Sleep Revised

by Wright, Michael

  Sam realized in a blind instant he was the boy from outside the motel room window.

  God in heaven, how can it be?

  The one who had been staring at her, watching her from the pool where the rowdy teenagers had been. He had been watching her window, she had supposed trying to catch a glimpse of flesh or something. He had been watching her, and he continued to watch her. He stood in front of her, and in front of the pleading priest with a gun raised to the man’s head, confused and listening.

  When the gun went off, it was with the same muted thud. She wanted it to be loud, she wanted it to deafen her. She wanted to hear the ringing in her ears and nothing else. The sound of deadness. The sound that often reminds of the smell of the air after a lightning strike, as the thunder comes slowly rolling in after it, smothering the air in deep noise.

  But that was not what she heard. What she heard was a vague sentence by Father Capaldi, suddenly cut off by the snap of the gun, flashing against the dull interior of the room. She heard another scream break through the void, and only a part of her registered that it was her own.

  Capaldi’s head snapped backward, a portion of his skull blew out the back. Shredded scalp slapped against the window next to her, sliding down in slow trails, and warm gray material splattered her face, mixed with deep, dark red. She could smell something like rancid meat overcooking on a stove, and the dull, tinted metallic odor of bloody flesh. She felt the heated flesh splash against her forehead, landing on her lips, slapping against her collarbone that was exposed by the cut line of the sweater. Blood soaked into the sweater itself as it began to pour out, soaking through and onto her flesh.

  Sam looked up at the gunman as Capaldi fell to the ground, and he raised the gun in her direction, the determination and resignation had returned to his face. His features parted slightly as he opened his mouth, whispering out to her a single word: “The Elder Ones. This is their providence.”

  He raised the gun higher, pointing it at her head.

  Through the chaos, she heard that dull word echo in the void, and also felt the sharp cutting of ringing begin in her ears, slicing into her skull deeply, pulling her back farther and farther into herself.

  Three sharp cracks sounded in the air, and she expected to feel the end wash through her, blackness eternal slipping through her brain and pulling her into the life beyond, but instead saw the body of the young man jerk as bullets struck his torso, slicing into his upper arm, stomach and chest.

  Sam watched his jerking, trying to discern what had happened. Swimming through the confusion that was fed by the gray flesh that had covered her, sickeningly warm and viscous.

  Another crack sounded, and a hole opened in the young man’s head. The gun dropped from his hand, and he slowly fell backwards, like a tree in the forest. She turned to see two cops standing in uniform at the door, one held a radio, the other one kept a pistol trained on the falling man, as if he were afraid the man would get back up and continue shooting.

  She looked down at her hands, and saw beyond the table the body of the priest, and in her hands something that had been his brain, with a shred of scalp still hanging on, dangling from her hand.

  Sam realized she was still screaming.

  8

  Clark jerked awake in his chair, choking deep in his throat, a choking that felt more like it was smothering him, pulling the breath right out of him. He could taste pennies, rich and coppery, mingled with something that he was certain was rotting milk, long set in a dark refrigerator while curdling. Then, the aftertaste of bleach.

  He reached for his wastebasket, and grabbed it just in time as vomit began to pour out of his stomach, wrenching his insides tightly, pulling them out as if with a hot fork, twisting around the tines and ripping from their proper place. He felt the hot liquid stream past his lips and when it stopped, he spat into the can.

  He could smell past the vomit the stench of cancerous decay.

  The office around him was empty, just as it had been. The water bottle he had knocked over was on the floor, rolling back and forth slightly with the motion that he had just done, perhaps knocking it with his foot. Waves splashed inside of the plastic container, slapping against the dull walls and sloshing back into the confined ocean that was so carefully contained.

  How long had he been asleep? He wiped his mouth and tried to remember, trying to sort through the time he had spent with the notebook, not remembering closing his eyes, or even leaning back. But certainly he had been asleep, that was the only explanation. He had to have been asleep to see what he had seen. He didn’t believe in ghosts, even with the taste of his dead wife lingering on his lips.

  He looked over at the clock, saw that only twenty minutes had passed since he had last looked. He tried to remember the time he had spent before he had presumably fallen asleep. He couldn’t remember looking at the clock before opening the small purple notebook.

  He tied up the small bag in the wastebasket, trying not to think of what he had eaten for breakfast that had made it’s sour return as he did so, reaching for the bottle of water to wash out his mouth. The water was lukewarm, but it was drinkable, and he swigged it down. It washed past the acid burn that usually followed when he was sick to his stomach and after a few more gulps washed it completely away. He took in a sharp breath after that, and reached into his desk drawer for a container of breath mints.

  He looked down at the notebook for a moment, and stopped.

  Before him on the page, a page he did not remember turning, was a drawing of a shadowy woman wrapped in a gown that was only outlined, showing the black form through it. With her was a fluid bag on a rolling pole. Something he was all too familiar with. From it was a string that connected to her arm. He stared at it for a long moment, and felt a rage build, and a new feeling of sickness twisted inside of him.

