by Glenn Rolfe
James didn’t stop and check for Kevin until he reached the street light on Mellon Road. His chest heaved. His gums ached. He tried to catch his breath and his sanity.
“Fuck, dude. What the hell was that all about? You okay?”
“My dad…there’s something wrong with my dad.”
“Holy shit, is he okay? What’s going on? Do we need to go back?”
“No.” James shook his head wildly. “No, I’m not going back there.”
“What the hell did you see?” Kevin looked back toward the row of trailers.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Not right now. We just need to go. Can we go?”
“Yeah, yeah, of course.”
As they walked down the road, James tried to un-see those damned, burning eyes.
Chapter Eighteen
Alison sat at Edna’s kitchen table swirling the short tumbler of whiskey Jason poured for her. She was letting it all go now. Richie’s problems had always seemed relatively minor, or at least they were all things she felt she could help him push through. Samantha leaving him had obviously created trust issues which only added to the list of insecurities that were probably brewing within him since he was a kid. But in the six months since Alison had been seeing him, he’d been getting better, for the most part.
Within their own relationship, the sexual issues stung the most. She would never tell him how it made her feel unwanted, not sexy enough; he had enough trouble feeling inadequate for her to dump on top of that. The sex was wonderful when it happened but getting there was like walking through a field of landmines. It was exhausting and had beaten the hell out of her confidence.
Add this weird, violent spell he was now going through and the decision in her mind was already made.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
She was grateful for Edna taking her in like this. And Jason being here, that was nice, as well.
She couldn’t deny no matter how hard she tried that she was attracted to him. And it was a deeper pull. Beneath his good looks, beyond the rescue the other night, there was an easiness between them. Whether it was talking, texting, joking–being near him made her feel good. She remembered thinking the first night they worked together that she wanted him around always. She knew she’d made a good friend. Had she and Richie not met the next week, who knows?
“Another round?” Jason said. He held the bottle of Knob Creek.
“Sure.” She was definitely leaning on a hard buzz, but she wasn’t drunk, not yet anyway. She watched him as he leaned forward, his face not more than six inches from her own, as he poured the auburn liquid into her glass. She breathed him in, his cologne something from Abercrombie and Fitch, her favorite.
Before she could think about it, she kissed him.
He tried to pull back, but she reached up and held him there. He kissed her back, gently, sweetly before their lips parted.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No,” he said, looking dazed. “It was…nice.”
And it was. She wanted to forget everything and kiss him until the sun burned the darkness from the sky, from the world. She’d been so confused lately.
She reached down and swallowed the rest of her drink in one gulp.
And nodded.
Jason refilled her tumbler.
“You wouldn’t happen to have any cigarettes?”
“Nah, but I’ll run over to the Circle K and grab you some.”
Jason grabbed his keys from the counter. “What do you smoke, Camels?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. Stay put. I’ll be right back.”
He smiled, his cheeks rosy from the kiss or the drink, it didn’t matter, and went out the door.
Alison took a sip from her drink grinning like she was in junior high all over again. Compared to the last few days and weeks, it felt wonderful. Jason’s truck rumbled to life. As she listened to it fade down the street, the floor in the hallway creaked. Edna shuffled out in a well-worn, light blue, terrycloth housecoat. She was wearing kitty slippers that looked just as ratty and loved.
“Up having a hot sip, huh?”
“A hot sip?” Alison asked.
“Yep. That’s what me and Harold used to call a late-night drink.”
“Hmm. Makes sense I guess.” Alison was surprised as Edna pulled down another tumbler and drizzled two fingers of the whiskey into the glass.
“What? I’m not too old, am I?”
“No, sorry, no. Please, pull up a seat.”
Edna eased into the chair Jason had occupied earlier. She took a sip from her glass and smacked her tight lips. “Now, I know that grandson of mine ignored my orders and got you talking, so what is it?”
Alison was shocked when she felt herself smile. Or maybe it was the alcohol.
“Well, I think…I’m actually feeling a little better. Thanks to Jason. I think I may have figured out a few things.”
Edna took another sip and nodded.
She continued. “Richie’s…been acting strange. I mean, just this last week or so.”
“If it’s not too invasive for me to ask, has he laid a hand on you, dear?”
“No, he just got in my face and bumped into me. Like I told you this morning. It’s like…” she reached for the jumbled pieces in her mind and tried to put the puzzle together to display in a way that made sense. “It’s like someone slipped something into his drink or something? He’s not himself. He’s angry. He’s discovered this…rage. If you know Richie, that’s not him.” She paused to take a drink. “I don’t know what’s happening anymore, but whatever it is, I think he’s got to figure it out on his own.”
“Dear, who knows what makes men do what they do. Harold slipped up a few times in our forty-two years. I remember a summer, must have been our fifth or sixth year together. He came home from work at the mill, bent to hell about John Franklin. Said the son of a bitch was trying to get him fired. Said John had chewed him out before the whole line. Embarrassed him. Nothing rattles a man like embarrassment. They take it so hard, so personal. He comes home, goes straight for his beer. Well, normally I would have been fine with that, but we had my son Jacob and Jacob’s little friend Anthony at the house. They were in the living room watching a program. I told Harold I’d rather him not dip into his beer just yet. Well, you would have thought I’d told him to dry up on the spot.”
