And, ignoring the obvious, he opened the door.
Teeth was shrugging her coat over her shoulders, her cell quickly shoved into her front pocket, when he came back in.
“What’s up?” He’d walked toward her. “Leaving already?” His words felt thick, his head slow.
“Had no idea it was so late,” she’d said, her eyes on her fingers as she struggled with the buttons. He glanced toward the bedroom door. Still closed.
“This seems kinda sudden. I mean, I was hoping to at least defend myself a little bit against what—”
“No, that’s okay.” She stopped, her hands still for the smallest of moments, and then started buttoning again. “It’s done and in the past and . . . it’s okay. Really.”
“I just . . . ” He ran his hand through his hair. “As weird as it sounds, I kinda thought we were having a good time, you know, despite—”
“No, no, yeah, we were. We were.” She gave up on the buttoning the coat and made a beeline for her purse. “It’s just I have a . . . I have studying to do—”
“We’re on break this week.”
A sudden laugh from her. It sounded awkward and forced. “Well,” she said, “no harm starting early, right?” She pressed her lips to his cheek. A quick peck with her body moving to a brief embrace while her feet started for the door.
“Wait, wait, hold on.” He grabbed her by the arm. “Talk to me. What happened? Are you okay?”
“No, really, I’m fine.” She gently pulled away, but he held tight. “I’m just a little tired, that’s all. Too much beer. Too many flowers. I’m allergic to flowers. They make me drowsy.”
“Flowers?”
“Oops,” he said as he looked at the dead girl next to him. The liar. The snoop. He moved to a crouch and grabbed the last laundry bag. Opening the hole as wide as it’d go, he drew it over her feet before bringing her arms across her chest and then, the knees folding, bringing her knees up. He looked at her, forced into a fetal position, the empty bag dangling off her ankles. “Think you’ll fit?”
“Yeah.” She’d stepped close that night three weeks ago, her purse over her shoulder, her fingers cupping his as she discreetly tried to pry them away from her arm. “Gotta get home for a Claritin or I’ll be sneezing all night.” Another quick laugh.
He laughed as well. “Remind me to never bring you flowers, right?”
“Ha! I know, right? Yeah . . . ” She clutched his gripping fingers tighter, her smile plastered on her face as she discreetly fought to get her arm back. “Anyway, it totally sucks. But, hey, could be worse, right?”
“Yes, it could. Much worse.” He gripped tighter, his eyes narrowing as he watched her. “You know, I can’t remember the last time I’ve had flowers in here.”
Unless you count the potted posies and pansies and whatnot in the bedroom to help hide the suspicious smell from the freezer.
“You lying cunt,” he said as he wrapped the rope around Teeth’s cold corpse. “Told you to stay still. To stay put.”
“Can’t trust ‘em, man,”Brody said from his place near the window.
“She said you were dead, man, you know?” He pulled the rope tight, watching as it ate into the skin, Teeth’s dead flesh puckering and splitting as he steadied her with his feet. “And then she said ‘Not going anywhere’, but she fucking lied, man.”
“Tighter, man!”
He pulled the rope tighter, the dead girl’s flesh weeping.
“She had it coming.”
“Ain’t that the damn truth.” His fingers tied the ends into a knot, pulling it tight.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said, her voice sounding desperate, a note of panic creeping in.
“No, you weren’t.” He turned her on her side and slid the bag up her dead white legs, her stiff hips, gathering it close and then tipping her so the body sat, squatting in the fabric, his hand steadying her.
“Now she is, right?” his bro said with a laugh.
“Yeah, Brody, I’d say she’s sorry.”
“For what?” He’d pulled her closer that night.
“Oh, you know, having to leave so sudden. Could you . . . ?” She’d patted his hand.
“My apologies.” He released her. “I don’t want you to leave, that’s all. It’s so out of the blue.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Her hands pulled the flaps of her unbuttoned coat in close, her arms crossing and then uncrossing. “I can just feel the sneezes coming on, though. And my eyes will turn red and ugly, and my nose will run, so . . . So, yeah, I’ll just go ahead and—” She turned to the door.
