When All the World Sleeps

by J. A. Rock

  “What’d you and Reverend Park talk about?” Daniel’s father had asked as they drove home.

  Daniel told him, stammering, and his father hadn’t asked him to talk privately to Reverend Park again. They still made him go to church, and Daniel had prayed real hard to try to negate his spiritual demerits, but it didn’t help. His parents mostly stopped yelling at Daniel for things he did in his sleep, but sometimes his mother cried, which was worse than yelling.

  Casey was no help. She’d do things—one time she cut a lock of her own hair and told their parents Daniel had done it. She later admitted to Daniel she’d done it herself, then denied it when he tried to tell their parents. After a while, Daniel didn’t know what was true—couldn’t tell when people were just fucking with him. His college roommate had thought it was hilarious that Daniel sometimes got up in the night and wrote papers and had no recollection of it the next day. Jeff had once logged on to Daniel’s computer while Daniel slept and deleted what Daniel had written of his lit paper, replacing the text with I LOVE HAIRY BALLS over and over again. Then he swore Daniel had done it while sleepwalking.

  Then there were the drawings.

  Those frightened him as well. Another unknowable power inside him. He couldn’t reckon where that talent came from. Same place as the rest of the craziness, he supposed. He only knew that he couldn’t draw when he was awake, but when he was asleep, he somehow could. Scared him as much as killing a man had, in some ways.

  Jeff had taken to leaving charcoal and paper around their room in college, until Daniel had begged him not to.

  “Dude, are you serious? Look at these!”

  But Daniel didn’t want to encourage it. Didn’t want to let it out. Didn’t want to see the evidence when he woke up in the morning. He’d caught his parents poring over one of his drawings when he was fourteen: a sketch of the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Must have seen it on the TV or something. They didn’t tape his drawings to the wall like Jeff did later. Daniel didn’t know what they did with them.

  He should never have come back to Logan after college. But it was over with Marcus, he couldn’t hold down a job because he was always so exhausted, and he’d thought he would be more settled on familiar ground. So much for that.

  He picked his way through the remains of a glass bottle on the road, mindful of his bare feet. Fuck. A faggot walking down the back roads in the middle of the night. Daniel was pretty sure he’d seen this horror movie. Might have been better off staying and getting gangbanged by Master Beau and his buddies.

  Probably hadn’t been a gun anyway.

  Daniel shivered at the memory, real or not, and kept on toward Logan.

  Took an hour before the first truck rumbled past, and Daniel flagged it down. Guy looked to be a stranger, thank God.

  “Where you headed?” he asked.

  “Logan,” Daniel said, climbing into the cab.

  He rode with the guy all the way back to Logan, counting down the miles on the odometer while the guy puzzled over things in his head. Because everybody knew someone who knew someone, and the guy had a cousin in Logan.

  “Whitlock,” he said when Daniel told him. “Used to know a fella of that name who ran the sawmill. Had some trouble, I heard, with one of his kids.” He peered at Daniel curiously.

  “Yeah.” They were passing the turnoff to Daniel’s cabin, just outside of town. “Here is fine, thanks.”

  “Killed a man,” the guy said, looking narrowly at him as he pulled over. “The son was a fag and killed a man.”

  Daniel climbed down. “Thanks for the lift.”

  He was half-afraid the guy would come after him, run him down. The truck idled at the side of the road for a while, then roared off into town.

  The dirt road was hell on his feet. He was limping by the time he reached his cabin. The mailbox had been knocked off its post again, a thick rope noose hanging in its place. Daniel was too tired to move it. Just limped past and pushed open the door of the cabin.

  He stripped down to his underwear, washed his bleeding feet in the shower. He opened the freezer and checked the ice locks. They were ready. But the longer Daniel stared at them, the cloud of cold hitting him in the face, the less he wanted to take them out.

  It was nearly 2 a.m. If he waited another hour, went to bed at three, he could set the alarm and get up at six just as the ice finished melting. Perfect time for a jog. He didn’t work tomorrow, and that thought filled him with dread. Days when he had to figure out what to do with himself were the worst.

