“Freak.”
The word rang out very clear. After she said it, she sat down on the curb and picked at a fingernail. Alex’s head whipped around, but he looked past his sister. His eyes met Jason’s. Even from across the street, he had a palpable sense of strangeness. A defiant smirk flashed on his face, then he looked away and walked toward the back of the house.
Mitch shook her head when he disappeared out of sight. “Is that normal?”
“I have no idea. I think that’s the first time I’ve seen them all together.”
“Well, if that’s normal, no wonder the kid is messed up.”
No wonder.
10
The narrow stairs held barely enough room for one person. Jason ascended, and although he knew Mitch climbed behind him, she remained silent. The wallpaper twisted and screamed in silent symphony on either side. They went up and up and up, and still there were more steps. Shadows and smoke obscured the top—thick, roiling smoke that smelled of dead flesh and utter hopelessness. He didn’t want to climb the stairs, but they couldn’t stop now. With each step they took, the stair below dropped away into a chasm of hot air and muffled cries for help. The place was desolation.
Mitch’s breath was warm on his neck. Excitement, not fear, rose from her pores. She didn’t understand this wasn’t a safe place. She would, though, and soon.
The hallway narrowed even more, and the walls skimmed his shoulders. Tiny hands, wallpaper hands, grabbed at his shirt and his hair. And still, they went up. A distant, inhuman roar rose from the chaos below. Something angry. Something hungry.
He wanted to run, yet his feet would not cooperate. They didn’t want to reach the top. There were worse things waiting ahead, hidden in the gray swirls. The roar again, louder. And the furious flapping of wings.
Closer.
Left foot, right foot, each step slow and careful. The walls pressed in even more. Jason turned his shoulders sideways, and the wallpaper hands ran their nails down his back. If he wouldn’t help them get free
yes, because they're as trapped as I am
then they wanted blood. His blood. With the sting of a needle, they dug through his shirt. The roar turned to a shriek, and he and Mitch tried to run, but the walls closed in, tighter and tighter. The floorboards groaned and wind whipped around them, carrying the stench of ash and a heat so intense it ripped the breath from his lungs.
Jason stumbled and banged his leg against the wood. He opened his mouth to scream, but the taste of death erased the sound. The walls pressed against his chest, and he couldn’t move any more. They were
trapped, we’re trapped
stuck, and the creature rose into the space behind them. The wings rushed like an angry wind. It shrieked, its breath hot and reeking. Mitch screamed; he reached for her, but the wallpaper hands reached out and held him captive. Laughter behind the paper. Yes, they were happy. They wanted this. They’d gone mad in their glue and paper prison, and they wanted to see pain and bloodshed. Wanted to taste the bitter spice of fear.
He looked into the creature’s eyes. Venomous green hatred looked back. It didn’t want pain and bloodshed. It wanted to destroy him.
Mitch screamed again, and the creature answered with an ear-splitting roar. Its wings pushed hot air into their faces. It opened its mouth, revealing a gaping pit blacker than the darkest night. It sunk its talons into her flesh and pulled her away. He reached out his hand, and for a brief moment, their fingertips touched, then it carried her away, down into the waiting fires.
Nononononononono!
Her cries drifted and spiraled, the walls pressed in tighter, and as the hands dug in, tears poured from his eyes.
Not Mitch, not her.
Jason woke up and reached out. His chest throbbed with a steady ache, and his skin burned, as if a million fire ants had feasted upon his flesh. His hand touched first empty air, then cool sheet; she wasn’t beside him.
No, because it took her away. It carried her down, and I couldn’t save her.
And on the pillowcase, three perfect drops of blood gleamed scarlet in the waking light of almost sunrise.
11
And in his room of trickery and screams, John S. Iblis laughed and laughed and laughed.
Chapter Seven
Shiver Me Timbers
1
Jason stared at the blood on the pillow for a long time. The pillow itself still held the indentation of Mitch’s head, and with a lump in his throat, he sat up and touched the spots. His fingertips came away wet.
The toilet flushed in the bathroom, and Jason’s heart jumped. A few minutes later, Mitch walked into the bedroom, her hair sleep tousled, with a long scratch, speckled with dots of fresh blood, running from the top of her collarbone across her shoulder.
She jumped; he drew in a sharp breath.
“Good morning,” she said with a small smile.
Jason examined his hands and nails as she dropped down on the bed next to him, half her face veiled in shadow, half in pale, almost-morning light, then touched the end of the scratch. “I'm—”
“Hush. You didn’t do it.” She took his hand away and linked her fingers with his. “I scratched myself.”
The talons. In my dream, Frank grabbed you with his talons.
He forced his voice calm. “I saw blood on the pillow and got worried.”
She laughed. “I was dreaming about a giant bird. It was kind of silly, honestly. It flew by my face, so I tried to smack it away, and it scratched me. It’s long and ugly, but it’s not deep.”
The sound of flapping wings pushed its way into his mind; he shoved them away.
But it was my nightmare. How could she have been in my nightmare?
