Dream of the Serpent

by Alan Ryker

  Those months of double memories, they’re bookended by the same event: Madison disappearing.

  In this world, she disappeared at the beginning. In that world, she disappeared at the end.

  I think I’ve found a way to fix everything.

  It’s all tied together. She didn’t abandon me. She loved me.

  It’s all tied together.

  I have to figure out how.

  * * *

  I pretend to be asleep when Janet gets home, but as soon as she’s snoring (she snores. This tall, wispy, aristocratic-looking girl snores) I open my eyes. I’m tired. Exhausted. Can you be tired in a dream?

  Here in the dark I can’t help but work my mind over these double memories, looking for spots when things could have flipped, when I could have turned the corner into this strangeness. Maybe if I go to sleep I’ll wake up in my other life. You can turn the corner and find that everything has changed. You close your eyes and open them and nothing is right. You blink and find yourself somewhere else.

  How can I sleep?

  Maybe it happened even earlier. I remember a coma. I remember the dreams of that coma, vivid dreams, another life almost. I thought I woke up, but did I? Maybe I’m still in a coma, everything shifting around me, every single facet unstable, but my mind unstable too so that I can’t catch the inconsistencies. Hell, maybe I’m not in a coma. I remember burning. You don’t forget burning. I remember how deep the flames went, how my skin split and my juices sizzled. Who would have expected me to survive? I went into the coma, but maybe I never came out.

  Maybe I’m dead. Maybe…Maybe this is Hell.

  As soon as the thought crosses my mind I expect the facade to drop, for the walls to fall away, for everything to be revealed as ash that crumbles and blows away to show the darkness beyond the borders and the creatures in the darkness.

  I close my eyes tightly and then open them. When I have a nightmare, and I finally realize I’m dreaming, this is how I wake up. I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them slowly.

  Janet still lays beside me, snoring lightly, but something is wrong.

  So I lay awake for as long as I can.

  * * *

  I chug coffee as I drive the few blocks to work. I’ve got two full travel cups. Janet shook me awake because my alarm had been going off for minutes. She was pissed. I turned the thing off and went back to sleep. No way I was hitting the gym this morning. When I woke up I was late and tired and confused.

  I check myself over and realize I forgot to put on a belt. That’ll bug me all day.

  Walking into the Dungeon, I expect to catch shit from Todd about missing my workout, or about how bad I look. Instead, everyone is talking animatedly, even Michael, who usually avoids conversation.

  “Dude, did you hear about the wreck on the interstate?” Todd says.

  “No. What happened?” For a moment I’m glad that people have something to think about other than me.

  “There was a fifteen car pileup, started by a chemical truck. It exploded.”

  “What? How?”

  “A driver who barely avoided the accident said a car got a flat, and the guy pulled over, but not far enough, and opened his door and started to step out like, all exasperated and yelling and shit, but he hadn’t looked and he was practically in the right lane and this truck swerved to avoid him, hit a car in the other lane, over corrected and jackknifed going like seventy. A couple of cars plow into the trailer and boom.”

  “Todd, Jesus,” Amanda says, shaking her head.

  I drop into my chair. It’s these little things, these tiny, meaningless events. A nail in the road, being in too much of a hurry on a morning commute, opening a door without checking…Forgetting to flip a switch. And everything changes. The world as we know it burns.

  “How many people were hurt?” I ask.

  “A lot. A whole lot,” Todd says.

  “Jesus Christ, Todd, can’t you see he’s shaken up?” Amanda says. She comes over to my cubicle, where I’m sitting with my face in my hands. “Do you know someone who comes in that way?”

  I’m such a selfish bastard. I didn’t even think about that. I run through a list in my head. “I don’t think so.”

  “That’s good. First thing I did was call my mom to make sure she wasn’t in it. She’d passed by only a few minutes earlier.”

  “God, that’s lucky.”

  “The good news is that the radio said that our burn unit is one of the best in the nation, so these people have a good chance—”

  Amanda stops speaking as I leap to my feet. Why didn’t I think of that before? There’s one aspect of this alternate set of memories that I can verify: the burn unit.

  “I have to go,” I say. “I just remembered…” I don’t finish the thought. I just leave.

  4

  The hospital is in chaos. I know I should leave, come back another time, but I have to know, and I’m already here. News vans surround the entrance to the huge building, and I can feel the eyes of the city on me as I pass in behind the jabbering reporters and in front of the cameras.

  I can see from a distance that both the emergency room and the main entrance are choked with frantic family and friends of the accident victims. I go through a lesser-used side entrance. For some reason I expect to be stopped. I feel like I’m doing something wrong. No one gives me a second look as I get on the elevator and start for the burn unit.

  When the door opens, the smell hits me and knocks my knees weak. A smell is not a memory you can imagine, especially not the smell of burned human flesh and the chemicals used to treat it. I step out of the elevator into the chaos and I know instantly that it wasn’t a dream.

  This lobby was the end goal of a hundred walks down the hallway to build my strength. Now it’s filled with dozens of distraught family members, some weeping, some stoic, some totally out of it, but all worried and confused.

