The Place in Between

by Reverend Steven Rage

  Well, that’s just terrific, Tom! And judging from that exclusive film clip, Del’s wife appears to be on a liquid diet, as well. She sure does seem to enjoy it, Tom! Fantastic!

  It was too much for Del to handle. He couldn’t – strike that – Del wouldn’t go through that shit with her again.

  God damn them. God damn them both.

  Del heard Luci’s key engage the lock on the front door. He should still be at the Naval Station, but he kind of ran the little show there at the pistol range. Del could cut out early, the .45 notwithstanding, without any issue. He just never did. Today, however, was a special occasion.

  “Hey, honey,” Del heard himself say. Of course she was startled a little. At least she was by herself. That was something. Del wanted this to be a private affair. Affair, Del chortled. What a word. It sounded so painless.

  “You home, Del?” Luci called out, stating the obvious and shutting the door.

  Del laughed low and smiled cruelly, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’m home,” he said.

  And ain’t you the fucking genius.

  Del heard Luci making her way back to the bedroom. He put the .45 between his legs and waited.

  Del looked overhead, staring at the tiny cracks and imperfections in the ceiling that he had never noticed before. Just like the first handful of times Luci had pulled this shit. He was done overlooking all the flaws and blemishes in their travesty of a marriage. He was sick of this shit; tired of letting it go. Del would make double-damned sure she would pay for this one. Dearly. When Del was done with her, she’d never do it again. He squeezed the solid butt of the pistol with a death-grip. He began to shake, but only a little.

  I’m going to show you I mean business, Luci, dearest. I’m gonna press the no-bullshit end of this gun right into the flawless flesh of your forehead, Del thought wickedly. Yeah, sugar-pop, make you feel it. Make you sweat a little. And then? Two quick pops, baby, right between your beautiful blue eyes.

  TWO

  Luci stood with her legs apart in the shower stall. The motel room Sancho got for them was only a few miles from base, but far enough away to keep Del from knowing about it. She hoped. Luci knew he’d kick her ass if she was discovered fucking around on him again. But Sancho gave her uncut virgin shit. The most potent crack she had ever smoked. She’d shake the vial until she heard the rock form. It clink-clinked around and it’d make her wet. And then when she was high, all she wanted to do was fuck. Sancho was, after all, very handsome.

  Luci had seen him for the first time at the Tier II brig. He was striking. Even though Sancho looked like he’d been to hell and back. She saw him coming out as she was going in. Despite being underweight, covered with bruises and a couple of chipped teeth, Luci was blown away. Sancho was a wounded bird and Luci definitely had the wounded bird syndrome. The beaten young man looked downtrodden and lost, but he still smiled a huge, charming smile when he saw her in the out-processing area. Seeing him looking so forlorn made the maternal side of her swell. Luci was coming to sign the paperwork so the military could bury her ‘father’. Well, sort of a de-facto step-father: He was sandwiched between her mother’s 18th and 20th boyfriend out of 30 or 40 something dudes before her mother finally died years ago. Luci didn’t know why Rusty chose her as the next of kin:

  “You have girlfriend, Vietnam Joe?”

  “Don’t need one, little yella sista. This dumb bitch left us with her little tight daughter right here. She’s only half-gook, but slanty enough to get the job done.”

  * * * * *

  Maybe he still held on to those woefully pleasant memories of gang-raping her when she was young.

  Her mom would be gone somewhere – usually at work. Rusty would get himself nice and liquored up and call over some friends. Then he would take her down to the basement.

  Rusty would shed his clothes, the criss-crossed scars on his chest shining pale white against his red flushed muscle and skin. He and his buddies would run trains on Luci like she was some gook whore they were having fond fevered memories of.

  Luci finished squeezing the store-bought douche up her vagina, trying to rinse Sancho’s seed out of her. Vague bad memories of telling her mother about being raped by Rusty and his buddies pushed their way to the front of Luci’s mind. Showing her how to douche properly was her mother’s only response when she told her about the attacks. They were bad memories, for sure. But that mean old bastard finally died. She had the paperwork to prove it.

