by L. L. Soares
“Heart attack,” Sam said. “And she was so young.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel said.
“After her funeral, things kind of came unraveled. I don’t remember much since.”
“Don’t you have people who will miss you? Did you have a job?”
“Nobody will miss me.”
They were at the far end of the bar. Some new people came into the room and Rachel seemed uncomfortable.
“You know, why don’t we go back to your room? We can get a bottle on the way. We can talk all night if you want.”
“I wanted to get out of that place,” he told her. “But I guess it doesn’t matter much. There’s as good as any place.”
“Come on, let’s go.”
They drained their drinks and then he paid the bartender, and they left. Rachel kept her head down and didn’t look around. Sam watched the new people moving toward the back of the tavern. Two men and a woman. He wondered why they scared Rachel so much. But he knew enough to take her hint. He didn’t want any trouble.
On the way back to their building, they passed a small liquor store. They went inside and got a couple of fifths. Vodka and whiskey. And a six-pack of beer. Then they went the last block back.
When he got back to his room he turned on the lights and saw tiny shapes scatter across the floor, which made him wish they hadn’t come back so soon. He was just starting to get the roaches out of his mind.
She sat on the bed and pulled the bottle of vodka from their bag. She broke the seal. Then she hesitated again.
“I have some glasses back in my room,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.”
She got up and went out into the hall. She closed his door as she left. He sat on the end of the bed and kicked his shoes off. He really needed a shower.
Rachel came back with two cheap-looking water glasses. “Sorry I don’t have any ice.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam said.
“What would you like?” she asked, unscrewing the top of the bottle she’d been fiddling with before.
“The vodka would be fine.”
“Okay.”
She poured some in both glasses and handed one to him.
“What was she like?” Rachel asked.
“Huh?” he said, lost in his own thoughts for a moment. Trying so hard to get his bearings back. Even though he knew he’d done something wrong and people were looking for him, things were still hazy. He took a pull from his glass and reached down and popped open a cold beer. “What was who like?”
“Your wife. Before she died.”
“You know, we’d had some rough times, but I loved her very much.”
Sympathy filled Rachel’s eyes as she drank.
“She was beautiful.”
“And she just had a heart attack, right out of the blue?”
He measured it all in his mind, wondering how much he should tell her.
“Yeah,” Sam said. “I didn’t have any idea it was coming. Neither did she.”
It felt so strange sitting here on a strange bed, with a woman who wasn’t Maggie. Like he was in a dream. Except that the room was all too real. The occasional scurrying beneath the bed made his skin crawl.
He was thinking about the roaches (or was it something worse?), when Rachel leaned forward and kissed him.
He must have had an odd reaction because she laughed. “Never been kissed before?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“No kidding. That’s why I did it. Besides, you looked so sad, thinking about her.”
“Do we really have to talk about her? I really don’t want to bring us both down. Why not just forget about it for tonight?” he grabbed the vodka bottle from where it rested on the bed and unscrewed the cap. “Hold out your glass.”
He filled her glass halfway, then did the same for himself.
“I just want to forget about everything,” he said. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Because I wanted to forget?”
“You didn’t have to come all the way here to do that,” Rachel said. “A lot of people here, they’ve given up, you know. Sometimes I feel that way. I sure hope you don’t.”
“I can’t tell you how I feel right now,” Sam said. “All I feel is numb.”
She kissed him again. “Even when I do that?”
It seemed like such a long time since he’d shared any kind of intimacy with another human being. His life had been such a jumble of fragments lately. Any kind of anchor in the storm appealed to him. And Rachel was the most appealing anchor he was aware of right now.
“I guess not,” he said.
“If you want to forget so badly, why don’t we forget together?”
This time when she kissed him, he responded. He could taste the vodka on her tongue. She sucked on his eagerly.
He felt her arms go around him. It was strange her taking the lead like that. It felt awkward to him. But he did not resist.
She suddenly stopped and went to the door. He thought she was going to leave, but instead, she locked it.
“Too many drunks around here,” she said. “Sometimes they wander into the wrong room. I don’t want anybody to wander in here.”
“Okay.”
She smiled at him as she started taking off her clothes. He sat on the bed and watched her.
When she was down to her panties, she plopped down beside him and drained her glass. Then she held it out for a refill.
He poured more for her.
He drained his glass and got up. He’d forgotten about the roaches by now, just as he’d forgotten about the peeling wallpaper and the cracked plaster. It was all so distant as he started pulling off his clothes. He needed so badly to make contact with someone. It was all that mattered right now.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
When Colleen woke up, Viv was still in her room. Or at least she assumed she was. Her bedroom door was still closed. Concerned, Colleen walked over to the door and slowly, quietly turned the knob. Viv was still on her mattress, wrapped up in her sheets. She didn’t move.
I hope she’s not dead, was Colleen’s first thought.
