Hatman

Carla will never speak of it, but everyone knows something is there. She tries not to look, but the town sees. The town sees her hurried glances, always to the darkest corner of any room. Something is there. The rumor mill knows. The rumor mill always knows.

Not that Carla could ever hide it. Everyone has seen the way doors shutter open for her all on their own. Even locked doors rattle and shake and eventually swing open. Some say that she could stand in front of a steel bank vault and within an instant it would be gliding by on its oiled hinges. Dangerous, the gift of opening doors. If only they knew.

No, Carla will never speak of it. Even if no one could possibly call her crazy, she’ll keep her mouth shut. Afterall, only she can see it. Only she can see him. And to speak his name out loud, would be to cement his place in reality. She will never speak of him because she does not want to make him real. And yet, there is an undeniable realness to the way everyone dances around the topic. It’s hard to ignore the hiss of whispers that follow her everywhere. Or the way mothers cling tighter to their children when she walks by. Even in professional spaces like the bank, it’s obvious how nervous the manager gets.

She can only imagine how people talk when she isn’t around: cursed, witch, demon. Everyone is always polite, no one wants to upset her, but also no one wants to be her friend either.

The worst part is remembering the before. Yes, there is a before. A time when Carla had friends, genuine friends, who would tease her and share clothes and invite her to the parties they were hosting. But that was the before. Now, if Carla wants to party, she goes alone to the local grocery and buys discount wine by herself. And the acne-ridden teenager working the register ogles her like he’s watching a car crash. Won’t this make for a good story.

Carla couldn’t say the exact day when he arrived, but he’d been there every day since. One morning in college he was simply there. She could see him in her peripheral, standing in the corner of the room. He had startled her and she swung her head to look at him, but immediately he teleported to again be just out of view. Eventually she found the way to get the best look was to stare straight ahead and focus her mind on the edges of her vision. Still, all she could see was a tall, shadowy figure with a wide-brimmed hat.

Even on that first day Carla was never really scared of him. Maybe something about her is broken. Maybe that’s why he picked her in the first place. For some odd reason she’d found him interesting. As though hallucinations were a new experience for her to explore. In the beginning she really figured she was experiencing the consequences of prolonged sleep deprivation: one too many nights spent up playing video games.

But then she went to leave her room, and he didn’t just stay in the corner of her eye. She saw his shadow as he stretched out one unnaturally long arm. She heard the distinct sound of flesh popping and groaning as he reached towards the door. And when the door clicked open and her roommate was on the other side with a spooked expression asking, “Did the door just open on its own?” How could she deny him?

But deny him she did. That’s when she made up her rules:

1. Do not talk to Hatman 2. Do not think of Hatman 3. Do not speak of Hatman

This was also the day she gave Hatman his name. Hatman was overjoyed.

And then she tried to go on with her life. She attended classes with professors who were afraid of her and made her regular friend group uncomfortable by continuing to sit with them. Until, of course, they slowly moved to a new spot she didn’t know of.

“Jess! Jess!” Carla called out on the Monday after she was first forced to buy wine alone. “Hey! I haven’t seen you in ages. I heard you had a party… why didn’t you text me?”

There had been a part of Carla who knew she was a freak. But there was also a larger part that genuinely thought that if she ignored it everyone else would too. But Jessica couldn’t ignore it and neither could the other women. If it had been a superpower, maybe it would have made her cool. Special in some way. But everyone felt the coldness that entered the room with her, and no one wanted to be a part of that.

That day Carla came home and screamed. She dared to do something she would never do again. She screamed at Hatman, turning in circles to look at him. “Why me? Why’d you pick me? EITHER SHOW YOURSELF OR LEAVE ME ALONE!” She sobbed.

And Hatman showed himself.

For the first time she was able to look at him directly. And she was able to see just how real he was.

Shadows almost entirely covered his face due to the long-brimmed hat that defined his look. But in some preternatural way Carla could sense his crooked smile under all that darkness. His hands were thin and knobby. He had long fingers at the tip of which rested dirty nails either ripped or uncut. He wore a black trench coat, many sizes too big. Pools of coat hung from his bones, revealing even amongst all that fabric that he had a skeletal figure. It draped on the ground, soaking in mud and stains unknown. He was a man made mostly of hat and shadow.

Even in the midst of this new terrifying picture, Carla noticed something even more terrible. Something that was missing. Hatman didn’t breathe. His chest didn’t rise or fall or even twitch. He stood there completely still and completely silent. And Carla couldn’t help but think in the back of her mind, where secretly she knew how afraid she was: can something that doesn’t breathe be killed?

And Hatman didn’t like that thought very much.