by David Beers
Lucas didn’t know why things were speeding up now. Maybe It had grown stronger, or maybe they were simply weakening. Their defenses, right down to the chemical composition of their brains, were collapsing after so many years of bombardment. Like an alcoholic’s liver, nothing stood forever. If Lucas was right and they continued to break down—
—that’s where last night’s dreams come in, huh?
“What’s next, Julianne?” Lucas knew she would have to sleep, and he knew what waited on her when she did.
She sat her coffee on the table and finally looked at him. “It’s worse for you too, isn’t it?” She nodded as she asked the question, the answer apparent. “You haven’t told me though. How long?”
He put his fork down, discarding his breakfast. He had made up his mind not to tell her—to let her believe what she would for as long as she wanted. Only now she was saying she didn’t believe it. Was she considering that their run might be at an end? Julianne had always been his life—even more important than their son. Why else did he stay all these years, even as he harbored no delusions about where it ended? He could have hopped off this train long ago, just let the machine rip on by without him. Their son had already put his childhood behind him; a dark era brought on by parents who couldn’t cope with the knowledge that their ancestors were dead and forgotten. So why had he stayed, with their son denying what they taught him, and Lucas’s firm belief that It would have them regardless of how far and long they fled? All of this—the nights spent sweating in fear and the days spent with the sobering knowledge that nothing he did mattered—was for her. Now she wanted to know how much worse and for how long, and in telling her he would confirm what she had run from her entire life: that truly, there was no running.
“I don’t know exactly when it got worse. He’s coming though—I am sure of that.”
They looked at each other, neither dodging Lucas’s words. In his wife, Lucas saw there were no thoughts of moving, of fleeing to another country across the world to prolong this life just a bit more. What he saw scared him, but comforted him too—relief. The worried, contemplative concentration her face had held as she sipped coffee was gone. Now she looked…no, peaceful wasn’t right. The things that would happen next wouldn’t resemble peace, but she looked better.
“How much time?” she asked. If there was any way to reach Alex, they needed time.
Lucas broke his gaze from her and looked to the table. He knew Julianne could last as long as she needed; she was the stronger of them. How long could he last, though? How long before his days were consumed by the same things as his nights?
“A week, maybe.”
Great monuments or structures take centuries to weather—thousands of years in some instances. Small, almost infinitesimal pieces flaking off over long periods of time. Then, years into the process, a tremor, or storm, or strong gale topple huge pieces from where they sit appearing unmovable.
The years of weakening hardly show until that gust hits, though.
It hit Julianne and Lucas at different times.
Neither had called their jobs in days. Neither even thought of it, really. The phone rang sometimes, but neither paid it much attention. For Julianne, there were things to be done; for Lucas, there were things to fend off.
Julianne sat in the dining room, leaning back in her chair for a few seconds—her hand burning. It would cramp soon, she knew that from the unending hours she had written over the past few days. She thought she could finish, and if not, at least get down the most important parts. Get them down so that Alex could read them when the two of them passed.
She heard the kitchen drawer open but didn’t turn around.
Instead, she rubbed her hands and looked at the pages before her.
The drawer didn’t close, but Julianne missed that too.
The footfalls though, she couldn’t ignore those. Feet slammed on the kitchen tiles—loud, threatening thumps covering the distance between them and her far too fast. She had time to turn in her chair, to glimpse what came and think—God, no.
Lucas swung far too early, bringing the knife in an arc that should have split Julianne’s neck wide, but instead only nicked her—sliding briefly under her skin and back out. Blood spurted, dripping down her neck as Lucas stumbled on top of her. He rammed into the back of the chair, unable to stop the momentum of his body—the chair tipping and his wife with it. The three—Lucas, Julianne, and the chair—all fell together with Julianne smacking her head against the table on the way down.
Lucas lay on top of the chair, pinning his wife under it. She gazed up at him, unsure of much besides the sharp pain pulsing through her head.
His right arm was trapped between his body and the chair, the knife with it. His left was free, and he grabbed for Julianne, getting hold of her collar. He pulled, lifting her a few inches from the floor before the buttons popped off her shirt and she collapsed back. A growl erupted from Lucas’s throat; his lips flaring back—blood covered his normally white teeth. A mist of red sprayed down on Julianne at his snarl.
Then he was moving again, trying to get through the chair blocking his path. Trying to kill his wife.
Darkness crept around the edges of Julianne’s vision. She knew, vaguely, that she was going under, and if it happened she would never come back. She had to move, to get away from this bleeding, growling hulk above her. She pulled herself under the table, kicking her feet behind her as she did, trying to hurt her husband for the first time in her life. One of her kicks caught the back of the chair, flying up and hitting Lucas on the mouth.
Growls exploded from him as he fell backwards. His left hand found his lip; his right held onto the knife. Julianne kept crawling with no destination in mind, only away from her husband. Because that wasn’t him, wasn’t Lucas—
Just move.
So she did—the back of her head throbbing, blood covering her face and neck. She rolled to her stomach and began army crawling underneath the table. She heard Lucas moving, grunting. Getting to his feet.
He’s going to kill you.
