Dark of Night - Flesh and Fire

by Jonathan Maberry

  He moved in to kiss her and she pulled away. She laughed a little.

  “I just told you I’m addicted to heroin. If that’s not a sign that I’m trouble, I don’t know what is.”

  “Maybe I like a challenge,” he said and tried again.

  She held up a hand to his lips. “Look, you seem like a really nice guy. You don’t want any part of me. Believe me.”

  “Look, it’s behind you right? You’re sober now.” He looked at the drink in her hand. “Well, sort of. But look, if you’re trying to make things better for yourself, you’ll probably want someone to support you.”

  “And that’s you?”

  “Maybe it’s me. Maybe it isn’t. How about this: I won’t kiss you tonight, but I’ll give you my number. You said you’d be up for jamming. We can start there and see where it goes.”

  She dropped her gaze. When she returned it, she was smiling that shy, restrained smile. “All right, we’ll see where it goes.”

  A couple of weeks later, he brought her on stage at one of his shows.

  “Everyone, say ‘hi’ to Chloe,” he said as she took her place behind her Yamaha DX7. “She’s gonna help me sing this next one.”

  They'd written the song together in the days leading up to the show. It was called, “The Lie,” and its lyrics had come from a discussion they’d had about marriage and kids. This could be so great: you can be my best friend; they can carry on our legacy. But it can't be obligation, baby, no. We can't be like the others, oh no. Todd sang the first verse and she harmonized him during the chorus. Inner fires reduced to embers in a backyard grill if we should fall into this lie. I love you more than the stars in the sky, but don't let us fall into the lie.

  * * *

  As he saw her now, on the side of Route 32, in the flesh, these recollections hit him like a high speed train. Staring into her dark, desperate eyes opened a door within him, one that had been locked for decades, like the door to his studio, but even more secret, more forgotten.

  Her being here was impossible. Les’s voice as he called to deliver the news of her death repeated in Todd's mind. He remembered feeling like Les's voice had been full of emotion that could burst forth at any moment.

  Just as impossible, she looked not a day older than when he’d last seen her. The same raven hair fell in thick ringlets across her silky, pale shoulders. The petite body still possessed the same tight definition.

  He didn’t believe in the supernatural. As a young man, he considered himself open to the possibility, even trying different churches, studying various religions, and listening to Les talk for hours about the occult, but these interests died in the place of a lonely routine limited to his bedroom, his office cubicle, the road to work, and his dinner table.

  Because of this lack of belief, the sight of his thirty-years-dead ex-girlfriend standing before him sent him into numbed hysteria. He couldn’t speak. He could hardly move. All he could do was gasp and stare. He took several steps back and braced himself against the cool skin of his car.

  “You remember me.” Not a question.

  Even her voice was the same. Its soft, lively tone resonated through him.

  “How…?” he sputtered.

  “I have no time to explain.” She walked toward him and he tensed up. A frightened yelp escaped his lips. Death overshadowed her presence, challenged everything he knew, and part of him tried to reason that this was a dream. She looked over at his Cadillac. “Is your car okay?”

  His lips moved, but no words came out. He nodded.

  “We need to put some miles behind us.”

  Todd shook his head, a nugget of rationality returning. “What? No… I…”

  “Todd, please,” she said. The pleading tone of her voice snapped him out of it. Her eyes were soft.

  “I can call for help.”

  But he already knew that he wouldn’t make it to work today. Sanity, responsibility, and all that he convinced himself had mattered over the last thirty years now seemed less significant. He remembered the song he’d written for her, about how she’d come into his life black-haired, and blissfully damaged.

  “Chloe, how are you here? I just don’t believe…”

  “I will explain everything.” Once an elderly woman had slipped and fell outside his bank. His co-worker had been a woman named Kristin who had stayed with the victim until the EMTs arrived. She'd talked to the old woman in a level, purposeful voice. Todd had known then that Kristin had meant to keep the woman calm and he recognized the same tone in Chloe's voice now.

  "We just have to get in the car first, okay?" she said.

  A whooshing sound came from within the woods, reminding him of a bonfire doused in lighter fluid.

  Panic entered her voice. “Right now, I need you to get me out of here.”

  Beyond the hill, a red orange cloud filled the sky, like a volcano had erupted. Agony-filled screams came from inside, and another sound, like stone grinding against stone, the single most horrible thing he’d ever heard. It brought to mind a verse he barely remembered from his childhood youth group Bible studies. Something about wailing and gnashing of teeth. An icy chill crawled from the base of his spine to the back of his skull and he shuddered.

  “Okay,” he said.

  They rushed toward his car. He did everything he could not to look at the fire, or her. Both were sure to make him insane. He flung his door open, slid into the driver’s seat, and reversed the car out of the ditch.

  ~Anna~

  “Shit.”

  Anna hung up after listening to Todd’s message. Part of her hoped he was at work already, but another part wanted him to confront her. A conversation about the state of their marriage and what actions they should take was a long time coming.

  Keith wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He buried his face into her neck, sniffed her, touched his lips to her skin. The kisses made her feel young and pretty again. Desired. She rolled over to face him, returned his affections.