  Luci was going to surprise Del with the proceeds of the life insurance she was sure Rusty would have left for her, but there was nothing. A few bits and pieces of personal effects and not even any retirement benefits. Rusty ended his military prison sentence with a Dishonorable Discharge. He would have lost any benefits Luci might have been entitled to anyway. What a piece of shit. Fucking Rusty. His last act was inconveniencing Luci, without even leaving her anything in return. And when she finally signed all the paperwork and collected his dog tags, she felt the most uncomfortably horrible feeling she’d ever had. Her entire body felt ice-cold and her thinking became muddled. Luci felt like she’d hurt her back. It was like she had twisted it in some weird way because her back never did feel right after that.

  Then, for the first time in years, the thought of cocaine became much, much more than the wistful wishes she’d had since rehab. It became a powerful lusting urge that morphed into a full-blown obsession. It happened right there while she was holding Rusty’s tags and signing paper work. She left the brig and saw the hang-dog handsome young man waiting for her. Luci felt an instant relief when she saw the former sailor. She just knew he’d be able to help her with her desires. Luci was right on the money. Sancho knew exactly where to go. It turned out to be a very good thing that she’d kept her 30 mile drive secret from Del, after all.

  Christ, she thought, still squeezing the douche. Imagine if Sancho knocked me up. Fuck! She knew she should have made Sancho wear a raincoat, but she always got caught up with the crack and the cock. Luci couldn’t help it. She tried what she felt was her best to kick the love of cocaine, but its grip on her was fixed tight. She was fine, she had thought, following her months of rehab. But not now. It seemed that these days the monkey clawed at her constantly. She couldn’t escape its magnetic pull. Luci realized now that even when she was in rehab, she was merely going through the motions. Luci knew Del would never understand. Hell, maybe he couldn’t. He was such a Dudley fucking Do-Right, he probably couldn’t even conceptualize doing anything he wasn’t supposed to. He was a Navy man, after all, and he was comfortable toeing a straight line and obeying direct orders. Luci chafed at the very notion.

  Out of the shower, Luci dried herself off and got dressed. She waited impatiently for the anti-anxiety pill Sancho had given her to kick in. She couldn’t go home and face Del this twisted but luckily Del never came home early.

  THREE

  Sancho sat at the table, staring idly through the motel window and out beyond Luci’s car.

  After he was finally released from the brig, Sancho had persuaded Luci to front him a couple of thousand dollars. Even he was amazed at how quickly she gave it up. All she wanted was to be continually supplied with rocks and to get fucked when she was ready. She had the whole: I’ve been bad, Papi shit down pat. He didn’t care. Whatever she needed to rationalize her slutty behavior, Sancho obliged. It really shouldn’t have been so easy, though.

  Sancho had experience with tons of bitches like Luci. She was his favorite type, the easiest to manipulate.

  He knew just how she wanted it: Luci wanted to be ogled and coveted at first. She wanted the desire for her to be transparent. She wants you to be barely able to contain yourself, and yet she still wants to be treated like a lady. Until she was high enough, that is. Then the foreplay was over and Luci wanted her hair pulled and her ass smacked and to get the dog fucked out of her. Sancho just had to be extremely careful not to bruise her up until he was ready to stir from his perch. And that’s why he’d pinked-up her hea
rt-shaped bubble butt with today’s session. Luci was so stoned he doubted she’d even notice the lovely bruise-stains he left on her ass. It had given him ideas for later. She could be such an untapped source of income for him.

  Regardless of how this future financial venture played out, Sancho was ready to make his big move right now. Years of dreamless scheming were about to culminate. He savored the notion like the first line of nose yum, or a small taste of rare wine.

  Sancho sniffed back two lines of coke from the big pile on the table beside him. He looked up and out at the weather tunelessly humming to himself.

  It was drizzling softly out, cloudy and just a little bit chilly. He absently tapped out a rhythm on the big plate of cocaine in front of him. Sancho had an ounce in that pile, if he had a gram. That’s what he dipped into. It sat white and promising beside a few rocks of crack drying out for Luci on some paper towels.