“It just feels like a cat scratch, it’s not really a big deal. It must be a silly couple thing, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“You scratched yourself in your sleep, and now I’ve done it. Pretty soon we’ll be finishing each other’s sentences and answering each other’s questions before we ask them.” She smiled, slid off the bed and pulled the pillowcase off the pillow. “Come on, you might as well get out of bed. I’ll rinse this out if you make coffee.”
She wasn’t in my nightmare. That’s crazy. She just had a dream, a stupid dream about a bird, and dreams are powerful sometimes.
Jason groaned. “Look outside. The sun isn’t even up yet. It’s way too early, and it’s a Sunday. Let’s go back to bed.” He reached for her, and she slid past his hand with a laugh.
“Aren’t you taking your mom out for lunch?”
He groaned and threw his head back on the pillow, covering his eyes with one hand. “Yes, but not until one. It’s too early for coffee.”
“If I don’t rinse this out, it will stain.”
“I don’t care. I’ll buy a new one.” He rolled over and reached out again; this time, she moved into his embrace, and he kissed the skin between her breasts. “I’ll buy a new bed, too. You can help me pick one out.”
A new bed, free from the ghosts of a bad marriage and bad memories. New pillows, new sheets. A fresh start. And then he could sleep at night.
Preferably without nightmares.
2
“Mom, are you sure you’re eating enough?”
Her cheekbones belonged to an anorexic Hollywood starlet, not a mother of three, and her voice held a whispery, thin edge, as if she didn’t have enough breath in her lungs to give the words strength.
She reached across the table and patted his hand. “Yes, I’m eating. I just don’t have much of an appetite, and I’m still learning how to cook for one. Most of the time, it’s just easier to heat up a can of soup.”
“I’m worried about you. Are you getting out of the house? You know, seeing your friends?”
His mother waved her hand. “Yes, I am. And Ellen next door comes over and we play cards. I’m not very good, but it’s helping. I’m taking each day as it comes.” She traced her fingers on the edge of the table, then brought both han
ds up underneath her chin and pursed her lips together. “But I am worried about you. You look terrible.”
“Yeah, I’m not sleeping all that well, and I have a big project at work. It’s been a little tough.”
Oh, and Dad keeps visiting me. He’s not looking so good these days, and he rambles on and on.
“Your father wouldn’t want that, you know.”
Jason pushed his water glass in circles. “I know.”
And the fine print. He wouldn’t want that, either.
“I forgot to tell you. Shelley called me.”
His fingers clenched around the glass. “What did she say?”
“Oh, I didn’t get to the phone in time. She left a message, but I didn’t call her back.” She pressed her lips together in a small smile.
“You can call her if you want. It doesn’t matter to me.”
“I don’t want to. I’ve nothing to say to her. She made the decision to not be a part of our family anymore. It would be different if the two of you had children, I think, or if you had left her, but as it stands now, there’s no reason at all for she and I to stay in contact with each other. I think it’s better that way, don’t you agree?”
He nodded.
“Speaking of kids, Chris brought the girls over yesterday, and Ryan and Eve are coming over tonight for dinner.” She picked up her glass, took a quick swallow, and set it down. “I should’ve stayed in the room with you, with your father. I shouldn't have left. I’m sorry.”
Jason shoved the memory of his father’s eyes and his grasping hand down hard.
It felt like he was trying to tell me something, but what?
“Mom, don’t apologize.”
“If I’d known—”
“How could you have known?”
She waved her hand in front of her face again. “The house is so quiet now. Sometimes I turn on the television just for the noise and every time, I put on one of his favorite shows.” Her mouth quirked up into a half smile. “It’s silly, but it helps. And I’ve been thinking of donating his clothes. It seems a shame to leave it sitting there unused. Maybe you can come over one day and help me box it up?”
“Okay, just tell me when, and I’ll be there.”
She gave a quick, sharp laugh. “Maybe I should get a dog.”
“A dog?”
“Yes, you know your father had allergies, but it might be nice to have some company in the house.”
Good thing she didn’t live in his neighborhood.
“I really don’t like those dark circles under your eyes.”
It was his turn to wave his hand. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll be fine once the project is done. Really I will.”
His mother’s lips pressed into a thin line and she shook her head. “If you say so. Oh, at church this morning the minister asked how you were doing.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Well, I know you don’t share the same beliefs, but the minister is a good man. He’s just concerned for all of us.”
Jason shuddered at the memory of the strange heat in his arm at the minister’s touch.
“Are you okay?” his mom asked, her eyes narrowed.
“I’m fine. I caught a chill, that’s all.”
“If you wanted to talk to him, I can give you his number.”
The waitress set their plates down, and when she walked away, Jason said, “No thanks, Mom, but I appreciate the offer.” He didn’t want the minister anywhere near him.
“It might help to talk to someone,” she said.
“I’m okay, really, and I don’t want to talk to the minister. You need to eat before it gets cold. Please.”
She picked up her fork. “See, I’m eating. Now, tell me about your new girlfriend. You are still seeing her, right? When are you going to introduce me?”
Jason dropped his fork.
“Your father is dead, but we’re not. We have to keep living our lives. Your father would want that. Just like he always says, I mean said, it is what it is, right?”
