Liquid fear f-1

by Scott Nicholson

  He sighed, relieved, though his gut clenched in craving.

  No Harry. So Harry shared in the failure as much as the dead woman did.

  Fuck it.

  Fists tight, Roland stood. He was almost to the closet when Wendy’s voice came to him.

  “What did you ever do to deserve this?” he’d once asked when they were exploring the damage of people who loved alcoholics.

  “What did you do to deserve it?” she asked.

  And he’d had no answer, then or now.

  She’d been as supportive as any spouse should be. She even attended Al-Anon, the support group for family members of alcoholics. She’d sat with him in open meetings, listened as he made his required amends and worked through the steps; she memorized the little homilies, including the one that reminded drunks to remember the futility of control, resentment, and selfishness.

  But where was Wendy now?

  Out of his life, living across town from him, both of them financially damaged by the separation and legal battle.

  Of course, when you got right down to it, God had set up the bowling pins for this particular split. Why cast about for blame when there was One who had all the power?

  In the Blame Game, you didn’t need to point the finger at yourself. The real target was in the sky, everywhere, pervading the fabric of reality.

  Or, alternately, God was nowhere.

  The grin was a grim rictus on his face. Justification, that savior of drunks the world over. He licked his lips. His hand was actually trembling in a way it hadn’t since he’d beaten delirium tremens during a thirty-day stay in a treatment facility.

  If God didn’t want him to drink, God would cause him to trip over the living room rug and break a leg. And God wouldn’t have stuck Steve’s liquor in the cabin, just waiting for him like manna.

  God’s fault. God’s desire. God’s will.

  He was heading for the liquor cabinet when someone knocked on the door.

  He glanced at the ceiling, wondering if God was up there laughing, the hoary old bastard.

  He thought about hiding, or maybe going for the back door and running into the woods, but that would be stupid.

  No, the best thing was to answer it and act like he belonged there.

  Roland opened the door, smiling but with a little hint of annoyance at being disturbed. A man stood there, beefy, dressed in a flannel shirt and overalls. He wore a new straw hat on his head that looked uncomfortably stiff. One side of his mouth was slack, as if he’d worn out his muscles from chewing tobacco in that cheek.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Howdy,” the man said, waving vaguely off to the left. “I own the farm down there and keep an eye on the place for Steve. Thought I might check in and see if you need anything. Place has stood empty a while.”

  Yeah, right. And not a bit curious, I’ll bet.

  “I’m just stopping over on a road trip,” Roland said. “I’m Steve’s brother.”

  The man squinted. “I see a little resemblance, now that you mention it.”

  “Yeah, he got the brains, but I got all the looks.”

  The man nodded, no sense of humor. “Well, if you need anything, just holler.”

  Roland glanced at the man’s feet, expecting to see scuffed boots flecked with goat shit. Instead, the man wore shiny leather dress shoes.

  “I’ll do that, sir,” he said, though the man was only ten years older than him.

  The man turned, and Roland noticed there were no other vehicles in the driveway. The farmer must have walked at least half a mile. Without scuffing his new shoes. “All right, David, enjoy your stay.”

  “My name’s not David,” Roland said. “It’s-”

  He caught himself as the man turned. “Steve said he had a brother named David,” the man said.

  Roland thought about lying, but he planned to be long gone soon. “It’s Roland.”

  The man’s lips pursed, and then they broke into a grin. “That’s right. I was just testing you. We get all kinds of weirdos out in these parts. It pays to be a little suspicious.”

  “Sounds like good advice.”

  “You’ll be heading back to North Carolina soon?”

  How the hell did he know? “Depends on how much I enjoy my stay.”

  “I wouldn’t enjoy it too much. You might never want to leave.”

  The man laughed, but the humor was off, like an inside joke he didn’t want to share. Roland watched him walk down the road, those new shoes slapping in the dirt and gravel.

