by Wilson, Jay
"Wha' you wah'?" His voice trembled and the gun kept him from making hard consonants.
She pulled the hammer back, and the hard click caused the small of his back to tighten. He felt the vibration against his tongue, and the taste of oil and metal made his stomach turn sour.
"I just thought you should know," she said, looking deeper into his irises than any woman had ever done, "that I think you have the most gorgeous eyes."
His heart slammed in his chest, beating hard against its cage of bone. Black tentacles pulsed at the sides of his vision. He knew those words. He’d said them before, and he knew what happened the night he spoke them.
"So, you're familiar with that pick-up line, aren't you?" She said, and pushed the gun further into his mouth. The tip of the iron sight scraped the skin of his roof, and the taste of blood complemented the other terrifying flavors.
The woman ground her crotch into his as she repositioned herself, and because he was wearing nothing but thin boxer shorts, her jeans rubbed his cock raw. He winced and accidentally bit down on the metal. He felt the muscles of his jaw burn, and tears laced his eyes.
"Oh." She said, and clicked her tongue. "Poor, boy. Did that hurt?"
"Woo ah’ ‘ou?"
She reached up with a finger, placed it over her lips, and shushed him. Then she moved the same hand down along his muscular body, and he felt her graze him. A short moment later, her hand returned with a bloody knife, and he felt his face turn cold.
"That's two out of three." She said. "So, you remember the pick-up line and the knife."
He shook his head, but he knew all too well the things she talked about, but he wanted to deny it. He had to deny it, because if he could do that, then he could make himself believe that it didn't happen, and he figured that if he believed his own deception, then it never actually happened.
The gun scraped against his teeth as she moved the knife to the right. He slammed his eyes shut, just waiting for her to bury the knife into the side of his skull. He waited for that moment, which seemed like forever, but it never came. Instead, his eyelids filled with a bright red glow when she turned on the bedside lamp.
When he opened his eyes, he saw her. He knew her, but he knew it couldn't be her. That blonde hair with blackened roots. The soft black and blue eye-shadow accenting those gorgeous grey irises. The deep red lipstick and the subtle lines at the edges of her mouth when she grinned. It was Beth, but it couldn't be—it just couldn't.
"How..." He said, but she choked him off by pushing the gun even deeper. The iron sight scraped more skin, and he gagged as the tip poked the soft part of his roof.
"How, indeed." She said, still able to sound sexier than ever, a curse of his overactive sex-drive. "Tell me, how does it feel to be controlled?"
He couldn't respond with more than a soft choke, and she knew it. He gagged some more as he involuntarily pressed his tongue to the underside of the barrel. Tears dripped toward his ears, and she moved her mouth close to his ear.
"Beth Barnes." She said, the soft sticky sound of her sexy voice tickled him, and his skin tightened with gooseflesh. She took a deep breath, and blew softly on his neck.
He never believed in ghosts, but he was sure Beth had died. He was positive she died because he killed her. No way was she straddling him in his apartment. So was it a ghost? Was he still dreaming?
When she moved her head away, she was no longer smiling. Malice twisted her face, turning her brows inward and encircling her eyes with rage. Her upper lip seemed to twitch as if at any moment she might unravel into pure madness.
"You killed my sister."
Instinctively, he shook his head in denial, but the truth was unavoidable. She had the knife. She had her face, but was it her face? Only she knew what he did, so it had to be her! He shook his head again, but this time with disbelief.
She let out a soft laugh, and said, "It's funny. Some people don't get it. In fact, the only people that get it are twins. There's a connection between us, but me and my sister? We had a strong one. The kind where trauma comes as nightmares. When one of us experienced something that hurt us in some way, we felt it and saw it in our dreams. I saw what you did. I felt what you did, you sick son of a bitch!"
She wasn't just becoming mad, she was mad. She was damn psychotic. She proved it a moment later when she squeezed the trigger, and blew the back of his skull into his pillow. She smiled, pulled the gun away from his broken teeth, and kissed his burnt lips.
