Dead Lines

by John Skipp; Craig Spector

  Rick has no idea that the bum lets go of his wrist. He doesn’t feel himself falling backwards, carried by his own weight and the force of the blow. He is not aware that his feet leave the ground. And as he rolls down the stairs, the loud crack of his neck breaking is not anything that he can hear.

  ■

  They are standing in the doorway, a tight throng of five. The shortest woman, curiously in command, reads from her clipboard. The others nod, poking at their clipboards with ballpoint pens, occasionally scribbling.

  “This is Richard Hale,” she reads aloud, and then proceeds to enumerate the damages. The list is long and quite specific. She also details the measures taken in emergency, his current critical status, and the nature of Richard Hale’s life-support system. It takes about two minutes.

  The nurse watches them leave. She is standing at the foot of Rick’s bed, monitoring the flow of liquid that seeps into him from the IVs. Or so it would seem.

  Actually, she is staring at the broken man and waiting for the footsteps to recede. Slowly, then, she moves around the edge of the bed and gently sits down beside him, with something like love in her eyes.

  She puts her hands to his bandaged head and listens. Like all the times before.

  She is not surprised by what she hears.

  “Go to sleep,” she whispers.

  “Go to sleep.”

  Meryl turned the last page of the story, let her vision unfocus on the vast manila plain that followed. Again, there was the odd shimmering glitch as she segued back from the world of words to the self in the body in the chair in the room in the world in which she lived.

  And again, traces of the story came back with her, lingering wisps of imagery. She could taste the cold, the sour taint of subway urine, the antiseptic commingling of hospital scents. Most of all, she could taste the sorrow at the heart of the mystery man’s work.

  “Damn,” she began, and then a yawn took over. It was a doozie, neatly obliterating all thought as it rumbled between her ears. For the first time, she realized how completely spent she actually was.

  Meryl shut the folder and set it down, dragged the back of one hand across her blearing eyes. She didn’t know whether it was the hour, the long day catching up with her at last, or maybe the story’s mantra tapping a direct line to her subconscious.

  Whatever the case, exhaustion had come, and come with a vengeance: sinking her weight into the chair, tugging at her eyelids, whispering you are getting sleepy in a hypnotist’s melodious drone. She looked at the loft bed, the stairs leading up to it, and the thought was purest anathema. “No way,” she mumbled, and then another yawn hit, more powerful than the first, nearly propelling consciousness away as she exhaled it.

  She drifted. The last thing she remembered was, strangely enough, a smell: faint enough to be her imagination, distinctive enough to catch her vanishing attention.

  An overripe and rotten smell.

  Then she, and it, were gone.

  7

  AWAKENING

  In the dream, she was falling.

  It was a rare but familiar sensation. A childhood sensation. It took her back. She could feel the bed, all soft and warm. She could feel it begin to rock and sway. Like a boat on the ocean, adrift on the waters, the bottomless waters of the liquid abyss, and she pulled the covers up tight around her neck.

  Slowly, slowly, she felt herself drifting off, sinking down, the bed spinning, spiraling down and down into those endless black depths…

  In the dream, there were voices.

  Shadowy voices, murmuring, flitting across her REMscape like bats in a belfry, darting this way and that, too quick to pick up on. She felt herself snatching at them instinctively and to no avail, catching only inflections, cadence, random bits of emotion. Excited babble. Snatches of laughter …

  In the dream, he was with her.

  They lay entwined on the falling bed, arms and legs curled together like hot vines, fingers crawling tendrillike across the planes of their skin. She couldn’t see his face, buried as it was in the crook of her neck. But she could hear him, voraciously nuzzling, digging in. She could smell his sweat on her skin. She could feel the hunger, the warmth of his body …

  In the dream, then, the terror came.

  And suddenly he was clutching at her, clawing like a drowning man, the connection between them broken as the madness took its place. She felt the panic and despair arc off of his body like sparks from an electrical generator.

