Dark Screams, Volume 7

by Dark Screams- Volume 7 (retail) (epub)

  Even in the darkness, he could tell it was pink—or rose—and of a satiny sheen that slid sensuously through his fingers. There were lady products aplenty atop the toilet and sink, each of them a fascinating mystery to David, who still felt warmth and pressure between his legs. He took the robe from its peg and rubbed it gently against his cheek. The heat increased, and he ran it across his body, wondering why it felt so good. It crackled, sparking tingles of static electricity against his arm, and he dropped it to the tile floor in shock. It seemed to be momentarily alive. But it wasn’t. It lay there on the floor, somnolent, empty, missing its mistress.

  David looked at the bathtub, a grand old gargoyle with lion’s claws and a foggy plastic curtain. The ceramic on the old tub was chipped and rusted in places,but was shiny clean. He imagined his ladylove immersed in the water of this bath, and the temperature got even hotter. He stepped over to it, felt the smooth gloss of its surface, smelled the perfume of her bubble bath, which filled an open, ornate, cut-glass jar. He stuffed the rubber stopper into the drain, then turned on the water. He dumped bubble bath into the steaming water and watched the tub fill as ghosts of steam rose to the ceiling and the scent of rose became overpowering.

  As the room filled with Miss Featherstone’s sensory memories, David stepped out of his clothes and into the luxurious bath. Miss Featherstone’s bath. The place that she lay naked and submerged in this very bubbly foam. The intimacy of his soak flushed him, made him feel dizzy and funny and confused, but most of all, it excited him, excited him in ways he had not been excited before. It wasn’t merely sexual arousal, though that surely played a hand. It was knowing he was doing something wrong, but doing it in the name of a compulsion called love.

  Shyly, he pulled the shower curtain in place and lay back, resting his head at the end of the tub, rocking slowly and amphibiously in the bath, easing his eyes closed to fully experience the sounds, the scents, the heat of the water, the slipperiness of the porcelain. His breathing slowed, and the only sound was the plip, plip, plip of the gently leaking faucet. All was still, all was calm, all was dark.

  And then…

  A sound: the shower curtain rings rattled and squealed gently as they moved across the chromium rod, a musical, metallic ringing sound.

  David’s eyes snapped open, but the room was dim. The curtain was not moving…but hadn’t he pulled it tight to the end? Surely he wouldn’t have pulled it shut and then left it open a meter or so. Would he? The faucet continued to plip, and the curtain hung limp and still, its tail held in place by the sudsy water.

  “Hello?” David whispered to the night.

  A cloud cleared the moon, and as the light blossomed blue in the bathroom, he could see an indistinct form silhouetted on the curtain opposite him. It reached its expanding hand shadow toward him, gripped the plastic drapery, and pulled. The curtain rings rang a goose-pimpling scree as the shower curtain pulled open, as if on opening night’s first act. Horrified, David felt his man parts shrivel under the hot bathwater and pulled away, the spigot stabbing him sharply in the back and making him jump. With the curtain opened fully now, he recognized the shadow basking in the dim luminescence: It wore a navy blue sweater over a crisp white blouse with matching navy blue skirt. Miss Featherstone sat down on the edge of the tub and smiled at David, who cowered shyly beneath the bath foam.

  “Miss Featherstone…” David breathed, his teeth starting to chatter.

  She scooted closer to him and gently laid a hand on the top of his scalp.

  “Hello, David, my love.” David’s heart beat even faster. He didn’t know that she even knew his name.

