“Vince,” Audra said. “I forgot to bring the strips from the room. Do you mind?”
“Can’t it wait until after supper?” His stomach gurgled. He thought of the steak and salivated.
“You act like this is the first you’ve heard of diabetes. No, it can’t wait.”
“No bother,” a woman said, walking over to the table. “I’ve got you covered. Here.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a strip, handed it to Audra. “I’m type 1 myself. What about your son?”
“Type 2,” Tim said, smiling proudly. “Early onset.”
“Are you sure it’s no trouble?” Audra eyed the strip in the woman’s hand like it might be a trick.
“Of course. I always carry extra.” She had a faint southern accent and a gravelly voice, likely the result of too much hard alcohol in her lifetime.
“Thank you,” Audra said. “I appreciate it. You would think I’d have extra on me at all times too, but they always seem to hide from me when I need them.”
“It’s no problem,” the woman said. “Those things are a pain in the ass. I wish there was a better way to go about checking your blood but until there is, I guess we’re stuck with the damn things. Am I right?” She nudged Tim and winked.
The woman eyed Vince, looked at his arms. “My name’s Sandy by the way. Sandy Larkin. That’s my husband Frankie.” She pointed to a man two tables over. He was sipping a beer and twirling a handle-bar mustache. Every visible inch of his skin, aside from his face, was covered with faded tattoos. Dragons and skulls and lightning. “You two ought to have a chat with him. He loves meeting other ink heads.” She rolled up her sleeve to reveal a distorted Harley Davidson logo near her shoulder. “This is all I could ever commit to. Hurt like hell and now it looks like a bruise. I always tell Frankie, by the time he’s in a nursing home, they’re going to think he fell down the stairs and slammed every bit of himself on the way down.”
Vince held out his hand and introduced himself. “This my wife Audra and our twins, Andrew and Tim.”
“Twins, huh? Must be a handful. Listen. When you guys are done, if you feel like having a few drinks, come find us. My husband loves this place, used to come here all the time as a kid. Knows plenty of history and he might just bore your asses off with it if you’re lucky.” She waved and smiled to Frankie. He raised his drink in salute and took a sip.
Vince looked at Audra. He could not tell her impression of the woman. If she wanted to decline the offer, she didn’t make it clear to him. She had grown harder to read these last few years, her thoughts on a different wavelength altogether now. “We might just take you up on the offer,” he said, hoping he’d made the right choice.
“Sounds good,” Sandy said. “First round’s on me.” She walked away and sat back down with her husband.
“She sounded funny,” Tim said as Audra stabbed his finger and blotted the bead of blood with the strip.
“I think you mean stupid,” Andrew said.
***
A few drinks turned to a few more and then some. The tables and the restaurant spun and Vince could not help but smile. It had been years since he’d had this much to drink and it felt good to unwind. As it turned out, Frankie was just as obsessed with Dream Woods as Vince was, probably more so.
“Do you remember the safari?” Frankie said. His voice was just as deep and throaty as his wife’s.
Vince shook his head. “I think that was before my time.”
“Must’ve been the second year they were open. It was near the haunted house. I don’t know how the hell they pulled it off but you would have sworn it was a real jungle. Place even stank like monkey shit. And that was the problem. Something spooked the animals enough to make them crap their pants. The owners couldn’t get the suckers calmed down. Eventually they got sleep deprived, real anxious-like, and started to bite people. That was the end of Safari City. Now it’s a bunch of bumper cars and an arcade.”
Vince rubbed his eyes, hoping that his double vision would go away. He did not want to be puking all night and the last thing he needed was a hangover on their first full day of vacation.
Sandy grabbed a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “I’m going to grab us some more drinks and have a smoke. You two boys play nice.” She waved Audra on. “Come with me. You can thank me later.”
Vince watched them head toward the bar and drained the rest of his beer.
“Your wife seems nice.” Frankie turned his head. He could have been staring at Sandy but something told Vince he was eyeing Audra’s ass. He could not blame the man. It had only gotten better with age, despite what Audra said. “How long you guys been together?”
Audra turned the corner and still Vince stared, as if her impression were left behind. “Started dating when we were in our early twenties. She used to come to my band’s shows. She looked dangerous, not the kind of girl you could approach. Her hair was green and her face was covered with piercings. Took me forever to talk to her and she shot me down a half dozen times before she finally let me buy her a drink. We went together four years and then she got pregnant with the boys. We married a year later. It’ll be six years this September.” He thought about that. Six years and they were already at each other’s throats. Wasn’t all that supposed to come later in life, after the kids had gone to college and they were both old and cranky?
“I know how that goes,” Frankie said. “Been with Sandy since I was seventeen. We had three kids in four and a half years. I’ll tell you, you survive that without splitting up and you can survive anything. Not that it gets easier. What they don’t tell you is that sometimes love is a lot like hate. Both of them make you do dumb things you wouldn’t normally do. But it’s worth it the end, I guess. When you’re lying there in the dark and you’re not by yourself, that’s a feeling worth bitching for.”
