home, but there was no way he could have afforded the shear volume of books.

The mansion itself had three full stories. George was frightened to guess the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and staircases that filled the space between him and the other end of the house. Shivering in spite of the warmth spreading from the clanking radiator, George stared out the huge glass windows that looked out over the grounds.

He hadn’t spoken to Karl in years — he was reclusive by nature, Karl was, and George had never thought his company so intriguing as to seek it out. Karl had gone to Russia several years ago, and that had released George from the habit of inviting him to parties or to the club, only to be rejected. It had been a great surprise to read the handwritten letter that appeared in the mail two days ago, requesting — almost demanding — his presence.

Perhaps Karl was dying, George thought, grimly. He had never been very careful of his health, George remembered. He was never far from a drink, and his coat pockets bulged with thick cigar travel cases. In fact, George couldn’t remember Karl even eating anything that wasn’t as rich as himself.

The door to the Library opened, and a thin man in dark clothing stepped inside, followed by a trail of thick blue smoke. He had fluffy gray hair, and the wrinkles on his cheeks carved a life of laughter out for George to see. The man grinned, and plucked a thick half-smoked cigar from his lips as his tongue flicked out like a snake, lapping flakes of flavor from his mouth.

“George Henderson, my old friend!” Karl twittered, his empty hand reaching out to shake. George put on a smile and gripped his old friend’s hand. “Glad to see you my boy! I hope the trip down was alright?”

“Just fine,” George nodded, releasing his hold on Karl’s hand. “I must say, you have a lovely house.”

“Built almost a hundred years ago,” Karl beamed, his sunken chest swelling slightly. “Modernized throughout the ages, of course, but still — the old thing’s older than either of us, and that’s saying something, now isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” George shared in Karl’s laughter. “Before I forget to ask, how was Russia?”

“Brilliant!” Karl grinned, pushing his cigar into his mouth again. “Absolutely wonderful. Beautiful. Lots of snow. Can I get you anything?”

“I hate to bother, but do you have drink? I’m frightfully parched,” George nodded. There was something odder than usual about Karl — he seemed manic, as though he was feeling quite ill and was desperately trying to hide it.

“Of course!” Karl collapsed in on himself as he twisted around to dip his left hand into his right pocket. He soon reemerged, brandishing a stainless steel hip-flask. George balked, staring at the offer before his natural politeness took over. Nodding his thanks, he reached out and took the flask, opened it, and took a timid sip. It was gin, with a barely perceptible twist of lemon. George struggled not to cough, and returned the flask to Karl, who took a swig, and then replaced it in his pocket.

“There,” Karl said, grinning wildly. “That’s done. Shall we sit?”

“Please,” George panted, his throat still burning. Karl ushered him to a pair of cherrywood chairs, upholstered in bright velvet patterns. They looked uncomfortable, and George was sad to discover, as he lowered himself into one, that he was not wrong. For several minutes, they sat next to each other in silence, George struggling to control his breathing, and Karl smiling oddly into the dimly lit room. Finally, Karl spoke again, after exhaling a new plume of smoke into the air.

“I’m glad you came, George,” he said, sincerity thick in his voice. “I don’t know if I could have gotten along without someone I trusted nearby.”

“It’s alright,” George muttered, confused as to what Karl was talking about.

“No, I’m serious,” Karl leaned over, his cigar pointing deftly about the room. “All this is well and good, but when one figures out something unpleasant, one needs the company of someone he can trust, yes?”

“Something unpleasant?” George prodded. Karl nodded as he leaned back, returning the cigar to his lips. Again, they sat is silence for a minute. Finally, Karl pulled out his flask, took another swig, and set it down on the floor between them.

“I don’t suppose you know how many people there are in the world?” Karl asked, his voice quiet. George shrugged at the odd question.

“I believe a couple billion, all told,” He scratched his nose. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard a decent count. Why do you ask?”

“And I also don’t suppose you ever thought to wonder if they had got it wrong?” Karl asked.