  He slammed the door. Soon it wouldn’t matter if he was Roland or David or the fucking ghost of Kentucky Colonel Jack Daniels.

  He reached the cabinet and swallowed hard, throat stinging with the anticipated heat of the liquor. Steve’s drink was Crown Royal, out of Roland’s price range, but there would be rum, vodka, gin, and probably some brandy as well. Enough.

  The cabinet was oaken, the door slightly warped by dampness. But now it was the gate to paradise.

  As he opened the door, he closed his eyes, half-hoping for a final reprieve, some cosmic gesture that would gird his spirit.

  The cabinet door creaked open. A warm, putrid odor wafted out with the force of floodwater.

  A goat hung in the cabinet, a hemp rope tangled in its horns. Its body cavity was peeled open, red ribs exposed, offal spilling in trails of gray-green and pink.

  As Roland dry-heaved for the second time that day, he realized the kill must have been recent. A strange jubilation surged through him; here was proof that he was not the killer.

  On its heels came a deeper relief. He had stayed sober. Maybe through a little luck, maybe through the divine hand of that Big Bastard in the Sky.

  But sobriety didn’t change reality. The sacrificial slaughter had occurred while he was in the car, on his way here. Someone must have left the mutilated carcass for him, someone who knew his destination, someone who had anticipated his moves after leaving the Cincinnati motel.

  Someone who knew he’d open the liquor cabinet sooner rather than later, because the killer had left a message.

  Scrawled in congealed blood were the same cryptic letters he’d observed in the motel shower stall: “CRO.” And beneath it, “Every 4 hrs. You’re late.” The symbols were smeared as if by a callous finger.

  As blood continued to drain from the goat, it pooled around the message, and Roland realized the letters would soon be obscured.

  The crime techs would be able to decode it. They’d be able to match evidence with the crime scene in Cincinnati and he’d be off the hook. Of course, there was still the problem of the missing time and his new identity “It’s not my identity, damn it,” he said, the words scouring his ravaged throat.

  Roland couldn’t stay in the cabin now, not while that hideous face leered from the cabinet with its strange, milky eyes. He reached past it and grabbed the only bottle there, half a pint of vodka. He twisted the lid free.

  Here’s to you, you glassy-eyed fucker.

  Roland turned up the bottle, craving the sweet relief, no matter what price he’d pay later.

  He’d forced down three swallows before he realized the vodka didn’t burn. He pulled it away and smelled it.

  Water.

  The laughter hit him hard, and he leaned against the wall, air leaping from his lungs in painful grunts. He was such a fuck-up that he even fucked up getting fucked up. His sides hurt, then he punched the wall, and the pain brought him around.

  Roland pulled the orange bottle from his pocket and glanced at the bloody letters on the cabinet door: “You’re late.”

  The rage came over him almost instantly, and he had retrieved a butcher knife from the kitchen and was about to hack into that goddamned goat, with its glassy, accusing eyes.

  Who are you to fucking judge me?

  Trembling, he dropped the knife and fled to the back bedroom, crawling onto the bare mattress and huddling into himself.

  They were coming. They’d find out he’d drunk the vodka.r />
  He thought of the farmer with the spiffy shoes and city hands.

  The farmer’s words came back to him. “You’ll be heading back to North Carolina soon?”

  And another question, maybe one from David Underwood up in the peanut gallery:

  Why did you kill Susan?

  He hadn’t thought of the girl in years, and he didn’t even know he’d forgotten her, but her rounded face slid into his mind, eyes wide and mouth screaming and chubby cheeks bleeding.

  Roland felt the world sliding away and the black walls of the room closing in. Then Susan blended with the dead woman in Cincinnati.

  Every 4 hrs.

  Or else.

  Or else more of this. More memories, more corpses.

  He pulled out the bottle and shoved one of the pills into his mouth, wishing he had the bogus vodka to wash it down.

  The fear vanished in minutes, and he found he was exhausted from the tension.

  Sleep.

  Then Wendy.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Let me see your pills,” Wendy said.

