This is a chapter from I Hear You Watching, my novel based on my experience with hearing voices and paranoia.
But you can jump in here! The “previously on” will get you up to speed.
Previously on I Hear You Watching…
Alex hears strangers mocking him wherever he goes. He searched his apartment for surveillance bugs and got skepticism from the police. The observers told him they were measuring his heart rate and influencing his actions, which they proved by inducing a panic attack. He believes the observers are his next-door neighbors, whom he already confronted once in a tense conversation. He’s just come home from a second attempt—this time with a hammer in his pocket, just in case—but they didn’t answer the door.
“Yellow, green, red, blue.”
Correct. I shuffle.
“Red, yellow, blue, green. You fuck.”
Correct again.
This test of my new security system isn’t going well.
I had lined up four mugs, each with some water and a drop of food coloring. Then I tore a notecard into four strips and dipped each strip into a different mug, dyeing the end. They drank the mixture eagerly, and I dabbed them with paper towel and laid them on a plate to let them dry.
Handling them has stained my fingers a deep purple separating into layered colors around the edges. When I turn the flashlight off and look at my hand, my fingers look like bitten-off stubs in the dark. I’m becoming night, starting with my fingertips.
Now that they’re dry I shuffle and fan the strips, but the observers guess the order every time.
“Green, yellow, blue, red.”
Correct.
“Kinda fun, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, but what is he doing?”
Even when I lean into the dark alcove of my stovetop, they can see.
“Blue, green, red, yellow.”
Correct.
“Hey Alex, what the fuck kinda game is this?”
“Yeah, and haven’t we won yet? Are we winning? How many points do we have?”
I hunch over the stove again, shuffle the strips without looking. I hold them up with my eyes closed, head turned away.
Quiet.
It’s either a trick or they really can’t see, except through my eyes.
“Hey, what colors?” I ask.
“What are you doing?”
“Tell me the colors, or I dunk the smoke detector.”
“You do that, and we’ll murder you.”
“I WISH YOU WOULD!” My voice rings in the space. Everyone in the other apartments heard it, if they’re home. “Tell me the colors.”
“We don’t know the fucking colors.”
I hold up the fan of strips, still not looking at it myself, and turn it left and right. “See it?”
“No.”
I let go of the strips, and they spin to the floor while I take the smoke detector from the cupboard.
“Alex, if you do that—”
“I know,” I say. “Come on over with your guns or knives or cat-o’-nine-tails or whatever the fuck you wanna use. Or come empty-handed, and you can improvise with stuff I’ve got here. But come over! Let’s do this NOW!”
I drop the smoke detector in the kitchen sink. A small piece of plastic shoots off the edge.
“Ah, fuck! What are you doing?”
I pick it up and throw it into the sink again. More bits of plastic explode from it, one hits my forehead.
“God damn it, my ears!”
I lift the broken thing, curl my fingertips into the seam. Dyed near-black with rainbow edges, my fingers look like demon hands prying apart an underworld artifact. I pull, the thing rattles in my shaking hands, the plastic creaks and bursts apart.
“No, fuck! You’re fucking dead, Alex!”
I toss the shell aside and stare at the innards. It has a circular circuit board with several little capacitors and resistors, plus two cylinders—one of which is plastic, looks like a voice box you’d find in a stuffed animal, and the other is larger, metal, lined with slits on its sides and capped with a yellow sticker that says, “Warning: radioactive material.” Aside from the two cylinders, nothing else looks like a microphone or speaker.
As they shout, I lift the thing to my ear. The sound of their voices doesn’t change. They only scream in my head now. But if they do have a microphone in this device, it’s hidden in the part labeled dangerous. I go to the window and hold it in a sliver of streetlight. I shine the flashlight through it. The slits are too slanted to see through.
I snap the two cylinders from the circuit board, then crack the board in half.
“No! No, fuck, no!”
Everything goes in the sink. I put the stopper in the drain and open the faucet, let it fill.
“Fuck! God damn it, fuck!”
When the pieces float, I push them back down. I rotate the cylinders, watch them exhale their final bubbling breaths.
I say, “You’re in deep water, fellas.”
They brood in silence.
I light a cigarette and think, staring at the colored strips of paper on the floor.
Then I collect the strips along with Scotch tape, an X-Acto knife, and another notecard.
I pull the pots and pans from the low cupboard, climb inside, and close the door with my foot. Boxed again in darkness and the warm smell of wood.
“What the fuck is he doing?”
“I don’t see him.”
I drop the strips on the floor of the cupboard and shuffle them around.
“Listen… Hear that?”
I collect them, careful to feel around and get all four, and shuffle them again. The water-warped texture helps me discern the colored ends.
“Alex, how are you gonna know—”
“Shut up,” the other says. “Listen.”
In the dark I take the notecard and tape from my pocket. Feeling the warped end of a strip, I tear off a tiny corner. Then I take a bit of tape from the roll and stick the torn-off bit onto the notecard. Then I tear a bit from the next strip, and tape that bit below the first.
I do this until all four colors are accounted for, their stacked order copied onto the notecard. Then I fold the notecard and put it in my pocket. I keep the strips stacked in my fist.
I slide out of the cupboard and replace the pots and pans with my free hand.
“What the fuck did he do in there?”
“It’s just to scare us.”
“I don’t like it.”
I take my phone, put the flashlight and hammer in my back pockets, the wet smoke detector cylinders in my front pocket, put on my coat, and go out the door.
Looking down at my feet, I reach for an improbable spot up high and close the door on the fanned strips.
“God damn it. I can’t believe he did it.”
Chills. I have done it.
I grin at the white ends of the strips sticking out from the doorjamb. I use the X-Acto knife to slice those ends off as close as possible to the wood. They become imperceptible from the outside, untouchable. My own secret code against trespassers hidden in the seam of my front door, and its cipher hidden in my pocket, unknown even to myself.
If they enter my apartment while I’m gone, I’ll know.
Next on I Hear You Watching…
Chills. I have done it.
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Here’s a complete list of posted chapters.
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damn this is compelling. i’m definitely buying your book man.
Hey, Zachary, I don't quite get what he's doing with the strips and the door. Are we supposed to 'get it' or will we understand based on what happens next? Is he going to 'test them on the colours' and then check the code himself?