Ryan's Suffering

by Lloyd Paulson

  He head was bowed, and she was looking at me, demurely. She moved to the second button on her blouse. "Come on. It's harmless. I promise."

  I grabbed the door handle behind me. "I'm sorry, but no."

  I bolted.

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  Mike was staring at me as I came out of the office. The blonde exited a few minutes later, glaring over at me.

  "What the fuck was that? Did you tap that shit?"

  "No, I did not quote tap that shit end quote. My penis never entered her. I freaking wish. She was pissed at me for hitting on one of her friends earlier and wanted to bitch me out."

  He looked at her. Looked back at me. "Don't bullshit me. You hit that shit, didn’t you?"

  I looked evenly back at him. "Does she look like the type of girl that would even give me the time of day?"

  Mike frowned. He thought it over. "No. Probably not. Lucky you weren’t tossed out."

  "Yeah, how's that?"

  Mike shook his head. "Never mind. You don't want to know." After a few minutes, Mike laughed. "I kind of set you up. You know who that is, don’t you?"

  I shook my head "No," and took a swig of beer.

  "You’re lucky you didn’t get bounced out the front door head first when you asked her to dance. That’s the owner's daughter. They call her the Barracuda herself."

  I choked on my beer. I coughed and gagged badly, I had inhaled so hard.

  Mike laughed, pounding me on the back, giggling the entire fucking time. "You’re telling me you DID hit that shit? You gotta be fuckin’ shittin’ me! No fucking way. Now you have to tell me. Aw, fuck, man. You almost had me convinced. Almost. Goddamned. Who’d of thought? There’s guys who’ve had their fucking arms broke and dicks nearly ripped off just for hitting on that fucking cunt around here, and here I dare you to ask that bitch to dance and you end up banging her. What the fuck man? What the fuck?"

  "I didn't hit that shit. I told you, she's pissed at me. You saw how she was looking at me."

  Two bouncers walked over, and stood over us, arms crossed. "You two are going to have to leave. Now."

  Mike looked over at me. "What the fuck did you say to her?"

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  The odd incident with Ms. Barracuda-the-owner's-daughter notwithstanding, the beer game degenerated into an amusing and pointless diversion for me. After a few weeks of this stupid game, I only had to split the first few rounds with him. After he was slightly tipsy, he’d start pushing me to go and ask girls to dance.

  Every once in a while, they said "Yes," and it pissed me off, fond memories Ms. Barracuda-the-owner's-daughter notwithstanding. Whatever. Then, I figured out that if I walked over, and openly ogled and stared at her breasts before mumbling, "Wanna dance," they ALWAYS said no. It simplified the process. No dancing. No explanations. No bullshit. Piss the bitch off by mumbling and acting insecure, they get pissy and tell you to get lost, I get free drinks. Foolproof and simple. Being shot down equaled free booze. I thought it was a great deal. Saved me from explaining to Mike why I couldn’t pay him back. Guilt-free binge drinking on Mikey's dime.

  That’s what my life was. I worked. I read. I pissed off young women to get free beer and booze. Not an exciting plan, but it worked. It’s not living; it’s existing. That’s all I was. If that isn’t a chicken shit form of suicide, what is? I was going through the motions of living. That was it. My great ambition was to ogle boobs for beer every weekend. It was a life. No more, though sometimes less.

