Afterlife

by Douglas Clegg

  “I don’t find this funny at all. This kind of talk.”

  “Sensitive pretty little Wife Number Two. All right, fair enough. You want to know what Hut was like? I knew him before he was adopted out. I knew him when he was a bad bad little boy. Worse than Matt, and you think Matt’s bad.”

  “Matt is an angel,” Julie said, feeling defensive.

  “You’re good. You’re really good, Wife Number Two. You can lie with the same look in your eyes as when you tell the truth. My foster mother used to call it the clear blue eyes of a born liar. They say it takes a criminal mind to do that well.”

  They both were quiet after this for several minutes. Amanda Hutchinson glanced around the room as if she were taking mental photographs of the moment.

  Then Amanda broke the silence. “Did he ever tell you about when we were children?”

  “Only a little,” Julie said. Then she added, “You were in a school together?”

  Amanda kept a Cheshire cat grin on her face. “The drugs I get here stunt me a little. In the brain. They turn off things that hurt, and they seem to turn on the warm fuzzies. But I can’t get used to it. Not being able to figure things out, the way I used to. Like why you’re really here. It’s not about my son, it’s not about Hut. It’s about something else, only the warm fuzzies have taken over my brain and I can’t quite pinpoint it. You’re pretending it’s about remembering Hut in all his glory, the doctor to the poor, the wonderful man who gave you a daughter and me a son. But you want something from me. What is it? Let’s just get this over with. Fish or cut bait, as they say.”

  “I’m not really sure why I’m here.”

  Amanda gave a low growl of a chuckle. “It’s because your poor pathetic little life is a big fat lie, Number Two Wife. It’s because he never let you in on his secret. His deep dark wound of a secret that would destroy you if you knew it. And I can’t even tell you about it. Even if I wanted to. Even if I dreamed of doing it. The warm fuzzies have me. You found out about Rosetta Street, didn’t you? That’s why you’re here. You found out about 66S. You are so warm, Wife Number Two. Warm and getting warmer. But you get too warm, you burst into flames. I did. I got too warm. I got too hot. I burned up there, in 66S. I dream about it now, it’s a nightmare from hell, but I dream about it, and what happened, and you want to know why a mother hates her own son, Wife Number Two? Why my little baby Matthew is dead to me? Just go ask them. Ask 66S. You can get burned, too. Or if you’re smart, if you’re a genius, you will walk out of this room, and go home and pick your daughter up and get as far away from 66S as you can, before it happens to you, too. Because eventually, we all burn, Julie. All of us. We burn eternally.”

  “I’m sorry,” Julie said.

  “Do you believe in heaven? Do you? Or hell? Or anything?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You should. There’s something else out there. Something beyond this life. Something that’s worse than dying. Worse than suffering. Worse than the worst torture of being alive.” Her voice grew into an undertow of a growling sensuality, and Julie felt as if she were being hypnotized by it. “It’s not beautiful heaven. It’s not even beautiful hell. It’s a thousand times more terrifying than anything you can dream up in your feeble nightmares. The apartment on Rosetta Street is a burning place, Julie Hutchinson, Wife Number Two, it is a torture chamber, and you will find yourself on fire if you ever go there.”

  “I’ve been there,” Julie said.

  Amanda looked at her, as if just seeing her for the first time. Her eyes widened, and the smile crept up wider than before. She had a full toothy grin, and her face seemed to gleam as if it excited her to hear this.

  “It’s a place of impossibilities. And burning. If you’d really been there—really been in 66S…we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

  “There was nothing there.”

  “Oh. There was something. You just didn’t look hard enough.”

  Julie briefly closed her eyes. Remembering the blurred gray face of the man in the bedroom doorway.

  “Open your eyes,” Amanda said. “You were there. You saw something. Only you left. Fast. Fast as your pretty legs could carry you.”

  Amanda Hutchinson went silent, and looked down at her hands, wiping them against each other as if washing them clean.

  When Amanda Hutchinson spoke again, it was in a whisper.

  “I’m sorry,” Julie said. “What?”

  Amanda whispered again. Something playful in the curve of her lips, in the way her eyes flashed.

  Julie smiled back, almost involuntarily.

  Something about the way Amanda leaned forward made Julie get up and lean closer in to her.

  Julie tried to make out the words forming silently on Amanda’s lips. Something in her went cold—something about being so close to Hut’s first wife—and yet she felt nothing but heat emanating from her.

  “He’s trying to contact you. They do that, you know. After they’re gone. They try to. That’s why you’re here. You want to know. But I can’t tell you. The warm fuzzies have me, they have me, have me, have me,” Amanda said, softly, so softly that Julie could barely hear her. “You want to know who lives in Apartment 66S?” Amanda reached over to touch a strand of Julie’s hair—Julie gasped for a second, her nerves tingling— Amanda then gently placed the strand of hair back behind Julie’s ear like it was a flower. Her touch, almost sexual. Almost threatening.

  Julie felt something at the center of her being, no, lower, something that was like a gentle tickling, from the inside. Her breathing slowed.