Alison sat lost in Edna’s cool, blue eyes, Jason’s eyes, watching how expressive they got. It was as if the woman wasn’t just retelling the piece of her history but reliving the moment.
“Harold did something he’d never done in the time I’d known him. He picked the beer bottle up, opened it, chugged it, and then smashed it against the wall. Threw it right by my head and broke the clock my parents had given us as a wedding gift. I was shocked. The boys came running out asking what was wrong. I remember the look in my husband’s eyes–looked just like the blackest clouds of a nasty thunderstorm. Chilled me to the bone. But like you said, about Richie from before, the dark clouds vanished, and the defeat and disappointment set in. Harold walked out that night and didn’t come home until morning.”
“That’s what worries me about Richie–those storm clouds? That caged animal look? It’s like it’s settled in and it’s not going away,” Alison said.
Chapter Nineteen
Sweat rolled into Richie’s eyes. The heat from the day had topped off at ninety-eight this afternoon and if it had dropped, it wasn’t by much. He remained focused on the vision in the window. Sanikus, the demon dressed in Alison’s flesh, lie bleeding from the gash that seeped crimson from the center of her forehead down her face and all the way to her naval. He wanted to open her up. To reach his hands under her flesh and remove her skin jacket. He wanted to see what made her tick. What made her think she could fuck around on him and then come back here and refuse him the same privilege?
She wants to play head games? Let’s just see who dares to take this the farthest.
He watched the other him, Domineus,
plunging the knife into the body again and again. With each insertion, Richie shivered in his chair. All his impotence in life a fleeting memory, all the rejection from Samantha, from Alison, from his own body, from his son’s shock the night at the hotel… James.
The thought of his boy slipped past the red dragon that consumed him. Richie’s world tilted. He blinked the sweat from his eyes. He reached up and rubbed his knuckles into them. Suddenly, the room came back into view. He sat in the kitchen, holding the large knife he used for chopping vegetables. The kitchen floor was spattered with blood.
Whose blood? Mine.
His hands looked painted.
What is this?
It’s time, Richie.
Richie looked into his own eyes. The eclipse within the other him’s eyes burned bright. His mind swayed. Anger, lust, and power flowed like a river forever winding.
“Yes…I…”
You are mine now.
Richie’s eyes fell upon the bloody knife clenched in his fist, and then drifted to his legs. There were slits in his thighs and another just above his hip.
Within the blood were specks of blue; they faded even as he took notice.
“I’m dy…I’m dying.” He slid from the chair to his knees and stared at his crimson- covered hands.
Come now. This may be your end…but it is only my beginning.
“Who…what are…uuughhh.”
Richie’s words spilled to the floor with his body.
…..
Jason lit Alison’s cigarette as they stood on the steps outside the front door. It was damn hot out, even with the sun gone for another day. The heat wave was supposed to break soon, and when it did, it’d be gone until next June.
“Are you okay?” Jason asked.
She leaned back, and gazed up at the sky, already full of tiny stars poking at the darkness, and felt her head swoon.
“A little drunk, but I think I’m doing okay,” she said.
“What are you gonna tell Richie?”
She didn’t care. Not right now. Tomorrow, sobriety would bring its own set of worries, but for now, she just felt…free.
She took a drag, exhaled, and sat up straight, next to him. “I’ll worry about that in the morning,” she said. “Can we just sit out here for a while?”
“Yeah, of course.”
She placed a hand on his arm.
“Thanks,” she said. “I haven’t felt this relaxed in way too long.”
Staring at his face, she saw him thinking hard on something.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I…I hope.”
“You hope what?”
“I just hope you feel the same way, you know, about all of this in the morning.”
“Me too.”
She looked for a place to toss her cigarette.
“Here,” he said, picking up a Budweiser bottle from the side of the stairs. “Dalton smokes like a chimney out here, Gran makes sure he has this.”
She plopped the butt into the bottle and watched him set it back in its place.
“What about you,” she said, holding onto his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder. “Do you think you’ll still feel the same tomorrow?”
He kissed the top of her head.
“We’ll see,” he said.
“Jerk,” she said, and clung to him even tighter.
Chapter Twenty
James was lost in a whirlwind of fear and confusion. He and Kevin had managed to get Ian’s dirt bike back in the shed without alerting Kevin’s mom. Ian’s car, as usual, was vacant from the carport and the street. That was one good thing. They wouldn’t be given any more beat downs tonight. Sitting up in Kevin’s bedroom, both boys looked toward the television, neither one able to follow the movie. James wanted to wake up from whatever messed up dream he was trapped in but knew that the truth was that he was wide awake at two in the morning, and he’d caught his father jerking off again. The real mind-bender of it was the thing he’d seen reflecting in the window above his dad’s kitchen sink. Two lumps of burning coal surrounded by bone and hanging flesh…
“You tired yet?” Kevin said.