  Then I met Trish. Christ, did she throw me off track. Fucked up my boring little existence. God bless her, and goddamn her.

  ~~~~~~ *LP* ~~~~~~

  I picked up the keys off the floorboard of my car. It’s a stupid fucking habit, leaving them there where anyone can find them, but I tend to lose my keys. If I leave them on the floor of the car out of habit, I can (usually) find them. It’s small town life—nobody would fuck with someone else’s car in Dark Harbor, let alone steal it. Why fucking bother? Everyone knows everyone else.

  I threw a canvas bag into the passenger seat, and sat down in the driver’s seat. I glanced over at the canvas bag, wondering both where the fuck it came from, and what was in it. I tried to reach over and look, but instead, I climbed in, slammed the door, and started the car. Dafuq?

  I felt dizzy and disconcerted, my body refusing my commands. I felt panicked, and tried to jerk my body back into the seat out of reflex. Instead, I reached up started the car, shifted into reverse, and backed out of the driveway with the lights off. I turned the headlights on once I was out on the road.

  I wondered what the fuck I was doing and why

  I tried to put the car into reverse and go back home. No joy. Apparently, I was along for a joyride within my own body.

  I didn’t want to take this trip. I wanted to go home, and go fucking back to bed.

  The car accelerated smoothly forward. There would be no reverse, no walking back into the house. I was not in control. Fuckola.

  The thought of bed rang a bell, and I realized that I had to have been dreaming. The last that I could remember, I was flipping the cat the bird on the windowsill in our bedroom. I didn’t remember drifting off to sleep, though. I tried to wake myself up with a mighty shove.

  I expected to bolt awake screaming, and scaring the shit out of Trish again. However, since that had failed once already, perhaps I would experience the helpless freewheeling feeling I had when I kept seeing the endless copies of my father in the dilapidated house. Instead, I was standing in the deep woods on a bright, moonlit night. I spun around wildly, gasping for breath with the sudden unexpected change, but at least my body was responding to my goddamned commands.

  I stopped cold, and stared without breathing, my hear hammering in my chest. Crickets sang their night song at full volume, and the high-pitched hum of mosquitoes was loud in my ears. I swatted at them absently, staring wide-eyed at a sickeningly familiar sight that set off alarm bells in my head, thought I couldn’t place why.

  There was a large, dead tree in a clearing just off the pathway. Dangling from the dead limbs were numerous pairs of children and toddler’s shoes, some severely weather beaten and rotted, tied together by the shoestrings and swaying gently, although there was no breeze.

  The sound of crickets died suddenly, like the end of applause. I heard a few chirps from a straggling cricket that quickly stuttered, then ceased and it was deathly silent for a few moments. I heard a loud "Crack!", as if something large stepped on a branch from fifty yards behind me. I almost bolted and ran—but I had no idea where I was or would end up running to.

  I moaned and rolled my eyes, whirling to face what was behind me. I saw nothing, but heard a large "Swish!" from high overhead from what sounded like it was fifty yards away, as if something very large suddenly shifted and a large branch that was bent back finally swung free. Then it was maddeningly quiet, which was worse.

  I shoved again, trying to force myself awake, and instead, found myself back in the front seat of my car as it parked—in front of a goddamned fire hydrant. I couldn’t move again. I was a passenger along for the ride. I tried to tell the jackass in control of my body that this was a bad idea, parking in front of a motherfucking fire hydrant. He apparently couldn't hear, or he wasn’t listening.

  He turned the keys off in the ignition with my hand. I tried to make him start the car. I wanted to go home but it wasn't fucking happening. Instead, I sat in the seat of the car, the lights and engine off, parked next to a fire hydrant, staring at a house two doors down.

  I knew I had never seen this house before. Despite having driven past it numerous times, it had never caught my attention. I had no recollection whatsoever of it. However, I knew I/he/we were on Fourth Street. I racked my brain, and simply could not remember the house at all. There was no recognition there. The house meant nothing to me. Not even a tickle, not even a little spark of possible recognition. I drew a blank—just a generic house in a generic neighborhood in Dark Harbor. I'd dr
iven past it, but it never registered before.

  A car was approaching, cruising slowly down the street. As it passed under a street lamp a half a block up, I could see the outline of a light bar on top of a black and white sedan. I/he sunk low into the seat, just barely peering above the dashboard as it approached. The cop drove past me/us without even looking.