  She smelled a musky scent from Amanda. Musk and something sweet.

  Amanda’s breath—warm and sweet.

  “Pretty Number Two Wife. So beautiful. So sad. So wanting.”

  Julie looked into her eyes. Amanda’s eyes seemed endless to her—deep pools of darkness.

  “66S,” Amanda whispered, letting it become a hiss.

  Then, Amanda leapt toward her, and for just a second, Julie felt as if she were watching some wild animal, sprung loose from its cage.

  4

  Julie’s chair went backward, and her legs went in the air. Amanda Hutchinson was on top of her, swinging her fist down for the side of her head.

  Once hit, Julie felt as if she were losing consciousness, and wasn’t sure, but felt a strange warmth—as if Amanda’s hand were now going down between her legs, down to touch her, beneath her skirt, the edge of her panties.

  Amanda’s urgent whisper in her ear, “Does he come to you at night and touch you, only it’s better than he ever did before? Does he make you moan, Wife Numbah Two? Does he try to get inside you?”

  Julie took a deep breath, and brought her knee up, knocking her attacker in the arm, pushing her hand away.

  The fingers had just grazed the skin beneath her panties.

  Then, an orderly was running in the room shouting, “Mandy! Get off her right now! Holy shit, Jimmy, get down here!”

  5

  “Ms. Kaufmann? Gigi?” Julie asked, nearly out of breath, tapping at the door of the social worker’s office.

  The social worker came to the door, opening it a crack. “Yes?” Large steel blue eyes behind thick glasses. “Mrs. Hutchinson? My God!”

  “I think…I think she’s upset. Something’s wrong.”

  The social worker looked at her. “My God. Are you all right?”

  The screeching could be heard down the corridor.

  “I’m fine.” Julie wasn’t sure if this was true.

  “Your face.”

  “It’s all right. Please. She needs help now.”

  6

  After Amanda had been subdued, Julie stood just outside the doorway to her room. She briefly glanced inside. The orderlies had not yet righted the overturned chairs. They had just finished tying her in restraints to the edges of the mattress. Although she’d been given a shot of some kind of sedative, Amanda continued to struggle in the restraints. One of the staff nurses bandaged her fingers where the nai
ls had torn.

  The social worker touched Julie’s arm. “She’ll sleep now. It’s all right. Sometimes there are flare-ups. Let’s get you down to the nursing wing to look at those cuts.”

  7

  “She jumped me,” Julie said, as a young male nurse daubed a Q-tip soaked in hydrogen peroxide on the slight cuts on her arm.

  The nurse grinned. “You’re lucky. She took someone’s eye out last winter.”

  “My God.”

  “It happens now and then. Mandy is docile as a lamb for eleven months of the year, and then one day— or night—snaps. Sorry for the gallows humor. I know it can be pretty scary. She went Lizzie Borden on me once, too. Right after I started.”

  “I just didn’t expect it,” Julie said. “We were…well, I hope I didn’t do something to provoke her.”

  “Probably not,” the nurse said. Then, noticing the cuts on her knee, “She didn’t…do anything else, did she?”

  He means “did she touch me down there?”

  “No, well, I mean, she sort of scratched me up…all over.”

  The nurse nodded, as if considering all of it. “Sometimes, she does some inappropriate touching.”

  “I’m sure that’s not what it was.”

  He shrugged. “Business as usual,” he said. “You probably just upset her a little, and that’s enough for her to go full throttle. Ever since her son’s death.”

  “Her husband,” Julie corrected. “Her ex. My husband.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “I’m sorry to hear that. I can’t believe I got it wrong. Well, it really gets her going, sometimes. Probably you just reminded her of some bad stuff. And she never really sleeps much. She wanders sometimes, at night. Just wanders, and thinks someone’s following her. She thinks someone is trying to kill her.”

  When Julie looked up at the doorway, the social worker stood there with a slight frown to her face.

  “I’m afraid I have to ask that you not make these kinds of visits,” Gigi Kaufman said. “Whatever you said in there upset her tremendously.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  1

  That night, Amanda Hutchinson awoke from a deep sleep that had been completely dreamless. She found that the restraints on her wrists had been loosened, and she easily slipped out of first one, and then another. Then, she sat up, working on the restraints on her ankles.

  Her room, dark except for the patch of light from the hall, her door just half-shut, had been cleaned up, and overturned chairs had been righted. She listened for orderlies or nurses in the hall, but there were none.

  She got out of bed and went to the window, looking out on the moon glow across the lawn and trees.

  And then, she heard the voice in her head. A voice she had managed to block—that the warm fuzzies had blocked—and that she had thought would leave her alone.

  But it was that woman. Julie. Coming to her. Pushing at her. Making her remember things that were best forgotten.

  2

  After she’d written the note, she went into the small bathroom and took off her clothes. She turned on the shower, making sure it was as hot as she could get it. She got under the water, and let it burst against her scalp, trying to wash memory from her, clean the past out.

  Instead, his face came back to her, inside her mind, opening her up for other memories, breaking down doors she had let the warm fuzzies seal up.

