by David Wood
They were family, they were all supposed to love each other, care for one another, weren’t they? None of this made any sense to him. Husbands and wives were meant to adore each other. Parents were meant to cherish their children. Then why all this hate?
Xavier is dying. His skin hangs loosely from his bones. He is angry. So angry. So angry and so helpless. There is no one, of course, to take this anger out on, so he takes it out on himself. Punishes himself. Holds his hand over the flame of the candle until his flesh is seared. At times he bangs his head against the bedroom wall until he feels dizzy and loses consciousness.
He draws pictures of all this, writes his story on the back of his pages, his words now barely legible. He thinks of all the horrible things he would do to his mother if she were here. Thinks of all the magnificent, terrible things he would do to his father.
They were incapable of love? Didn’t want to get along? Well, then Xavier would lock them together in this flat and let them fight it out. Let them tear each other limb from limb. He’d let them starve, waste away from thirst just like him.
Given the chance, Xavier would just sit back in the flat and let them both go mad.
Chapter 36
At dusk on the sixth day, Craig stood by the window and watched the dog, lying on its side, breathing shallowly, the skin and fur atop its ribs barely rising and falling at all. Craig tapped the glass and the dog’s eyes fluttered briefly toward the window before dropping back lifelessly onto the cobblestone. It was only a matter of time before the dog wouldn’t move its eyes at all.
In the flat the electricity was out entirely. Once night smothered dusk there would be no light in the flat at all, save for the glow of Craig’s laptop computer. The laptop’s battery had about three hours of juice left in it; not nearly enough time for Craig to complete his novel.
In a few hours all would be lost.
Craig left the window and walked toward the couch, where Amy lay, eyes closed, her pulse weak and growing weaker by the hour. He had dragged her body out of the bedroom that morning, then closed the bedroom door once and for all, never again to step inside and be left within the grasp of the flat next door. He hadn’t told Amy what he saw once he finally broke on through.
And he now vowed that he never would.
Craig knelt at Amy’s side, ran his hand up her long cold arm and felt only bone. For a moment his mind flashed on Tabasco sauce, on dripping a few ounces along her forearm… This meat’s not that fresh, baby, it might need a little help, just some Tabasco ought to do it…and taking a bite. Imagined what her cool flesh would taste like. A sudden hope rose in him and remained for a few thrilling moments, then passed. Alas, there was no Tabasco sauce in the flat. No doubt if there had been any they would have long consumed it by now, anyway, greedily guzzling the bottle down for the sustenance it provided even as it burned and burned and burned….
“You’d want me to eat you if it came to that, wouldn’t you, baby?” he whispered in Amy’s ear. “You’d want me to devour your body so that I could live.”
She didn’t hear him, or if she did, she made no response.
If he were going to do it, now would be the time, before she died, before she wore the ghastly pallor of a corpse. She looked bad enough now as it was. But at least it was still Amy. At least he knew the meat was fresh.
“Would you scream if I just took a small taste?” he asked her. “Would you even feel it? Would you miss the flesh when you woke up?” Again, no reply. Only the slow, ugly breathing, in and out, in and out,
mocking Craig’s own inability to escape consciousness.
Maybe just a bite.
Craig had recently read about a criminal case in Canada, in which a pig farmer slaughtered dozens of women and hung their bodies on the meat hooks where the pig carcasses usually hung. During the trial it was revealed that many of the women were fed to the farmer’s regular customers, none of whom noticed the difference between human and pig. Maybe he seasoned the meat a little, Craig, thought, but the difference between pig flesh and human flesh was negligible.
Of course it is, Craig thought. Meat is meat.
He pinched the flesh just above Amy’s elbow between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Her arm jerked, although just barely, but it meant she continued to have at least some sensation in her arm.
He ground his teeth. “I could sit here and play with you all evening, baby,” he whispered to her. “But it’s a busy, busy day, and I’m a busy, busy bee. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Craig turned back to the window, took one last look downstairs at the dog. From what he could see, the canine had ceased breathing. It lay motionless on the cobblestone like roadkill in the street, like a certain little black and white kitten all those years ago in Elmwood Park. Dead as dead could be.
Craig placed his hand on the pane of the window. Choking back a flood of unwelcomed emotion, he called, “Adeus, Duke.” Then he turned and sat in front of his laptop at the table.
“Welcome!”
“Thank you.”
“You’ve got a tumor!”
“Or an aneurism.” Craig chuckled and snapped the thumb and forefinger on his left hand. “With an aneurism you go like that!”
Craig minimized his email and pulled up his manuscript. He scrolled down from the title page and watched the Greek letters roll like the credits of a made-for-TV movie. He flashed briefly on a memory of he and Amy on the couch in their condo in Waikiki, his arm around her, her head snuggling against his shoulder as they watched the flat panel TV, as they scanned the credits of one of Craig’s favorite movies.
“Someday your name is going to be rolling across the screen,” she’d said to him. “‘Based on the novel by Craig Devlin.’”