  —

  The stink of paint reeked as Nicholas threw on his black overcoat and made his way out of the apartment as Gemma remained silent in her bed. Snow fell in clumps now, a feathery flurry illuminated from behind by the night-lights of the campus, the aftermath of some sort of celestial pillow fight. I’m such a fool! Nicholas thought to himself. He knew he had made a huge mistake. It was the only time he’d transgressed the sanctity of his marriage, and now, in the crisp, cold night air, he realized how much he had put at risk. Yes, he’d found himself in the arms of an indefatigable lover and spent himself within her, and their mutual exchange of ecstasy was, well, ecstatic. But there was no afterglow; instead, she proclaimed her love, which was something entirely different, and something he surely did not seek. He had all the love he needed, even though it was shrouded in darkness so much of the time. His heart was taken. The physical act that he didn’t realize he’d sought had drained him but had not unlocked his heart. So now he carried two loads of guilt: one for subverting his marriage, and another for intimacy shared without his heart. Gemma thought she loved him—which was insane; they’d hardly spoken a dozen words before that night, and yes, the lovemaking was good, but still—and now here they were, instructors at the same academy, living on the same grounds, and he with a wife who worked in administration. How could he be so stupid?

  Nicholas knew that Gemma was a little bit eccentric, even odd, but this proclamation of hers seemed to teeter at the edge of reason, didn’t it? Or maybe it was her way, her postcoital release of pent-up emotion, just words. Surely that was it. Christ, she barely knew him.

  As with all things, this would work out. It had to.

  So Nicholas returned to his apartment, which was warm and cozy against the chill of the blizzard picking up strength outside. There was, however, another kind of chill when he hung his coat and Rose was waiting for him in the glow of the television news. Place settings sat on the dining table, but the plates were empty and waiting.

  “Jesus, Nicholas, you smell horrible! Where have you been?”

  “I told you I was going to help Miss Featherstone paint sets for Romeo and Juliet.”

  Paint dappled his face and hands, ruined his shirt and trousers; there was no lie here. Still, Rose was skeptical.

  “No, you never told me any such thing,” she said, wrinkling her nose.

  “I did.”

  Rose sighed, then gave in, her scold fading to a tired smile.

  “Okay, my little absentminded professor. Throw those clothes outside and get in the shower while I heat up the supper that’s been waiting over an hour.”

  With this disaster averted, Nicholas did as he was told.

  In the shower, red paint circled the drain like the blood from Lady Macbeth’s hands.

  It was the one and only time that Nicholas and Gemma had conjoined; when they passed each other on the campus after, he always was ready with a smile and an empty, distantly cordial greeting. She, however, could only avert her eyes, her chin tucked in to her chest. This continued for two weeks or so as the winter turned historically cold.

  —

  Snow continued to fall, making Miss Featherstone’s funeral even more somber. Sound was dampened by the drifts that had overtaken the five-hundred-year-old graveyard outside the even older C of E chapel on the bank of the frozen Ravensbrooke River on the east edge of Twombley. No members of her family were in attendance, if she even had living relatives aware of her presence. Staff from the academy, as well as its students, both junior and senior level, stood shivering around the grave. It was all very sad, and it reminded Nicholas of “Eleanor Rigby”; Rose had chosen not to attend.

  So the minister ministered, a cloying string of platitudes that would fill the generic services of anyone he had not known personally: calming, anonymous bloviations no one would remember the next day, and that brought no one to tears.

  Young David Sutcliffe, however, was the exception. He stood at the edge of the grave, trying to hide the little diamond drops that leaked from the corners of his eyes. He touched the envelope in the pocket of his black overcoat as the minister wrapped up with a sonorous recitation of Bible verses and threw a handful of dirt onto the simple wooden casket before it was lowered theatrically into the frozen earth beneath it. As if class had suddenly been dismissed, the shivering crowd dispersed, eager to leave the melancholy c
hill of the old cemetery and the interment of their eccentric young instructor behind.

  David stayed, though, letting the snowflakes settle like little angels on his hair and shoulders. He watched the crowd go, the crowd that didn’t notice that they’d left him behind. David was used to that; nobody ever took much notice of him, unless he was sitting behind the keyboard of the school’s Steinway grand on the Recital Hall stage. Once the crowd had made their way to the cobbled road that led to the academy, the minister, who had a round belly, a thick mane of white hair, and a rubbery, misshapen nose that was covered in a road map of thin red veins, put his big, rough hand on David’s head and tousled his hair.