“Of course.” He followed her. Her hand turned the knob. The door refused.
“Deadbolt,” he said as he reached over to unlock the lock.
She chuckled. “Can’t be too careful, right?”
She opened the door. It stopped, the chain lock at the top catching it.
“Whoops. Gotta do this one, too.” He closed the door. “Wait.”
He stopped, pausing, his hand resting near the lock.
“What?” she said.
There was a long moment of silence.
“Not even a hug goodbye?” His eyes met hers. She looks terrified, he’d thought. Her smile looked tight, her body language afraid. Her hand still clutched the door knob.
“Sure,” she said.
He leaned in close, gathering her into his arms and squeezing her tight, his step forward pushing her away from the door. “We didn’t even get to kiss.” Still holding her, he pulled back, his face nose to nose with hers. Her heart raced against his chest. He grinned and then, nice and slow, pressed his lips to hers.
Winding the rope around the dead Teeth, he counted, his breath coming slow. His mind refused quiet, the memories rushing and tumbling. His heart pounded. He took his hand from the cold body. Stretched his fingers. They hurt, the tips snapping, buzzing. He closed his eyes, ignoring those fucking lazy fireworks popping between his eyes. Tried to focus. Had to focus.
The dead Teeth stared, her eyes still open. “Was that so bad?” he said to the corpse. “Our kiss. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” The words sounded odd. Hollow and muffled. His hand still on her shoulders, he steadied her as she squatted in the bag. “Had it been that, had we left it at just that, man, I’d still be meeting her for dinner and coffee, you know?”
“I know, man,” Brody said.
“I’d still be kissing her.” He took a breath and drew the bag up around her. “Instead, I have to throw her in a pit out in the woods.”
“Fuck, dude.”
“No shit.” He tied the knot tight, the hole closing over her head. “That’s really, really gonna suck.”
“For her, man, yeah.”
“You’re right,” she’d said as she pulled away that night. His arms were still around her. “It was nice. Very nice.” She patted him on the shoulder and tried to pull away.
“Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.” He pushed his hardness against her.
“Okay, okay.” She tried to pull away. “I should go now.”
“Not even time for one more kiss?”
“I really shouldn’t.” She’d been pushing him away as she tried to step to the door. “Next time, yeah?”
“But it was nice.” He stepped forward when she stepped back, frustrating her effort to escape. “You said it was.”
“It was. I just really have to go.” Another tight smile from her. He saw her eyes watering with tears then.
“Oh well.” He grinned in return. “I’ve had worse last kisses.”
Her laugh died in her throat. She swallowed. He stepped forward, pushing her back, the gesture cruel and impatient. She stumbled. Tried to say something, who knows what, the words lost as her heel caught and she fought to right herself.
“I didn’t want it to be like this.” He walked slowly, stalking her.
“I really didn’t,” he said as he looked at the body in the bag.
“I wanted a better end. One not so predictable.” He moved close
to her.
“We can . . . we can see each other again, you know.” Her voice sounded scared. The kind of forced calm usually snapped by a panicked scream. “Tomorrow. We can see each other tomorrow, if you want.” She was walking backwards, to the couch, close to the bedroom door. “I’d like that.”
“I’d like that, too. But I want one more kiss. Because it was nice. You said soyourself. It. Was. Nice.” He stopped. “Just one more.” She had nowhere left to run, save for the bedroom. “Can you do that for me?”
She nodded, her lips in a tight grin. “One more kiss.”
Coming near her, he held his arms out to embrace her. Her knee jerked up, narrowly missing his groin and hitting his thigh. He moved quick, his hands around her neck before she could scream, his lips on hers, his tongue invading her mouth as he cracked her neck with that familiar click and then held her as she fell.
Zippers pulled, fabric moved, cotton ripped, legs opened, he took her with a savage cruelty, her silence, her helplessness, her death exciting him as she tore and bled on that second date, three weeks ago.
