Strange Robby

by Selina Rosen

  She dug a pit under it and crawled in to hide from the rag heads and the sun. She had survived the situation, but she was God only knew where, she was badly wounded, and the water stored on all of the vehicles wouldn't last forever. There was a stench coming from the wound that she knew only too well. The bullet had hit a section of bowel. With or without medical attention, infection would set in. Without that attention, she wouldn't survive. It didn't look good. She looked at the gun she held in her hand and decided. She'd take a nap. If she woke up and was in too much pain, she would just shoot herself.

  When she woke up she was in the hospital. The SWTF men where there, too. They were arguing with the faceless woman, and people were poking her. Her stomach was better, so why were they poking her?

  "She's very important to us," the SWTF men said.

  The faceless woman was calling to her, but she couldn't reach her. Somehow she knew that everything would be all right if she could just reach her.

  Spider woke with a start and sat straight up in bed. She took several long deep breaths, wondering if she was really awake this time.

  "Spider, are you all right?" Carrie asked.

  Spider jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom. She ripped off the T-shirt she was wearing and stood before the mirror looking at her stomach and the scar that ran across it.

  "Spider," Carrie said sleepily from the door. "Are you all right?" she asked again.

  Spider turned to look at her. She saw the light of false dawn struggling to get through the drapes just behind Carrie. She turned back to the mirror and ran a hand over her stomach.

  "Yeah, I'm all right. I just had a nightmare."

  Carrie came up behind her and hugged her.

  "It was so real. One of those things where you dream that you wake up, but you're not really awake, and then when really horrible things keep happening you think they're real."

  "I'm so sorry, Baby."

  "The worst part was that part of the dream was something that really happened. So it was like the whole thing must have happened, do you know what I mean?"

  "Yes . . . " Carrie said. "They're the worst kind. Hard to tell for a while where fantasy ends and reality begins. Want to talk about it?"

  "Not really." She slapped herself in the head with the palm of her hand hard enough that it hurt, then turned to face Carrie. "I know why I had the fucking dream. I'm going to kill Tommy."

  "Why?" Carrie asked.

  "I was complaining about your parents staying with us. Tommy said if I'd lived through a prisoner of war camp I could live through a weekend with your parents. That's why I dreamt about the camp. The hole." She was thoughtful then. "But what was all the other shit? With the So-what-if guys and the faceless woman."

  "Why were you looking at your stomach?" Carrie asked carefully.

  "I don't know." Spider forced a smile. "I was weirded out, and I guess I thought if I saw the scar instead of a bloody wound I'd know I was awake."

  Spider looked into the mirror at the scar on her stomach and the one on her shoulder, and hip. Her body was littered with scars, some small and some large, and all of them had a story. Most of the stories weren't pleasant, but they were hers.

  "I'm kind of fucking beat up."

  "I think you're beautiful," Carrie said. She wrapped her arms around Spider's waist and lay her head on her shoulder. "I like your scars; they're part of you."

  Spider laughed. "You're a little sick, Honey, but I was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and I'm certainly lucky that love is indeed blind."

  "Can you go back to sleep?" Carrie asked.

  "Maybe, but I don't want to," Spider said. "Why don't you go back to bed, though? I know you came in late."

  "Are you going to be alright?"

  "Yeah, I'll be fine," Spider said. "I have a lot of nightmares, Carrie. I always have. Even when I was a kid, way before the war. It's normal for me. Now go on back to sleep. I'll be fine."

  Carrie was too tired to argue.

  Spider watched Carrie lie back down, and then she found her T-shirt, pulled it on and headed downstairs. In the kitchen she started a pot of coffee, and then she punched up her comlink to see what the night's events had been. Mostly to see if the ballistics information had come in on their case. The whole time she was doing it she was trying to figure out what the fucking dream meant. If she could ever figure out who that faceless bitch was, what her presence meant, then maybe the nightmares would stop forever. At the very least, maybe the faceless woman would move out of her head.

  Ballistics still hadn't processed their evidence. No doubt they'd have to wait till Monday now. She turned her comlink off and got a cup of coffee. She looked at the kitchen clock and cringed; it was only six thirty. God only knew when she'd gotten up, or when Carrie finally would. She could spend hours rattling around the house, trying not to make any noise until the rest of them got up. Then she would have to spend a whole day in parent hell. Why couldn't the comlink buzz her in to work now? The fucking thing only buzzed you in on your day off when you were supposed to do something you wanted to do, or were in the middle of sex.

  "Life sucks," she muttered.

  She'd never really had parents as an adult, so she really didn't know what was expected of Carrie by her parents or what Carrie expected of them. As a child, her father had expected her and Scott to stay the fuck out of his face and she had expected him to be passed out drunk by eight o'clock. Somewhere between her own memories and TV families must lie the norm.

