Alex

by Adam J Nicolai

  "Alina, it's me. I just..." He took a deep breath, trying to steady his voice, and it helped a little. "I just wanted to tell you that you're right. I have left you alone. I know. I've been... well, an insufferable jackass, for one thing, but... I haven't been working on it. On us. On me. I need to. I know I do. I've just..."

  The backs of his eyes were burning. He clenched his teeth, forced his voice level.

  "I've been sitting here, all night, thinking about it, and I'm so sorry for how I've treated you. You've been hurting as much as I have, and I've been acting like I'm the only one who..."

  He waved it off. He didn't want to go down that road.

  "I just wanted to tell you that I understand that. And I'm going to start working on it. Right now. I called Shauna, I'll still be going to the Wednesday sessions. I know you probably won't be there. But whether you are or not, I will, and I'm going to be asking her about seeing someone else, too, and doing whatever I need to in order -"

  "You have. Ten. Seconds to complete your message. Begin at the tone."

  Jesus Christ, he hated that thing. He stared at the wall, off-balance, as the beep sounded. The seconds ticked past.

  "I love you," he finally said. "And the man you love is still here, somewhere. Just..."

  The tears resurged; his whole face pinched trying to hold them back.

  "Don't give up on me yet."

  86

  The phone hung in his hands while he stared at the carpet and drew long, shuddering breaths. Alex asked what was wrong, and Ian shook his head.

  "It's okay, Daddy," Alex said. "You can tell me."

  Ian looked up at him. The boy's eyes had gone as dark as the ocean, heavy with concern. Ian was supposed to say, Grandma's gone.

  "I just really miss your mom," he managed. "I wish she were here, is all."

  "Where did she go?" Alex asked.

  "You remember how I told you that some people take the people they love for granted, and they don't treat them very good? And that actually it should be the other way around - you should treat the people you love better than anyone else?"

  "Where did she go?" Alex asked again.

  "Well, Daddy didn't do that. I messed up, and I hurt your mom, and now she's left to stay with her dad."

  "And she'll never come back?" The question bulged with dread.

  "I don't know, kiddo. I hope so, but I just don't know."

  The boy's eyes dropped to the floor, disbelieving, and Ian finished the conversation correctly.

  "Give me a hug," he said. Alex came up to him at once.

  On the day Alina's mom died, that embrace had flooded Ian with solace. Alex had given him one of those long, close hugs that had started to grow more and more rare. His smallness and his heat and his coiled energy and the sheer, pleasant weight of his dependence had soaked into Ian like a balm, and the two of them had gotten up together and gone to share their strength with Alina.

  He knew that wouldn't happen now, and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see his son disappear again. He waited several seconds, remembering that hug from the year before, imagining that he could one day grant that same solace again to his wife.

  Then he opened his eyes to the empty living room, and turned on the TV to escape its crushing silence.

  87

  Alina woke him with kisses.

  One on the temple, three slow, gentle ones trailing across his forehead, another on the far temple, another on his ear. As his eyes opened she lifted her head to smile at him, her hair haloed in the sunlight streaming through the window, her dark eyes heavy and sensual.

  "I love you," she said.

  His every nerve blazed with need. He clutched at her hair, pulled her down, kissed her deeply. "I love you too," he breathed between tastes of her. "I love you too, oh, God, Alina."

  She responded to him slowly, working her leg against his, lapping at his tongue and his lips and his neck. She was there, finally, she was with him. He wanted to bury himself in her hair, drown in her scent.

  He grabbed a handful of her hair and yanked her onto her back. She gasped, but she loved it. He knew that, because he knew her, and he took one of her nipples into his mouth and nibbled at it, and she arched her back and gasped again, and Alex screamed.

  Her fingers scraped across Ian's back. He took her other breast in his hand, massaged it while he kept working with his tongue, and she moaned his name like a plea.

  Alex screamed again. He needed help. He was calling, just as his father had made him promise to do.

  Ian pulled back. "He needs me," he begged. "Can't you hear him?"

  Alina looked away, her face stony and betrayed.

