Lurk
Page 27
“How long have we been down here?” I said.
“You came in about three hours ago.”
It felt like days. Weeks. Years.
White skull teeth gleamed in a white skull face. Andy motioned towards the crumpled-up pile of his uniform next to the sleeping bag. “Excuse my, uh, impropriety. Old habits die hard. But you know that, dontcha, pal?”
“I guess.”
“Y’know, I used to be plump, too, when I was a kid,” Andy said. “Depressed. Horrible with women. Moving here was what got me out of that hole. And you’ll get out of it, too. Out of one Hole, into another. Ho he he he.”
They all laugh like that, don’t they? I thought.
“I never felt happy before I came here,” Andy rambled on. “Shit. I mean, why should a fat surfer kid from boring-ass Encinitas get to be happy? I had to work my ass off for this. Marty never had to, or that cunt, Apple. They got the good life handed to them. Handed.”
“Officer…?” I started to say. “What’s going to happen to me?”
Andy rolled his eyes. “The name’s Andy. And, what happens next is, you make a choice. Do you want it to be easy, or hard? Don’t go down the wrong road, Drew-buddy. Ho he he he.”
He heard my song. He was down here the night we found the pictures, and the night after, and the one after that. Of course he did. He’s been down here for the past twenty years.
“It felt pretty good, didn’t it, getting back at your so-called friends for treating you like dirt? You’re the only one with any potential. I bet it felt pretty good to make them the butt of a joke for once, am I right?” Andy said.
Fresh tears burst from my eyes. I remembered Jay’s head rolling across the kitchen floor, his eyes wide and white with surprise, smearing blood on the decaying yellow tiles. I remembered Bea’s face, bloodless and begging for me to finish it. I remembered Carter and Natalia, Carter’s face showing confused heartbreak as I ended his life, hers showing fear, but no surprise. He’s right. It was fun. It was the most fun I’ve ever had. With a defeated sigh, I nodded.
Andy howled. “HA! Wow. You’re one messed-up guy, buddy! You are one sick, sad, little pecker-puffer. But I’ll tell ya a secret. So am I, Drew. So am I. We're not so different, you know? When I did in DeLucio? When I ran Marty's car off the road? Better than sex, pal. Not that you'd know.”
“Okay.”
“Just wait until you get to do it for real. That’s the really good part.” He was jerking furiously under the sleeping bag now, spittle flying off his lips with every word. “They need guys like us, Drew. Guys who get things done. I wasn’t sure about you at first, but I’ve got your back.”
Guys like us. I licked my lips. Watching Bea die, seeing in the blink of an eye what my life would become without her, and Jay, and Carter, even Natalia, made me suddenly feel sick at the thought of killing them. Did I really care if Jay got the girl? Why should I care? I didn’t have a good answer to that question, except, I certainly never will. She doesn’t want me, she wants him.
The anger came in waves. I took deep breaths and the periods between the waves lengthened, until they had dulled completely, and all I felt was dirty and cold, like I’d been submerged in mud.
Andy was too busy talking himself through my orientation to notice. He spoke haltingly, his eyes tracking along the ceiling. “What you saw are images of your depression. It’s different for everyone. Me, Benny, anyone else who sees Them. Because They are infinite. We can’t even begin to comprehend Their vastness. You know the terms of the contract. And the payoff.”
I thought about The Shining. Jack was never offered terms before he tried to murder his family. Jack simply obeyed. So did Jason, at Camp Crystal Lake. So did Reagan in The Exorcist. So did every human villain in every horror movie, ever. I don’t have to obey. They’re giving me a choice.
“What happens if I say no?” I said.
Andy stopped jerking it and spat into the dirt. “Saying no would be the worst mistake you ever made in your life.”
“Are They jealous we’re alive?” I said. “So… what? These … ghosts, or evil memories, or whatever, have been driving me crazy so I'll kill for Them, and turn into some sick freak like you? Is that what this is? Scudds Gurney wants to remember what it's like to beat his wife, and for some reason I’m supposed to help him do it?” I barked a surprised laugh. “A fucking ghost Nazi got you to kill your best friends, so you expect me to do it, too?”
“This is the only warning you’re going to get, Drew. Shut the hell up, or I won’t be the one who makes you.”
