by Laura Kemp
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
I opened my mouth to argue. Shut it again. Out of excuses.
“You obviously don’t trust me.”
“No,” I begged, tears welling up over my eyelids. “I do…I love you—”
He stood silently for a moment, then turned on his heel while muttering, “I’ve gotta get out of here.”
“No,” I cried while jumping to my feet. “Please don’t leave.”
He didn’t stop, but I caught him on the bottom step of the porch.
“Are you—?” I felt like vomiting. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Could he even? Tattoos and scars and intertwined destinies considered?
“I need some time,” he looked up, his eyes filled with grim resolve. “And I need some space.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, my mind flashing to Holly and her melodramatic ‘He Turns Girls Into Zombies’ story. Mission accomplished, Locke.
“Don’t call me.”
I gripped the railing as he turned his back and strode off down the gravel road that led to the main lodge. Seconds later he climbed into his truck and slammed the door, roaring away in a show of masculine fury I felt certain Pam would want to know about.
I closed my eyes, tried to breathe, tried to convince myself that this was only temporary and that a couple of nights alone in the lake house would provide him with all the “time” and “space” needed.
Dazed, I turned in a half circle and stared at Cabin Five, Rocky’s mellow bawl announcing the approach of the woman my father hadn’t seen coming down the pike.
His heart was always bigger than his brain…
Maybe we were more alike than I thought.
* * *
I’m not sure how I made it home that afternoon, the road seemed to bend in places it never had before as I drove back to my apartment.
Passing the quarry at a steady seventy, I began my post-apocalyptic strategy.
Should I lie low, drown my sorrows in a bucket of fried chicken, or dig out the Heap lest Dylan come looking for his car keys?
Memories of the morning I’d awoken to his sweet note struck me like a fist. I pulled off the road as tears that came from a deeper place than his rejection poured freely over my cheeks.
Would he even miss me if I ran his Jeep into a tree? Or would he consider it a reprieve from a sentence he’d unwittingly volunteered for when he stepped into that tattoo parlor?
I imagined the scene, saw him stepping casually from his cruiser, his smooth strides turning to jagged bounds as he recognized my vehicle. Would he cry out, collapse in the street or simply gather me in his arms, whispering all the while about how he’d been a horse’s ass and would I please forgive him?
A primal urge to carry out my awful plan was outweighed only by the resolve to get home to my cat, my bed, and my pajamas. I couldn’t make things better if I killed myself, and that dying-in-your-lover’s-arms bit was only romantic in old movies. In reality, I was certain it wouldn’t go so smoothly.
The more likely scenario was that I wouldn’t die, just wind up a vegetable with a closed-head injury after which he’d turn to one of the Salmon Fest Bimbos for comfort, which would eventually result in marriage and the conception of their two golden children—Blake and Brooke. I was sure to get a pity visit from the carefree quartet whenever they vacationed close to my nursing home and had nothing better to do.
Five minutes later I pulled into my driveway and ran upstairs to an empty apartment. I took my cell phone out, looked at voicemail again just to make sure I hadn’t missed a repentance call, and realized he wasn’t going to crack anytime in the immediate future.
But I just might.
Moments later I stumbled to bed without changing into those coveted pajamas.
Sleep did me no favors.
I tossed and turned in the sticky darkness, groped for my pillow, and thought it was him lying beside me as he had that afternoon in Cabin Five.
My racing heart woke me hours later, followed shortly by a ringing cell phone and Holly’s chirpy voice.
“She’s in bed. I don’t know…” A long pause. “Maybe they had a fight or something…” Another pause followed by some giggling. “You kept me out too late, buster.”
I moaned, sunlight piercing the shade on my window as Joey jumped from my bed to the floor.
“Shut up!” Holly continued, her conversation bringing her to my bedroom door. “Oh, I think I woke her up.” Then a whisper. “Tell him she’s okay, I guess.”
I sat up in bed, disgusted by my appearance as Holly stuck her head in and frowned. “Sleeping Beauty, you ain’t!”
“Thanks,” I croaked while swinging my legs off the side of the bed, fresh despair at facing a whole day without Dylan settling like a wet blanket.
“What the heck happened?”
I scratched the back of my head. “Dylan’s mad.”
“So?” she shrugged. “He’ll get over it.”
I felt my bottom lip pucker and tried to cover it with a pout. “He said not to call.”
Holly sighed, her eyes sympathetic in the settling light. “Is that why you’re still in bed at four o’clock in the afternoon?”
I looked away.
“And does it have something to do with why you’re wearing the same clothes I saw you in yesterday?”
“Maybe,” I mumbled while rolling over to glance at my bedside bureau and the cell phone I’d so carelessly tossed aside.
“Get out of bed. It’s not as bad as you think.”
I looked up.
“That was Dave on the phone.”
“Dave?” I echoed, desperate for any scrap of information. “What’d he say?”
“Just that Dylan’s so mopey he backed out on that stupid basketball game they play every Thursday night and he’s never done that.” She smiled, came to the side of my bed, and patted my back. “So that’s a good sign.”
I sighed. “It is?”