She rolled out from under the table, ending on her back looking at Lucas. He was nearly standing; blood covered his chin, and his lip had already begun swelling, hiding the hole where his tooth used to be. Holding the knife forward, he looked at her as he finally put both heels under him. What Julianne saw was simply a rabid animal fury; any resemblance of her husband stopped at his skin, not traveling an inch deeper.
He moved, his feet sure, heading towards Julianne.
“Lucas, no.” She pushed down with her hands, desperately trying to stand before he made it to her. She spoke as she went, hoping—pleasepleaseplease—that he might hear her, that he might stop. She was on one knee when he reached her, bringing the knife forward again. Perhaps he wasn’t aiming anymore, or perhaps he couldn’t, but the knife plunged into Julianne’s left arm, point driving deep into her bicep. Screaming, she reached upward with her right hand and brought her nails down the front of Lucas’s face.
He grabbed her throat with his left hand, ignoring his skin raking away underneath her nails. He let the knife go, bringing his right hand to meet his left, and began squeezing the air from his wife.
The knife shook feebly, sticking out from her arm, as they struggled.
She scratched, his face leaking blood from numerous holes. He strangled her, blackness creeping into her vision.
Julianne’s hand dropped as her brain began struggling with consciousness. Lucas’s face looked like it might have been decorated with red ribbons instead of skin. Flesh lifting up, thin and tattered strips oozing blood. Julianne looked at the wreckage, her thoughts beginning to fail. The man above her was Him, It, finally arrived. The chase was over, and this was how it ended—with her lover choking the life from her.
She reached—it felt like her left hand stretched forever, to suns in other galaxies—until she felt the handle of the knife. She pulled, trying to dislodge the blade, not feeling the pain that should have registered in
her oxygen starved brain. With an effort that Sampson himself could not have matched, she plunged the knife into her husband’s stomach. She pushed, and pushed, thinking of nothing else but rupturing his bowels. When her hand finally fell, the hilt was buried and blood dripped onto his pants. Julianne’s eyes closed and her weight sagged against his grip, breaking through it quickly and herself collapsing to the floor. Lucas stared forward—his hands dropping to his sides—looking confused. He stood for a few seconds, his head a destroyed orb and the fury in his eyes extinguishing. Then his knees gave and he fell. His eyes remained open, staring at the ceiling as blood slowly pumped out of the hole in his stomach.
Julianne lay beside him: her eyes closed and her neck swelling in an angry purple. A dark haze took over and consciousness fled her. Her chest moved up and down slightly, but no thoughts or dreams traveled through her brain. When she came to, the haze still dominated the room around her, but when she looked around, she could see Lucas. She saw the chair over turned behind him; in the kitchen, she could see the silverware drawer still open.
It’s over.
With breath laboring in and out of her, she found contentment in that. She would follow Lucas, and maybe they could be together in whatever hell awaited them. If not, well she wouldn’t wait here to be taken as Lucas had—little more than a beast on two legs.
When she finally stood, she had to hold onto the table. She used it as a handrail, making her way to the turned over chair. She grabbed for it, nearly fell, and then set it up right. Her pen and paper sat where she had left them.
She wrote for hours. Stopping briefly to flex her hand, she wrote until dawn. As the sun slowly rose behind her in the kitchen window, she leaned back in her chair and placed the pen down for the last time. Alex’s name sat on the front of the notebook, but she couldn’t leave it here on the table. This notebook couldn’t be read by anyone other than Alex, definitely not by the police who would show up sooner or later. It took her a while, but she found a box she was sure wouldn’t be thrown out in the aftermath.
Then she went into the kitchen, pulled a knife from the already open drawer, and slit her wrists.
12
Days Past
Brittany & Daniel
Brittany Valdez barely had her tears under control. She knew her eyes must be red, but her face was finally dry. The tears would come again; she held no illusion of her crying being over. There was a respite now, however brief, which was good because she needed to make a phone call. She cradled the phone in her hand, staring at it. Forty-eight hours had passed since she heard from her husband. Forty-eight hours since she showed up at Dr. Nayek’s office with very little hope. Alex destroyed that tiny hope with his absence, and now wrecking her life as well. She knew something had been terribly wrong when he skipped the appointment—he would have shown for her sake, if nothing else. Now, things were far worse than wrong. When Alex hadn’t made it home to sleep next to her that night, she called the police. The person must be missing forty-eight hours, ma’am—and the magic hour had just passed: Sunday morning at nine. So now she held the phone, trying to part with her fear long enough to report her husband missing.
Trying to part with the thought that her husband was dead. That he might never come back to her.
Brittany had talked to her parents and they had wanted to fly out to be with her. She told them no, not yet, hoping they would never need to—not for this reason, anyway.
“God, please,” she whispered into the room, her eyes watering as the words passed from her lips.
She wanted to call Alex’s phone again—call and call until he picked up. She knew he wouldn’t though, not if she called once or ten times; just as he hadn’t in the previous hundred. So she wouldn’t dial that number again, wouldn’t listen to a robotic voice explain that his mailbox was full and would she please call back later. Full with countless messages of her sobbing into the phone, begging him to call, to pick up, to do anything besides ignore her.
