by Elena Hearty
“Oh, Paul mentioned something about that to me. That you have some weird theory about the universe.”
“It isn't my theory. It isn't like I came up with it.”
"Well, whatever. It‘s a fucking cop-out. If you could only make one decision, what would it be?"
She donned an old sweater. “The Lady. The Lady is the better choice. And not only because everyone lives. It’s better because she leaves the possibility open for the situation to correct itself. Maybe the princess’s cruel father dies later and she reunites with her lover after all. Maybe she sees him on the side, even though he marries someone else. The tiger, on the other hand, that closes off all further opportunity. It‘s giving up too easily.”
"That's a very level-headed decision. I don't think the character is supposed to be level-headed."
“She probably needs some Xanax.” And so did Lenore; she chewed four pills.
“Are you done yet? I can hear you eating something.”
“I’m done,” she replied.
The door swung ajar, and Richard motioned for Lenore to follow. A wave of fear descended when she walked toward him, and a powerful instinct had begun to take hold: the animalistic drive to flee when confronted with a natural predator. Every joint in Lenore's body was poised to Run!, and ignoring that instruction felt as unnatural as trying not to breathe. Fight or Flight, she thought, remembering an old term from high school biology.
“Where did you want to wait?” she asked, short breaths undermining the calm in her voice.
“I guess by the front door,” he said, walking. “Charles is over an hour late. He knows how long it’s been for me. I don’t know why he’s pushing it.”
“Maybe he’s doing it on purpose,” she offered, and then the impact of her words hit home. There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Lenore’s mouth ran dry.
“What? To piss me off? That doesn’t make any sense. He’s been kissing my ass lately.”
Her eyes grew wide as she realized the horror of what was taking place. “No. It makes perfect sense. He’s starving you out to get rid of me. Then he replaces me with the new girl.”
They had reached the foyer, where Lenore took a seat on the shoe bench. Richard waited at the door.
“Don’t be paranoid. He’ll show.” But there was doubt in Richard's voice. “He’d better fucking show,” he muttered. “Let’s keep talking. So let me tell you about this bitch that‘s suing me.”
An uneasy hour passed as Richard outlined the legal case against him, which Lenore found fairly interesting. A woman in the building was recently diagnosed with mesothelioma and claimed that her condition was caused by improper asbestos removal from her unit nearly twenty years ago. Making matters more interesting, the tenant had been hit with financial troubles lately and coincidentally brought suit around the same time that the rent checks stopped coming in. Richard was busy calling her every name in the book when the door opened behind him.
Paul stood contritely in the entryway, and Charles was notably absent. "Hey, guys. How's it going? I went to the club but Charles never showed. He just texted me to say that he can't make it tonight. Says he's sick with the flu."
Richard looked like a pressure cooker with the lid screwed on too tight. “BULLSHIT. That is such bullshit! The flu‘s going to be the least of his problems when I get my hands on him.”
“Shit happens, Rich. You don’t know that he’s lying,” Paul replied, locking the door behind him.
“We aren’t selling copiers, Paul. You don’t just call out sick. That little prick is manipulating me. Don‘t you see what he‘s trying to do?”
“I know what it looks like, yes.” Paul frowned at Lenore. “What’s she doing out of her room? What’s going on here?”
“Nothing so far. We’re just talking.”
Paul positioned himself between them. “Hey kiddo, what’s up? You okay?” She shot him an unenthusiastic nod, and Paul turned his attention back to his friend. “Can you make it another day? I can find someone myself if you give it another day.”
“Paul, I’m eating tonight.”
So that was it, then. Richard was going to kill her.
Time stood still.
When Lenore’s mother wrestled with terminal illness, there was a great deal of talk about preparing to die. The five stages of death were tossed around a lot in the conversation, with emphasis on the final stage: acceptance. It was vital, said that doctors (not to mention Lenore‘s therapist, boyfriend, next door neighbor, roommate, etc), that her mother reach acceptance. Well, this never made a lick of sense to Lenore, because looking at it from the outside, acceptance seemed to sound an awful lot like giving up. And in an infinite universe, one should never give up. But now, as her death loomed near, Lenore realized that she had been missing the point. Acceptance was about control. It was about replacing hope with strength.