  He reached over and picked up the notebook, seeing that there had been another drawing on the other side of the page, one that was made up of what he could only imagine was some kind of orgy, many figures gathered together doing unspeakable acts together, all drawn in shadow, black marker outlining them. Beyond them was what looked like a large doors—the doors that he had come to know all too well. As he looked at it, he could hear a dull thudding in the deep distance of his mind, and the sick slapping together of invertebrate arms moving in unison together in a black hallways, slick with slime.

  He threw the notebook down on the desk, and set both hands in his hands, fighting back the sick feeling in his stomach. He wondered how all of it had come to him. How had it all come to him? The sessions had not been like the after effects. If he had ever known what Jon was going do to, in passing and after passing, he probably would have never accepted his case. Had he known the visits and the pain it would cause him he would have never taken to looking inside of the box that should have been burned. That box was from hell as far as he was concerned, and it should have been burned in the damned fire instead of being sent to him.

  Clark felt the desk vibrate, and he looked over at his phone. There was a green bar across the screen, and he grabbed it, swiped the icons and answered the incoming call. “Hello?”

  He listened to the panicked, voice on the other end, speaking far too quickly for him to make out specific words except for a chance few.

  When the voice finished speaking, he whispered: “Dear God.”

  9

  Sam had been sitting underneath the water for a long time.

  The evening had long since come, shedding the light of the sun in those few hours it had in the fall for the thick blue of the night. The stars had begun to struggle past the dull glow of dead streetlights that stood like guards in a line across the narrow roads. Clouds lumbered across the sky slowly, scarcely shadowing the dull gray of the sky and the blackness that lie at the center, when you looked past the crown of lights around. The moon was nowhere to be found.

  She didn’t hear any kids out that night. The entire motel was quiet as she walked the halls to get back to her r
oom, her wallet that she had used to pay the cab still in her hand, her card key in the other. It was almost like the people of the motel knew. They could smell the blood on her, see the gray brain matter that had covered her face and hid away in their rooms—just as far away from the doors as they could, so as not to come in contact with her when she still had the curse of death on her.

  In a trash bag she had hastily stuffed in the wastebasket was the sweater that she had been wearing, replaced with a plain white t-shirt that the police had given her. She had tossed her bra with it, not wanting the moist fabric, still wet with sticky blood touching her skin ever again. The t-shirt laid on the floor with her jeans, and panties that she had tossed onto the bathroom floor when she got inside the apartment, tossing her shoes off first, one step and a time, leaving them in the hallway as she went into the bathroom. Turned on the hot water as far over as it would go, stripped and climbed in.

  She had been there for an hour. The water had long since gone cold. Icy drops splashed her legs and arms, but she didn’t care. The soap bar was gone. So was the shampoo and body wash she had bought at a convenience store. It was all gone. She wished that she had scouring powder somewhere in the small room. She would have used that too.

  —Did you know the suspect?

  —Did you have any contact with the shooter before the coffee shop?

  —How long do you think he was watching you?

  —Why did he want to kill you?

  The questions echoed through her head, held tightly against her arms that were leaned on her knees, her legs pulled tight to her torso, trying to block out the world outside. After she had run out of soap, and her skin felt red and raw from the scrubbing and hot water, she had curled up, and didn’t care when she would ever get out.

  The police had been thorough in their questions, the paramedics understanding. Forensics had carefully picked up the scalp fragments from around where she had left her coffee. The dead priest had stared up at her from the floor for a long time until they put a sheet over him. All of it made no sense to them, however. It still didn’t make any sense in her own mind. She had barely registered it had happened past the chaos in her mind, the painful ringing in her ears and the sick feeling deep down in her stomach.

  —Providence.

  The words had appeared in her head multiple times since the shooter had whispered it to her, and she tried to keep pushing it back. The police had asked if it had any meaning to her at all, she lied and said it did not. They would have never understood if she had told them the story behind it, of Jon and his paintings at the apartment. There was no way for it to make sense. There was no way it could simply fit onto a piece of paper that would be filed away in a police report as they chased an empty lead to a dead end. There was no logical way to explain what was going on. She needed help, she knew that much, but she had to first get the smell off of her, to get the ringing in her head to stop.

  She had called Dr. Bell. Let him know that she would not be able to meet him that day, explained what happened. He hadn’t said much, only a few words, and to her that was the best response he had given, if she had to deal with another lecture about her psyche from him at that time she probably would have gone off at him. But he had only said that he had understood, sounding shaky himself, and hung up the phone. She wondered how much he did understand.

  The water was still cold, making her shake against the cold, but she dared not get up and turn it off. She had to wait for the water to wash it away, to make it all slide off of her skin. The filth and stench that had splattered all over her. She had to get the taste of the evil out of her mouth, it was still so strong inside.

  Sam leaned her head backwards, away from her folded arms, and looked to the side at the toilet. She had emptied her stomach into it, vomiting when she had nothing left to come up, and she still felt a deep nausea forming within her stomach, and closed her eyes, wishing it to go away.