  It burned into her skin, heat without comfort, pain without comprehension as her own panic grew. He engulfed her with the rush of his smothering fear, and she could feel him painfully surrounding her, could smell his warm and welcome scent go cold and foul in her nostrils, could feel his flesh rippling with the motion of things that burrowed beneath the surface, could hear the buzzing and the scream trapped inside his lungs welling up in her own throat as together they fell and clutched and kicked and spun and swung and…

  Katie awoke with a start, batting at the shadows around her head, batting at the sounds of fear. The sudden darkness of the real-life room overwhelmed her, fanned the spark of the chill in her bones. She reached for the covers and found none there. She had dreamed the covers.

  She had dreamed the bed.

  The sounds of fear were coming from the TV set. Katie stared at it, an unpopped kernel of nervous laughter wedged between her teeth. It was one of those Mexican vampire movies; she remembered it, helplessly, from when she was a kid. Nostradamus or something. The Evil of Nostradamus.

  She blinked her eyes. She was still on the couch. No big surprise there. Evidently Meryl had not come back, and she had slipped off into slumber. Further absence of big surprise. It seemed to be that kind of night.

  But the memory of the terror remained.

  On the TV, a dopey-looking hunchback with a Moe Howard hairpiece was chasing a screaming senorita through some dusky old catacombs. Aside from that, the room was dark. The streetlight below and the moonlight above came together into something just barely visible through the big loft windows behind her. She rose up slightly and turned toward them, checking out the night skyline.

  Behind her, the TV changed channels.

  She whipped back around, and the channel changed again. Her breath caught in her throat.

  There was nobody there.

  The channel changed again. And again. And again. She got flickers of visions: the Home Shopping Channel, the late Lome Greene and a can of Alpo, the revolting pretty boy rock band, Europe. Something hard dug deep into one cheek of her ass. She jolted back in her seat.

  The TV died.

  No time for thought. The terror, resurging in the chaos. Instinctively, she reached under her ass-cheek as the room went utterly black. The hard thing was there. She wrapped her hand around it, and recognition flooded in. Remote control, it said. You fool, you fell asleep on the remote control…

  In the sudden silence of the apartment, something moved.

  It was the last straw. Her nerves, already frazzled, went painfully incandescent as she froze at the end of the couch, thinking the light, I’ve got to turn on the light, if I turn on the light I’ll see that I’m alone and it’s okay…

  … except that there was another voice in her head that wanted to know about what if it wasn’t okay, what if there was somebody in here, moving in the darkness, watching her…

  Clearly, then: the sound of footsteps, lightly treading her way. In panic, she flew from the couch, barking her shin on the coffee table, letting out a yelp as she stumbled and nearly fell through the glass. There was the skreeee of whining hinges as, behind her, the door to Meryl’s bedroom flew open.

  And then Meryl was standing there, staring at her.

  “Oh, shit!” Katie blurted. She felt horribly embarrassed, despite the fact that she had practically jumped out of her skin. “I’m so sorry! I just… I don’t know, I just…”

  “What’s going on?” Meryl’s voice was pinched, and higher than usual; for the first
time, Katie realized that Meryl seemed frightened, too. “Is everything okay?”

  “I… yeah, I think so.” She felt like an idiot, standing there shivering in the dark. “Um, where’s the light in here? I’m all disoriented …”

  “I’ll get it,” Meryl said, moving forward. There was a tinge of irritation in her voice, reinforcing Katie’s sense of stupidity. “It’s around here somewhere…”

  She began to grope around at the wall to Katie’s right. There was a lot of wall. Katie joined in the quest. “I hope

  I didn’t wake you up,” she offered lamely. “I had a kinda bad dream, and then… okay! Here it is.”

  She clicked on the switch; the room flooded with light. She was surprised to see Meryl dart her gaze around the room, mostly because Katie was doing the exact same thing. Checking for interlopers. She didn’t see any.

