Both of them looked like they were about to break out in a cold sweat.
“You said there were options. What are those?” Suzanne asked.
Sardis sat forward.
“The alternative is, we don’t have to touch the teeth at all.” Eamon smirked when he saw their shoulders relax (job done). “Well, except for a few nicks at the base of eight teeth but that shouldn’t cause too much discomfort. It’s a technique I developed. I’ll take a cast of Sardis’ teeth and sit a full set over them, which get locked on. They won’t move. You’ll be able to eat with comfort as if they were your natural set; you won’t feel or know the difference. You can even remove and fit them back in yourself to allow the underneath teeth to breathe at night. The only setback is that instead of one, you now have two sets of teeth to brush.”
Eamon threw a wink at Sardis. Sardis didn’t react. “Look, here’s what I propose to do: I’ll sit you back down in the chair, take a few photos of your face so I can compare the fitting afterward and then do a quick casting of your teeth. Then all you have to do is come back next week for a fitting. I expect them to fit just fine. The casting will only take a couple of minutes; we still have time before my next appointment. If then you decide you still want your teeth removed, I won’t charge for the set.”
The relief was palpable in the room. They both decided without a word it was the best course of action. The whole point of the process for Suzanne was to normalise her teeth. For Sardis, it was to change her appearance and stop the demons from haunting her dreams. Would having her teeth surgically removed really make things any better? There were no guarantees.
He took three pictures of her face. They were more like mug shots minus the Letter Board. The casting of her teeth felt less intrusive. The fitting was scheduled for seven days’ time.
Suzanne and Sardis stood at the door, ready to leave. Fiona bid them goodbye and took the finished cast into an adjacent room while Eamon followed them over and shook Suzanne’s hand. Sardis showed her thanks out of arms’ reach, her hand already on the door handle. She was conscious that he had not commented on, or brought attention to her nails, and now was not the time. It did feel inappropriate not to shake hands but the dentist only nodded back with a smile, and said, “So I’ll see you both in a week’s time. Thanks for coming in today.”
Maybe he had noticed.
47:
“The old bag.”
Sardis was nervous. It was a big day for her, for both of them. Suzanne knew exactly how she felt; she felt it, too.
Sardis opted to do the driving into the city. Suzanne sat in the passenger seat doing her best to alleviate the nerves and inject some excitement into the journey by speculating how they would celebrate afterward. It was one of those few occasions in a person’s life where the anticipation of something about to happen felt both electric and sickening all at the same time, like waiting on the results of an important exam. The moment couldn’t arrive quickly enough.
Sardis sat back in the dental chair with palpable excitement. She couldn’t see her own aura but she knew it was spitting.
Eamon, the dentist, pulled up a chair next to her. “Fiona, have you got the anaesthetic prepared?”
“I have it here,” she answered.
Sardis saw she was syringing from a small bottle. She hadn’t been informed of injections. The needle looked big. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
Eamon noticed her discomfort and said in his best comforting voice, “There’s absolutely nothing to be worried about, Sardis, just going to numb your mouth. It won’t get any worse than that, I promise.”
It didn’t matter how he dressed it up. “Numb” to Sardis meant getting stabbed in the mouth, one that might not come back out. It was a worry. She could feel her core temperature rise and the palms of her hands begin to moisten.
It brought her back to a time when she was eight years old and on holiday with her parents. The three of them stayed in a caravan at a camping park close to the sea with surrounding fields. In one of those fields, where the grass was longest, sat a disused, flat wooden trailer about a meter high from the ground that she and some other kids (the accepting ones), her age used to sit and play around. Her last recollection of that trailer was when four of them made up a simple obstacle race that included running around and over the trailer, jumping down the other side, and seeing who could complete it in the quickest time. It was fun. And then it was Sardis’ turn.
“Ready. Steady. Go,” cried the three onlookers simultaneously.
“One, two, three,” one of the kids started the count.
The time to beat was twenty-five seconds of the verbal kid-kind, which could have been anything over a minute in real time.
Sardis set off wearing a light dress and flimsy flip-flops. She was never going to win but it was fun to play. She reached the trailer—“fifteen, sixteen, seventeen”—and climbed up. “Come on, Sardis, hurry, jump down, you’re doing great.” Sardis jumped, landed, and screamed. The other three ran and gathered around to see Sardis lying on her side in the deep grass, holding her leg up, bawling her eyes out. It was frightening. A syringe was pinned in the sole of her flimsy flip-flop, and a needle poked out through her foot.
“Would you like to see them as they are now or wait until they’re fitted?” Eamon asked.
It took her a moment to respond. “I think I’ll wait,” she said sickly, feeling no better.
The muffled sound of a ring tone rang out. Sardis watched the dentist look around in the direction of the counter just behind her. “Oh, excuse me; I thought I had that on silent, how rude, just a moment.”
He left the stool and walked to where the phone must be. Fiona delicately placed the syringe down with two fingers on the instrument table beside her.
Sardis looked away, unsure if she could go through with the fitting. Not if that was going into her mouth.
