I wrote this short story for submission to a horror-themed web series. Length: ~2,000 words Previously published as Aly van Limbergen

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The Vase

My mom loves junk. My whole life, she’s been bringing home crap from antique stores and yard sales—handmade quilts, creepy knick-knacks, enough kitchenware to put Martha Stewart to shame.

But she’d never brought me anything like this before. A porcelain vase painted with a scene of waves crashing over a rocky shore, beneath a roll of steel-colored clouds. When I gave her a baffled look, she shrugged and said, “I thought the place could use sprucing up a bit.”

“What, you don’t like my Kill Bill poster?” I joked.

A small wooden hut was set back from the shore a ways; as I looked, I noticed the figure of a man leaning against the side of it, his head bowed. The whole scene was profoundly depressing. I wondered why someone had painted this on a vase.

Mom said, “It’s funny…I don’t know why, but it made me think of Andrew.”

I turned cold inside.

Mom knew something had happened. It was obvious, since we went from practically living in each other’s pockets to just—nothing. But you don’t talk about that kind of thing with your mom. Or at least, I don’t.

“What, this guy?” I reached out and tapped my finger against the porcelain, trying to make a joke of it. The figure leaning against the hut was no bigger than my pinky. “How d’ya figure that?” There aren’t exactly a lot of windswept shores in Indiana.

Mom peered over my arm, her glasses sliding down her nose as she frowned. “Hmm, that is strange. I could have sworn he was looking right at me.”

When I replied, “Maybe you need to see someone,” she pretended to break the vase over my head.

It was weird. I’d never thought much about art, or how it made me feel. But when I looked at this vase, I felt—no. It wasn’t like I was feeling; it was like the feeling was happening to me. A sudden sadness crashing over me, like the waves over the rocky shore.

I put the vase on a shelf in my bedroom to protect it from my roommates—though I wasn’t sure I liked having it in the room while I was sleeping. I think my sister would have said it had ‘bad vibes’.

Of course, I dreamed about it that night.

It was nothing dramatic—just startlingly vivid: picking my way up the shore, my feet slipping on the pebbles, the salt spray stinging my face. The man—Andrew—waiting for me, leaning against the hut with his hands in his pockets, his head bowed.

I was ten paces from him when he lifted his head and looked right at me.

I woke up.

My heart was racing, my breath coming in pants.

I don’t know what made me turn the light on and go over to the shelf. Some kind of sixth sense, I guess.

The man on the vase was looking right at me.

“No—come on, man,” I said aloud.

This was bullshit.

I forced myself to pick up the vase and turn it around, just to be sure—but the back showed nothing. Only grey sky and sea.

I put the vase back down. Mom thought the guy was looking out before, right? It must have been a trick of the light or something, and I’d just had a weird dream and creeped myself out.

I went back to sleep. I didn’t think about the scene painted on the vase or about the sadness that was crashing over me like waves. I didn’t think about Andrew.

I got used to the vase after that. Well, more or less. I couldn’t sleep at first, ‘cause it felt like the man on the vase was watching me. I started throwing my shirt over it when I went to bed—but after the first time I woke the next morning to find it had slid off during the night, that creeped me out even more than just leaving it uncovered.

It never occurred to me to get rid of it. Mom had impressed on me too well that you never throw out a gift.

It was all fine until the day Mrs. Henderson came into the store.

From the outside, it looked perfectly normal. A woman chatting to her son’s friend while he rang up her purchases. She asked how it was going; I said I hoped everyone was well. Neither of us even mentioned Andrew’s name. Which was worse somehow than if she’d asked why I never came around anymore—‘cause now I had to worry about what he’d told her.

When I got home, I skipped dinner and shut myself up in my room with a bottle of vodka. I figured that maybe if I let myself get fucked up one time then I could get over it, because clearly ignoring it wasn’t working.

I’ve never been very good at ignoring things. But I couldn’t tell anyone this—not my other friends, definitely not my mom. I was as alone as the man on the vase—and it was his fault. Andrew’s fault.

“He kissed me!”

I guess I was talking to the man on the vase, ‘cause it’s not like there was anyone else there to hear.

“You can’t just—” My voice cracked. Jesus. “You can’t just do that to a guy!”

The man on the vase had nothing to say to that.

Maybe I should move to Maine and become a fisherman or some shit. It would definitely beat figuring out what the fuck I was supposed to do now I didn’t have my best friend anymore.

I wiped my eyes and put the cap back on the vodka bottle. It was quiet outside, so I went to make a sandwich. When I came back, I sensed immediately that something was wrong.

I walked over to the vase.

The man had moved. He was standing in front of the hut, one arm raised, like he was waving to someone.

“Oh, no, no, no,” I said, shaking my head. It was impossible. I was drunk; I was having some kind of mental break caused by a having gay hookup with my best friend of ten years, who’d stopped taking my calls.

I turned the vase to face the wall, turned out the light, and passed out on my bed.

The sunlight streaming through my open curtains woke me. On the shelf across the room, the vase had turned back around. The man’s arm was still raised like he was waving, or reaching out.

Something in me snapped.

