Amanda nodded, watching Jon’s violation. The beasts assuaged every lustful, vindictive thirst. Nothing remained of Jon the Doctor, but a puddle of thick blood and secretion. It spread across the black floor of space. The beasts stood and turned, moving back into the surrounding dark, a job well done.
Amanda Dear closed her eyes, sighing in the vindication of death. When she opened them, the scene disappeared, replaced by another. White pinpricks of light—from every direction—came together, a single point in the black of death. Shelby, of course, always had a way of making a dramatic entrance. As far as Amanda Dear was concerned, she might as well be watching Jon the Doctor all over again. Shelby mimicked the same, smug smile.
Like Jon the Doctor, Shelby’s smile was, also, short-lived. Amanda Dear cried out in victory. To her joy, monsters did not attack and abuse Shelby. Wesley, her paramour of the cosmos—her sweet, poetic polar bear—appeared from out of the black. He stood directly behind him, and Wesley, wearing his security guard uniform, did not look pleased.
Shelby turned and, surprisingly, seemed to recognize Amanda’s lover. Wasting no time, Shelby confronted his enemy, reached out, and grabbed Wesley’s crotch.
This was not in the script of death! This was not how death was supposed to go!
Amanda squeezed her eyes shut. She willed a different scenario. This was her death, goddamnit! By her rules and no one else’s would it play!
Within that second—when she opened her eyes—their roles had been reversed. Perhaps she had power here after all.
Shelby was on his knees in front of Wesley now, and the man was begging for mercy.
“You came to the wrong place for that,” Amanda said, from the distance.
Wesley, however, had done considerable damage to Shelby’s face. Much like Amanda in the unknown institution, Shelby held his face in his hands, weeping torrents of blood. He’d always been too manly for tears, she knew. Wesley had, in the time Amanda had closed her eyes, torn Shelby’s eyes from their sockets. Blood spilled in a ridiculous flow down Shelby’s face, plating his shirt and pants. Blood gathered absurdly in a widening pool around his knees. The blood was an entity not of Shelby’s creation, but Wesley’s. It had a life of its own. Huge, white tusks ascended from the blood and swallowed Shelby whole. He disappeared into the solid black of a second death.
His death must’ve been a silent part, somehow rehearsed without her, even though Amanda felt she’d created it. Wesley turned without noticing her and walked away with a single, satisfying nod into space.
Of course, with one act left to go, he was standing here now, the conscienceless marauder who’d left her to die in the August alleyway.
Manny strutted, short and confidently toward her. He didn’t have to smile. After all, he was the reason she was here.
Manny, however, was not aware he was about to undergo a second death. His lack of knowledge took him to unholy places.
In an instant, the darkness came to life behind Manny with another unexpected redeemer. Casting a quick glance at Amanda Dear, Lucifer—in the form of a dragon—winked at her from limitless space. The dragon licked his scaly mouth with a black forked tongue. Amanda had friends in high and low places, apparently. How a dragon as hideous as Lucifer could look so radiant was difficult to fathom, but he emanated ecstatic joy. Something about him appeared handsome and child-like, even as a dragon.
Manny was oblivious. He had no idea what was going on. He did not see the dragon behind him. For Amanda, it made him look even more foolish, weak, and pathetic, or maybe that was because Lucifer was the size of a mythological sea dragon.
Perhaps Manny had been aware, because when the giant maw reared behind him, a puzzled look crossed his face. Satan’s enormous mouth clamped down. With an audible gulp, he swallowed Amanda’s executioner. Soon, Manny would be slowly digesting in the bowels of Lucifer, a torturous process lasting eternity.
Lucifer played the role perfectly. He smacked his lips and smiled. “I told you we’d be seeing each other again,” he told her.
As unexpected and preposterous as it seemed, Amanda Dear accepted the fact that she and Lucifer had become friends.
The monstrous red dragon, however, didn’t waste time hanging around. Lucifer winked at Amanda a second time, slithering back into Hell, leaving her to puzzle over her situation in the lonesome dark of a bewildering afterlife.
