“Jesus, Stew. I mean, Jesus Christ.”
Stew didn’t say anything. He seemed to know Ryan was not finished.
“You should have seen her, man,” Ryan went on. He spoke in hushed tones. “Lying there like some kind of fucking rag doll, staring up at the ceiling. Her throat was cut so bad it looked like she had two mouths, for Christ’s sake. How can you do that to yourself? How is it possible? She had a tiny little razor blade in her hand. How can you slice that deep with something so small—” His throat tightened up again, and he stopped.
“My guess—and I know you’re already thinking it—is that she wasn’t exactly herself when she did it, Ryan. Just like all the others.”
“But it’s all hearsay, isn’t it, Stew? What can we prove? We can’t prove dick.”
Stew put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder and squeezed it again. Ryan turned and looked towards the array of banquet tables. He spotted the principal, Miss Gates, waiting behind Rebecca and her mother, waiting to offer condolences to the Cookes. He flicked his chin her way and said: “Maybe I should pull her aside and tell her I quit.”
“That won’t bring Trish back.”
Ryan hung his head and nodded, acknowledging his empty threat. He sipped his scotch and looked at Stew with clear, helpless anger.
“What do we do, Stew?” he asked. “I mean, what the actual fuck do we do?”
Stew leaned in close and told Ryan to watch his language. Nearly four scotches deep, his anger on equal footing with his sorrow, Ryan might have offered up some resistance to such a suggestion. But when a man Stew’s size tells you to watch your language, you watch your fucking language.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “I’m just…”
A third pat on Ryan’s shoulder. “I know.”
Ryan finished his fourth drink in a gulp and looked around the room in an attempt to clear his head. He locked eyes with Barbara. He gave her the funeral-appropriate smile he and Rebecca had shared. She did not return it.
“Miserable old cow,” he muttered.
“Come again?” Stew said.
“Barbara. I just smiled her way, and she blanked me.”
Stew said nothing.
“You ever wonder about her?” Ryan asked.
“Barbara?”
Ryan nodded.
“How so?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Barbara’s old and grumpy, but that’s all.”
“She’s one of the original four, Stew.” He looked away and added: “Just like you.” He looked back. To his surprise, Stew did not seem offended.
“Maybe you’ve had enough to drink, Ryan,” was all he said.
Ryan’s reply was to drain his scotch and order a fifth. Stew gave Ryan a final pat on the shoulder before heading over to the Cooke table to pay his respects. Rebecca and her mother appeared at Ryan’s side shortly after.
“How are you doing, Ryan?” Carol Lawrence asked.
Ryan was buzzed, but still clear-headed enough to know better than to be belligerent to his love interest’s mother, member of the original four that she was.
“Good as I can be under the circumstances, I suppose,” he replied.
“Rebecca tells me you and Trish were close?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
Rebecca leaned in and kissed Ryan on the cheek.
“Where are you two headed after?” Carol asked Ryan and her daughter.
Rebecca and Ryan exchanged a look. Rebecca said: “We haven’t really discussed anything yet.”
“Why don’t you go somewhere quiet for a few drinks after?” Carol said to Rebecca. Then to Ryan: “Rebecca can give you a lift back to our place after. You can stay the night, if you like.”
Rebecca and Ryan exchanged another look, this one far different than the previous.
“You sure?” Rebecca asked her mother.
“Just use good judgment and don’t stay out too late. Watch the drinking and driving.”
“We will. Thanks, Mom,” Rebecca said.
“Yeah—thank you, Mrs. Lawrence,” Ryan said, the notion that he was thanking the woman for giving him the opportunity to finally have sex with her daughter not escaping him.
“Carol,” she corrected him. Then, with a wink: “If I’m granting you the courtesy of being adults in my home this evening, you can knock off all this ‘Mrs. Lawrence’ stuff.”
Ryan smiled and looked away. Rebecca blushed.
Carol went to turn and leave. Just then, the scotch overrode Ryan’s better judgment.
“Carol?” he said.
She stopped and faced him.
“What are they going to do?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The school. How will they explain the suicide? It’s what everyone in this town has been waiting for, isn’t it? For history to repeat itself?”
Ryan could feel Rebecca’s stare. Knew it was an incredulous one. Yet he kept his eyes fixed on Carol.
Carol sighed. “I can’t say.”
“How would you explain it?” Ryan asked.
“It was a suicide, Ryan.”
“No. How would you explain it?” he asked again. “A veteran of Highland like you.”
And one of the original four...
(Won’t stop you from spending the night at her house and screwing her daughter, though, will it?)
Ryan could feel Rebecca’s stare now boring a hole into the side of his head. He still kept his gaze on Carol.
“I can’t explain it,” she said. “If I could—if I could explain any of it—then I don’t think we’d be having this conversation right now.”
Jesus, Stew had said the exact same thing, almost verbatim.
Ryan finally broke his gaze, dropped his head, and nodded.
Carol stepped forward and gave Ryan a hug. “I’m very sorry for your loss, Ryan.” Her face held genuine warmth. She then hugged her daughter and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. “Don’t be out too late, you two.” She left.
