by Ron Savage
Christ, how do I deal with this asshole?
It’s Eddy’s game…
…his rules.
Suppose Jonathan’s right. Being here might hurt the kid.
…shit.
Simon stopped, chest aching, breathing labored from the run. His right hip pulsed a steady, sharp pain down his leg. He knelt on one knee, feeling the brittle pine needles through jeans, hearing the crackle of the forest floor as the woman ran on, her sound getting faint, then…
Nothing.
“—Up, Simon.” The voice was behind him.
“Benjamin?”
“The pain’s your burden. Carry it. Hurry.”
“Don’t think I…”
His right hip felt its own fire scorch muscle and bone; this, as usual, a reminder of Virgil, penance for being too late, too self-absorbed, too ineffective, his all-purpose wound. With it, a weariness now, the body feeling so goddamn heavy. He managed to stand, pressing palm to thigh, stretching his back, a little wobble, exhausted enough to ignore Benjamin. Probably not there, anyway.
A hallucination.
My lovely fuckin’ guilt.
But two hands were firmly on his shoulders; then an insistent shove sent him stumbling through the last cluster of trees, the swelling radiance of red and orange…
…and into the Lincoln Tunnel.
II
He watched her, fifty yards ahead, maybe more: Eddy-Dora with her swift, graceful stride, white gown and black hair a vapor trail, bare feet darting along the double yellow lines toward Canal Street. Phoebe’s skinny legs hung limp over the woman’s left arm.
Simon began to run, the right leg burning. As the tunnel receded, he saw the dark buildings against the night, a sky hazy and singed in dull orange. His movement had become a slow, limping jog, the ache now numbing his foot; and when he reached Greenwich and Canal, the entire right side of his body seemed to fade, vertigo yanking the pavement away. Hands stretched outward to buffer the fall. He laid on his back and gulped big panting breaths of warm air.
…still a cripple.
I can’t even walk.
Jesus, Benjamin, help me.
“…Simon?” Hearing this on the boundary of his consciousness: “…Simon?”
“Who is…?”
…not Benjamin…
…a kid’s voice.
“Let me take your pain, Simon. I know how to do that.”
Fingers pushed at his hip, thigh, down his leg, the heat and numbness retreating—no, not retreating, not exactly, the dissipating pain just followed the path of the fingers—flowing out from his body.
“You’re gettin’ too old for this shit.” The boy’s voice soft with a tease, “It’s hell missing nap time, huh?”
“How did—”
“Just open your eyes. But be prepared. I’m not as, you know, attractive as I used to be.”
Simon half-opened his eyes; saw a face above him, the petrified, ashy flesh—what there was of it—the tattered and decaying Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt with dark bloodstains, and the fist-sized hole in the chest.
“…Virgil,” he muttered, flinching a little at the sight of his friend.
“Tough when your beauty goes.”
“You…stay…here?”
“I dunno.” Virgil sat on the double yellow lines of the blacktop, bone-legs crossed Indian style, jeans decomposed beyond repair. “Sorry I don’t smell so good.”
“I’m glad…to see you.”
“Don’t know where I belong, really. I mean, I thought I’d gotten here yesterday, but time fucks me up, and now that I see you—man, Simon, you’re old.”
“Hey, I’m thirty-five.”
“Like I said, old.”
“God, you look…” Simon didn’t finish the sentence. What do you say? You look hideous, Virg?
“I’m losing stuff. Skin, mostly. I can actually peel it off. You wanna watch?”
“Maybe later.”
Simon steadied himself, hand on Virgil’s shoulder, the pain in his hip and leg seemed gone. Cautiously, he put weight on the right foot.
“How did you do that?” He flexed his leg at the knee.
“Who knows. People show up, and I do things. Maybe it’s my job. They don’t tell you shit around here.”
“Can you help me?”
“—With the girl, I bet.”
“Will you take me to her?”
“I’ve been there,” the boy said, anxiety in his voice. He glanced down Greenwich, the street vacant. Bits of paper and debris rustled about the curb, carried by a humid breeze. “But nobody’s ever asked that.”
