by Mike Ramon
Chapter Twelve
As it turned out, Tom did find something to write about. Cathy had taken on two different stories to work on, but she decided that she wanted to hand one of them off to someone, so she asked Tom if he could do the write-up on one of them, freeing up some time to work on the story that was more important to her. Tom was glad to help her out, and she gave him all of the notes she had already collected for the story, a piece about a thousand dead fish that had washed up on the shore of a lake in Oregon. This event was strange enough, but to add to the weird factor it came three weeks after about two hundred seagulls were found dead near the same lake.
Tom went through all of Cathy’s notes, as well as transcripts of her e-mail exchanges with a spokesman for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as a biology professor at Northern Illinois University who lent his own insight into the phenomenon, all the time marveling that Cathy had handed him this story after doing all of the heavy lifting herself. Both the Fish and Wildlife spokesman and the professor had given their theories on the various environmental factors that were likely responsible for the phenomenon, ranging from cold water inversion and pollution in the case of the fish, to power lines and high-altitude hail for the birds. They seemed to agree that the two events--the deaths of the fish and those of the birds--were unconnected, and that it was mere coincidence that they happened near the same lake just weeks apart.
When he had finished writing the story Tom sent it through the Review’s internal e-mail system to Charlie, his editor. If Charlie had any problems with it Tom would find a reply in his inbox the following day in which Charlie would suggest changes to the story. The good suggestions Tom would use, and the not-so good ones (he would never call them bad suggestions, he respected Charlie too much) he would discard.
Tom left his office and headed home shortly after six o’clock, nodding his head as a substitute for saying goodbye to Cathy, who was still working on the story she had kept for herself. He stopped by Sammy’s Subs on the way home and got a toasted Sammy Hammy Special, a small bag of Lay’s potato chips and a medium lemonade. He set the wrapped sub and bag of chips on the passenger seat and ensconced the lemonade in the cup holder, and drove home on slightly glistening streets, a reminder of the light showers that had passed through earlier in the day.
Once home he pulled a TV tray over to the couch and sat down to eat his dinner while watching the WOLD channel, which showed reruns of classic shows. He caught the tail-end of an episode of The Honeymooners, which was followed by a double-header of I Love Lucy episodes.
He watched TV for a while after he had finished his meal, then he jumped on his laptop and spent an hour reading and replying to a backlog of e-mails, none of which were all that important. After he shut down the computer he went searching through the box in his closet where he kept a bunch of old paperbacks that had been bought at used book shops and garage sales over the past couple of years. He picked out a Dean Koontz book called Twilight Eyes, laid out in bed and started to read. He thought it was a pretty good book. There were goblins, a creepy carnival and a love interest; what more could you ask for?
Tom made it through half the book before the lines started to blur and his eyes began to itch. He reached that point where he found himself reading the same lines over several times before he could really get a grip on what was being said, and he knew it was useless to go on, and that it was time to put the book down for the night. He saved his place with a bookmarker and set the book on the bedside dresser.
He paid a visit to the lavatory, emptying his bladder and brushing his teeth. As he left the bathroom he paused for a moment with his hand on the light switch, and then withdrew it, leaving the light on. He shut off the light in the bedroom however, but with both the bathroom and bedroom doors left open he could see into the lighted bathroom from where he lay on the bed. The night was a bit chillier than it had been during the past few weeks, so Tom wore a t-shirt to bed in addition to his usual bedtime attire of a simple pair of boxer shorts, and he covered up with a single thin sheet.
Tom tossed and turned for a while. He felt tired, but sleep would not come. He tried to empty his mind, but thoughts continued to race through his head. He thought of Frankie and his sister, Patricia and her husband, and of Walter, who never made it back to the shelter after spending the night out drinking at the Moonlight Tavern. He switched positions, from lying on his right side to lying flat on his back, and then to lying on his left side before lying flat on his back again.
Tom lifted his head up from the pillow and scrunched it up, then set his head back down on it, staring up at the ceiling. He was debating whether to give up the fight and get up to watch some TV when the reflection of the bathroom light flickered on the ceiling for a few seconds before blinking out completely. Tom looked toward the open bedroom door, barely glimpsed in the meager gleam of pale, cold moonlight coming in the bedroom window. The bathroom light flared to life again, flickered some more, and then died.
Tom climbed out of bed and stepped from the bedroom into the bathroom, walking slowly so as not to stub a toe or bark a shin in the darkness. In the bathroom he flipped the light switch on and off a few times. The light flared back to life once, for just a second, leaving a halo that faded away moments after the light itself had died.
Reaching up on tiptoes Tom searched along the ceiling in the general vicinity of where the bare bulb was supposed to be. When his hand made contact with the bulb Tom flinched away, pulling his hand back as he pulled in a sharp intake of breath. The bulb was still hot. Tom reached in the dark to grab the hand towel hanging over the bar fixed to the wall that faced the toilet. Using the small towel as protection he reached up again until he found the bulb. He tapped at it lightly a few times; each tap brought a small burst of momentary light. The bulb felt a little loose, so he got a grip on it and twisted slowly to the right (recalling the lesson from his youth: leftie loosey, righty tighty).
