Jacquelyn’s Bio:

Jacquelyn Malone is a poet whose work has been published in many journals, including Poetry Magazine, Poetry Northwest, andPloughshares. She won an NEA fellowship grant as a poet, but this is the first time she has sent out a work of fiction to be published. She recently completed a novel, which is the story of the murder of one twin by his brother, a story that takes place in a Southern fundamentalist farming community in the late 1950s. She has worked as a writer/editor in the software industry for over a decade and has taught technical and scientific writing and editing at Northeastern University.

The Hair

By Jacquelyn Malone

The new tenant looked too much like Eddy. Every time Ben ran into him in the mailbox entrance way, his skin prickled. “Good morning, Mr. Carter,” he’d say, articulating each syllable too carefully. “Mornin,’” Ben replied.

Mabel said, “Hang it up, Ben. He’s MIT. They’re all a little weird.”

When their son Eddy died and Ben went out on disability, Ben and Mabel converted the other side of their duplex to studios. Their bedroom backed up to the one they rented to the student. Each night Ben lay awake, listening to static beyond the wall, a sound so soft Mabel didn’t hear it. “For God’s sake, Ben, get some sleep!”

The sound seemed electric. Ben checked the monthly bill; there’d been no dramatic increase.

“He doesn’t get mail.”

“So?”

“All students get mail.”

One morning the student returned midday, talking to himself as he walked down the street. Ben watched from the window, and, even from a distance, he noticed a gray hair glinting in the sun—gray on one so young. His black hair was uniformly smooth, but this hair was stiff, metallic. The student saw Ben staring and stopped talking.

The hair was there, then gone—as if reeled back into his skull.

“It’s an antenna—right in the side of his head.”

“Christ Almighty,” Mabel said, “you’re making me nervous.”

“They work on robots over there. He could have taken someone’s body.”

Ben bought two large mirrors and a peephole used in apartment doors. He chopped down the tree in the side yard to install the first mirror and catch the foot traffic down the street. He trained the second on the first—so he could see the sidewalk from the back of the house.

“What are you doing?” Mabel screamed as the tree they’d planted two years before keeled over.

“It was dying.”

“It was not!” Mabel backed off, staring.

The wall outlets in both rooms were back to back. While Mabel shopped, he installed the peephole flush to the student’s bedroom wall by the outlet between the rooms, keeping his eye trained on the backyard mirror so he wouldn’t be unexpectedly interrupted. On their side, he moved their nightstand over the hole.

After Mabel was asleep, he lay on the floor and stared through the hole. The room’s light was briny yellow, and a body’s shadow waved on the wall, the head wagging back and forth to the beat of something other than the constant static. He could be working out the kinks in his neck, Ben thought, or it could be a rite. He settled in for a long vigil.

“Come to bed, Sweetheart.” Mabel was lying beside him on the floor. “I heard you crying.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders.

“See!” he said. “See the light. It looks like brimstone.”

Mabel was quiet for a while. “He’s not a demon. He hasn’t taken Eddy's body, Sweetheart. He’s just a kid.” She rubbed his temples.

He’d need stronger evidence. He needed to show her his body. She’d remember the scar where Eddy cut his knee and the tiny birthmark on his chest.

He stood outside the student’s door. He could wire the doorknob so that when he touched it, he would be electrocuted. But electrical volts might not work on a creature like him.

Mabel found him in the basement sharpening a butcher knife. She watched as he tested the tip, pretending to plunge it deep into something hard.

“Give me the knife,” she said softly. He jumped back.

“Let me have the knife.”

As he gave it to her, tears rolled down his cheeks.

He waited in the living room for her to leave for bingo, but he didn’t hear her come downstairs until she sat beside him.

“I talked to Dr. Sutton last night.”

Ben didn’t move.

“He wants you to go back to the hospital...to adjust your medication.”

He rose suddenly, smashing her face with the flat of his hand. “Don’t you see? He’s got Eddy's soul.”

As he took the stairs, he knew she was dialing 911.

He hurled himself against the student’s door again and again. Mabel was running up the steps. Sunlight from the skylight fell from above. It was then he noticed it—a gray hair protruding from her head, stiff and metallic.

With a sudden realization, he propelled himself toward her, knowing the stairs behind her were uncommonly steep.

***