The dentist bent down, picked something up off the floor and found an empty space on the countertop next to the computer, adjacent to the dental chair. His back faced Sardis, blocking her view. She heard the soft click of latches. The ring tone got louder, then went silent.
“Sorry about that,” he said as he returned to the stool. “Where were we?”
Sardis watched his return and then noticed what he’d left on the counter, where the ring tone originated.
A bag, a doctor’s bag, one that she recognised instantly, similar to the one she had seen in her dreams, almost the exact same. She couldn’t take her eyes off it.
“Do you like it?” he asked, putting on a pair of latex gloves.
“Sorry,” Sardis said, turning back to face him. She looked at him differently.
“The bag, you were looking at the bag, do you like it?”
“Yes, it’s . . . it’s nice.”
“I don’t know if you know anything about the American Old Wild West, but it’s an antique, made from Walrus hide. One of a kind, I’m led to believe, paid a lot of money for it, probably more than I should have. It’s very old, had to have it restored, of course. It once belonged to another famous dentist, not that I consider myself famous”—Eamon smiled—“by the name of John Henry, otherwise known as ‘Doc’ Holliday. He was an American gambler, gunfighter, and dentist. He was friends with Wyatt Earp and was involved in the famous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.”
Sardis felt like she was about to have a tooth extracted without the anaesthetic but held her composure. It can’t be the same. It was a dream, just a dream. It isn’t the same bag, there’s no hole, she thought.
“That there bag saved his life, well, stopped a bullet, at least. Still has the bullet hole on the other side,” he said proudly.
“That bag is his prize possession,” Fiona said with a smile. “Takes it everywhere with him, loves everything about the Wild West.”
Eamon
smiled his approval. “A lot of history; I love that era. No need to look so worried; we’re not going to do anything too extreme. This will all be over before you know it.”
Sardis felt her body buzz. She looked to his aura, barely visible, a faint shimmer at best. Nothing strange; similar to most people on a normal day, but then, the situation was different. It was not like before when he saw her teeth for the first time. His focus was on the job at hand and that changed things.
She only ever saw auras when peoples’ feelings were extreme. She could see euphoria quite easily; the ugly chartreuse green of jealousy and resentment; the muddied yellow of selfish intellectualism; the crimson reds of passion, and even the violet-black attempts of self-righteous justification. For the most part, she still had to look for the aura. She didn’t notice the auras when they were dampened down as with the lad in the waiting room last week. There, she could tell he was a prick just by looking at him. But she did notice the explosion of colour when he bolted upright in the chair, a burst of fear from the solar plexus, accompanied by feelings of butterflies and extreme tension.
It was all too strange, too improbable to be true. She could think of nothing else except to look straight ahead but instead she looked at his hands. The latex gloves were on and the blue sleeves covered his wrists.
She forgot about the imminent injections and the fitting. It’s just not possible, a stupid coincidence, the lime green ribbon and now the bag, it’s all just coincidence. Maybe I have met him before, she thought, he said I looked familiar. I could have sat across from him on a bus or in a café, and he had his bag with him. It was plausible; subconsciously I took a fancy to the bag, and the lime green ribbon; it was a nice colour. That’s why I drag these things into my dreams.
But still Sardis’ focus remained on his hands. The cuff of the sleeve didn’t rise.
She refused the injection.
Suzanne didn’t have long to wait before the dental nurse called her into the surgery to see the results of Sardis’ new teeth. The butterflies in her stomach turned heavy as if only at the larva stage, hundreds of them wiggling, fighting against each other to break free. Sardis was standing up from the chair when she entered. A hand-held mirror covered the lower half of her face. The image reflecting back at her seemed to have her transfixed. Tears ran down both her cheeks.
Suzanne’s hand came straight to her mouth and cupped over her lips when Sardis lowered the mirror and looked at her with a requisite smile. She looked amazing, truly beautiful. Tears filled her eyes as the larva burst in her stomach and the butterflies swarmed lighter. They held in a tight embrace. She didn’t want to let go and mouthed a silent “Thank you,” over Sardis’ right shoulder to both of them.
He nodded with a smile. The dental nurse smiled, too.
They chatted briefly about aftercare and he gave them an unexpected fifty percent discount. He had evidently warmed toward Sardis, toward them both. There was no other explanation for such a generous discount.
Upon saying their goodbyes, Suzanne shook his hand. Next, he turned his attention to Sardis who had moved close to the door, ready to leave, almost in a hurry. He extended a full arm toward her. The sleeve rose above the wrist. She accepted his hand in hers and turned it ever so slightly. A mole rested in the centre, three dark hairs sprouting from the middle, on the back of his wrist.
Sardis’ stomach turned to queasy. Her tongue wet her lips, her throat parched of moisture, and her face strained. Images slapped one on top of another, skewering the meaty area of her brain like a kebab.
