by David Wood
She wanted so badly to help but was afraid to approach him. The knife was on the bloody carpet but still within his reach.
He continued screaming. “Fuck, shit, fuck. That hurt like a bitch.”
Finally she moved toward him, careful to kick the handle of the knife away with her foot.
“Let me see,” she said, taking hold of his injured hand.
He looked up at her, tears filling his bloodshot eyes. He looked like Craig again. The way she imagined him when she’d decided to leave him behind.
Carefully she unwrapped the pillowcase and exposed his hand. She tried to stifle her reaction but she couldn’t hold back the gasp.
His right ring finger was completely severed, hanging backward, barely clinging to his hand by a thin strip of skin. Blood continued to gush from the open stump.
“It’s going to be all right,” she assured him. “You’re going to be just fine.”
But as soon as she finished the sentence, Craig swayed on his feet, then fainted dead away.
Chapter 33
She continued digging as he rested on the mattress nearby.
She had to get them out. She had to tear down the rest of this stucco and then break through the laths. It all fell on her now. If they were going to get to safety, she had to keep going. She had to set aside her exhaustion, forget about her headache and nausea, her hunger, her thirst, and keep clawing at the wall. She had to prevail.
Once she broke through she would help Craig get up, help him through the wall and into the flat next door. Then they’d leave that apartment through the front door, flee down the hall and down the stairs and out the downstairs door, into the street. They would find a cab or get to a pay phone and call the police. They’d escape the Alfama and head straight for the hospital. Craig would get stitched up. They would eat a meal, drink some water, then they’d book their flight. They’d leave for Lisbon Airport, take a plane back to Newark. They would stay in a hotel for a few days. They’d order room service and make love day and night. She’d stop taking the pill.
Then she would ask him—no, beg him—to marry her. However and wherever in the world he wanted to tie the knot. A quickie wedding in Vegas, an island wedding for two in the Caribbean. Any way he wanted was fine with her. And no one had to be there except for the two of them.
Then they would move. Back to Hawaii if he wanted. Back to Oahu, to the same Waikiki condo if it became available. Craig could finish his book on the beach. She could go back to work at Wahiawa General Hospital. They could start a family and someday they would buy a house. Maybe a cozy cottage in Kailua, or a townhome in Ko Olina, where Craig loved it so much. Or maybe they would move to Maui as he always talked about. Wherever he decided would be fine.
She wanted to grow old with him. Nothing else mattered anymore. Only that they would be together, that they’d support and love each other forever more.
Her mother would understand. And if she didn’t, then to hell with her.
Once they were well clear of the flat, she would tell Craig he was right. She would apologize for all she’d put him through, and this time she’d really mean it. She’d tell him how sorry she was for stranding him in Hawaii, how wrong she was to abandon him not once but twice. And for considering doing it again in Lisbon. For making him think she would leave him alone in the flat.
The flat. What kind of hell had they stepped into when they signed that goddamn lease? When they got on the plane? When they exited the taxi and walked up the broken stone steps? What kind of hell had they stepped into when they stepped into the flat?
They weren’t dead. She was all but sure of it now. She could see, she could taste, she could smell, and she could sure as hell feel. And the blood Craig bled when he accidentally cut off his finger was real as it gets. Even now it was still coagulating on the carpet.
So they weren’t dead. But they were well on the way to dying. She was equally sure of that. Whatever evil was in possession of this flat, it was winning. They could only last another day or two without water. Maybe not even that. Craig had lost a lot of blood. She was weak in the knees and could barely stand. Their bodies were breaking down and already may never fully recover.
But this flat wasn’t where she wanted their story to end.
She wanted children she and Craig could spoil. She wanted a home. She wanted to laugh and cry and live and only die from old age. For the first time she could remember, she wanted a life. Not the life her mother had envisioned for her, not the life her mother couldn’t lead herself. She had her own unique vision with puppies and kittens and Craig and cocktails on the beach. Of rainbows and mountains. Of being surrounded on all sides by the beautiful blue Pacific, as clear and as warm as a bath. She wanted what for one year they had actually had. She wanted it all back.
And if she could break through this goddamn wall she could get it. So she tore through the stucco with her bare hands, tossed it to the floor. She ripped at the plaster and pounded with her fists on the boards.
There was now enough of a hole for her to get through. All she needed to do was break down the laths. She lifted the bedpost that Craig had been using. It was far too heavy for her to swing. So she knelt back down and lifted the oven rack.
She glanced at Craig on the mattress, then turned and swung the rack at the laths as hard as she could. It vibrated in her fingers and stung her palms. But she struck at the boards again and again, each time applying more force.
For a half hour she worked through the silence. Occasionally, she looked over at Craig, who was still asleep or unconscious on the mattress.
Then she struck at the laths again. Many were damaged and some had started to crack.
She thought, Not long now; a few more minutes and we’ll be out of this fucking flat.
With that thought the heat seemed to increase. She suddenly felt a flash. She paused for a moment, then struck at the wood again. Drove the metal in between the laths.
The support started to crumble.
She felt a rush of excitement, her eyes darting from the laths to the plaster to the exposed wires. A small bit of light filtered through the cracks.