Andy rolled onto his back and sat up. Inside the sleeping bag, his movement looked like a worm trying to crawl without traction. “I don’t fully understand it, myself. Benny had his ideas. The pictures you burned were supposed to be a peace offering.”
“So, why didn’t it work?” I said.
“I said I don’t know!” Skoakland roared, veins standing in his neck, rising half out of the bag. A long silence hung between us in the darkness before Andy calmed down and finished, “Maybe because you can’t make peace with the dead. He was trying to shut Them up, you know? Trying to make Them go away. Like he could bargain with Them or something. But Benny's big idea backfired. It was never the bones. It was never the pictures, or the dreams. They don’t want Their names back. They don’t want Their old memories or lives. They want yours. And Carter’s. And Natalia’s. And Miss Beatriz’s.” He said the last name with an extra lick of scorn.
“I figured most of that out by myself.”
“Great. Wonderful. So are you going to do it for real, now?” Andy said.
I shook my head.
Andy sighed with frustration. He pointed at the ceiling, where the soft moans of Bea and Jay’s ecstasy were beginning to echo in time with the consistent thumping of someone’s leg on the breakfast bar cabinets. “What They’re offering is the best it’s going to get for you. And you won’t get a second chance.”
I walked closer to Andy, slowly, so he wouldn’t startle. I have to do what Jack and Jason and Reagan and all the other movie monsters failed to do. Because I have a choice. Because I’m not Jack Torrance.
“Is it yes or no, Drew?”
I have a choice. Closer, closer, closer still, until I could almost reach the crumpled up pile of starched navy blues lying in the dirt. I bent down and grabbed Andy's pants, quickly searching for his gun. Andy struggled to get out of the sleeping bag, but it was fastened too tightly. He writhed violently and got an arm free. “Hey, what are you doing? Don’t touch that. Leave that stuff alone.”
I’m not Jack Torrance.
My hands closed around cold plastic. I pulled a square-tipped weapon out of Andy’s police utility belt. I didn’t realize it was his tazer until I was already aiming it at his face.
Skoakland's mouth hung open, his surprise so complete it was almost comical. Then a smile twitched at the edges of his lips. "Drew. Drew. Buddy. What exactly do you think you're doing? You have two seconds to put that down. I'm trying to help you, you stupid, fat shit.”
“I said no. I said fuck you, pig.”
“I should have known you didn't have the balls. Look at you, you giant, walking pussy. You’re too afraid to grab the chance when it's right here in front of your face. Kill me. Go ahead. The gun’s in my holster. You grabbed the wrong pocket. Pick it up. I won’t stop you. You think you’re man enough? Do it. Put me out of my misery. Go ahead.”
“I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” I said.
“Maybe I would.”
“The pictures made you do it. Is that right?”
Andy shot me a look of absolute revulsion, black pupils wide against the deeper darkness. His upper lip quivered. “Unwarp your vision, kid. You have no idea what They’re capable of.”
I pushed up my glasses with my free hand, said, “Actually, my view on this is perfectly clear. You’re the one who’s delusional. Pictures are nothing but memories, frozen in time. They have no power but the power you give them.
”
Andy squirmed to grab for the gun in his pants. I fired the taser. One of the pins stuck in his left eyebrow. He screamed and thrashed on the ground, sliding half out of the sleeping bag to carve a sloppy crescent in the dirt floor with his naked torso.
When he could finally breathe again, a long hiss slithered out of Andy’s mouth. To my surprise, he laughed. It was a normal laugh, the first one I’d ever heard him make. “Good. Good. Alright, you got me. Guess what, Drew? You passed. You passed the test! I was hoping you would… pass… the test… Now, help me out of here, seriously…”
I fired another burst of electricity into his eye. Andy screamed and writhed. He came to a minute later, gasping. “I… hate myself. I hate… what I did… myself, how I was… before… Who I am now. Just finish it. I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Drew. Kill me, Drew. Please, kill me.”
I took the gun from his belt. I’d never held a real gun before, and the weight of the steel in my grip felt good. So good, that I stood there for a moment, considering it.
