Your Turn to Suffer

by Tim Waggoner

  As they drove away from the apartment complex, Brian said, “I don’t understand. I should be able to sense her. It’s why I’m here. But I can’t.”

  She hadn’t been sure what he was talking about, but it didn’t matter. All she cared about was that she had her son back, and together they would punish Lori for her role in causing his temporary – she didn’t want to think the word death, didn’t want to engage with the awful reality of it, so she let her thought drift away. She wasn’t certain exactly what Lori had done to contribute to Brian’s…current condition. But Brian insisted his aunt had done something, and as much as Reeny loved her sister, she believed her son. She had to. She was his mother, after all.

  But after failing to find so much as a trace of Lori, Brian said that they needed help. She could tell by the irritation in his voice that this was galling to him. She didn’t like it either, would’ve preferred to continue searching with Brian, just the two of them. Keep it in the family, you know? But Reeny didn’t object. If Brian wanted something, it was her job as his mother to make sure he got it, whatever it was. Hence, their stopping at Sprinkles. She wondered if Brian simply wanted to take a break from their search, maybe discuss a new strategy with her over ice cream. Could he still eat? She wasn’t clear on how this whole coming back from the dead thing worked.

  Brian reached Sprinkles’ door and pushed it open. An old-fashioned jingling of bells announced their presence, but there was something off about the sound, and Reeny realized it was some kind of recording. She found this sad. Was Brian only a recording too, a facsimile, an imitation of the boy he’d been? She didn’t want to examine this thought too closely, so she put it aside and followed her son into the shop.

  The first thing she noticed was the blood. It was everywhere. On the floor, the walls, the ceiling…. A half-dozen bodies in various states of mutilation lay on the floor, where they hadn’t been visible to her from the car – four adults and two children. There was blood on the front counter and on the large menu hanging on the wall behind it.

  Three living customers sat at a table, each holding ice cream cones. Reeny couldn’t tell what flavors they had, but their ice cream was dotted with blood. Sprinkles, indeed.

  One of the women had a long gray braid that undulated in the air like a serpent. The other had clawed hands, sharp teeth, and uneven tufts of fur covering her skin. The man looked as if he suffered from some kind of hideous skin disease. His shirt was open, exposing a lumpy mass of discolored growths on his chest. There were smaller ones on his neck, face, and hands, as if whatever was wrong with him was spreading outward from his chest to infect the rest of his body. Their clothes were soaked with blood, and if Reeny had had any doubt who was responsible for the dead bodies scattered on the floor, she no longer did.

  The three looked at Reeny and Brian as they entered, and the cat woman hissed. The one with a braid put a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

  “It’s all right, Katie.” She smiled. “They’re our kind of people.”

  Reeny hadn’t recognized Justin at first. Part of that was due to the obscene growths covering his flesh, but a bigger part was that he was so out of place in this nightmarish scene – the blood, the bodies…. She didn’t know Justin well. Lori hadn’t been seeing him all that long, and while Reeny had invited them over for dinner once, Justin hadn’t talked much about himself. He’d talked about his job as a lab tech, when he talked at all. Justin had struck Reeny as a nice enough guy, not particularly complicated – which was a point in his favor after Larry, who was all complication – but he’d also come across as anxious, almost neurotic, and she didn’t think he and Lori were going to work out as a couple. This was fine with her, as she thought her Sissy could do a lot better.

  “Hello, Justin,” she said.

  He started to speak but was overcome by a sudden burst of violent coughing. Small black chunks were expelled from his mouth to land on the table, as well as on the ice cream cones of his companions. Neither of the women seemed bothered by this, and the cat woman even licked one of the gobbets from her cone and purred as she chewed it. Reeny had heard the expression coughing up a lung before, but this was the first time she’d actually seen it happen. Brian seemed delighted by the man’s discomfort. He clapped his hands and laughed as the man struggled to get control of himself.