  Keith was nearly ten years her junior, divorced and childless, damaged goods for all intents and purposes, yet always quick to assure her that he wasn’t seeing anyone else. He’d started at Marcus and Marcus over a year and a half ago and his attitude and work ethic had immediately drawn her to him. He flirted, but never in a way that made her uncomfortable, and rarely dropped his professional demeanor around the office. When he cornered her at the company’s July Fourth party, after several drinks, she hadn’t resisted. She returned his kiss and thus began their affair, almost a year and still going strong.

  She cursed again. “I knew I should’ve called him.”

  He wrestled the phone out of her hand. “It’ll be fine.

  She stared hard at his boyish features. He knew about Todd and her children, but it frustrated her when he pretended not to care. Of course he did. For all the devotion to a bachelor’s lifestyle, a deep part of him wanted to commit. He talked of his ex-wife often, and Anna got the idea that he was lonely. She made it pretty clear when their affair started that she wouldn’t leave her husband, but knew in her heart of hearts that one day Keith would ask her if she would.

  “Are we still on for this weekend?” he asked.

  “Yep.”

  She smiled and tried to hide her racing thoughts. Whatever she would say to him if he asked for a commitment from her would require practice. She suspected he’d ask her about it this weekend.

  “Good. I’d hate to spend the weekend in the mountains alone.”

  “I’m sure you wouldn’t have trouble finding a date.” She winked at him and got out of bed.

  The room around her was a classic bachelor pad. A too-large television sat on a stand filled with workout DVDs and dumb action movies. Empty beer bottles covered the furniture, and books by guys like Tucker Max and Neil Strauss lined a shelf fashioned to look like a boat standing on end. In a lot of ways, it seemed he never really grew up. She sometimes found his success at work difficult to believe when he spent such a large portion of his spare time drink
ing craft beer and seducing her.

  She closed the door behind her and turned on the shower, undressing and stepping under the hot water to wash away the sins of the night before. She shut her eyes, recalling Keith touching her as if she were a delicate thing, and then ravaging her when she asked for it. Could she remember the last time Todd had touched her the same way? Maybe on one of their birthdays, but even then it had felt obligatory, passionless. When he told her he loved her, it sounded scripted. She wondered if it sounded as mechanical to him when she said it.

  As she finished the shower and toweled off, her naked body confronted her in the steamy mirror. She grimaced upon viewing the parts of her that hung where she'd previously been tight. Around her eyes and mouth, the years left their cruel marks and only further examination brought satisfaction. Her green eyes still held vibrant color. The curves of her chest and ass were impressive for a woman her age. She offered a smile to the twin in the mirror, hung the towel on the door, and exited the bathroom.

  “Should’ve stayed longer,” Keith said when she came back into the room. “I was thinking about joining you.”

  She blew him a kiss. He caught it with his right hand.

  “You should’ve spent less time thinking and more time acting.”

  As the words came from her mouth, they cemented to her reason for the affair. It made her bad and being bad was more exciting than being who she was the rest of the time.

  ~Todd~

  Todd and Anna drifted apart the more time he spent with Chloe. Anna wanted someone to marry and have children with right away. She wanted everything in its place and possessed specific ideas about where everything belonged. More and more he felt that Anna loved him for the mask he wore at his day job. She never came to his shows to support him or the after parties to spend time with him. Anna and Todd’s fathers worked together and had set up their first date like an arranged marriage.

  With Chloe he could live in the moment, and have companionship without being truly tied down. Passion, spontaneity, and little expectations filled their time together. She always attended his shows and never suggested that music was just a hobby, because to her it meant just as much as it did to him. It was a means of survival.

  In the time they were together, she also stayed clean.

  But one day he came home to an eerily silent apartment. The television played a car dealership commercial, the volume all the way down, the muted images the only signs of life. He called her name, then stepped into his front room. She did not respond.

  She’d moved in a few weeks prior, and since then she had greeted him regularly with a kiss and asked what their plans for the night were. What open mic were they going to enter? What band were they going to see? Would they just stay and play their instruments in the intimacy of his apartment, singing to each other softly?

  He shut the door, expecting that to draw her attention. He stood in the front room and waited, listened. She didn’t come walking down the hallway. No one greeted him from one of the other rooms. He called her name again and stepped further into the apartment.

  A haunted atmosphere lingered about the place. Even though only a few weeks had passed, he’d grown so accustomed to having her around. Her absence seemed fundamentally wrong somehow. He checked the kitchen and saw the sink immaculately clean. The refrigerator hummed indifferently.

  He looked in his study, a small half-bedroom where his guitar and amp stood proudly beside Chloe’s keyboard. Recording equipment littered the floor and a few notebooks sat stacked neatly in the corner. He had purposely chosen not to furnish the room, so he’d have more space to play in it. He hoped to find her there, perhaps recording with headphones on, but he didn't.

  At the end of the hallway, the bedroom door hung open a crack. Sunlight from the large window leaked through. Staring into the light he thought the worst: that she may have left him. Even though the bliss of their companionship was unwavering, the fear that it would one day dissolve always lay not so deeply underneath it. Part of it came from the extreme nature of their passion; the other part of it came from his father’s staunch disapproval over her. But her addiction made up the strongest component of his fear.