“Sure.” She smiled again, sat down and shoved the blankets aside. “He’s not used to getting his heart broken. Except for Karen, of course.”
I winced.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I mumbled, annoyed by her optimism. “If you’ll excuse me now, I need to get some shut eye.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” she shook a playful finger at me, one I was tempted to bite off if it got too close. “Lethargy is a sign of depression and I’m not going to see you throw your youth away. So you have a few minor skeletons in your closet? So what?”
I sighed, rolled over and took my blankets with me. “Did I tell you one of those skeletons showed up at our apartment? That he asked around town for me and that’s how Dylan found out?”
“Brad?” she gasped, her voice ripe with a type of tension only an activities director at a summer camp can produce. “He actually drove all the way up here just to see you?”
I nodded. “Now you see why I need to get some shut eye. Maybe when I wake up this will all be over and Dave can have his ball boy back.”
Holly raised an eyebrow. “Did you…you know…do it?”
“Have sex?” I groaned while burrowing deeper into my covers. “No…but I did kiss him and that was enough to send Dylan off the deep end,” I sighed, peeked out at her. “Did I tell you he said not to call?”
“Yep.”
“I can’t do it, Holl.”
She shook her head, patted the bump that was my butt. “Give him some time to cool off, Squirt. He’ll come around.”
“You think so?”
“Sure,” she cooed, clucking me under the chin. “It was just a harmless kiss.”
I laid back down, cuddled into my blankets, as she got up and shut the door. Minutes crept by, followed by hours until another day had played itself out. Rolling over, I glanced at the digital clock and reached for my cell phone.
“Flats?” Mallard answered on the second ring. “Where the fuck are ya?”
I coughed, then tried to
sniffle. “I’m sick.”
He cursed, rattled on about his old lady needing her oil changed.
“It came on all of a sudden and then I fell asleep and then—”
“Save your breath.” He spat, and when he spoke again I could almost hear the smirk in his voice. “I’ll think of some way you can pay me back.”
I coughed again, hung up before he could elaborate, and stared at the wall, wondering what to do with myself, wondering what Dylan was doing with himself and who he might be doing it with.
The phone was so close, so tempting with all those little numbers just begging to be dialed. One combination of which would lead to his voice and an end to this suffering.
Don’t call…
He’d made it quite clear that he didn’t want to hear from me, and I could honor his wishes for the time being if what I had in mind would work.
Closing my eyes, I tried to clear my head of all negative thoughts and imagined the lake house. Iris had told me I could control my visions. I just had to figure out how to do it.
At first, nothing happened and I was stuck staring at the ceiling. I tried to talk myself into a better state of mind, tried to convince myself that I needed to do this only to assure myself Dylan wasn’t drowning his sorrow in booze and cheap women.
Still, nothing came.
I closed my eyes, slowed my mind to a crawl and seconds later the lake house came into view. Walking to the front door, I was tempted to knock but walked through it instead.
No one was on the ground floor and there was no sign that he had been home at any time during the day. I continued my search, caution rearing its ugly head as I approached the steps to his bedroom.
No noise was a good sign and so I ascended the staircase.
The bed was neatly made and so I tiptoed around the room looking for clues to his whereabouts. No keys on the bedside table meant he’d taken the truck somewhere. No wet towels in the bathroom meant he’d stayed somewhere else last night.
I was just considering my options when a shadow crossed the open doorway. Startled, I fought the urge to drop to my belly before remembering that Dylan couldn’t see me because I was in some sort of parallel dimension, one I was hanging onto by the skin of my teeth because any disruption seemed destined to send me back to where I came from.
I followed the figure through the hallway and down the stairs.
“Muffet?”
Spinning, I backed up against the wall as my father materialized before me, his golden hair tied back in a low ponytail. His face was soft, his smile genuine as he crossed the distance between us.
“Dad?” I whispered, my hand extending of its own accord.
“Get out of here.”
I shook my head, my eyes going wide. “I have to find Dylan.”
He seemed displeased as he reached out and grasped my arm tightly, his fingers bearing none of the gentleness I remembered from childhood. “Red Rover’s here.”
“What?” I asked. “Where?”
“He senses you,” He stopped, glanced over his shoulder at the front door. “Can see you.”
“Why now?” I asked, remembering how Iris had described Jonas Younts as an unnatural creature. The more time I spent wedged between this world and the one I’d inhabited for twenty-two years, the more I understood her word choice.
“I called you here to end it. I tried to do it for you years ago, but you and your brother are stronger than I ever was.”
I felt a stab of fear. “What happened to you?”
My dad took a step back and I had to check myself from throwing myself into his arms like I did when I was a little girl. When he had told me he wished the broken bird would die.
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? Where the hell have you been for the past ten years? Where are you now?”
“I’m right here.”
I ran a hand over my face, frustrated to be arguing with my dad at a time like this. If this was even Dad.
“How do I know it’s really you?”
“You don’t know.”
The voice came from behind and I spun, saw the large man who had killed Abraham Ebersole and thought of my brother, wishing he was with me.
“He can’t help you.” His voice was raspy, with a strange sort of accent that seemed a mishmash of Minnesota and Arkansas. And he had read my mind, here in this waking vision and I had no idea if I was awake or dreaming.