*
She hoped things weren’t over yet. She still had questions. What was God doing anyway? And why were the only friends she had (besides Wesley), abhorrent beings of evil from the underworld? Did that make her a demon as well, an unrecognized resident from Hell?
After witnessing the end of her life’s tormentors, Amanda Dear was not flying through space. She was, in all aspects, human. Ropes bound her hands and feet, her mouth gagged by a slimy rag. It tasted like gasoline. The gag, where the knot was tied, pinched the skin at the back of her head, pulling her hair. Amanda wasn’t aware death granted physical flaws, but apparently she’d been wrong.
She was on the ground floor in the ruins of an abandoned skyscraper. Debris, newspapers, grocery bags, and pop cans lie scattered at her feet.
In the coming dusk—outside the broken windows—the entire city had been either bombed or deserted. In the gloom, it was hard to tell. A consummate sense of desertion surrounded her. She was completely alone in the silence. Amanda Dear would welcome even Lucifer’s company.
Ropes bound her to a wooden desk chair, something from high school. A section of the chair dug into her back, forcing her to feel pain she didn’t acknowledge as death. Charred wood, plaster, and the smell of gasoline thickened the air.
Okay, she thought. So, maybe this is the second death, the horrible twisted conclusion of an already horribly, twisted fate. That’s appropriate, right? Life is unfair. Why shouldn’t death be the same? Nice twist, God. Can we get this over with now, so I can go about my deliriously, comical fate which You happen to think so amusing?
Something moved under the floor. Whisperings issued around her. Boards and fallen plaster were pushed aside across the ground.
Okay, so she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought.
To the typical chagrin of death’s reality—its lack of surprise—Amanda Dear tried keeping her fear at bay. Figures clad in thick, dirty rags rose into view from under the floor.
You’ve got to be kidding, she thought.
Amanda tried shaking her head, but the ropes were too tight. She tried mustering indifference. She didn’t want them to know she was afraid.
Of course, she thought. I knew this would happen. Show me what you’ve got!
The smell of aged, unclean skin wafted toward her. Amanda winced at the stench.
They looked like mummies. Heavily draped cloth disguised their features, any trace of anatomy. Some carried baseball bats; others held knives. She counted seven, but more were coming into view from the shadows.
I’m going to die at the hands of Frosty the Snowman and his nearest relatives, she thought.
Predictable. All too predictable and disappointing. Just like life. The terrible end to all terrible things…
Perfect, Amanda Dear thought.
She closed her eyes. The figures lurched closer, the smell growing more powerful with each step they took.
Amanda Dear, after the endless charade, didn’t care what they did at this point. She welcomed hell, as long as it was something! She didn’t care anymore! Let her hang out with Lucifer. They’d had some good times at least.
One of the figures was close enough to touch her. A diseased, boiled hand reached toward her face. She could just make out its sunken, sallow cheeks, hungry, dehydrated lips drooping from a thin mouth. It was an old, malnourished man on the verge of death—or perhaps his second or third by the looks of him.
Making her recoil, the man caressed her cheek with a bony finger.
But just as quickly—startling Amanda—the hand fell away, rising toward its own lifeless visage. Gripping the flesh behi
nd his ear, he proceeded to peel off his face. Amanda was horrified! The face came away like paper. It took her a minute to realize it was nothing more than a carnival mask. Underneath, she was just as surprised to see her ageless polar bear. It was Wesley in disguise. He dropped the mask to the floor.
“God, it’s hot under that thing,” he said, taking a deep breath.
Her jaw would’ve hit the floor if not for the gag. Instead, Amanda’s eyes grew double in size. She hopped up and down in the chair with excitement. Wesley cautioned she might dismantle the legs and go sprawling, if she weren’t careful. He did not come all the way into death to mend a broken hip, he’d said.
Amanda made a gagging, whining sound. To her surprise, she noticed the other monsters had disappeared.
“Jeez,” Wesley said, irritated. “Why do they have to tie people up all of the time? You think they’d get tired of it! And a gag in your mouth! I bet that tastes fresh!”