  “She’s in a better place, son. She’s with the angels now.” He took a deep drink from a silver flask to ward off the winter, then left David to his thoughts, which were plentiful. He wished that he had been able to kiss the casket; more than that, he wished he had been able to kiss Miss Featherstone goodbye. But once the crowd and the Man of the Cloth had left, the two burly gravediggers, one of them Indian and the other African, rolled the mechanical pedestal out of the way, pulled the green carpet of artificial grass from the mountain of freshly dug soil, and started to shovel it in, filling the hole. David sat on one of the chairs and watched them cover his lady love with dirt, but his mind was not on the body moldering in its new grave; rather, it traveled back to the scene of the crime, the place and the moment when he fell in love, the love that had been dashed at the moment of its birth, shattered at his feet and no longer breathing. However, that is not what the eyes deep in his head were seeing; no, David saw her flying from the clock tower toward him, sprouting wings before she hit the brick walk, hovering magically in the air, and settling gently on the ground next to him, before wrapping her wings around him in an angelic embrace of devotion.

  That’s how it should have been, David thought. That’s how it was supposed to be.

  “Should’ve would’ve could’ve,” said the soft voice from the seat next to him. “What was is; what wasn’t isn’t. No use crying over spilt milk.”

  “Miss Featherstone!” David exclaimed. She stood next to him, dressed demurely in black, her dark eyes hidden under a lace veil.

  “Hello, my little love,” she said. “Thank you for staying behind, making sure I was bug-snug under the ground.”

  “I missed you,” he told her, and truer words were never spoken.

  “And I you, my angel,” she replied. It made David smile; she was the angel, not he.

  He stood before her approving smile.

  “Are you cold?” she asked.

  “Not anymore,” he answered. And it was true.

  She reached for his hand, and he gladly took it; though he was only nine, and small for his age, their hands were almost the same size. “Shall we walk?” she asked as she led him through the thick carpet of snow that lay atop the graveyard like foam. He nodded and let her lead him through the towering monuments, leaving two sets of footprints in their wake. They wove their way through the stones until they were alone in the middle of the oldest section of the cemetery, a place where the monuments were bigger than life, with gothic sculptures of seraphim, forest creatures, towering gods and monsters that commemorated lives that had otherwise been forgotten. The stonework might have been crumbling, but still they stood lo these last few centuries.

  Away from the living, Miss Featherstone stopped David and knelt in front of him.

  “You love me, don’t you, David?” she asked.

  “Of course I do,” he replied.

  “And you know that I love you, don’t you?”

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the letter that fell into his possession when she had plummeted to her death, the letter proclaiming her love. “I do. I have your note to me.”

  She smiled, and to David, that smile melted all the snow that surrounded them, melted the snowflakes before they could ever touch him.

  “You are the sweetest boy.”

  He smiled as big as he could, and he didn’t understand why tears were filling his eyes. He certainly didn’t feel sad.

  “I would do anything for you, Miss Featherstone.”

  “Would you, David? Would you really?”

  “Of course! You know I would!”

  “What would you do for me, David?”

  “Anything! Anything at all, I promise! Anything you ask!”

  She stood and looked down at him, though she was only a few inches taller than he.

  “Anything?”

  —

  The last place Nicholas wanted to go after the funeral was home, but there was no other place. He never felt welcome in the pub. The locals obviously weren’t fond of the Yanks, and he got sick of the jokes at his expense, as well as the indoor smoking. What he wanted was to just drive, to be alone with his thoughts, but small chance of that with the roads blocked with snow. It might be weeks before Twombley-on-Ravensbrooke would be dug out.

  So he walked the road to the academy, surrounded by students and staff but feeling all alone, snow collecting on the shoulders of his black wool coat. Though not all that distant, it was a long, solemn hike. Voices were stilled by the cold and the sad little ceremony. Even the children were quiet.

  Nicholas straggled, not wanting to be a part of the slow-moving herd. He let them go on ahead, marveling at the beauty of the ancient homes and shops of the little town. It could only be England, for better or for worse. He felt as if he had taken a step out of time.