Viv’s clothes were scattered across the floor. She’d had enough energy left to get undressed at least. When Colleen had tried to undress her the night before, Viv kept rolling into a tighter ball.
Colleen stood there a moment, watching Viv sleep.
A phone rang.
It was a small, blue cellular phone on the floor beside the mattress. For a ring, it played Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries.
Colleen was afraid the ringing might wake Viv, and she instinctively snatched the phone up and left the room, closing the door behind her.
She opened the phone. “Hello?” said a man’s voice on the other end. “Viv?”
Colleen wasn’t going to say anything. Who was she to answer Viv’s phone? But she recognized the voice. “Grif?”
“You’re not Viv.”
“Grif, it’s me. Colleen. Remember?”
“Oh, at Jeremy’s house, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Is Viv there? She’s been trying to reach me, and I finally got a chance to call back.”
“I don’t know. She’s sleeping pretty heavily.”
“Oh, she is?”
“Yep, I’d feel really weird waking her. I’ve never seen anyone sleeping so deeply.”
There was silence, then, “You better not disturb her. She must have had a rough night.”
“Do you want me to leave her a message? Is there a number she can reach you at?”
“She has my number. Just tell her to call my cell phone. I guess the battery was dead before. So how have you been?”
“Not so good,” Colleen said. “Did you hear about Jeremy?”
“Yeah, I heard. It was on the news. Did they catch the bastard who did it, yet?”
“No. I don’t think they will.”
“Why not?”
She didn’t k
now what to say. Then, “I don’t think he’s human.”
He didn’t seem to find that weird. “So how are you holding up?”
“I went through a crying jag for a while. It’s been rough.”
“What about Viv. How’s she taking it?”
“She’s been taking care of me. But I can tell it bothers her a lot. I don’t know what she did last night, but I think she might have gone drinking. She could barely stand when she got back last night. That’s why I think she should sleep it off.”
“You’re probably right. Definitely don’t disturb her. Just tell her to call me when she wakes up.”
“Okay.”
“Hang in there,” Grif said. “And I’m sorry about Jeremy. He sounded like a nice guy.”
“He was pretty special.”
“Got to go,” Grif said. “Bye.”
There was a dial tone. Colleen shut the phone; she put it on the kitchen counter.
She went and looked down the hall at the closed door to Viv’s bedroom. She wanted so badly to wake Viv, but she resisted the impulse.
Suddenly, Colleen felt very alone.
* * *
When Sam woke up, Rachel was still in his bed, asleep. He could feel her breath on him, and the movement of her chest against his.
He remembered the night before. The two of them fucking. He had a sense memory of what it felt like, how her body felt to his touch. How she touched him. It was so vivid; it was like being transported back in time for a moment.
He tried to get up, but was so afraid of waking her that he didn’t dare.
It was then that he realized why he’d been woken from sleep. There was shouting coming from another room. The building was so old and the walls so paper-thin that it could have been coming from anywhere. But it sounded softer at first and now it increased in volume. A man and a woman were shouting. The shouts were accompanied by occasional crashes, and poundings on the walls.
The sounds had a curious effect on Sam. He could feel his heartbeat quickening and adrenaline coursing through his veins. There was a sharp pins and needles feeling in the back of his head, and a sharp ringing in his ears, which, despite its pitch, did not block out the sound of the couple fighting.
The woman screamed. Her screech boring through the walls like a power drill.
Rachel stirred beside him then, but did not wake. She’d probably been living here long enough to get used to the sounds.
Sam closed his eyes and listened to the beating of his heart, the racing of his pulse. He tried to empty his mind, but the beating of his heart and the ringing in his ears and the shouting all conspired to undermine his attempts.
The ringing got louder then. So did the pounding of his heart.
Please let me get through this without my heart exploding, he pleaded, inside his head.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“You’re finally awake,” Colleen said. She just got back in from walking along the beach and was closing the sliding glass doors. It was getting cooler. She could smell the strong scent of the sea.
Viv was stretched out in front of the television, watching CNN. She didn’t respond.
“Grif called this morning,” Colleen said. “But I didn’t want to wake you.”
Viv looked at her then. Her eyes still looked very tired. “Which phone did he call on?”
“Your cell phone. I hope you don’t mind me answering it. I was just scared it was going to wake you with its ringing.”
“It wouldn’t have woken me,” Viv said. “Not in the state I was in. But thanks anyway. What did he want?”
“He said he was returning your call. He was sorry he hadn’t called earlier.”
“So he’s available again. Did he say how to contact him?”
“He just said to call his cell. He said the battery was low before or something.”
“Does he know about Jeremy?”
“Yeah, he knows. We talked for a minute or two. He heard about it on the news.”
“That’s good that he called. I’ve been trying to reach him for a while. I almost gave up.”
“Are you going to ask him to come back?”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do right now. I’m having the hardest time just waking up.”