Instead, I shoved the pistol in my pocket and gave Andy another shock. He yelped and stopped squirming. His tongue lolled out of his mouth and his eyes blinked like he was having a seizure. It would be a few minutes, at least, before he was able to move again. Andy was a murderer, a rapist, a liar, a deceiver, and the Lurker Under Sunny Hill. He didn’t deserve my sympathy or mercy. But in the end, we weren’t all that different. He was the person I could become if I went down the wrong road.
I tossed the taser far out into the darkness, between the towering piles of junk, where he would never find it. “You want to die? Take your belt, find a doorknob, and do it yourself.”
I turned to walk away. My flashlight slipped and fell out of the sweaty crook of my arm and onto the dirt floor, where it flickered and died. I bent down to search for it. The darkness should have been absolute, but another light was spilling in from the garage. I looked up. The Hobbit door was open, and the tree shears next to it were gone.
Andy giggled, “Ho he he he.”
***
Off, on. Off, on. The dizzying strobe of my flashlight beam searched the basement for movement. There was nothing. No one.
“Ho he he he,” Andy giggled in his sleeping bag.
“Shut up,” I said, hitting the flashlight on my thigh.
Off, on. A dirty shape stood up behind some old couches. I screamed.
Off, on. She loped towards me, holding the tree shears open like a giant, bladed mouth. “You! You stay back!” Andy said, the cop’s authority drained from his voice and replaced by a high-pitched, fearful whine as he fought desperately to wriggle the rest of the way out of his sleeping bag to his gun.
Off, on. Apple’s mud-streaked face was inches in front of me, brown rotten teeth snarling. She pushed me to the ground. I went down. The flashlight flew from my hands and died somewhere in the dirt.
Off. I dragged myself to my knees, crawling towards the light of the door. “OW! Stop! Stop! Ouaahgggg…” I heard Andy scream. The snap of steel cutting naked flesh. I combed my fingers along the dirt floor until they felt the metal cylinder of the flashlight. I slapped it. Nothing.
On. Apple was standing over Andy, silhouetted in my tepid beam. She opened and closed the tree shears in a violent, rapid trance as they stabbed into him. The possessed rhythm of the blades cut through his belly like paper, red pulp, chunks of skin and muscle and guts flying. Her eyes were blank, her expression slack-jawed and emotionless.
“Stop… fucking… stop…” Andy gasped.
Apple pulled the blades free and whipped them up over her head to bring them down on Andy’s skull, hitting him so hard the reverberation made Apple recoil and drop her weapon. Andy’s tongue rolled out of his face, and his eyes went dark. Apple screamed an ear-piercing, unintelligible shriek directly into Andy’s face, cracked her knuckles, and picked the shears up again.
Off. I struck the flashlight hard against the ground: once, twice, thrice; on the fourth strike, there was light.
On. The shredded cloth of Andy’s sleeping bag was a sopping crimson ruin. But Andy wasn’t inside. He wasn’t dead. His eyes caught the beam of my flashlight a few feet off in the shadows. He was using the last bit of adrenaline-pumped strength to drag his dismembered body away from Apple’s blades.
She stalked towards him, opening the shears with a slow, wet, schlick. Andy rolled onto his back. He tried to kick at her knees, but he was too weak. His legs flopped open in the blood-soaked dirt, and Apple stepped between them, lowering the shears. “No, not that… I need that… you whore… stupid… hippie… slut…”
Off. I heard the blades snip closed, and a noise more disturbing then the shrillest horror movie scream. Andy’s throat made an excruciating gurgle that seemed to last for minutes. The volume steadily faded until all I could hear was his slow, labored, breaths. This is what it sounds like to hear someone die, I realized. My guts rumbled and turned to water.
I tapped the flashlight gently on the ground: one, two, three. On. Apple stumbled away from him and sat down on an old mattress, rubbing her face in her hands. Between Andy’s twitching legs, there was a raw, open wound steadily pouring blood into the soil where his penis should have been.
Off. On. I searched for it with the flashlight beam. I saw it lying in the dirt between them, severed, tiny, pink, and raw. It looked like a dead rat.
Off. On. Apple’s eyes fixed on me. She hesitated, then took a step towards me. Oh, God. She’s going to kill me now. No, she’s not. Yes, she is. Just play it cool. I reached for Andy's gun. But something in her eyes told me I didn't need it.
