by Paula Cox
She just sits in the car, rubbing her hands together. Finally, the old car croaks to life. I think she’ll do a U-turn and drive home, but instead she drives north.
North, I think. Why is she going north?
I rev my bike and follow.
I follow at a distance, never once turning on my lights, and keeping the engine quiet.
Hope cruises along with her high-beams blaring, her car causing a racket. It doesn’t matter; the road is deserted. Plus it makes her easier to follow. I know where she’s going as soon as we’re out of the Cove. It’s the only place she would be going in this direction, unless she’s buried a body out here. She’s going to the amusement park. I’m sure of it.
I follow the bright lights of her car, trying to figure out what she’s thinking in there. Does she miss me? When I saw her come out of the restaurant, she didn’t look particularly distraught. But then I was on the other side of the road, at the back of the lot. Maybe I saw what I wanted to see in her face. Or maybe she is distraught, but she’s too strong to let it show.
Does she still want me? I wonder.
I know I have no right to ask the question; I’m the one who pushed her away.
But I can’t help it. I’m desperate for the answer.
I’m amazed that she remembers the way. She turns directly onto the dirt track and starts driving. The bumping of her car, which I’m guessing doesn’t have great suspension, echoes loudly into the night. I wait at the start of the track, listening to her car, sitting with the kickstand of my bike lowered.
When her car stops bouncing along the track, I ride my bike slowly and quietly toward the amusement park. She came here to remember us, I think, and the thought makes me wish she was in my arms now, that I was stroking her hair and kissing her forehead. But the thought is not strong enough to make me forget how she looked high. Not nearly strong enough.
“Hello, old friend,” I whisper when I reach the clown.
Her car is parked at an angle near the entrance. Parked how it is, looking how it does, and sitting beneath the decrepit entrance to the park, it looks abandoned.
I stop my bike, kick the stand, and make my way into the park.
I walk slowly, not wanting her to see me. Partly because I’m angry with her—furious with her, still—but partly it’s because if she sees me, I may break. If she sees me, and I see her, and we are here—here, the location of our first date—my affection for her might override my anger. And I can’t allow that to happen. I won’t break my code. I can’t. It’s not who I am.
I hug the side of the causeway, and then there’s a rustle to my left, two stalls over. I turn, and see someone—a woman-shaped figure—fleeing away from me, toward the ghost train. Hope? But why is she running?
I creep after her, keeping my head tilted, listening. I walk past candy floss stalls and throw-a-beanbag booths—which make me think of Dad—the abandoned bumper carts and a defaced figure of a child, the text once reading ‘Are you this tall?’ and now reading ‘rott’ where somebody has scrawled out letters. The child’s eyes have been scrawled over with red pen, making him look like a demon child. And horns have been drawn on top of his head.
I walk past the devil to the ghost train.
When I reach it—set on bricks, the glass shattered, the slats crumbling—a sound comes from the train tunnel, a rustling, and then—
“Ha-he-ha-he!”
It’s too quiet for me to tell if it’s Hope, but it must be, surely? I didn’t see anyone else driving here, and as far as I know, no homeless stay here. What would be the point? It’s in the middle of nowhere, without any place to work or beg or steal or socialize or drink or anything. I think about calling out, but something stops me. On the off chance that it isn’t Hope, I don’t want to give myself away.
For a moment, I almost reach into my jacket and take out my gun. But I don’t do that, either. Because if it is Hope—and it is, surely it is—I don’t want to accidentally shoot her.
Empty-handed, I walk past the train, past the booth, and into the old tunnel of the ghost train.
The tunnel is lightless. Not just dark, but completely pitch-fucking-black. I take out my cell and use the torch on it, lighting the place up, not that it does much good. If I scared easy, I’d be bricking it right now. The torchlight shines on old, broken wooden cutouts of ghosts, zombie brides, vampires, and Frankenstein monsters. The floor on either side of the tracks is covered in fake spiders and rats. Coffins are built into some of the walls, and inside some of the coffins are fake corpses. The whole place smells rusty and old, like a bike which hasn’t been ridden for years.
The laughter, so quiet I have to strain to hear, echoes down the tunnel: “He-ha-ha-he-he!”
If it is Hope, she must know it’s me. Why else would she play this game? But then why would she play it, anyway? Has she gone mad? Is she high? Yes, that could be it, I think coldly. If she’s high, this makes sense. She’s high and this is her idea of fun. She’s high and she’s a different person than the one I knew.
I walk through the darkness, my light now settling on a plastic skull with a nail in the head, now on a zombie child with blood sliding down its chin. I ignore the horrors and follow the laughter, follow it until I am right where I started, standing at the exit of the tunnel and looking out upon the amusement park.
What the hell? I think. Seriously, what the hell?
I turn off my cellphone light and walk to the booth of the ghost train, peeking inside. Nothing but an old wooden chair, rotted paper, and a cash register filled with dust and cobwebs.