“What the hell was that?” Rebecca asked.
Ryan shook his head. “Nothing. Forget it.” He tried on a smile that felt weird. “You want a drink?”
33
They’d ended up staying at the restaurant where Trish’s post-funeral reception was held, moving from the small bar in the banquet hall to the main bar in the heart of the restaurant.
When the bartender approached them for last call, Ryan suggested hitting up a bar-bar, not a restaurant that gave last call at eleven o’clock.
“Actually, I was thinking we should head home,” Rebecca replied.
Ryan was at first disappointed. He was just drunk enough to want to keep drinking. Nothing else seemed to matter. When Rebecca reminded him that something else far greater mattered—and this reminder was accompanied by a wandering hand below the bar ledge—Ryan was suddenly content to never touch a drop again.
And then the metaphorical angel and devil on each shoulder:
Angel: Sex only hours after your friend’s funeral. Very classy.
Devil: Trish would have approved. Downright insisted.
The devil’s reasoning brought on instant sorrow. Yes, Trish would have insisted. How he wished she was here now. Ryan could envision her teasing him in her way, telling him to beware of whiskey dick after all the damn scotch he drank tonight.
Angel: Still, you really want your first time with Rebecca to be the day of your friend’s funeral? Not cool, man.
The devil then had an ally. Trish’s voice loud and clear: Would you get going already, dummy? I will NOT have you missing out on a chance to get laid because of me.
Ryan: I miss you so much.
Trish: And I miss you too. Now please go and curl that girl’s toes before she realizes what a pussy you’re being.
Ryan laughed.
Rebecca gave him a curious look. “What?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.” He leaned in and kissed her. “I’m definitely ready to go.”
She grinned, her wandering hand brushing his groin below the bar.
Ryan plunked four twenties on the bar. They did not wait for the change.
***
The transition from the bar to the bedroom felt instantaneous, anticipation a time machine. Only one obstacle remained. The fucking condom.
“Do you need any help?” Rebecca asked as he fiddled with the wrapper. His fingers were slippery after recently being inside her.
“Fuck it,” he said, and used his teeth to tear the wrapper, the condom springing free, Ryan scrambling after the damn thing like it was ticking.
Rebecca laughed.
Make that two obstacles, the second being the dreaded interval. The part all men feared. If you asked Ryan, he would tell you there is that moment when a man is truly aroused and absolutely incapable of conducting a fine motor skill. Then the condom is asked to be opened and placed onto the penis, a fine motor skill, and the blood leaves one organ—the organ—to assist other organs in order to achieve said task. Most men can manage it, because, well, most men are men. But when a half gallon of scotch is flowing through your veins…
“Everything okay?” Rebecca asked.
It was the question from hell. Two simple words that really meant something far direr. Loosely translated, something like: Is there a problem down there, stud?
He flashed back on the moment in the bar, the one where he imagined Trish still alive and warning him about the pitfalls of whiskey dick.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.
And just then, as if he needed yet another reason to like the girl, Rebecca purred in his ear, “Maybe I can help,” and began sliding her tongue down his torso.
No more obstacles. Ryan was soon suited up and very ready.
34
Ryan was pretty sure Rebecca came. He knew he sure as hell had. And after a fairly impressive display of staying power, if he did say so himself. There was always the fear of coming too soon the first time, especially with someone you really liked. But the alcohol, the very thing that had threatened to keep him from rising to the occasion, had ended up his savior in the endurance department, the fickle bastard. And when Rebecca had expressed her admiration for this endurance after, he was only too keen to give zero credit to that fickle bastard. Something borderline cheesy that went: “Hey, when I’m with the perfect girl…”
And she had greedily eaten up his response—dripping with cheese or no—planting a big kiss on him before laying her head on his bare chest and adding: “I would kill for a smoke right now.”
“Won’t mommy get mad?”
“She’s asleep.”
“Won’t she smell it?”
“Not if we sneak out onto the deck.”
“Such a naughty girl.”
She tweaked his nipple. “You telling me naughty is a bad thing?”
“I am assuredly not.”
She laughed.
The two of them slinked out of Rebecca’s bedroom and out onto the deck for an after-sex smoke.
***
Ryan dreamt of spirals. They floated in front of him like incessant gnats, some big, some small. Some spun slowly, and some spun fast. He tried running from them, but they followed as though they were his helmet.
At times he would briefly surrender to them, finding their twirling hypnotic and enticing, like a pleasant trip on some drug. And yet, despite such an intoxicating sense of euphoria, something always stopped Ryan from succumbing completely, something always willing him to look away, to abort the trip. And, furthering the parallels to a drug, with resistance came sickness. A feeling of withdrawal. Disorientation. Nausea. The resolute feeling that the drug would ultimately win. Would prey on his will until it was broken. Own his body and soul complete.
