Yes, he thought. Yes, I do.
And the boy spoke out loud, “All you have to do is die.”
Elise pulled her head away from his cock, masturbating it with a small blue-veined hand. The boy’s penis seemed way too large. There was a hole through the boy’s shirt, dried black blood coagulated down the front. Elise, not turning her head, continued to suck him and Steven, standing there and staring at the dead boy, unable to breathe, found himself sickeningly filled with a deep longing.
He moved toward Elise and the boy, wanting to tap her on the shoulder and ask her what she thought she was doing. His body didn’t want to move and he felt his consciousness swim in front of him. He wondered how much longer he had. Elise tore herself away from the boy’s crotch and looked at Steven, continuing to stroke Jeremy. It wasn’t Elise at all. At least, he didn’t think it was her. Her face was melted, looking like it was made from wax and someone had held a flame to it. There were black holes where her eyes and mouth used to be and that was it. Clumps of the waxy skin hung from the boy’s penis. The Elisething’s hand moved furiously and the boy ejaculated a gush of red-black blood that stank of infection. The smell filled Steven’s nose and he felt his gorge rise.
He turned around, toward another source of commotion. The chant: Jesus, what is happening? came at him in stereo. The other dead kids were lined up on the opposite side of the room. They wore cheerleader sweaters with a water tower emblem emblazoned on them and performed various high spirited cheers but Steven couldn’t make sense of the liquid, backward-sounding words. The chant, he realized, did not come from them but from inside his head.
Gasping for breath, his eyesight swam in front of him and he woke up, gulping in his darkened room, thankful for the air filling his lungs.
He thought of a wives’ tale that said if you died in your sleep then that meant you would never wake up. He wondered if that was what he had felt in his dream. Was that death? Was that what it felt like?
Whatever it was, it had shaken him.
He turned on the bedside light, eagerly grabbing his notebook to see if he had scrawled anything. Any more prophecies? He pushed a pitiful excuse for a laugh through his lips.
If what he was doing was prophecy then, tonight, it was especially sparse and cryptic.
He had scrawled: “undoing” in crazily canted letters. Below there was a drop of something that looked like blood. He dragged his thumb across it, smudging it, smearing it over the milk-white paper.
So it was fresh, he thought.
He ran his finger against his nostrils, thinking maybe he had a nosebleed. But there wasn’t any sign of that. No fresh blood. No dark crust. He checked his pillow. No blood there, either. He quickly inspected himself, looking for fresh wounds and finding nothing.
As much as he wanted to stay and contemplate his latest musings, he saw the time on the clock and knew he had to get out of bed. It was nearly eight o’clock and he hoped his father hadn’t come home yet. He wanted to be out of the house before then, afraid his dad wouldn’t let him go. Not even bothering with a jacket, he walked quickly through the darkened house and out into the night.
He walked for over an hour before he found Elise.
When he saw her, he said, “Cirrus.”
And she said, “Huh?”
“Cirrus,” he repeated, pointing up at the sky.
“Oh, right,” she said. “The clouds are of the cirrus variety. Aren’t you a little science guy?” she added mockingly, reaching out and pinching a scruffy cheek.
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s this annoying habit I’ve picked up lately.”
“Useless sharing of knowledge?”
“Yeah. Well, no . . . Just always looking at the clouds. Noticing what type they are. It’s like I keep waiting for them to do something.” He thought about telling her about the Deathbreakers and why clear days now seemed murderous, but held back. As much as he liked her, as much as he wanted to fuck her, he didn’t know if he could bestow all of his trust in her.
“So, I noticed you decided not to come to school today.”
“Yeah. Did you go?”
“Had to. Parents would kill me if I wanted to skip. Besides, if I wasn’t there, I wouldn’t have noticed your absence.”
“Right. Makes sense,” he said. “So who was it?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“No. There was a big story about it on the national news but they didn’t give a name.”
“Mary Lovell.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
“I never would have suspected her.”
“Me either. She probably had some deep dark family secret.”
“Yeah. How did she do it?”
“Don’t know yet. From what I gathered, she either hung herself, left a car running in a shut up garage, or sacrificed herself in front of a cult leader by using a lighter and a paperclip.”
“Sounds painful.”
“I’m sure we’ll know everything tomorrow.”
“They used your term on the news, by the way—‘The Suicide Virus.’”
“I’m not sure flattered is the appropriate feeling in this case.”
“Probably not.”
There were a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.
“So, we meet again,” she said.
“Quite an accident. Someone is probably killing themselves right now.”
“I hope not. Just out for a walk?”
“I was taking a nap. I had a pretty horrendous dream.”
“You were napping at like eight o’clock in the evening?”
“Yeah, I pretty much nap every afternoon and stay up all night.”
“I hardly sleep at all.”
“So I guess we have each other until dawn again, huh?”
“I don’t really know if I’ll make it until dawn. I’m kind of tired from last night.”
