To Sleep Gently

by Trent Zelazny

  Jack's knees grew weak. He leaned against the rail as his stomach formed a lump of ice. He peered into the rear train car. No one gave a damn that they were out here.

  "What are we going to do?" Mike asked, wiping a stream of tears from his face. He was still looking up at the sky.

  Jack looked out to the farmland whipping by them. They had only left the Jefferson Depot about fifteen minutes ago on the AC&J Scenic Line and had about another forty-five minutes until they returned.

  He tried to imagine what his parents would say. What their reactions would be. No matter what angle he looked at it from—long shot, close up, or rewriting the script altogether—he couldn't figure it out.

  "I guess we'll never really know," Mike said, wiping his face again. "We'll never really know whose it is." Then he looked at him, his face still wrinkled, still red, still running rivers. "We're having a baby."

  It was hot outside. Jack could smell the land. The earth. The air. It was bitter and caustic and as much as he hated himself for it, so was he. It took nearly all he had to keep himself from climbing up onto the rail and jumping off the train in hopes of splitting his skull wide open.

  "Do you want a baby, Mike?"

  Mike's head shook slowly from side to side and his eyes narrowed in disbelief. "Are you serious?"

  He'd always hated when people did it to him, but now he found himself answering Mike's question with a question. "Do you think there's something funny about this?"

  "No."

  "Are you sure? What if I tell you our situation while I do a little dance? Would that make it funny?"

  "Cut it out."

  Jack steeled himself, drew a breath, then said, "There's only one thing we can do."

  "What's that?"

  "We can't let her."

  "What'd you mean?"

  Though it might have seemed like it was for effect when he paused, it wasn't. "We can't let her have that baby."

  "What are we supposed to do? Tell her it's a two against one vote? It's her body and she can do whatever she wants with it."

  "But there are four lives at stake here. Yours, mine, Shelley's, and a little baby boy or girl that will never know anything other than confusion and misery. That's what we're looking at, Mike. I hate it as much as you do but that's the reality of our situation. No one is doing the kid any favors by bringing it into the world. Not at this time. No way, no how."

  "I'm pretty sure I know what you're saying," Mike said, "but tell me in plain English anyway."

  "We have to get rid of it," Jack told him. "We have to abort it."

  Mike rolled his eyes. His attention once more turned up to the sky. "What are we gonna do? Tell her we won't be friends with her anymore if she decides to go through with this?"

  He grabbed Mike by the arm. "Listen, Goddammit. We're not just playing with her life and we're not just playing with an unborn child's. We're playing with our own. If she goes through with this, we got nothing. Nothing, ever again. We've cashed in our chips, and we both know what the rest of life will bring us. Are you prepared for that, Mike? Are you ready to throw away the rest of your life?"

  He saw Mike searching his eyes, and the tension in his mouth as his lips pressed together.

  Then, "So what do we do?"

  "Simple enough," Jack said: "We get her to abort it. Then we're all friends again. We all go about our merry way."

  "She wants to keep it. That's what she told you. I've never known any girl to change her mind because of a guy."

  "Well, we help her change her mind. Or if we have to, we make her change her mind."

  Mike pulled out another cigarette. This time he lighted it, and stared out at the fast-moving tracks whipping out and away from beneath them. The worry lines disappeared and his face became expressionless.

  "How do we even know it belongs to one of us? I mean, really? How do we know for sure it isn't someone else's?"

  "None of us have been with anyone else. She knows it's ours. We all know it's ours."

  The train seemed to tear along with an angrier rhythm now. Mike puffed on his cigarette for a contemplative moment.

  "She's too young," he said after a time. "I'm too young."

  "We're all too young," Jack told him.

  "We've still got two fucking years worth of high school ahead of us," Mike said. "I wanna go to the Rhode Island School of Design." He sneered. "I don't think that'll ever happen. That won't ever happen if she decides to make this decision for all of us." He looked Jack in the eye. His face had gone pale. "I'm not ready to ruin my life yet."