Wesley, being the courteous polar bear he was, untied the gag, and threw it—disgusted—on the floor. He untied the ropes binding her hands and feet.
In the second she was free, Amanda Dear threw her arms around Wesley’s neck. She kissed him repeatedly, not giving him air to breathe.
“You taste like gasoline,” he said.
She smiled. “Please, Wesley, tell me this is the end,” Amanda Dear said. She was exhausted. “I don’t think I can take another second! I’m cracking up in this place!”
“Well, we’ve still got to run to the diner and pick up and order for Joe. He’s a good guy. You’ll like him. Then, there’s the baby shower at the Hilton’s. Charlene will be there with Rebecca. But I wanted to go out with the guys tonight, and I didn’t think you’d mind. The Angels are playing the Demons tonight on channel seven. We’ve got it all lined up at Michael’s Bar and Grille. And then, I thought we’d go out for ice cream. Butterscotch Ripple still your favorite?”
Same old Wesley.
“God, I missed you,” she said. She kissed him again.
“Ah, they always do that,” he said. “Something about appreciating it more. I think it’s a waste of time and a crock of shit myself. But hey, I’m just a security guard.”
Amanda paused, cocking her head. She furrowed her brows. “I don’t understand,” she said. “All this…I can’t remember much of anything. I think about you, or thought I did, but something about it…something told me none of it was real—what I remembered about you. That can’t be, can it?”
Wesley shook his head. “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know what you are,” he said, as if she’d just caught the joke. “You did that all the time in life, but you’re not pulling that crap here, missy.”
Amanda Dear, throwing a tantrum, stomped her feet. “Would you quit being so secretive and just tell me what the hell is going on?”
Wesley took his time replying, putting on a serious face. “If that’s the nicest way you can talk to me, you can just forget Butterscotch Ripple, young lady. I’m not running a day care here! You see any kids running around?”
“Wesley!”
Wesley laughed loud and heartily. “Let’s see,” he said, putting a finger to his chin. He gazed upward. “If I can access grilled-cheese sandwiches and still be the polar bear…that would make you…”
It took Amanda all of her control not to slug him. Wesley continued, however, putting the jokes aside, and told her the truth the only way he knew how:
“You were, I like to think of, as the silly girl. That’s a compliment by the way. I was never there, Amanda Dear. Not in the life you had. You knew that all along. Those moments weren’t real, not with me, the cocoa, the snow, the thunderclouds, even the sandwiches. But you thought they were. You made them real. It didn’t matter what they were to anyone else as long as they were real to you. I was just an idle whim, a fancy in the span of seconds. To you, they might’ve been longer. ‘Out of hope, out of desperation, with the hope of knowing you are always with me. Dream beautiful.’ You said that to me once at a hot dog stand. You don’t remember, do you?”
“Am I supposed to?” she said.
Amanda Dear was deeply troubled, trying to piece it all together. She looked into the night sky, thinking, trying to understand how Wesley had been a beautiful imagined memory, and the others, such real nightmares. She turned to her polar bear. They had been real, and Wesley had not? Wasn’t that a bit cruel?
But wait! If she changed it…if she reversed it…
“See,” he explained, “the funny thing about you is there was one reality and something else altogether. Fantasy, I guess. Personally, I’d use another name for it, but hey, this is your death. The one reality that people—your mother, for example—denied. She told you to focus on the other, but you didn’t accept it. You believed in what you dreamed, what you imagined. You made the fantasy real, Amanda girl. A lot of people do not possess that particular talent. But you do. Everything was unfair in your life, the way your mother treated you, your relationships. Even death was unfair, but not completely. The belief you had in your vision gave you more power than you realized. The dreams and fancies that you have are what make you as beautiful as you are. It was unfair, everything in your life, even now. Sometimes, that’s just the way it is. We don’t always have a choice. It’s chance, I guess. But you dared to believe. When it got bad, really bad, you made the fantasies real. You made me. I was born from here,” he said, pointing to her head. “I was simply a thought to make the bad things not so bad, the good things a little better, more endurable.” Wesley paused. “And now I’m here,” he said, holding his arms out. “Surprise, surprise. Real or fantasy?” Wesley raised his very real eyebrows and smiled. “You decide.”