I walk away from the train and turn in a slow circle, searching the surrounding area with my eyes, every booth.
Then, from behind me, I hear a squeeeeeeak-sqeeeeeeak, like the sound of somebody on an old swing, the joints crying out. I turn toward the sound, mentally mapping out where it might be. The ferris wheel. I’m certain. The sound is coming from the ferris wheel. But why would Hope go into the ghost train, run around, and then go to the wheel? No, screw that, how did she? It’s at the other end of the park.
I shake my head, unable to solve it, and head toward the noise. I just want to see her now, so that I know she is safe, unharmed.
Maybe the park is getting to me a little, I think. Maybe I’m just going a little bit mad.
I crouch down behind a candy stall. Old wrappers line the floor, and when I kneel on them, they crunch like cereal. I peer over the top of stall, where once candy was laid out in neat rows with hand-written notes denoting their price. Now, it’s empty. The wheel is just across the way.
Hope is sitting in our cart, rocking lightly back and forth, making the bars squeak, as I’d guessed. She just sits there, staring straight ahead of her, one hand gripping the rail and the other in the pocket of her hoodie. I can’t know for sure, but she’s sitting as though she’s been there for a while; she’s sitting as though she’s been here the entire time. Like a statue.
An invisible hand reaches into my chest and digs its fingernails into my heart at the sight of her. She doesn’t look like a junkie. She looks like Hope, my Hope, the goddamn love of my life. She looks like the woman who was the brightest spot in my life before that night on the boat.
A scene plays out in my head, the images and feelings so strong that it could be happening right now, for real:
I stand up from the booth and walk to the cart, smirking at her, my cocky smirk.
“Mr. Biker?” she says, turning to me. “Is that really you?”
Her cheeks bloom red, and her lips twist into a cool smile. She strokes hair from her eyes and then, with her other hand, gestures for me to join her. “I knew you’d be here,” she admits. “That’s why I came here. I knew I’d get to see you. Oh, I missed you, Killian.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. The weight of it is reassuring, so reassuring it makes me wonder why I ever left her to begin with.
“What about the drugs?” I ask. “I can’t—”
“Hush, silly man,” she
giggles, moving her hand up my leg. “That was just a bad dream. Didn’t you know that? It was all a bad dream.”
“Really?” My heart hammers, hammers in happiness. A dream! What an idiot I was, getting so down about a dream!
“Of course.” She moves her lips to my ear, nibbling the lobe. “Don’t be so serious all the time, Mr. Biker. Don’t you want to fuck here, like we did last time? Don’t you want that?”
“Of course I do,” I growl, grabbing her thigh, near her pussy.
Suddenly, the night on the boat seems absurd. Why would I care about that when I have this hot, perfect body to lose myself in? Why would I give a shit about a nightmare when I have a dream, right here?
I slide my fingers inside of her. She arches her back and looks into the sky, her mouth open, eyes rolling back in her head, moaning, writhing. The love of my life, the woman I want more than anything, the woman I’d marry in a second if she would have me—
But then I flinch back to real life, kneeling on candy wrappers, watching her from afar.
I can’t go to her, because she took those drugs; that’s a fact. She was high. It was no nightmare.
But still, I can’t deny that my heart is breaking right now.
I watch her for around ten minutes.
All she does is sit there, in the same pose, staring off into space. I’m sure that scene upon scene is playing in her head, just as it is in mine. I decide that I’ll keep an eye on her until she leaves, and then make sure she gets back to the Cove safely. I won’t talk to her. I can’t talk to her. If I talk to her, I’ll fall in love all over again. Hell, me, Killian O’Connor, talking about that shit?
I can’t deny it now. Looking at her, I know I love her. There’s no way around it. I’ve become the one thing I never thought I would, a man-in-love, and I don’t even care. The only thing I care about is sitting in our cart in the ferris wheel, looking beautiful despite the darkness.
My mind is thrown to a future in which Hope and I never had any troubles, in which we never had any arguments. I stand at the foot of a bed of roses and Hope lies atop it, not naked, but not clothed, either. Roses cover her breasts and her legs like a blanket. She smiles at me under her eyelashes, looking cuter than ever. Then she turns over, and I’m—
The cart squeaks louder as a woman drops into it, beside Hope.
“Howdy!” she cries. “How are you doing today?”
“What the—”
“Oh, don’t stand up,” she giggles, and then grabs Hope’s arm.
Hope grabs her hand and tries to pull her away, and then Hope sees what I see: the needle, held in her other hand, aimed toward Hope. Heroin. A damn lot of heroin. Enough heroin to kill a dozen people, let alone one.
Hope lets out a scream and dives for the needle, gripping her wrist and twisting it. The woman grunts and grabs at Hope’s throat. Hope coughs and chokes out her words. “Who—are—you? Get—the—hell—away—from—me!”
Lindsey—wearing a black suit, her braid draped over the side of the cart—lets out another giggle as they wrestle for the needle. “I’m your worst nightmare, baby girl!” she squeals. “I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you! Oh, please do stop struggling! You’re just making it worse.”