  "How can we ignore him? Can't you hear him?"

  "Get the fuck away from me," she hissed.

  88

  He opened his eyes to a spray of cold morning light across the wall. From the living room, he heard Alex sobbing.

  The sound drove him to the edge of the bed, where he sat up and endured it for just a second; buried his head in his hands and tried to figure out what was real. Then he heard Eston's voice, and his eyes opened like a pair of knives sliding from their sheaths.

  "Fucking disgusting," the rapist said.

  Ian threw his bathrobe on and stalked into the living room, hatred smoldering in his chest. Alex was on the floor there, curled in a ball, facing away from his attacker. Eston stood over him.

  "I put a pot in this room, didn't I? And you fucking go and piss yourself?" He was pacing, shaking his head in disbelief. "You can't even hold your own piss? What the fuck is wrong with you?" He spun abruptly, leveled a sharp kick into the boy's back, and Alex screeched.

  "I oughtta rub your face in it!" Eston shouted. "Like a fucking pig! Is that what you are? A fucking pig?"

  He reached down, grabbed for Alex's hair, and Ian roared, "Hey, you fucker!"

  Alex disappeared at once; again, Eston's head snapped up, this time toward the ceiling, casting about like he'd just heard a sound from upstairs.

  Why can he look for me? What happens if he finds me? But the thoughts were swept out of Ian's mind on a river of rage.

  "You're done with him! You understand me? You're done with him!" Eston whipped his head the other way, staring toward the front window. Ian darted toward him, screamed at the back of his head: "Hey dumbass! I'm right fucking here!"

  The kidnapper fairly leapt in terror; he fell over, scrambled backwards toward the couch.

  "He killed you! Don't you know that? You were killed by a fucking five-year-old! Killed!"

  Eston was staring through Ian's chest, panic dancing in his eyes. It redoubled Ian's rage, made it burst from his throat like the explosion from a volcano. He clapped his hands and waved. "Jesus, you're stupid! I'm right! Fucking! Here!"

  Eston's gaze snapped upward. For a single, eternal instant, he met Ian's eyes.

  Then he was gone.

  89

  Ian grabbed the lamp and hurled it at the couch, where the kidnapper's head had been a second ago. The shade flew off; the bulb shattered. The cord popped out of the wall, snapping through the air like a leaping viper.

  The lamp's body bounced to the carpet, somehow intact, so he grabbed it again and launched it into the wall, where it exploded. Ian flinched away, felt a hail of broken glass rain against the back of his neck, and snapped up the end table.

  "You hear me now, you fucker?" he shrieked, and smashed it against the floor. It was metal, with a round base, but the top was glass and it flew out and crashed against the wall. "Come back here!" He straightened up and spun around, looking for Eston. "Come back here! You'll fuck little boys but you're scared to fuck with me? Come back here!"

  He stood in the middle of the living room, robe gaping open, the table hanging from one hand like a club. His eyes darted savagely, finding nothing.

  "COWARD!"

  The scream tore his throat raw. The end table dropped dully to the carpet, and his fingertips twitched. God, he wanted to kill that man. His thoughts danced with
violence.

  But he's already dead. Listen to your own words.

  He is already dead.

  "Fuck," Ian whimpered.

  He stumbled through the bits of shattered glass to sink heavily into a chair.

  No. No, he was here, I saw him. He was tormenting Alex. Kicking him. But when he heard me, Alex escaped.

  If he could spare Alex from reliving his torture at the hands of that man, he would intervene every time - no matter the time of day, no matter the consequence.

  Maybe it would be cathartic, even if it wasn't real. Give him some sense that he was helping his son, when obviously he'd done nothing for the boy when he truly needed help.

  Ian flinched from that idea. It stung. How pathetic, to try and make himself feel better that way. Everything he was seeing was already finished, over - he wasn't affecting it at all.

  Unless Eston is here, torturing Alex again, right under my own roof.

  His breath caught. He hadn't thought of that before. He'd assumed that Eston's appearance was just Alex trying to show Ian more of his final few weeks, but what if Alex wasn't controlling these new visions? What if Eston himself was somehow...?

