by Aaron Dries
The walls around the end of the bed, like the floor beneath those soon to squeak wheels, were adorned with ruby pinwheels of blood. It was an ugly, yet beautiful sight. Exquisite and pure.
Mercy was, in its own vile way, an act of art. And each time she was called up for crowner duty, she had no choice but to make each clemency a masterpiece. Such were the demands of her Calling.
Vick sobbed now, his stoicism abandoned. He crossed to Eddie’s side and took the man’s limp hand. Vick didn’t even look at the Crowners, and they ignored his grief.
They left the room. Removing the bloodied crown, cleaning up the mess, and burning the body in the incinerator, was not within the parameters of their contracts. Those duties fell to the staff here at the hospice. Geraldine was confident this would be completed to perfection.
Cleanliness was next to Godliness. That’s what her to-be suitor, Benjamin, used to say.
Before she killed him.
INTERLUDE FOUR
Turn the model over and repeat the prior instructions. When finished, fold the top wings into the center, doing the same action on the other side.
Emily had always known that there were places in this big ol’ world where dark things grew. Nooks and crannies that safe people like her were privileged enough not to see. That privilege, of course, came from her self-proclaimed inclusion in the ‘oh, it’ll never happen to me’ crowd, a special club that was nowhere near as exclusive as its members assumed, or hoped it to be. But the dark always ended up growing no matter where you went, even in the well-lit places. Such was the nature of shadows.
I thought we were safe.
Safe. Emily scoffed at the word now. Anyone who thought they were safe was deluded or over-faithed. Neither of which she found a suitable excuse anymore.
Because, yes. There were places where dark things grew, dark thoughts and acts and secrets and hatred. Only never once had Emily thought she’d live to see the day when such darkness would end up growing inside of her.
But then she would hear Jordan screaming in the middle of the night and know that she was the same as everyone else. She was human, a pitiful creature plagued by the talents of hate and jealousy. Two emotions that she had mastered.
She ran to the spare room where he now slept. Still groggy with sleep, her hand brushed against the wall as she went, tilting framed photographs as she went. One crashed to the floor, tinkling glass.
Emily pushed the door open and flicked on the light. It smelled of sweat and urine in here. The overhead bulb burned bright, revealing her husband’s skeletal frame on the mattress. He writhed, those whiter-by-the-day arms of his thumping the sheets.
These were the night terrors.
“Honey, honey,” she said, crawling over to him and wrapping her arms about his shoulders. Her fingers brushed against the raw ridges of his wound, which would never heal. Not really.
Jordan snapped out of his dream, his high-pitched wailing cut short. Jarring silence filled the space. And then he softly said, “They’re in here. With us.”
Emily looked at him, aching. Held him tight.
Everything that made Jordan the man she married was fading by the day. If only memories could be bottled and used as medicine, Emily thought, then she could uncork one now—perhaps something from when they were first dating and making such extreme efforts to please one another—and let him have a whiff. It would clear the cataracts growing over what should be his bright eyes; bring color back to his cheeks.
Such remedies did not exist. And the more Emily lingered on it, the more she thought that memories would only make things worse. They were each spiders in interwoven webs of reminiscences, every sticky cord of their making kept them housed, but also strung off into the distance, tied at the other end to so many experiences and places that they had shared together.
That was how she learned the darkness was growing inside her.
The only way Emily was going to get through this was to cut each web, severing herself from everything that made them who they were as a couple. It was too painful, and too tempting, to pluck each web and listen to the sweet reverberations of their history.
Snip.
There went their wedding day.
Snip.
There went the first time they made love.
Snip.
There went the day she gave birth to Lucette, the way Jordan had held her hand throughout it all, his forehead pressed against hers, just as it was now.
It wouldn’t be long and he would turn, and the only sticky strands remaining would have to be severed, too. Then, and only then, would she let him fall into whatever lay below. This, she knew, would be the great agony of her existence. And the temptation to fling herself down after him was so very, very strong.
Such a thing was not an option. Lucette deserved better.
Jordan began to cry, tried to tell her how sorry he was, apologizing for every wrong thing he’d ever done, only his ability to articulate his words was growing more problematic by the day. His lips were beginning to withdraw.
Emily shushed him and ran her fingers through his hair. Clumps of his once wavy locks came free of his scalp and stuck to the sweaty mattress. There had been a time when she had thought him so dashing—such an old fashioned word, yet appropriate—because of his hair, which he’d always been so fearful of losing.
“My dad was bald as a badger,” he used to say as they both prepped themselves of a morning, sharing the same mirror. She would look at him, toothbrush tucked inside her cheek, and shake her head.
Even his vanity turned her on.
Snip.
Emily was downtown at the pharmacy pushing Lucette in her stroller when Sally, the mother of the child they had been planning to visit for his birthday on the day Jordan was infected, came up to her from between two aisles and forced her into an almighty hug. Sally and her husband Conrad were old college friends of her husband, but over the past few years, Emily had forged a relationship with them, even though their company was tiresome and strained. They didn’t have much in common except kids of similar ages. Despite this, being held that way in the pharmacy, surrounded by shoppers she’d never met, with that shitty music playing from hidden speakers, Emily struggled to keep herself from screaming relief. Maybe she wasn’t as alone as she felt.
