by Glen Krisch
"Would you like to pay it back now? We aren't really doing anything today."
"Really? We can go now?"
"I don't see why not. It's not far is it?" Carin packed up her newspapers. She gathered up the bill and her purse, ready to leave. "This old lady can't get around like you kids."
"Only blocks away, I'm pretty sure."
"Let's go. Lead the way, young man."
They could have driven, but Kevin insisted on walking. Carin dropped the newspapers off at the Explorer parked on the street, dropped another quarter in the meter, and followed her son. As they walked, he explained who Sophie and Andrew were, and how they had taken him in. He did not mention that the real reason he wanted to seek them out was to make sure they were okay, to make sure Mr. Freakshow had not harmed them like everyone else Kevin had trusted.
"Are you sure you know where you're going?"
"Yeah, it's… here we are. I remember now. It's a couple blocks up at the next intersection. It snuck up on me last time because I was talking with Sophie as we walked."
Kevin knocked on the heavy door. The metal had gouges, as if attacked by an animal. Or something worse. Kevin's stomach did a little lurch, afraid for what had happened to his friends. After a growing silence, he was about to knock again, but then the locks started unlocking from the other side. Chains were pulled aside. The door opened to the length of the remaining chain.
"Yes?" It was a woman with green eyes. Kevin could not see much more of her.
"We… I mean, I wanted to see Sophie."
"I'm afraid that's not possible."
In that instant, Kevin knew that the Freak had hurt his friends. No one had been safe.
"She died in her sleep a couple weeks ago."
"Oh," Kevin said, somehow relieved. "She helped me out. She lent me money. I wanted to pay her back."
The woman with the green eyes said nothing.
"Is Andrew home?"
"Andrew?"
"Sophie's husband."
"My grandfather died in 1983."
"Okay." Hearing that a man that Kevin had believed to be a real person had died more than twenty years ago did not faze him. The world was a different place. He remembered when he was exhausted, reclining on Sophie's pull-out cot, a homemade quilt covering him with warmth. As he was drifting off to sleep, the room swirled with dream-like qualities. Sophie and Andrew danced an old fashioned dance, and the farm fields from the murals stretched out from the ground on which they stood. The air smelled earthy, freshly turned. It all made sense, and he had no doubt now. Andrew really had been a dream.
He turned and looked at his mom. "Can we still give her the money, then?" he asked in a quiet voice.
She nodded.
Kevin pulled the five twenty dollar bills from his pocket that his mom had given him. "Since you're Sophie's family, I want to give you this."
The door closed and the last remaining chain scratched aside. The door opened, and Kevin was greeted by a woman who looked remarkably like Sophie, but much, much younger. She was probably about thirty.
"Is your name Kevin?"
"Yes."
"I was instructed to give you something. Come with me."
Kevin followed immediately, Carin with more hesitation, but the hallway was short. Within a few steps, they were inside the small studio apartment. All of the furnishings were gone. A few moving boxes were stacked by the door; otherwise the apartment was bare walls and clean floors. The white cinderblock walls made the room seem smaller than it actually was.
"Ma'am?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. My name's Gretchen," the woman said. She was digging through a moving box, and then pulled it off the stack and opened the one beneath. "It's around here somewhere. Were you going to ask something?"
Kevin wondered where the murals went, wondered if someone had painted over them, but as soon as he had the urge to ask, he knew the answer. Sophie had taken her memories with her.
"Oh, nothing. Never mind."
"Here it is." Gretchen removed a yellowed envelope from the box. She handed it to him. He read his name, written with a frail hand, across the front.
"A letter?" his mom asked. Kevin shrugged and tore it open.
He unfolded the letter and read silently:
Dear Kevin,
I knew you would come to see me. I could tell the moment I set eyes on you that you have a kind soul. I know you're here to pay back the money you borrowed from us. Trust me, if you receive this note, it's because we no longer need that money. But let me just say, that since you are an honorable person and I know you would feel guilty about not paying back your debt, Andrew and I will consider the debt paid off if you do one thing for us: Help a friend in need. It is the most generous thing you can do. Andrew and I helped you in your time of need. You do the same and we'll be square. Take care, young one.
Sophie
"Kevin what is it?"
"I need to help someone. Sophie wanted me to help a friend."
"Okay… who might that be?"
The name came to him, suddenly, and it made perfect sense. "Reid. I can't think of anyone who needs more help."
