A Friend So Strange

The dead don’t knock, they grin, and wait for you to follow.

Every evening at six, as the sun clawed its way beneath the pines, he’d show up at my gate. A silhouette in black, his smirk glinting like a blade catching moonlight — the kind that carves itself into your nightmares.

Six years had passed since they buried Rem. His mother’s screams still haunted me, raw, animal sounds that drowned out the rifle salute. The mortician let me see him first. For identification, he’d said — like the melted wax doll in that box could ever be my best friend. The brother who’d once arm-wrestled a Marine for a pack of Cigarettes and won.

Now, a mysterious dark figure wants to be friends with me? I knew it was the Xanax. The doc had warned, "Might show you things."

But the war had already scorched worse into my retinas.

Like that kid in Fallujah, with bullet holes and tears in his eyes, who’d blinked up at me before the light left his.

Beep. Beep.

My wrist-clock buzzed. It took three blinks before my whiskey-blurred vision parsed the neon-green 6:00 written on the small screen. I’d set the alarm.

Today, I’d at least introduce myself to the man in black.

Or throw a bottle at his head.

I stayed slouched in my chair, the whiskey bottle dangling from my left hand like a dead fish.

The road was empty — no dog walkers, no nosy Mrs. Kowalski peering through her blinds.

Just headlights slicing the dusk.

Golden squares of light glowed in the houses around me: folks microwaving dinners, folding laundry, and living their safe little lives.

Then he came.

This time, I didn’t blink. Even in the fading light, I saw him stop and turn.

He raised a hand in a half-assed wave, fingers curling like he was beckoning a stray cat.

For a heartbeat, he lingered, scuffing his boot on the pavement.

Then he turned away, shoulders slumped like a man who’d given up rattling the bars of his own cage.

My legs betrayed me.

I pitched forward, gravel biting into my palms, the taste of dirt and blood sharp as gin.

I lay there, lungs heaving, until rage burned through the haze.

I dragged myself up, splinters from the gate digging into my skin, legs shaking like I’d just survived a mortar blast.

I blinked until the street snapped into focus — empty, except for him.

Gliding down the centerline like smoke over a battlefield.

I stumbled after him. Clump. Drag. Clump.

My boots felt like stuffed sandbags.

"Oi!" My voice frayed, barely louder than the tinnitus whine in my ears.

When I grabbed his shoulder, he froze. No breath. No pulse. Just cold leather under my palm. Then...

His head slowly turned, like an owl’s. Hollow sockets stared back at me. The edges of his rotten mouth curved into a smile. Maggots crawled out from the gaps of his teeth.

I tried to wrench free, but my hand had fused to his jacket, sticky and warm like drying tar.

A truck’s horn shattered the air behind us. That’s when it hit me: we were standing right in the middle of the road.

I shut my eyes, bracing for the impact.

Darkness.

When I opened them, my hand clutched at nothing but stale air. The road was gone. No pines, no truck — just skeletal trees and a purple-black sky. Ahead, a door hung in the void, oozing gold light.

The faint hum coming from the door made me realize just how quiet it had become.

Then I felt it — something moved behind me. I turned.

There he stood. Same black clothes, same lazy slouch. But his face — no rot, no ruin. Just Rem. He had a crooked nose and a smirk tilted like the night I’d cracked a bottle over his head during poker.

"Rem?"

He snorted. "Took you six years to say hello?"

My chest tightened. "You’re..."

"Dead? Yeah. So’s your liver."

He kicked a pebble. It phased through his boot.

"Look, you gonna stand there gawking, or are we walking?"

"Walk where?"

He jabbed a finger at the glowing door. "Somewhere that ain’t got sand, bullets, or shitty whiskey."

Then he threw an arm around my shoulders, like he’d done a hundred times after patrols. Odd enough, I felt its weight.

"C’mon. The door’s not gonna wait forever."

We walked. And for the first time in years, the ache in my chest didn’t feel like a fist. It felt like a hand, pulling me home.