“But they chose this instead.” He stood, now, weeks later, allowing the body in the bag to topple over and lay next to its twins. Tits in one, Freckles in the other. And now Teeth. “I don’t know what they were trying to prove, man but they were wrong.”
“Fuck yeah, man,” Brody said.
“It’s like they forgot who I am,” he said, the familiar heat spreading down his neck.
“Who you were, you mean.”
“Fuck you.” He clenched his fists. “I’m Colton fucking Carryage. You don’t get away with fucking over Colton fucking Carryage, you know? Ain’t gonna happen.”
He waited.
“Ain’t that right, bro?”
Nothing.
“Bro!”
I’ve been waiting.
He stopped.
Forever.
The voice came from behind him. A new voice. Not Brody’s. A girl’s. From the door. The words recognizable, though they were slow and careful. The sound somewhat garbled, almost choked. And impossible.
He couldn’t turn. His eyes stared at the floor. At the wood, worn by time and scuffed with the footfalls of countless strangers. The slight warp of the planks and how it all sunk in the middle as it rose toward the edges.
A sigh from behind him. At the door.
He ignored it, emotion and memory knowing what it was, who it was, but logic refusing to admit the obvious. He hadn’t taken her off the floor to the chair, he realized. Had considered and then forgot. Had left her laying. Somehow she’d moved. On her own.
He focused on the base of the freezer. The lid was open, on the top. Propped up and waiting. I need to close the lid, he thought, suddenly aware how the powerful hum of the machine clicking on cut the silence of the room and how the clouds of frost billowing from the yawning oversized chasm made his throat tight.
“Bro, man, you there?” He hated how scared his voice sounded. He cleared his throat and swallowed.
It’s a shame, came the voice at the door.
What would I find if I turned, he thought. A girl I thought was dead, who appeared dead, who somehow wasn’t and was now, what, waiting? Half-alive and severely wounded?
Yeah, that’s what I’d find. He was going to turn. After he closed the lid, he’d turn.
He heard a rustling from behind him. The sound of fingers scratching silk. Thick, durable silk, the insistent nails muffled in a swath of fabric tied with a knot.
Impossible, he thought. He smiled at his stupidity. At his weakness. His imagination. He laughed, the sound hollow and afraid.
A second rustle joined the first, this new one accompanied by a heavy sigh and the noxious smell of thawing decay.
He stepped toward the freezer. I’ll close the lid, he thought again, this goal becoming something of a mantra. First I’ll close the lid and then I’ll unplug it and then I’ll take a deep breath and then I’ll turn. And there’ll be nothing.
Am I wrong? said the voice still at the door.
You’re dead, he wanted to say. But his throat was too tight. Too trapped. No words would come out.
What’s it like?
He paused. “Where you at, man?” His words were a whisper. His heart thumped in his chest, beads of sweat running down his forehead, his cheeks, the back of his neck.
“Fuck, man.” He laughed, this one loud. He clenched his eyes shut and shook his head. He hadn’t eaten, so it wasn’t food poisoning. And he wasn’t using this week, so . . . what the hell was this? He ducked his chin to his chest and breathed in, nice and long, and then exhaled, nice and long.
Close the lid, he told himself. Close the lid and then turn and there’ll be nothing there. Nothing but four nobodies no one misses and Brody—not dead, but alive, alive and fucking well—fucking with him.
Golden son of a favored Senator . . .
I know who you are, came a second voice. Not Brody’s. This was from a bag. The words whispered as fingers scratched and tugged and pulled at silk.
“You’re not real,” he said, though he still refused to turn. “You’re in my head or something. You don’t talk unless I talk first.” His stomach shifted and his bladder threatened release. “You don’t do anything unless I . . . unless I allow it. Unless there’s a lesson to be learned. So, this . . . this is . . . ” He stopped.
God, what I wouldn’t do for a piss, he thought. He clenched his fists and shook his head. “I’m tired, man,” he said, hoping his bro would respond. “Tired and stressed. I could’ve used some help, you know?” He paused. “I just need to settle the fuck down.” He exhaled, letting his shoulders drop. “Settle down. It’s good. It’s all good.”