Maury Bennett walked through a flowerbed, the trampled, dried husks sounding like breaking bones in the frigid air. His body was healing from his wounds inflicted by Mr. Freakshow. A star-shaped scar bloomed across his cheek, the result of his face crashing through the picture window. When he hit the sidewalk in front of the Dvorak house, he separated his shoulder. Most of the soreness was now behind him. Since he didn't know if he was a wanted man for what happened with the debacle at Lucidity and the ensuing chaos, he avoided going to the hospital. He found a payphone at an abandoned service station. He dialed 911, and told the operator that people were dying on Winfield Street. When the operator asked him what address she should call for the dispatch, he had hung up. For the moment, his conscience had been clear.
The glowing moon made visible the nighttime clouds. The rain, turning to razors of sleet, pelted the aluminum siding--static drowning out his reckless advance. He stopped at a front window, standing in ankle-deep mud. Peering inside the ground floor bedroom, he was soaked and couldn't help the shivers violently racking his spine. He also couldn't remember a happier time full of so much anticipation.
His breath condensed on the glass. He swiped his hand across it, not wanting to miss a second. A bare closet light bulb cast a wedge of dirty yellow light on the carpet in the otherwise darkened bedroom. Someone was in bed, the blankets pulled high to ward off the early winter chill. He looked nervously at his wrist, but was not wearing a watch.
The bedroom door opened a crack, a couple inches, a foot. His pulse seemed to double. The door opened wide, and Juliet entered. She took off her winter cap, stashing it in the pocket of her wool pea coat, her auburn curls falling in a rush to her shoulders. She looked at the window, seemingly right into Maury's eyes, but she would not be able to see him in his hiding place.
His arm was still in a sling when Juliet had found him. Having given up hope of finding her, he had moved on. He had lived off the cash Nolan Gage had paid him, renting a tiny sleeping room while slipping into a mild depression. He didn't make a concerted effort to hide from authorities, yet somehow he slipped through the cracks during the investigation of the tragedy at Lucidity.
Of all places for her to find him, he was at a bookstore, rifling through the newest tomes in the psychology section. She tapped him on his shoulder. When he turned to face her, and as realization sunk in, he nearly wept.
He figured she had been captured with most of the other dreams. But no. She had assimilated. She looked more comfortable in the urban setting than he felt. When he told her he loved her, she didn't laughed at him.
But now, Juliet walked over to the bed, a hesitance to her steps. She stood at the bedside and didn't move. As the seconds ticked away, Maury's anxiety increased. He looked to the driveway, down the street, as far as he could, but didn't see any sign of anyone approaching. But still, they had a li
mited amount of time.
Barbara, Juliet's dreamer, stirred, rolling over from her side to her back. Juliet's body tensed as she stood there. He wanted to beat on the glass.
Come on, get moving…
Barbara must have opened her eyes, must have seen her dream standing before her in embodied form. Her scream pierced the night. Even the rattle of the stinging sleet couldn't hide the sound. Barbara screamed as if screaming would wake her from this dream, but this was real--dreams were no longer just dreams, but snapshots stolen from the mind and given legs with which to walk, hands with which to grasp, a heart with which to pump blood and love.
Juliet struck with sudden and violent force. She leapt on top of Barbara, her knees on either side of her dreamer's torso. Her hands were at her throat, her slender fingers no longer graceful. Barbara's legs thrashed at the foot of the bed, her hands grasping at Juliet's forearms.
Barbara's struggle made it go faster, and for this, Maury was grateful. Her movements slowed, as if she were intoxicated, and soon one hand fell from Juliet's arms, fell flat on the blanket that had kept her safe and cozy until only a minute ago. She raked the blanket with her fingers as if in search of something, and then these movements also slowed to a twitch, slowed to nothing. Juliet had just murdered her dreamer.
Maury couldn't be more elated.
The sound of car tires grinding gravel jerked away his attention. He ducked--gaining as much cover as the dead flowerbed afforded him--as a Honda sedan pulled to a stop in the driveway. He hoped no one had seen him spying through their daughter's bedroom window. He could only hope that Juliet had seen the headlights flash across the bedroom walls.
Maury crawled around to the side of the house, and once clear of the driveway, he hurried to the back corner of the house. The sleetfall thickened, and his face felt raw and numb. Melt water dripped down his skin under his clothes, and he couldn't feel his toes. None of this mattered, not as long as Juliet was inside. He heard the front door open, and then slam shut. Then all was silent, the stinging sleet had disappeared, the rush of his pulse in his own ears ebbed. He had to do something. He couldn't let them find Juliet.