  We watched in the side mirror as the cop turned up a side street. The prick didn’t use his turn signal. Fucking hypocrite, I tried to mumble, but the thought echoed flatly inside my head, unanswered.

  I/we/he got out of the car, and shut the door gently. Not my choice, as I’ve made clear, but I was not in control here. I was a first-person spectator stuck in a bad ‘B’ movie. You already know when he opens the door to the little girl’s room that you can scream at the movie screen for the dumb bitch to run, but she won’t. She never fucking does.

  I walked straight towards the front door. I prayed to god that the door would be locked while knowing there was no such chance, but even if the door was locked, would it stop him/me? I opened the front door, and stepped inside. The door clicked shut behind me.

  It was dark in the foyer, and I immediately walked up the dark stairs, turned right, and stopped in front of a bedroom door. He was obviously familiar with the house, and where we were headed.

  A soft, shimmering, shifting grey light seeped out from under the closed door. I listened intently, but only heard the muted sounds of what sounded like a game show. He twisted the doorknob, and nudged the door open. The hinges creaked and groaned loudly, and I tried to wince.

  A woman was lying on the bed. The TV was on, but she was fast asleep on top of the covers. I stared at her, but again there was no spark of recognition. I didn’t know her. I couldn’t even say that I had seen her in passing one day in line at a gas station. I guess Dark Harbor is not as small of a town as I thought.

  I walked over to her bedside, and sat down heavily beside her as the mattresses springs squawked in protest. She didn’t stir.

  On the nightstand next to the bed was a nearly empty bottle of cheap whiskey. A pill bottle was open next to it. I reached out for the pill bottle and freaked out momentarily, thinking I was in control. It was coincidental. My mute buddy in control apparently had the same thought I did. I tried to set the bottle back down on the nightstand, but instead, I read the label.

  It was a prescription for hydrocodone, generic Vicodin. Prescribed to one "Jessica Winters". I set the pill bottle down, and looked down at Ms. Jessica Winters. I still could not recognize her. She had dishwater blond hair, and could actually have been pretty—but she wasn’t. Now, she looked ragged. She was like a well-worn play-toy, used and abused, having been handed down several times. She was dressed in a ragged tank top and granny panties.

  I reached down and slapped her across the face. Hard. I tried to wince at this unexpected action. I felt nauseous, from the lack of control and this callous disregard. Her head rolled towards the side, but she didn’t react. There was no fluttering of her eyelids, or a hitch in her deep breathing.

  I slapped her again. Still nothing, but I felt dizzy, like my stomach wanted to do a lazy flip-flop.

  I grabbed her breast, and squeezed. Hard. "Wake up, slut."

  I pinched her nipple, and twisted it nearly a half turn. Still nothing. I twisted it further, pulling hard. She should have been shrieking in pain—or maybe delight, dependent upon her tastes. Either way, she should have noticed. I sure did, but I couldn't turn away from this degenerate's bullshit actions. This wasn't some fly he was tearing wings off from; this was a human being, for Christ's sake.

  "Fucking bar whore," I said with a deep gravelly voice I didn’t recognize.

  I stood up, and stared down at Jessica. One nipple stood out starkly against her tank top. That’s going to hurt like hell in the morning, I thought. However, I already realized that Jessica might not be in the frame of mind to really notice. My friend here apparently hadn’t dragged us in here just to check up on her and see how she was doing.

  I turned, and stared into the mirror.

  A haggard, unshaved face peered at me. I didn’t recognize the face. The eyes were dark—almost pitch black. I couldn’t see the whites of the eyes.

  "You ready for some fun?" the face in the mirror said to me.

  I tried to howl, I tried to look away. I was trying to thrash, but the body would not respond. Instead, the face smiled at me. The smile was full of rotten teeth.

  The face morphed into the face of my backyard visitor, my grandfather. "You fucking whelp. You want to walk in the Shadows? I’ll show what lurks in the shadows."

  The face morphed again. I was now staring at my father’s face. "You’ll never amount to shit. Fucking quarter-breed who half-asses everything you do. This is gonna hurt me more than it hurts you, but it’s for your own good."

  I started walking towards the closet, and I could smell urine. I felt my bladder loosening, full and heavy. I glanced back at the mirror, and I was staring at my own reflection.

