by Keith Knapp
Pushing forward with his mind, Mike felt for the others. Were they still out there, in the town somewhere? Or had they been brought someplace else like he had? He focused on the smoke walls around him, think-looking for any of the others.
He wasn’t picking up anything. He put his hands to his temples. That’s what they always did in the movies: fingers on the temples, eyes closed—and reached out again. He thought of the streets of the town and all the buildings they had come across. He swooped passed the windmill and over the sheriff’s station and though the motel into Sophia’s room, then back out to the saloon/pizza place where he floated for a bit and when he didn’t see anyone he flipped a 360 and flew into the sheriff’s office, then back out again since that was empty, too, almost bumping his head into the sign advertising KEYS MADE HERE. He floated over these places, searching for any sign of the others.
Still nothing. And he felt like an idiot.
But something had happened.
The wall of smoke—“his” wall—had risen an inch.
He kept his hands up to his head (it couldn’t hurt), and instead of trying to hear thoughts, he attempted to push forward one of his own.
None of this is real.
None of this is real.
None of this
42.
is real.
Sophia said it over and over again in her head, none of this is real none of this is real none of this is real, but the more she said it the less she believed it. The aromas in the room—jasmine from the bath, potpourri from the little bowl atop their dresser, Jack’s alcohol-heavy breath—were too real to simply ignore.
Jack snorted as he looked at her, like he couldn’t believe she had the balls to actually be in the same room as him. “So you’re home,” he slurred.
“Jack, you’re drunk,” said Sophia. “Sleep it off.”
“I’ve been asleep long enough,” he said. “I’m wide awake now, baby. Wide awake.” He paused. Then: “I followed you last night.”
Shit.
“Jack, I don’t know what-”
“Don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. You do. You do.”
“Just hear me-”
“NO!” he screamed, and tossed the bottle of whiskey at the wall. It shattered, spraying glass and alcohol across the wall and carpet. The smell of whiskey, already heavy in the air, was now overpowering.
There was no use in denying it, no use in concocting some web of lies to make him think he was wrong. And hell—she would’ve told him as she was walking out the door forever, anyway. One last twist of the knife to harsh his buzz.
“I’m just trying to put food on the table!” she yelled.
“Not that way you’re not,” he said. “Not anymore.” He stumbled closer to her. The gun trembled in his hand.
“A lot of help you’ve been. You’re a drunk, Jack. You-”
“I what?”
“Stop cutting me off!”
In a split second Jack was right next to her, then on top of her as he pushed her down onto the bed. Jesus he was fast. And heavy. He’d put on some weight. She suffocated in his breath as he brought the gun up to her chin.
Sophia’s anger diminished in an instant, replaced by un-relentless fear. Her eyes stared at the muzzle of the Glock. There was nothing else in the world at the moment.
“Jesus, Jack,” she stammered. “What the hell are you doing with a gun?”
Jack smiled. “There are nightmares here. You’re gonna suffer for the nightmare you put ol’ Jack through. Yes sirree.”
She rolled him to the side, lifted her knee and popped him in the nuts with her leg. Howling in pain, Jack tumbled off the bed. The gun fell to the floor as his hands instinctively went to his groin.
The floor was once again under Sophia’s feet. And a yard or so away, just on the other side of Jack and near the door, was the Glock.
Her ankles drifted out from under her. Her cheek hit the floor and Jack laughed as he tightened his grip around her feet. Pain scorched through her head, hot needles up and down her face. She forced the needles away. There was no time to be in pain or to succumb to dizziness. Down by her feet, Jack was pulling her back toward the bed and away from the door.
Red swirls of stars floated across her field of vision—the dizziness was coming whether she wanted it to or not—but within the red haze she could make out the gun. It jumped from right in front of her to outside the door, then back in front of her again as her vision tried to repair itself.
None of this is real.