“Jesus H. Christ, girl,” Sally said, drawing back. “You’re nothing but skin and bones!”
“I’ve been sick. And on the back of that I’ve been trying to shed a couple of pounds. You know how I always struggled to lose that baby weight? Now I have.”
Emily’s smile was as phony as a two-dollar bill, and just about as useful.
Sally kneeled in front of Lucette, who was only half awake, and ruffled her hair, pinched her cheeks. “Aren’t you just cute enough to eat! And look at those shoes you got on. You’re going to grow up to be a stunner, little one.”
Lucette smiled, swung her feet back and forth, but didn’t say anything in the way of reply. Emily had noted a distinct lack of words coming from her daughter of late, an observation that made her feel ill. Quiet trauma was often the worst, or so Emily had read.
Sally drew herself upright and narrowed her glare. “Are you sure you’re okay, Em? I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you look tired.” Sally studied her as though she were an insect under a magnifying glass, something to be burned alive and pulled apart out of the cold-hearted curiosity of someone else’s pain. “Actually, scratch that. Tired’s an understatement.”
“Yeah, I’m sure. All is well, as they say.”
“Have you seen a doctor? I’ve got a good one. Let me give you her number.”
“Oh, of course I’ve seen someone. I’ll tell you what though, antibiotics aren’t as cheap as they used to be.”
“Is anything, girl? Who you been seeing?”
“Doctor Sanderson.”
“Never heard of him. I’m going to text you the number of a Doctor Sylvia Lee. She’s a godsend, trust me. Promise me you’ll call her. I’l
l send the details through to you once I’m back in the car. Conrad’s back there keeping an eye on Kevin. They both want chocolate. You’d think they were related, or something!”
Sally giggled at her little joke. Such a happy, blissfully unaware person. Emily admired her situation so much that not punching her was a struggle.
“How’s Jordan doing?” Sally asked. “We’ve missed you two. It’s been months since the party and we haven’t heard a peep from either one of you.”
“Sally, I’m so sorry. This damn summer flu has ripped right through us, one by one.”
“Not Jordan and Lucette, too? Girl, I’m fixing you up a batch of my famous chicken soup. Enough to last you through to winter.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that, Sally.”
“I know I don’t have to, but you know I’m going to anyway.” Sally pulled her handbag tight and crouched down to Lucette’s level again. “Momma tells me you’ve been sick, sweetheart?”
Emily felt her pulse racing. She was sure that every vein in her body was rising up through her skin to spell out in twisted, vine-like words, everything that Emily was trying to keep hidden. At every turn there was a possible betrayal. Perhaps she would trip on one of her lies; perhaps someone could see that something was wrong despite her well-rehearsed grimaces. And most precarious of all was her daughter and her trained monkey deceits.
“You feeling okay, Lucette?” Sally asked, her hand resting on the girl’s knee.
Emily wanted to hit her husband’s friend across the back of the head, snatch the stroller by its handle, and wheel herself back to their secured compound—their medieval castle, as she’d come to think of it, where the darkness hadn’t just grown but taken over, as insidious as a single drop of iodine in a tub of water, spreading out in delicate swirls, almost elegant, to encompass the entire tank. Only Emily did no such thing. She simply stared down at the crown of Sally’s head, at the thin line of her hair part.
Lucette didn’t answer, though there was half a smile. That, at least, was something.
Sally turned to face Emily, who averted those concerned eyes, which burned into her like the ends of cigarettes, sizzling through the veil that had always separated their worlds. Emily stepped back, taking the stroller with her.
The contents of the small pink carry cart strung over her forearm had been seen. Bandages, antiseptic, cotton swabs, saline solution, scissors, a new set of nail clippers—and not the cheap kind, either. These little trinkets rattled too loud as she turned away, bones at the bottom of a tub revealed to the world after all the deceits had been drained away.
The house was gloomy and quiet. There were no screams that night. Emily wandered from room to room, checking the locks, peering out through the front curtains at the tall front fence at the end of the driveway. A car passed by on the street, casting manic light refractions over the front lawn—for a single terrible moment turning all of the old trees into an army of undead beings frozen in lurching, contorted poses. As to whether or not these sentinels were keeping others out, or them in, was too difficult to tell.
She’d gone down to the hardware store the day before and bought a machete. It was under her bed now. Sleeping with it there—on those random hours when sleep was granted to her—made her feel more at ease. Emily hated that it had come to that. Every rustle in the bushes outside the spare room window was not the squirrel or possum that it no doubt was. No. It was another smiler digging under the fence, hungering for the bones beneath their flesh. She couldn’t help but wonder, once all this was over, if there would ever be a moment of relief in her future, and if not, wondered if such a future was worth surviving for.
These thoughts, and others, were too easily assuaged by the cool edge of the machete’s blade as she tossed and turned. That was why, at three in the morning, she’d roused herself and scurried from window to window seeking out intruders, to then attack, and cut up into pieces. It was better to night-dream of hurting others, those who deserved it, than dwell on hurting herself.