“You ain’t dreamin’, Muffet,” he said, a sort of satisfaction in his tone and I turned, looking for my father, but he was gone.
“Who are you?” I finally asked, my own voice tremulous and I fought to stop it. No way did I want this asshole to think I was weak, or worse yet…afraid.
He smiled, his teeth as rotten as I remembered. “The Bad Man.”
I drew back, stared into the shadowed face of Red Rover and was struck by something. His eyes—large and black and dead—were familiar.
“I’m gonna cut you, Muffet.” He came forward, grabbed my wrist. “An’ once you start bleedin’ no one can stop it.”
I froze, my mind hovering on Dylan as my pulse came into my ears in a crimson rage. Rushing through veins and arteries, it reached a crescendo at my temples.
I stared into his eyes, saw hatred pooled like stagnant water and struck out with my fist.
Muscle, bone, and skin seemed to fold as my knuckles sunk into his abdomen. I heard something pop, heard him groan and realized I’d hit my mark.
“Bitch!” he growled, his hand releasing me and, at that moment I darted away, making for the front door of the lake house as he lumbered behind.
Think of something in the room…something concrete…
Iris’ words came back and I tried to remember. What was in my bedroom? Nothing but blankets I couldn’t feel and a cell phone I couldn’t reach and a roommate who had probably taken off with her boyfriend again.
I opened my mouth, screamed her name as Red Rover lunged forward, fingers splayed, and found an ankle. Down I went, knocking a picture off the wall and slicing my arm. I heard my attacker laugh, felt his fist travel from my ankle to my calf as he flipped me onto my back.
Once again, I drew back my fist but this time he caught it in his own, squeezing until I thought he’d crush every bone in my hand.
I cried out, tried to grasp the covers of my bed, but everything was sliding away like water through splayed fingertips and so I reared up, brought my knee to his chin where it made contact with a shattering return.
He howled, his hands reaching for the hurt as I slid from beneath him and scrambled towards the lawn. Darkness swallowed me while the humid air smothered me, making my progress slow as I limped toward what I hoped was help, my knee a throbbing mass of agony.
“Better hope I don’t catch you, Muffet.”
I didn’t stop, just hopped on my good leg while reaching blindly for something I couldn’t define. Flexing my fingers, I came up with a fistful of Joey’s tail.
I pulled hard, felt my cat come off the bed and land on my stomach. Another sharp tug and his claws were out and I was back in my bed, surrounded by a sea of blankets and a digital clock that read 11:32 p.m.
I gasped, sucking in air, sweat bathing me in a thin sheen as I tried to sit up. Too shaky to move just yet, I pulled my shirt up and examined my belly-button. Joey had done a number on my stomach, but that was okay considering I still held a handful of orange fur.
I tried laying back down, tried calming myself but couldn’t for the pain in my knee.
Pain that had followed me back.
I thought of Dylan and why Red Rover had been in his house and fought to suppress my terror. Then I pulled my arm from beneath the sheet.
In the low light, I saw a deep cut that had just begun to ooze blood.
Blood I wasn’t sure I could stop.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Holl!” I cried as I stumbled to my feet. Tossing the sheets aside, I put weight on my knee and felt it give way.
&nb
sp; “Holly Lou Marchand!”
No reply, and so I hopped down the hallway, intent on getting some pressure on a wound I wasn’t sure would heal. Seconds later I made it to Holly’s bedroom door. Her pink seashell nightlight illuminated a foot sticking out from beneath her comforter like a bone in a collard patch.
She was out like a light and I didn’t have time to wake her.
I just made it to the bathroom sink when my knee gave out completely. Collapsing to the floor, I grabbed a towel and pressed it to my arm.
And waited.
At first it didn’t seem to be working as the blood began to soak through the turquoise terrycloth. So, this was how it was going to end? On my bathroom floor with Dylan mad at me and Holly asleep in the next room.
Maybe they would write a story about my bravery, but I doubted it.
I winced, pressed harder and felt it slow.
“Holy friggin’ Moses!”
I gasped, my grip sliding on the towel as my roommate entered the bathroom.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” her hands fluttered like two chicken wings. Dropping to her knees, she yanked the towel back in place. “What’s going on? Are you hurt? Did someone stab you?”
“Yeah,” I managed. “But I think I’m okay.”
“Then why the hell are you bleeding?” She paused, rocked back on her heels while slumping against the toilet. “Why the hell am I on the bathroom floor when I have to pee?” She stopped, looked down. “Maybe I already did.”
I didn’t know what to say but knew I had to start somewhere. Shifting positions so the towel was wedged between me and the toilet, I put my head between my legs to stop the shaking, the nausea, and began to tell my story—slowly at first. And as the drama unfolded, Holly slid into a half-sprawl beside me.
After it was over I sat in silence, the towel and dried blood stuck to the side of my arm, exhausted but afraid to sleep for fear of what I would find there.
“So, your grandma gave you some sort of special powers?”
I nodded.
“And now some crazy guy named after a kiddie game I used to play in second grade has come after you?”
I laughed, but even that took more oxygen than I could afford.