“No. Yes. I don’t know. My head is killing me. Do you think your mom has any Tylenol PM?”
“Don’t know. I’ll go check it out.”
Kevin came back with a bottle of Nyquil. “Here are a couple regular aspirins. And we can both have some of this.” He handed James the two white capsules and jostled the bottle of nighttime cold medicine. The sea of green, liquorish-flavored medicine swished within the little plastic bottle. James envisioned himself on a micro boat, being swallowed by the raging power of the green sea. He tossed the two aspirins in his mouth and then reached out for the cold remedy. Kevin handed it over.
Twenty minutes later, nestled on the bottom bunk, peace and quiet welcomed James to the land of slumber, and with it, the eyes of the demon finally blinked out.
In his dream, James walked through the gate into Denise’s pool party. The heat of the day was gone, replaced by a goose bump raising chill. He crossed his arms over his bare chest. He was dressed only in swim trunks. The grass was tipped with a fine layer of frost, but his feet had yet to register the cold. The same kids who’d been here earlier laughing and having fun now held hands in groupings of two. Their faces were somber and serious. Girls and boys, and one set of boys holding hands. No one seemed to look at him as he reached the concrete surrounding the lit, crystal clear water. A woman waded through the waters toward his side of the pool. Alison? Yes, he looked for Carrie but couldn’t locate her.
“Are you coming in?” Alison said.
“Yes.”
He dipped a toe in to test the water; it was…hot. Despite the cold settled on the night, the pool water felt like a steaming bath. He dropped in feet first, the water coming up to his nipples. Alison started away from him and motioned for him to follow. He did. She reached up to her neck and pulled the knot beneath her ponytail free. Her red bikini top came away and floated past him. He gazed around to see if anyone else was seeing this. They were alone. The party was long over. Fear trickled up his spine.
“I’ve been watching you, James.”
He turned to find her naked and waiting for him in the center of the pool.
“I…”
“Shhh.”
She took his hands and placed them on her small, perky breasts. He felt himself stiffen below the surface as his thumbs rubbed her erect nipples.
She leaned in and flicked her tongue from his chin to his upper lip. He gasped at her sexual charge and tried to catch her lips with his own but came up with nothing but air.
She took his hands and pulled him to the edge of the pool.
Fire flashed across her brown eyes. James’s insides froze.
“I see the way you look at me, James. I like it.”
“You…do?” The embers faded leaving coals of ecstasy gazing through his soul straight to his fantasies. His hesitancy dissipated. Lust swirled to life, coursing through his veins so hard he felt a throbbing in his neck. “You’re beautiful.”
“Have you ever dreamed about fucking me?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me? Right here, right now?”
She reached below the water, wrapping his manhood in her grasp.
“Ah!” her touch was electric.
“Do you want to fuck me, James?”
“Yes.”
She pulled him close and took him inside.
His thoughts washed away in a sea of pleasure.
He closed his eyes and pushed into her harder and harder.
“Alison, oh, Alison,” he cried.
Her cackle brought him back from the edge.
The water was suddenly ice cold. She was gone.
The pool lights died, leaving him in the pitch-black iciness.
“I saw you tonight, James.”
He spun around.
Two orange globes burned like fires in the dark across from him.
The demon. Whatever the hell he’d seen with his father…it was here with him now.
“No…”
It approached him, the water growing colder the closer it got.
“I have a feeling we’ll be seeing much more of each other soon.”
The waters began to heat back up.
“See me.”
A vision of his father grinning under the burning orbs of this monster slammed into his mind. Alison was naked and bludgeoned at his father’s feet, her throat slit, her eyes lifeless, dark bruises tracing her blood-splattered flesh…
He could feel his skin beginning to burn.
The waters between him and the demon began to boil.
“No, no…. noooooo!”
“Wake up, man, wake up!”
James opened his good eye. The room was still dark. Kevin crouched above him. His cheeks were wet. “What…”
“Dude, you were crying.”
“What?”
Kevin flicked the light on.
James covered his eyes against the sudden bright intrusion.
“Yeah, and…before that you were…dude, you were moaning and calling out Alison’s name.”
“I what?” James sat up.
His head still belonged to the large dose of Nyquil Kevin had given him before bed. He was surprised Kevin was awake after seeing the amount he’d downed. James wiped the tears from his cheeks. His skin was slick with sweat, and his t-shirt was soaked through. Kevin backed up and stood. James slid his feet from under the covers. “I must have been dreaming, but I…” He couldn’t remember a thing. He’d been sleeping sound.
“It was fucking weird. I tried to let it go. I was up there like thinking, man, why’s everybody gotta have these dreams at my house. And then you really got going. I decided I needed to wake you up before my mom heard you.”
“Thank you for that.”
“No problem. But then as I was getting down you stopped moaning and started crying and shouting.” Like seriously crying like someone killed your dog, if you had one, ya know?”