Sophia reached out and felt the handle of the weapon with her finger tips. Then it was flying away from her again, getting further and further away. But this time it wasn’t wooziness shifting the weapon in her field of vision—the gun was actually moving. No, that wasn’t right. She was moving.
Jack pulled her deeper into the room. His manhood was still in too much pain to say anything (she hoped it’d hurt forever) but his face said it all. Now, now, don’t even pretend you could shoot me with that thing. Then her head was right next to his. Sophia looked into his eyes and saw bona-fide craziness…and something else. Something that was Jack but not Jack.
With great effort she pushed up and kicked free from him. Momentum made her stumble into the dresser. The potpourri dropped off the top. Flower and wood shavings spread across the carpet, filling the room with a burst of pleasant scent.
Jack was back on his feet and coming for her. He limped past the bed with a growl.
None of this is real.
The five words kept repeating. She was on a fast track to denial, that was for sure.
None of this is real.
But the more Sophia heard these words in her head the more she felt that they had another meaning. Maybe this wasn’t denial she was heading for, but something else.
None of this is real.
None of this is real.
None of this is real.
Now she felt that she wasn’t thinking these words herself but that someone was saying them to her. And with each passing second she believed more and more that these words were true, that she wasn’t really in her bedroom at all but in-
-the town.
As if those two words were a key unlocking her memory, she immediately recalled every moment of her time in the shed, the town, the hotel, the smoke.
But that didn’t stop Jack from attacking her. He swung an open arm. Real or not, the fight hurt and felt real enough. Sophia yelped, ducked out of the way and ran toward the closet.
* * *
Jody’s eyes snapped open at the sound of her mother’s scream. She was staring at the ceiling in the living room, the fan above her spinning slowly. She must have dozed off on the couch while contemplating doing her algebra homework. There was her math book on the coffee table next to her. Ugh. Was there anything more useless in the world than algebra?
Feet pounded on the floor above. Her parents were at it again, a real doozy this time by the sound of it. Grown-ups sure could be annoying. She hoped she never got that annoying when she was their age.
Jody swung her legs off the couch and headed for the stairs. She was sick of this. Not a night’s peace and quiet was to be had in the old Welling Household while Dad was a drunk and Mom was a secret stripper. If one of them wasn’t going to grow up and put an end to all the bullshit, Jody was.
She was halfway to the top when she heard her father yell, “WHY DIDN’T YOU FUCKING TELL ME?!?” There was a loud crash as something fell over. The dresser. It wouldn’t be the first time her father had re-arranged their house in this manner.
Moving faster, Jody cleared the rest of the stairs in two jumps. Although she was privy to her mother’s little secret, her father wasn’t. Something told her that he had just found out. There was a muffled yell from the bedroom—her mother saying something, Jody couldn’t make it out—then more feet on the floor and a door went suh-LAM!
Around the banister and one quick sprint later, Jody was at her parent’s bedroom.<
br />
Inside, her father approached the closet door, nearly tripping over his own two feet he was so drunk. He yelled at the closet. He was going off about Sophia being a slut and a liar, a whore and a bitch, said some words Jody had never heard before, and kept on asking how she could do this to him.
Yep, he had found out the Big Bad Truth alright.
“Dad?” Her voice was sheepish, barely there.
Startled, Jack paused and turned to look at his daughter. His look of anger quickly washed away, replaced by a look of annoyance. “Baby, honey, go back downstairs,” he said.
“Jody?!” her mother cried from inside the closet.
No sooner had Jody registered her own name than the closet door flew open and Sophia Baker-Welling, soon to return to plain ol’ Sophia Baker, flew at Jack. Jody shrieked as the two went down and tumbled to the floor. Sophia clawed, slapped, punched Jack’s face. He shoved her away hard, elbowing her in the chest. This little maneuver sent Sophia spiraling, and her right wrist was the first to hit the wall with a snap.
Even though inebriated, Jack had no trouble spinning around and locating Sophia’s throat. He closed a fist around it and again told Jody to go back downstairs.
