Part One
He opened his mailbox, the same boring old routine Oliver had been running on for sixteen years. But this time was different. He was in his pajamas instead of his work clothes.
Today was a perfect, crisp autumn Wednesday, red and orange and golden leaves descending from the trees and landing by his slippers as he stood by the road, shutting the hunk of metal that kept his mail out of the elements. He soon started back to his screen-mesh front door to avoid his neighbors. Wednesdays meant three bills, and occasionally junk mail; at least the second Wednesday of the month did, most of the time.
“Bill… bill… insurance bill… car dealership?” He glanced out of the kitchen window above the sink, seeing the 2011 Chevy Silverado in his driveway, rusted and begging for death. “No thanks.” He plopped everything onto the counter next to the sink, turning to leave the letters there, maybe do a few chores… but a creamy tan envelope peeking out from under the wide car dealership ad caught his eye. Interest and annoyance piqued, he lifted the rather stiff letter to see what made the mail so different today.
He turned the envelope after examining the front, just his name and address on the front with a stamp in the top right corner, the back though? His eyes widened as he saw the red wax that sealed the paper, a stamped imprint of multiple lines, thirty-six tick marks around in a circular shape, one in the middle closer to the left… a parabolic curve or three to make a crescent. A moon. The Midnight Syndicate.
The drowned-out memories started to come back to Oliver, his eyes still wide, his jaw basically on the floor. He quickly looked out the window to his mailbox, as if the sender would be there. As if the poor mailman had something to do with this sick joke. This had to be a joke.
. . .
“When did these dreams start?” The shrink asked, a pen and notepad ready.
“Last week. On Wednesday. When I got the letter.” Oliver replied, lying on a small couch, his voice weak.
“And, if I may, what was in this letter?”
“Memories.”
“Of?”
“The Midnight Syndicate.”
Twenty Years Ago
“C’mon Ollie!” A little boy giggled, rushing up a rope ladder.
“Hold on, Chester!” Oliver giggled back, climbing up the ladder a little faster.
Chester made it to the top, scurrying inside. “You’re so slow!” He complained playfully, wiggling the unstable rope ladder.
“Hey, stop that!”
“Stop being slow and you won’t have to deal with it!”
Oliver was soon at the top, crawling inside, exhausted from the unnecessarily difficult climb.
“See? You rushed up here for no reason! Nobody is here yet and nobody left a note saying they can’t come.”
“We aren’t here for the meeting, duh!” Chester teased, running over to a toy chest that Oliver’s mom brought there for them after she built it.
The young Oliver raised a brow, “Then why?” he asked, walking behind the boy and peeking over his shoulder.
Now
“Oh?” The shrink wrote something down. “And what did this boy grab from the chest?”
Oliver hesitated.
“If I may,” the shrink added, to make the question less forceful.
“A list.”
“Of?”
“Names. Our code names.”
The shrink recognized Oliver’s discomfort on the subject.
“Are you willing to share any, Oliver?” The shrink asked, writing something down on the little notepad.
Oliver curled his lips in with anxiety, his index and thumb pinching his jeans and rolling the handmade fold in the denim.
“If you’d like to move on–” the shrink started.
“I was Murky.” Oliver cut the shrink off, his tone nervous. “Sometimes just Mur.”
“I see a trend.”
“Che–” He cut himself off this time, “He liked the dark. He used to- used to go out in the middle of the night, sneak me out of my parents’ house, and stargaze from the treehouse roof.”
“What were the code names for? Were they all related to darkness?”
“They were…” Oliver admitted, turning onto his side, facing the shrink as he curled into the fetal position. “We were… a secret society.”
“Like a cult?”
“Like a club.”