A noise behind her.
Emily spun. Jordan was easing himself into one of the living room chairs. Once the tide of shock began to withdraw, illuminating the broken debris of her love for this man, she crossed the room and snuggled in close to him. Jordan’s arms wrapped around her; there was still some warmth there. Emily planted kisses on his cheek, which in the dim hardly felt like cheeks at all—rather something carven from stone, yet still capable of emotion. There were tears there. She wiped them away and ran her hands over the ridges of his ribcage.
They only had sorrys for each other now. There was no more talk of what would come, of the dreams they shared, just an endless string of apologies for every fight they had let themselves fall into the trap of indulging, every lie, every inappropriate aside they had ever imagined. This cleansed them in some strange way.
Another car passed, kicking the living room into a whirlpool of light and dark. She saw the tent in his pajama bottoms, and hungered for him. Jordan made no advance, even though they both wanted it. Emily had done her research—they both had, in fact—and infection could be transferred through unprotected sex. She had contemplated digging through their bedside table for a condom more than once, but thought against it. There was too much risk involved.
But she freed his cock all the same, held its girth in the palm of her hand. It gave her so much pleasure to give Jordan pleasure. When he moaned, she also moaned, and it was genuine. She covered his mouth with her spare hand as he came—just a small, hot ooze—so Lucette wouldn’t hear.
Finished, she guided him back to bed and tucked him in. She hurried to the bathroom at the end of the hall and scoured her hands with soap, just in case.
Alone, in bed again, with only her undirected hatred for everything that wasn’t this awful situation, Emily searched for sleep. It eluded her, the sly thing that it was. She reached over the side of the mattress and fingered the machete.
SUMMER
Robby’s hardly touched his meatloaf, Lucette thought, crunching up her empty bag of pretzels and tucking it into the pocket of her jeans. Her mother was always at her for doing this, tissues in particular, as her forgotten trash ended up going through the wash and soiling the load. Lucette retrieved the bag with a sigh and placed it on the tray table and pivoted across the bed. It was important that she made an effort to be on her best behavior. If she didn’t, this solo visit with Robby would be her last.
“Not a fan?” she asked.
Robby shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno. I’m hungry, I guess, only nothing’s appealing.” He turned to the room’s single window in the wall, like a framed painting of the landscape, a skinless world of snow-white bones. Perhaps it gave him comfort knowing there was a wider existence beyond this place.
Or maybe it’s mocking him. Gosh, I hope not.
“Want to work on the crane?” Lucette asked in an attempt to puncture his sadness, to let in a little light.
At first he didn’t answer, just continued staring out at the sky. Snowflakes speckled the glass, melting into droplets. Robby turned back to her. He seemed to be smiling, but then again, he always seemed to be smiling now. The stage was being set for the end.
“Sure.”
Lucette pulled out the supplies from her backpack and scooted the chair closer to the bed so she could use it like a table. She placed a sheet of paper in front of her and another across Robby’s lap, and then propped the book on origami at the foot of the bed, the diagram splayed.
“Okay,” she said, taking the paper in her hands. “We start out folding a diagonal so it makes a triangle. Then unfold it again.”
The corners of Robby’s lips quivered, and she figured he was trying to frown. “What’s the point of folding it if we’re just going to unfold it again?”
Lucette giggled. “I know it sounds silly, but we’ll need that crease later.”
Following the next picture in the diagram, she folded the lower edges up to the crease so the paper resembled a kite. Befor
e moving on, she glanced at Robby to make sure he was keeping up, only to discover he was still working on the first diagonal fold.
“I’m slow,” he said.
“It’s my fault, I shouldn’t be going so fast.”
Robby let the paper flop back open; it slid off his lap and fluttered to the ground. “I can’t concentrate.” A sliver of drool slipped from his mouth—escaped from him, sudden and unexpected—and he cleaned it away with a self-conscious swipe.
Lucette gathered up her paper and the book. “Must get pretty lonely here.”
Robby studied the window once more, nodded. “My family always had a real Christmas tree, not one of those fake deals. It smelled like pine.” His snowman eyes blinked. “Only I can’t smell nothing no more. And there’s no tree in here at all. All the ones outside are dead, too.”
Lucette reached down and retrieved the paper that had fallen off the bed. She began folding it, not to make origami, just to give her hands something to do. “Are you cold?” she asked, watching him shiver.
“A little.”
Lucette drew the secondary blanket, pooled at his feet, up to his waist and folded it over nice and neat, just as her mother did for her sometimes. He crossed his hands over the weave, the fingers bunched together and curled like crisscrossed crow’s feet. Were he to sprout matching wings, long dark feathers blooming out of his back, only then would he be free of this awful place.
And I’d want you to take me with you.
They looked to the window. “Screw winter,” Lucette said. “It’s summertime.”
“Ha. I wish.”
“I’m serious. See the trees?”
“Uh-huh.”
Lucette walked over to the glass separating in from out, warmth from imagined warmth, and put her finger to the scrim of condensation. She gave him a cheeky smile, and with a giggle, drew leaves in the fog, ornamenting the skeleton trees outside. “There. See. It’s summer again.”
