Nightmare Ballad

by Benjamin Kane Ethridge

  Johnny took off his glasses and cleaned them on his shirt. He chuckled and shook his head. “Must be drunker than I thought. I’m at that point where I’m wondering if this is a dream or real.”

  “It's both,” the waitress replied. A disgusting, lustful expression entered her pale face for a moment and then vanished like a fleeting hallucination.

  Johnny licked his lips. “It’s coming from that song, isn’t it? The one I can't remember?”

  The waitress smiled. For a moment he could see her skull behind the flesh. Blood filled the spaces and hemorrhaged from a curdled brain.

  “I need to get out of here.” Johnny tried to stand, but his muscles refused to work.

  “You’re stuck here. Dara thought of you just before she remembered the song. Only Death can free you now. And why not? It’s still happy hour. Would you like to order one in a 24 oz. glass?”

  Johnny struggled to stand. It wasn’t always easy to pull his heavy ass up, but this was like moving with a two-story house tied to his back.

  “A glass of Death? It’s the dark-red drink.”

  “No, thanks,” he barked, vein about to burst in his forehead. He gave up with a breathless gasp.

  “Maybe then you’ll keep drinking Time. Maybe Dara will sleep for ten years. For thirty? It won't matter. Just order a glass of the red stuff, Johnny. Do something right. Save these people. Your boy might hear about it someday and think you’re a hero.”

  Sweat dotted Johnny’s forehead and prickled along his back. “I just want the chicken nachos and then the bill.”

  The waitress’s face softened, and she left. “Coming right up.”

  Johnny checked his glasses again. The beer in his mug flashed white and he looked away, accidentally, back to the bar. Those drinking the dark red drink regarded him with rotten faces, their skin sloughing off in clumps. Those with the bright-hot white drinks had the sunken appearance of advanced age, but were no less disturbing to behold.

  One guy, with a faded trucker’s cap, considered Johnny with insane attention. “I let it all get away from me. Time. We fucked up, you and I. We thought there was enough to go around. There isn’t. Now, there will be nothing to look back at. Nothing to love. There will be nothing to look forward to.”

  “Look forward to us,” the corpses cackled. Everybody joined in singing parts of the appalling song, some of the dead resting their arms around the necks of the rapidly aging. They changed back into normal people for a moment, then transformed into another ghastly crowd the next.

  Johnny managed to move his hand down to his pocket. If he could reach his cell phone…he could call Dara and wake her up.

  Would that be worse?

  “Nothing is worse than this,” he mumbled.

  “Wanna bet!” roared a skeleton. Coagulated blood and vomit shot from his unhinged jaw across the bar top.

  Johnny’s left arm moved independently of him. He grasped the full glass of white, glowing sludge, tipped his head back and drank.

  The sun came flying up outside. Shadows skittered across the room from the violent resurgence of sunlight through half-closed vertical blinds.

  He took another swig and felt tired…so damned tired…like he’d been up for thirty hours or something.

  Yellow light and gray shadow had quick intercourse in the room and deepened with dark offspring.

  It was night once more.

  Johnny noticed it had taken him almost an entire day to take his phone out of his pocket. He’d opened the menu to his contacts and had scrolled down the short list of people he kept track of. His thumb quivered before the screen.

  Someone screamed, and he heard a body thump on the floor.

  “Fuck,” he said through gnashing teeth.

  Johnny took another chug of his beer. He watched it dump toward his mouth. Nothing looked wrong. Yellow. Friendly. Beautiful.

  They order Time and Death. The drinks are the same, just different strengths, of course.

  What’s going on here? thought Johnny.

  Not much at the moment, replied the Bone Man, but wait until Dara Rhodes awakes…the Mare will ride again, twice as fierce as it did with Luke Rhodes.

  Johnny’s thumb suffered a painful spasm as he tried to stretch it toward Luke’s number.

  “Why is this happening to me? If this nightmare belongs to Dara?”

  Dara’s thinking about this place as she sleeps, explained the Bone Man. And so this is wonderful territory for foreplay.