  "Then it's settled."

  Mike gave him a cigarette and the two of them smoked and watched the Ohio land recede.

  Finally Mike flicked his cigarette over the rail, turned to Jack and cleared his throat. "So tell me what your plan is."

  #

  He woke up. It was dark and his body was hot. He slid quietly out from under the sheets, discovering when the air hit him that he was damp from head to toe. He looked over at Sandra. Moonlight dripped in through the motel window and lay softly upon her face. Her skin appeared pale as milk, fragile as tissue. Under this silver glow she looked more vulnerable than he had seen before. Like a child.

  He got up off the bed, went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water, then splashed cold water onto his face. His body was still stiff and there was a sharp pain between his shoulder blades. He stretched his arms as far as they would go then returned to bed, staying on top of the covers, unable to get comfortable.

  "You okay?"

  He looked at her in the moonlight. "I thought you were sleeping."

  "I was," she said, and sat up. "Can't you sleep?"

  "I was sleeping just fine. Just had a bad dream is all."

  She rubbed his arm. "Remember what it was about?"

  "No."

  He sat up and took her hand, gazed up at the ceiling, then at her. It was dark, except for the moonlight. She was wearing a T-shirt and panties and everything about her was a faded gray cast in shadow.

  Finally he said, "I'm scared."

  "Of what?" He couldn't tell if she was sleepy or distanced.

  He looked at her then looked away, feeling ashamed. "All of it," he said. "I'm afraid of everything." He felt his face screw up. Felt the choke pushing its way up. He shook it off, and tried twice to scratch an itch on his arm.

  Sandra watched him in silence. Her breasts rose and fell rhythmically. After the momentary lull, she told him, "There's nothing to be afraid of."

  Without realizing it, he was slumped in her arms. She slid around behind him, her arms around his chest, and kissed him once on the neck.

  You're walking a doomed path and you're taking her with you, he said to himself. All the roads on your map lead to torment. You should know that by now.

  He craned his head and found her shadowed face. "I love you," he said, and kissed her.

  She kissed him back.

  It was so quiet; the roar on the other side of silence had to be tremendous.

  "Let's go back to sleep," she said, and slid out from behind him.

  "Yeah." He rubbed his eyes. "I have a big day tomorrow."

  "Good night," she said, then settled down and closed her eyes.

  Dempster stared at the ceiling for a long time. When sleep finally came, he didn't have any dreams.

  Chapter Fifteen

  "Got everything?"

  "Yeah, we got it."

  Dempster looked around the house one last time. Probably the nicest house he'd ever stayed in. After tomorrow he could maybe even buy a place like this, if he wanted. Not outright, of course, but he could make a good down payment. Wouldn't leave much to start that new life with, though.

  He and Sandra had stashed their stuff behind the McDonald's on Cerrillos Road. Hopefully it would still be there. He'd left Sandra at a bar, the only thing still open at nearly one in the morning, a large place on the way out of town, with an open parking lot and large front windows she could watch for him through. He
hoped she was doing all right. More, he hoped she would still be there when he showed up.

  "And you know where you're going when we blaze?"

  "Sure, we know," Jimmy said.

  "All right."

  "You know," Clark said, "this thing is gonna be huge. Think it would be a good idea, when we get there, to lay low at Frazier's a couple days until the heat's died down?"

  "We'll worry about that when we get there," Dempster told him, also wondering what they would all say when Sandra popped up with him from out of nowhere. He looked at Evan, saw the man was shaking a little as he hoisted up his bag.

  "You okay?"

  Evan looked at him with a face of stone. "Beautiful, baby," he said in monotone, and walked away without another word.