"A kiss from Beth to you." Lacey said, and wondered if, even in death, Beth might dream about the moment that her sister killed the man that ended her life.
Just One Fix
Five years ago, I would've figured myself dead in half a decade. It was a sure thing, I once thought. Five years later, I had a fantastic job in the IT industry making thirty times more than I made while on my knees—the things you do for just one fix. I had a wife and a young boy, both of whom I adored with all my heart. I would do anything for them, and that morning, the morning my family died, I could do nothing.
The gun softly clicked, but it didn't really register. After all, I was in my two-million dollar home in a community protected by a gate. No, what woke me that morning was the soft whimper of my wife. I heard her crying, and I had to know what was wrong, so I sprang up into a room coldly lit by a sun that revealed the darkest moment of my history.
"Mornin' sunshine." Alfie said.
My heart dropped at the sight of him. I remembered those dreads with old weathered beads barely hanging onto the ends, the patchy beard, and the deep red circles under a terrifyingly blank stare. I remembered the abandoned smile revealing three missing teeth from two rows of blackened and jagged shards. Most of all, I remembered the nickel-plated gun he held to my wife's head, the tip disappearing into her frazzled red hair.
"Alfie?" I stammered, barely able to speak his name without fear tearing my voice into a million pieces.
"Hey, Cam. How's it goin'?"
I shook my head, still trying to wrap the situation into a nifty box made of razorblades. As my mental fingers bled all over my assaulted emotions, I said, "What are you doing?"
"I ain't got no money, see?" He said, hissing the last word like a snake and baring his wicked teeth. "Give me a line? Just one line... I need it."
He jabbed the gun into my wife's head and she whimpered. Her soft and cushiony pink lips quivered, and she shut her eyes tight. A few tears rolled down her pale cheeks, and fell from her chin onto the thin blue nighty she wore the night before.
"Why are you doing this?"
"Jus' told ya, foo'. I need a line, an' you gonna give it ta me."
"I don't do that anymore."
Look, man. I know ya got this pretty lil' house an' this pretty lil' wife an' ya got a son sleepin' in the other room. I know ya got a pretty lil' mouth, too, speakin' all good now an' shit, but I know who you is."
He was right. When Alma saved me from myself, from that street, and helped me come into a better life, I was a mess. I was on my way to becoming the man that stood in our room. However, I wondered if I had become the other man in our room. My life had caught up with me, because there I sat, Alfie with a gun to my wife's head, just itching to pull the trigger, and it was all my fault. Someone once said that the past had a way of haunting you, and while I had my fair share of skeletons in the closet, this was more than I expected.
"Alfie, listen to me, I don't do that shit anymore. I have no way of getting it to you and I don't even have it in my house."
"Ya really want this bitch to die, don't ya?"
"No! No, please. I don't, please, just leave her alone."
"Then give me just one line, I need it. Ya gots all this, and I got nothin'. This should've been me, after the things ya made me do. This ain't right man. It ain't right."
"Look, we can help you. It doesn't have to be this way."
"It was always goin' ta be this way!" He screamed as spit flew into the air, someone of it clung to his lip and dribbled
into Alma's hair.
She said, "Just give him what he wants."
"Yeah, ya better listen to yer bitch."
I said, "Baby, I don't have any."
He pushed the gun against her skull even harder, and forcibly cocked her head to the side. She whimpered, "Just give it to him. I know I saw it, in the drawer of your nightstand!"
Of course, I thought. I bought a gun for self-defense when Alma got pregnant. Her life meant more to me than anything did, and with a little boy on the way, I didn't want to take any chances. She was such a smart woman, she knew the gun was there and was leading me right to it.
I reached to the nightstand, and pulled the drawer open. The black pistol seemed to drink in the light around it, nothing gleaming from its surface other than hope that it might save our lives. But what if it didn’t, I began to wonder. What if pulling the weapon out of there would make him squeeze the trigger? What then? he'd kill her and possibly me, and then he might go for my boy.