“Oh, fuck this.” I shoved my feet into my shoes and wedged the vase under my arm, and went downstairs. I was throwing this creepy fucking vase in the dumpster, I didn’t even care that it was a present.

Once I got down to the basement, though, I couldn’t make myself do it.

It was stupid—but I felt like the man on the vase was me. Like he looked the way I felt. Alone. Reaching out.

And I knew exactly how it felt to be discarded like a piece of junk. Didn’t I?

Jesus. I really was turning into my mom.

I went back upstairs to my apartment, and put the vase back on my bedroom shelf. I figured I’d just have to learn to live with it, like I had to learn how to live with not having my best friend anymore.

So I got on with things. I went to work and came home again, hung out with my roommates and played Xbox. I went to my parents’ for Sunday lunch, helped my dad build a shed in the yard. Normal things.

All the time, the man on the vase was getting closer.

It happened so subtly that at first, I didn’t even notice. I got into the habit of looking at it every night before I turned out the light, and allowing myself to feel—sad, I guess. Feel the waves crashing over me.

I just wanted Andrew back. Even if we never did anything like—like that again. I missed my friend.

It was almost a week before I noticed the man on the vase was no longer standing directly in front of the hut. That he was a few paces closer, like he was walking down the path towards the shore—towards me.

Once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t stop noticing.

Every day, the man on the vase was just a little closer, a little bigger. I even started measuring him with a ruler—one inch, then two inches, then three. I felt like I was going insane. But I didn’t know how to deny what my eyes were seeing.

The closer he got, the more I thought the man looked like Andrew.

I stopped sleeping. All I could think about when I lay down was the man getting closer and closer, and the dread in the pit of my stomach at the thought of what would happen when he reached me. I started having these nightmares where I was running over the shore, my feet slipping on the pebbles, far too slow. I knew he was behind me, that he was gaining on me, that he’d catch me—

I awoke with a jolt.

When I sat up in bed, I had to put my hand over my mouth to stop myself from screaming.

The man’s face and hands were pressed up against the surface of the vase like it was a pane of glass. His eyes were wide, his eyebrows raised and lips parted like he was crying out. Up close, he looked so much like Andrew, it was like someone had painted him.

I got up and threw my shirt over the vase.

As I watched, it slid off and pooled against the shelf.

I did it again. Again, it slid off.

My hands were shaking.

I grabbed my shirt, pulled it on and ran from the room.

I made a cup of tea and sat on the couch, my thoughts whirling. I couldn’t get Andrew’s face out of my mind. I was terrified, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a cry for help. Like there was something trapped inside the vase that wanted to get out—not to hurt anyone. Just to be free.

That was when I saw the ouija board in the bookcase.

Mikey had bought it last month, ‘cause his girlfriend was into that stuff. I didn’t join them ‘cause I thought it was dumb. But now—

At the very least, I needed to understand what I was seeing.

I waited until midnight, then put the board out on my bedroom floor. I placed the vase on the other side, lit four candles from the kitchen drawer and stood them in drinking glasses around us to make a circle. I knew it was ridiculous, but at the same time I felt something, even if it was just my own anticipation.

You were supposed to start these things by saying hello, right? I thought I’d seen that in a movie. So I put my fingers on the planchette and spelled out: H-E-L-L-O.

I waited. I looked at the vase—at Andrew’s face, his mouth still open in a silent cry.

My hands moved without my permission.

H-E-L-P

I sucked in a breath. My heart was pounding.

“How do I help you?” I asked—then in case he couldn’t understand, spelled out the letters, H-O-W.

My hands moved again. T-R-A-P-P-E-D

I was right!

Before I could react, the planchette spelled out: D-R-E-W.

I almost laughed.

It wasn’t like I thought the man in the vase was actually Andrew. My Andrew was in his apartment across town, probably sleeping like a baby and not thinking about me at all. But I couldn’t help feeling beyond a doubt that it meant something.

I asked, “How do I free you, Drew?”

The reply was instantaneous.

K-I-S-S-M-E

At no point did I stop and think about what I was really dealing with here. I was beyond thinking rationally. I just wanted my Andrew back.

I lifted up the vase and pressed my lips against the cold porcelain.

I must have blacked out; the next thing I knew, I was there. I could see the steel-grey clouds overhead, feel the pebbles under my feet, the salt spray stinging my face. I could smell the ocean.

I looked up the path towards the hut where Andrew was standing, leaning against the wall, his head bowed.

He raised his head and looked right at me—and smiled.

I ran up the path and into his arms.

“Welcome home,” he whispered, as I held onto him like I wanted to for the rest of my life. “Look. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Reluctantly, I let go, and turned around.

I thought I’d see the ocean.

Instead, I saw my bedroom. On the floor, my own body, lying across the ouija board, out cold, the four candles still burning in their glasses.

I watched in shock as my eyes opened, and I smiled.

I whirled around.

I was alone. Andrew was gone.

I looked back.

“Thank you for freeing me,” the man wearing my face told me, as my eyes widened in horror.

I ran back down the path, holding up my hands, my mouth open on a silent cry as the man stripped off my shirt and threw it over the vase, still smiling.

It was the last thing I saw.