  She sure as hell didn't know what any of them expected of her. Was she supposed to make herself scarce for the remainder of the visit? Or was she expected to be constantly there, struggling to act entertained. Or was she expected to entertain them, and if so, how?

  "I could show them my scars," she muttered.

  She took a sip of coffee; it was too damn hot. So she spit it back into her cup and went to the sink to get a long drink of cold water. After a minute, she decided there was no permanent damage. Sitting back down at the table, she stared at the offensive cup of coffee. It was going to be a long day.

  Spider had no idea there were this many antique stores in the entire state, much less the city. The first couple had been interesting enough, but how much old junk could you look at?

  Carrie moved up beside her and took her hand. "You're bored now, aren't you?"

  "No. I was bored three hours ago. I can't even tell you what I am now, because no one has made a word for it yet." Spider forced a smile. "I suppose I'll live. I'm just tired."

  "Thinking?" Carrie asked.

  Spider nodded. "That damn dream. It keeps playing over and over in my head. I can't understand what my imprisonment has to do with the rest of the dream."

  "It's just a dream, Honey. Dream's are like that, weird and . . . " She shrugged. "Well, distorted. If you try to figure out what they mean, you'll go crazy."

  "Oh, Carrie! Look at this," Jill cooed from across the store. "Wouldn't this just be divine in your dining room?"

  "No!" Spider said adamantly in Carrie's ear. Spider was damned if she was going to stand by and watch Carrie spend more money on a, what-ever-the-hell it was, than she made in an entire year.

  Carrie smiled and let go of Spider's hand.

  "I'm just looking," Carrie said. She started across the store.

  After only a moment's hesitation, Spider hurried to catch up to her.

  "Carrie, wait!"

  Carrie turned to face her.

  "It's your house and your money. I shouldn't have said anything, and I'm sorry."

  Carrie just smiled at her and shook her head. "It's our house, and you have the right to say what you want or don't want in it. But, for the record, if I wanted the damn thing, I'd buy it." She poked Spider on her chest with her finger. "And nothing you could say would stop me."

  Spider smiled back. "So much for my dreams of dominance."

  "Carrie, come here," Jill demanded.

  "And mine," Carrie smiled helplessly, shrugged
, and went to join her mother in ooing over the breakfront.

  Spider started looking around the store. She smiled at herself. I've got to learn to relax. I've got to quit apologizing for everything I do. Carrie wasn't mad at me. She doesn't really get mad. She just lets things slide and . . . What the fuck!

  Spider took a step back. Then she picked up the picture with trembling fingers. It was an old, antique, sterling silver frame, but that wasn't what was giving her the shakes. It was the picture. It was a picture of a young woman with an infant on her lap. A little boy stood at her knee looking at the infant. The boy was undoubtedly her brother, Scott.

  She flipped the frame over, undid the clamps, and took the photo out. On the back of the photo it said Scott, four & Spider, six months. She put the frame down and turned the photo over. She looked at the woman in the photo long and hard. She was finally seeing her mother. Tall and slender . . . My God I look like my mother! She quickly dried the tears from her eyes and swallowed the lump in her throat.

  "You there! What are you up to?" the shopkeeper asked as he approached her.

  She looked at him.

  "How much?" she asked.

  "Three hundred and fifty dollars," he said, and looked at her as if to say I know you don't have it.

  "I don't want the frame," Spider spat. "I just want the photo."

  She looked around to make sure that Carrie and her parents weren't paying any attention to her. They weren't. She pointed at the picture.

  "This is a picture of my mother, my brother and myself," Spider whispered. She turned the picture over and showed him the back. "I'm Spider, my brother's name was Scott. My mother died when I was a baby, and my father got rid of all her pictures. This is the first time since I was three that I've seen my mother."

  The man's expression changed immediately. He looked from the woman in the picture to the woman that held it and had no trouble believing her story.

  "Tell you what, kid. The frame is what's for sale. Why would I charge you for the photo when it's obviously yours?"

  "Thanks. Thanks a lot," she said.

  "I'll put it a sack for you."

  He did so, and she thanked him again.

  "So, what did you buy?" Carrie asked when they were back in the car.

  "I'll tell you later," Spider said quietly, but she was smiling, which Carrie didn't really expect.

  In fact, Carrie couldn't remember ever seeing her this happy except right after they'd had sex.

  Carrie started to look in the sack.

  "Please, Carrie?" Spider pleaded.

  Carrie put the sack down and nodded.

  "Must be for you, dear," Jill said.

  "Leave the kids alone, Jill," Robert said. "Can we go home now? My legs are about to fall off my body."

  "It's too weird," Carrie said looking at the picture Spider had handed her a few moments before. "You didn't know what your mother looked like."