They walked as they spoke. Both of them appeared to be world class walkers, meaning they could walk continually and look like they knew where they were going or like they had an idea of where they were going.
He found the whole experience to be pretty weird. There were a lot of things he didn’t tell her, even though he wanted to tell her everything. He didn’t want to push her away and he wasn’t sure which would do that the quickest—remaining all shut up or telling her everything, including the really fucked up stuff. Deciding to strike a balance, he told her about his dream but he left out the sex stuff, effectively leaving her out of the dream, as well. He didn’t tell her about the notebook. He didn’t tell her why his eyes continually scanned the clouds. He didn’t tell her about Ken Blanchard or the water tower. He didn’t tell her about his mom’s ghost.
Even though they seemed to be perfectly happy around each other, the suicides dominated the main thread of their conversation. Having friends, Elise was able to shed some light on them. She knew what people were actually talking about. He knew only what he could pick up in the hallways—when he actually decided to go to school.
There were several theories about the suicides, she told him, although none of them really made complete sense. Some students believed a form of subliminal brainwashing was being used. There was, of course, talk of a cult—the suicides had been members of some kind of devil worshiping sex cult and this was their punishment for divulging its secrets. It was never really discussed how one punishes another by having said person kill himself. Nor was it discussed how, if secrets were leaked, where or who they were leaked to. Or maybe they were just told it was their time to go and suicide was their way to get into heaven. Some felt it was something in the water. Something that brought on a wild fit of psychosis, causing certain people to break down. And, naturally, there was talk of something supernatural. Some ancient evil Steven thought sounded like every horror novel from the Eighties. God knows he had seen plenty of those on his father’s bookshelves.
Being a fairly skeptical person, he dismissed that idea. It just seemed too simple. The more he thought a
bout it, however, the more it seemed to complement what he had been going through. Leave it to him to think the most outlandish explanation also seemed the most plausible.
They held hands while they walked and he almost told her about what his ghost mom had told him, about him being dead within two years. But he didn’t. He held back. As much as having her skin there in his hand made him want to spill everything, there was some deeply reserved part of him very used to keeping things locked up. Eventually, after midnight, they wound up at the park, a couple hours after Connor had stared up at the water tower.
They sat down on the dew-covered bench and looked toward the tower.
“Are you afraid?” she asked him.
“Afraid? Of what?”
“Just afraid. Do you ever get scared? Just . . . scared of things. Life.”
She leaned close to him on the bench and he could smell the clean scent of her hair mingling with the freshness of the night. He thought about what she had asked and took a deep breath, not knowing what he would say. Not even really knowing how he felt.
“Am I afraid?” He coughed. “I think I would have to say yes and no. How’s that for ambiguity? Some days I’m . . . terrified.”
“What are you terrified of?”
“Everything. Everything that moves. Everything that can be thought. I wake up and wonder, ‘Is this how it is?’ And when I think life is exactly the way it is, the only logical answer I can think of is that it’s only going to get worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I just muddle through my days, waiting to go to sleep and, granted, things have become a little more interesting, there’s still a part of me that knows my life is not going to get any better. Soon I’ll be out of school and then I’ll be expected to make it on my own and I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know if I’m equipped for the real world. And I just imagine living every day feeling like that and it terrifies me. What if something happens to my dad? He’s all I have left. What if something happens to me? I’m all he has left. He’d be devastated. I’m the only thing he’s ever had. And now I’ve met you and I really like you but I wonder if you really like me and even if you told me you did I would probably just think you were saying that to make me feel better about myself or something.
“I know I’ve been through some tough stuff the past couple of years and sometimes I think that’s maybe why I feel the way I do . . . I just don’t know. I don’t know if everybody feels this way or if it’s just me.”
He took a deep breath and put his arm around her, pulling her closer into him, liking her heat. He took another shaky breath and continued talking. “Take right now, for instance. I should be happy. With as much as I’ve wanted to talk to you since the first time I saw you, I should be ecstatic. And still, there’s something inside of me. Some kind of . . . looming despair or something. Maybe a bit of impending doom. Like any happiness I have might just one day be blown all to hell. All I want is a happy ending but, you know what? There are no happy endings in hell. Then I think maybe how I feel doesn’t have anything to do with what happens around me. And that scares me too. What if it’s just chemicals and brain functions and stuff that determine how we feel? Does that mean I could have everything I ever wanted and still be completely miserable?
“And then there are days when I’m not afraid of anything. There are days when I know whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there isn’t a damn thing I can do to stop it. And I know whatever happens, I can weather it, because I’ve done it before. Some days, it’s like I want it to happen. I sit on the couch and watch TV and think I want the world to end. Some days I think that’s exactly what we need.
“But mainly, I just fear for the human race. It’s like people just keep getting dumber and more insensitive and I wonder what it’s going to take to make them open their eyes and realize, in the end, we are all each other has. And, taken individually, most of these people are probably beautiful but, as a group, I think we’re a lost cause.”