Sophia struggled to speak. She couldn’t get a breath in, let alone any words out. But her mouth still worked, and Jody could see her mother trying to say “run” over and over and over again.
“Mommy and Daddy are just talking, sweetie,” Jack said, turning so he could see his daughter. “Everything’s gonna be alright.”
But Jody knew that everything wouldn’t be alright. This wasn’t the first time her father had beaten her mother, and chances were it wouldn’t be the last. And just talking? Puh-lease. How stupid did her father think she was?
Jody bent over and picked up the gun.
That’s when Jack’s expression changed from annoyance to fear. He hadn’t counted on this little maneuver and it showed all over his face. His eyes widened and he lost about ten pounds.
“Baby, give that to me, now,” he said. He tried to sound conversational about it and failed.
The Glock sat in Jody’s hand awkwardly. It was much too big for her. She again looked to her mother, who had stopped trying to talk and now simply stared at Jody.
“Give it here now,” Jack said again. He nailed a fatherly tone that time.
Slowly her hands aimed the weapon at her father. Jack raised a palm out to her: whoa, whoa, whoa, clam down, just calm down.
Jody couldn’t calm down if she’d been pumped full of horse tranquilizers. Her heart raced in her chest, threatening to burst out at any second. The equivalent of thirty Red Bulls coursed through her veins which made holding the gun steady and level near impossible.
“Put it down, baby,” Jack said. “It might go off. You could hit your mother.”
And then Jody began to cry.
Her mother. Jack had hurt her too much for far too long. Jody raised the gun and that’s when she realized she had done all this before and that
none of this is real.
Yes, she had been here before. Four days ago? Five? It didn’t matter because she was here now and it didn’t make any sense.
None of this is real.
Her eyes flashed to the window where she saw the skyline of the town. Like her mother, Jody’s mind reset itself in a flash. She wasn’t really in her parent’s bedroom. The town was playing a game with her. She had already done this.
She had already shot and killed her father.
“And why did you do it?” Jack asked. His voice changed. His mannerisms, his aura was somehow different. He wasn’t Jack anymore.
“To protect mom. You were h-hurting her.”
“Why didn’t you just run? Call 911?”
“I-I,” Jody stammered. “You were hurting h-her.”
“You wanted to see your father dead.”
“I wanted him to stop hurting mom.”
“You wanted him dead.”
“No!”
“YOU WANTED THAT NO GOOD MOTHERFUCKER DEAD.”
“YES!!!” Jody screamed.
Then she pulled the trigger.
Jack lost his grip on Sophia and crumpled to the floor, grabbing his chest where the bullet made a new home. It wasn’t blood that poured through his fingers, but cockroaches and spiders. There was no splatter this time to stain Jody’s shirt.
Sophia ran to her daughter and hugged and hugged and hugged her. Mesmerized by the sight of the bugs oozing out of her father’s chest, Jody let the gun fall to the floor. Only she knew he wasn’t her father, he was something else. He was the Bug Man she had met in the cell, he was the hounds that had come after her, he was the source of the illusions in the town.
He was the town.
Taking her by the hand, Sophia pulled Jody out of the bedroom, down the stairs, out the front door and-
* * *
-the streets of the town were waiting for them outside their front door. They ran down their walkway and onto the dusty road. A wind had picked up. A storm was brewing.
Behind them, their house was gone, replaced by a horseshoe repair barn. Jody placed her head in her hands, trying not to cry but being able to do nothing but. “Mom, what’s going on?” she said between tears.
“I don’t know,” Sophia replied, rubbing her right wrist which felt like it was broken but wasn’t. She looked down the street to where she had last seen the others. Roscoe lay in the road, his head resting on his paws. When he saw Sophia and Jody, he jumped to his feet and ran toward them.
The smoke was gone.
Or one of the walls was, at least. She now had access back to the intersection (whether that was a good or bad thing was up for serious debate) and could see down the block, but there were still two walls of the stuff hanging mid-air. Small openings had appeared at the bottoms of each of the remaining walls, allowing a portion of a view of the rest of the town.
