The Flat: A Novel of Supernatural Horror

by Jack Douglas

  Back in upstate New York it was still very early, but her mother rose with the sun. Her father didn’t, but she didn’t really care if she woke him. In fact, her mother would probably commend her for it, would probably say, “I’m glad you woke the lazy piece of shit.”

  What was she waiting for? Things weren’t going to change, no mattered how often or how fervently Craig promised. He had assured her that he would change once they got to Hawaii. Fat chance. He still refused to make the bed, left dirty dishes in the sink, wouldn’t order his own food, wouldn’t drive. Still slathered his hands in Purell every time he stepped outside.

  Jeez. Was that the way she wanted her children to grow up? Fearing everything the way he did? And would he want to control the kids the way he controlled her? Sure, he had assured her he would make a good father, and she believed that he would try. But was it even possible, given what he’d been through as a child?

  She heard the front door groan open yet again.

  She was glad she had stayed on the pill. She had told Craig her doctor had instructed her to stay on it until they were ready to try. To keep her period regular. She knew he wasn’t buying it but she didn’t really care. So long as he didn’t argue about it.

  She listened, but didn’t hear the door close.

  She could call her mother and simply tell her they had arrived. That Craig was in the next room and she would call her back later. She could say that everything was just fine. That she was staying. Later she could always say she changed her mind.

  She folded over the page she had been reading and closed her book. She placed it on the night table next to the bed and stared at the phone. Finally she lifted the receiver off its cradle and put it to her ear.

  There was no dial tone, only a crackling noise. She pressed down on the switch hook and continued listening for a tone. The crackling became louder, then she heard a faint voice. It sounded as though it were coming from a distance.

  “Hello?” Amy said. “Is someone on the line?”

  The crackling grew louder and Amy pressed the phone harder against her ear. “Hello,” she said again.

  “...socorro...”

  The voice was speaking in another language. Most likely Portuguese. It was soft yet urgent, gliding along the crackling sound like a surfer on a wave.

  “...por favor...”

  It was the only phrase Amy could make out. At least the only words that made any sense to her. She drew a breath and pressed the switch hook again, trying not to grow too flustered. After all, it was probably nothing more than lines being crossed.

  The crackling was louder now, and so too was the voice. It was a female’s voice, not an old woman’s, but not a young woman’s either.

  “...ajude-me...”

  “Excuse me,” Amy said, though she knew it was futile. “Our lines are crossed. Can you hang up the phone and try again?”

  “...por favor...”

  Amy shouted, “Excuse me but I’m trying to make a call.”

  Then the voice started shrieking. It was much closer now, as though the woman on the other end had picked up the phone and was screaming directly into the handset. Amy held her receiver away from her ear as it rang from the shrill, piercing cry.

  “...fogo!”

  Amy pressed the switch hook again and again. The woman was still there, still shouting. The crackling sound still accompanying her cries. Amy slammed down the phone.

  That’s just great. Her breathing quickened. She wasn’t sure whether it was her frustration over the fact that the lines were crossed, or the woman on the other end who had been hollering in her ear in Portuguese. Whatever it was, she was unnerved—more anxious than she had been all morning.

  She snatched up her book and lay back down. Opened it to the page she had been reading. She started again from the top. The book was an old paperback her mother had lent her and she hated it. But she refused to abandon it because Craig would know. He’d say, “It sucked, didn’t it? Hate to say I told you so.” And then she would have to ask him for another book to read. And once she got through the first few chapters she would have to talk about it. She’d have to “discuss” it, like she was a third grader giving a fucking book report in front of the class.

  The sound came first and then she felt the report in her stomach. She dropped the paperback onto the floor and tried to steady her hands.

  The front door had suddenly slammed shut. And it had sounded like an explosion.

  Chapter Fourteen

  His stomach growled. He stepped out of the kitchen, walked back to the window and watched the dog again. He thought about giving it a name. Him a name. It’s a him, he thought. Poor little thing, probably never hurt anybody. And he wasn’t asking for much. Just a few scraps of food to fill his belly, maybe enough so that those gawking on the street couldn’t see his ribs. The dog was hungry. Craig was hungry.

  (“You have a tapeworm!”)

  But as far as Craig was concerned, the dog alone deserved to eat.

  He had screwed up. He’d thought that Lisbon alone could solve all his problems. That the city itself could help salvage his relationship, that its exoticness would somehow seep into his body and inspire him to write. His mother always told him that he couldn’t run away from himself. But he’d tried. He’d tried by fleeing to Honolulu. By fleeing to Lisbon. And it looked now as though neither attempt was going to work. Amy wanted away from him, regardless of where in the world they were. And without her, and without the Vicodin, he would fall into a depression too deep to work. And once he was alone and could no longer work…

  He turned from the window and sat at the table, powered up his laptop computer and logged into his email.

  “Welcome!”

  “Up yours, you old throwback,” he muttered.

  “You’ve got mail!”

  He knew there had to be a way to disable that annoying sound file, but he never took the time to figure it out. It was always so much more tempting to delve right into his messages than to interrupt whatever he was doing and go through the steps of disabling it.

