I'm so tired, but I can't fall asleep--not yet, anyway. Too risky.

I need caffeine, so I head for the Starbucks on 57th Street near Carnegie Hall. I know that if I can stay awake until morning everything will be all right, because they only come out at night. The ghosts.

A pile of rags, lying in an apartment doorway, looks up at me with rheumy eyes. He holds out his hand, pretending he's looking for a handout or a hand up. I'm not fooled. I know he's one of their agents, because he scarcely exists. And soon, he'll be completely forgotten. Another ghost. I flip him the finger and he grunts something at me before wrapping himself tighter in his tattered blanket.

Seeing him scares me. They're close. I decide to forgo my caffeine jolt and get my ass moving over to the 7th avenue subway. Yeah, let them try and find me in Brooklyn.

I swipe my MetroCard through the turnstile and make my way toward the train.  A subway cop glares at me like I'm a terrorist. So what if I'm sweating? Wouldn't you be if you were wearing a coat in June? It's not like I have any place to store it.

I make my way to one of the cars and drop onto a hard plastic seat across from the only other person in the subway car: a hot blond in her twenties wearing cutoffs and a halter. She's someone who would be remembered, definitely not a ghost. We make eye contact, but before I can tell her that I'm real, she leaves for a different car.

And I'm alone.

And, that is when they hunt you. When you're alone. When you sleep, they get inside you and make you into one of them.

My eyes close just for a moment. Can't keep them open.

A clawing on the window jolts me awake. It sounds like iron nails shredding a Coke can. Is it them? Or the brakes? I can't be sure. Maybe I should get off at the next stop and walk around for a while. It might keep me awake.

My eyes close again, I jerk awake when I hear people start to enter the car and fill up the seats. I don't remember stopping. An old man sits beside me and embraces me. He says that they will remember me. Always.

I close my eyes and allow my mind to drift off. For the first time since I've returned from Iraq, things aren't so bad.

David Siegel Bernstein's nonfiction has been published in academic journals and newsletters. His literary writing has appeared in Anotherealm, Black Petals, Outer Darkness, Reflections Literary Journal, Liquid Ohio, Wanderings, Bewildering Stories, Flashshot, Defenestration, Enigma, Static Movement, Midnight Times, Afterburn SF, Kliedotrope, The Curve Ball Conspiracy, and Aoifie's Kiss.