The mirror itself, rather than reflecting the blue walls of the room, was hard black, shiny as polished onyx. Something deep within it flickered in a geometric shape, a repeatedly flexing, multi-pointed star—an emerging image: the room behind him coming into view. As he looked more closely into that smooth dark, searching for his own reflection, he saw his wife sitting behind him, watching him from the bed.
He spun, skin crawling, but as he looked at her, the fear melted away, and he found himself relieved that she was sitting up. Must be feeling better today, he thought. It was a good day, then, if she was able to sit up. Able to walk herself to the bathroom to puke or shit or pee or whatever it was she needed to expunge from her withering, poisoned body at any given time.
“Honey?” he said, hopeful she might smile at him, that she felt well enough to do so. She did smile, and he was so thankful, so filled with joy, that he ran to her, dropped to his knees and held her hands in his own. He looked up to her face, surprised at how healthy she appeared.
She had hair, for one. And teeth. All white and straight. Her skin was peach-toned and sun-kissed, and her bright blue eyes were waves they were waves stared at him lovingly. Her soft blond hair fell down her cheeks, over her shoulder. She wore a black dress, silky and revealing, and Paul wanted to push his face into her warm chest, slide his hands up her thighs one more time.
Her fingers pinched his chin, held him firm. Her skin was soft and fragrant. She smelled like a sun-drenched beach, like the ocean.
“Paul,” she said. Her breath was fresh and alive, a clean, salt-tinged breeze. “I think we should talk, don’t you?”
Paul’s joy faltered along with his smile, and his chin quivered in her firm grasp.
That voice.
He remembered now. He moved past the joy of seeing his wife so healthy, so alive. His eye twitched when he heard those words…
I think we should talk, don’t you?
How many times had he heard that phrase? Seen that same confident smile on her face? Although, he recalled, it was more of a smirk at times. Especially near the end, right before she got sick. It reminded him how things really were between them. He remembered how she had controlled him, manipulated him. Bullied him. Before her diagnosis, their marriage had been equally sick, equally in need of treatment. Despite the money he made she liked to remind him of things they didn’t have. Things she wanted, for her and Mike, she’d always say. But Paul had enough debt to last ten more years and his income wasn’t enough for them to live luxuriously. Not until the medical school loans were paid off, at least. With luck, maybe five years, four if they saved on other things. But there was no saving. A nanny when Mike was a baby, a new house, a new car. A summer place.
And there was more. The guilt of his extensive work hours. Ironically, so he could make more money. He double-shifted, stayed on call for other surgeons, ran his practice six days a week, all to make as much money as he could. Still, she chided him for not being there for her, for their son.
“You’re missing his life,” she’d say, when he’d get paged while at a Little League game and have to run to the hospital. “I can’t do this alone, Paul,” she’d say, when he’d show up late for a birthday party after a twelve-hour day of seeing patients at his office and the hospital.
She’d never blamed him for her illness, but she did make the occasional bitter remark at his not having any “in-roads” for special treatments, or being unable to “pull favors” for the newest medications, as if the medical community was hiding all the best treatments for cancer in a secret lab somewhere, only doling it out to those who had the means and access.
Still, he’d felt so much guilt. Guilt for not being able to do more, to comfort her, to heal her. To be a good father to Mike, to be a better husband, a better surgeon. He was never good enough for her, never rich enough, never present enough, never never never…
And he’d failed her as much in death as he had in life. Drinking too much. Cutting back on his patients and hesitant to take on new ones, devoting himself to academia, losing the will and the confidence to continue practicing his medical art. His ability to save lives diminished to a needling demand to simply survive.
Now she wanted to “talk.” And he knew what that meant, oh yeah. He always knew what that meant.
It meant he’d done something wrong. He’d screwed up somehow, and now a lecture was coming. A scolding. He thought he was done with the talks, done with the abuse, the feelings of inadequacy, with being judged.