“Leave me alone…”
The spirals were…laughing now? How could they laugh? And yet he heard it all the same, echoing all around as though carried on gusts from unseen winds. No—it was not the spirals laughing; it was the hands working the spirals that were laughing,
(whose hands?)
and as the laughter grew, so too did the intensity of the spirals’ rapidity grow,
(whose fucking hands?)
with it the intensity of Ryan’s nausea, the dreaded feeling of certainty that the spirals would soon win, bore themselves into his skull where they would dig their way into the darkest corners of his mind, the corners most susceptible to trauma and manipulation—
(WHOSE FUCKING HANDS??!!)
“Ryan, wake up!”
Ryan sat bolt upright in bed. For a fleeting moment, the spirals were still there, the laughter was still there, echoing all around him in Rebecca’s bedroom. He looked at her with wild, irrational eyes.
She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder, almost as though she feared he may lash out at her touch.
“It’s okay…” she said. “It’s okay…”
The spirals were gone. The laughter was gone. Just Rebecca’s face before his now, a picture of concern and not a little fear of her own.
Ryan shut his eyes tight. Opened them again, expecting the clichéd scene of dreams thought to be over to be anything but, for the spirals to be back, for the laughter to resume as loud and wicked as ever, for Rebecca herself to maybe be the one laughing, eyes rolled back white, mouth too big, hands working in ritualistic circles, drawing spirals before his very eyes.
But of course it was only Rebecca, her face no less concerned, no less frightened. “Jesus…” he muttered. “I had a nightmare.”
Rebecca risked touching him again. “You think? You were thrashing and yelling something I couldn’t—my God, you’re soaking wet.”
“I had a nightmare,” he said again for some reason.
Her tentative hand on his shoulder felt safer now. It began to massage his arm. “What about?”
He shook his head and breathed deep. “I have absolutely no idea.” He ran a hand through his hair. Ran a hand across his bare chest. Felt the sheets by his legs. “Jesus, I am really soaked.” He flashed back on the dream he’d had about the old principal Mr. James, the classroom of children with their white eyes and evil grins and their scissors ready to launch at his head. How he’d woken up soaked from that dream as well, fearing he might have pissed the bed. That fear was no less now, but he would soon discover, with fleeting consolation in the wake of far more disturbing matters, that he again had not pissed the bed. That he was soaked only with sweat. Night sweats. Fucking terror sweats.
“Why don’t you go to the bathroom and splash some cold water on your face?” she suggested.
He nodded and threw his legs over the side of the bed, sitting there a moment, collecting himself. Realizing he was nude, he then began searching the floor for his boxer shorts. He found them, slipped them on, and stood. He then paused a moment, his gaze dropping to the bedroom floor, landing on the condom wrapper. He did not stop there, though; he continued searching the bedroom floor.
“What are you looking for?” Rebecca asked.
Ryan felt a twinge of embarrassment. “I can’t, uh…I can’t find the condom.”
“What?”
“The condom we used…I can’t find it.” He bent and snatched up the wrapper. “Here’s the wrapper, but I can’t find the actual condom.”
Rebecca sat up.
“You didn’t flush it?”
“Not exactly.” His face grew hot. “I kinda just dropped it on the rug after. I was going to flush it after we came in from outside, but I guess I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“Well, it’s got to be there,” she said.
Ryan was now on all fours, searching. “I’m not seeing it,” he said. “Where the hell could it be?”
“Just leave it,” she said. “We’ll spot it in the morning when the sun is up.”
Ryan was relieved. He feared she might have been grossed out at the prospect of a used condom hiding somewhere on her rug. “You sure?” he double-checked anyway.
She smiled. “No biggie.”
Yet another r
eason to like the girl so damn much. He kissed her and crept into the hallway, glancing down the end of the hall where Carol’s bedroom door was. It was closed, the light underneath it out. Thank God his dream hadn’t woken her—
WHOSE FUCKING HANDS??!!
These words from his dream, hitting him in the dark hallway like a sucker punch.
Ryan closed his eyes tight, shook his head in a bid to regain his wits as though he had been punched.
He opened his eyes and looked at Carol’s door at the end of the hall again.
(She’s one of the original four…)
And?
(The dream felt different this time, didn’t it? Stronger. Could it be because you’re sleeping in the very house of those hands?)
Ryan crept towards Carol’s bedroom door. He could hear light snores from within.
It was her idea I sleep here. If I was some kind of threat to her, then why would she invite me to stay the night?
(…keep your enemies closer?)
Ryan shoved away the thought. He’d had enough trauma for one night, thank you. He went into the bathroom for that much needed splash of cold water on the face, and rejoined Rebecca in bed. Much as he thought it would never come, he was pleased to find sleep soon after.
But still no damn condom.
35
When Ryan and Rebecca woke the next morning the first thing Ryan did was look on the floor for the condom. He found it almost instantly.
“Here it is,” he said. “How the hell did I miss it last night?”
Rebecca shrugged. “It was the middle of the night. We’d been drinking.”
“Yeah, but it’s right here,” he said, pointing down at it.
“Who cares? Pick it up and flush it.”
He bent and picked it up, shielding Rebecca from the act with a slight turn of his body. Strange thing, condoms, he thought. Their ability to go from yeah to yuck in seconds.
Dark Halls - A Horror Novel Page 12