“Can you do it?”
“Never been stopped. If anything, I’m ignored. Like, ‘Oh, him again,’ and they, you know, smile and all and keep on with their business.”
“What…business?”
“You remember school, how certain kids harassed other kids? I mean, I’d always get harassed ‘cause of my weight—fat jokes, basically. They got off on humiliating me. After awhile, I started throwing up in the mornings just thinking about it.” Virgil stared at the bones of his feet and shrugged. “That’s what happens here—that’s their business—‘cept they smile at me and harass the others. Worse, though. Everything’s worse. The truly weird part—if you can separate out the general weirdness—I’ve recognized some of the ones I’ve taken down there. Of course, they’re older—older than you, even—but I knew them from school. Teachers, mostly.”
“Did I ever…” Simon couldn’t bring himself to complete this question, either.
“Do fat jokes?”
“Yes.”
“A few.”
“But not a lot of—”
“You were my best friend, Simon.”
“Then help me find the girl.”
Virgil’s face lost expression, eyes dull within darkly recessed sockets, and he nodded, saying, “Hold onto my arm, but not too tight. My skin’ll tear.”
His arm felt brittle, as if bone and flesh had become sculpted wet sand. Simon pictured fingers sinking in and crumbling what was left him.
“You won’t be uncomfortable,” said Virgil.
“What do you mean—uncomfortable?”
Blackness swept over Simon; not what you’d call “unconscious.” He stayed awake, sensing a sudden dropping feeling, similar to the thrust of an elevator, the experience lasting no more than three to four seconds. When the blackness dispersed, they stood in front of the Washington Square archway.
“We’ll do the rest by foot,” said the boy.
“…thank God.”
“It’s across the street.” Virgil motioned a bony hand toward the subway entrance at Sixth Avenue.
Simon followed him down the stairs, climbing over the stainless steel turnstile and walking onto the empty platform. This was nothing like the subway stations he’d seen in New York or Philadelphia or anywhere. All known signs had stopped at the pay booth. No billboards. No graffiti. No trash. Even the lights came from nowhere in particular, quelling both shadow and glare. White tiles covered the walls, the platform. And the temperature appeared regulated. He’d prepared himself for an uncompromising heat to singe hair and skin; instead, the air had relinquished the city’s dense humidity, that sweltering summer night that went on and on. Neither hot or cold, extremes muted, the climate akin to autumn, maybe spring. The stench of the city had also gone. Simon couldn’t detect a single odor, nothing decaying, nothing to offend. Perhaps what existed above ground was the illusion; and down here, the truth. Or the beginning of cruelty, a place to lull new citizens into believing the worst might not be that terrible: a Nazi surprise. Just leave your clothes and valuables here. Time for a nice warm shower. Oh. And don’t take your soap. We’ve all the necessary items. Then you open a door and the demons come, with their stinking breath and ice pick teeth; the monsters, popping flesh and sucking bones.
Simon stopped.
…what?
What’s the noise?
A shriek? Someone crying? Proba
bly none of that. How about shitty nerves, a brief psychotic episode.
He gazed at his friend who now floated in the darkness, maybe a yard or so above the platform.
The boy signaled with a gray bone finger. “Hurry, Simon. We don’t have much time.”
No, not floating: standing on a stairway of white tiles. Each step lighted and winked out as they hiked down into this darkness, the illumination allowing only their footfalls to be seen.
“Where we goin’, Virg?”
“The field.”
“Think you can spare a detail? I’d like to prepare.”
“You a Boy Scout?”
Simon didn’t know how long they’d been descending the stairs. The lights had disappeared, and a thick blackness surrounded them.
“Put your hand on my shoulder,” said Virgil. Gently, please. Can you see that opening down there?”
He couldn’t see zip, not at first. What am I supposed to…oh. Simon saw a frosted blue glimmer roughly fifty yards below him. Then he felt the ground become rocky, maybe cobblestone. “What is that?”
