Jeremiah Quick

by SM Johnson

  She relaxed into the pain, letting it flow into her, warm her, comfort her.

  He wouldn’t let her escape it. He wouldn't let her escape any of it. The only thing she could do was surrender to it and let it have her.

  "Just a little while more, " Jeremiah said.

  "But why no hands?" Pretty asked.

  "Because without them, you have to let me take care of you. And that's what I want. I also want you, eventually, desperate for use of them again. Now hush. I have more to tell you."

  Chapter 39

  She.

  She is perfect.

  My glyph – my message to the world.

  She comes out of the bathroom still damp, looking relaxed, and even smiling a little.

  She hardly whines when I lay a cloth soaked in citrus over her. I can see from the rigid line of her body that it hurts her, but I also see the moment when gives herself up to it.

  She seems to be done crying. I wonder how long that will last.

  It's time for the rest about Jamie. The rest, and the end.

  I take her hands away because I can't bear for her to touch or hug me, not now, not while I tell her this part.

  I take a deep breath, because this is going to be the hardest story of all to tell.

  Chapter 40

  I wanted to get Jamie something special. I knew it would take too long, but he'd been feeling sick, and I wanted him to smile. Driving over an hour and back for his most favorite caramel rolls was ridiculous, and would get him laughing at me, because he'd know that after he enjoyed one thoroughly, I'd bitch for the rest of the day about how I'd traveled over hill and dale, through snow and sleet, to bring him this wondrous treat. And yes, I'd even make rhymes. For him alone, I would make rhymes.

  I'd whine and moan and milk this favor all day, and by suppertime he'd be dissolving in giggles. All of this would be part of the fun of it, part of the charm.

  But the second I got out of the car, bakery bag in hand, I knew something was wrong. There was this freaked out nervy sensation at the back of my neck – not at all subtle, but screaming.

  I thought What, a bear? And studied the yard, the tree line. Because sometimes the hinky back-of-the-neck feeling comes from something fairly obvious, an intruder or even a pending weather system – a difference that makes the birds go quiet and the air go still.

  I couldn't see anything obvious. The house looked normal. And from where I stood, thirty yards or so away, the dungeon building appeared undisturbed.

  It was late morning, early summer. The sun was shining and the sky was blue. There were wisps of clouds in the sky, the ones that remind me of childhood and long summer days following the creek or sitting on a rock teasing minnows with my toes. The only times I ever felt safe and content - when I disappeared to the nature park for hours on my own.

  But the sun and the sky and the clouds couldn't dispel this ominous neck prickle.

  If I had to put a name to what I was feeling, it would be… emptiness.

  I went into the house and set the bag of caramel rolls on the counter. I'd planned to warm them up, but all my Spidey senses were telling me to go find Jamie. I turned to leave the kitchen and saw a letter on the table. The letter was addressed to James Summerfield. It confirmed an appointment with a doctor a month from now. When I picked up the letter, there was a pamphlet underneath.

  The pamphlet was from the CDC. Living with HIV/AIDS.

  Oh, Jamie.

  I yelled his name.

  I went from one room to the next, calling for him, begging him to answer me. I had to comfort him, tell him we'd get through this, that it was no big deal. Surely I was infected, too. Scenes flashed through my head – condoms and safe sex? Never. Not with him. Neither of us had ever been able to tolerate any barrier of any kind between us. No. We were one flesh.

  Had I considered that if one of us had HIV, the other would very likely get it? Of course I had. You didn't play with blood and other body fluids without being aware. We were enmeshed. I wanted it that way.

  We'd be well together, or sick together, it made no difference.

  When I went out the back door, his name was coming out of my throat in one long, never-ending scream.

  And by the time I ran across the yard and hit the door to the dungeon, I had no voice left, just dread and fear and please no please no please no please.

  He was there.

  His particular scent hit me the second I pushed open the door, and relief went through me in a rush, so visceral and real, that I can't even describe it. Like air rushing out of a balloon, or getting the chance to urinate after holding it for way too long. It was a physical sagging, this feeling, a whoosh as fear drained out of every part of me.

  It was dark. The only light came from bathroom, where the door was hanging open an inch.

  I skirted dungeon furniture by memory and pushed the door open all the way. My heart, which had been hammering so hard it hurt my chest, was silent and still for this one long moment.

  He wouldn't… no, he wouldn't…

  The bathroom was bright, fully illuminated.

  And empty.

  I turned a full circle to be sure.

  I couldn't have articulated what I'd been afraid to find.

  More relief.

  I walked more slowly back to the door, to the light switch.

  I expected to see him waiting in the cage or bent over the spanking bench, wiggling in a sort of dreaded anticipation for what was to come.

  He'd be… humiliated and embarrassed, but mostly he'd be terrified for the future. He'd be waiting for me to take control, to punish him for bringing me this information, and then to absolve him, and he'd need me to reassure him that whatever this meant, this HIV thing, we would face it together, and everything would be okay.

  I never expected to see him hanging from the rafters.

  Chapter 41

  "No. No. Oh no."