  “Sorry,” Justin gasped when his coughing fit subsided. “We’re still having some trouble adjusting to each other.” His voice changed then, sounded like a chorus of voices speaking in unison. “Trouble, yes.”

  We’re? Reeny thought.

  “You two know each other?” the woman with the braid asked.

  “Yeah,” Justin said. “She’s Lori’s sister. The boy’s Lori’s nephew, Brian.” His voice changed again. “Lori bitch. We no like.”

  The woman with the braid smiled, displaying her teeth. “Well isn’t that just wonderful,” she said. “Won’t you join us? Justin, would you please pull up a table for our new friends?”

  Justin rose, shuffled over to the nearest table – the surface of which was speckled with blood – and dragged it over next to the trio’s. The table’s metal legs slid through blood on the floor and made streaks on the tile. He then brought over a couple chairs and set them down. There was blood on them too, and he tried to wipe it off with his hand but only managed to smear it around. He gestured for Reeny and Brian to sit.

  Brian did so without hesitation.

  “Would you like some ice cream, sweetie?” Reeny asked him.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Brian might not be able to digest ice cream, she thought, or even taste it, but maybe he’d enjoy the texture. She walked over to the counter, stepping carefully around both blood and corpses. When she was behind the counter, she saw a seventh body, that of a young woman wearing a blue apron with the Sprinkles logo on the front. There were copious amounts of blood on the floor, but no sign of the girl’s head. She wondered where it was.

  She made Brian a cone with a double scoop of butter pecan – his favorite – and took it over to the table. She didn’t get any ice cream for herself. She didn’t need the calories. And she didn’t have much of an appetite at the moment.

  When she handed Brian the cone, he looked at it for a moment, then he looked at her. It took her a second to get the message, but when she did, she bent over, ran her fingers through a pool of blood on the floor, straightened, then held her hand over Brian’s ice cream. Blood dribbled onto the butter pecan like strawberry syrup, and when the ice cream was completely covered in crimson, Brian said, “Thank you.”

  Reeny smiled, nodded, then lowered her hand. She wanted to go back to the counter and get a fistful of napkins to clean off the blood, but she didn’t. Instead, she let her hand hang down to her side so she wouldn’t get the remaining blood on her clothes.

  Brian lifted his treat to his mouth, extended his tongue – which had become a mottled gray – and began licking. Reeny sat down, and the cat woman, Katie, looked at the woman with the braid.

  “So these two are after Lori, just like we are?” Her voice was a feline purr, and Reeny found it soothing in its way.

  “Yes,” the Braid-Woman said. She turned to Reeny. “I’m Melinda, and this is Katie. You already know Justin.”

  “I’m Irene, and this is my son Brian.” She glanced at Brian, saw his mouth was smeared with blood and ice cream. “People call me Reeny. It’s a nickname from when I was a kid.”

  “What did Lori do to you?” Melinda asked. “I assume she did something or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “She…. There was a shooting at the mall. Brian…. Lori caused it. I don’t know how, exactly, but she was responsible.”

  “We’re going to make her pay,” Brian said happily.

  A part of Reeny that was still fully herself – a part buried deep down in her psyche – protested that Brian would never talk about his Aunt Lorlee like this.
Not only was it out of character, it was creepily adult. This part also told her that sitting in an ice cream shop with corpses strewn about the place was not, in any sense of the word, normal. Something had happened to Brian, had happened to her. Something bad. They weren’t themselves anymore; they were…what? She didn’t know. She only knew they weren’t right, and that they should get up and leave this place immediately, before things became even worse than they already were.

  But then she remembered what it had felt like to hold her dead son in her arms, and cold anger swept through her, wiping away her doubts and fears.

  She smiled at her son. “Yes, we will.”

  “So you’ve heard the same call we have,” Melinda said.

  “Not that we’ve been able to do much about it,” Katie said. “We’ve looked all over this goddamn town for your sister, but we haven’t been able to track her down. That’s why we came in here – to take a break and try to figure out where she might be. Do you know where she is?”