Lenore planned to face death with unflinching stoicism. She would not scream. She would not cry. She would not grovel or beg. Death with Dignity—that was another term that was tossed around a lot when her mother was sick, but she understood that one right off the bat.
Time resumed.
“Jesus Christ, man. You can make it another day. You’re not that bad.”
“Whatever happens, you can blame it on that Kentucky fried Goth of yours.”
“Just chill out. Give this another day. You don‘t want to make this -”
“Paul, this is what she’s for,” Richard said, gesturing to Lenore. “This is why she’s here in the first place.”
“No. That’s not cool, Rich. None of this is cool. She’s sitting right there. She can hear you.” Paul looked frantically over to Lenore, who watched him quietly from where she sat.
Richard threw his hands in the air. “Well, what should I do then? I suppose you’d like me to tell her that everything’s going to be fine, and then fifteen minutes later, I’ll yell, SURPRISE, LENORE!”
Lenore jumped a little in her seat.
“I HOPE YOU LIKE SURPRISES! I WAS JUST KIDDING EARLIER. YOU’RE REALLY FUCKED AFTER ALL! I‘M COMING TO EAT YOU!”
“Now hang on, let’s all just -”
"OH, YOU'RE SO FULL OF SHIT, PAUL. Just a month ago or so you were telling me how I should put her out of her misery, then the other night you tell her that you won't bother to keep her alive unless she fucking kills someone, and now you're all pissed off that she's going to die. LOOK AT HER. She doesn't even look upset about it anymore. This is what you do to people. You play and play and play and play and it‘s NOT A GAME."
Paul grew very quiet and stared at his feet. “Okay. You’re right. You’re right. I fucked up. If I didn’t want her to die I should have gotten someone the other night. This is my fault.”
"Well, there you go. I'm not the bad guy here." Richard folded his arms conclusively.
Paul started speaking to his friend as if trying to coax him down from a ledge. “No, you’re not the bad guy here. It’s me. I’m the problem, but I’m going to fix this. I’ll go find Charles. I don‘t know where he is, but I‘ll find him. We’ll be back with someone. I’m coming back. I’ll even take her with me, that way -”
“NO. She stays here with me,” Richard hissed.
“Rich, come on, man. Don’t do this. Let her come with me. I was planning on getting her out of here anyway when your dinner arrived. What‘s the difference, really?”
“You know the difference as well as I do.”
Defeated, Paul took a deep breath and turned to Lenore, placing his hand on her head. “I’ll be back, kiddo. I promise I’m coming back.”
Lenore thought about how Paul had kissed Angela on the forehead that first evening, right before telling her goodbye.
Paul looked over at Richard. "Hey. Just please remember what we talked about. Do that for me at least?"
“You have my word. She‘s got some time.”
And Paul bolted out the door.
Lenore gazed at Richard, wondering how they would spend her last few
hours. And Richard looked back at her, possibly wondering the same thing.
"Well," he shrugged. "I think you were right. I think Charles has it out for you. I'm going to kill him if it makes you feel any better. Paul's just going to have to deal."
She nodded, knowing that she would not live to see it. “What was Paul talking about when he left? He said, ‘remember what we talked about.' What did that mean?”
“He wants me to go easy on you. I told him I would.” Richard looked at her for a long while. “Do you want a cigarette? I stole your pack of cigarettes the night you came in, but I’ll let you smoke one now if you want, to pass the time.”
"Yeah," she said. "That would be nice I think." For the time being, Lenore was wonderfully calm. This was total surrender and felt like sinking into a warm current after a long and tiring swim.
"Okay, great. Now, where did I put them is the question… aha, I think I know. Hang on one sec." Richard used his vampire superpowers for the mundane task of running down the hall and back, returning with a half-full container of Marlboro Lights. "I can't let you smoke them here, though. But I'll let you smoke them in -"
The laundry room, Lenore thought.