  He could go to his parents’, but visits there were always awkward. His father hardly spoke to him, and he could never tell if his mother wanted to see him or not. She said she did. Said he was still her son. But he saw the way she looked at him. Not afraid or angry or loathing like everyone else in Logan, but just . . . tired. Tired of looking at him and remembering the things people said about him, about her, about the whole family. Remembering what it had been like to have to show her face in town while Daniel was in prison.

  And yet part of him didn’t care. He’d been the one in jail.

  Deserved it.

  Whatever whispers and stares and hostility she’d faced had nothing on what Daniel’d gotten when he was released. What he still got.

  Why shouldn’t they stare? Why shouldn’t they spit?

  He could’ve done with some artificial sympathy.

  Why shouldn’t they despise you?

  Because I’m doing the best I fucking can.

  A familiar feeling rose in him. A perverse pride, a satisfaction in being a freak, an outcast, in being a nightmare after having so many of his own.

  Yeah, I’m dangerous, and yeah, I’m a faggot; I burned a guy; lock up your kids, you fuckers, you hypocrites, you animals. You got any idea what it’s like to feel your own brain slamming around in your head, to know the next minute might be the minute he breaks your skull, that your brain comes out?

  He clenched his fists. Heard the echo of his heart deep in his unbroken skull.

  They got no idea. Clayton stood there and watched, and he laughed, and nobody’s got a mind to lock him up, spit on him. I’m the one they think they need to be scared of, and they’re right. Let them think that. Let them fucking think that! The thought became repetition—the ferocious lashing out of a wounded animal backed against a boulder, bleeding into the dust.

  Clayton had made a noise, too—a whoop, like the kind guys gave when their football team scored a touchdown. An encouragement, a celebration, a dare for Kenny to go further. That was after Kenny’d hit Daniel the first time, when Daniel was still aware enough to be afraid. When his senses were heightened by adrenaline, and he felt every shift in his body, every molecule of cold in the air. That whoop stayed with him. A victory. Score.

  Now he started to shake. Deep breath. He left the locks in the freezer and did a few dishes. Left the pan on the stove so he could boil water again tomorrow night. Boiling water took the gasses out, made the molecules freeze tighter. Made the ice in the locks melt slower. Remembered that from school.

  One hour to kill before he’d lock himself up. Just one hour.

  He went ahead and turned down the temperature on the wall unit. He did that to keep the ice from melting too fast, and because right now the cold might help keep him awake. He tried to read, but that wasn’t going to happen. So he sat in his ragged armchair and dug his fingernails into his forearms, watching the goose bumps rise on his skin as the room got colder. He forced his nails in as hard as he could, reminding himself of the pain he could have had with Master Beau. The pain that would have left him drained of any fight. He could have slept chained in Master Beau’s house, knowing he was safe—at least from himself.

  Strange how pain could work both ways—to keep him awake, and to make him sleep.

  He must have nodded off, because he jerked his head up suddenly.

  Fuck. He was gonna fall asleep before it was time. He tried to rise but couldn’t. Closed his eyes again.

  “It
’s all right to be afraid.” His mother’s voice, but he wasn’t sure what she’d said it about. Daniel had been young.

  “It’s all right to be afraid.”

  His eyes flashed open. The AC unit read fifty-three degrees.

  Not like this, Mom. It ain’t all right to be afraid like this.

  He closed his eyes. Almost laughed, because he’d tried to stop saying “ain’t” in college, but it was a hard habit to break.

  He was caught in that in-between state, not quite asleep but not awake. And he heard people talking, a murmur of voices like he was at a party. Someone laughed.

  Casey. It was Casey’s laugh, and for a second he swelled with happiness, because maybe she had come to see him, and maybe he could finally explain. Anything seemed possible in this in-between space. He might find Casey and tell her he hadn’t meant to hurt anyone, and she’d understand. Even if she didn’t, it was enough that she was here.

  He jerked awake again. He was freezing, his nipples hard, the hair on his arms arching in an effort to keep him warm. This wasn’t going to work. He got up and went to the tiny bathroom stall, opening the cabinet under the sink. He took out the black bag and unzipped it. It was full of things that had meant something back when he was with Marcus. That had meant safety, trust. Fear, yes, sometimes. But closeness too.

