by Hunter Shea
No chemo. No chemo. No chemo.
With every heavy footfall, he repeated the mantra.
Envision it and make it your reality. Wasn’t that the stuff Ryker babbled on about all the time? A lot of people paid for that babble.
He’d been envisioning Kate’s health finally taking a turn for the better for ten years now.
No chemo. No chemo. No chemo.
No better, either.
The incident at the Chinese restaurant had been like popping the cork from a shaken champagne bottle. All of Andrew’s fear and sadness and hate for a Creator who could do this to his wife had finally found an outlet – rage.
For the next year, he’d flown into a rage at the drop of a hat, always with strangers, and always in public places. The demon within him craved public spectacle but cowered from unleashing itself on those closest to him. The why of it all never came out, even during his years of therapy. Truth be told, he didn’t care. He was just glad he never hurt his family or friends. He could live with breaking a strange man’s nose. At least he’d never have to see him sitting across the Christmas dinner table.
He’d scrapped with people for little to no reason in bars, a bowling alley, parked at a stop sign, and even a supermarket one morning. The arrest didn’t come until his fourth outburst, when no one was around to explain his situation and hope the other person would let it slide.
Luckily for him, the charges on his first and only arrest were dropped, but not until he agreed to anger management and counseling. The man whom he’d doubled over with a jab to the solar plexus – all for having the misfortune to have given a short tap on his horn when Andrew spaced out at a stop sign – had lost his wife to cancer several years earlier. He understood Andrew’s fury and wished him and Kate the best. At the time, Andrew wanted to wipe that condescending look right off his face. Hell, he wanted to wipe every look off everyone’s face.
A dog barked in the dark. Andrew listened out for running paws. He’d been chased more than once by a shepherd mix on Bentley Road. Tonight, he was looking forward to beating it in a footrace again.
The dog in the dark was all bark, no chase.
No chemo. No chemo. No chemo.
Therapy was a waste. The damn shrink kept asking about his relationship with his father, as if that had anything to do with what was going on with Kate. Andrew knew damn well what his issues were. The medication he was prescribed made him too drowsy to function, so there went that.
Anger management seemed an equal waste of time, until he met up with one of his fellow hotheads (that’s what they liked to call themselves) at a diner after their weekly meeting. Her name was Sharon, and this was her third round of anger management. She was in it this time for throwing a chair into an aquarium at a pet store because one of the workers had called her ma’am. She had been only thirty-five at the time, and in her opinion, the furthest fucking thing from a ma’am. She hadn’t intended to hit the bewildered pet store worker in his blue smock. She just wanted to see him struggle to save all the fish, knees crunching the pebbled glass.
“I think I’m finally done with all this craziness this time,” she said over a coffee and BLT.
“You counting backwards from a hundred, or using affirmations?” he said with a roll of his eyes.
She smirked. “I’m running. I run like my ass is on fire. I don’t wait until someone’s pissed me off. I just do it, every day. I do it until that broken part of my brain is too tired to wind me up.”
“And it works?”
“Ask the fish.”
So he took her advice and he ran. Sprinting around the block after work, and before heading to the hospital to see Kate, took the edge off. He ran like his ass was on fire, and in doing so, he quelled the flames that had been simmering just under the surface twenty-four hours a day.
Turning down Texas Drive, he spotted his house in the distance. His chest burned; his knees protested.
No chemo.
Andrew collapsed onto his back on his front lawn. Ambient light obliterated most of the stars. He lay with his hands on his chest, steadying his breath. The muscles in his legs quivered and clicked like a hot car engine after a long run on a dark highway.
Letting the endorphins rush through him, Andrew’s mind went blank and silent. Once his breathing and heartbeat settled down, he shakily got to his feet and went inside.
Kate was still asleep. Buttons looked up for a moment before settling again onto his front paws, ears splayed out at his sides.
Andrew wanted to touch her, to feel his skin on her skin, but he worried about waking her up. Wherever she was right now, she wasn’t in pain. Best to leave her there.
He stripped off his clothes and tossed them in the washer. Then he headed for the shower.
Time, he felt, was closing in, gaining weight, incorporating into something that would take up more and more space. Like a child throwing a temper tantrum, it refused to be ignored. Time was both coming for them and running out. It had become a living, breathing entity, daring Andrew to look in its depthless eyes.
It crowded the shower, so close he could feel its cold, indifferent breath on his bare back. Drying quickly, he grabbed a pillow and sat in the easy chair next to Kate.
Sleep came suddenly and mercifully, time no longer mattering, at least for one more night.
Chapter Four
Dr. K had been right. The pain from the treatment was beyond excruciating. It was like being injected with time-released acid, the poison sizzling away at her spine, turning her organs to balls of flame. With pain came rage.