He stopped, scanning his brain, probing to see if he was fully vented. Pulling a cigarette out of his pocket, he mumbled “Sorry” and lit it, expecting Elise to pull away and wrinkle her nose. Instead, she said, “Well, you’re a regular cheerfest.”
“Are you sorry you asked?”
“No. I feel like I know you better.”
No, he thought. You still don’t really know me at all. Instead, he said, “Is that a good thing?”
“To know you? It’s what I want.”
“What about you? Are you ever scared?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“So how ’bout you go climb that water tower?”
“Well, I’m afraid of heights.”
He laughed out a mouthful of smoke, tossing the cigarette away, not really wanting it.
“I guess I’m afraid of just about everything too,” she said.
“Well, we’ll make a good couple, won’t we? We can get married, board ourselves up in the house and put the telephone in the freezer.”
They sat on the bench for a long while after that, not saying much of anything, practically dozing. He told her what Drifter Ken had said about the water tower, since it was right there in front of them. Elise responded with a “Hm.” Eventually, it started to rain. Softly coming down, the rain contained an icy chill.
“I think I better be getting home,” she said.
“I’ll walk you.”
“You don’t have to. It’s raining.”
“It’ll just make it feel warmer when I get back home.”
It took about twenty minutes to get back to her house from the park. Neither one of them wore a watch or had a cell phone so they had no idea what time it was. They stopped at the end of the walk that led to her front door.
“I have something to keep you warm on your way home,” Elise said, pulling Steven toward her by his soaked shirt.
She pressed her full pink lips against his and he automatically felt himself harden, his hands going from his pockets to her back, pulling her greedily against him. He had never really kissed a girl before and didn’t have any idea how it worked. Pressing his tongue into her mouth, she responded and he didn’t know how sex could be any better than this. He was so aware of her—breasts pressed against his lower chest, her hands playing with the back of his hair, his hands sliding down to her ass and pulling her middle against him. They stood that way, tongues and lips working together, for quite some time. When the kiss finally broke, they looked at each other differently. The look had gone from appreciation to hunger, maybe even longing.
“And now I have to say good night,” she said.
“That was nice.”
“Yes it was.” Then she pecked him on the cheek and that meant as much to him as the previous marathon.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night.”
Standing in the rain, he watched her walk up to her house.
Connor sat in his chair, reading a book but unable to concentrate on it. He was trying to wait up for Steven and whenever he thought he was getting tired and would have to go to bed, a new weal of anger woke him up.
Elise was right. The kiss really warmed him. He kept replaying it in his head, still not fully believing it. His body shook and he wasn’t sure if it was from cold or from exhilaration. Reaching the door to his house, the only thing he really thought about was getting into bed and relieving himself of what throbbed against his thigh.
He opened the door and jumped as Connor whipped his gaze toward him.
“Jesus,” Steven said. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“What do you think you’re doing to me?”
“Okay. Look, I’m sorry.” Part of Steven still wanted to punish his father but he was afraid if he didn’t tell the truth his father wouldn’t let him leave the house. While the truth would come out eventually, he didn’t see the harm in having a bit of fun with the man. He was, after all, floating.
Steven looked d
own at the floor, using his serious tone. “Look,” he began. “I think it’s time I come clean. I haven’t just been going for walks. I’ve been attending meetings . . . Secret meetings. Jesus, I don’t know what they’re going to do to me if they knew I told you about this but I can tell you’re really at your wit’s end. I’m pretty sure that, because of my indiscretions, I’ll be the next suicide.”
“You’re sick,” Connor said and Steven didn’t really know or care if he was joking.
“Okay, I was kidding. I really don’t mean to worry you, Dad, but . . . Well, there’s this girl.”
Connor nearly guffawed. “I think the suicide coven story was more believable.”
“Whatever . . . There’s no reason to be jealous just because I’m more of a man than you are.”
“Now, I don’t think either one of us are really men. If there is a girl, I have only this to say—use protection. And if you are just going on walks around the neighborhood then be careful of whose windows you’re peeping into and please please please let me know you are leaving and please please please give me a rough approximation of your return so I do not have to wait up for you or at least so I know how long I have to wait up because I do so worry and please please please make that time something earlier than . . .” Connor checked his watch. “Four-twenty in the A.M. ’Kay?”
“I’ll try. Good night, old man. By the way, I’m pretty much blowing off school the rest of the week.”
“You should go.”
“There are like two weeks left. I could get zeros on everything and still end up with Bs.”
“But grades are important.”
“Not for community college and, besides, it’s too late for this. Good night, again.”
“Good night.”
He went into his room and turned on some music to fall asleep to.
Fourteen
The Evolution of Teen Romance
For Steven, things seemed to get pushed aside over the following weeks. He felt like he was crawling around in someone else’s skin and that was a feeling he welcomed entirely.
The Sorrow King Page 11