  Sancho was stoned. He was anxious to get up and check out the recording equipment, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He waited until he heard Luci’s shower going before moving away from the table. The last two lines of coke were still ringing in his head. He stood and chuckled to himself. Jesus this broad was dumb. She acted like her being so pretty entitled her to whatever she wanted. Including the coke he provided and the cock she serviced. Dumb shit. She had no idea how extraneous she really was. Even being Rusty’s kid and a golden money purse, Luci wasn’t the main drag. It was a nice bonus, but it was her limp-dick squid husband he was after.

  Fucking Navy fuck. He’d show Del a thing or three.

  Sancho changed his mind and bent at the waist. He sucked up just one more line and then rose. Making sure she was still showering, he went sniffing to his overnight bag conveniently placed on the night stand. From there, the camera had snapped and filmed all that the coked-out Luci had to offer.

  First he would ruin Del’s little world. Then embarrass the Navy. Soon everyone would know what an absolute skank Del’s wife was. Lastly, when he was through with her, Sancho would make a tidy sum selling her video-taped rolling flesh-toned, half-slope, cum-covered hills of ass all over and beyond. Thereby killing many birds with one stone.

  It made Sancho smile. He’d already sent Luci’s husband a few choice pics. He made sure Del saw who was fucking his little angel. And if her old man was ballsy enough to step up to Sancho, he’d hand the sailor his ass. One could only hope.

  FOUR

  Del remembered this next part, right down to the tiniest of details. The sun was shining through the bedroom window and over his shoulder. He could hear Luci as she padded her way down the hallway from the front door. The bright yellow light shone a spot on a spider. It was crazy busy trying to wrap up a bug it had caught. It was a housefly, probably. He sympathized with them both. The spider and the fly were both caught by their own designs and the whims of nature. Both will be dead before long – the fly obviously sooner than the spider – and no-one will even know that they had been alive. It was just another travesty of the food chain. Either you eat, or you get eaten. It’s as simple as that. Del knew what that was like. He was becoming real acquainted with them. He’d had plenty of life and death questions. They were all mixed up lately with his dangerous revenge fantasies. It took him a while, but he knew what he must do. Oh, boy was he going to school her. Was he ever? You could count on it.

  Del heard her as she approached the bedroom door. He saw Luci as she broached the threshold of the doorway. Del opened his legs. He let Luci see the gun. It amused him to no end watching as her fake grin crumbled. She stared at the gun Del held as if fixated by an unbreakable trance. She barely heard him as Del spoke.

  “I’ve had enough of this shit,” he told her. Del raised the .45 and leveled it steady at her chest. “More than that, I’ve had enough of you.”

  “Del, don’t,” she said, her eyes locking on his now. Her voice quivered as she spoke and the color drained from her face.

  “Bitch, please,” he replied wryly. “I’m not going to shoot you,” he told her. “I just wanted to get you shook.” He lowered the gun. Luci began to cry from the release of the strain. Her hands flew dramatically to her face. It was a crying shame to see her so upset.

  “Oh, my God, Del,” she said, taking a tentative step toward her armed husband. “For a minute there I thought you really were going to kill me.” She stepped closer. “You scared the shit out of me, you jerk,” Luci told him, smiling once more. Del smiled back at her.

  “I really got to you, huh?”

  “Yeah, honey, you really did,” Luci replied and stopped right in front of her husband. He cocked his head to the side, peering up at her.

  “Well then,” he said, “You’re really going to get a kick out of this,” and he placed the .45 in his own mouth. Time skidded to a stop. As Luci shouted and lunged for him, Del squeezed the trigger.

  The blood from the gun shot splattered everywhere.

  * * * * *

  The police were the first to arrive on the scene. They took one look and started rolling out the yellow crime scene tape. Luci had to prove to them that Del was still alive. He had a pulse, but wasn’t breathing. The cops called for the emergency services and waited for them to arrive. There was no way they were going to do any mouth-to-gaping-gunshot-wound on him. There was just no way. The fire and ambulance teams arrived in short order. They got Del stabilized, but it was just enough to move him to the military hospital and immediately into emergency surgery. The surgical team had to resuscitate Del three separate times. He was in surgery for hours. Some of the Navy’s top surgeons leaning over Del’s face and neck, their damp foreheads nearly touching. They were compelled to remove a good portion of the man’s face because the bullet had pretty much disintegrated the entire jaw. Bits of bone had fragmented and peppered the wet mucosa. The finer particles of bone dust had been inadvertently sucked into Del’s lungs, causing a horrifying and life threatening pneumonia. It began to take so much pressure to oxygenate Del that the doctors had to strap him into a roto-bed. Being constantly turned, Del was rotating like a roasting pig in a luau. Using gravity to manipulate his perfusion, Del was blissfully narcotized and thankfully unaware.