Rage explodes in my chest, making me leap to my feet, jump over the stall, and sprint toward the wheel.
Fucking Lindsey, my mind howls. Fucking Lindsey, laying her hands on my woman. Fucking Lindsey, haunting my goddamn life. Haunting, yeah, ’cause it wasn’t Hope on the ghost train. It was Lindsey!
I sprint toward them.
In the dark, they look like a four-armed, four-legged shadow creature, writhing about, a needle clasped in one of its hands.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hope
I take in the woman, trying to figure out who she is even as we fight. I see her braided hair and her shaved sideburns, I see her pinched, ratty face and her twisted lips, I see her wide, bloodshot eyes, I see the suit she wears, even the shiny black shoes. I’ve never before laid eyes on this woman. I know that for sure.
But then I see the needle in her hand. I know it’s a needle full of heroin. My subconscious turns over and over, cogs grind, and it all clicks into place. This woman—whoever the hell she is—was the one who drugged me. I’m out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s not a coincidence that she’s here at the same time as me. No, she followed me. And if she followed me here with a needle, isn’t it possible, likely, that she followed me to the boat with a needle?
A scream escapes me. I lurch for the needle, grab the woman’s wrist. I speak, but my words seem faraway. She grips my throat with her free hand and crushes my windpipe. I suck in breaths, ragged, through a throat that grows smaller and narrower as she squeezes her fingers.
“I’m your worst nightmare, baby girl!” she squeals. “I’m the worst thing that’s ever happened to you! Oh, please do stop struggling! You’re just making it worse.”
When she speaks, tobacco and wine and whiskey wash over me, thick from a mouth that hasn’t tasted toothpaste in a long time.
“It—was—you?” I wheeze, my fingers growing weak on her wrist. “Wasn’t—it?”
“Oh, the boat?” The woman lets out a witch-like cackle. “Yes, sweet girl, it was me.”
She squeezes harder on my throat, crushing windpipe and skin and flesh, crushing muscle and tendon, crushing everything. She’s a slight woman, but her grip is solid, like a bodybuilder’s.
As her grip becomes stronger on my throat, mine weakens on her wrist. Soon, she’ll be able to stab the heroin-loaded needle into me, a new track mark for my collection, and it will rush into my system and stop my heart. Weeks later, I’ll be found, rotting here on the ferris wheel.
I wonder if Killian will come to my funeral? Will Killian ever know the truth?
My head floats away from my shoulders, the lack of air propelling it up, and my eyelids are heavy, so heavy that all I want to do is close them and be done with it. My fingers slip from around the woman’s wrist. My head lolls back and my eyes close. I cling onto her wrist again, barely able to squeeze down with my fingers, only just reaching her. I feel faraway, floating, flying.
Finally, a black curtain falls over my vision and I forget I’m in a ferris wheel. I’m aware that the woman’s hands are still around my throat, but that’s distant.
I float into the air above the amusement park.
I float down into a dream.
I know it’s a dream because I see me and Killian from above, as though I’m in a drone peering down at us—them? Killian and the woman—am I really that busty? that curvy?—walk down the boardwalk together. I float about fifteen feet in the air, without a body, only two floating, invisible eyes. Somewhere else, I am being murdered. But that doesn’t seem to matter as I watch this love-struck couple.
Killian laughs. I remember the laugh well. I’d just asked him to prove that he really knew the constellations. He points up at the sky and tells the naïve woman to follow his finger. The naïve woman does as he asks, and Killian tells her all about the stars. The woman is deep in love. I can see it in her eyes. I remember feeling the intensity of it. She’s more in love than she imagined herself capable of.
I follow them, amazed. Is this heaven? I think. Am I already dead? Is this really heaven? The logical part of my mind comments: This is just a lucid hallucination brought on by lack of air and unconsciousness. I ignore the cold logic and swim through the air, trailing them.
Soon, I know, they’ll be screwing on the boat. That bouncy, full-bodied woman will be begging Killian for it in a way she never thought she would, begging like a porn star, begging like a true lover. Together, they leap onto the boat. Killian starts the engine and the boat glides through the black sea into the harbor, where it will lull while they make love. I try and follow them, but something in the air stops me. I try to scream, but I don’t have a mouth. I smash against this invisible wall, over and over and over, but it won’t budge. Cursing—silently, because
in this strange dream-place I have no voice—I hover above the dock.
When I see her, I know that this is a dream, yes, a creation of my mind, sure, but that it happened—or something similar to this happened. And as it happens, I’m convinced it’s happening right now and yet I can’t do anything to stop it.
Tonight, the woman wears a dark blue suit. Her braided hair is wrapped around her neck, looking in the dark like a woman with a snake draped over her. She runs to the end of the dock and reaches out to the boat: a child reaching into a puddle of water trying to scoop up its newspaper boat.