Amanda Dear looked around the ruined city. She grabbed Wesley’s hand—real, full of blood—warm, full of life. She couldn’t believe it.
“Whatever you dream, whatever you imagine,” he said.
“The things you always dreamed because you loved them,” Amanda continued, “because you knew they loved you in return. That’s the only truth you really know, you really get…From here,” Amanda finished, pointing to Wesley’s heart under the badge.
Wesley shook his head and rolled his eyes dramatically. “Leave it up to a woman to come to a conclusion like that.”
Amanda Dear was not offended. She smiled, thinking how the most impossible things—dreamed throughout her short, troubled life—had been realities more touchable than life. She could reach out and grasp them if she knew where to go. She owned limitless capabilities to her power. It derived from passion, hope, love, and beauty, the only things that made sense. In a word, it was a simple belief from which she never wavered. The images of her in the asylum were nothing more than thoughts her mother put into her head. Those moments had not been real.
“So,” Amanda said, looking into his blue eyes. “I wasn’t mad? I was never in the institution?”
Wesley grinned. “The funny thing,” he said, “was that you knew something no one else did.”
“What’s that?”
“That beauty can be obtained. You lived more in a life most people scoff at. I became more real to you than the life you actually lived. That’s what you wanted from me. How else was I supposed to repay you after what you’d gone through? I’ve been waiting lifetimes for you to come around, Amanda Dear. Thousands of years, in fact. Sounds impossible, I know, even ridiculous. But the fact is, you knew it was true just like I did. It was okay, because I knew this day would come. We’ve spent time together before, if only briefly. It’s like waiting lifetimes for a single, most memorable Christmas Day, and when it finally arrives…Well, my God! It’s like Heaven! The best gift you could’ve ever asked for.”
“I can’t believe it,” she said.
“Believe it,” Wesley said. “Polar bears got it pretty good, really. Better than most, in fact. Winters are always so sad for everyone. I happen to approach it like a summer festival.
”
Amanda was puzzled. She furrowed her brows. “So what happens now? Out there?” she asked, indicating the rest of—
(Life? The World? Death?)
“Whatever you want it to be,” Wesley told her.
“Why?”
“Because Someone out there thought you deserved it. Maybe He saw something in you He’d never seen before. Maybe He has a thing for blondes.”
“You’re incredible, Wesley. I love you. I don’t know what to say except thank you.”
Wesley put his palms up and shook his head. “There’s nothing to say. You made me, remember? You were the one who did all the work. All I had to do was be patient, wait for you, and be there when you needed me most. To make things endurable, worth living—and I guess—worth dying for.”
“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Amanda said, looking at the stars in the world strangely taking shape around them. Was that her power bringing these images to life? Or was it chance?
“Actually,” Wesley said, taking her hand. “We just got started. This is only the beginning. Not the end.”
Together, they walked out of the ruined skyscraper and down the road. They had no particular destination.
“Wesley?” Amanda asked.
“Yes?”
“What do you believe in?”
He paused before he spoke.
“Unpredictability. That no matter how bad things get, in the end, it always turns out better than you expected. It’s not all that great, I suppose, but it’s the best we’ve got so far.”
Wesley smiled, and Amanda pulled him close. They walked into a foreign, alien city that didn’t exist to anyone but them.
“Like the conclusion of a good book,” she said. “‘The horrors of life and death slipped forever away, and they lived happily ever after.’”
Wesley kissed the top of her head.
Amanda Dear let out a sigh of relief.
All you loved and dreamed—in the light of purest passion—were the only truths that mattered. Its simplicity astounded her. You didn’t have to be a saint or attend religious ceremonies to obtain Heaven, she realized. All that was already inside. All you had to do was look for it. Obtaining enough sacred truths, even angels and demons switched sides in fear of how that knowledge would banish them utterly.
Silly Girl Page 4