As I reached in for the gun, something moved at the corner of my eye. I looked up at the door, my heart pounding because I half-expected to see my son standing there. Instead, it was a police officer. The one that arrested me and took me to the hospital to be detoxed. The man that led me to marrying the nurse who saved my life.
He shook his head, telling me not to go for the gun. I retracted my hand, and looked back at Alfie.
Alfie said, "The hell ya doin'? Give me the drugs!"
I shook my head and said boldly, "You're the one with the gun and the balls. Why don't you come get it yourself?"
He said, "And let ya try somthin'? Nuh-uh... no way, man."
I moved to the other side of the bed and said, "Go ahead, it's yours."
"Fuckin' a'!" he exclaimed and stomped across the room while keeping the gun aimed at Alma.
I looked out the window, and there were three patrol units. An officer I didn't recognize had my boy in his arms. When I looked back at Alfie, Officer Ramirez said, "Don't move!"
Alfie ducked his head, and accidentally fired a shot. Ramirez fired three rounds. Two of them struck Alfie in the chest, the other in his head. Blood painted my once clean room and spackled me with the remnants of my past.
Alfie's shot didn't register until after he was lying across my bed bleeding out. I looked at my wife, and she was on the floor.
"Alma!" I cried, and ran to her.
At her side, she looked up at me and tears still wetted her face. She was crying, and began to ask me about our son, Kurt. I checked her for wounds, but couldn't find any. Apparently, she'd dropped to the floor before the gun went off. She was lucky, because the bullet would've gone right through her.
"Baby, he's fine. He's outside with the cops." I said, and then looked up at Ramirez.
After he finished calling in the paramedics he said, "Is she okay?"
"Yeah, I think so. He missed her." I said, out of breath from the panic attack I had. "How did you know?"
"Your boy called me."
At that moment, I was glad for the things I taught him. Glad that he grew a better boy than I did, but saddened that our original lives died that day. We were no longer the family we once were, but true enough we emerged a stronger one. We'd survived a moment brought forth by my cold, dark past that could've ended the perfect lives we led. In a sense, it did, but it only served to solidify it with an impenetrable bond that I couldn’t have been more thankful for, though I wished it didn’t have to happen that way.
Bonus: Reapers Preview
Evin Kyenoweth opened the glass door to his apartment building, and as the sounds of Maroon 5 blasted into his ears, he danced across the threshold and into the lobby.
He stood six feet and maybe three inches, had broad shoulders, and tightly cut, light brown pair. His size and gaudiness might have appeared at first glance to be something that might depreciate his dancing into some kind of lumbering shift, but his moves were fluid and full of life. Much of his ability to dance resulted from his southern-boy upbringing where he kept most nights busy with line dancing and hip-hop.
He passed through the florescent-lit foyer without missing a single jig, shimmy, or clap. One of his neighbors, Devon, appeared at the mouth of the stairs, and when he turned and looked up, she startled him. He felt a cool and thin layer of sweat permeate his body, but he quickly shook it off with a wiggle and a jiggle, and he moved closer to Devon.
He took her hand and pulled her into dancing with him, and she let out a soft yelp of pleasant surprise.
She laughed and joked, “One of these days, you’re gonna hurt someone down here.”
“Maybe, but if I do it’ll be with how smooth I move.” He argued, and twirled her.
She yelped as he pushed her toward the exit. He turned back to the hallway and gunned down the mailbox with his finger as he fished a ring of keys from his pocket. The smallest key slid easily into the lock, and the others on the ring jingled as he twisted it open. While he fished the mail from the small container, his dance transitioned from hip wiggle to air hump and back again.
He danced his way toward the stairs and sifted through the mail. Everything but the envelope containing his electric bill was junk, so as he boogied up the stairs, he threw the bulk of it into a trashcan that resembled a silver bullet.
When he reached the second floor, he used his keys to open apartment 2B.