  He opened his inbox and deleted more spam. Then he scrolled down to the message from his agent. He opened it.

  Hi Craig. Just wanted to say have a safe trip to Portugal. I’m very excited about the publication of Libations, and I look forward to reading your next book. Best, Jenna

  Sure, now she was excited. There was a time though when she wouldn’t return his emails for months. A time when she was no longer interested in reading his work at all. A time when she went so far as to terminate his contract. She’d left him, abandoned him, when he had needed her most, when times were tough and the writing wasn’t going well and he needed some guidance, some direction. She had walked out on him then and now she was excited; excited because she’d sold his book, because he was now going to be a published author, he was making her money, a racehorse in her stable. Now she was wishing him a safe trip, she was looking forward to receiving his next manuscript, to reading it, to selling it, to making herself more money.

  Wasn’t it just like a woman to be with you during the best of times and to abandon you during the worst? In that way, wasn’t Jenna just like Amy? Just like Amy’s mother who’d wanted to leave Amy’s father simply because he hadn’t become the financial success she’d dreamed he would be. And wasn’t that exactly what he was facing if he and Amy actually got married? Like her mother before her, she would recite the traditional vows, but what she’d mean, what she’d really mean was, sure, she’d take him, for now at least, ‘till debt do us part.

  And after three years, they still hadn’t set a date. He had wanted to get married while they were still in New York. Wanted to fly down to the Caribbean and get hitched on one of the beautiful white sand beaches on St. Thomas or Grand Cayman. He was even willing to flit off to Vegas. But no. She wanted a traditional wedding in her home state where everyone she had ever known could attend. Especially her parents. Well, traditionally, the bride’s parents paid for the wedding
. But Amy’s parents weren’t paying for shit. They weren’t even chipping in. So what the hell right did they have to attend?

  He deleted the message from Jenna and moved down the list. He opened the email from his mother.

  well I guess you’re ignoring my warnings and going ahead with your plans. I guess that means I no longer have a son. after everything I’ve done for you, this is how you repay me. by leaving me again. everyone else’s sons stick by their mothers, invite them over, take them out to dinner, spend their holidays with them. but not mine. my son doesn’t work, doesn’t visit, doesn’t listen to a word I say. my son refuses to live his life like a normal human being. that’s all right. see if I care. you’ll be sorry when I’m dead. when all you have left is that whore you’re living with. I’m telling you now, craig, don’t fucking go. you have nothing and NO ONE in portugal and you have no reason to be there. stay in the united states—in the best place on earth—and get out of that shit- smelling new york city and come home to BEAUTIFUL new jersey and GET A JOB!!! start living up to your potential. Don’t be such a LOSER. be a normal human being, be a SON! WORK! make MONEY! pay your BILLS! don’t throw your life away on that dumb whore. She’ll be taken care of anyway, without you. worry about yourself. quit that bullshit writing nonsense—that’s not a way to make a living! you need a REAL JOB, a good-paying career that will make you MONEY so you can be with a good woman who’s not a DUMB WHORE! you’ve wasted 32 years of your life. don’t waste another DAY! this is your LAST CHANCE with me. I told you not to go to hawaii and you see what happened?! if you do this, if you go to stupid lisbon, I’m never going to speak to you again. you’ll be DEAD to me. DEAD!!! stop being such a fucking loser! I love you. come home.

  Craig sighed. Typical. Her choice of capitalization said it all. She couldn’t bother to hold down the shift key to capitalize the first word of a new sentence. No, that was way too much trouble, especially when messengering someone who made his living from writing proper, grammatically acceptable English. But she never failed to capitalize “I” he couldn’t help but notice, even when it began a sentence. Because she was important enough to rate capital letters. And her key points she didn’t want him to miss (DUMB WHORE, DEAD to me, make MONEY, etc.….of course those things demanded all caps.

  He stood up and walked across the room, dug into his luggage and retrieved his day planner. He flipped through and found the telephone number to the flat. He sat back down at the computer, hit reply, typed the number in and clicked send. Then he closed her message and logged out of his outdated AOL email.

  “Goodbye!”

  #

  Amy’s headache had subsided some but her stomach was still upset. And the stench of her vomit now wafting from the bathroom wasn’t helping any. She rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow.

  She couldn’t call her mother from the apartment and she wasn’t up to going back out. She felt tired and sick and just wanted to lie around and try to sleep, to forget where she was and who she was with. But the fact that she hadn’t called her mom was gnawing at her already- nauseous gut. Her mother had been worried about her enough in New York, was in constant fear that something would happen to her, that Craig would snap and smack her around or worse. And now Amy was thousands of miles away in a foreign country where she didn’t speak the language and didn’t know a soul. Her mother had to be frantic by now, had to be assuming the worst.

  She heard Craig sign off of AOL and thought of emailing her mother from the laptop. Her mother checked her inbox at least once a day, and having not heard by phone from Amy, was probably sitting in front of her computer checking her email every five minutes. Amy could probably even send her an instant message. She wished she would use Facebook or any more modern social media, really, but she had never caught on and insisted that AOL Instant Messenger was good enough to allow them to stay in touch, so why not keep using it?