“Well, of course they do,” George shook his head. “Bound to, aren’t they? I mean, they can hardly knock on every door in the jungle; it’s all a bit of a guess.”

“But more or less accurate, yes? They can’t be off by more than a couple million?”

“I suppose not,” George shrugged again. “I can’t say I ever thought about it much.”

“I have,” Karl sighed, blowing another cloud of smoke into the air. “Ever since I went to Russia. Did you hear, I met Charlie there?”

“Charlie?” George was nonplussed. Karl waved his cigar like an incense burner.

“Of course, you remember Charlie. Thick chap. Always running about, spouting poetry. Had a dreadful taste in scarves.” The cigar smoke was beginning to give George a headache. He coughed as quietly and politely as possible, but Karl did not seem to notice. Rather, he took another deep inhale, and blew out into the hazy air.

“We had an argument once, about fate and free will. It was a silly thing — we neither of us was right really, on looking back at the matter, but he laughed in my face when I saw him in Russia. Just laughed with his silly scarf wrapped about his neck, and said ‘why, this must be fate.’ I couldn’t bare to stand near him — I’m afraid I was frightfully rude, and left without much explanation.”

George clucked his tongue in amazement. Was it his imagination, or was the room growing larger? The smoke fumes were becoming thick, obscuring the full stacks of books with whispy white tendrils. Karl coughed, sending a ripple through the marbled air.

“Can you imagine?” he asked, leaning forward to George again. “Do you know how many people there are in the whole of Russia? How many square feet of land? And of all those people and with all that space, do you know the chances that I meet someone I know in that foriegn country? It’s impossible!”

“Surely not,” George shrugged, waving his hand in front of his face. The room was beginning to spin. “Not so impossible as that — improbable, yes, but impossible? Why, I’ve run into old friends in random places all my life, It’s no more than coincidence.”

“No, it’s more than that!” Karl thumped his hand on his chair. “I knew what it must be! I returned home as soon as I was able, and began my research. I can only imagine what others might call it — not research, of course, something far more unpleasant. I know why you can’t help but run into people you already know!”

“How do you mean?” George asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “My friends and I live in the same city, we grew up together, we go to the same club, enjoy the same restaurants, of course we will meet more often than usual.”

“Ah, but outside the city? When you travel, how often do you run into old familiar faces? And what about when you break out of your habits? When you go to a restaurant you’ve never been to and glance over to see an old friend you haven’t spoken to in ages?”

“Just coincidence, old man,” George shrugged. “I sometimes go to a coffee shop on the east end that I don’t think any of my friends know about. If they ever decided to try it, they might see me.”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse!” Karl collapsed back into his chair, his brow furrowed, eyebrows meeting sharply between his eyes. “I’ve looked at the numbers, studied all the atlases, and gone deeper into the world than anyone ever has, and there is only one possible reason — there are not as many people in the world as we think!”

“Alright then,” George smiled disarmingly. “How many people in the world are there? If it’s not several billion, how many?”

Karl looked anxious. He glanced around the room, as if he was expecting someone was listening, and leaned forward again.

“There are only fifty thousand of us!” he whispered, harshly.

George wanted to laugh. It sounded silly. Karl must have seen something in his eyes, because he grinned evilly.

“Yes,” he sneered. “Go on, laugh at me. A foolish man sitting in a comfy chair rambling about some fool theory, but I tell you it’s the only explanation that makes sense!”

“Not at all,” George shook his head. “It’s a question of human behavior. Your friends must have similar behavior to you, mustn’t they? They must like similar things, enjoy similar tastes. So of course it’s likely you’ll go to similar places for similar reasons.”

“Of course,” Karl waved his hand again. “But then why don’t you see more friends all the time? Why don’t you see old friends every day? I tell you, it’s true! There are only fifty thousand humans alive in the world.”

George looked away from Karl’s intense stare to the rest of the room. He felt sick. His breathing was shallow, to avoid inhaling the foul smoke that burned his eyes. The room seemed so small he was feeling claustrophobic.