  She slammed her head against the tile of the shower stall.

  Again.

  And again.

  Until she felt the blood dripping down along her face, down her shoulders and breasts, into the drain at her feet.

  She kept it up as long as she could, bashing her head into the tile, trying to lock every door she had before someone tried to pry her open.

  When she heard one of the night nurses calling out, trying to open the bathroom door, but she had jammed it so it couldn’t open, Amanda Hutchinson drew her bloodied head back and slammed it as hard as she could against the tile.

  The last things she heard were a sharp crack, and the cry of the nurse as the bathroom door flew open.

  Amanda sank down in the shower stall, resting her head on the cool floor by the drain. Her vision weakened, and the throbbing in her head went from burning pain to a frozen numbness.

  She felt her consciousness fading. She tried as hard as she could to open one last hidden door within her mind, and let go of the flesh.

  Chapter Fourteen

  1

  “You went to see who?” Mel nearly shrieked. “Take off the sister hat and put on the friend hat,”

  Julie said.

  “I’m wearing the smart hat. What in God’s name were you doing there?”

  They were driving around looking at real estate listings in Forest Lake, because Mel was still thinking of buying a place nearer Julie—“but not so close that I see you every day,” Mel had said.

  “Look at that one.” Julie pointed to a small house at the edge of a hillside. “Look, it must have a view of the lake in back. Write down the realtor’s number.”

  “Why the hell did you go down there? What good would it do?”

  “Quit yelling at me.”

  “I am not yelling.”

  “I didn’t think it would turn out like it did. I thought maybe…I don’t know. I thought maybe she’d know something I didn’t.”

  “She’s insane, Julie. He divorced her because she tried to kill her own son. Isn’t that enough for you?”

  2

  She dreamed that night of Amanda Hutchinson, stunningly beautiful, dressed in one of Hut’s business suits. Julie lay on a bare mattress on the floor of some auditorium. She had the sense that people were watching her. She struggled, but her hands—though not tied down—wouldn’t move. Nor would her legs.

  Julie became aware of her nakedness only when Amanda bent down and touched her foot. Amanda licked the edge of her foot and took a toe in her mouth.

  Then, on all fours, Amanda climbed on top of her, bringing her face within an inch of Julie’s.

  “Does he touch you like this?” she asked, her tongue flicking out and lapping at Julie’s lips. “Like he’s more alive than he’s ever been?”

  In the dream, Amanda Hutchinson’s hair was no longer black, but bright red. Julie noticed that there was a chair, above her, hanging suspended from the sky as if by a wire that went all the way up to heaven.

  Julie felt a hand on her belly, fingers moving down toward the thatch of pubic hair.

  Amanda Hutchinson’s face became Matt’s face, but with the same long red hair.

  He had carvings all over his skin.

  But it wasn’t Matt. It was Hut. Hut with tattoos all over his body. Holding her arms down at her side while his enormous penis pounded her. And she felt herself opening in that space, between her legs, opening herself to his sex, to his forced entry, unlocking the doors for him, letting him through.

  In her dream, she whispered, I want you inside me, Hut. I want you inside me.

  3

  She awoke, thinking she’d heard Livy cry out. It took her a minute to adjust to the darkness. She was used to this by now—the routine of Livy’s nightmares. She rolled out of bed, putting the terry bathrobe on, and padded down the hallway through the veiled darkness, punctuated by the numerous nightlights she’d scattered in the various outlets so that Livy could see her way to the bathroom without getting scared.

  Right on schedule, Livy was standing in the hallway, her back against the wall. Julie flicked up the hall light. “Honey,” she said.

  Livy looked up at her, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Mommy. It just scared me. I know it’s just dreams. But it seemed real.”

  “Well, but doesn’t Dr. Fishbain talk to you about this?”

  Livy nodded.

  “Does it help?”

  Livy nodded again. “But Dr. Fishbain doesn’t have

  to sleep here.”

  Then, Julie had an idea. “What if I could prove to you that there’s no ghost
?”

  “How?”

  4

  Julie enlisted Matt to help set up the old NannyCams that they’d used when Livy had been younger and before they’d discovered Laura Reynen as a sitter. Julie had loved the NannyCam—Mel had convinced her that all babysitters were potential child-abusers after Livy had been born (“it’s always on the news. Nannies can be bad.”) So Hut had, one day, brought home their first NannyCam, and Julie had discovered that, in fact, none of their sitters slapped the baby. It was the NannyCam that had given Julie the idea for getting the camcorder for Matt so that he’d have a way of expressing himself and having a fun hobby, as well.

  They set up one of the NannyCams along the stairs, and then the other one at the entrance to Livy’s bedroom. Matt brought up the VCR from downstairs, and then she got the old one that was in the storage closet next to the linen closet. They tested them, since none of them ever watched VHS anymore, having gone to DVDs. Both machines worked fine. He set up the wires and cables, and put some tapes in each machine. “See, Livy? This one,” he pointed to the NannyCam in the hall, “goes to this VCR. And that one, in your room, goes to the other one. If anyone comes in, we’ll catch it on the cam.”