“You’re squeezing my shoulder, Simon.”
“Sorry.”
A scream pierced the darkness, another followed, and another. Amid the shrieking noise, he heard deep guttural sobs.
“Here, for your ears,” the boy said, placing two small putty-like objects in Simon’s palm.
The plugs took the intensity from the screams, but didn’t end the sadness that rushed into his chest; and, for a moment, obliterated all thought.
III
The field appeared infinite in all directions but the entrance, grass so perfectly cropped it reminded Simon of Jonathan Clayman’s backyard. The sky was a canopy with no horizon, a clear November blue. He tried to block the sounds, hands pressed to ears, those screams deafening, bleeding past the plugs Virgil had given him. Bodies lay side by side, head to toe, two foot paths between endless rows. The field’s most recent members seemed closer to the front, flesh in varying stages of decay; and toward the rear, incandescent shapes, as though this was the final stage, corpses disintegrated. Ancients ones, perhaps. Yet he noticed the new intermingled with the old: nothing made sense. Souls should be here, Simon thought, not bodies. Then he remembered what Benjamin had said.
…in these dreams, they become mortal…for awhile—a rumor, something we hear—and anyone entering the dream also becomes vulnerable.
“They’re screaming,” said Simon. “…but their mouths don’t move.”
His right hand was being pulled away from his ear; he smelled the rancid breath of the boy; and Virgil shouted over the noise, “Hell’s in the dreaming. You’re listening to them dream. Go to the girl.”
Phoebe lay five rows to the left, near the field’s entrance, arms across her chest, skinny legs stretched out; and with that fair skin, she seemed just another corpse, except for the shallow rise and fall of her breath.
He knelt beside the child on the grassy path, fingertips touching her neck, feeling a strong pulse. Simon looked up, ready to tell his friend she was alright, but the boy had gone. He scanned the field of bodies, the empty paths. Don’t leave me, not now, I can’t do this alone. Simon stared down at the girl’s face, the thick, rust-colored hair strewn about her forehead.
Hell’s in the dreaming.
He rested the flat of his palm on Phoebe’s cheek, then shut his eyes.
…okay…
…c’mon.
Take me there, honey…
…c’mon.
IV
Benjamin had been watching the boy who was seated on a bench in Washington Square, not that the boy could see him. Maybe later, after the dream concluded, after fates were known. Invisibility had its comforts. The child seemed big for his age, his current state aside, the hint of a former self still managed to envelope the bones and rotted gray flesh. Loneliness shown through, too; the isolation that plagued his life had followed Virgil into death. You’ve done well. Be at peace. Benjamin wanted to rid him of the bloody sweatshirt, help the child shed his wounded body.
Soon…
…please, soon.
He felt nauseated by the heaviness of the night air, the foul garbage odor; but no suffocation, an improvement over the last visit.
Benjamin lifted his head to a sudden, far off sound: children laughing, indecipherable squeals and chatter. Then the light poured warm on his back, his neck, white light between the fingers.
“I’ve been waiting,” he said.
We’re concerned. Do you intend to enter the girl’s dream?
“Yes, Simon’s there.”
The dreaming field is for the atonement of the dead. If you go, you relinquish our protection.
“The man’s my responsibility; I won’t let him die. And he’s done the task. Wouldn’t you agree?”
We reserve judgment. Who knows, at the last moment, he may disappoint us; reconsider his actions.
“But I have your permission?”
…to advise, yes.
Benjamin looked across the park at the boy resting his arms on the back rim of the bench. Layers of smoke covered the ground, the same orange tint as the night, a gauzy cloud that hid Virgil’s legs.
“What will you do with him?”
We never forget the children.
“He seems…so lost.”
Again, the noise of squeals and laughter, as if a distant schoolyard had opened for recess.
Always the little shepherd.
“I don’t think they need a shepherd,” Benjamin said quietly. “I’ve felt utterly useless and out of touch. It took me years just to learn how to dress without drawing attention to myself. There is no flock, anymore. And I don’t know what they want.”