“Based on the novel by Craig Devlin,” he now said to himself. It still sounded so sweet.
A few feet away the ancient television popped on. Craig glanced over to see that the set was still plugged in. Not that it really mattered to him anymore.
On the screen was a snowy local television station, the female anchor a dark-skinned Latin dream with black hair and even blacker eyes. She spoke in Portuguese as she completed a story about the war in Afghanistan, then she moved onto local news and suddenly began speaking in perfect English.
“The two American tourists who perished last week in a taxi here in Lisbon have finally been identified as Amy Berdan and Craig Devlin, of New York City. Devlin was the author of a memoir slated to be released...” Craig watched a still photo of the alley where Amy had nearly broken her nose. There in the dead center of the alley were two autos that had hit each other head on. One of them was their taxi. Only now it looked more like an accordion, the hood crumpled, the windows smashed out. An arm hung loosely from the back seat of the cab. The cobblestones below it were an abstract painting of blood and gore.
Craig shook his head, tuned it out, and started pecking away at the keyboard. He had less than three hours to complete his manuscript. There was no time to lose.
A couple of thousand words later, the dusk had diminished and the flat was completely dark. Craig had turned down the power on his laptop to conserve the battery. He was stalled, uncertain where to take the manuscript from here. Two-thirds of the way done, but he didn’t quite have an ending in mind.
Writers always screw up the ending, he thought.
A scratching noise disrupted the perfect silence, a sound like the clawing of a cat, like the sound Duke made when he ran his tiny kitten nails along the arm of the couch. Duke? Craig swallowed hard and thought, No. It sounds like something much larger than a cat.
On the couch, Amy remained unconscious. He stepped toward her, gave her a kiss on the mouth, his teeth maybe lingering a little too long around her lower lip. Maybe pulling a bit too hard at her flesh.
She tasted like salt water taffy flavored with sweat. The kind he bought on the Seaside Heights boardwalk all those years ago.
He let go.
In the darkness, he stepped
past the small television, giving it a quick gentle kick with his bare foot. Then he stood by the closed bedroom door and listened to the scratching.
Something was inside, trying to get out.
Craig lowered himself on his haunches and pressed his right ear against the door. The clawing blended with the thump thump thump in his ear, forming something that sounded almost like music.
(“It’s a tumor.)
Craig scratched at the door with his own fingernails but made a much different sound.
(“Or an aneurism.)
Craig tapped toward the bottom of the door.
(“With an aneurism you go like that!”) If only, Craig thought.
He pressed his right ear against the door again and thought he heard a low hiss, like steam seeping through a pipe. Then click.
Craig’s heart skipped a beat, and he grabbed with his right hand at his chest, the severed finger still stinging like a bitch.
Click click.
“Danny?” Craig whispered.
Craig sat and pushed his back up against the door. “Is that you on the other side of this door, Danny-boy?”
Scratching. Click click.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Craig said, grinning in the darkness.
There was an awful smell wafting under the bedroom door. The shit and vomit from the bathroom, sure, but something worse now on top of it all. Craig gagged. Held a forearm over his nose and mouth.
Craig chuckled, nearly dry-heaved. “No showers in Hell, eh, buddy?”
Click clickclickclickclick.
Danny was moving around on the other side of the door, his bones grinding with his joints to make that hideous noise.
“Is this about our night in November?” Craig said, irritated now. “Is that what all this shit is about?”
There was no reply and Craig hadn’t expected any. Danny was never one to talk things out.
“Because if it is,” Craig said, “I’m the one who should be scaring the shit out of you. I should have dug up your fucking bones and tossed your skull to the bottom of the nearest Port-a-Potty, you cocksucker.”
Scraping at the door. Craig startled but stayed put.
“It was your fucking H,” Craig suddenly shouted. “It could’ve killed me, too. Could’ve taken me down right alongside you, you selfish shit. And you knew it. You knew how fucking pure it was. You lied to me and said you got it from someone you knew down in Philly. But you didn’t, did you, you fuck? You got it from Suede’s boy, after Suede warned us both to stay away from the shit!”
Craig twisted his torso and punched the door with his left fist. “How could you, you son of bitch? Do you know how I felt when I woke up next to you on the fucking couch and you didn’t? You know the kind of blame and guilt that rained down on me, even though you were the one who did it? Bastard. I took down just as much powder as you did. It was a flip of the coin that I’m still alive! And now you’re pulling this shit?”
Craig’s heart raced not from fear now, but out of anger. Danny had brought the heroin to his Battery Park apartment. He’d brought the crack. The Jack. Danny owned that night. It was Danny’s idea not to spike the vein, to sniff the H as though it were cocaine when they never before had. When they had no idea how much they were taking in after all that whiskey and crack. It was Danny’s fucking fault he was dead. And Craig had mourned the sick fuck long enough. He and Amy didn’t deserve this. They deserved to fucking live.
“The cops came, ya know?” Craig said quietly. “A half dozen of them, standing in my kitchen, asking me questions. Me having to run to the toilet to puke every ten minutes. My pupils the size of saucers. You fucking killed yourself, and I could’ve gone down for it.”
