“Do you really think the Insider gives a flying upside-down batfuck about any of us? To it, one human is as good as another. Drop in, stir up a brainstorm, and head on down the line. No big deal, a little soul grazing, just getting through the day. But to me, this isn’t about survival. To me, this is personal.”
The knife was slick beneath my sweaty palm. I raised the blade and pointed it at my chest. If only I could fall on it before...
“Don’t, Richard,” screamed Mister Milktoast. “What would become of me?”
“Food for maggots, with any luck.”
“Food for faggots, more like it,” Loverboy said. “Strap Daddy in stilettos and mince him down the runway.”
“It’s not your fault,” Mister Milktoast said, ignoring the taunt.
“Bullshit.” It was my fault, and besides, my word was law, right?
“He’s right, Richard,” Bookworm said, and his voice came flat, calm, and clear from the dead zone of my cranium. I pressed the steel between my ribs.
“Not you, too, Bookworm? I thought, of all of them, you might be on my side. You’re practically my co-author.”
“I’m on your side. More than you know.”
“Then help me. Help me die.” Tears streamed down my cheeks but I felt no sorrow.
“Richard, you’re not strong enough to love. But are you strong enough to hope?”
“Hope springs eternal,” cut in Mister Milktoast, as if the suicidal tide might dry up now that Bookworm kicked sand in everyone’s face. “Present tense despite the current tension.”
“Do you love yourself enough, Richard?” continued Bookworm.
“He loves himself plenty,” said Loverboy. “That right hand of his is practically worn out. I say it’s about time to let him get the fuck out of Dodge. Beth is tight as a breadstick and twice as salty, but this monogamy crap is getting old. Me, I got needs.”
“I say winterize him,” Little Hitler said. “Let Richard bury himself back in the dark. Nobody would shed a tear. And I wouldn’t mind having a go at this meat full-time.”
I would welcome that. If I couldn’t stab myself, maybe I could just slip on down into the dark waters, drown inside my own sorry sea. No, the ocean-beach metaphor was paragraphs ago. It was time for domestic reference. Okay, so I’d book myself a back room in the Bone House and hang out a “No vacancy” sign.
Bookworm came in again, calm and strong. “Do you love yourself enough, Richard?”
“Love? What’s love got to do with anything? And if I really did love anybody, then I would want to spare them our miserable company.”
The waters tempted, lapping. The curtains fluttered. Or was it the Insider laughing?
“Do you love yourself enough to live?” Bookworm challenged.
“I hate myself enough to die, I know that.”
“Then you’d be dead already. Why aren’t you?”
“The arch enemy hasn’t finished painting his rainbow,” Mister Milktoast said. “Sorry. Inside joke.”
The knife point was to my chest now, pressing into the flannel, bruising the sternum. Through the window, the sun hung fat and low over the far mountains. I should have been at work. I was scheduled for the night shift. But I was in search of a longer night shift, eternal overtime, no hope for dawn.
“Beautiful,” Little Hitler said. “Richard’s so pathetic he can’t even succeed at the ultimate failure. Do you guys need more evidence as to why we need to fucking drown him already?”
“Be my guest, Little Hitler. Nothing would please me more than to disappear inside. And you, Mister Milktoast. You’ve tried to keep me out of danger. But you want to live, with or without me.”
“You wound me, old friend. After all I’ve done for you...”
“All you did was protect me from the truth. Just like Mother.”
The blade pressed, the hand gripped, the arm ached to thrust. Blood thundered, heart throbbed, shutters shuddered.
“Richard,” came Bookworm’s soothing voice, like a New Age audiobook narrator who’d sampled the chamomile. “It still won’t be the end.”
“The end? What do I care about the end? All I want is to be out. Flying solo to hell or whatever those joking bastard gods have in mind for me. I just want to lose any awareness that I was ever me.”
“Yes, Richard. It would end for you, but what about the Insider?”