  When she did close her eyes, she saw Capaldi’s head snap back. She could hear the muted thud of the gun that should have been louder than anything she had ever heard before. She could still make out the tones of the scream that was her own, and with gritted teeth pushed back the memories that it conjured up. When she opened her eyes, for a split second she thought she saw someone sitting on the toilet seat, staring at her. She knew who it was when she blinked the image away but refused to think about it.

  She couldn’t open her eyes or close them without something floating to the surface that she would so much rather put behind her—so much rather forget and never see again. She looked at the shower head, and forced herself to stand up, and turn the water off. The stain would never be off of her, she knew that, in the end. What was seen could not be unseen, and it would follow her forever.

  When she stepped out of the shower, she didn’t bother to grab a towel, she simply bent down, picked up the phone out of the pocket of her jeans and walked into the next room. It was lit dimly by the light in the kitchenette. She ignored turning it off and went to the bed, knocking aside the blankets and what clothes she had left stacked on there, and climbed between the sheets, soaking wet, but uncaring.

  With her free hand she unlocked the phone, and began scrolling, searching through the numbers for a familiar one. When she found it, she pressed it and pushed the call button, bringing the small handset up to her ear. It rang three times before it was picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello?” She said, “Dr. Bell? I’d like to meet you tomorrow. At Jon’s apartment.”

  Silence on the other end. Finally, “Are you sure?”

  She said, “Yes. I need some answers, and I think you’re the only one who can help me find them.”

  There was a clicking sound on the other end of the phone, like a pen being opened and closed, “I’ll be there.”

  10

  Clark took another puff of the cigarette held up to his lips. The nicotine bit against his throat and he felt a slight choking sensation as the smoke went down into his lungs. He rarely smoked, but he had found cigarettes becoming more and more necessary as his week had dragged on. His eyes burned against the smoke, and they were scratchy with tiredness from the lack of sleep he had the night before.

  The building in front of him looked like it might have been the right place, but he was unsure. It was a rough neighborhood, not the kind of place someone should just wander around at night when the darkness would shroud the actions of those who had less than desirable ideas. He felt a cold breeze whisk past him, knocking papers to the side, brushing the cigarette butts and fast food wrappers from the street and further toward the already crowded gutters.

  The door that led into the narrow apartment building was open, hanging on ancient hinges, wobbling back and forth in the light wind that blew back and forth. He dropped the butt with the others that lay on the sidewalk and stamped it out with his foot. He saw no need for decorum in that neighborhood. He looked around just the same, though he was pretty certain that the homeowners association was pretty lax on things like that where he was. He didn’t see anyone coming in either direction and drifted toward the front steps, old dilapidated brick that seemed like it barely held up with the crumbling mortar that held it together. What was left of a few weeds peeked out at him with dull brown heads, staring as he passed by.

  The hallway left little more to impress him, and he stalked past the graffiti and door that was cracked slightly open, as if the neighbors were the type who expected people to come and go as they would, perhaps to conduct some business on the fly. He could imagine plenty of such business going on in that small building, and he didn’t imagine it was too expensive given the neighborhood and occupants.

  He had not known Jon lived in that kind of neighborhood, but it hadn’t surprised him, and he felt glad that he had given the kid a discount on sessions. He would have offered him more of a discount if he had known what kind of circumstance that he had lived in.

  Clark walked up a few more steps and came to the apartment
he knew was Jon’s. The number had at one time shone with a brassy finish, but it was long ago faded and corroded with green and brown crusting the edges of it. He lifted a hand and gave three hollow knocks on the dull wooden surface. It felt soft under his knuckles, not hard as he had expected the old door to be, meaning that it was probably softening with rot somewhere inside. Heaven knew the whole place was probably soft in the foundation, eaten by termites and other vermin that would continue to nibble away until nothing was left but a pile of rotten wetness and whatever small metallic items did not meet their interest. Even then, until those things wasted away with rust and erosion.

  He heard footsteps inside, and straightened himself up, waiting for the door to open.

  Calm down. He told himself.

  For a moment he imagined Carol answering the door, dressed in the thin sheer nightgown again, holding twisted fingers out to him, dripping black blood from every orifice, lusting for him to come to her again that she could pull him into herself and consume him, draining him until he was just as dead and rotten as she was, out of the land of reality and into the land of death. Out of the blue and into the black.

  The doorknob turned slowly, and he felt the terror rise and begin to grip at his throat, strangling the breath out of him slowly, and he felt panic surge through his mind, taking over all of his senses. His body tensed to run. He could feel the cold hands wrapping around his head, pulling him forward. Dead lips brushed his, gently at first, and them holding tightly to him, and the smell…

  Samantha peered out from a crack in the door, cool, greenish eyes examining him for a moment, as if she had felt the grip of death on her own head, pulling her toward the blasphemy of a kiss, tasting the liquid as it dripped down the throat.

  She pulled the door open and gestured for him to come in, not saying a word.

  He nodded, as if tipping his hat and walked past her into the narrow hallway of the apartment, spotting a pile of papers on the couch, and noticed how much it had looked like his own living room, piled high with papers that documented so many cruel and grisly things. The papers he had gathered up after they had been scattered across the room, defiling the picture of Carol that he could barely bring himself to look at after the dream in his office the day before—if that was even truly a dream.