  Are you here to help me?

  All side conversation in the bar suddenly stopped. The Bone Man spoke, “Yes of course. You will bear witness and when Dara brings the nightmare here with her, we will spit you both over a well-kept garden of flames. We’ll cook that same expression into your face and hers. Panicked meat tastes better.”

  “Good one! It’ll taste better!” said a corpse at the bar, slapping his knee, bone exposed through the rotten material of his blue jeans. He hummed with fading amusement, leaned forward and pulled a cheese-bound tortilla chip off his plate of nachos.

  Then the room flickered and strobed.

  Everything appeared normal again. No rotting people. No sagging, frail, aging people. Just a bar with a bunch of very tired drunks. What you’d come to expect, for the moment anyway. Johnny was still bound to his seat though, his thumb still poised and struggling to touch Luke’s number illuminated on his cell phone. The once-skeleton man scarfed down a wad of gooey nachos and made a gagging sound.

  Johnny looked on his menu again and opted for a different dish.

  Chapter 8

  Through the slider, the meddlesome sun shined.

  Again? She could have sworn she’d felt the heat of its rays on her face earlier. Muscles stiff, stomach in a sailor’s knot, Dara picked up Luke’s cell phone off the nightstand and checked the time. He’d missed a call from Johnny this morning. That’s what had awakened her.

  Wait, Johnny called this morning?

  She wondered if he’d been thrown in jail again.

  She’d answer the call. Whether it was a plea from jail or just a pocket call, Johnny Cruz had finally done something helpful. She had an extra fifteen minutes before her alarm went off, and on this big day she could use it. From the sounds of things, she wasn’t alone. The California King was empty, the rest of the comforter pulled tight across its length.

  In the den, slow minor chords rang from Luke’s guitar, while Maribel nosily rummaged through the kitchen cabinets.

  Dara swung her legs off the bed. Through the slider she spotted a row of luminous violet insects, each the size of her fist. Outside they joyfully trekked across the balcony. The bugs struck her as memorable, though she didn’t much care to investigate. Let them stay out there. I’ve got an interview and can’t be troubled with some super-large Brazilian insects.

  She took another moment to wake up, stretching, rubbing the crust from her eyes, running her tongue over the sleep-film on her teeth. As she reached over to retrieve her own phone from the charger, she froze.

  What had that date been on Luke’s phone? Unplugging her cell, she felt a horrible fear wash over her. She reached out and touched the screen.

  “Holy shit!” She threw the comforter off her bare legs. It was impossible. There had to be a mistake. She couldn’t have possibly slept through all of yesterday! Somebody would have woken her up long before this.

  “Luke! Mari!” she yelled in a panic.

  Guitar chords.

  Rummaging through the cabinets.

  “This can’t be true. Can’t be.” Dara awkwardly thumbed through her contact list, going past GeoGreen several times before getting to select it. She would cross her fingers and leave a message. Maybe she could explain it as a misunderstanding. Maybe she could lie. A death in the family? Something. Anything to get this chance back. She was calling at the crack of dawn, so she would have to wait for hours before they even got the message. You don’t have any fingernails left as it is. Better be careful you don’t eat the fingers to t
he knuckle.

  To her surprise and absolute horror, a secretary picked up. The woman sounded exhausted and bitter.

  “Finally,” Maria rasped. “Are you coming yet, Sara? They’re still waiting in the conference room.”

  “Waiting? Still? Since—“

  “Yesterday.”

  “Oh my God, yes! I’m so sorry. Tell them I’m sorry. I…I’m on my way. Please tell them I’m sorry.”

  “Get here quick, Sara. They are…very upset.”

  “Absolutely. Absolutely. Bye.” Dara powered off the phone and shrieked.

  She stormed into the walk-in closet, found her slacks and put them on, along with her favorite bra. Where was her black blouse though? Great! The only thing that fit her half-way decently and she’d lost it! She smacked away some clothes on hangars. Not there. Not here. Not fucking there! She went through another series of older clothes, some of which belonged to Maribel and shouldn’t have been mixed in with hers. Maybe Luke accidentally put them in the laundry pile in the corner? Dara tossed clothes over her shoulder, the pile seeming endless before her.