  He reminded himself that she’d beaten it. They’d beaten it together.

  He gave one last sidelong glance into the studio where they made such beautiful music together and continued down the hallway. The bathroom was dark and empty. He tapped once on the bedroom door and pushed it open. As the door swung in, he heard a stifled sob.

  She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her sleeve pulled up and her dark wavy hair falling down to obscure her actions. He didn’t need to see to know. Their eyes met, but only for a moment before she looked away. Her face flushed with shameful red and she fell back onto the mattress. Todd saw the needle.

  “What the fuck, Chloe!” It was more of an angry objection than a question.

  She tried to sit up to face him, but fell back in a heap. He sat beside her, threw the syringe across the room, and took hold of her shoulders.

  “Goddamn it. Don’t do this.”

  Her half-closed eyes and slurred speech made him even more upset. What she said upset him further. “You don’t understand. You don’t understand.”

  She said it over and over, and he felt mocked.

  When she sobered up, he drove her back to Les’s.

  "I'm sorry," she whispered when they pulled up in front of the house.

  “Look,” he cut her off. “I just need to think right now.”

  She respected his request and left his car without a word.

  Instead of going home that night, he went to visit his parents. He mumbled a greeting to his father, who watched TV in the living room, and found his mother sitting in a wicker chair on the back porch, reading a Danielle Steel novel.

  "Hey, Mom. Mind if I sit?"

  She set the book down in her lap. "No, go ahead. What's up?"

  He mulled over whether or not he should tell her everything. Chloe's relapse felt like a personal defeat, and he hated to admit such a loss. His mother had always been more understanding than his father though. Maybe she'd have some sound advice.

  "Chloe relapsed tonight."

  His mother gave him a sympathetic smile. Before she could give her advice his father pushed the back door open and stepped out onto the porch.

  "What's going on?" his father said.

  "Nothing, just talking to Mom right now."

  Todd Sr. narrowed his eyes. "Is everything okay?"

  "Can we talk about it later, Dad?"

  "It's about Chloe, isn't it? I knew she was trouble."

  "Honey!" Todd's mother said.

  “Whatever happened with you and Anna?” he asked. “She was a nice, normal girl.”

  Todd had expected him to say all of those things.

  "I don't need this right now, Dad. I just need to think."

  "What you need to do is leave that piece of trash."

  Todd's mother put her hands up. "Honey, things aren't always that simple."

  "Oh, I'm sorry, do you want our son hanging around with some junkie?"

  "No, not exactly, but..."

  "Then it is that simple. Jesus, you always act like real problems are too complicated for me."

  "You know what?" Todd said. "I should've known coming here was a bad idea."

  Todd stormed out as his parents argued amongst themselves and drove to the nearest bar to drown the fire of his rage with whiskey and beer.

  The next morning, while in the grip of a vengeful hangover, he called Chloe.

  "Hey, it's me."

  "Hey," she said. "It's nice to hear your voice. I didn't expect it."

  "Yeah, about that..." A tear fell from his eye as he gripped the phone. "I'm sorry. I guess I just thought you'd get clean and that would be it. No bumps in the road, no falling off the wagon. I guess I wasn't being realistic."

  "I can't blame you for getting mad, but you're right. Expecting this to be simple isn't realistic."

/>   He swallowed. "Listen, you can come back, if you want. We'll get through it."

  "I'd like that," she said.

  ~Samael~

  The fire retreated. Like that old story of the burning bush, the flames never consumed anything. When snuffed out, the fire left no trace that it had ever been there. The cries of the eternally damned went with it. Samael stood in the woods alone, the sweet music of pain replaced with the chirping of insects and the wind hissing through the trees.

  Lush lively foliage, adorned with red and yellow flowers surrounded him. A snake sunned itself on a nearby rock. Frogs croaked in a bubbling spring. A bird flew from tree to tree, carrying a worm in its mouth, presumably to feed its young. The signs of life had resumed moments after the burst of flame died down, and reminded him how much he hated this place.

  Flesh and fire shadowed his earliest memories. His mother’s exposed breasts scourged by lacerations, her wrists bound together above her head, as flames engulfed the kindling piled at her feet. He remembered little of his father, just blood and dead staring eyes. He presumed that his father had been killed prior to his mother’s execution. Perhaps he’d died defending her. Samael never knew and never desired to find out. After six hundred years, he could still hear his mother’s screams as her flesh blackened and sizzled. He remembered little else about her, except that he felt tremendous sadness at her death. All his searches above and below proved fruitless. He only knew her through loss, through pain.

  Men in holy robes carrying swords mandated that his family die. After the execution of his parents a family of affluent Catholics had adopted him. Baptized immediately, they had rechristened him Andres Cotillo. He had grown up under their care, studying their religion. He had marveled at the Bible and its passages of violent prophecy, and memorized prayers without ever feeling the meanings behind the words. Every thought of the Church had brought the pain, the visions of his mother’s final agonizing moments.