  Pretty whimpered the words, struggling to sit up, needing her hands free so she could touch him, hold him. Oh, Jeremiah.

  He was sitting on the mattress beside her, rigid. His face was tilted up, staring at the rafters, at the scrap of black cloth hanging there.

  Neither her muscles nor her skin were happy about the effort it took to sit up, but that was the least important detail in the world; she had to be close to him. He'd prevented her from wrapping her arms around him with the fucking belt and cuffs, but she was upright and swinging her legs down, pushing her toes against the floor to scoot close enough to him that she could lean her head against his shoulder.

  "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said, because she could think of nothing else.

  He wrapped his arms around her, and leaned his forehead against the side of her head. His breath came in stuttering hitches as he spoke a strangled whisper into her ear. "He did that. Left me like that. And most of the time I still can't believe it. This can't be real."

  He started rocking.

  "My Sunshine Boy. The only one who ever filled me all the way up, and he left like that, like that. As if he'd sat down and considered which way, of all the ways he could leave me, that would destroy me the most."

  "No," Pretty murmured, letting her lips brush the side of his face. "No. He wasn't thinking at all. He was terrified, horrified. Lost."

  "I'd have found him, if he'd have given me the chance. I told him I'd never let him fall, and he didn't believe me. He left. And he took all my tears."

  And then his whole body heaved, and he was wracked with sobs, and Pretty felt the wetness of tears, and because she was almost crying herself, she didn't realize immediately that they were his own.

  After what felt like a long time, he took in a deep breath and said, "I righted the table and tried to hold him up, praying to every god I'd ever heard of to let him be alive. At some point I remembered I had a knife sheathed to my belt. I sawed through the scarf, lowering him carefully, carefully to the tabletop, telling him, over and over and over never let you fall never let you fall nev
er never never let you fall…

  "Do you understand, Pretty, why I need you to be Dark for me? Just for a little while? Please. I know it's too much to ask of anyone. I know this. But I have no one else. Of the Three, you're the only one left. I can't stay here anymore. I need to go home."

  The shock she experienced then, when she knew, knew, what he was asking… was colder than a blast of snow down the back of her shirt at the same time it was a spark hotter than molten glass. Was uglier, even, than the fact that it was entirely possible Chill died because she was too selfish to spare a few minutes a month. Uglier than walking away from her family and into this.

  "Oh… no no no no. Jeremiah. Please don't ask this."

  He pulled away, just enough to raise his head and look her in the eyes. "I am asking."

  She sagged against him, letting the horror course through her nerves, her brain, feeling it twist her guts and roll her stomach like a cliché of Jamie rolling in his grave. Surely Jamie didn't want her to do this.

  Once there was a beautiful boy, the most beautiful boy in the world…

  And then she heard it, inside her head, a voice, not her voice. And not Jeremiah's, either.

  Jamie's voice.

  "And that boy, he made the most terrible mistake…"

  The gasp came out of her like an explosion, and the pain that welled up behind it was so big Pretty had difficulty comprehending it, much less putting it in to actual words that made sense. Like a giant bubble made of all her blood and all her tears and all her every living thing, and it rose up from her center and slammed into her throat, pushed against her voice box, the back of her tongue, the backs of her teeth, until it tore loose in a torrent of sobs.

  She fought the cuffs that kept her hands at her waist, and it didn't do any good, so she bent forward until she was staring at the floor between her feet, almost falling off the side of the bed, and let the bubble of grief and fear and dread pour out her mouth like screaming vomit.

  She didn't know how long it went on.

  His arms were around her, pulling her upper body against his.

  Rocking.

  His lips tickling the outer curve of her ear, saying something she was too upset to hear.

  Her ears were ringing.

  "I can't, I can't, I can't," she protested, letting him comfort her.

  "Shh. We'll ritualize it, make it beautiful."

  She shuddered, somehow both leaning into him and fighting him, all in the tangle of that moment.

  He took her face in his hands. "I'm sorry. But it's you. I tried, I can't even tell you how hard I tried for it not to be you. I searched for a year, positive it had to be someone else.

  "Lilith, Eve, the Goddess, my mother. I didn't want it to be you. I promise you, I tried to avoid this. But they were all stupid and vapid, only pretending to be open, faking their lack of skepticism. They never really listened.

  "You, you've always been open to me, so wide-eyed and willing to listen, willing to learn. So of course it has to be you. There's no one else it can be."

  She wished she could comfort him. She wanted to be wide-eyed and willing to learn from him. It had always been so.

  His spirit was ancient, and it knew her, wanted to consume much more than her tears.

  This she suddenly understood with a tingling sensation. She would have called it a chill, except it was hot, searing through her stomach to her spine, growing from all her female parts and moving into her throat, her teeth, and settling, finally, in the space behind her eyes, where it felt like it would take up residence.

  And this she realized: she had thought her greatest moment of vulnerability would come while he was killing her. But that wasn't going to be it at all.

  In all of her life, she only felt regret for the things she didn't do.

  She could never hate him.

  If she held the straight-edge to his flesh and pressed until it drew blood, if she dragged blade-red channels through his flesh until she set him free, it would always, always be for love.