“Hi, Evin!” A woman called from behind.
He twirled around and continued to dance. “Mrs. P, how you doin’ today?”
“Not as good as you, it seems.” She smiled. “Are you always in a good mood?”
“You’ve been here a month already, shouldn’t you know by now that I’m the good-mood-giver-guy?”
“I suppose you’re right.” She laughed. “You’re something else, young man.”
“So are you, Mrs. P, so are you.” He said, then looped back around, but then twisted back toward her. “I don’t mean that you’re a young man, too, Mrs. P. I meant something else.”
“What else did you mean?” She said, clearly teasing him.
Evin hip bumped her, smiled, shrugged his shoulders, and pushed the door open. He danced through it, silently singing. He slammed his hips against the door, and it, in turn, slammed shut. He jutted and jived all the way to the kitchen. He pulled the bud from his ear. The music was blaring through the tiny speaker until he grabbed his phone and turned the music off.
He lived in a small apartment, but given the mediocre pay he received during his tour, it was a rather nice place to call home for something so affordable.
The community had recently renovated their units just before he moved in with his girlfriend, Kasey, which made it even nicer. He had a big kitchen with dark marble counters, and since he loved to cook, it was a huge plus. The living room was just the right size for his T.V., game system, and a plush microfiber couch for two. The bedroom was small, but since he spent so much time sleeping in small quarters in the desert, it didn’t much bother him. Kasey had her gripes, but she felt at home as well.
Though the music was no longer playing, he still on his way to the danced to the fridge. He opened it, pulled the last cold golden beer from the second shelf, and popped the top. After a long day of work and the two hours he usually had to wait for Kasey to get home, he would often unwind with a nice crisp beer.
Evin moved to the living room and set the brew on the table. He pulled off his shirt, which was difficult because of the sweat he acquired dancing all the way home from work. He dropped it on the floor, picked up the remote, turned the TV on, and fell onto the couch.
As he slowly sank into that lavishly comfortable cushion, he snatched up the controller to his game system and turned it on. The screen brightened with a logo, and he started the game. Call of Duty was one of his favorite games, one he played with most of his Marine brothers when they visited him. It wasn’t a terribly accurate representation of life as a military man, but that was all right. Entertainment was just that and it didn’t need to be an exa
ct replica of reality. In fact, he often argued that the point of games, as well as movies and books, was to escape reality, so he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to deal with all that crap as a form of entertainment.
As he played against others on an online match, his cell phone rang. He glanced down at the screen, and it was one of his friend’s Camdon. He had planned on ignoring any calls that night, which wasn’t a habit of his, but since his friend had moved back to Wisconsin, he decided to pick it up.
After exiting the game, he picked up the phone and tapped the screen to answer it.
“Camdon, what up?”
“Hey, brother, how ya doin’?”
“Good, good. Just playin’ some xbox.”
“Nice. Hey, what are you ‘n Kas doing this weekend?”
“Nothing that I’m aware of. I know she’s got something to do for work Sunday afternoon. Some kind of Bunko-party-team-building-thing. Otherwise, nothing. What’s up?”
“Well, me ‘n Gess just flew in this morning.”
“That’s awesome. Been too long.” He said, and got off the couch. “Well, shit. What’re you up to tonight?”
“We might be going to hit up a Karaoke bar, tonight. Is she workin’ late tonight?”
“Might be. Not sure. I’ll text her and find out.”
“Cool, brother. Let me know what’s up.”
“Will do.”
“Alright, man. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Yeah, you too. Hey, it was good hearing from you.”
“You, too.” Camdon said, and Evin could hear the smile. “Tell Gess that me and Kas say hi.”
“You can say hi when you see her.”
“Oh, right.” Evin said, and they laughed. “All right, man. See you later.”
“Okay, brother.”
Evin tapped the screen to end the call, and set his back on the table. He hadn’t been this excited in a long time, at least not since Kasey had agreed to marry him.