The light started shining again as he turned it, and when he was sure it was screwed in tight he turned back to the wall-mounted bar to replace the hand towel. Tom jumped back, a sharp yelp escaping from his throat. He was facing the shower, and the shower curtain was open. There was a naked woman standing in the shower, facing away from Tom so that all he could see was her bare back. She was filthy, as if she had just been rolling around in a dirt pile and had come to wash herself off. She started to turn, and Tom knew.
(Oh please, God, no; not this.)
He knew who the woman was, and he didn’t want her to turn around. He wanted more than anything in the world for the woman to keep her back to him.
(Please don’t do this to me. I can’t see this.)
And then she was facing him. The front of her was just as dirty as the back, but now he could see her face, and he thought that the sight of it just might break something fragile in his mind, something that, once shattered, would never be put together again. Her face, a face that had been beautiful in life, was not only dirty, but it was raw and ragged, with strips of flesh hanging loose. One eye was missing, and a solitary worm was squirming around in the empty socket. The she-thing opened its mouth to speak, and Tom could hear the jaw squeal like a gate being pushed open on rusty hinges.
“It’s so lonely down here, Tommy. It’s lonely, and it’s cold. Please come down here with me, baby. Please come down here with me. Please come down.”
Then Tom could no longer hear her terrible, choked voice, because the words were being drowned out by the sound of someone screaming. It took him a moment to realize that he was the one who was screaming. He had been frozen in place with his back against the wall, but he bolted then, running from the bathroom. As he shot down the hallway he could hear her calling after him:
“Tom, please don’t leave me. I don’t want to be alone. Tommy, please; I love you! Don’t leave…”
Tom had the presence of mind to grab the car keys from the table near the front door before rushing out of the house. He shut the door as he went; whether it
was out of some safety-conscious fear of thieves seeing the open door as an invitation to come into his home and make off with his valuables, or whether he was just trying to put one more obstacle between himself and the thing in the bathroom, he wasn’t really sure.
He unlocked the car, got inside and hit the button to lock all four doors. A memory came unbidden to him then: him and Michelle making a point to buy a four-door, the front seats for them and the backseat for the baby seat they hoped to be buying soon, knock on wood. That had been before the failed attempts at getting pregnant, before a doctor filled them in on the consequences of congenital defects of the fallopian tubes and told them that, while not impossible, the chances of Michelle getting pregnant were in single-digit territory, and before even that small chance was snatched away because some asshole thought he was straight enough to drive home despite having a blood alcohol level that was twice the legal limit. The fact that said asshole had killed himself as well as Tom’s wife had been small cause for comfort; what he would have preferred was that the guy had lived, so that he could have tortured the fucker before sending him down to hell.
Tom shook off the reverie and started the car, burning rubber as he sped away from his house. It took him ten minutes before he was able to lay off the peddle enough to drop down to the legal speed limit, and even then he had no idea where he was going. After some time he found a twenty-four hour diner and pulled into the parking lot. He sat in the car awhile, deciding what to do. He was still dressed only in a t-shirt and boxers, and while the place didn’t look fancy they surely had at least a “must be wearing pants to be served” policy. Despite the horror of the situation he was in he had to laugh when he pictured a sign reading:
NO SHIRT
NO SHOES
NO PANTS
NO SERVICE
(NO EXCUSES!!)
Well, at least he had on a shirt.
Tom got out of the car and jogged up to the diner’s entrance. He peeked in through the windows. There were a couple of truckers sitting at different tables, eating breakfast at midnight. Tom could see the bathrooms, too. He opened the door and entered the diner. The dining area opened up on the left, but straight ahead there was a short hall leading to two doors, one marked GENTS and the other marked LADIES. He scurried down the hall on his bare feet and ducked into the gent’s washroom.
The bathroom had three stalls, three urinals and three sinks.
All good things come in threes.
Again he had to laugh, but the laugh had a desperate, lunatic edge to it. Tom found the cleanest stall and locked himself in. He put down the toilet lid and sat on top of it. Just as his heartbeat was starting to get under control his stomach started rumbling, and Tom could feel a hot ball of liquid rising up his throat. He got down off the toilet, dropped to his knees, lifted both the lid and the seat and emptied his guts into the toilet bowl. He wretched until there was nothing left to expel, and when the dry heaves ceased he pulled the handle, flushing the whole, stinking mess away.
Tom put the seat and lid down again, and retook his throne. He leaned his head against the side of the stall and closed his eyes. Sometime later he heard someone come in to use one of the urinals; whoever it was didn’t bother to wash his hands, and Tom hoped it was one of the truckers and not one of the diner’s cooks. Minutes later he was asleep, his head still leaning against a stall wall that was covered with the crude poetry found in such places as diner bathrooms.