“What…” he said, and swallowed, looked down into her lap, no longer able to meet her eye. “What is it?”
“It’s Mike. I want to talk about our son,” she said, and her words were crisp and loud, demanding his undivided attention.
He looked back at her, tried to hold her eyes, but they were moving so strangely. Rippling, spiraling. He let go of her hands, stood up, turned his back to her.
“What about him? He’s fine,” he said. “He’s… we’re doing great.” He pointed to the window. The sunlight was so pale. He turned around, not liking her at his back. He played with his wedding band, spinning it on his finger, something he always did when he was nervous or defensive. “He’s playing outside right now.”
She raised an eyebrow, her mouth curled into a sardonic smile. “Playing, is he?”
Paul said nothing. His dead wife stood up, stepped to him, draped her arms around his shoulders, brought her mouth to his lips, then to his cheek, his neck. He shuddered with pleasure, missing her, knowing she was playing at something but not caring. He shook with his desire for her, his need to feel loved.
She took her lips off his neck, kissed his ear, then whispered, “I want him. I want our son.”
Paul’s body stiffened. He pushed her away, stared at her. “What the hell are you talking about?”
She smiled, and the grin seemed to break apart the reality of her face; there were flickers of shadows beneath her skin. Her hands were set stiffly on his shoulders, nails pressed into the flesh beneath his t-shirt. “Just what I said. I want him. You don’t want him, and I do. I mean, look at you. You can barely keep it together as it is, Paul. You don’t need the aggravation. You know it’d be a relief… and besides,” and she gave him her best pout, “I’m lonely. Fair’s fair, Paul. Fair’s fair.”
Paul stared dumbly at her for a moment, studied her strange face. The skin was mottled underneath. Black veins thin as baby hair under her cheeks, her chin. Something swam just behind one of her eyes, then slipped away.
“No,” he said, and took another step back, forcing her to take her hands off him. “He’s my son, he stays with me.” He shook his head, growing heated. “No way, no, you can’t have him. You’re not even here.” He stuck a finger in her face. “You’re dead, baby.”
The wattage of her smile lessened, her eyes narrowed. She walked casually to the onyx mirror, the one surrounded by the rippling waves, the one that seemed somehow alive, and considered it, as if studying her unseen reflection.
“I would have preferred not to argue on this,” she said. “I’ll take him if I want him.” She turned, eyes now black as the mirror. “You can’t stop me… and besides, I always get what I want. But you know that. Don’t you, honey?”
She sprang at him, impossibly fast, and clutched his cheeks in her claw-like hands, and her black eyes expanded, expanded, until it was all he could see. “I have an idea,” she said, nothing more than a voice in the dark. “Let’s do it the hard way.”
Paul felt liquid flood his mouth, spill down his throat. He couldn’t breathe. A scream rose in his drowned throat and he thrashed, pushed away from her, tried to resurface. He was being pulled deeper, deeper through the dark liquid, until he hit the bottom of whatever he’d been pushed into, swallowed by. There was the feeling of being probed, stuck with tubes, his life sucked out of him by an organism he’d landed upon. He tried to scream, then his mind floated free, untethered from his body. All feeling was gone.
In the seconds that
followed, his senses, his functions, returned. He could breathe once more.
He opened his eyes, and he was back in the room. But now he was lying in the bed, naked but for a light gown, the blanket pulled up to his chin and an IV sticking from his arm. He felt weak, so very weak. He lifted a hand to his face, felt the dryness of his skin with his fingers, the smooth dome of his head.
His wife stood over him, eyes as black as her silky dress, flesh opaque as smoke, blond hair rising above her head as if she were floating.
“You should rest,” she said. “You’re very, very sick.”