  He took out a slim black plug. Unzipped a front compartment of the bag and got out the small bottle of cinnamon oil. He slicked the plug with it, took his underwear down, and pushed the plug up his ass until he felt it lodge. The initial wave of heat made him grit his teeth, made bile rise in his throat. Then the pain became manageable. He walked back out to the main room and sat in the chair. Couldn’t sleep, not with his ass clenching and burning. Fuck, it itched even more than it burned. He shifted, glad for the discomfort.

  “But you like it, right?” Marcus had asked him. “What we do?”

  Shouldn’t have told the truth, but Marcus had already guessed it. Puzzled around for about a month, his touch growing more cautious, more uncertain, until he came out and asked straight.

  Maybe tomorrow Daniel wouldn’t visit his mother. Maybe he’d go help Mr. Roan with the garden. Mr. Roan was his neighbor half a mile up the road. Eighty-two and too batshit to care who Daniel was. Mr. Roan loved to be outside, but was too far gone to do his chores efficiently. So Daniel walked over sometimes and raked or mowed or weeded. Next summer, Mr. Roan was going to have a vegetable garden, which Daniel had helped him fence and till. Now would be a good time to plant.

  He let his mind go blank—sleeping while awake, nothing but the occasional spasm in his ass to remind him he was alive. How long had it been since he’d been fucked while he was awake? Best not to go there. Didn’t want to be fucked. Hadn’t wanted it—really wanted it—in years.

  He checked his phone. It was time. He took the locks out of the freezer and put cozies on each one to insulate them. Set them down while he went to the bathroom and removed the plug. Rinsed it in the sink and set it on the counter. Tomorrow he’d give it a proper cleaning. He wiped himself off and returned to the main room, where he crawled into bed. Found a position that was more or less comfortable. So fucking cold. Set his alarm for six. Looped the cuffs through the iron rails on the bed and locked them closed around his wrists.

  Told himself he couldn’t move for three hours, so there was no point struggling even in his sleep.

  Hoped his subconscious was listening.

  When he’d first gotten these locks, it had been even harder to fall asleep, knowing the ice was already starting to melt, that he had to take advantage of what little time he had. Now he didn’t feel the pressure so much. He closed his eyes and immediately began to drift despite the shivers that racked his body. He had a nice memory of Marcus kissing his shoulder, just above a welt from the flogger. Marcus’s body warm against his. “Good job,” Marcus had whispered. You didn’t get many people who were proud of you for lying there and taking it.

  Same way you lay there and took it when Kenny beat you?

  Tried to get loose, but he hit too hard.

  What’re you remembering that for anyway? Got nothing to do with Marcus. Remember Marcus.

  But when he tried to remember Marcus, he remembered Joe Belman. The Harnee’s kid. Remembered Belman’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Belman driving him all the way home.

  He finally slept.

  3

  Daniel thought it was a dream at first. The smell of gasoline and the smoke.

  He stared into the darkness, pulling instinctively against the cuffs, his heart thumping wildly. Sometimes he dreamed of what had happened at Kenny Cooper’s house, or at least what the police photographs told him had happened. He didn’t know how much was a memory and how much he’d cobbled together the same way the police had. Certainly he had no memory of going to his dad’s shed to get the gasoline, then heading to Harnee’s to buy a lighter. Seeing himself on the grainy security footage, the Harnee’s kid muttering a “Have a good night” when he left, was crazy. Just crazy. And then he’d gone to Kenny’s place and burned it down.

  No surprise that he dreamed about it, that it haunted him. He deserved every nightmare he ever got.

  The sudden crunch of tires spinning on dirt woke him. Gasoline, smoke, and tires. Still took his brain a moment to put it all together. Then he saw the flicker of flames outside the window on the sagging porch of the cabin.