His mind raced, and all he could imagine was Juliet locked up by the government, locked up like all the other dreams that had found their immortality. Locked up in perpetuity, immortal yet trapped forever in a cell. Maury ran to the sliding glass door at the back of the house. If someone was going to be caught, it was going to be him. At least he could find release from imprisonment through death. Juliet did not have that luxury. Lights flicked on inside, one section of the house after another spurred to life. Maury picked up a metal patio chair, felt his wet hands freeze to the cold metal. When he had the weighty chair up over his shoulder and ready to swing, the sliding glass door opened. Juliet slipped outside, her eyes wide and luminous. Maury dropped the chair and could not help pulling her close in a nervous hug. She kissed him furiously, her warm lips like salvation. They ran away through the backyard before anyone became aware of their presence.
By the time they reached the rented car at the Laundromat parking lot four blocks away, Maury was frozen through. He hurried to the passenger side door and somehow was able to get the key in the lock to open it. Juliet gave him a peck on the cheek and climbed in.
Maury could feel every aching bone in his frozen feet, but pain was only a secondary thought now, pushed away by happiness. His life was starting fresh. Once inside, he turned the engine over, immediately blasting the heat on full.
"I didn't think I could to it." Juliet's cheeks were rosy and her eyes watered from the cold and sleet.
"I saw. I was afraid, too. I thought you were going to back out."
"She opened her eyes. When she saw me and was afraid, as if I was some kind of monster, a nightmare to escape from, I knew I could do it. I had to do it."
Maury leaned over, placed a hand on her stomach. Juliet wore layers of clothes under her coat, but Maury could still feel the beginnings of a swell to her belly. He might have also felt a kick from his unborn baby, but he knew it was too early for that. "You did what you had to do. Barbara could have…"
"I know. I'm still not happy about it. But the baby… I couldn't let anything happen."
Maury kissed her cheek, patted her belly with a gentle hand, and then put the car in reverse. He drove carefully, obeying all the rules of the road. He came to a full stop at all stop signs, and signaled when switching lanes. Maury Bennett was starting the life he didn't know he wanted until it fell into his lap, almost as if by accident. A life that seemed obvious now; a life of happiness and fulfillment. He wasn't going to do anything to ruin it.
Shortly after Kevin told his mom about Reid, and how his father abused him because he couldn't help going mad every once in a while, she started making phone calls. Her calls led to an investigation by the Department of Children and Family Services. A state mandated physical exam revealed that Reid had suffered two broken ribs that had never healed properly. He also had a chipped eyetooth, most likely caused by his father's balled fists. His torso and back were rife with bruises in various states of healing. Black, purple, brown--a riot of colors like a quickly advancing storm.
While Reid wasn't pleased one bit with the investigation, or the prodding of doctors or the questioning lawyers, his injuries healed. DCFS learned that his biological mom had moved to Europe the previous year, without letting her ex-husband or son know of her whereabouts. After weeks of chasing down dead end leads, they finally tracked her down. Her comment was short, and precise:
"Go ahead, take the little shit."
It took nearly a year of wrestling with the court system and DCFS, but by the time the leaves were falling the next year, Kevin had a brother. While not a blood brother, Reid seemed more of a big brother than he could ever imagine. Their brotherly connection was so strong, it seemed liked they had grown up their entire lives together. Once he got over wondering when the next punch would come, just because someone went a little mad, Reid accepted his new family, and eventually, he embraced them as his own. He left his juvenile delinquent trajectory and went to school regularly. Carin doted on him and treated him like her own flesh and blood.
The addition of Reid to their family came at a transitional time for all of them. It was a time of self-doubt and self-blame, of healing the wounds that would heal and learning to live with the ones that they would take to the grave.
Every once in a while Kevin would dream of Mr. Freakshow. Such an integral shaper of his life, it was not surprising for Kevin to wake every month or so knowing the Freak had been there, inside his head, a subject of his dreams. But since the night at their old house in Warren Cove, dreaming of Mr. Freakshow wasn't a nightmare. These dreams were of triumph, of overcoming loss and desperate odds. When Kevin would wake from these dreams, knowing he had encountered his one-time tormentor, he woke with a sense of calm.
The End
Books by Glen Krisch
Novels:
The Nightmare Within
Where Darkness Dwells
Nothing Lasting (forthcoming)
Collections:
Commitment and Other Tales of Madness
Through the Eyes of Strays (coming soon from Dog Horn Publishing)
Thank you to all my readers for your purchase!
I still feel giddy knowing that total strangers take a chance on my writing, and that more often than not, these strangers become friends. I love to talk about writing and reading, the world, and life in general. If you have a minute, stop in and say hi: http://glenkrisch.wordpress.com/
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