  He could not help but ponder the mystery of Gemma Featherstone. Why was she hiding here at this academy? She could be lovely, almost beautiful, even, when she cared to be. Instead she chose anonymity, seclusion, spinsterhood. What was she afraid of? Everything, it seemed: even human interaction…up to a point. Her ability to plunge so deeply and ferociously into physical intimacy was shocking, and exciting, Nicholas had to admit to himself. His face flushed with shame for having taken advantage of her obvious loneliness, though he never planned such a thing. And he never really expected to end up in her bed…did he? And now this. She lay in a lonely, solitary grave in a little British town, missed only by the students she taught and the people who worked with her, who would soon forget her. Red-faced with guilt at the thought, he hoped he would forget her soon, too.

  He dragged his feet in the snow, leaving long trails behind him.

  —

  Once home, darkness fell quickly. Nicholas took off his coat and scarf, hung them up, and took his chair in front of the fire: a warm spot in a very cold apartment.

  Rose was in the bedroom, and the door was shut. He could hear the quiet clattering of the keys of her laptop. A diary entry? Emails? Nicholas wondered what had his wife so engaged…but was grateful for it. Life at home had not been pleasant of late. Not that there were explosions and battles erupting between them, though in some ways, he thought, that might have been preferable to the icy silence they endured. They shared a bed but faced opposite walls when they went to sleep at night, when sleep finally decided to descend. The gulf between them was narrow but freezing cold.

  Nicholas had still not admitted to the single tear in the fabric of their marriage, but Rose did not believe him. He never would, and neither would she.

  So Nicholas sat in front of the fire, too enervated to turn on the television. All he could do was stare into the fire and see the ghost of Gemma Featherstone taking shape in the flames. He closed his eyes, held the heels of his hands against them, aching, life drained from him. The logs crackled and Nicholas got up to stoke the blaze, watching tiny sparks flee up the chimney like little demons.

  Nicholas listened: Rose’s typing had stopped for the moment. The fire grew, throwing Nicholas’s giant shadow against the wall. He listened to the snapping of the burning logs, the howl of the wind from the chimney up above, the ticking of the mantel clock. It was the definition of melancholy. A hole opened up in the clouds that covered the moon, and the room was suddenly filled with shadows of the falling snow dancing about t
he room. Nicholas felt like he was living in a snow globe. He looked out the window, realized that the curtains were wide open, leaving him exposed on a night that needed to be private. He went to the windows and reached up to pull the draperies shut, and froze.

  Out in the middle of the schoolyard, alone in a vast acre of thick, white snow that was burying a battalion of footprints, a small figure stood alone. It was a child, couldn’t have been more than eight or nine years old, a little boy, and he was staring right into Nicholas’s apartment, no, right into Nicholas’s eyes. Nicholas stared back at him, and the boy never moved. He would not be intimidated.

  Unnerved, Nicholas pulled the curtains shut and stood in the middle of the room, all alone. This did not feel like home.

  —

  David lay in his bed, his tiny radio under his pillow, playing Rachmaninoff. His fingers fluttered along with the recording, living the music, feeling it without even being aware of it. As the music filled his body, Miss Featherstone filled his heart. Her note lay atop his stomach, and he had embroidered it with scrawled valentines of hearts in purple ink. His roommate, a ten-year-old artist named Simon, slept so soundly that he snored, though David never noticed. His mind was otherwise occupied.

  A shadow fluttered outside his window, but David was enraptured with Rachmaninoff and didn’t notice at first. But as the shadow grew, stretching wings up and finally blotting out the opposite wall with darkness, David sat up in bed. He looked at the window and saw Miss Featherstone hovering outside, her white, feathered wings flexing gently behind her, holding her aloft in the blowing snow. He went to the window, his face blooming into a welcoming smile.

  “You’re here!” he whispered, so as not to wake Simon.

  Miss Featherstone nodded back and placed a moist kiss on the glass in front of David’s face.

  “Go to bed,” she whispered to him, and even though thick glass was between them, he had no trouble hearing her words. “Dream.”