  "No. Like I said, I was about three when she died. My father got rid of all her pictures, put them away, or sold them. Makes sense that he'd pawn them off for the frames."

  "Still, what are the odds?" Carrie said.

  "Apparently pretty good." Spider took the picture from Carrie and looked at it. "Is it just wishful thinking, or do I look just like my mother?"

  "Except that you'd never be caught dead in a dress, I'd think that was you. Even her hands are . . . ''

  "Freakishly large," Spider said with a smile.

  "Well, I don't think they're freakish." Carrie was embarrassed, and she was blushing. Something she just didn't do. "I like your hands."

  Spider laughed at her back peddling. "Carrie, I'm not self-conscious about the size of my hands. I guess I should be, I mean it's not like I don't know that they're abnormally large, but it just doesn't bother me. Never has. Scott had big hands, but Dad didn't. So I always figured it was a good thing."

  Carrie grinned wickedly. "A very good thing."

  Spider put the picture carefully on a shelf and lay down on the bed beside Carrie. Spider was quiet, pensive.

  "What's wrong?" Carrie asked, brushing a stray strand of hair out of Spider's face.

  "I was just thinking how different my life might have been if I'd had a mother, or if Scott were still alive. I spent a big chunk of my life working very hard at not caring too much, because, let's face it, I just don't have a very good track record. Sometimes it worries me that I love you as much as I do."

  Carrie thought about it for a second. "I'm glad you love me, and I don't believe that it means I have been marked for impending doom. In fact, I have never felt so safe in my whole life. I don't believe in curses or bad luck."

  "Me neither, not really." Spider snuggled close to Carrie. "So, you want to have sex?"

  "Oh my God, Spider!" Carrie screamed sitting straight up in bed.

  "OK, all right. We don't have to. I understand if you're a little up tight what with having your parents in the house and all," Spider said quickly.

  "That's not it," Carrie laughed and turned to look at Spider. "Spider, the faceless woman in your dreams . . . "

  "Yes?"

  "It's your mother."

  It was so obvious that Spider could have kicked herself. The dreams almost made sense now. The child inside her equated safety with getting to her mother. Of course she couldn't reach her mother, because her mother was dead. It was kind of disturbing if you thought about it, which Spider tried not to. The woman had no face because Spider didn't remember what her mother had looked like.

  The department shrink didn't seem to see any significance in her finding a picture of her mother. Or in Spider's realizing that her mother was the faceless woman in her dreams. In fact, she wasn't even sure that he was awake until he asked a question.

  "What do you suppose the SWTF men represented in your dream?"

  "I don't fucking know. I thought that was what the department was paying you for."

  "And why do you think you dreamt about being a prisoner in a hole?"

  "Well, duh. Because I was a prisoner in a hole for five weeks, and my stupid-assed partner reminded me of it," Spider said. "Do I really have to keep coming in here? Because if you're just going to sit there while I answer all the questions, you're wasting my time."

  "You don't think that I'm helping you?"

  "Well, no," Spider said. Is this guy a fucking idiot or what . . . How fucking stupid is he? The fucking department is paying him a small fortune to sit on his ass and look bored. Guess he isn't stupid at all if you think about it. He is, however, a fucking asshole.

  "Why don't you think our sessions are helping you?"

  "Because you ask me stupid assed questions and you never seem to be listening to me when I answer them. Also, I'm not any better or worse than I was when I first came in here. So I have flashbacks. Big fucking deal. Everyone remembers stuff. It has never gotten in my way at work, never caused any real problems. It's not like I run around trying to shoot people or anything. I figure that these so-called post traumatic shock episodes come with the territory. If you'd been through what I've been through, and seen the things I've seen, you wouldn't be able to erase it from your brain, either. You try sitting in a fucking pit for five weeks. Smelling your own dung. Getting the crap beat out you on a regular basis. So fucking hot you can't breathe. No idea what tomorrow's going to bring, or even what day or time it is. Then see if you don't change forever. All of the therapy in the world is not going to put me back where I was before I stood in a trench and had pieces of my dead lover's body slap me up-side the head. I'm not sure I would want it to. To be so called normal after that, to my way of thinking, would make me one sick fuck. The bottom line is that you don't give a damn whether I live or die, and I know it. So how the hell could talking to you help me?"

  "What makes you think I don't care about you, or what happens to you?"

  I'm fucking psychic, you dork. "I can tell. I'm not a fucking moron, you know."

  "I don't think that you are. I am listening to you .
. . "

  "You fucking annoy the hell out of me," Spider said throwing up her hands. "I try to tell you something I think is very enlightening, and you're blowing me off. Only to ask some stupid assed question about the So-what-if guys."

  "I think you may have trouble with authority figures," the shrink suggested.

  "I have trouble with you!" Spider spat back.

  "And why do you suppose that is?" he asked.