She lifted the rack again, this time above her head. She closed her eyes in case some wood or plaster flew up in her face.
On her face now was a smile, a look of contentment and relief.
Then she brought the oven rack down and immediately the power shorted out. She heard the sizzle. The current traveled through her body like a subway train. Through her fingers, up her arms, across her shoulders, into her neck, down her chest and up into her head. She smelled the burning flesh but couldn’t let go.
She released a desperate, chilling scream.
Chapter 34
He came to and heard her screaming. His eyelids seemed glued shut but he peeled them open. The scene was fuzzy and refused to come into focus. He tried to lift his head but couldn’t. His neck felt as though It were tied down by ten-pound weights. He squeezed his eyes shut again then forced them open. Saw Amy with the oven rack, the metal implement lodged in the wall, her hair standing on end like a cartoon cat that stuck its paw into a light socket.
He pushed away the fog and jumped from the bed. He felt faint but steadied himself on his feet, as though he were trying to act sober in front of a cop. He swallowed; the lining of his throat felt as though it were lined with glass but he knocked away the pain and tried to focus. If he grabbed hold of her he’d only share the current. He would be electrocuted, too. He couldn’t pull her off, no, but he could push her away, sure as he pushed away the pain and the fog.
He ran at her, tucking his shoulder as though he were back on the field at Bailey Ellard, playing strong safety for the Bishops, bearing down on a running back who had managed to break into the secondary. He had only played in one junior varsity exhibition game before his mother had forced him to quit. Had demanded he return to work at their fucking sports memorabilia store. But that one game was enough.
He led with his shoulder and ran
into her, hitting her in the ribs. The current bore into him for only a moment but it was enough to give him a taste. Together he and Amy went down to the floor.
He smelled the seared flesh, felt a sudden emptiness in the room. He got to his knees and crawled toward her. Her chest lay as still as a flag on a windless night. She wasn’t breathing.
He began to panic.
But this had happened to him before. Three years ago, thousands of miles away in New York, in Craig’s Battery Park apartment. In his living room, he had dragged Danny’s body off the couch. Set it on the floor. And he’d begun to panic.
He’d opened Danny’s mouth, the November rain rapping at his windows nearly as hard as it had the night before. Danny’s mouth was lined with silver fillings, drilled into yellowed teeth, lodged into bright red gums. A smell overflowed from deep in Danny’s mouth, but it wasn’t his breath, because there was no breath. Just that putrid smell. The breath of the dead.
Pinching Danny’s nose, Craig lowered his mouth, creating a tight seal over Danny’s lips. Just like smoking out of a bong, he thought. Craig breathed into his best friend, glanced at Danny’s chest, watching it rise and fall.
Craig then moved to Danny’s chest and started the compressions. Counted one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. He looked at Danny’s face. A reddish brown ooze flowed like syrup from Danny’s nostrils, down his cheeks and onto the rug.
“Fuck!” Craig shouted.
Then the same ooze began sluicing out of Danny’s mouth. Over his lips, down his chin, covering his neck all the way down to his shirt.
That was when Craig lifted his head toward the ceiling and screamed. Now, he opened Amy’s mouth. It looked nothing like Danny’s. No silver fillings, no yellowed teeth, no bright red gums. Only the same putrid breath, but no breath, because there was none. The breath of the dead.
He pinched her nose.
He sealed her mouth with his, creating a vacuum. He breathed in as forcefully as he could. He watched her chest rise, and he breathed in again.
He started to cry, tiny salty beads forming in the corners of his eyes, dropping down his cheeks and making homes on his lips. He licked them away and breathed into her again.
Then he placed his hands on her chest, the way he’d done with Danny. Only he used less force this time, so as not to break her ribs. He pressed down and counted.
One two three four five six
He watched her face, frightened that he might find the same ooze that escaped Danny’s nose and mouth right about this time in the procedure.
He went back to her mouth and sealed it again with his. He breathed into her.
He performed CPR for three more minutes, moving from mouth to chest, chest to mouth, panicking every moment along the way, before finally she began to breathe on her own. Just barely, but at least she was breathing.
Her eyelids fluttered and finally her pupils peeped out and focused on him. She coughed, hacked like a lifetime smoker. Her voice was little more than a crackle when she finally spoke.
“Whahapp?”
“Shh,” he whispered. “You’re going to be all right. You just got shocked a bit. You hit a live wire, but you’re going to be fine.”
She closed her eyes. Her breathing was slow and weary. Craig thought she might leave him again, might fall unconscious and die right here in his arms. Leave him for good.
Then her lips parted. “Still wanna marry me?” she rasped.
He smiled and smoothed back her hair. Kissed her gently on those dry, cracked lips.
“I wanna marry the hell out of you,” he whispered in her ear.
Chapter 35
Break on through...
The sweat poured off him as he swung with the bedpost at the laths, each contact causing a painful reverberation that started at the fingers, traveled up the wrists into the forearms and biceps, and finally exploded as it reached his shoulders and neck. Saliva hung from his lips, and he tried with his tongue to suck it back in, to swallow, each success causing a raw burn that caused him to choke, the ache sliding down his throat and flooding his lungs, each cough like a punch to the chest.