"- the laundry room. Otherwise, it‘s going to stick up the place."
But they both knew why they were really heading into the laundry room.
“Do you have a light?” she asked, standing up.
Richard produced a lighter. “Yeah, I think I took this from you too. Ladies first.”
And she accompanied him down the hall, still strangely at peace with the idea.
When they stopped in front of the blood-door, Lenore’s resolution wavered. “Rich, maybe we could do this out here instead. I don‘t want to see what‘s in that room.”
“Relax. You’re just going in for a cigarette while we wait. You’ve got some time.”
Lenore’s resolution took a U-turn.
“Paul’s not coming back, though. I don’t think Paul’s coming back,” she said, retreating a few steps.
Richard took a deep breath and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Lenore, I have to take you in here. Don’t make me chase you. If I start chasing you right now I will kill you. Paul has all night to come back. I promise. But you need to wait with me in here.”
With that, Richard opened the door to the laundry room, and Lenore stepped inside.
The universe kept getting smaller.
Richard shut the door behind them. The washroom was dark, and he pulled a chain to illuminate a single exposed bulb on the ceiling. Dim light bathed their surroundings, revealing a washer and dryer, a sink basin, a folding chair set against the wall, and cement floors with a drain in the center. A hose was piled in the corner, which Lenore presumed (correctly) was used to wash blood down the drain when Richard finished with a victim. No mess. A corridor wound off into the distance; the path to the furnace.
“Have a seat,” Richard said, handing her the pack of cigarettes.
Lenore sullenly obliged and sat in the chair, staring at the floor, specifically the drain; a human tooth lay unceremoniously atop the grate. She brought her hand to her mouth, stifling a gasp.
“Aren’t you going to have a smoke?”
“I don’t know, Rich. I don’t feel like doing anything right now. I’m shaking too bad to light one anyway.” Please don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Don’t you cry, Lenore. Be strong.
“You’ve got time. You need to relax.”
“How am I supposed to relax in here? There’s a tooth on the floor. There’s a f-f-fucking tooth on the floor. Oh God.” Eyeballs. Rich rips people‘s eyeballs out. Just for fun.
“I’m going to go easy on you, just relax.”
If Rich told her to relax one more time she was going to lose it. “Oh God. Why don’t you go easy on everyone? Why do you rip people’s eyeballs out?”
Richard shrugged. “Not that it's any of your business, but it's a little fetish of mine and I'm not going to apologize for it. You try killing people all the time and keeping it interesting. Would it make me a better person if I killed everyone quickly? Would it even matter at that point?”
More things were coming into focus now, such as the chunk of hair underneath her foot. What human remains were ingrained in the chair on which she sat? Which parts of her mortal coil would work their way into the upholstery? "Oh God, I'm going to throw up."
“Christ. Do it in the basin. And run the water.”
She followed his instructions.
Richard grabbed a power towel from a roll atop the washing machine and handed it to her. “Here. Clean yourself up.”
She wiped her mouth with the towel. “Where do you want me to put this when I‘m through?”
"I guess in the trash can over there. Oh no. Wait. You know, on second thought there are probably a bunch of things that you don't want to see in that can." He grinned. "Just give it to me. I'll throw it away for you." He walked over to where she sat and grabbed the vomit covered napkin from her hands, proclaiming, "Disgusting," before carrying it like a dead fish over to the bin.
“Sorry.” But she said this out of reflex.
“Oh don’t apologize,” he said, leaning against the dryer. “You know, I’d say something like eighty percent of the people that I bring in here throw up. It happens all the time. It’s not like there’s a prize at the end for not throwing up.”
Lenore lit her cigarette after several attempts with trembling hands. “So what happens now?” she asked.
"I guess now we wait…until either Paul comes back or I decide I can't wait anymore. You can relax, though. I'm not going to jump out at you or anything. It won't be a surprise." Richard looked up at the ceiling as if the right words were written behind the lighting fixture. "What I'm trying to say is: I'll tell you if I decide I can't wait anymore so that you can prepare for it. Unless that's not what you want. Do you want me to tell you or not?"