  “No,” Reeny said. “I’ve tried calling her, but it always goes to voicemail.”

  “Same,” Melinda said.

  “It’s like she vanished off the face of the fucking Earth,” Justin said. “Gone-gone.”

  “It’s extremely frustrating,” Melinda said. “We were created – or maybe I should say re-created – to go after your sister and convince her to….” She frowned, as if trying to remember. “To do something, but we can’t find her.”

  Brian had continued working on his disgusting ice cream while the adults spoke, but now said, “I know where she’s at.”

  They all turned to look at him.

  “Go on, sweetie,” Reeny urged.

  “She’s back in this world again. She just got a text message from a friend. A dead friend. I’m sensitive to that kind of thing since I’m dead too.”

  Melinda, Katie, and Justin all leaned forward, eager to hear what Brian had to say.

  “Tell us more,” Reeny said. “Do you know exactly where she’s at right now?”

  “Better,” Brian said, grinning. “I know where she’s going.”

  * * *

  Lori and Larry passed her parents’ house on the way to Aashrita’s. Everything looked normal from the outside, but that didn’t necessarily mean her mom and dad were safe. She pictured Shadowkin swarming through the house, claws sinking into her parents’ flesh, tearing them apart as if they were tissue paper.

  “Do you want to stop?” Larry asked. “Just for a minute, to make sure they’re okay?”

  She was tempted. She knew Larry cared about her parents too. His mother had died when he was a teenager, and his father hadn’t really spoken to him after he came out as bisexual. Lori’s parents adored Larry and had become like a second mom and dad to him. Sometimes Lori thought they were more upset that she and Larry had broken up than she was.

  “I’ll just call them. Can I borrow your phone?”

  Larry nodded, and she took his phone from the cupholder and called her mom. She picked up on the second ring.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Lorelai! Thank god! I’ve been trying to call you all afternoon.”

  “Sorry, I lost my phone. I’m using Larry’s. How are you and Dad doing?”

  “We’ve been frantic! After what happened at the clinic, we thought…well, we thought the worst.”

  Lori frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Her mom told her about the murders at Get Moving!

  “The police have no idea what went on there. And that’s not all. Have you been watching the news? The whole town’s going crazy! There was a shooting at the mall, and some kind of terrorists are running around killing people. Where are you? Come over here so we know you’re safe. Bring Larry, too.”

  She wasn’t surprised that her mom didn’t say anything about Justin. Her mom and dad felt lukewarm toward him at best.

  “I’ve got something to do first, Mom. But I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

  “Have you heard from your sister? I’ve been trying to call her, too, but she hasn’t answered.”

  Lori thought of the visions Aashrita had shown her, saw Reeny sobbing as she held Brian’s dead body.

  “I haven’t,” she said truthfully. “I’ll let you know if I do. Try not to worry about her. She’s probably fine.” She hated lying to her mother like this, but she could hardly tell her the truth.

  She once more promised that she and Larry would be over soon, and then ended the call. She would’ve loved to go to her folks’ house and hole up there until this all blew over. But she knew if she didn’t find a way to reset the Balance between Shadow and the real world, no one in Oakmont – maybe in the whole damn world – would be safe.

  Lori’s parents weren’t rich, but they lived in one of the more upscale sections of town, the kind of place where larger, two-story houses sat too close to one another, and there were no streetlights because residents thought they were too garish. The Dhawans lived a couple of streets away from the Palumbos, and their house was even larger and nicer. At least, it had been the Dhawans’ house back when she was a senior in high school. But after Aashrita’s death, she hadn’t seen or spoken with her parents, not once. Not even at Aashrita’s funeral, which she’d barely been able to make herself attend. For all she knew, they’d decided to move sometime in the last fifteen years. She imagined herself and Larry knocking on what she believed was the Dhawans’ front door, only for their knock to be answered by a man or woman she didn’t recognize.