  I step forward, heading for the desk though I have no idea what I will say. But the smell…The rooms have positive pressure, to keep bacteria from wafting in. Air always goes out, never in, carrying the smell of the occupants with it. It grows stronger. It stuffs my sinuses full. I feel like I can taste it.

  The acidic coffee begins to roil in my stomach. I fight it down, swallowing over and over, a trick I use to keep from puking when a shot goes down wrong. It’s not working. My mouth fills with saliva, and I know what’s coming next. Spotting a trash can, I charge for it, knocking past people I can barely see.

  It comes up easy since I haven’t eaten anything yet today, but I gasp down air as I get control of my wretching and the smell of burnt people fills me again and my guts heave, trying to eject something I will never, ever be rid of.

  A hand begins to rub my back. “It’s okay. Calm down. Just breathe.”

  That voice. I turn to look, my eyes filled with tears and thick ropes of bile hanging from my lips. Wiping my eyes, I see that it’s really Jake, the nurse who watched over me hour after hour, talking when I couldn’t talk back, changing my dressings, keeping me clean and as comfortable as possible and never showing a hint of disgust or frustration.

  “Nurse Jake,” I say, wiping my mouth on the sleeve of a very expensive suit coat. “It’s me, Cody.”

  “Cody? Do I know you?” He pulls back a little to get a better look at me.

  “Yes, I was here.” I was here. I was. I remember every detail. I remember the desk, the vending machines, the couches in the waiting room, even the one cable hanging from the television that had been zip-tied to the others with a bunch of slack in it so that it looped out and bugged the hell out of me.

  Nurse Jake seems accustomed to dealing with confused family members, because instead of trying to figure out how or if he knows me, he tries to help me instead. “Do you know someone who was in the accident? Let’s get you to the desk.”

  “Is Dr. Grossman here?”

  “Yes, but he’s extremely busy,” he says as he guides me to the nurse at the desk. “Now who are you here to se
e, Cody?”

  I followed him because of his voice and his gentle touch, but I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know how to explain what I need. I don’t know what I need.

  The nurse behind the desk is ready to type a name into the computer, but I have nothing to say. Then I recognize her. “Nurse Colleen?”

  She smiles at me, confused but still ready to help. She was all business, never putting up with any whining or dawdling from a patient when something needed to be done. It’s not that she wasn’t sympathetic, but she realized that many of us weren’t in the proper mindset to be reasoned with.

  She smiles, though she wonders how I know her, and says, “Yes. Who are you here to see?”

  It comes crushing in on me. The other set of memories, the ones where I burned, they’re real, they’re definitely real, but they’re not real here and now.

  My head spins. The smell, the eyes on me, the wailing friends and family, the crush of desperate people closing in behind me…I can’t take it. I turn and press through the crowd that’s gathered behind me, the people who’ve only just arrived to try to discover the fate of their loved ones. I see my parents there, trying to keep on brave faces as they wonder if I’ll live, trying to keep on positive faces when I emerge angry and hateful and not at all like the son they’d known.

  I see Madison. Though I’d never seen her by my hospital bed, I see her there, trying to stay unreadable, to hide how her guilt is killing her. I wonder about the man who’d thrown his door open and stepped in front of the chemical truck. What would he give to take that one tiny mistake back?

  I press the button for the elevator again. Jake is standing behind me, asking if I’m okay. I don’t know how to answer.

  The elevator isn’t coming. I go around the corner and down the stairs.

  5

  My phone rings. It rings again because I don’t answer it. It’s Tyler, my boss. I can’t do it right now. I can’t pretend that things are normal.

  I head home instead, to my condo. When I open the door and hear the television, I realize my mistake.

  “Cody?”

  Janet is still there. We don’t live together, but we might as well. My place is nearer Pajino’s than hers, so there’s no point in her driving out to her apartment in the burbs after she’s stayed the night and has to go to work the next day.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you doing here? Are you okay?” Stepping around the corner, she looks me over, and the surprise turns to concern. “Shit, you look terrible. Are you sick?”

  “I guess so.” But I’m not. I know that now. Something is going on, but it’s not in my head.

  Janet puts the back of her hand to my head. “You don’t have a fever, but you smell like puke.”

  “I threw up.”

  “I felt you tossing all night. You shouldn’t have gone in to work.” She takes me by the hand and leads me. “Do you want to lay on the couch or in bed?”

  “Bed.”

  Some part of me must believe I need mothering, that there’s something wrong with me, because I meekly follow her to the bedroom where she helps me out of my jacket.

  Holding it up, she says, “You got some puke on this. It’ll have to be dry cleaned.”

  I nod, taking off my shoes and socks and pants. She flings the covers back and I get into bed.

  “Do you want anything? Do you need something for your stomach? I can go get soda.”

  “No, I’m okay. I just need to sleep.”

  She nods and pets my curls, twisting her fingers through them. “Okay. I’m going to be here for another couple of hours before going in to work, so think of what you might want before then and I’ll go out and get it for you, my little pussy lip.” She kisses me on the forehead, then leaves the room.