  Anita turned from the window of Dr. Hannah Todd’s fifth-floor office. After hanging up on Wendy, she’d made an appointment and caught a cab to the NC Neurosciences Hospital, where she waited in an outpatient room. Anita had finally answered one of Wendy’s repeated calls, and Wendy had hurried down to make sure her friend was okay.

  And part of her wanted to make sure Halcyon wasn’t back in Anita’s life, because Halcyon should have died along with Susan Sharpe.

  “Do you believe me now?” Anita asked. She was dressed in street clothes, the bandage still on her head, though she’d changed for her appointment and wore a loose white blouse and pleated slacks.

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “I thought I was freaking out, having little fantasies. I know we’ve been friends for a long time, but I couldn’t remember when I met Roland.” After a pause, Anita lowered her voice and added, “Or Susan.”

  “Don’t say that name.”

  “You don’t remember, do you?”

  “Show me your pills.”

  Anita rummaged in her handbag and came out with the orange bottle. She read from the label. “A. Molkesky. Take one every four hours or else.”

  She tossed the pill bottle to Wendy, who nearly dropped it, though they were only three feet apart. “These are just like mine,” Wendy said.

  “These are just like the ones from ten years ago.”

  Something tugged at Wendy’s memory, but she pushed it down. She recalled what Anita had said about “monsters in their holes.” Oh, she’d had holes, all right.

  “Are you taking them on time?” Wendy asked.

  “Now I am. After I figured out the ‘Or else’ part.”

  “I thought you were going to turn these in.”

  “I don’t think I better do that.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Yeah. And the pills help. Because when I don’t take them, it all comes sneaking back.”

  “What does?” Wendy wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  “Dr. Briggs. Us. The Monkey House.”

  “Us?”

  “You, me, and Roland. You talked us into it, said it was a chance to make some extra cash. Plus we thought it was real anti-establishment stuff, brain research without a net.”

  Wendy felt jittery, because she caught a vivid image of a smirking Dr. Briggs. Sebastian. He’d been a doctor here, hadn’t he?

  Something else. She could see his face, smiling, leaning forward with his lips puckered. And from his voice came the words, “Wendy, my sweet little Igor.”

  “No,” Wendy said, willing the image from her head.

  “Yeah,” Anita said. “I don’t know where the others came in. David and Susan. They probably just wanted money, too. And Alexis, but she was tied in with Briggs.”

  Wendy had kept in touch with Alexis over the years, though the casual meetings for coffee had become less frequent and more awkward, as if the only things they had to talk about were things they couldn’t talk about.

  “Alexis,” Wendy said. “Is she still on staff?”

  “She has a lab here in the basement, but her office is in the nursing school. I see her in the hall once in a while when I come for therapy.”

  “Does she…say anything?”

  Anita shook her head. “Not about Susan Sharpe. She’s got professional standing to worry about now.”

  Wendy wanted to change the subject fast. “What’s the longest you’ve gone without the pills?”

  Anita looked at the clock on the wall, which was pushing six o’clock. “Five hours is about as long as I can stand. Then it all starts crashing in and I remember what happened out there at the factory.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Anita sat on the sofa, unconsciously perching in a pose that might have passed for seductive. Wendy had drawn Anita many times, and even the most innocuous figure studies had turned out erotically charged. Wendy wasn’t sure whether it was something in Anita’s nature, the connection of the friendship, or some secret carnal impulse in Wendy that was always trying to escape.

  She suspected her impulse might have broken loose a few times, and that frightened her more than Anita’s recollections.

  “We did these drug trials,” Anita said, with the patience of an adult lecturing a child. “The drugs were supposed to help people dealing with trauma, so we pretended to attack one another to stimulate violence and trigger our fear responses so Briggs could monitor the results.”

  Wendy had a vague memory of a high ceiling, dark clutter all around, stalking through corridors to find someone.