  Guitar chords.

  The song, the song she remembered the other day, just before falling asleep.

  Cluttering pots and pans.

  A beat to set the rhythm.

  Tears flooded her eyes. “No,” she babbled. “No….”

  Dara leaned back and realized that she already had the blouse on. Her hair was also pulled back neatly, held by a black clip.

  Oh, okay!

  She must have forgotten! At some point, she’d gotten ready and putting the blouse on just completely slipped her mind.

  It made sense.

  Dara ran through the house, colors running murky and stagnant, slow underwater erosion, ominous like thousands of unknown fingertips slipping down her back.

  Luke sat in the den playing his acoustic. His hands were wet and bloody, the pick-guard streaked red.

  “You’re bleeding from your fingers,” Dara yelled at him. “You can’t play that way. You’re not a martyr. Go clean up. I’ll check on you when I get back.” She hated herself for leaving him that way, but there was no choice. This had to be done. She had to show him she could do this.

  She stumbled through an obstacle course of pots and pans in the kitchen. Maribel had half her body inside the lower tier of the pantry.

  “I’m late. Bye, Mari,” Dara said, grasping the doorknob.

  “Don’t go that way,” Maribel said, scooting out. “This way is faster.”

  “Really?”

  Maribel’s honey skin took on weathered tone. Her eyes were bloodshot, dark circles orbited them, as if she’d been up for days. “I’m not kidding. Go, Dara, hurry up, before you miss the interview. In the pantry. It’s a short cut. It’s always been there.”

  “Really?” she said again and got down onto her knees. She pushed away a box of saltines and entered the pantry. She had only crawled a few feet before she noticed a purple glow ahead. The sound of laughing and conversation increased as she got closer to the end of the tunnel. One of the voices sounded like her dad’s. He was arguing with another person. Dara’s mother. Another voice interrupted them both. Her uncle Sal’s. They sounded like they hated each other.

  They didn’t though.

  They loved each other.

  She loved them.

  Never got to prove it.

  Never got to prove anything.

  Dara crawled faster. They must still be alive. She wanted to hold them, tell them so many things about her life. But Mom and Dad never died, really. Existence was the lie here. She had no problem accepting that the huge hatchet wound to her life, the accident with the big rig had never really occurred. It was easy to let go of something so unwanted.

  She climbed out of another cupboard, parting bottles of Triple Sec and Midori liqueur out of her way, and found herself behind the bar, at Shasta’s of all places, only a block from GeoGreen. Maribel had been right—this way was quicker!

  “Awesome!” she shouted, wondering why in all the years they had lived at that house she had never used the passageway before. She would be using it again. “Hell yes!” she said triumphantly.

  Her smile faded. The bar was littered with moldering corpses. Ten of them spread out over the bar, glasses of blinding white light and glasses of red mud in the others. Out among the tables, slumped shapes indicated that the massacre, whatever it had been, had claimed everybody.

  Except for Johnny Cruz, who staggered from his table like he’d been torn free from a piece of Velcro. Like Maribel had, he looked as if he’d been awake for a week.

  “You brought it here—all these people died because of you.” He bumped into a table, which shrieked loudly behind him. “Get away from me, Dara!”

  She moved around the bar, stepping over the powdery, wrinkled face of a bartender, her eyes unmistakably two martini olives. Dara’s heart trilled. She pushed a table and a chair out of her way. “I’m just trying to get to my interview, Johnny,” she said. “I don’t need these games.”

  “Games?” he whispered in disbelief. “Leave me alone!”

  Shadowy figures started converging on her from the walls. They had barbed bones jammed through their skin. Black feathers sprouted from their stringy, ash-laden hair. Spearheads moved above them like a collection of fangs grinding on the darkness.

  Johnny broke through the front, door and sunlight filled the bar. The group of Bone Men stood there, dazed, blinking through the light.

  Dara put her head down rushed outside—

  —to a completely different layout of Sycamore street.