Craig laid his head back against the door and flashed back to that rainy November day. He’d missed a court appearance and two client meetings back at his office on Broadway. It was after that day that his practice started to collapse and he decided he couldn’t deal with the stress of being a lawyer in Manhattan any longer.
“It took years for me to get back on my feet,” he told Danny through the door. “Things were just starting to come together. That’s why Amy and I came here to Portugal, to put all that shit behind us.”
Craig tried to imagine the cover art for his memoir. Something he’d now never see.
Scratching, scraping at the foot of the door. The clicks louder, more persistent, as though Danny were trying to break free.
Craig sobbed and rested his head back against the door. Thought of Amy and the world they had intended to create together once they returned to the States. How could one night destroy three fucking lives? he thought.
As he drifted off, his head on the door, Craig thought he could hear Danny’s voice. It was a hissing, gargling sound that Danny’s body might have made that wet November morning on the throw rug that covered Craig’s hardwood floor. It seemed to repeat over and over and over and over again—three clipped syllables in the melodic rhythm of a heartbeat.
“Itsnotme itsnotme itsnotme itsnotme itsnotme itsnotme itsnotme itsnotme its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me its not me
“Its notme. “Its not me. “Its not me. “It’s not me.”
Craig pressed his palms tight against his ears.
If it’s not you, he thought, then who or what in the fuck is it?
Chapter 37
Amy awoke in a darkness so complete she was sure she had gone blind. She called Craig’s name but her voice was so weak the sound barely traveled past her lips. She felt so old—ancient, as though she had aged decades in just the past few days. She knew it wasn’t long till the end.
With all the energy she could muster, she lifted her torso from the couch and slowly swung her legs over the side. Her head was woozy. She couldn’t remember how she had come to rest back in the living room. The last she recalled was lying electrocuted on the bedroom floor, Craig whispering in her ear, something about marrying the hell out of her.
Her bones ached and she couldn’t rise to her feet, so she dropped to the floor. Both her wrists cracked on impact and she feared at least one of them was broken. But she was able to crawl in the direction of the bedroom door.
In the pitch black, still unsure whether she could see, she moved like a slug across the carpet until she touched something that felt like flesh. She wrapped her fingers slowly around it and found that it was a foot. Craig’s cold foot. She gasped, her first thought being that Craig was dead. That he died sometime during the day while she slept.
Then she heard him stir.
“Craig?” she rasped, moving her hand up his leg. “Craig, are you all right?”
Amy crawled forward until she reached the door. She propped herself up against it next to Craig and listened to the musical sound of his breathing.
“Amy,” he whispered. “Yeah. Yeah, it’s me.”
He sighed. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“It’s all right.” She pressed her back up against the door, a surge of anxiety racing through her. She hesitated, afraid to ask, frightened at what his response might be. Finally, she steeled herself, looked in his direction though she still could not see. “Did you get through?”
Seconds passed in silence. “Get through to who?”
Something like anger rose in her throat but she waited a few moments to calm herself before speaking again. She no longer had the energy for anger. “I mean, did you get through the wall? Into the flat next door.”
She heard him
take a deep weary breath. “Well?” she prompted. “Did you?” Another long pause. “Yeah.”
Her fingers tingled and she experienced a jolt, what felt like an aftershock of her electrocution in the bedroom.
“And?” she said. “And what?”
She clenched her jaw. “And what was in there?”
He offered up one of his long dramatic sighs. The sigh sounded so much louder here in the dark, almost as though it were flowing through speakers. “You don’t want to know.”
Amy sunk lower against the door, all hope she had gained when she discovered Craig alive now lost. “We can’t get out?”
“Not that way.”
Craig turned and curled himself into the corner. Amy shook him but he didn’t respond.
Let him sleep, she thought.
Painfully, she rose to her knees. Crawled in the darkness back in the direction of the living room, hoping to knock into the table that held Craig’s computer.
As she crawled, she tried to imagine what Craig saw. Images of her own ruined body that she’d seen through the peephole flooded her mind. She pushed them away, focused on the pain in her knees and elbows, the headache, the fire in her shrinking stomach. It will all be over soon, she kept reminding herself. Not long now. Not long now.
Amy tried to decide if she was afraid of dying. No, not afraid of dying, she determined, but afraid of all she was leaving behind. Her future. Their future. Children with Craig. First words. New homes and cars. Family reunions. She would never have a chance to say goodbye to anyone. To tell her mom and dad and brother she loved them. To give her nine-month-old niece Mischa one last kiss on one of her pudgy little cheeks.
But she did take some small comfort in the fact that her last moments would be with Craig. One way or the other, her one and only true love in this world would be by her side as she perished.
They had experienced a rough few years, most of their problems her fault. She simply could not believe this was the price they would both have to pay for her stupidity. If only she stayed with him in Hawaii. If only she had explained to her mother how much she loved him. If only…