  Panic flooded him. He pulled against the cuffs, harder this time, but they didn’t give. Of course they didn’t fucking give, no matter how much he thrashed around on the bed. He wondered what time it was, how much longer he had before the ice melted and he could reach the keys to the cuffs. God, maybe the fire would help him, would melt the ice faster.

  “Help me,” he rasped. Didn’t shout it. He couldn’t find the breath.

  The cabin was filling with smoke, and Daniel was going to die here.

  A sob broke out of him. He arched his back in one more abortive attempt to get free. Didn’t want to die. This was worse than the fear of being shot; worse, because he was alone. Because he couldn’t even run. Would it hurt? Fuck, he hoped it wouldn’t hurt. Hoped the smoke would get him before the flames did. Had Kenny felt the same terror? This same gut-clenching god-awful panic? Had he seen the fire coming for him? Had he known it was hopeless?

  “Help me!” This time it was a shout, a fear so great that he had to let it out even if he knew there was nobody to hear it. He shouted, struggled, and wondered how long it would take to die.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long to patrol Logan. Forty-five minutes tops, and that included Bel driving through every row of the trailer park at a crawl. He saw a fox at the side of US 601, moving so fast that for a second he didn’t know what the hell it was. He did a few traffic stops, wrote two tickets for speeding, and gave a guy a sobriety test just for the hell of it. The guy was an asshole, always writing smart letters to the paper about how the sheriff’s department was wasting money, so Bel got great pleasure listening to him try to recite the alphabet backward. Not that he laughed about it then. No, he waited until the guy had driven off before he did that.

  There was no chatter on the radio.

  Bel stopped in at Harnee’s to buy some gum, then walked across the street to the diner to say hello to Sue-Ellen and get a coffee. After that, he headed back to the station for a while and took care of some reports. He was heading out to patrol again when he saw the envelope he’d left on the front counter the night before: Daniel Whitlock. So the guy hadn’t come in to collect his car keys after all. Bel picked up the envelope, figuring he might as well do a run out to the Kamchee Woods to stick them in the mailbox.

  Nothing else to do.

  Bel got in his car and drove to Kamchee. He glanced in his rearview mirror a couple of times as though he expected Whitlock to be there. Could picture Whitlock, quiet, staring straight ahead. Once he’d gotten into the car that night, once he’d stopped leering, Whitlock had looked gentle. Not crazy
or strung out. A little lost, thoughtful.

  Bel could remember some nights at Harnee’s when Whitlock had looked like that. At peace, almost content. Like he was somewhere far away from Harnee’s, far away from Logan. And Bel had thought he might like to be wherever Whitlock was. Bel’s gram had gotten that look toward the end—like she had a secret that filled her with happiness. It had made it a little easier to say good-bye, knowing she was ready.

  Bel didn’t know if he believed in Heaven. When he was younger, sure, but now it was harder to buy into all that stuff. Sometimes he hoped there was one. Too hard, even for a practical man like Bel, to imagine the people he loved gone for good. And sometimes he was so angry at the shit people got away with that he found himself hoping there was a Hell. For the Kenny Coopers.

  And the Daniel Whitlocks.

  Bel turned off onto the dirt road that ran into the woods. Had to shield his eyes from the headlights of a truck heading back to the main road. Hunters, maybe. It was quiet out here. It was quiet in town too, considering what Bel knew of other towns from a few brief trips to Goose Creek and Easley. There ought to be traffic, people walking or on bikes. People period. Logan’s downtown was dead. Half the shops were out of business, and parking signs had all been knocked down or shot full of holes. Could fire a gun down Main Street and hit nothing but a stray dog.

  Bel stopped in front of Whitlock’s mailbox. Or rather, the mailbox post. The mailbox was on the ground a few feet away. There was a rope looped around the post. No . . . fuck. Bel leaned out the window and picked it up.

  A noose.

  What the hell?

  Bel dropped it. Whatever the fuck it was, he didn’t want to know. Well, he’d deliver the keys in person. Or leave them on the porch or something. He continued down the drive. Smelled the smoke before he saw the flames licking at the front of the cabin.

  Shit.

  Bel leaped out of the cruiser, grabbing the radio on his shoulder. “Bob, you there?”