“The Insider? I’d be depriving it of a moment’s distraction, that’s all. It would just jump like—”
“—like a nimble metaphor over a proverbial candlestick burning at both ends. And move on.”
“Whatever. It’s not my fault. I didn’t bring the thing into the world. And I didn’t invite it into my heart. It’s not like Mother made me do with Jesus.”
“That was me,” Mister Milktoast said. “I was always trying to protect you.”
“Jesus Jiminy Christ, what a joke,” Little Hitler said with a howl of laughter that rattled the Bone House windows. “Saving him from the savior. So which one of you angels are going to heaven? Now I’ve heard everything. Hell, now I’ve been everything.”
I turned to the only one who still seemed unselfish. “Bookworm, do you really think I’d mind snuffing these mental clowns out of existence? I’d be doing the world a favor. It’s practically my duty.”
“Yes. You and I would end. All of us. But the Insider would continue. This chapter would end, the manuscript would expire in media res, but there would be a sequel.”
“So you believe. But I’m only human. What do you want me to do about it?”
My body was tensed, awaiting the deathblow that wouldn’t come. A sharp lightning bolt flashed through my skull and fireshadows danced in my eyes. Black scraps stitched themselves together into a blanket over my brain. The Insider’s voice stabbed with its icy splinters, a gang rape of thoughts.
No need for me to jump very far, is there, Richard?
“What are you talking about?”
Plenty of suitable hosts all around. Plenty who’ve been tortured and abused and are brimming with pain. Plenty who have sinned. Plenty of humans right within reach who’ve been tainted by their humanity and are just waiting for a monster to come in. Practically BEGGING for it.
“What’s that got to do with me? As long as I’m out of the picture, I don’t care if you reanimate Elvis’s corpse or do the hokey pokey with Abraham Lincoln’s ghost.”
Choices, choices, choices. Mother or Beth. Beth or Mother. So many to be, so little time.
“No. You miserable mindfucker.”
Which is the greater of two evils?
“Damn you to hell.”
Thanks for the kind sentiment. But I’ve found the hottest hell right here.
I struggled with myself, my own arm. The knife or not.
I’ll let you die happy, if that’s what you want. You can go with a smile on your face, knowing that your beautiful little self-sacrifice is going to add to the guilt and pain of those you left behind. Hmmm. My mouth is watering already. Or is that YOUR mouth?
I swayed, confused, a minuet with sharp metal edges.
“Listen to your heart, Richard,” Bookworm said.
“My heart says stick the knife in.”
“Don’t give up. We can beat it. Together.”
The Insider’s laughter ripped through my guts like shrapnel, pulsed through my veins like broken glass, rattled in my headbone like a blunt hatchet blade.
That’s when I realized I didn’t want to die. At least not alone.
Not when I could take somebody with me. Or something.
“Yo, Squidbait,” said Loverboy. He was as jaunty as a sailor on shore leave with cockswain to spare and furlough to burn. “What would Mother say if she saw Richard down on his knees with a knife in his hand?”
“Hey, Loverboy, you tart-popping sonofabitch. Why don’t you ask her?”
I turned. Mother was leaning against the kitchen entrance, wiping at the crust in her watery eyes. I put the knife behind my back.
She spoke, and her throat was so dry her voice cracked. “Richard...”
Had she seen the knife? I pretended to be looking for a spill. That was the only reason I could think of why I would be on my knees in the kitchen. I sure couldn’t pretend to be praying.
“Richard…”
“Yes, Mother?”
“In this light, you look just like your father.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I led Mother upstairs to the spare room. She sat on the bed, her glass in her hand. If she ever died, the undertaker would have to break her fingers to get them out of that hawkish grip.
“You can sleep here,” I said. “I’ve got to go to work. Make...”
She brightened, snapped her eyes wide like a frog going after a waterbug. “...make yourself at home.”
Home is where the heart is. So Mister Milktoast likes to say. But sometimes, home is where the head is, especially if you are behind on rent and you claim squatter’s rights.