Her host was in new character, one she had not seen before, with the face of a wolf-man. He held a scalpel in a hairy hand, slicing, dark trickles spilling down in the razor’s wake. Then she saw the bloodied face of a girl, around the same age as herself, hair matted to her scalp, eyes open, clear and blue. She was pleading with her eyes for help, it seemed. No, not help, it was too late for that, something else, to say something? She recognised her. She was the girl from her recurring nightmare, the images fit. She wanted to spend more time with her. It felt important to find out what she had to tell. A moment longer and she would have known, but the images kept coming and she had to let her pass, leave behind those strange telling eyes in a blackout.
Next, an embryo; a tiny heart beating and then the feeling of being washed away down a waterslide and into a . . . it was night time . . . into a big dark tank, dirty and unkempt. Pitch-black on the inside, slimy and putrid, bitter on her tongue, a familiar taste, like one of her spoiled shakes . . . a birthing place. . . . It made no sense. A heavy vibration and a ray of light broke through the pitch, and then a face peered in the forced opening as if looking into a rabbit hole. A look of surprise turned into a smile or a gloat, looking in on top of her. This face was familiar, a younger version of Mum.
Sardis didn’t seem as grateful as one might have expected, almost rude, embarrassingly so from Suzanne’s perspective. The dentist showed no signs of disappointment for Sardis’ lack of gratitude. Suzanne stared bemused at her daughter, unable to piece together what was happening. The change came so fast, as soon as she held his hand. They never shook but held each other in a firm grasp. Hers looked so small wrapped in his, but it was hers that excreted all the pressure. Her nails were curled into the skin on the back of his hand. A silhouette of white outlined the compression on his tanned skin. It looked painful. And then it frightened the bejesus out of her when Sardis’ eyes began to dart about their sockets as if counting an angry swarm of bees about the room.
“Sardis stop, stop! You’re hurting him.” She couldn’t believe she’d just said that. She reached out to get her to release her grip and took her wrist. Her hand stuck there. She couldn’t let go. It lasted only a second or two, but the unexpected action jolted her. It was only when Sardis’ hand flexed open with the energy of a coiled spring and she herself sucked in air with the force of an industrial vacuum cleaner that the three of them simultaneously released their grip.
“What the hell just happened?” Suzanne asked, staring at her daughter, then at the dentist as if he should know. His head was down, looking at Sardis with an admonitory glare of his own.
Sardis turned without explanation, pulled down on the door handle and left the room in a hurry.
No amount of words could explain what just happened so Suzanne didn’t even try. “I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know what came over her, but thank you for taking care of my daughter.”
He looked as mystified as she did. “That’s no problem at all. It’s probably a big shock for her. It might take a while to adjust.”
She made a half-hearted attempt to smile the acknowledgment and left, concerned for Sardis.
Eamon looked down at the back of his hand, brought it to his mouth and sucked the four points of blood clean. She was deceivingly strong for such a young girl. And those nails. Had she dragged her hand away from his skin, she would have ripped the wounds of a panther’s claw. She had felt something, a rush of some kind that gripped her when they touched. He’d felt a rush, too. There was a look in those eyes that excited him. It was a certain type of fear, unfamiliar to him, probably because the fear was not directed at him or inflicted by him but it was there and it was intriguing, nonetheless.
Then the name of who she reminded him of popped into his head: Helen Dooley. And that was exciting.
That was a rush.
48:
“Tea time.”
“You gave me a scare back there. Are you sure you’re okay?” Suzanne asked on the drive home.
Sardis’ head was parked at the open window with her arm propped up on the armrest, looking through the winter sunshine at nothing in particular. It was a sure sign she wasn’t in the mood for talking.
“Sardis, will you please answer me when I am talking to you?”
“I’m fine.”
“I thought you’d be pleased.
They look amazing.”
“I am. It’s not that.”
“What then?”
“Mum, I can’th talk.” She put a boorish hand to her cheek as a reminder of the fitting. And for her to stop talking.
Suzanne’s concern turned to irritation. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel in response to the impertinent gesture. It felt best to allow the radio to suffice for company until they reached home.
Sardis let herself into the cottage with her own key, leaving her mum behind; slow to get out of the car. She went straight to her room and locked the door to prevent unwanted pestering and kicked off her trainers on the short walk to the bed. She got under the covers without undressing and closed her eyes. Sleep was the last thing on her mind.
It was him, her host, a real person, a dental serial killer roaming free in search of fresh meat to butcher. She was sure about that. It explained the change of teeth each time, used to bite and chew. It was all real, the dreams, the victims, no question, and it terrified her to the core. But that was only part of a fragmented story she’d seen.
Her mind stiffened, fearful to piece it all together and for what she might discover about herself. The girl was nearby, encroaching, vying for her attention with reckless raps at a window in the back of her mind. Sardis relaxed her thoughts and let her through. Tiny light dots formed in the blackness and then manoeuvred lightning-quick into the face of the young girl. She looked familiar, saturated in blood, and Sardis recognised a piece of herself. She could hear the big angry dog below, out of sight, and knew it to be her host as the wolf-man, the dentist with fresh meat.
At first she thought she might be getting a glimpse into the future, her future, a not-too-distant future, but that was until the eyes of the young girl began to tell.
The Ice Scream Man Page 36