  Ian shook his head and lurched back to his feet. He paced into the dining room while he thought, trying to avoid the ruin of his living room floor.

  The cellar pantry. Alex's rape. Ian hadn't seen Eston, then; just Alex. It was the same the night he'd tried to convince his son to go into "the light." The boy had looked frightened, like he was running from someone, but Ian hadn't seen anyone.

  It was different now.

  Ian halted. His jaw clenched.

  Good.

  GOOD.

  He hoped that fucker was actually here, somehow. Ian had been able to scare him. Eston didn't like being yelled at; he didn't like being seen. Anything Ian could do to bring him misery was good. The man deserved to burn in hell.

  But his wild bravado leaked away as soon as it came on. If Eston was really in the house - like Alex was -

  Alex is not in the house, goddammit, you are imagining that!

  - Ian wouldn't be able to torment him forever. It was wonderful to have some power, to actually scare the bastard, but how long would it go on? Weeks? Months?

  If I can get his attention again, maybe I can make him tell me who Kelly is.

  Yes.

  That felt right. That felt like a purpose.

  Ian swung around, itching to see Eston again. But besides the shattered glass, the living room was empty.

  90

  He took a shower to clear his head. Before getting in, he had to dig a piece of glass out of his bare foot. He hadn't even noticed it until he started calming down.

  The main floor shower was cave-like: there were no windows in the bathroom, and with the shower curtain drawn the light had to sneak in over the rod. He usually liked it that way. In the roar of the water and the enveloping murk, he felt like he was in a secret pocket of space outside the world, existing solely for him. Alina got annoyed by how much time he'd spend in there, but sometimes he felt like he had to gather his strength there just to face another day of work.

  Today he couldn't get ahold of that rejuvenation. His thoughts were whirling too quickly to be paced by the torrent, and the dimness seemed to mask some secret treachery. He finished quickly and tore the curtain back, bracing himself to find Eston crouched like a predator in the steam, but the bathroom was empty.

  After getting dressed, he grabbed a used plastic grocery bag from the kitchen and went to clean up. The sight of the living room drew him up short.

  When he'd left it, the mess had resembled a battlefield: there had been a fight here, and of course, some collateral damage.

  Now it looked more like the naked aftermath of a man who had lost control of himself.

  He swallowed the insight and flipped on the TV, for some background noise while he worked. Law & Order wasn't on anywhere, amazingly, so he had to settle for some nature show. It was about fish, the weird ones that live way down deep.

  As he finished collecting the biggest chunks of debris and got up to grab the vacuum, Silvia Kalen's face filled the screen. The reward was still $100,000.

  Ian watched the whole thing. For once, it didn't make him angry, but he was still glad when it ended. He hated how happy she looked in that commercial. It was too keen a reminder of what he'd lost.

  91

  That night he tried again to dig up information on Kelly, but he focused instead on Leroy Eston, hunting for any reference to the woman in Eston's online presence.

  Surprisingly, there weren't many Leroy Estons on Facebook. It felt like a long shot, thinking he could just comb through the man's friend list and come across a Kelly, but Ian went through each of the four hits anyway. Nothing.

  He ran through many of the same searches he'd run on Kelly, and found little bits of the man's past. Eston had lived in Shakopee for a year or so before he died, but before that, he'd been all over the country. He had never been arrested before, or at least, he didn't show up as a registered sex offender. During Eston's year in Shakopee he'd held several different jobs as far as Ian could tell, either in town or close by - mostly at gas stations and little car repair shops. But there was no sign of a sister, or girlfriend, or wife.

  After two hours Ian gave up. Behind him, Eston said, "That's what I like to see."

  Fear slithered out of Ian's heart like a host of maggots. He was rooted to his chair, unable to move while that old, gibbering terror clawed at him.

  Alex answered with a whimper. "Uh huh." It broke Ian's paralysis, and he slowly swiveled his chair around, nausea bubbling in his throat.

  His son sat on the couch, his red turtleneck standing out in the drab basement decor like a pool of blood. His hands and feet were loose. He wasn't gagged.