She was already maxed out on pain meds, so there was nothing to do but take it. For three weeks, she couldn’t concentrate on anything longer than a minute. Food tasted worse than ever. Movies gave her no comfort. Sleep was hard to come by. Even Buttons was irritating with his constant, sad-eyed presence. Andrew absorbed her complaints, her irrational screaming to be left alone, or her demands for him to be with her seconds later. She knew she sounded crazy, but there was nothing she could do about it. She was, in fact, crazy, and she refused to be apologetic about it. Only once did Andrew raise his voice, telling her to calm the hell down after she had blabbered incoherently in a river of tears until she could barely catch her breath. It was either that or an old-fashioned smack to the face.
Every day had become a bad feels day.
And the shadow watched her.
As irrational as it seemed, Kate knew it was feeding on her agony – not just taking delight, but becoming more powerful.
Criiiiiccccckkkk.
She startled on the daybed. The tension in her shoulders sent ripples of misery down her back, shooting out to her limbs like balls of light from a Roman candle.
Buttons perked up his ears.
“You heard that too, didn’t you?”
She hooked her finger under his collar, keeping him close.
For the past two weeks, she’d been hearing odd sounds when Andrew was at work. Doors inching open, objects shifting inside closed cabinets, things falling on the floor. Except whenever she went to investigate, she could find nothing.
This time, it sounded as if someone had closed the bathroom door down the hall.
“I’m losing my fucking mind.”
She cried out in both pain and fear. Not fear of the shadow closing the door. It was fear that the pain and sleep deprivation were making her unhinged.
Unless the shadow was real.
And if it was real…
“Come here,” she said to the dog. She wiped the tears on her cheeks into his fur. Buttons made for a world-class hankie.
She stared down the hallway, knowing she’d see nothing. At least directly. The shadow only lived in her periphery. If she concentrated on something, in this case the corner of hers and Andrew’s bed beyond the open bedroom door, consciously aware to be mindful of the edges of her
vision, it might reveal itself.
And then what?
Lie here cowering like a child until Andrew came home?
Kate was well aware that if she let herself get worked up, she wouldn’t even be able to sleep it away. There were times over the past few weeks when she was sure that the moment she closed her eyes, the strange, dark shape would steal her breath and drag her to whatever black pit had birthed the expectant specter. She didn’t dare tell Andrew, because doing so would let it know she was aware of it. Maybe, just maybe, if she pretended she never saw it, the wraith would move on.
She reached out to the coffee table, grabbed the cold mason jar of pills, and rested it against her forehead.
“This is all your fault,” she said to the pills. The sound of the refrigerator clicking on almost made her drop the mason jar. “At least I hope it is.”
* * *
Andrew left work an hour early to get Kate to her appointment with Dr. K. It might have been his imagination, but he thought his boss flashed a disapproving look his way as he passed by his office.
He had to wrestle the urge to go back and tell him to go screw himself. Or maybe he could invite him to go outside and tell him to his face what that look really meant.
Calm the hell down. He’s probably just looking over some report that’s not promising to pad his pockets come bonus time.
He stuffed his fists in his pocket and went straight to his car.
The state Kate was in had put him in a dour mood. Kate’s anger had only inflated his own. Except he had to stow that shit real deep. There was no letting that pissed-off genie out of the bottle. Kicking the shit out of his boss would not make things better for them, even though he would feel a blessed release for a short time.
All the way home, he fantasized about being let go and signing his release papers. The first thing he’d do, after celebrating with some champagne – okay, a lot of champagne – was sleep in. He and Kate would sleep whole days away, getting up only for the bare essentials. She loved having him in bed with her, especially when she was feeling sicker than usual. It gave her comfort. Andrew had been bouncing around so much the past few years, making sure every plate was still spinning on its pole, that it would be nice to just let them crash. Even if Kate slept twenty hours a day, he’d lie next to her, stroking her hair or resting his hand on her belly, feeling the soft, warm comfort of her body. She always felt better, slept better, when he was beside her. Maybe his getting fired could be the key to her finally leaving all this misery behind them.
Could it be that his struggle to maintain the status quo was what was holding her back? If that was the case, he’d have to do something pretty damn quick to rectify that.
* * *
“Did you get a raise or something?” Kate said when he walked in the front door. She was dressed and waiting for him. The abysmal aftereffects of the treatment had finally run their course a couple of days ago. And now here she was, dressed and ready for more.
“Why do you say that?”
“You’ve got a smile on your face like someone just gave you the winning lottery numbers.”
“I, my dear crip, have put myself in a positive frame of mind for your doctor visit today.”
He extended his hand to help her off the daybed. “That makes one of us,” she said.
“Hence the big ol’ smile. I have to be positive for two.”
As he helped her into the car, she said, “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”
He blew into her face. “What does that smell like to you?”
She waved at her nose. “Like you’ve been to that deli that makes those meatball parm sandwiches that give you indigestion.”
“I can’t help it. They’re addictive.”
“Even Buttons can’t stand to be around you when you eat those things. I mean, it’s like something dies in your stomach.”
Andrew laughed, keying the ignition. “Buttons licks his own butthole. I wouldn’t use him as an arbiter of what smells bad or not.”