  But then she would have to ask Craig’s permission to use the laptop. She would have to type her message with him hovering over her shoulder, looking on. The hell of the matter was that she had paid for the computer. But as far as he was concerned it was his, and he never let it out of his sight. She hated asking for permission, begging for privacy. What the hell was on the computer that he had to hide? He said he didn’t want her going through his works-in-progress but she had never wanted to and she had never tried. So what was it? Messages to other girls? Internet porn? Drug orders? She jumped off the bed. Her stomach felt too sick. She needed to put something in it to try to settle it. Maybe she had put some crackers in her luggage. Maybe there was some candy in her purse.

  No crackers. But in her purse she found some candy corn and a handful of jellybeans. Not the best cure for a five-alarm hangover, but they would have to do.

  #

  Craig sat on the couch. His head was beginning to ache from the hunger. It didn’t help that he was on no sleep. Amy had created the perfect storm. She’d made sure they’d argued before bed and kept him guessing as to whether she’d leave. She’d facilitated the insomnia, then went out this morning with instructions to get them some breakfast and instead came back with two bottles of wine. To top it all off she had flushed his Vicodin to make sure that his head ached, to ensure that he stayed in pain.

  And here she was always telling him he was a bit underweight. Telling him he should eat more. But, of course, she didn’t cook. No, her mom had plenty of advice for her, plenty of input when it came to men, but she had never bothered to teach her daughter how to boil a fucking egg. How to grill a goddamn steak. It was a major hassle for Amy to drop some pancake batter into a pan, to heat up some frozen pizza. It was downright ludicrous for him to expect her to prepare some pasta, or broil some burgers, or bake a cake.

  He pushed himself off the couch and stood. Began pacing around the living room. Shit, he was hungry.

  (“You have a tapeworm! Dr. Post will have to go into your stomach and cut it out.”)

  Amy had nerve, telling him he was underweight. Living with her he might as well have been living with his mother. Might as well still be living in his mother’s house with the empty refrigerator, the unused stove, the dishwasher stacked with business papers. His mother didn’t cook either. But at least she didn’t tell him he was underweight. She would just lock what food she did buy in the trunk of her car so that he couldn’t get at it. So, he’d guessed, that he wouldn’t overeat. And once he hit eleven, once she bought the Point After, he had to work for his food. She paid him a quarter an hour to sit in that cage, to sell banners and bobble head dolls to mall shoppers. A five-hour night just about bought him a slice of pizza. And he grew accustomed to that. Working for food became ingrained. It got so that he didn’t understand how kids whose parents didn’t own sports stores ever got to eat.

  Amy had nerve, returning with nothing but wine. She didn’t want to be the one responsible for going out and getting food. She couldn’t accept the fact that he couldn’t deal with people, that he wasn’t up for those kinds of tasks. What was the big deal if she was charged with doing the grocery shopping? It wasn’t like he complained he was hungry all the time. He ate twice, three times a day, tops. It wasn’t like when he was a kid, when he’d had a (“tapeworm!”) voracious appetite, when it seemed he was hungry all hours of the day and night. When he ate twice a day and was still the skinniest kid in class. Back then, too, he used to get hunger headaches and stomach pains and he’d complain to his mother and she would tell him that wasn’t normal, that there was something wrong with him, that he shouldn’t be hungry all the time, that he must be ill, that maybe he had a parasite, that maybe it was a tapeworm, that if he kept complaining she’d take him to Dr. Post, that he’d have to open him up, look in his gut and cut out that nasty tapeworm with a knife, a big sharp one.

  After a while he’d stopped complaining. He dealt with the hunger, with the headaches, with the stomach pains. Better that than having Dr. Post cut into his gut.

  He looked out the window b
ut the dog was gone.

  Maybe he was being hard-headed about this whole thing. Maybe he should just go into the bedroom and apologize for getting upset about the Vicodin and the toilet and ask her if she’d like to go out with him to get some lunch.

  He started toward the bedroom, right as the pulsing resumed in his ear.

  #

  She was chewing on a candy corn with a blue jellybean on deck when the bedroom door swung open and Craig stepped inside. She popped the jellybean into her mouth and set her book down again.

  He stood frozen in the doorway staring at her on the bed. His mouth fell open and his neck was growing red. “What the hell are you doing?”

  The jellybean caught in her throat and she tried to cough it back up, but it wouldn’t come. She tried to swallow but couldn’t and suddenly she felt short of breath.

  Craig didn’t move, just watched from the doorway with an indignant look on his face.

  Her eyes started to tear and she pounded her fist against her chest.

  It hurt and it did no good but she hit herself again. “What’s wrong?” he said calmly.

  She couldn’t speak. She tried to motion him with her eyes but they were blurred by tears. She couldn’t see him but knew he wasn’t moving, wasn’t coming toward her to help. She punched herself again.

  The jellybean seemed to dislodge and a sharp pain shot up from her chest. She coughed freely and violently and moved toward the side of the bed. She hung over the side and dropped her head into her hands. Wiped the moisture from her mouth, the salty tears from her cheeks.