Behind Roscoe, Mike Randal stood in the middle of the street, his hands to his head as if he was trying to work out the most difficult math problem in the world, probably algebra. His eyes were closed, the guy was really thinking hard on this one, his lips mouthing the words none of this is real.
43.
The plate was off the door, the lock exposed. Daylight seeped through the opening and Rachel could just make out a patch of grass outside.
Using the screwdriver as a small pry bar, Rachel shoved it into the locking mechanism. She stood and pushed against the handle with all of her weight. If she could bend the lock enough maybe it would split open.
Her hands slipped as the screwdriver cruelly slid free from the lock. She toppled forward, barely retaining her balance.
She waved her hand in front of her, trying to get the sudden surge of pain to go away.
“Dammit!”
When the pain had subsided somewhat, she returned to the door and put the screwdriver back into the hole. She pushed again, then pulled. Pushed. Pulled. She could feel the metal inside bending. Just a little bit more. Almost got it.
Snap.
She flew forward again, but this time she was prepared and her hand didn’t suffer any more pain. She dropped the screwdriver and inspected the lock. The small metal casing that held the spring latch had broken free.
“Fuckin’-A.”
But pushing at the door did no good. She reached two fingers inside the hole and tried pulling. The door still wouldn’t budge.
“Fuckin’ SHIT!”
Exasperated, Rachel twirled and kicked the screwdriver across the floor. It spun wildly and skidded past Brett’s body, stopping in front of a box of Lay’s Potato Chips. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, to yell until she couldn’t yell anymore, but she knew if she did that it might bring back the very odd looking and troubled store clerk.
He wasn’t a store clerk, she knew that. He was something else, and she had a feeling that that something else was also a part of the town. Of course it was—this whole place was connected like wires in a computer,
one leading to another leading to another. And this computer needed a virus.
The room suddenly became brighter as the door with the newly broken lock behind her swung open. She jumped and turned to see the main street of the town looking back at her. Apparently all her messing around with the lock had paid off.
But the main street of the town disappeared as Rachel crossed the threshold. The buildings, street, dust and dirt floated away before her eyes, like wiper blades shoving aside sleet in a heavy winter storm.
When the blades had passed, she found herself standing in the parking structure of the Sherman Oaks Galleria in California. She had worked here when she was a teenager. Not in the parking lot, but as a waitress in the Cheesecake Factory on the first level. God how she had hated that uniform.
She quickly turned to head back into the store room, but the door, along with the convenience store, was gone—just more parking lot that way.
Brett. Poor this-is-just-how-I-roll Brett. She had left him in the convenience store (or wherever he really was) in her rush to leave. How was she to know the door would slam shut behind her then be replaced with a parking garage in Southern California?
“Shit,” she said and then
* * *
she was sixteen and someone’s hand was up her shirt.
Rachel lifted her head and looked into the eyes of Scott Franklin, one of the cashiers at the movie theater on level two of the Galleria. His red hair and matching freckles were a harsh contrast to the light blue upholstery of his Nissan Stanza. He wore his red-and-white usher uniform. At least she wasn’t forced to wear that travesty of fashion. Rachel never had a doubt that it was ten times more uncomfortable than her Cheesecake Factory attire.
Speaking of uncomfortable, the back seat of his car wasn’t one of the more comfortable places for their encounters, but lately they had found their choices limited. Jimmy had become suspicious of Rachel’s late nights at the Galleria, and she could expect him to believe that they had asked her to stay well past closing only so many times.
Their relationship had become troubled; Rachel found herself growing more and more distant from Jimmy with each passing day and she couldn’t explain why. Perhaps his bad boy attitude and the notion that he could be more than a little trouble was settling into her brain as something she couldn’t handle. Originally it was the bad boy in him that had attracted her to Jimmy. Now she wasn’t so sure about it.