  They loaded everything up into the two cars. As they did, Clark rambled on and on with some long and involved story about a guy he knew who convinced his girlfriend to marry some wealthy guy so they could knock him off and score a big inheritance. "Problem was," Clark said, "it wasn't his money. It was his mother's, and she was still alive, though just barely hanging on. Had this clause in her will that said if her son were to somehow die before she did, all her money was supposed to go to cancer research or some such thing."

  Jimmy seemed the only one interested. Dempster half-listened while he coated his fingertips in airplane model glue.

  "Well, the husband catches them at the house one night, right? Came home early from work or something. And the two guys have this scuffle in the bedroom, and Joe manages to get the dude down on the bed and smother him with a pillow. Well, Mary—that's the girl—gets all upset. Then they realize the reality of their situation. They can kiss that inheritance goodbye. So get this: they take him out back to where they kept this big chest freezer. Y'know, like you see at those Ma and Pa country general stores for ice cream and soda and stuff. And they lock the poor dead bastard in it and crank it up, freezing and preserving his body until he can appear to have died after his mother has passed."

  "All right, guys, let's go," Dempster said, kind of wanting to hear the end.

  He wiped down the handles of his car then climbed in, checked to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and then watched Evan back the other car out of the driveway. Once they were gone he put on a baseball cap, wiped down the interior of the car and got ready.

  2

  Over the last two hours Doug Gardner had casually made sure that everything was where it was supposed to be. Now he stood at the front computer, making sure to keep in front of the silent alarm trigger underneath, completing an online reservation someone had sent by e-mail: two people, two nights, no children.

  Syd stood at the desk about five feet down from him, filling out some form or other, though it kind of looked like he was drawing pictures.

  Gardner didn't like Syd too much. Thought he was a bit of a prick, a kid who came from money and only had this job because his parents felt it would be good for him to have some experience and build some character. All he was really doing though was saving up money to soup up his car or "pimp my ride" as the little white kid from Portsmouth, New Hampshire had once said. So even though Syd Ramsland was good and pure, there was an underlying air about him that said he didn't give a shit any which way. It was just a job to keep his parents off his back. He wasn't relying on it to survive.

  Gardner finished making the reservation and sent back an e-mail confirmation, then found himself both nervous and giddy as he looked at the clock and saw that it was just after one. The reality of what was going to happen was so bizarre to him that he couldn't quite grasp it. Like a tangible illusion, very real, but in no possible way real. It was good, though. It was going to be a great thing. After tonight he could start making plans. In a month or two he could give notice, tie up some loose ends, head for California, and finally get the hell out of this overpriced town filled with priggish parvenus and trust-fund babies and old oil barons from Texas. He'd be done catering to wealthy people and their unreasonable, undeserved and out-of-touch demands. He hated their smugness. Hated their holier-than-thou attitudes. He wanted to be one of them and he wasn't. And even if he could be, something told him that he would never fit in—he would never be one of them; and this filled him with so much rage and envy that almost every time he helped a guest, he wanted to wring their necks. He wanted to kill them. He wanted to hurt them for not caring that he existed. For hardly nodding to him or barely even looking at him. For not giving a damn about his life as he bent over and they fucked him in the ass.

  He hated this place. Not just the hotel but the entire city, and he couldn't wait to be through with it.

  "Did I tell you about the hydraulics I'm gonna get?" Syd asked, scribbling away like a third-grader.

  Yes, Gardner thought with much aggravation, but I suppose I'm gonna hear it again. He looked closer and saw that Syd was in fact drawing a picture of his car.

  3

  Evan angle-parked the white Pontiac Grand Am in the very first parking space outside of the County Clerk's Office on Grant Avenue—just a block from the Eldorado—and killed the engine. Tension like molasses filled the entire car as the three of them sat quietly, waiting, listening to an imaginary clock tick off the seconds. They could faintly hear the heavy drumbeat thudding away behind them at the nightclub Swig, where they'd all gone the night before Dempster had shown up.

  Clark rolled an unlit cigarette between his fingers. "I tell you about me and Julie the other night?"

  "About fifteen times," Jimmy said.