Apple approached me and offered me the shears. I stood up, lightheaded. I shook my head no. Her rotten teeth clicked and an insistent, heavy lisp slurred through her cigarette-stained teeth as she pushed the shears into my chest and said, “You. You. You.”
“Me what?” I said.
“Where is the life?” Apple pointed at her forehead and tapped it three times. “Where is the life? Where. Is. The. Life?”
I understood. She had mortally wounded Andy, but she wanted me to be the one who killed him, to prove I wasn’t going to become another version of him. And somehow, in the dark halls of insanity that comprised that moment, it made sense.
I took the shears from Apple and stood over Andy, straddling his chest. He was cut up and beaten so badly I barely recognized him. His face was gone, a mess of red, blue, and black, both eyes nearly swollen shut. His chest, gut, legs, and arms, were all cut to ribbons, so much of him leaking out it would be impossible to ever stitch it all back together. He was too weak to speak or move. He could only roll his eyes a little and gaze at me with glassy resignation.
Seeing the bloody, pathetic, dickless thing he’d become, I had the sudden thought that killing him wouldn't be an act of murder, but of mercy. Even someone as low as Andy didn’t deserve to die like this. I wanted to end his suffering.
I opened the blades enough to put one tip into each of his eyes, then, with the full force of my weight behind me, I drove the shears down until they hit soil. I couldn’t hold back the sickness I felt after hearing that soft crunch, so I finally let the contents of my stomach go, all over Andy, the scissors, myself, and the floor.
Gasping for air, I twisted the blades and finished him. It was better in the movies.
***
“Uh… Apple?” I said, setting the shears down and wiping the blood off my hands with the edges of my t-shirt. Goodbye, Shining. Hello, prison.
Apple stared at me, saying nothing.
“Apple, we need to bury him,” I said.
“You don’t have to feel bad to feel good,” Apple said after a seemingly infinite silence. She’s as lost for words as I am, I realized. We're both thinking about the same thing: how we can get away with this and stay out of jail.
For the first time, Apple and I saw each other for what we were. My knees were scraped and bloody. My clothes were a wreck, covered in mud, blood, and sweat. My hair was greasy from days of
not washing, and my glasses were smeared and sat cock-eyed on my face.
She was thin and taught as frayed wire, her once-sunset red hair long faded to dishwater gray. The layers of street grime and general decay clung to her like a shroud. But the Apple from the pictures was still there, looking back at me from behind the layers of dirt and desperation with a strange, wounded innocence. Weight and sex aside, we probably didn’t look all that different.
I could see the consequences of Andy’s murder dawning on her. She stood there with her eyes shut tight, making crazy faces at the dark. We shared the silence until she was done thinking.
“Yeah. Bury him,” she said. “Put him in the ground. Stupid cops.”
“Apple, can I ask you a question?”
“What?”
“Why did you follow my friend Bea?”
Apple bit her lip. “Yeah, I followed her. I was protecting her. From stupid pigs.”
Does she mean she was afraid that Andy was going to try and rape her? Or is she referring to me? Apple seemed to sense what I was thinking. She continued to stare at me, her face betraying nothing. She can’t think I’m still a threat to Bea, or anyone. Not after what I just did. My obsession with Bea has always been about my own insecurities, about being too scared to face the demons inside me, and nothing more. It was never about Bea at all. Apple knows that, because Andy did the same thing to her, and Andy’s dead.
Bea was just a normal girl. I was the problem. Apple saw that, and I finally understood it, too. If I were in Bea’s shoes, I wouldn’t have sex with me, either. Jay made her laugh. The hot Santas made her blush. The drunk guy in Santa Barbara was just a good time. What was I to her, but a friend? Had I ever tried to be anything more? What would I have to offer her, if I did?
Apple laughed. “Guess what, bubble-butt? Guess why, apple pie? Guess where, baby bear? You’re a chill dude. You’re cool, man.”
She means nobody else will ever judge me as harshly as I judge myself; that I can’t change other people, but I can change me.
I motioned to the Hobbit door. “There’s a shovel in the garage. I’m going to go get it. When I come back, you need to dig a big hole in the ground, big enough for him.” I motioned to Andy. “I’ll stand watch to make sure no one comes downstairs.”