  The previous occupants moved out years ago. No, I don’t have their new address. Sorry.

  Then there would be nothing she could do to stop the Intercessor, and all of Oakmont would be well and truly fucked.

  She thought she might have trouble recognizing the Dhawans’ house after all these years, but she knew it the instant she saw it. She felt a wave of sadness move through her. She and Aashrita had spent most of their time together at Lori’s house, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t gone to the Dhawans’ before, and she found herself feeling a strange emotion, homesickness for someone else’s home.

  She pointed to a white two-story with black shutters.

  “This is it,” she said.

  Larry pulled into the house’s upward-sloping driveway, parked, got out, and walked around to the passenger side of the car to open the door for Lori.

  “All ashore who’s going ashore,” he said.

  It was still raining. His hair was plastered to his head and water droplets clung to his beard.

  Lori tucked the Gravedigger Special into the inner pocket of Larry’s leather jacket, and got out. The rain felt cold on her head, face, hands, and legs, but she barely registered the sensation. Her mind was laser-focused on what she’d come here to do.

  She hurried to the front door, Larry following close on her heels. She hadn’t asked him to accompany her, but she was grateful for his presence. When they reached the porch, Larry stood a couple steps back to give her room. She faced the door – a big white thing that looked as if it had been freshly painted recently – raised her hand, and knocked. She felt the beetle in her hair shift positions, and she wondered if it had done so to get more comfortable or to get a better view of the events about to transpire.

  No one answered right away, so she knocked again, a bit louder, more forceful.

  “Maybe we should break a window,” Larry said. “I could climb inside and unlock the door in case something has, you know, happened to them. With all the Shadowkin running around….”

  Lori was seriously considering it when the door finally opened, and she saw Aashrita’s mother for the first time in seventeen years.

  Rajini Dhawan was a handsome East Indian woman in her sixties, with gray hair she wore pulled back in a bun. The hair startled Lori. She remembered Rajini with long, beautiful black hair. She was short, only an inch or two over
five feet, and she was heavier than Lori remembered. She wasn’t obese by any means, but her face was rounder, her body plumper. She wore a long-sleeved black pullover sweater, navy-blue slacks, and a pair of black flats. She had on earrings and several thin bracelets, but on her fingers only a wedding band. Rajini was an anesthesiologist, and Lori remembered Aashrita once telling her that her mom didn’t wear any other rings because of how often she had to wash her hands at work.

  “Hi, Dr. Dhawan,” Lori said. “You probably don’t remember me, but—”

  “Of course I remember you, Lori. It’s good to see you, but I must ask: are you wearing anything under that jacket, because it doesn’t look like you are.”

  Lori almost laughed in relief. She hadn’t known if Aashrita had told her parents about the awful things she’d said on the day before she ended her life, but she’d always feared she had. It was why she hadn’t spoken to Aashrita’s parents at the funeral, and why she’d avoided Aashrita’s siblings as well. She hadn’t been able to bear the thought of their looking her in the eyes and thinking, This is the girl who caused Aashrita to kill herself. She’d been afraid that Rajini would look at her that way now, but the woman hadn’t, and she began to hope that maybe Aashrita hadn’t said anything to her family about her cruel words. That, or if Rajini knew, she’d long ago decided to forgive her.

  “It’s a long story, Dr. Dhawan.” She remembered Larry was standing behind her, and she half turned toward him to acknowledge his presence. “This is my friend, Larry Ramirez.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Larry said. He grimaced then, perhaps aware of how ridiculous social niceties were in this situation.

  Rajini favored him with a smile before facing Lori once more.“Why don’t you come in and get dry? Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

  “Actually,” Lori said, “we are and we do.”

  Before she could say anything more, a pair of vehicles came speeding down the street toward the Dhawans’ house – a white Jeep Cherokee and a red Nissan Altima.