  And not just the image but the feeling returned, the hunger of the predator, the rage that Susan was after Dr. Briggs, but Susan could never have him because Briggs belonged to Wendy.

  The nerve of that fucking bitch.

  “You haven’t told this to anyone?” Wendy asked. Now it was her turn to look out the window. A long way down.

  “No.”

  “I wouldn’t. It sounds totally crazy, and they’ll lock you away in a nice rubber room on the seventh floor.”

  “I’m not telling anybody anything. They might take away my Halcyon.”

  “Why do you call it Halcyon, anyway? There’s nothing on the label.”

  Anita smiled. “You’re playing me, aren’t you?”

  “Huh?”

  “Pretending like you don’t remember. Halcyon was the drug Briggs was testing.”

  Because the room was for voluntary outpatients, the window wasn’t barred like those on the top floor. She could open it and lure Anita over. Then no more talk of Susan and Briggs.

  “I’m tired of remembering,” Anita said. “I’m taking my next dose. Give me my bottle back.”

  Wendy realized she was still gripping the orange bottle. She crossed the room and gave it to her, then watched as Anita poured the remaining seven pills into her palm.

  “That’s barely enough to get you to morning,” Wendy said. “Do you want some of mine?”

  “Bad things might happen when we take each other’s pills.”

  “Bad things happen anyway.”

  Anita took a bottle of water from her purse and washed down a pill. “In a couple of minutes, it’ll dumb me down pretty good. But I want you to remember something very important for me.”

  “Sure, Anita.”

  Anita gripped her hands and gave her an imploring look. Then she pulled Wendy close, their breasts pressing together.

  “I want you to need me,” Anita said.

  “Nita? What are you doing?”

  Anita moaned and she clutched the back of Wendy’s neck, whispering harshly in her ear: “This is what happens if I don’t take my pills.”

  Wendy wrestled to break free, but Anita’s strength was almost demonic. She fell back onto the sofa and yanked Wendy on top of her. She brought her face to Wendy’s. “Love me, Wendy,” Anita said, and it was desper
ation, not lust, in her tone. “I need to matter.”

  They’d never kissed, despite the occasional teasing. Wendy wasn’t horrified by her friend’s bisexual leanings, her pornographic past, or even her depraved and sudden assault, as if a sexual switch had been flipped and she’d lost all her control.

  No, what really scared Wendy was the image of Briggs and his slightly parted lips that had superimposed over Anita’s face.

  Do you want to play “doctor,” Doctor?

  Their lips touched and the contact shocked Wendy to her senses. It was Briggs she’d been surrendering to, not Anita. She broke free and headed for the door, wiping her mouth. “Good luck with your appointment.”

  Just before she closed the door, Anita called her name. Not angry, just frustrated.

  “Yeah?” Wendy asked.

  “Take your pills. Don’t become like me.”

  By the time she got to her car, Wendy was starting to remember things. Chase Hanson. Dr. Briggs. Susan.

  Those things never happened if you keep forgetting them.

  She took a pill by the light of the dashboard before driving home. She would take as many as she needed to keep the past away.

  And to keep her from her true self.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The black limousine turned off the street in front of the hotel and glided through the narrow underground tunnel to the service entrance Mark waited in front of.

  Mark Morgan peered at the tinted, bulletproof glass, wondering what they thought as they sized him up. As the limousine came to a stop, Mark caught his own reflection in the window, a pale smudge painted by the unhealthy yellow of the security lights.

  The car stopped, its engine so quiet that Mark thought the ignition was off, though the exhaust quickly made him lightheaded. The driver’s door opened and a man in a dark suit emerged, nodding and bending to take Mark’s suitcase. His face was cold, lean, and wolfish.

  “I can do that,” Mark said.

  The glass on the rear window slid down. “Now, Mark, let Winston feel useful. He hates to be stereotyped.”

  “Good morning, Senator.”

  “I hope we’re not running too far behind.”

  “No, my plane doesn’t leave for another hour.”