They need to remember us.
“Then I need to remember them.” He stared off, studying the boy. Virgil was gazing down at the dry gaping hole in what was left of his chest, a fist-sized emptiness, attempting to hide the wound in his disintegrating Philadelphia Eagles sweatshirt. “I haven’t thought much about the flock,” Benjamin said, a murmured confession, “…how time works on them, I mean. For me, time doesn’t matter. Why should it? I’m forever. What’s a day, a week, a year? I don’t change—okay, a few wrinkles, I know—mostly I don’t change. But they do. And if we need to be remembered, I need to notice them. Nothing like an occasional appearance to keep the faith.”
You’re angry with us.
“I-I…didn’t mean—”
Oh, Benjamin. You won’t lose our love. We consider what you say. Always.
The park had begun to fill with a white incandescence. Shapes of children drifted down from the night, vivid, translucent figures, strange fireflies in a dark summer sky. They darted around the old trees, the vacant benches. Shouts and laughter farther away than their presence. Benjamin, watching all of it: the radiant shapes surrounding the boy, tugging at his large bony hands, touching the arms, the wound in his chest. Only two or three children at first, then a dozen, then more, the sky and park growing crowded with their light; and though Benjamin shielded his eyes, squinting into the flooding glare, Virgil could not be seen.
EIGHTEEN
I
No trick-or-treating, absolutely not: Uncle Jake telling her all that horse poop ‘bout how your neighbors gave you apples with razorblades and candy that made you go to the bathroom a lot.
This is Merion Station, for God’s sake.
They gave you Godiva.
Phoebe rolled her eyes at Jake’s paranoia. Unbelievable.
A person couldn’t do anything around here. She was like totally annoyed. Daddy in Washington; Uncle Jerk upstairs asleep. I mean, hel-lo, why not just RUIN my life.
Okay, fine. Nothing wrong with having your own little party.
She’d gotten herself comfy on the couch in the study, wearing Daddy’s flannel shirt for PJs—the blue and white plaid one—a bowl of warm popcorn and cold M&Ms on the glass coffee table. Her uncle had apparently cleaned this afternoon because nothing seemed to be where
it should have been: the salmon-colored, wingback chair was to the right of the sofa rather than the left; the desk behind her closer to the bookcase and on a weird angle; and even the couch itself didn’t look normal—no, not “look” normal—the fabric didn’t feel normal, too soft, too…dunno…too silky, too…luxurious, the way she had always wanted it to feel. But Jake couldn’t make the couch different, could he? I’m obviously losing it. This is what happens when you stop a kid from going out on Halloween.
The VCR had been loaded, her current favorite movie.
Scream.
Too perfect, you know?
She loved it when the characters talked about all the dumb stuff people did in horror flicks. They’d made rules, too. The first one was…
…never watch a horror movie alone.
Uh-huh.
What if all your friends are home counting their candy?
What if all your friends had sane parents?
Phoebe glanced at the Tavern on the Green painting directly across from her: the two men seated in the restaurant, the open pizza box on the white table cloth—and the newest addition that refused to go away, that dorky owl perched by one of the two little figures—and behind this, a night tinted in red-orange.
Her shoulders did a quick, involuntary shudder. God, there ought to be a rule about that picture, too. She reached out, clicking off the desk lamp, using the remote control to start the movie.
The phone is ringing. A pretty blonde girl explains to the truly creepy guy on the other end how he has the wrong number.
Phoebe cupped a fist-full of popcorn and M&Ms and began to nibble.
The phone rings, again.
Don’t answer, Phoebe thought. It’s the same creep. You know what’ll happen if you answer.
The pretty blonde girl picks up the receiver.
Okay, great, don’t listen. I’ve only SEEN this movie fifty thousand times.
When the creepy guy on the phone told Drew Barrymore he was watching her, Phoebe stopped the video. You had to prepare yourself for the next part. She didn’t particularly like seeing Drew all stabbed and bloody and hanging from a tree.