  “Looks like we’re alone,” she said, and then Meryl shot her a very strange look: as if she were trying to see into her head. It shut Katie up, and amped her discomfort. “What?” she said finally.

  And then Meryl looked away.

  It was nothing, of course. What else could it be? It was stupid to think it was anything but. The last time she’d checked, her pertinent stats had not shown up in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

  So what if she’d also just had a bad dream? So what if it had also awakened her with a keen sense that someone or something was watching? Forget the fact that she never had nightmares. Forget the fact that, nine times out of ten, if she felt like she was being watched, it was only because it was true.

  Forget all that. It meant nothing or less: just another piece of stupid, random synchronicity.

  Forget the cold that still rolled down her spine.

  “Are you okay?” Katie asked her then.

  “Um … yes. I’m fine.”

  “You sure?”

  ’Uh-huh.”

  “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

  “Oh, no. Not at all.”

  “You weren’t still up workin’, were ya?”

  “No.” Agitated as she was, these questions were starting to get under her skin. “Why do you ask?”

  “Aw, hell. I’m sorry.” It was Katie’s turn to avert her eyes. “I didn’t mean to give you the third degree or nothin’. It was just the way you looked at me…”

  That quickly, Meryl felt the mantle of embarrassed stupidity shift from Katie’s shoulders to her own. She really hadn’t meant to stare like that: it was rude, and she knew it; she’d been told often enough. It was just a little thing she did when things took a turn for the peculiar.

  Except that nothing that peculiar had happened. Right?

  “So what happened?” she asked, glossing over her pointless trepidation. “You say you had a bad dream?”

  “Oh, yeah…”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Uh… naw. Not really.”

  “Okay.” Meryl let the moment hang, took the moment to ask herself why she was asking. Was she really that interested in what this woman dreamed?

  Or was it her own dream, now mercifully fading, that she wanted to talk about?

  “To be honest,” Katie said at last, “I don’t even really remember it all that well. It was pretty damned unpleasant, though. That much I know. Ugly sexual shit…” She stuck her tongue out and grimaced; on a picture-perfect face like hers, it was kind of amusing, kind of fascinating. “Not that I don’t like sex.”

  “Okay.” Meryl smirked, simultaneously got a flash of a bed, slowly spinning. She shrugged it off. The smirk was still on her face, for some reason. Too much nervous, meaningless energy. She knew just how to dispense with it.

  “I don’t know about you,” she continued, “but I’m a little wired out. Would you care for a drink?”

  Katie smiled. “You don’t know the half of it. What’ve you got?”

  “A little bit of gin, and a fifth of tequila.”

  “We’ll be sicker’n dogs in the morning, you know.”

  “Do you have to work?”

  Grinning slyly. “Nope.”

  “So, fine. Let’s do it.”

  “You know,” and Katie was shy as she said it, “I was kinda hopin’ we’d get a chance to talk a little tonight. I feel so strange, bargin’ in on you…”

  “Don’t worry about it…”

  “But I really do…”

  “You don’t know how massive a favor you did me, getting my dear old dad off of my ass.”

  “I sorta sensed the tension.”

  Meryl’s turn to smile. “You got that right.”

  “And I don’t mean to get all gushy or anything, but I kinda liked you right away.”

  Meryl couldn’t believe it but she was blushing; she could feel the evidence on her cheeks. Nor did she believe the words that now issued from her lips. But there they were. “I kinda liked you, too.”

  “So whaddaya say we boogie down?”

  ‘“Boogie down ?”

  Katie shrugged. “Figure of speech.”

  Meryl smiled. “I’ll get the drinks.”

  She headed on down to the kitchenette corner, smiling and strangely excited. I think I might have made myself a friend, she thought to herself. Imagine that.

  Then the feeling came back. Just a tickle. Just a second. Just enough to call the hairs on her neck to attention.

  That I’m-being-watched feeling.

  And then it was gone.