She turned away, evaporated, leaving him too weak to call after her, too weak to stop her, too weak, too tired… and as she disappeared, he felt a most pressing need to sleep. Although he fought it, she was right. He could feel how terribly sick he was, how drained, how badly he needed rest, just to rest for a little bit. And then, later, he’d find Mike. But first, a quick nap…
Paul drifted into the deepest of sleeps, one that was layered even deeper within his subconscious, and the black mirror—like a fully-dilated, watchful, monstrous pupil—looked on.
* * *
Mike was on his toes.
The water lapped at his chin. He breathed in and out through his mouth, in and out in and out. Too fast. He didn’t know about hyperventilation. He didn’t understand that his body was switching gears into full-bore survival mode—ready to do whatever it took to get from one breath to the next.
He looked up at the sky, felt a brief moment of relief because the water was caressing his neck rather than his lips. The sun glared down at him impassively, flexing its heat, reveling in the power of its own light against the cornflower blue sky.
The chain was stretched to its limit, and Mike had to hunch his body forward in order to reach the third stair, or even to stand straight up on the second stair. Both seemed to equal out to the same result—and neither height would be good enough.
Mike realized, with a calm fascination, that he was going to drown.
His body, fully submerged in the roiling currents of the sea, was chilled, his burned skin grateful for the shade and coolness of the water, but his teeth chattered between breaths, whether from fear or cold he did not know or care. Tears streamed from his red-rimmed eyes and he turned his head, glanced toward the rocks, saw the dark shine where the water had brushed against them, noticed it had risen to the bottom of the salt line.
Please, he prayed to the sun god above, to the water god nipping at his neck, to whatever god would listen. Please stop. Please don’t kill me.
He stood on his toes, submerged to the chin, and waited. Waited for the tide to rise a few more inches and cover his face completely, to trap him forever in its cold embrace, bury him beneath the waves, leave his corpse to be found at low tide, the flesh fish-pecked, the lips purple and open, mouth drizzling water, face writhing with tiny crabs feeding on the inside of his cheeks, his tongue, his glazed eyes.
He tried to will the images away, to calm himself, to be strong.
He sobbed once, and the jerking of his face let a swallow of seawater into his mouth. He spat some out, swallowed more. It was coming in too fast. He moaned in sadness, in pain, in desperation.
His toes hurt. His legs ached from the strain of lifting his heels for hours. But the water buoyed him. He could hold out. He could stand for as long as it took… if the water didn’t go any higher. If it just wouldn’t rise any further, he could survive.
But he knew that wouldn’t happen, and he was so, so tired.
His head twitched involuntarily, his neck spasmed. Water flooded into his mouth, and he coughed, his throat raw, the pain sharp, bringing hot tears. His sunburnt face, lifted to the sun to keep the water from slipping inside him, was in agony.
No more, he thought.
He just couldn’t stand one more second of the blasted hot sun on his face. If it was time to die, then so be it. He clamped his mouth shut, closed his watering eyes, and let his feet fall flat, his aching knees bend. He let himself drop, let his body slip down into the water.
He curled into a ball – keeping his eyes shut this time – and held his breath, let his face cool. He wondered, with mild curiosity, if, when he rose, he would find air waiting for him. Or would it be too late? Would only cold water greet his gaping mouth? Was he even now, knees to chest, back resting against the hard metal of the stairs, holding his very last breath?
As his lungs began to burn, he opened his eyes to stare at the watery world that would soon be his tomb. The sun slanted down through the cool green underworld, smearing it with slabs of blue. He could swear the seaweed was closer to him now. Too close. Impossibly close. The long waving tendrils, swaying back and forth with the current, were reaching for him, reaching…
He tilted his head upward, looked at the distorted world above, prayed that when he lifted to the surface he would find air. Prayed it wasn’t too late.
He imagined the act of drowning. The water pouring down his throat, the salty taste of it going down, filling his lungs. The seaweed arms tearing his dead white hand away from the cuffs, pulling him deeper into the water, surrounding him. Would he be a god to them? A companion? Or simply food?