Vince nodded. The park was spinning much worse now. He thought of waking in the night and reaching across the bed, finding nothing but a cold sheet instead of warm tattooed skin. That’s where things were heading, he knew. She was not going to stick around forever, not unless things changed. But he wasn’t exactly sure what needed to change. He’d tried just about everything and she was still floating away more and more each day.
Suddenly the clanking of dishes from the kitchen was ear piercing and the sound of the fountain made him feel sick. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I think I’m tapped out.”
“You fought with the best of us.” Frankie smoothed out his mustache and stretched. “If you find yourself wanting to get sick tomorrow night too, you come find us.”
Vince shook Frankie’s hand. “I might just do that.” He stood up and went to find Audra to tell her he was going to sleep. He hoped she would come along.
He didn’t want to wake to an empty bed.
Chapter Six
“I’m going to get something from the vending machine,” Tim said, shutting off his Nintendo DS and getting up from the bed. “Want anything?”
Andrew was watching some action movie on TV. There were army guys fighting giant robots, with explosions going off every few seconds. The ground was littered with blood and guts. “No, I’m not hungry. Don’t get anything sweet. Mom’ll kill you.”
“She says I’m allowed to cheat one in a while.”
“Once in a while, but not every night.” He kept his eyes glued to the television. A general watched as a colossal robot foot stomped down on him in slow motion, turning him to mush. It was meant to be comedic, an over-the-top gag, but for some reason it made Tim want to look away.
“What do you care anyway? I’m just a freak, remember?”
“You’re right, I don’t care. Have all the candy you want. I’ll get more Christmas presents when you’re dead.”
“Asshole.” Tim grabbed some change from his pocket and slammed the door behind him, not caring if it woke anyone up, though he doubted it would. Their room seemed to be the only one on the entire floor and his parents were still drinking with the weird-sounding co
uple.
The vending machine was down the hall and to the left, past the elevators and stairwell. There were no doors nearby. In fact, there was nothing but walls covered with tacky wallpaper. He thought of the hotel’s layout and found it odd there should be nothing in this wing aside from a small room with two vending machines and an ice dispenser.
He stepped inside and looked at his options. His mother’s warnings echoed through his mind. He had a disease not a cold, not something that could be cured by bubble gum flavored antibiotics or a bowl of chicken soup. No matter how much he desired sweets he needed to be responsible. Candy could be poison if he indulged too much.
Perhaps he would just get a bag of chips or pretzels. They would not be as fulfilling as a Milky Way or Babe Ruth or a Crunch Bar—or just about anything else his mind could conjure—but at least he could eat them without guilt.
Except that when he read through the labels in the vending machine, he did not find chips or pretzels or anything remotely similar. Every single item seemed to be dessert. Candy and cupcakes and other pastries, more sugary snacks than he could count. Maybe whoever owned the hotel had a sweet tooth, one much worse than Tim himself.
And whoever owned the hotel sure liked some strange brands.
He studied the labels, tried to find a recognizable candy bar but they were all foreign to him, like they’d gone on vacation in Hong Kong rather than western Massachusetts.
The brand names were strange to say the least. There was Sugar Eater and Sweet Tooth Suicide. There was Insulin Spiker and Glucose Tarts.
He honed on one in particular and his skin went prickly.
Early Onset Crunch.
The words beneath the brand read: Now with more of your favorite diabetic after effects!
There was something wrong with the vending machines. He wondered for a moment if he had drifted off in his bed but when he pinched himself he felt pain and pain was a real thing, something you couldn’t replicate in dreams. Or nightmares for that matter.
His stomach began to grumble as if he hadn’t just eaten a plate of chicken fingers and French fries. He pressed his hand against his abdomen as hunger pains began to fill his mid-section. The longer he looked at the vending machine and the surreal brand names, the more saliva his mouth produced. He could taste the sugar on his tongue, feel the rush that would come with it.
Who cared if he wound up in the hospital? It would not be the first time his parents had brought him to the emergency room late in the night. He was a burden to them. He wasn’t as stupid as his brother made him out to be. He knew his family would lead a much happier life without him. So why not have one last hurrah, one last binge of sugary and delicious arsenic?
He reached into his pocket, grabbed the change.
So many options.
So many ways to die.
It was a shame he could not afford them all. He looked at the prices beneath the corresponding letters and numbers and smiled when he saw that they were, as amazing as it seemed, all free of charge. Zeros lay beneath every item.
He reached his hand forward, toward the keypad.
His stomach grumbled in agreement.
He froze when he sensed the shadow as it filled the doorway, blocking the hall’s light from behind. It was tall and misshapen and for some strange reason, he imagined—no, he knew with absolute certainty—that it was the hotel’s owner.
They were here to force-feed him every ounce of sugar that lay within the glass. All at once he did not feel hungry anymore. His stomach churned, the rest of his body growing cold in response. He wanted to run back to the hotel room and put up with Andrew’s shit because at least then he wouldn’t be alone.
But he wasn’t alone, was he? Whoever Owned the Hotel stood just behind him or perhaps it was the President of Dream Woods himself.
Eat up, Tim, he would say in a voice that was more like a growl. There won’t be enough insulin in the world to bring you out of this coma. Time to go to sleep for good.