  Rather than GeoGreen’s main office being on the corner of Redwood, it was right across the street, the sprinkler-wet concrete steps leading from the curb to the front lobby. Elder trees lined the ivy-covered hill at the bottom. The obscenely large purple bugs she had seen earlier crawled through the tree branches and laced around the trunks, a jubilant natural energy.

  The rattle-roar of motorcycle engine startled Dara. Zigzagging, Johnny took off on down the street, trying to gain control of a vehicle that looked halfway between a Harley and something from a post-apocalyptic wasteland, all rusted gears and sprockets clasping, flexing, and releasing dirty smoke from carbon-smudged stacks in the back.

  Dara turned her back on the road, just to make certain the Bone Men hadn’t come after her. For a moment, she’d almost completely forgotten them. They were there though still, in the doorway of the bar. One of them licked his fangs. Another moved his hand down into his feathered loin cloth and massaged the thickness there. A third, his face smashed apathetically against the door frame, mouthed words she couldn’t hear.

  She ran across the street and took the stairs as quickly as she could in heels. Disquiet hammered her heart, demanding to take over every inch of her.

  The portfolio she’d put together—it was back at home.

  Or was it in the car?

  She hadn’t driven but still searched the parking lot. Ten cars down, sat Luke’s Volt, gleaming metallic blue in the early morning sun. Flash frames of time passed: she was in front of the door, the door was open, and she was rummaging around through a sea of papers with graphs. Many of the papers had been marked up in crayon, and none of the sheets were actually the final version she’d settled on.

  These were the old graphs! How was this possible? She’d deleted those! Where the hell was the new one? The good one? She needed to show these people, to show Luke…

  Glancing out the window, she saw pages drifting in the air. Did they fly away? No, she’d made four copies and put two in the back seat, just in case. So many of these papers, all over the place. Wouldn’t it be funny if it started raining graphs or resumes?

  Abandoning all hope, disgusted beyond belief, Dara slammed the car door. Papers began to cascade from the heavens. Thousands upon thousands. Millions. Everywhere. The parking lot quickly resembled the aftermath of a New Year’s Eve bash in New York.

  They’re going to think I did
this. Better move!

  She hurried on and pushed into the lobby. She had been in the building many times with Luke. The air conditioning and the familiarity of the trickling waterfall over pebbles on the back wall, the black marble topped reception desk, the fake plants suspended in baskets overhead, all of it, made her blood pressure drop considerably.

  She’d arrived. She was here. Safe and sound.

  After taking a deep breath, she stated her business to the receptionist.

  The woman, a drab-looking person in a dress too tight for her frame, reached over and pushed a button on her phone. Her voiced cracked, “She’s finally here.”

  Dara swallowed her fear and watched the woman’s reaction as a voice spoke on the other end. Under her young eyes, the woman had grown some heavy baggage from either sleep deprivation or drugs. After a moment, she punched the button again. “They’ll see you now.”

  “I’m sorry…where?”

  “Second floor, last door down the hall.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dara headed for the elevators but halted at the receptionist’s sharp voice. “They’re broken. Use the stairs.”

  She thanked the woman again and walked over to the half-helix stairway. Spider webs stretched from the banister to the wall. More of the purple bugs skittered on the sticky surfaces. Closer to them now, they seemed more of a hybrid spider-wasp, only their radioactive purple exoskeleton brought them into a whole new category of the bizarre. She tore through webs, slowly making her way upstairs. Angry shouts came from behind the walls. Loser. It was a word she heard more than once. That woman. Luke’s girlfriend. Luke’s concubine. His fuck puppet. No.1 Wife. Or was she No. 2?

  She had to ignore the voices, had to fight them. Dara straightened her spine and ripped through a particularly oozing web. Strands fell on her shoulders, and she brushed them off and checked her hair. They would not use any of this against her. She’d arrived. She’d done this. She’d come here as quickly as possible.

  “Thanks for making it rain paper,” said the receptionist down below, her voice echoing in the vast room. “That’s going to make it tough to drive out of here.”