She found his number under favorites and dialed, despite her refusal and the knowledge that Alex wouldn’t answer. She listened to the ringing—the inhuman tone saying little more than wait, wait, wait. Brittany closed her eyes, praying in her head—begging God, or Alex, or Anything—to have her husband answer.
“You’ve reached Alex Valdez. I’m unable to come to my phone—“
Brittany stopped breathing, her mouth slightly open. She heard only the first few words, her mind tuning it out almost immediately, beginning to think rapidly. She heard Alex’s voice, not some programmed stranger telling her kindly to fuck off. That meant all those other messages were gone—erased, deleted—meaning someone heard them. Meaning someone was on the other side of her calls, not answering but listening to it ring.
Somewhere Alex, quite possibly, was watching her name display on his cellphone.
She heard the beep, but didn’t speak at first. She let the phone record silence while she decided what she wanted her husband to hear.
“I love you.”
She hung up, her eyes still dry. Alex was out there listening to her sob into the phone and yet not caring. Not answering. Not calling back.
Confusion, perhaps as profound as any she ever felt, took her.
Her hands shaking, she put the phone on the coffee table. She sank into the couch and hid her trembling hands underneath the bottom of her shirt. Brittany closed her eyes but didn’t think of sleep. She thought of her husband, where he was, and how she could find him.
Daniel Nayek opened his eyes, but other than that, remained completely still. Looking around he saw that he was naked and his blankets were strewn on the floor. An anvil, or something of similar weight, seemed rest on his forehead causing the pressure in his skull to reach nearly unfathomable levels.
He could remember the dream, fading now, but familiar enough that he need not retrace every step through it. It came less frequent now, really almost never—but maybe the liquor last night reminded him what life has been like after his parents left. Maybe the liquor had taken his subconscious back to a place he wanted in his past. Either way, the dream had come and he had seen his parents again—in all their agony and his own fear—always culminating with the spray of blood hitting his face.
He groaned, rolled on his side, and looked at his dog on the floor—trying to push the memory of the dream away. Randy sighed and looked up at his master, but didn’t move his head from between his paws. The sigh communicated that Randy needed to piss but knew his master wouldn’t be moving soon. Daniel breathed in deeply, wondering if he had doused the entire room in vodka last night. Stupid. The only word which accurately described his actions the past two days. He hadn’t felt that way yesterday, though. Yesterday he had felt the same way he did on Friday morning when Brittany Valdez left his office nearly destroyed. The feelings from Friday and yesterday had led him to the stupidity of a drunken bender.
It could get worse. A lot worse. Was that where this was heading for Daniel? Down that road—the one he had barely pulled himself off of a decade ago? Getting some painkillers wouldn’t be difficult at all. A little cocaine? He could manage that too.
Is that where he wanted this to go? Did he want to wake up one day and have a foreclosure notice on his house? That’s where it would go, and his headache now would seem like a pleasant memory when it was all over. He knew where this alcohol would lead him because this road wasn’t a new one to him.
He closed his eyes again and shook his head slightly. Two days and too much alcohol later, nothing had changed. Alex would most likely still be missing and Daniel had done little to…to what? Why did you get so liquored up, can you remind me?
“It’s impossible,” he mumbled into the pillow. Except, if it was impossible, then why lie here hung over or give a damn whether Alex Valdez was in Disney World or dead? Why drink the past two days away?
Daniel’s hands turned to fists. “It wasn’t fucking real. Not then, not now.” His words came out in a barely controlled anger, teeth grindi
ng and his head pressing deeper into his pillow.
He tried not to think. If he did, his mind would run from him, outside of his control—rational thought discarded. If he did, tomorrow morning he would wake up with a heavier anvil on his head and one less bottle of liquor in his cabinet.
How long can you simply not think? Never really been your strong point.
His eyes snapped open, looking at the wall beside him, wanting to focus on anything besides the voice arguing in his head.
Why don’t we get to the truth of this, the part you’re avoiding at the expense of your entire life?
I don’t need to. I don’t need to think about it.
Well you’re going to. You can try to interrupt it as much as you please, but sooner or later—sooner if you can stay fucking sober—you’re going to hear it all. You’re this fucked up because you’ve been lying to everyone. Because you might have put a man’s life at risk. You know what happened to him years ago, before you showed up with your magic medicine—you know as well as anyone what his mind is putting him through right now. But you’re still trying to lie, except it’s getting harder, isn’t it?
Daniel was barely aware of his body’s reaction to the mental scolding, barely understood he was racing down the hallway. He entered the kitchen, slowing slightly before slamming into the counter. He grabbed the liquor bottle and tilted it up. He drank deeply, closing his eyes and not bothering to breathe.
When he brought the bottle away, he stepped to the right and vomited into the sink.
Clear liquor, mixed with spit and snot, created a slow moving, yellow tinged liquid that was reluctant to flow into the garbage disposal.
Did that work? Maybe you need another sip? Go ahead, put the bottle to your mouth and drink until you’re dead.
Daniel spit, reached up with a shaking hand and wiped his mouth.