Mother grabbed my shirt as I tried to leave. “Just like old times, Richard. The good old days.”
Loverboy wanted, yes, he shivered and reached out to touch her cheek, but, yes, Mister Milktoast was right, good things were worth waiting for. Yes, Little Hitler cheered them both on and Bookworm kept the scorecard.
“It’ll be late when I get back. I’ll try not to wake you.”
I’ll try very, very hard.
I was sweating again by the time I got out the front door. The November air slapped like a frozen glove, but still the juice trickled from my pores. I got in my Subaru and started the engine and sat watching my breath make crystals on the windshield.
Yes, Richard. Things are moving right along. Everything unfolding according to the synopsis.
“You fucking inhuman monster.”
Sticks and stones, Richard. Except, of course, I don’t have any bones to break. That’s why I have to borrow yours.
I gave the steering wheel an open-palmed punch.
Hahaha. This is delightful, I must say. I’ve seen the ashes rising from the crematoriums at Dachau and Auschwitz, the sky gray and thick with flies. I’ve ridden over the bloody snow at Wounded Knee while mothers tried to cover their papooses. I’ve breathed the mustard gas and gangrene of Flanders. I’ve lain awake at night in the jungles of Cambodia and the deserts of Darfur, counting myself to sleep with screaming children as sheep. But nothing, NOTHING, has been as sweet as this latest joyride. I want to thank you, from the bottom of your heart.
“I’ll get you, you bastard.”
Richard, you’ve made me really appreciate what it means to be human. You’ve proven a perfect specimen of your kind. And just because your species has exterminated mine is not the reason this is so enjoyable. What makes this the crown jewel among a thousand possessions is that no one has ever DESERVED me as much as you have.
“You’ll never get Mother.”
The night is young.
At work, I was busy with the Christmas orders that were coming in. Brittany was out of town for the weekend and Miss Billingsly had worked the day shift, so Bookworm had his hands full running the register and stocking the shelves. I was glad to be occupied. It kept their minds from Mother.
Arlie was sitting in the poet’s corner, watching the highway and sipping at whatever he had in his cup. He rubbed his face.
“What you doing for Thanksgiving?” he asked while I was rearranging the postcard display on the counter.
“My mother’s in town.”
“Hey. That’s nice.”
“Yeah”
“Saw one of them last night.” He wiped at his buzzard’s beak of a nose.
“One of what?”
“Them. Flying saucers. Came out the top of Widow’s Peak and swooped down over my fields as dead quiet as a bat.”
“Same kind?”
“Yep. Kind of greenish and flat like one of those Frisbees the hippie boys throw. Had a row of red lights around the outside edge.”
I nodded and rang the register. A lady with a pixie haircut bought Stephen King’s new novel. It was the sixth one I’d sold that night. That was one squirrel-eyed bastard who knew how to plot. If only Bookworm were as gifted.
After she left, Arlie said, “Swooped down Tater Knob Road and then back up where there’s nothing but old logging trails, where nobody ever goes anymore. Them things are smart, I tell you. That’s why they call them ‘alien intelligence.’”
“So you think they have a base up there or something?”
“They’s a nest of ‘em up there. You better believe it. And nobody’s doing a damn thing to stop them.”
“People don’t like mysteries. They’d rather not know about things they can’t understand.”
“Well, how many more have to get killed first?”
“So you still think it’s the aliens that got the girls?”
“Fuck a blue hen, I do. Why else ain’t they come up with any clues?” He waved his arms like a frantic bird and looked at me with his dark eyes. “‘Cause they don’t want to be found out yet. They’re chargin’ up for a takeover, sure as the world.”
“And you’ll be the first to know.”
“Damn straight. I’m the only human around in those parts, at least the furthest up the road. It’s a wonder I ain’t been got yet.”
“They probably know you’re onto them.”
“Keep a double-dose of Number Eight buckshot handy, just in case.”