“Alright then,” he wheezed. “The world’s a big place, so if you’re right, who’s living in the rest of it, eh? Who’s eating the rest of the food and filling up the rest of the space? All fifty thousand people don’t all live here, do they? Who are all those people we see on the street?”

Karl sighed happily, as though George had finally asked the question he had been waiting for. Slowly, Karl stood, gesturing with his cigar for George to follow. George stood, his head spinning, and slowly followed Karl out of the smoggy room to the basement door. With a clatter that echoed throughout the large house, Karl pulled a large keyring out of his pocket, and selected an iron key that he slipped into the over-sized lock on the door, and gave it a practiced twist. The door swung open with a mighty groan as Karl turned to bar the way.

“I will show you this, and you will understand — but you must promise me to never tell anyone what you’ve seen here. I don’t know whom else we can trust.”

George nodded slowly, his head still throbbing. Karl slowly tuned, and led the way down the thick stone steps into the dark basement of his mansion.

The smell was overpowering. A foul mixture of rotting vegetation, sewage, and sour milk. George nearly fainted when they reached the bottom of the steps, while Karl hardly seemed to notice. He moved further into the gloom, turning on a flashlight.

“I first read about them in some old adventurer’s journal,” Karl was saying over his shoulder as they marched deeper into the gloom. “They sounded like mad ramblings, but the further I studied, the more sense it made. They’re like farmers, really. They spend their time caring for us in ways we’ve never noticed. They feed us and clean us… and when we get older they begin to watch us, wandering among us to see which of us is best. They look the same as us in the sunlight, you see, but when they eat… in the dark…”

They turned the corner, and Karl let out a small gasp. Slowly, he lifted the light to cover a small cluster of shapes in the corner. George couldn’t think straight; The smell was mind-numbing. He struggled to look through the gloom into the deep recesses of the basement. At first, he thought he was looking at a small bundle of crates and burlap sacks, but then something moved, and looked at him.

His heart froze as his neck twisted as if to look at Karl — but his eyes could not look away. It wasn’t until Karl spoke again that he felt his muscles release.

“They’re my friends now,” Karl said.

Instantly, George felt his limbs spasm and twitch, eagerly flailing to pull his body out of the gaze of whatever it was in the corner. He ran, scrambling up the stairs, tripping and banging his legs against the hard sharp edges of the wooden steps. He could almost feel the harsh breath and hear the squelching breathing the strange unearthly shape made as it lumbered after him. In his mind he could feel the ground shiver with each shuddering step the foul thing took, and he could imagine a long and spindly arm, dripping with lichen-crusted sweat as it reached for the back of his neck, toothless maw gaping wide to engulf his entire head.

George reached the top of the stairs, his head spinning from the horrid smell and awful smoke from his friend’s cigar. He fumbled with the door, desperately attempting to get his fingers to work the handle while his body frantically threw itself against the unyielding wood. finally resorting to brute force, he shoved hard, causing the door to splinter, then shatter.

George didn’t pause, but ran like a madman though the mist and fog-filled mansion, and out into the night. He did not stop running as he burst through the mansion doors, nor when he reached the massive iron gate. With the energy born of panic, he launched himself up onto the metal, and hauled himself over the edge, ignoring the sharp spikes that cut his skin and tore his clothing.

Only in the streets did he pause, panting, gulping the fresh and clean air into his lungs. Calming down, he tried to rationalize what he had just seen. It was dark, of course, and what he had seen moving was undoubtedly just a rat crawling over some old garbage that his friend had left in the basement to rot.

But the eyes had not been a rat’s eyes. They had been bizarrely human — and horrifyingly inhuman. Quickly George tried to put the thought out of his mind. He had to keep walking, he knew. He needed to put as much distance between himself and that house as possible. He would return home, have a drink to calm his nerves, and go to bed. Tomorrow, in the daylight, everything would look far more reasonable to his mind.

Sunlight. Daytime. Full of people walking about. With a shudder, his mind desperately trying not to think of crowded streets and packed cafes, he picked up his pace.

The eyes followed him home.