“You were so exhausted when you came home,” Colleen said. “What were you doing all night?”
“It’s kind of a long story,” Viv said. “I’m not up to it right now.”
“Please tell me what’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. And I don’t feel like talking about it.”
“You were in a real bad way when you came back. You could barely walk on your own. At first I thought you’d been drinking. Is that it? Were you on a bender because of what happened to Jeremy?”
“What kind of question is that?” Viv asked.
“Look, I guess you could say it’s none of my business, but you’d be wrong. We’re together here in this place and we’re supposed to be friends. I had Jeremy torn from my life, and now I have no idea what’s happening to you. I want to know what’s wrong. Is it drinking? Drugs? Why can’t you just share with me?”
“It’s neither of those things. It’s nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Colleen said. “Why can’t you open up to me at all? Is it that terrible a secret that you can’t confide in me? And you’ve been so distant since Jeremy was killed. There are like these moments when you really seem to want to connect, to share, and then you always pull away again. It’s really aggravating. It’s like you’re here for me, but not a hundred percent. Like you’re always afraid to get too close.”
“Please, Colleen, I’m really too tired to fight about this.”
“I am not fighting. I’m trying to communicate with you. To find out why the woman I live with, my only friend right now, has a secret life she can’t share with me. I am not kidding about the way you were when you got back last night. You were on the verge of collapse. It scared the hell out of me.”
“You really want the truth, don’t you?”
“Yes. I do.”
“It might not be too easy to take. It might be another burden for you to carry.”
“Look, it can’t be all that bad. You have no idea what my life was like before I came here, before I found you and Jeremy. There’s no nice way to put it; I was a slut, okay? Sex was the whole of my existence. It was the only way I knew how to connect with other people. To feel wanted and desirable were the only positive emotions in my life. I’m not proud of it. Even when I was with Jeremy, I have to admit, I was tempted by Grif that time he was here.”
“That’s not surprising. Grif has that effect on a lot of people.”
“No, it wasn’t him. It was me. I guess I was able to turn myself around once I got here. Once I found Jeremy. But I don’t know if that was because I really loved Jeremy, or I just wanted to believe I did, or if it was because we were isolated out here, away from the world and temptations.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because that’s what people who care about each other do. They share. They bare their souls. I want to show you that I have nothing to hide. That I won’t be shocked by anything you tell me. That I won’t judge you.”
“You say that now.”
“What is it? Are you a drug dealer? Are you a prostitute? Are you a mass murderer like the man who killed Jeremy?”
Viv looked anxious at that. She didn’t respond.
“You can tell me. I am dead serious about that. I will not judge you, and I won’t push you away.”
“It’s not the kind of thing I tell people every day. In fact, Jeremy was the only one who ever knew. And it took its toll on him, I think. I don’t want to place that same burden on your shoulders.”
“I am telling you I want that burden,” Colleen said. Then, “Are you a demon?”
Viv looked surprised at that.
She said it again. “Are you a demon?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
/> “The first time I saw you, I had a vision,” Colleen said. “It was similar to that man who killed Jeremy. Except when I first saw him, I saw this image of snakes biting. And there was something with claws and teeth and made of shadows, just out of sight. I only saw it for a moment, but it scared me. It turns out that I had every right to be scared, because right after that vision, he tore my friend Turney apart right in front of me.
“When I first met you, I saw another vision. But it wasn’t an animal. It was like you were wreathed with vines. Ivy that flowed all around you. I can’t really explain it right, because it wasn’t really a plant image. But it wasn’t serpents or anything either.
“These visions are new to me. It makes no sense why I see them, or what they mean. Well, I guess the one Sam Wayne had makes sense. But I have no idea what the one around you meant. But is there a link? Are you like him? Are you some kind of demon?”
“A demon,” Viv said. “No, I don’t think so.”
“You don’t sound very sure?” Colleen asked.
“I’m not sure of anything anymore.”
“What was the secret that Jeremy knew about you?” Colleen pleaded. “Tell me.”
“Demons are creatures from hell. Monsters. They corrupt human souls. They’re just superstition; that description does not apply to me.”
“Please, Viv, trust me.”
“Look. I get these urges. I need to go out and find someone and fuck them. And when that happens, I take something from them, and they die, and my urge goes away, and I feel satisfied.”
“So you kill them,” Colleen said softly. She instantly hated herself for putting it that way, especially after she had promised not to judge her, but she said it before she could stop herself. Viv had an odd look on her face.
“Look, I shouldn’t have said that. But I’m still tired, and you’re so insistent. But yeah, I kill them. But it doesn’t involve any violence, and they feel nothing but pleasure at the end. I give them the best orgasm they ever had before they leave this world. I know because I feel it, too. I can’t justify why I do it. But the urge is so strong. It gets so bad that I feel that if I don’t do something, I am sure I will die myself. It’s something I have to do in order to stay alive.”