  "Sorry. It's the high point of my life."

  "You need to get laid more often," Jimmy told him.

  "Oh yeah?" Lipping his cigarette, Clark put flame to it. "And when was the last time you stretched your meat, Mister Crazy College Girl video buyer?"

  Jimmy searched and searched for a response, and finally came up with, "Fuck you."

  Evan didn't say anything. The entire time he just stared through the windshield at the County Clerk's Office. He hadn't said a thing since they'd left the house.

  A long silence ensued.

  Then, "Anyone up for a game?" Jimmy asked.

  "No," Clark told him.

  4

  Dempster pulled directly in front of the Eldorado Hotel and shut off the lights before coming to a complete stop. The place was deserted. There wasn't another car—or person—in sight. He made sure his disguise was on properly and then got out, took a quick glance into the underground parking garage and saw no one, then headed up the narrow steps to the right leading above it.

  The door. The exterior entrance to the security area. A streetlight cast his shadow against it. He pressed his ear to the brown metal and listened. The faint and muffled sound of a TV sitcom and a couple distinct yet mild chuckles; then he heard a door open and close, and a voice said, "What'd I miss?"

  He didn't want to try the door until he knew he had to go inside that way. Chances were it was locked anyhow. Instead he surveyed the area around the door, and as he did he suddenly heard someone cough below him, at the entrance of the parking garage. Over the railing he saw the man's shadow. He heard the click of a cigarette lighter and a moment later a puff a smoke drifted up to him.

  Dempster eased over to the top of the stairway and crouched, waiting.

  After about a minute the cigarette flicked into the street. The shadow receded then there was a quick-step and it returned, paused in the entryway, then with an elaborate sigh the man walked over to investigate Dempster's car.

  Softly and in step with the man, Dempster descended the stairs. He caught up with him and, before the man knew what was going on, rabbit-punched him. The man hit the concrete and Dempster dragged him back down into the parking garage and tucked him away into a quaint little storage area.

  Inside the garage the humming of a generator reverberated throughout the place. There weren't any cameras in here. Bad for the hotel, but fortunate for him. Over the rows of sleeping cars he saw a passageway to the right that led up a
nd appeared to curve around in the direction of the security area. Brisk but steady, he cut between parked cars and entered. The same style fluorescent lights as in the garage were brighter now in the narrow, hooked corridor, and his feet became soundless pads when the concrete changed to brown threadbare carpet. At the curve he took it slow, crept around the corner at a snail's pace, and peered to the hall's end, which made a T, to the left almost utter darkness, to the right a brighter fluorescent glow.

  He withdrew his gun and approached. When he came to the end he stopped before entering the hallway, and chanced a quick look down to the right. The hallway emptied into a large glass window and a windowed door without any lettering on it. Through the two of them he could see the backs of three men as well as a small television screen. One man was bald, one man was blonde, and one man was black. He didn't care what they were watching.

  Down to the left the hallway made an L to the right, from which a soft golden glow like artificial candlelight radiated. He knew exactly where he was.

  He crouched down and went right. When he reached the door he eased up and peered through the window, saw the backs of all three men, and rose. There were twelve monitors for the cameras throughout the bottom floor of the hotel. Nobody was watching them.

  Dempster opened the door and stepped inside, and before anyone had a chance to move he said, "There's a gun on one of you. Any of you moves, one of you dies."

  The men froze. The laugh track of the sitcom blew up like a smothered scream and then died away with soft breath. Dempster went up behind the nearest man and slid the revolver out of his holster. "Move closer to the TV," he said to that one, and once complied with he moved to the next nearest man and relieved him of his gun. When the third man was disarmed Dempster backed away a bit and asked, "Good show?"

  Nobody spoke. He asked the question again.

  "It's a—a rerun," the bald man said, a quaver in his voice.

  "What show is it?"

  "Friends."

  "Never seen it. You like it?"

  "Y-yes."