  This once, if never again, ever, she could love hard enough.

  Chapter 42

  She.

  She's safe enough.

  I tell her about Alaska so she knows that part.

  I tell her all in one great rush how I paid a guy to travel with me to Alaska using Jamie's name, Jamie's identification. About the bush pilot who flew me back to Washington state, and how I hitch-hiked back here. No one would look for me, and certainly no one will ever think I disappeared not on purpose, because I have a lifelong habit of disappearing on purpose.

  Details, but I think maybe it helps her to know them.

  I never told anyone, ever, about what happened to Jamie.

  I can hardly even bear to know it myself.

  It's too heavy, too lonely, too awful, too sad.

  I want to go home.

  Please, Sunshine, send me home.

  Chapter 43

  Once she agreed to his request, Jeremiah became positively light-hearted. He leaned carefully toward her and gave her a peck on the cheek, then dragged her to the house, crowing his victory.

  Pretty was more subdued. Terrified, if the truth was to be known. She'd run over a squirrel with the car once, but killing things wasn't in her interest or her repertoire. She was, actually, heavy with the awful.

  At first, Jeremiah seemed to ignore her quiet dread. He was happily brainstorming his own demise, filled with cheerful chatter as he tossed out options.

  "Do you want to slit my throat?" he asked. "Just cut me open from ear to ear and give me a second smile, all red and drippy?" He frowned for a second. "Well. I've heard the spray can pretty much douse a room, so maybe not."

  What, he wanted to be kind to the landlord or the bank, whomever inherited the place?

  "And too quick," he added with a snort of laughter. "Fast is okay, but not that fast."

  So slit throat was nixed.

  "I don't want you to slice open my wrists," he said. "Might not work, like… might not bleed out fast enough, you know? And it's so… just so… average."

  He paced while he thought about it.

  Pretty sat on the couch, watching him, feeling almost disassociated from the whole situation. Had she really agreed to this?

  "I could get you a gun. But I hate that idea, so frightening, and loud, and impersonal. It has to feel closer than that, more intimate, to be right."

  She didn't like guns much either. So far she didn't like any of this. It seemed like too great a weight to kill him, even with his permission. Even if it was a plea for rescue.

  She thought about how she would tell this story to her husband, then wondered if she ever would tell him the details of... any of this. What would she say, a blast from the past came looking for her with nefarious purpose, and she did what he wanted? And how would she justify that sort of loyalty if she couldn't admit to some kind of love?

  "Ah man, honey – darling – you will never believe what I learned how to do." Just thinking about saying that started a laugh bubbling out of her. "No, really, it makes perfect sense in a universe that isn't this universe. Stay with me, let me explain."

  She could almost see his sharp look, the roll of his eyes to the ceiling, the long aggrieved sigh. "Yes, dear, explain please, how killing someone is a practical, acquired skill."

  Jeremiah was still pondering. "Starving will take too long. Beheading is probably too gross and will freak you out – but I could rig up a hanging station, like, would it be some kind of poetic justice for me to die the way Jamie died? I mean, damn, the symbolism…"

  Pretty shook her head, and stubbornly wanted no part of any of this. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. And yet...

  … his jubilant attitude was morbidly catching for periods of time, too, and she found herself laughing with him until she remembered that he actually wanted her to perpetuate violence upon his person until he died. That quieted her into thoughtful silence.

  Truth was… the thought of getting his blood all
over herself was hardly distressing. Been there, done that, have quite the story to tell. She didn't think she'd be squeamish about that part. Not anymore.

  It was…after… that she was most worried about, most afraid of. She'd be sad, and alone, and it would be hard work. She didn't yet know if she would feel she had to clean him up or not. He said, "No, just toss me in a hole," but she wasn't sure she could be that casual.

  She had some thought that washing his body with love and care might be some kind of appropriate goodbye.

  "Here," he said gleefully, holding up a red permanent marker while she was in the midst of all this thinking. "I'll draw on myself the places you can cut or stab that will most surely kill me."

  He stripped off his shirt. "If you cut a hole here," he drew an X below his ribcage, near his sternum. "You can shove the knife blade in, then drag it up toward my chin, cutting the connective tissue between the right and left sides of my ribcage. This will be map number 1," he said, drawing the line. Where the line ended, he drew a little star. "Drag it up with both hands if you have to. Stab again at the star, angling the knife a little to the left. Well, my left, your right. You know. That'll be my heart, see?" He grabbed her fingers and held them to his chest.

  She felt the thrum of his heart.

  She said, "Yeah, well, I didn't think you were a vampire or anything. Your heart is about where I'd expect."

  His laugh was unexpected and cute.

  "When do you want me to do this?" she asked, thinking a few days, maybe a week.

  "I'm ready now."

  Well, she wasn't. No way. She shook her head. "No. You have to let me touch you again, however I want to. That'll be my price." There. If she had to maul and manage his body when he was dead, at least she'd get to explore it again while he was still alive.

  "Of course," he said, and seemed too ready to comply, his hands scrambling for the snap locks that held her wrists to her waist.