by Jeff Vrolyks
Chapter Twenty Seven
I awoke from the nightmare with my cheek on a small puddle of drool. I didn’t know where I was at first. It was my hotel room. The digital clock on the stand read 5:12 P.M. I went to the window and parted the drapes. It was snowing. The parking lot had been plowed, tall snow banks hedging it. A bird landed on the rail framing the balcony, just a couple feet outside the window. I thought birds flew south for the winter. It squawked at me. It possessed black and white plumage and a plump little black head, which turned away from me so that its beady little eye could more directly watch me. I recalled from my vision the bird atop the Arrowhead sign, and wondered if this bird was a sign of another kind.
I closed the drapes and powered on the TV, set it to the news and watched it in bed as I snacked on some beef jerky that I had brought from home.
I worried that I wouldn’t be able to find the house of the party, and what consequence that might have. I worried that even if I did find the house, they wouldn’t let me in, being an uninvited guest. If asked I would say I’m friends with Mike. Surely there would be a Mike there. Isn’t there always? I worried what might happen to me if I did get inside the party. Devil had removed his gloves and been poised to… to what? Something, surely. All hell was going to break loose, as the saying goes. And who better to break hell loose than Devil?
Thank God Tinkerbelle didn’t come. I snatched my phone from the night stand and texted her: It’s good you didn’t come. Something really bad is going to happen tonight. I couldn’t live with myself knowing something bad happened to you because of me.
I finished off my bag of jerky watching a reporter on location at Snow Valley ski resort. Three feet of fresh powder dumped in twenty-four hours. Skiers paradise, the reporter deemed it.
My phone chimed. Tinkerbelle responded: Can I call you?
I texted an affirmative, went to the closet and took out the ironing board and iron, removed my black slacks from the plastic wrapper and hanger. My phone rang.
“Hey-howdy,” I said.
“I’m starting to get a little worried,” she said. I heard the concern in her voice.
“For me? Don’t be. I’ll handle myself.”
“Well maybe for you, too. But I’m worried because I haven’t stopped bleeding since I fell.”
“Brooke, if you need to go the hospital, go!”
“I… I don’t know if I need to. It’s not bleeding badly. But it hasn’t slowed whatsoever. Actually, it’s gotten—”
“Are you a hemophiliac?”
“No. I went on WebMD and browsed it, and that’s what I found, too. Hemophilia. But I’m not one. I’ve always been able to stop bleeding on my own.”
I hummed. “You said it’s your temple?”
“Yes.”
I waited for her to say more.
“I told you it was from the scar that Paul gave me, right?” she said.
“You did, yes.”
“I think the bleeding has gotten worse. Actually, I know it has.”
“Go to the hospital. Have your neighbor take you if you don’t think it’s bad enough to call nine-one-one over.”
“It’s not that bad. It was just a little blood seeping at first, but now it’s trickling. I’ve soaked through two towels.”
“If you don’t get help right now, I’m going to call nine-one-one for you. You’re worrying me.”
“I know, that’s what I was afraid of. I didn’t want to worry you, but when you texted me I figured I’d get your advice. If I called my parents they’d flip out, call for an ambulance, and cut their trip short.”
“How does your head feel?”
“I have a headache, but of course I do. I fell in the shower, hit my head.”
“Go get it stitched up. Keep me informed, okay?”
“Talk to you later.”
I remembered seeing the bloody forehead of Tinkerbelle when she was no taller than your average five-year-old. That bastard Trouble had brained her hard with a rock. The gash wasn’t very big, but it was deep enough that she had a sheet of blood covering the left side of her face.
I couldn’t believe how close I had come to bringing her with me on this trip. How horrible I would feel about that decision right now, having just woken from a dream that forecasted something wicked this way comes, as Ray Bradbury had so eloquently titled a novel. She would have had to endure seeing Black Cat being taken advantage of, for starters. And the couple swaggering into the bathroom to fornicate. It was no place for an innocent fourteen-year-old. Following that thought was the idea that Brooke would be seeing Paul once again. Paul, who once threatened to kill her if I didn’t do as he said. What else had he said? That he wouldn’t rape a little girl, but if she was a few years older he might? Yes, and he said Brooke was likely to be hot when she grew up. Thank God she didn’t come with me.
A sudden thought hit me like a charged live-wire, its impact no less powerful. It was what Paul said to his evil friend before the hearth: “You said she’d be here. Oh well, huh? Lucky her, I guess.” Who had they anticipated coming? Is the answer to that question pressing a blood-soaked towel to her temple this very moment? If so, it begs the question: who had given her the vision of accompanying me on my trip down here? I thought it had been God, or an angel. But now I wasn’t so sure. Although I couldn’t say definitively, I thought I knew who had prevented her from coming with me on this trip. Divine intervention caused her to slip in the shower, as well as provide her with some kind of stigmata in the form of a reopened gash. Maybe I was wrong, but my gut said I was right.
On the heels of this revelation was another: if Paul sought to lure Brooke down to the party, that could only mean that he knew I was coming. I didn’t know how I felt about that.
I ironed my tux, took a shower and got dressed, prayed for my safety, the masqueraders’ safety, and Tinkerbelle’s safety.
The uncertainty of everything was maddening. What was supposed to go down at the party and why was I sent here? Because Paul was going to be there? Why did that matter?
My guts were all in a knot as I locked the hotel door behind me, got in my truck. I wanted this day to be over, for it to be tomorrow. How crazy a notion it was that I was about to go to a party that I hadn’t the foggiest idea where it was. But I knew I’d be there just the same. God would guide me. That God would guide me, and had been guiding me, gelled my conviction that I was doing the right thing, that I needed to be here tonight. I was serving His purpose, and I would die for that purpose if it was my destiny. My reward would be waiting for me in Heaven.