Break on through...
Amy lay on the bed a few feet away, her lips as blue as the ocean, her eyes fixed on a stain on the ceiling. When he said her name she didn’t turn. When he told her he loved her she mumbled something about a recipe she’d lost at their apartment back in Battery Park. A few times Craig stopped what he was doing, set down the bedpost and went to her side. Her skin was cold and clammy, her pulse rapid but weak. Her breathing was shallow. When she started murmuring something about cereal and seashells, Craig knew she had gone into shock.
So he stood and went back to work on the laths.
Break on through to the other side, yeah...
We’re not going to die here, he thought. Wasn’t that what they all said aloud in the movies? He reached into the wall and snatched out some filthy old woven cotton insulation. He hesitated before yanking out some exposed copper wires. No shock, just the thin metal slicing open the fingers he had left on his right hand. He barely felt the pain.
The laths on the other side of the opening proved easier. He took the bedpost to them, swinging it like a baseball bat. The laths instantly splintered into pieces, falling like pins at his feet. Craig felt a strange raw excitement, as though he had just taken a long thick line of cocaine up each nostril. It burned like mad but felt good. Exhilarating.
We’re not going to die here, he thought again.
The plaster on the adjoining flat’s wall was the final obstacle. Had he wanted to, he could have taken ten steps back and run right through it like a freight train. But no, he wouldn’t do that. He would break it apart piece by piece with his hands instead, tear into it like a lion into a zebra. He’d eat the fucking wall if it came to that, rip it apart with his incisors.
He was so hungry.
(“It’s a tapeworm!”)
“It’s not a tapeworm,” he said.
(“It’s a tapeworm!”)
“It’s not a tapeworm!”
(“It’s a tapeworm! Dr. Post will have to go into your stomach and cut it out.”)
“It’s not a fucking tapeworm, you stupid cunt!”
Craig suddenly lunged forward and started clawing at the plaster, ripping into it with his fingernails, blood dripping down his forearms and onto his feet. It wasn’t a fucking tapeworm, not then and not now. He was hungry because he hadn’t had anything to eat. He was a kid, just a damn kid, and he was hungry and needed nourishment; some crackers or a cupcake or some shit. Anything. He didn’t have a tapeworm. Dr. Post didn’t have to cut his gut open and dig it out. He was fucking normal, just a normal little boy who wanted some food and a goddamn puppy or a kitten and some time away from that fucking store.
He shot his head into the plaster and it cracked, blood now dripping from his forehead into his eyes, stinging them, making him blind. But he kept tearing at that wall, because this was now his fucking cage, just like that goddamn sports memorabilia store had been, and everything he ever wanted was right on the other side. Friends and food and fun, good times, and Dr. Post with his motherfucking knife. And he would take the knife from him and slit Post’s throat and then plunge it into his mother’s stomach, searching for a tapeworm. He would dig and dig and dig and slice and slice and slice. He would tell her he found it, but then, no, sorry Ma, my bad, that’s just part of your intestine or something. I wouldn’t know, I’m not a doctor and I never will be, I just work in a sports store. Why don’t you wear this Mets hat I stole while I try again…
Break on through... Break on through...
Break on through to the other side, yeah...
Xavier is getting thinner; his pants no longer stay around his waist. He holds his pants up with his hands as he paces around the flat, light- headed. The fires are getting closer, surrounding him. He chokes from the smoke even with the window closed.
Xavier has gotten to talking to himself, light conversation
s at first, then about the future he wanted, about the past he should have escaped. Here in the flat, there is only the present. And the present, Xavier thinks, is the worst of all.
Xavier believes his mother must be dead, crushed in the rubble, burned in the fires, or swallowed by the waves that washed ashore. Serves her right for abandoning her boy. He wonders now how he could have ever thought he loved her.
He finds candles in the closet and matches to light them, so that the night will not be so damn dark. But the candles give off an eerie glow, form more shadows, and remind him that the fires are close by, that soon the flames will be coming to get him.
How could his mother be so cruel?
How could she have left Xavier alone all those nights?
How could his father have left his son behind with this bitch of a woman?
To Xavier, none of it makes any sense. Why couldn’t men and women get along with one another, even after they married and decided to spend their lives together, even after they created offspring?
If only Xavier’s mother and father remained together; yes, then Xavier’s mother would have never started drinking, she would not have gone down to the pier to be with rough men, she would not have spent nights with these men, leaving Xavier all alone, and most importantly she would have been home the night before the tremors, would have been home that very morning with Xavier and Xavier’s father, and the three of them could have escaped together. Then Xavier would not be here alone, trapped, starving, dying of thirst, waiting for the fires to reach him.
Xavier rests on his knees near the candles and prays, prays that his father never left, that his mother never drank, that all three of them lived in this flat together forever and ever.
“Vivimos aqui,” he cries out again and again, his small voice echoing off the walls of the tiny flat.
But Xavier had always been surrounded by a hatred he could not comprehend. His mother hated his father. His father must have hated his mother. Xavier’s mother hated her own mother and hated Xavier’s father’s mother, too.