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
He smiled reassuringly at her. “I don’t know what I’d want either, to tell you the truth. I’ve never given anyone that option before. I’ve never been in this position before, with someone in a holding pattern like this.”
She took a drag on her cigarette. “How long were you planning on waiting?”
“For Paul? I few hours, I guess. This is a pretty miserable situation for both of us. I’m really hungry. And I doubt Paul’s going to bring someone back with him. I mean, he doesn’t know where Charles is, and even if he finds that lying son of a bitch I don’t know how they’d get yet another person back here in time.”
“I agree. It seems unlikely.” What was the point in waiting around?
“Thank you,” he said, vindicated. “This is probably putting both of us through a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering.”
Her eyes snapped back to the tooth on the floor. Richard had killed someone and now all that remained of that human being was an inconvenient debris lying on top of the grate, ready to be washed down the next time that the hose ran, which would most likely be that night. Someone had worked hard to grow that tooth, and brush that tooth every day. Most likely, that person was congratulated by their mother or father when the baby tooth fell out that had held its place. Running her tongue over her own teeth, Lenore hoped they would all make it with her to the furnace.
Horrible thoughts wriggled inside her head. No matter how she conducted herself in her final moments, there was no dignity in this sort of death. Richard thought of her as meat and was preparing her for slaughter. At this point, it would be a relief.
Lenore braced herself. “I …um…I want to be brave. God. I don’t know how to say this. I want some…” Her mouth distorted into a frown.
Sobbing. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She wanted to die calm.
Arms folded, Richard shot her an appraising look. “You know, you guys all act the same at the end. It’s always a lot of begging and blubbering. Doesn’t matter how strong or cool and collected someone is, you get them in here a
nd -”
“DAMMIT, RICH. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE GOOD AT THIS. Do you think you’re any better? You think you’d act any differently?”
“I don’t know. That’s a good question. I thought you would, though. You‘re the fucking Xanax queen. Plus, you were calm on the way down here. I’m just surprised is all. You‘re cracking at the last minute. I thought you‘d go all the way.”
“What? I’m supposed to act calm now to impress you? Go fuck yourself. You don’t know what this feels like.” She buried her head in her hands.
“I do, actually. I really do. I wasn’t trying to offend you. I’m just talking. I told Paul you had some time. I’m trying to give it to you.”
“I should have brought my pills with me. I don’t know why they aren’t helping.”
“So I can tell you why they aren’t helping. It’s because you’re fucking addicted to them, that’s why. I can’t imagine being so dependent on something. They run your fucking life.”
"Oh no, Rich," she said, lifting the tube in her arm. "I think you can imagine." Taking a few deep breaths, she tried to calm herself and felt the earlier outburst abating. Maybe she could give stoicism another go after all.
“Fair enough.” He frowned. “Either way, that shit couldn’t have sustained itself.”
“Did you talk to Angela like this before you killed her, or did you just do it right away?”
“Don’t ask me that. I don’t want to talk about Angela.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to talk about Charles. I fucking hate that piece of shit. How do you think I should kill him? Let‘s go through all of the gory permutations. That might keep me busy for hours.”
“I don’t know, but when you kill him, tell him it’s for me.”
“What?”
“Like, in the movies. When one guy punches the other guy, and says, ‘and this is for so-and-so.' I want you to say, ‘and this is for Lenore.' Throw a punch for me.”
“Love it. I’ll do that. Swear to God.”
Richard spent the next half hour or so itemizing his plans for Charles, and the list of options read like a Grand Guignol. All matter of organs and appendages were to be removed in painstaking detail before Charles would finally be allowed to expire. And then there were the sadistic choices that Richard would offer him, such as selecting a limb to be torn off first. Lenore found herself nearly smiling at a few of Richard’s more outlandish proposals; there was something so unapologetically dark about the man that it was almost impossible to not to be entertained.