  I shrieked inside our shared head, and turned away from the sight trying to bolt.

  Instead, I found myself running toward the freaky familiar shoe-tree in the woods again.

  I stopped. "What…the…fuck?" I gasped between breaths.

  "Back again, I see."

  I jumped backwards a few steps, gasping in shock and realizing grandpa was standing beside the tree. He was barely discernible in the shifting light of the moonlight filtering through the fluttering leaves.

  I heard a low, deep thud and felt an impact tremor from something heavy moving in the woods. I whirled, wondering what the fuck could be that big in the woods of Michigan. Outside of deer and bear in the north end, there ain't shit to worry about outside of rednecks with guns.

  "Don’t pay any attention to that, you’ll just encourage it."

  I spun around towards my grandfather, incredulous. "What do you mean, ‘it’?"

  A match flared in the darkness, and he lit a cigarette. He puffed briefly, and shook out the match. "Are you ready to quit fucking around and listen yet, for Chris' sakes?"

  I stomped several steps towards him, leaves crunching beneath my feet, and pointed in a random direction. "I thought I told you to get the fuck out of my yard."

  He sighed, and the cigarette flared briefly. "We’re not in your goddamned yard, son. You don’t catch on too fucking quickly, do you? You a bit on the stupid side?"

  I head a low deep moan behind me, some distance off. I shuddered, ready to run again, and stepped a little closer towards him. I vaguely wondered why that would begin to comfort me. "Where the fuck are we then?"

  "I’ve already told you, and you already know. We’re in the shadows."

  I listened as a high shriek in the distance wound upwards, and then cut off suddenly, giving me goose bumps. I wanted to run, but to where? Instead, I shuddered, clenching my teeth. "No, I don’t fucking know. I’m not in the shadows, I’m at home, in bed, sleeping, and you’re a figment of my fucking imagination."

  He nodded. "You could have been at home, sleeping. Instead, you are here in the shadows. As for me?" He paused, thinking. "I’m real enough, for now. As for what you know…well, you do know. You just don’t want to fucking remember."

  He dropped the cigarette in the leaves, and ground it out with his heel. He smiled, knowingly. "Tell me, Elioud, did you kill your mother, sister, and all those others?"

  My temper exploded within me, and I lunged for him. I grabbed him by his neck, and tried to strangle him. However, I realized I wasn’t strangling him…no, it was the bar whore, the apparent Jessica Winters in my grasp. She was lying on the cracked linoleum of her kitchen floor, the chair that she was tied to knocked over on its back. I was straddling her chest, my hands locked on her neck. I tried to release her in revulsion, but I wasn’t in control again.

  I heard muffled, high-pitched screaming and crying behind me, but I couldn’t turn and look. Jessica’s eyes were bulging and her tongue lolled, thick,
and purple between her lips. She was slapping weakly at my gloved hands, though I couldn’t release her. After a few moments, she convulsed weakly beneath my grip, and I released her, standing up above her.

  I stepped away, and turned towards the table.

  A young girl sat at the table, also tied to a chair that was upright, was struggling against the ropes that bound her, her eyes wide and wild. She screamed against the duct tape over her mouth, as her mother coughed and gasped on her back on the floor next to the table.

  I reached for a roll of duct tape on the table, and picked it up. I could feel myself smile at the young girl, as I peeled a long section of tape off the roll. Then I bent over her mother again, lifted her head, and wrapped the tape over her mouth. I dropped her head, and it bonked against the floor loudly.

  Her eyes fluttered open, as she drew deep snorting breaths through her nose. I stood up, and picked up a pruning saw off the table. I held it up so her daughter could see, then turned and waved it over Jessica’s face so she could see. She stared at the saw, wide-eyed with fear.

  I bent over, and grabbed Jessica’s left arm firmly with my left hand. Her arms were tied securely with rope to the arm of the chair, on its back on the floor of the kitchen. He hands fluttered wildly as she bucked and writhed against the restraints, scooting the chair around on the dirty floor.

  I planted one knee firmly into her stomach, and she groaned, her head still whipping wildly from side to side, rapping against the floor hard. I placed the saw against her wrist, and started sawing.

  Soon, blood started to flow, then gush in time with her pounding heart, splattering with a thick, wet sound as the blood rained on the linoleum.

  Once her hand was free from her arm, I stood, and tossed the bloody hand into her daughter's lap, blood falling in wet, ropy splatters.