  In the dream, they were sitting on the couch. Two young women: one light, the other dark. The details were fuzzy, but they appeared to be drinking. And talking. The conversation was clear.

  “Yeah, Colin’s one regular son of a whore.” The blonde. She was speaking. “But I’ll tell ya—and I hate to admit it—but when I was layin’ here on the couch, I really missed him.”

  “That’s dumb.” The small dark one. “From what you’re saying, he’s a complete fucking bastard.”

  “I know. I can’t stand it. I hate myself for it. He’s a complete fuckin’ bastard, and he even admits it, which I don’t know if that makes it worse or not. I mean, he’s real self-aware, which translates into completely intolerable, because he’s got this genius IQ that makes him certain— even when he suspects he might be wrong—that everyone else has got to be at least twice as wrong as he is.”

  They laughed. They seemed to pour another round. The clinking of glass was unmistakable.

  “Are you sure that he’s really that intelligent? Are you sure that he doesn’t just have a good rap?”

  “Listen, honey. I’ve seen em come and go. I’m a brain-fucker, to be truthful. I have to admit it. If they look half-decent and their discourse is elevated, I latch hold of their ass like a fly on shit. I mean, I’m not all that smart, myself…”

  “Yes, you are. You’re very bright.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “No, I’m not! Don’t argue with me!” They laughed again. “But I’ll tell ya, I know within five minutes whether they’re full of it or not. And believe me: Colin can sit there and explain Einstein to me; and even though most of it goes right over my head, I know that he knows what he’s talkin’ about. You get to the point where you can tell the difference between conviction and bravado. You know what I’m sayin’? When a guy’s just sayin’ things to impress you, that’s one thing; but when you know that he’s just sittin’ there, impressin’ the hell out of himself, then that’s another thing entirely.”

  “I don’t know… I’ve met a lot of guys who are really impressed with themselves, but they still don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about.”

  “That’s true. Touche.” The blonde drank. “Augh! That’s smooth.”

  “And I still don’t see what that’s got to do with wanting to sleep with him.”

  “Okay. The way it is, is… BRRRAWP!” A belch. They laughed very hard. ” ‘Scuse me. That was gruesome.”

  “S’okay.” Still laughing. A sweet and raucous sound.

&
nbsp; “I’m sorry. Okay. The way it is is that, bottom line, I need the mental stimulation… although, from the looks of it, that’s not gonna be a problem here.” Pause. More clinking of glass. “But the other thing is just a simple warm body. It’s stupid, I know, but I hate sleeping solo. It’s probably my least favorite thing to do. I guess I just want to know that somebody is there, and I’d do just about anything to guarantee it.”

  The small dark one took her shot now, made the requisite acking noise.

  “You okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. You’re just making me think.” Pause. “It’s funny, but I really don’t feel that way at all. I like sleeping by myself. I like being by myself. Every time I get involved with someone, he winds up dominating the thing. It makes me crazy, cause it makes no sense. You know? Most of the time, they’re not even as strong as I am. But they still get it over on me, and I can’t figure it out.”

  “Who breaks it up, then? You or him?”

  “Me, mostly. Unless he beats me to it.”

  “That’s weird, ‘cause I’m exactly the opposite. I’ll hang in there forever. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s just my upbringing. All I know is, it has to get pretty goddam bad before I’ll leave. It hardly ever happens.”

  “It happened this time.”

  “Yeah, it did. Good for me…”

  In the blackness, a sudden sweet sadness erupted. Self-awareness was dim, but it seemed to be mounting. Fragments of memory. Inklings of identity.

  A scene from a movie… could that be possible?.. . flickering briefly across the mind’s screen. Something about a fly who dreamed he was a man. But the dream was over. And the fly was awake…

  Something else, then: an idea set to paper. Too vague, too vague. Not even a tongue to sit on the tip of. Awareness of frustration, and sadness, and loss.

  But, most of all, the black.

  The empty.

  The cold.

  Watching the women.

  And wanting to be with them.