His entire body shakes. Nausea rises within him, his eyes squeeze shut against what feels like a vicious migraine headache.
Then, he lets go.
Something inside slips.
I see images appear as if assembled from a heavy mist.
A smiling woman with short brown hair, sitting at a picnic table on a sun-dappled suburban deck. The woman, crying in a doctor’s office. The woman, longer hair hanging in sweaty strings, giving birth in a hospital. A baby with a round face and almond-shaped eyes, drooling. Crowds cheering his name as the woman yelled at him over the phone for missing another birthday. The pediatrician telling them that the boy could still enjoy a full life, go to school, hold a job, even get married someday if he so chose. Boozing. Drugs. Embarrassment at taking the kid to a friend’s for a dinner party. “No, that’s not my son.” Walking out on them with the snow falling on the circular driveway. The woman watching from the front steps, the clueless toddler in her arms. Shame.
I understand.
It is vague and obscured, but I know what he is hiding, what he’s hiding from.
It makes me sick.
Could I be wrong about this guy? Could Ally be wrong?
No. I do not doubt her for a minute. She is true and pure.
I whisper to him that he was wrong, always wrong, in his denial. But, it is not too late; he’s been wrong about that as well.
He has been given another chance. Call it a miracle.
Take it, I whisper to him.
29. Apeirophobia / ə′pīr·ə′fōb·ē·ə / fear of infinity
“I want to be immortal,” Jason whispers to Raven. The cold rain ticks against the family room picture window. The trails of moisture mirror the tracks of Jason’s fat tears and melt the room, plaster ceiling to pet-stained cut pile rug, in dripping black shadows. “Like you.” Raven’s heart cracks. It never occurred to him that anyone, no matter how rabid a VNO fan, could possibly think any of it was real.
But Jason is desperate. He vaguely remembers that the whole vampire thing is a fake, but ever since I appeared to him, he started thinking that maybe it could be real after all. In hindsight, I should have just stayed out of his whole trip. But, he’s so damn important to Ally. There was no way I could just let him think that dying is the total end of everything for someone as special as him. Did he think I was a vampire? I don’t know, maybe.
Oh, what did I do to that kid?
Like humans, angels don’t always use the best judgment. Sometimes, we’re stupid, too (but you didn’t hear that from me).
Anyway, Trish had called the wrestler to tell him that Jason was getting worse, and that he had asked to see him as soon as possible. Raven had been in the middle of a rehearsal, but he rushed out of the gym and sped the fifty miles to Pittsburgh, still in his ridiculous vampire costume with red-tinged corn syrup dripping down his chin. Yeah, he’d gotten some strange looks from passing motorists along the way. He was grateful there were no cops on I-70 for a change.
Over the past few weeks, he’d gotten to know Jason pretty well. There had been a party in his honor the day he was announced as the promotions vice president. Everyone had piled into the dining room at Uncle Chuck’s Grill and welcomed the kid aboard. The office staff had been a bit apprehensive and stand-offish, worried about their jobs, but the wrestlers cozied up to the boy and listened as he spilled his complete life story, from being picked on at school, to his first trip to Cedar Point, to what chemotherapy is really like. The wrestlers were used to snapping post-match pics with kids like Jason, but they didn’t really know anything about what it was like to have Down syndrome. What they learned from Jason is that those Dear Ones have likes and dislikes, rational thoughts, dreams, desires, and feelings, too—just like everyone else. And the empathy those people have, amazing. The wrestlers all feel like better people for having met Jason. And they are.
They also learned what it means to experience real pain and sadness. The young man’s fiery eyes told of an unimaginable sorrow and horror, and those eyes melted even the hardest of hearts. Jason had only been able to make the trip to Wheeling a few times due to the severity of his illness, but Raven and Lestat and a couple of the other wrestlers drove up to see him a couple of times a week. Jason knew every VNO wrestler, every venue they’d competed in, every statistic there was. His enthusiasm was contagious and all the wrestlers loved to talk with him. They all admired Jason’s courage and would do anything for that boy.
During that time, Jason had grown darker, more sullen. He struggled to hide his internal freak out from his idols. They’d made him feel special. Cool. Maybe not “normal,” but like he mattered to a world outside his own freakish realm. He began to dream that they could help him.