Tim curled both his hands into fists and prepared to turn around and run, no matter what the thing standing in the doorway looked like. It could have a million eyes and jagged fangs for all he cared but he was going to run for it.
He took a deep breath, wiped away sweat from his eyes, and spun around.
“Little late for snacking, don’t you think?” His father slurred his words and touched Tim’s shoulder. He was drunk. “Your mother would kill you if she found out. There are crackers back in our room, let’s go get some. I could use some myself. Don’t ever start drinking, son. It’s a good way to ruin a good night.”
Tim’s heart stopped for several beats before starting back up again. He couldn’t breathe for an eternity but he had never felt so relieved in all his life. Before heading back to the rooms with his father he thought of turning around.
He wanted to prove to himself that the vending machines were just the normal variety. There were no strange, unidentifiable brands or logos within those mechanical walls. No free treats whatsoever.
And there was no faceless owner of the hotel or the park that implored Tim to kill himself with sweets. He was tired and groggy, that was all.
“Dad,” Tim said, walking down the doorless hallway. “Do you think this place is creepy?”
“Everything’s creepy at night.” He ruffled Tim’s hair as they turned the corner near the rooms. “I’m telling you, once you get a taste of this place, of everything outside these walls, you’re going to want to stay here for the rest of your life.”
And that was exactly what Tim was afraid of.
***
“Your husband seems nice,” Sandy said, sipping a rum and Coke. It was her fifth in the last two hours and she did not seem the least bit buzzed. Audra had once been able to drink with the best of them but this woman put all of them to shame. “Tell me about you two.”
“What’s there to tell?” Audra sipped her own drink, a whiskey sour that burned on the way down. She tried to block out the double-vision. She had told Vince she would only stay out for a couple more minutes. That had been an hour ago. “He used to be in a punk band, lots of screaming and shouting about the government and crooked cops. He got his first tattoo when he was fifteen, in a friend’s basement. By the time we met, he was covered. And now he’s an accountant.”
“Accountant, huh? He must do well for himself. Frankie worked at a foundry for most his life. Honest way to make a living. They offered to pay for him to go back to school for management twice. He said no both times, told them he’d never be a white collar worker, not even for double the pay. I was so proud.” She grimaced.
Audra laughed. “Vince used to be like that too. He hated everything that seemed part of the plan. Who needs college and a career? As long as he had his music and me, everything was good. Then he went and knocked me up, went to night school, graduated early—with honors, mind you—and started working in a cubicle. We live in a two-story house at the end of cul de sac. Guess what color the fence is?”
“I’m going with white.” Sandy drained the rest of her drink and lit a cigarette despite the “no smoking” sign. No one seemed to notice. Everyone else was drinking too much and shouting.
Audra nodded. “You got it.”
“I take it you wanted to do the punk rock thing for a bit longer.”
“Forever, if nothing else got in the way. I love my kids—I really do—and I love Vince for that matter, but sometimes I just think about what it would be like to start over, you know? Just run away and never look back.” Like the night she’d made it to the highway before turning around. She wondered now, not for the first time, what it would have been like had she gone through with it. Would she had driven to the west coast, found herself a cheap room for rent and started going to punk rock shows again? Would the guilt have eaten at her or would she have forgotten about her old life by the time she stopped to get gas for the first time? She shook her head, waving away the fantasy, if that’s what it was. “I’m sorry. I must sound horrib
le.”
Sandy inhaled, blew smoke through her nostrils. “No need to apologize, honey. You don’t think I daydreamed about leaving Frankie a few thousand times?”
“Really? You mean it?”
“Sure. It was okay for a while and I never stopped loving him, but a woman expects her life to turn out a certain way and when it doesn’t, well, we can get a bit jaded. We’re dreamers by nature. Wasn’t a day that went by that some part of me didn’t want to leave. But after a while it was too late. What would be the point now?”
“Yeah, I know how that goes.” She thought of the rest of her life. Each day resembled the one before. Nothing ever changed. Everyday could’ve been a Monday and it would’ve made no difference. Her throat tightened, something like a panic attack. She sipped her drink and let the moment pass.
“Hell, you’re still young,” Sandy said. “Don’t let life trap you. Don’t live for anyone else but yourself. Your family seems real nice but you don’t owe the world anything.”
“What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying you’re entitled to the life you want without feeling like you’re a terrible woman. That’s all I’m saying.”
You already tried running, remember? You didn’t have the backbone for it.
Or maybe some part of her refused to give up on the boys and Vince, no matter how trapped she felt. Maybe that part of her knew this life was ultimately better than the alternative. She rubbed her eyes. She was too drunk to be thinking this deeply. “I think I’ve had enough.”
“I’m getting there myself.” She raised her empty glass. “Listen, you get on back to your room and don’t let the world get you down. Try smiling once and a while, will you?”
“Thanks. For the drinks and for the talk.”
“Any time. And remember what I said. Hell, the world doesn’t owe you anything either. Only seems fair.”
Audra nodded, watched the restaurant spin like one of the twisting and turning rides she’d be forced to endure tomorrow. “Goodnight.”
Dream Woods Page 4