He held onto his breath in desperation, buying time, knowing the one he now held so tightly might be his last. He fought against the burn spreading from his lungs, into his chest, his stomach. His head was buzzing, dark spots flittered into his vision, darkening the green sea.
Still he held on, wanting to keep life inside him. So he held it.
Held it. Held it. Held it…
His body fought him, convulsed, wanted to live. He could wait no more. He closed his eyes and pushed himself upward. His mouth already beginning to open, hoping to find air.
If he did not, then he was dead.
* * *
Da dee dee dee dee dee da dee dee dee da dee…
Da dee dee dee dee dee da dee dee dee da dee…
That tune… he recognized it…
Paul opened his eyes. He felt a hundred years old. His eyelids were crusted, his insides felt liquid, his body weightless.
What the hell was that song?
A bass drum now. Thump thump thump…
Da dee dee dee dee thump-dee da dee dee dee da-thump, da dee dee dee dee thump-dee da dee dee dee…
His heart quickened. Yes! He knew that song. His sallow eyes roved the small room, searched for the source. He knew. He did. A song called Video Killed the Radio Star. It was playing on the radio…
Ooh Wah Ooh!
He tried to sit up, but his stomach clenched and his muscles refused to aid him. His chest tightened and he dropped his head back to the pillow. He stared at the IV drip as the music grew fainter. He lifted the hand the needle was stuck into, saw the gray, frayed tape holding it in place, the spot of red blood at its center. His skin looked yellow and wrinkled. He let it fall and rolled his eyes, exasperated, terrified.
I hear it! he roared in his mind.
Ooh Wah Ooh!
It was coming… from a radio! Yes, a radio. An alarm clock radio. The music, the music…
It’s supposed to wake me up, he thought. But already the voice in his head was quieting. He was so damned tired. He felt as if he were being pushed down, pushed away.
There is no radio, there is no song.
His mind was slipping, because he was dying. Dying here in this small, stinking bed. He closed his eyes, not seeing the frantic waves flow around the black oval mirror, as if agitated, rushing in and out of existence. The dresser’s dark wooden drawers were like two rows of smiling brown teeth below the restless, roving black eye, the lone witness to his death.
Mike needs lunch, he thought, as he slipped into unconsciousness. She wanted Mike… okay, then, okay. But he’ll need lunch… he’s a growing boy, after all… I hope she gets him lunch…
And then he was gone, back into the darkness. The music played on.
No one listened.
* * *
Mike broke
the surface of the water, face to sky, mouth open.
And inhaled air.
He took two or three deep, ragged breaths. Kept breathing. In and out, in and out. He tilted his face down cautiously, but the water was now barely touching the small white scar at the tip of his chin where he had cracked it on the jungle gym when he was six-years-old. It was at his neck… he couldn’t believe it.
The water level was dropping.
He laughed, tears spilled from his eyes in relief. He laughed and shouted in victory, raised his one free hand and splashed it down against a quick, tight wave, a last gasp of anger the ocean was tossing at him. He spat out the seawater, lifted his head, and howled at the midday sun.
“Ha ha!” he screamed, defiant against nature. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” he screamed again and again, the water getting lower by the minute, his wrist delivering sharp pain, blood from the cuts in his arm clouding the seawater, but he didn’t feel it, didn’t care.
He’d survived.
Soon, the water would recede completely, and he’d be able to sit down, to rest.
Now, help will come, he thought. He knew Joe would come back eventually. Knew his father would come looking for him when he didn’t come home. Yes, help would come. He knew it in his bones, knew it as an absolute. He’d been spared. He’d been saved.
He looked out over the ocean, past the confines of the bay, amazed by the frustrated beast that he’d beaten back, a giant the size of planets. It stared at him, Mike felt quite clearly, with hate. Hate, and want. His life. It wanted his life. But he had beaten it. He had survived, and now he calmly, victoriously, surveyed the creature spread before him like eternity, as it recoiled and retreated. Biding its time.
Behold the Void Page 26