  She’s being so nice. She’s been so nice. So concerned. No one at Pajino’s would believe it.

  Did she have something to do with this?

  How could she have possibly had anything to do with this, and why?

  The unlikelihood is no longer good enough, because the impossible has happened and in the wake of that, the unlikely becomes probable by comparison.

  Janet moved in so quickly. Didn’t really give me a moment to think. Took advantage of my despair and confusion at Madison’s disappearance and my need for a safe haven as the police hounded me and my friends and family-to-be doubted me. And now, just as I’m starting to piece things together, she’s keeping an eye on me.

  Or she’s a caring woman with a tough front necessitated by a rough life, so that her concern is always a little surprising.

  I don’t know. The ground I’m standing on is so shaky that from my perspective, everything is moving, nothing and no one is safe.

  No, there are two points of stability that everything is careening around, even time.

  One is me. Unless I’m being secretly persecuted, I seem to be the only one who knows that reality has gone crazy.

  The other is Madison.

  Cody, I think I’ve found a way to fix everything.

  She knew this would happen. No, she made this happen.

  So where is she now? Why did she have to leave? What did this cost her?

  I close my eyes and I see her standing across from me, shy, over a foot shorter than me, seemingly fragile, but strong. Strong enough to do this, to fix things.

  She wouldn’t want me to follow her, but I wouldn’t have wanted her to give up her life to give me mine back. All I wanted was to have her back, but I was so stupid I couldn’t make myself ask for it until it was too late.

  I have to find her.

  All of reality spins around us.

  After Janet leaves, I get up and start pacing. It’s how I think best. My bare feet slap the hardwood floor as I circle the living room.

  Madison had been slipping into the old comforts of her past. Drugs. After a certain part of her decline, I don’t know where she was going. We all lost track of her.

  I wrack my brain, trying desperately to remember her texts and emails, feeling them slipping further away as I snatch at my memories of them, flitting just out of reach like silvery little fish.

  I smack my forehead. The silvery little fish fill my vision, then fade. It didn’t help.

  So I backtrack. After I burned, I never saw her again. She became a disembodied voice to me. Especially as I willed the outside world to fade away. It’s hard to think of her as being anywhere during that time except on the tiny screen of my phone.

  I turn my phone on again and flip through it. The last messages are from the night she disappeared.

  Aren’t you done yet?

  I flip through the messages again, but the ones I clearly remember her sending in that other world never appear.

  I have to accept that I had no idea where she was at the end. I search my earlier memories, to when she was less secretive about what she was doing.

  The Dorset brothers. She said she’d seen the Dorset brothers, the trust-fund brats who sold to all the confused rich kids.

  I put on pants, pocket the roll of quarters I used to carry when I walked the urban campus at night, and head out the door.

  * * *

  The Dorset brothers live in the same suburb as the Barringtons, in a big colonial with a circle drive spotted with luxury vehicles. Either their parents had bought the place or they’d bought the place with their parents’ money.

  By the time I met her, Madison had been through rehab and was done with drugs, and so was also done with the Dorset brothers. But I knew them through some of my frat brothers and business classmates. I’d accompanied my friends to parties at their huge house, adding a dash of color to an otherwise very pale crowd.

  I didn’t like the Dorsets, which was good, because I didn’t know what I might need to do.

  I press the doorbell, hear it chime through the house. No one answers. I press it again. Again, no one answers. I look at my watch. 2:14 PM. I press and hold the doorbell. Eventually, a bellow makes its way through the thic
k door and the ringing of the bell, and I let go of the button.

  “…the fuck do you think you’re doing, you stupid…”

  The door opens, and there stands Jackson in a silk robe and boxers, looking like he just woke up and his lifestyle is catching up with him. “…fucker.” He stares at me for a long second, and so does his brother, Connor, from the stairs across the foyer. “I know you.”

  “Cody Miller.”

  His eyes unfocus, and soon he finds me in there. He cocks an eyebrow. “Cody. We have some mutual friends. What the fuck are you doing here?”

  While everyone else fawned all over the brothers, I never made an effort to ingratiate myself. He must remember that.

  “You know that Madison went missing several months ago.”

  A spark of interest lights up his eyes, burning away some of the fog of disturbed sleep. He steps aside, says, “Come in.”

  I step past Jackson into the cavernous foyer. The place isn’t quite a mansion. I think mansions should have marble floors, and these floors are hardwood. My footsteps slap up into the high ceiling.

  The walls are covered with pieces of modern art. I know that these two aren’t connoisseurs, but will take a piece for payment in lieu of cash from the artists who mingle at their parties as conversational decoration or exotic pets.

  “What is it?” Connor asks, coming down the stairs as we head towards chairs.

  “It’s about Madison Barrington,” Jackson says.

  I turn to catch the expression on Connor’s face, hoping it will reveal something these two sleaze bags might not otherwise admit. On Connor’s face is the same look of interest as his brother, but nothing that raises suspicion.

  I settle into an arm chair, and they sit across from me, first Jackson, then Connor. Connor is older by a couple of years, but meeker. I don’t think he’d be living this way if it weren’t for his hot-headed younger brother.