Kate chuckled. She was pale today – paler than usual – but there was a tiny spark in her eyes. He knew she was terrified, so he did his best to keep her mind off things, blabbing the whole ride about dumb things he overheard people say at work. Because Kate hadn’t been well enough to work for so long, she yearned to hear about office life. What he found to be mundane, she couldn’t get enough of. It should have made him appreciate what he had when it came to his career, but it didn’t. It only made him sad for her.
The doctor saw Kate right away.
Sitting under the television, Andrew tried reading a magazine, but his mind kept wandering to fantasies of being freed from his job. The thing he feared losing second most after Kate, it turned out, was nothing to fear at all. They would persevere. He would find another job. Medical insurance was a disaster for everyone, so it wasn’t like his current plan was irreplaceable. Their medical bills would be paid off right around when he turned nine hundred and seventy. What difference did a few years make?
“Andy?”
He hadn’t realized he’d dozed off.
Kate waited for him by the receptionist’s desk. She didn’t look to be in agony. In fact, she was smiling.
“I need the co-pay,” she said.
“Oh, yeah.”
He handed his credit card over, slipping an arm across her shoulders.
“You okay?” he said.
“Yep.”
He waited until they were in the car to press her for more.
“I take it no needles? Or maybe just a couple?”
Kate tucked her hair behind her ears. “Last month’s treatment put a dent in my lupus. He’s also worried about the overall effect another one so close to the first will have on my body. So, he’s giving me a break. I don’t get another one like it until the fall.”
He gave her a high five. “That’s great news.”
“It’s nice to know that I won’t spend the summer rolling around in agony. Just the fall.”
“Maybe by then things will be even better, so long as we take extra special care of you.”
“And how do you propose to do that?” Her smile lit up the car. She had left the house a condemned woman, and she’d just gotten a reprieve. He didn’t know who was feeling happier at the moment.
“I have my ways. First thing we’re going to do is step up your nutrition game. I’ll get you those health shakes. You know, the ones they feed old people in rest homes.”
“No way. I hate those things. They taste like chemicals.”
He shook his head. “Sorry. You’re not going to be able to fight lupus and every other germ that floats your way on leftover Milano’s. We have to make you strong, like bull.” He tapped his chest with a fist.
Kate giggled. “Fine. But I can only suffer one of those shakes a day.”
“I’ll take it.”
She cranked up the radio, filling the car with Katy Perry’s latest bombastic ballad.
This was the first good news they’d had all year. Even though darkness was on the horizon, they were being given a small break, one they needed to take advantage of. They’d have to celebrate properly.
By the time he got her changed and comfortable in the living room, Andrew knew exactly what he was going to do.
Chapter Five
Meditation wasn’t working. Nothing she did could get her to sleep. Even the new fentanyl patch, which usually got her head all soupy, limbs soft as cooked spaghetti, had failed.
The doctor had said there would be lingering effects from the treatment. Kind of like acid flashbacks. Right now, she pictured some toxic green goo running through her veins instead of blood. She felt both powerful and powerless. If someone put a gun to her head, demanding to know exactly what she was feeling and why, she’d be eating a bullet.
One moment, she was restless and breat
hless, her heart trip-hammering. The next, she was dizzy and weak, her body feeling as if she were about to spontaneously combust.
There were no lurking shadows. This hadn’t been a bad feels day.
No, this was new.
It was a feel without a name…for now.
It was like waiting for something to happen, except she didn’t know whether that something was good or bad. She was simply…expectant.
Before heading for bed tonight, she and Andrew had watched a horror double feature from back in their dating days: The Faculty and Blade. They used to devour scary movies like buttered popcorn, but somewhere along the line, real life got scary enough. Kate moved on to the old black and whites, while Andrew became a documentary junkie. It was fun going back to the days of monsters and gore, at least for a night.
Now, Andrew was all curled up and snoring, and she was ready to jump out of her skin.
Turner Classics was playing a silent film. Not her number one choice. The absence of sound was making her ears ring. She opted for an infomercial about a magic frying pan. It was dumb, but it was also loud and over the top and busy.
“Who the hell orders these things?” she said to Buttons. The beagle gave a single thump of his tail on the bed as if to show her he heard and was equally perplexed.
She was about to get up and go to the bathroom, just to burn off some of this nervous energy, when the TV turned itself off. Their bedroom was cloaked in total darkness. Andrew had forgotten to turn on the little night-light in the bathroom down the hall. The room-darkening blinds refused to let in even the tiniest sliver of moonlight.
Kate fumbled for the remote and found it wedged under her thigh. She hit buttons at random, but nothing happened. The time display on the cable box was out too.
She reached out to the light by the bed and flicked the switch.
Nothing.
They’d either blown a fuse or the whole block was out.
Before she woke Andrew to check the fuse box, she thought it would be better to go to the front of the house and look outside, see if the streetlights were on or not.