“Well, why do you think they need to kill the girls?”
“Rechargin’. Getting energy. Suck ‘em down like draining a battery.” He lowered his head and his eyes ping-ponged back and forth. He said in a conspiratorial whisper, “They eat the light.”
“The light?”
“Their souls.”
The Insider was quite a trickster. Multitasking. Stepping out on me. Sleeping around.
“Sounds like you’ve got them figured out, Arlie.”
He finished whatever was in his coffee cup and stood up, swaying slightly. “Yep. Better get on out and keep watch. This is their favorite time of night.”
Then he was out the door, looking up at the dark sky.
Could the Insider throw visions up on the big screen of the heavens? Lucas and Speilberg in a galaxy not so far away?
Now, Richard. Would I do a thing like that? I prefer a private viewing.
I wondered what Arlie would think of predators who didn’t have to invade Earth. Because they were already here. Had been since the beginning. A race that thought we were the aliens.
Beth called just before eleven, as I was getting ready to close up. “Hi, loverboy,” she said, in her sexy kitten voice that even hundreds of miles of cable couldn’t quell.
“Loverboy? What about him?”
“Hey, relax. I’m just being silly.”
“Why did you call me at work?”
She sighed. “To hear your voice, Richard. People do that sort of thing, when they’re in love.”
I wondered if the word “love” always sounded like an accusation to other people. The way it did to me.
“Sorry, hon. I’ve been out of sorts lately. Got things on my mind.” Five of them, to be exact.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I just miss you, that’s all.”
“Well, here’s something that might cheer you up.”
“What’s that?”
“I ran into an old girlfriend of mine. She’s heading to Florida on Friday, and she’s going to drop me off there on her way. I’m going to be home early, you stud muffin. So I only have to go two nights without that hunk of burning love of yours.”
“Th-that’s great.”
“Hmmph. Why don’t you just yawn, you’re so happy about it?”
“No. That’s really great. I mean it. I...” I look forward to killing you.
“Richard?”
“It’s just been real busy here tonight, with the start of the Christmas season and all. But Friday’s great, I’m off on Friday.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You sound a little...odd.”
“No, everything’s fine here. Really.”
“We’re going to be heading out early, so I should be there around eleven o’clock. Do you want to meet me at my apartment so we can bring over some of my things?”
“That would be fine. So, did you tell your parents? About us living together?”
“You kidding? I told you Mom’s a hardcore Catholic and Dad derived his moral philosophy from ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’”
“Parents. Gotta love ‘em.”
“Yeah. I think I’ll tell them at Christmas, when everybody’s always in a good mood, no matter what kind of shit is raining down.”
“Mmmm. I love you, Angel Baby.” The L word was easier to say, now that I had no choice.
“I love you, too. And guess what?”
“Two guesses in one night? I’m really lucky.”
“I have another surprise. A secret.”
“I’ve been told that I’m no good with secrets. Every time I cross my heart, somebody dies.”
“Funny. Well, it’s such a good secret that I’m not going to tell you on the phone.”
Warning flares erupted in my crowded head. “That big, huh? It sounds like a happy secret.”
“Well, I wasn’t sure at first. But now that I’ve had time to think about it...yes, it’s good.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“Good things are worth waiting for, guy.”
“I’m waiting, then.”
“Good. And don’t let any wild women into your bed until I get there.”
“I’ll try my best.” Did Mother count as “wild”? And did my half-hearted promise free Loverboy to sleep with women preceded by other adjectives? What about tame women or lavender women or deep-fried, sugar-glazed women?
“Hope you won’t get lonely on Thanksgiving.”
“Me? I’m never lonely.” Misery loves company but sleeps alone. Except in the Bone House.
“Funny again. See you on Friday. Love you.”
“Love you.”
She smooched into the phone and hung up.
Secrets. I hated secrets. Sally Bakken had secrets. Secrets always carried a price and never got you the dollar’s worth of candy.
As I Die Lying Page 25