Every day inches Jason closer to the end of what he thinks is everything. He doesn’t fully understand what “dead” means, but he has flashes of panic which break his parents’ hearts. At night, as they tuck him into bed, Jason’s eyes grow wide as he clutches at his mom and dad, begging them not to let him die. There is screaming and tears and misery until the Xanax kicks in and they all hold each other in their shared chemical numbness, until Jason falls asleep, drooling on his dad’s shoulder. Then Trish and Jeff hold each other as they watch their son sleep, knowing that soon he’ll be gone.
Raven moves close to Jason and hugs him. He doesn’t want the kid to see the water that has welled up in his own eyes. He buries his nose in Jason’s sweet-smelling hair and closes his eyes. When he’s regained his composure, he sits back on the couch and looks at Jason’s wet face.
“Buddy, it’s not real,” Raven whispers. “I wish like hell it was, but it isn’t.”
More tears fall down Jason’s face. His mouth gapes like a jack-o-lantern frown. Trish walks into the room. She’d been listening to them talk from the next room. Her face is haunted and hard, and her eyes glitter with pity and despair. She’d tried to explain to Jason about vampires being a myth. She thought he understood. It tears her apart to see him grasp at shreds of fairy tales.
“But vampires live forever. They drink people’s blood and fall in love and have magic powers.” Jason puts his hands on the sides of Raven’s face, getting white greasepaint on his hands, making his idol look him in the eye.
“That’s just in the movies and in books,” Raven says, pulling his face away, smearing his make-up. He wants to cry, but feels he has to stay strong for Jason’s sake.
“No,” Jason says, “I’ve seen you do it. You guys drink each other’s blood all the time. It makes you strong. It makes you fly. And you’ll live forever.”
Raven looks away.
“Plus, you only come out at night. And you sleep in coffins…and…and…and that’s why Ally bought you guys for me.” Jason smiles as though he truly believes the lies they sell.
“It’s not real, none of it’s real,” Raven says, laying a hand on Jason’s arm, looking into his face. “It’s all made up. You know Annie? From the office? She writes the stories we act out. It’s like a play. You know, theater?”
Jason bares his teeth and furrows his brow. He yanks his arm away as if Raven’s hand were made of flames.
“I don’t believe you!”
“Look,” Raven sighs, “how could I be here in the daytime if I was a real vampire?” Raven looks to Trish for help.
Jason has no answer to his question.
“Honey,” Trish says, “Ally bought the league for you because she wanted you to be happy, not because they could make you into a vampire.” She’s surprised that her son has been thinking these pretend vampires could save his life. It makes her want to wail and scream and pound her fists on the wall and break things. It is the most pitiful thing she’s ever heard.
Her son is dying.
“You’re a liar, then! You’re all liars! I hate you! Go away!” Jason covers his eyes with his forearm and sobs.
Raven leaves, feeling fraudulent and ridiculous. Call it a job hazard.
I know that feeling well.
&
nbsp; 30. Enosiophobia / ē-nah-sē-ə-fōˈbē-ə / fear of having committed an unpardonable sin
Ally sits in her room, playing with her Barbies on the floor.
“It’s so sad,” Window Cleaner Barbie screeches as Ally holds her up and wiggles her. “I’m really going to miss Jason.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Ally says. She’s trying not to cry. She’s spent more time crying this year than she has over the past ten years. She wonders if other people who win the lottery spend a lot of time crying.
“Too bad you guys never got…got…married,” Window Cleaner Barbie says.
“We…we…we still could.” Ally imagines herself in a flowing white gown with pretty sparkling beads woven into the bodice, and a poofy white veil hanging low over her face. Then she pictures Jason, in a black tuxedo with a red bow tie, lying cold and blue in a silk-lined coffin. The image makes her want to scream.
“But then you’d have a dead husband. What do they call that? Being a window?” Ah, Barbie, you dumb blonde bimbo. Barbie is such an evil concept to push on little girls—if you’re thin and blonde, it doesn’t matter what job you have, Ken is always there for you to fall back on. Heck, do every job there is—you won’t have any job security or health insurance from all that job hopping, but, that’s okay, Ken’s got your back.