No response.
The sound of fabric rustling as a knot released and a bag fell to the floor filled his ears.
People can be cruel, said the second voice.
And the son’s light dimmed, answered the voice at the door.
The second bag, still plagued with the desperate scratching of insistent nails, fell over with a thump as well. And then a sigh followed by
Ow.
This was crazy, he said to himself, his hands rubbing his arms as he bounced on the balls of his feet. Calm down and close the lid and go.
I just don’t feel like me anymore, whispered the second voice.
Is that why you’re leaving? said the voice at the door.
I should just go, he thought.
You can’t leave, said the muffled voice still pawing at the bag.
“This is stupid,” he said.
He turned.
Unnecessary stood, blocking the door to the living room. A shoulder strap had slipped, almost revealing her breast. And her head tilted to the side, resting squarely, her ear to her shoulder, the flesh weeping where the broken bone pushed and poked and prodded against the skin.
Her eyes watched, but not him, her stare moving to the wall, the ceiling, out the window. She took a breath, her shoulders rising as her hands gripped the door jamb.
On the floor near the wall, Tits squatted in the bag, the knot untied and useless, the fabric pushed down past her knees and hips to land in a crumple by her ankles. The not-dead girl turned this way and that, the ropes binding her scraping the skin and digging into the flesh as she wrestled them from her arms, her wrists.
Next to her, the second bag laid on its side. The silk moved as nails fought and fingers reached, fists punched and feet kicked. The knot strained and then unraveled. The hole at the top opened, the dead Freckles climbing free as if sliding from the womb.
He closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and then another. It’s not real, he said to himself. This isn’t happening. It’s stress or too much tap water or something. I just need to stop and relax. They’re dead. They’re forgotten. They need to be carried down and loaded into the SUV. Driven into the woods and dumped in the pit by the tree. Far away from the road. Dug deep enough where they can rot in anonymity.
Brody and me
, man, that’s what we gotta do. This shit, it’s not real, he thought again, knowing it was somehow a lie. But it couldn’t be. Brody was here. He hadn’t walked back, back, back to the window. Hadn’t fallen. Hadn’t tumbled to the pavement fifteen floors below.
The heat in his head was there again. It was growing. He blinked. Took a breath. Steadied himself, his eyes still closed. Those lazy fireworks a slow storm of snapping light in his own private darkness.
And then he heard the clicking. The rapid chattering of bone on bone. Muffled and quiet, but not. It was loud. Too loud. Over the breathing, the disgusting, stench-filled breathing, of those three impossibilities standing in the door or resting on the floor surrounded by laundry bags, he could hear it.
It was inescapable, this rhythmic, persistent sound of
Teeth.
He opened his eyes.
Nothing had changed. Unnecessary stood. Tits squatted, the ropes peeling her flesh as she shimmied them free. Freckles, her limbs broken, laid on the ground, her head rolling as she tried to move, to crawl, to draw near.
And the third bag, the one with Teeth, leaned against the wall.
His guts dropped, his hand raced to quiet his scream and he took a step back.
“Man, where the fuck are you, man?”
The bag moved as her fingers poked free to pluck at the knot, her mouth pressed to the hole.
“Brody—”
Sold you out, the voice said from the third bag. Her large teeth caught the light as they started to chatter and click and clack again. He left. A moment later, the knot came free, the silk fell and Teeth stood, the ropes binding her falling to her feet.
Her head turned and she found him. He was never really there—
“No, man. That’s not true.” He took another step back as his heart pounded and his bladder gave out, drenching his legs with hot piss. “Fuck—”
A charmed life. Unnecessary took a step forward, her neck cracking as ear pressed against shoulder, the bone peeking through as the skin ripped.
Another step back. “Man, where the fuck are you, man?”
The scars, they’re not healing. Tits stood, the ropes shrugged free. Her arms, her wrists, her legs, slashed with weeping canyons of scraped and wounded flesh. She watched him. She stepped forward.
Eidolon Avenue: The First Feast Page 15