  Eston had his arm around him.

  "Pee in the pot. Like we talked about. You don't get that dirty piss on the ground, or in those... pretty pants. Put it in the pot, and Uncle Leroy will take care of it." He set his free hand on the boy's knee.

  Ian gagged, a quick dry heave that left him trembling.

  Alex looked away, and Eston frowned. "Hey, no," he said. "Don't look at her. Look at me."

  The boy grimaced and clenched his eyes shut. He shook his head. Eston caressed his cheek.

  "Get out of here, Alex," Ian breathed. "He can't hurt you any more."

  As Alex disappeared, Eston's eyebrows knitted in confusion. He started panning the room, eyes roving up and down the wall.

  "Kelly," Ian said. "Who is she? Is she still alive? Were you working with her?"

  Eston stopped his scan of the wall, cocked his head as Ian spoke.

  "Answer me," Ian demanded. "What is she doing there? Where is she now?" I'm going to find her and cut her fucking throat out. "Do you care about her?" he pressed. "If she hurt my son, I'm going to kill her."

  Eston's upper lip twitched; it made the whole side of his face spasm. Then he rose slowly to his feet, and resumed his careful inspection of the room.

  For an instant Ian remembered the Ouija board, and wondered if he could force answers from the man that way.

  Then Eston's meandering search finally met his eyes. A wondering grin played at the corner of the killer's mouth.

  "Well, well," he said.

  From upstairs, Alex cried, "Daddy!"

  92

  The shout made Ian jump. Eston disappeared. For a second, Ian again found himself unable to move, every nerve struck senseless by too much impossible stimuli too quickly.

  Then Alex called for him again, and his rubbery legs bore him up the stairs two at a time.

  "Alex?" he shouted as he reached the kitchen. His hands were trembling. Eston's grin leered at him. "Alex!"

  The boy was in his room, sitting up in bed, eyes wide.

  "Alex," Ian breathed, relieved to have found him. "What is it? What's wrong?" He crossed the room and sat down on the bed next to his son. He started to reach an arm out, to hold him, but stopp
ed himself before they touched.

  "I want Mr. Tuskers," Alex whined.

  Alex's stuffed elephant was his guardian against nightmares, monsters, and "bad animals." Ian or Alina would set it at the foot of his bed every night, where it would stand vigil until sunrise. He and Mowsalot, the kitty, were Alex's two favorite stuffed animals: one for standing guard, and one for snuggling.

  Ian bit his lip. "God, I'm sorry, kiddo. Mr. Tuskers isn't here."

  "Can we go find him?"

  No, it's your bedtime. You wait here and I'll go get him.

  "No, bud. I'm sorry." He longed to give Alex what he wanted. The request wasn't surprising, after the number of times Ian had seen Alex with his attacker in the last few days. It was a request for reassurance, a simple yearning to be safe again.

  But the elephant had to be buried somewhere in the garage, if they even still had it at the house at all. More likely it was thrown out, with most of the other things they'd taken out of Alex's room.

  "Daddy, please," Alex urged. "You have to find him."

  "I can't, honey. I wish I could."

  "What about Mau-zlot? Is he gone too?"

  "Yeah," Ian said heavily. When Alex had lost the two animals while he was alive, bedtime could be held up for half an hour while his parents tore the house apart searching. "Yeah, Mowsalot is gone too."

  Alex was stricken. He looked back at his pillow like it was a hornets' nest. In the darkness, Ian again envisioned Eston's grin.

  "It'll be okay," Ian said. "I promise." It's what he'd said when his son was alive, too. He'd promised a hundred times that everything would be okay. Now, the words scraped from his throat. He'd never been so wrong about anything in his life.

  "But what will I do?" Alex moaned. "What will I do without Mr. Tuskers?"

  Ian forgot himself. He reached for his son to pull him into a hug, and found himself in an empty room, sitting on a stack of boxes.

  93

  The night passed in fits of dozing on the couch, as the TV droned. His dreams were of his son running and screaming toward a lake, of Eston grinning as one eye ran with blood, of Alina marrying Justin.