“A wi-wi-widow. And don’t you say that to me again!” Ally launches Window Cleaner Barbie over the bed and into the hamper on the other side. Her tiny squeegee flies out of her dainty hand and lands under the dresser.
“Don’t listen to her,” naked headless jobless Barbie says in a deep and raspy voice, not unlike the one I used to talk to Stryker that night in his Vegas hotel.
Lois cracks the door and pokes her head in. “Ally?”
“Yeah?” She peeks over the bed.
“Is someone in here with you? I thought I heard a strange voice,” Lois says, looking around Ally’s tiny bedroom. A strange and familiar voice.
“No. I was just…playing Barbies, that’s all.” She smiles at her mom, beautifully mascaraed eyelashes fluttering. She’s very well-groomed these days. Quite a turnaround from the Christmas nightmare that had scared the party guests. She and Lois visit the day spa once a week for facials and mani/pedis.
Lois steps into the room and sits down on Ally’s bed. She looks at her daughter and, for the first time, really sees the lines that time has etched into her fair skin. Ally is not a child anymore. Lois remembers the lost baby teeth, the pee-wee soccer matches, the cuddling. She wonders what the future holds. Everything feels upside-down and wrong lately. That cursed money, she thinks.
“You want to talk about anything, kiddo?” Lois ruffles Ally’s hair. Ally smoothes it down. She hates it when Lois treats her like a baby.
“Nah, I’m good,” she says. She’s really not good, but she doesn’t know how to articulate her complex state of mind. Trying will only cause her mother to worry, so she’d rather not say anything.
“Are you sure? There’s been a lot going on. I think you’re keeping a lot of stuff inside.”
Ally doesn’t speak for a moment. She looks at the beaded lampshade on her bedside lamp. She looks at her hands, thinking she needs to pick up some moisturizer one of these days. “Yeah,” she finally sighs. “I guess…I don’t know.” She does need to talk. She can’t keep it all locked in the wasteland of her head. “Mom, why did Stryker leave?”
Lois bites her lip and lets out a sigh of her own. “I don’t know, honey. You know, we can still ask the police to find him. He did steal your money.”
Ally frowns. She doesn’t want her friend to get into trouble. And I told her to let it be. It was only half a million dollars (it still felt funny to them to think of it that way). She would give so much more if only he’d come back and wrestle. “No, I don’t want to call the co-cops. I have a fee-feeling he’ll come…he’ll come back.”
Lois doesn’t know why, but she has that feeling, too. As much as she thinks she doesn’t like Stryker, there is something undeniably good about the man. He is worth saving, she thinks. Call it hidden potential.
“Mom?” Ally looks up at her and puts her hand on Lois’s knee.
“Yes?” She strokes Ally’s hair, tucks a lock of it behind one thick ear.
“Is Jason going to die?”
Ouch.
Lois had known this would be on Ally’s mind. She’d been wondering when Ally would ask her about it. How do you tell your child that her very best friend is definitely going to die? That one day, she’s going to wake up, and he won’t be there anymore?
“Yes, honey, I’m afraid he is.”
“Is he really mad at me for buying the VNO?” Jason hasn’t spoken to her in days. He won’t come to the phone when she calls, he won’t come out of his room when she drops by his house. It hurts her.
Lois smiles a wistful little smile. “No, he was just confused and he needs a few days to get over it. Didn’t he know that vampires weren’t real? I thought he knew that. What did he talk about when you watched Twilight together and stuff?”
“I think he used to know they’re n-n-not real. But, now, he’s s-sc-scared. He told me that we could be li-like Edward and Bella.” Ally grins, but she feels broken inside. She starts to cry. Lois pulls her up to the bed and rocks her.
Both feel that unique human hurt.
I want to help, but I don’t know how. When I was human, I never knew anyone who died. Just me. I’ve seen it enough in my current form, but it’s not the same experience. I’ve become numb to the whole thing. Not that I don’t care when one of my charges dies, but I haven’t been this attached to a human and their mortal existence in a long time.
It’s okay, though.