  FIVE

  It was never nighttime in the ICU. All the machines, the monitors and assorted paraphernalia, along with the chatter of the pros, caused a continuously surreal environment for the patients and workers alike.

  Visitors held their loved one’s cold hands, staring at all of the indecipherable numbers and squiggles, searching for the truth to their one single-minded thought:

  Will they get better?

  The demon stood in the middle of the military hospital’s Intensive Care Unit and looked all around. He had his hands on his hips. Like a kid in a candy shop, he smiled excitedly. Like a hungry man waiting in line for the all-you-can-eat buffet, the demon was both anxious and pleased. The demon was invisible to everyone still firmly fixed on this side of That. For those that straddled the line, however, the ancient one was clearly seen. For them the demon was a reminder of what was yet to come.

  The demon was not here for them. That was some other functionary’s job. This evil one had been around since before the Earth cooled and the rib was plucked from Adam’s cage. He wasn’t here to collect on any past-due notices. The demon was here following its own agenda. He had a marvelous project in mind and was looking for just the right person to help him see it through.

  There are many souls here. And ripe they are. So ready for plucking.

  He just had to find one that wasn’t leaving the trauma ward feet first, but still fucked up enough to barter with.

  The demon casually and invisibly strolled up and down the Unit, taking his time, gazing at the traumatized flesh and bone. He had been to this particular ICU many times. It did not matter to the demon much that his many previous trips proved fruitless. The demon was the epitome of patience. Being eons old certainly helped. The demon knew that he had all the time in the world. Being forced to wait like this had heig
htened the demon’s sense of anticipation. The demon walked slowly up and down the Unit. He touched each patient and peeked over the shoulders of the nurses as they charted their thoughts and findings. Each time the demon stopped near one of the nurses, or any of the other staff, they would feel even colder than usual. If he stayed long enough, the staff member would actually exhale a cold plume of frigid air. They would get an almost overwhelming urge to either fuck or punch the first person they saw. The demon was a very bad influence. The staff didn’t know it was a Hellion out on a jaunty lark. They would usually blame it on a full moon they could never see from the patient’s bed side. With all the pain and trauma stretched out in long, even rows, the demon felt like an affluent gentleman farmer that was surveying his cash crop and gauging its worth. He came to a stop at the foot of the big motorized rotating bed. Pointing his wrinkled leather finger at the screen of the bedside computer, he scrolled down the patient’s history. It showed to him everything the demon needed to know. He smiled wickedly.

  This sailor was perfect, the demon thought.

  SIX

  The plastic prosthetic was hard to look at. It was necessary, though, to keep Del’s face from collapsing on itself. Other than that it was mostly aesthetic. The face-piece was wired to move so Del could talk, if he’d been able to. However, the bullet also blew through the back of his neck, nearly severing the spinal column at the third vertebra. Del was permanently attached to a mechanical ventilator that breathed for him through the tube placed in his throat. Del could blink and think and that was about it.

  Once Del recovered from his more life-threatening conditions, the hospital staff began making arrangements for Luci to take Del home to take care of him. It was going to be a lifetime commitment, but Luci told them all that she didn’t mind. She let her raspy voice get all maudlin and her eyes leaked their feigned sorrow. Del wasn’t buying it, not for a second. Not that it mattered. No-one asked Del’s opinion on anything anyway. Because he couldn’t communicate, they thought his mind was now just medicated mush. They talked around him, about him, and didn’t give it a second thought. Then Sancho started showing up with Luci to visit Del in the hospital. The staff thought Del was sooo lucky to have such a devoted wife and such a solid friend in Sancho. Naturally, as soon as no-one was looking, Sancho and Luci would slip into Del’s bathroom and snuffle up some stuff and fondle each other. Del couldn’t help but hear everything. He had a bad feeling about going home with those two. But again, no-one asked Del his opinion.