She smiled, but her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
3
When Jason arrived home late on Monday night, he tossed his mail on the kitchen table, and ten seconds later, a week’s worth of unopened bills and junk advertisements cascaded in a rain of paper down onto the floor. “Shit,” he said, bending down. Envelopes and flyers slipped and slid in his hands as he gathered them up into a pile. He dropped it back on the table and picked up the envelope on top, his latest electric bill. Underneath that, a credit card offer, then a flyer for a new pizza place, and next a white card—smooth, shiny, and blank on one side.
He flipped it over. Neither postage mark nor return address appeared on the other side, only two words written in inch-high letters: I Know.
The refrigerator clicked on with a soft hum as he stared down at the card, frowning at the slashes of black against the white. He lifted the card and breathed in the faint chemical bite still imbedded in the paper, then wet his thumb and traced it across the letters; his thumb came away clean.
Mitch knocked on the kitchen door with three quick raps of her knuckles, and he shoved the card back under the pile of mail before answering. It didn’t take a stretch of the imagination to figure out who’d put it in his mailbox, but the meaning behind the words?
He could wager a few guesses, none of them pleasant.
4
Jason worked from home on Thursday, while waiting for the new bed to arrive. Not long after he sat on the sofa with the laptop balanced on his knees, pins and needles filled his arm. A half hour later, he pulled up a browser and typed in tattoo ink allergy symptoms. He didn’t think he’d discover anything new, but what the hell. He’d already visited every link shown on the first page of search results, so he flipped to the second page, clicked on a link, and stretched out his arm, flexing his fist.
The pins and needles ran down to his fingertips, then scrambled back to his upper arm, under the tattoo. When all the photos on the page loaded, he gave them a quick scan, but the swollen, blistered flesh pictured bore no resemblance to his arm.
Flex.
His fingers twitched.
The hair stood up on his forearm. Maybe Sailor had jammed the needle in too far, striking a nerve. Except if he had, Jason would’ve known right away.
Flex.
A twinge flared in his upper arm.
He clicked on an ad that said Search for Licensed Tattoo Artists in your Area in bright yellow letters. The new site gave the option to search via shop name or artist name. He started to type Sailor and stopped. His real name wasn’t Sailor. It was…
Shit. What was it?
He grabbed for his wallet, then stopped. He’d lost the card. “Shit.” What was his name? John something.
Flex.
Heat spread out under the tattoo.
Jason shook out his fingers; the heat dissipated. The name lingered on the tip of his tongue. It had been short and easy to spell, but not common. Ives? Maybe. He typed it in and found several links for that name, none in Baltimore.
No, that’s not it. It’s not Ives. It’s close, but—
Voices rose outside, then a series of heavy knocks. Jason showed the deliverymen the bedroom, then stood out of the way while they hauled the old bed away and brought in the new. After they left, Jason opened the new set of sheets and frowned.
An hour later, he had sweat running down his forehead into his eyes and a smile on his face. Although it had taken three tries to find the perfect spot, the new bed, dark wood instead of cold wrought iron, sat at an angle against one corner of the room, diagonal to the door, with one of the dressers at an angle against another corner. Shelley always insisted everything had to be flush against the walls or otherwise lined up in a straight fashion to be ”aesthetically pleasing”.
The pins and needles in his arm vanished underneath an ache from the exertion. He ran his hands along the edge of the footboard, imagining Mitch’s pale hair spread across the dark blue of the sheets
.
Iblis.
He raced downstairs and typed John Iblis into the search bar. The site returned one result—Iblis Designs in Maine, not Baltimore, but he clicked on the result anyway. A graphics-heavy page opened up with the name Iblis Designs in ornate script the color of Pinot noir. The menu bar on the left side gave him the option he wanted—Tattoo Artists. The new page had six photographs—five men and one woman, all young and heavily inked.
“Damn.”
He went back to the main page and found the phone number and shop hours at the bottom. Although they closed at 6:00 p.m. and his watch read 6:04, he dialed the number anyway. It rang four times before a machine picked up, but he hung up without leaving a message.
5
Jason waited until lunchtime on Friday to call Iblis Designs again; after six rings, a male voice, too young to belong to Sailor, answered. Loud music thumped in the background, something angry and filled with the squeal of guitars.
“Hi, I’m looking for a tattoo artist named John Iblis.”
“Sorry, dude, no one works here with that name.”
He tapped his fingers on his desk. “I met this guy a few nights ago, and he said he owned the shop.”
“He may have said so, but he lied. I own the shop and my name is Carl, not John.”
“This is the shop on Merritt Avenue, right?”
“Yeah, but I promise you, there’s nobody named Iblis here. It’s just the name of the shop. Sort of my idea of a joke.”
“A joke?”
“Yeah, my father’s a preacher. Different religion and all, but whatever. It’s still funny. Do you want to make an appointment with one of the other artists?”
“Let me think about it, and I’ll call you back.”
The phone disconnected with a soft click. The name was a religious joke? He opened up a search window, typed in the word Iblis, and clicked the first link. He frowned.
Iblis was the name for the devil in the Quran. He closed the window and rubbed his upper arm, still frowning.
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