Ally is going to be fine.
* * *
As her friend lies dying in his bed, Ally stands ringside and watches Raven deliver a theatrical elbow drive to Winston Halston’s chin.
“No, no, no,” one of the managers yells from the corner. “Come on, Raven, do it like you mean it. Winston, you gotta, like, jump back, you know? Make it look like you ran right into it and are, like, bouncing off. Really sell it, dude. Okay, do it again.”
As they set up to run through the move again, someone approaches Ally from behind, swiftly and soundlessly.
Rough hands cover her eyes.
“Hey!” she shouts. Stuff like that scares her. And she’s so nervous lately, everything startles her.
“Guess who,” a falsetto voice sings.
“Um, I don’t know,” she says, not even trying. It’s probably Kevin.
The hands drop from her eyes and spin her around.
Stryker.
Ally squeals and jumps into his arms.
“I heard you might have a job opening for one sorry motherfucker,” he says, squeezing her. Her arms tighten around his neck and he feels like he’s home.
Lois clears her throat from behind him.
He puts Ally down and gives the frowning Lois a sheepish look.
“Lois, hi.” He tries smiling at her, but when it doesn’t soften her features, he lets it fall. “Listen, I know I’ve, um, I’ve got some ‘splaining to do.” He chuckles, but again lets it die as Lois remains stern, her arms folded across her chest, staring daggers into Stryker’s jitter-bugging eyes.
“Where have you been?” Lois asks.
Stryker clears his throat and looks around the mostly empty Igloo. “I, uh…” He sighs, not knowing how to apologize, since he’s never done it before. There had been a time in his life, a long time ago, when he should have apologized, but he hadn’t had the balls. He had taken the easy way out and ran. It’s time to make up for that. “I made a mistake. A big mistake. I went to, um,” he swallows hard. “Huh. I went to Vegas to see if I could get into the WWC.”
She knows. It’s been all over the television and internet for the past few days. Ally was excited for him and sad when Murray wouldn’t offer him a deal. Lois hadn’t been as supportive. She shopped. She drank. She avoided Ally’s questions abo
ut whether or not Stryker would return.
“Where’s the money?” Lois knows he doesn’t have it, but she wants to hear him say it. Ally looks away, concentrating on the rehearsal in the ring. The VNO has a big event in the Mellon Arena tonight. It will be their biggest event to date. Ally spent gobs of money on advertising, and it paid off—they’re playing to a sold out house.
“Yeah, the money,” Stryker says, looking at the grey concrete floor. “I, um…most of it’s gone, Lois.” He looks into her eyes. She sees, as clearly as I can, the naked sorrow and regret he feels.
“I never meant to hurt you. Or Ally. God, that’s the last thing I ever wanted to do,” he says, huffing. “I just thought—”
“You thought?” Lois interrupts. “No, you did not think. You may have assumed, you may have hoped, but you most certainly did not think.”
Ally plugs her index fingers into her ears and sings to herself as she watches the wrestlers in the ring. She’s glad to see Stryker. She was shocked and more than a little disappointed to hear that he had gone to Vegas, but she understood. He just wants to be a big wrestler. She’d like him to be one, too. Maybe he doesn’t think she can help him. But she knows she can.
I know she can, too.
“My daughter wanted to help you. She won three hundred million dollars and all she wanted to do was help you. And you ripped her off. How could you, you bastard?” Wow, Lois never swears.
“Lois, please, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.” Stryker’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m so sorry. You have to believe me. I’ll do anything, please.”
Lois looks at Ally, who is giving her puppy-dog eyes. She wonders how they can ever trust this man again.
I whisper to her that he is worth saving.
I don’t know if she hears me.
Testing, testing, one, two, three.
31. Hemophobia / hē-mō-fōˈbē-ə / fear of blood
Fifteen thousand fanged black-clad fans pack the Igloo for the Vampires Night Out Steel City Slaughter. White banners streaked in red declare “Suck Me, Amadeus!” and “Bite Me First!” Bauhaus’s “Bela Legosi’s Dead” roars from the house sound system. The entire scene is an unholy mixture of goth and redneck, and it is destined to become the hottest show in America.
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