Laying Ghosts (Dolly Games)

by Derek Murphy

  Carl sighed, then said, “Okay. I’ll do it. I would have done it without you asking, but since you did; okay.”

  Suddenly grinning, Ike took a long pull on his bottle and belched softly.

  “Great! Then it’s settled! You’ll be big, solemn Uncle Carl until my kid is in college and can take care of himself.”

  Carl lifted his bottle and said, “Or, herself. You two didn’t want the doctor to tell you whether it was a boy or girl, remember?”

  Ike thumped the bottle onto the coffee table and put his head in his hands, suddenly stricken with worry.

  “Oh, God! I forgot that! What if it’s a girl? I remember what I was like as a boy! What if she gets hooked up with someone like me; all gonads and no sense? Thinking with the little head all the time?”

  “Ha! I’d like to see that! If it’s a girl, she’ll probably handcuff him to the bumper of a car so he can’t get away while she jerks his pants off!”

  Wincing, Ike said, “You really know how to hurt a guy, you know that?”

  “Relax Ike. DeeDee’s the most levelheaded woman I know and Julie and I will step in whenever she runs into something she doesn’t think she can handle.”

  Lifting his head, Ike looked pointedly around the apartment and said, “Speaking of Julie; I don’t see any womanly touches around the place. She’s got the hots for you bad, brother. While you were gone, she was like that mother hen you likened me to earlier; worrying about what you were doing, what roadblocks Marta’s family put up for you, whether they got you put in jail; that kind of thing.”

  Carl shook his head. “Just an infatuation, Ike. She’ll get over it.”

  “You should give her a tumble so she can get you out of her system.”

  “It’s the wrong thing to do, Ike.”

  “What’s wrong with it? You know how she is. She’ll give you the ride of your life and kick you out the door in the morning. Then it will be over and she’ll settle down and get on with her job.”

  “I don’t think Julie’s as shallow as you think she is. I think she’ll pin all her hopes and dreams on me and I’m not free, Ike.”

  Ike rolled his eyes and took another drink of his beer before speaking again.

  “Oh, yeah. She called DeeDee and cried on her shoulder for a while before I got kicked out. You think Marta’s still alive.”

  Growing impatient with the way everyone wanted him to put Marta out of his mind, Carl said, “She’s alive, Ike. Those phone calls prove it. She’s trying to get home to me and might need my help.”

  “Pfft! Shit, boy! She and her sister pulled off one of the biggest deceptions I’ve ever seen! She don’t need any help from anybody! If she’s still alive, she’ll show up on your doorstep with a big grin and nothing else on! If she’s not, then you’ll waste your life pining away for her when Julie’s right there, ready and waiting for you!”

  Growing angry, Carl said, “That’s enough, Ike! I’ve made up my mind and there’s nothing you can say to change it.”

  Sighing, Ike shook his head and picked up his beer, draining it. He rose and carried the bottle to the kitchen, dropping it into the recycling bin. Turning to walk to the door, he lightly patted Carl on the shoulder as he passed.

  “Just remember your friends, buddy. We’re here to help you if you need it. You’ve got to admit that you need help before we’ll act, though. None of us wants to give you a helping hand only to draw back a stub.”

  Carl stared stubbornly ahead as Ike exited the apartment, sitting there for some minutes before he rose, tossing his empty bottle into the recycling bin alongside Ike’s. Brooding, he went into the bedroom, stripping off his sodden clothes on his way to the bathroom. A hot shower did him a world of good and he was almost in a better mood when he walked back into the living room, dry and dressed.

  He stopped in front of the picture window that looked out across the city and watched the sheets of rain, blown by the wind, flood the landscape. In the street, the few passing cars rolled down into the small swale before the building, creating bow-waves as they rolled through the water. On only two other occasions in the ten years he had lived in Port Morgan had he seen the street flood in front of his apartment.

  The phone rang, jarring him out of his reverie and he walked quickly to pick up the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  A ghostly hissing and snapping, increasing in volume in time with the lightning strikes and he was about to hang up the phone when a voice said, “Carl? I got so lost…I’ll be there in ab…” Then there was no more to be heard as a series of lightning flashes burned the air outside, creating blue and yellow after-images on his retinas. Thunder pealed immediately, rolling and rumbling like the wooden wheels of an old cart from centuries past. The street lights which had come on an hour earlier due to the heavy cloud cover went out, leaving the exterior in semi-darkness. Then, like a cascade, the lights in all the buildings he could see went out almost in sequence and his own apartment building was plunged into darkness.

  As the rumbling thunder died to nothing but a few echoing rumbles in the distance, he listened at the receiver and frowned. There was no static, no hissing or any other noise to be heard. Had that really been Marta’s voice? It had been so hard to tell with it almost drowned out by the hissing static, followed by the thunder.

  He removed his cell phone from his pocket and quickly dialed his landline provider before he noticed that the little display on the phone showed that he had no ‘bars’; no coverage. Though he knew the cell towers were supposed to have an independent power source, it appeared that the nearest tower had lost power. Disappointed, he shelved the idea of finding out where the call had originated and shoved his cell phone back into his pocket.

  In the darkness, he looked around the apartment, knowing that as night came on, it would only get darker. Shrugging, he walked toward the closet in the entryway, feeling his way the last few feet and opened the door. Rummaging about in the closet by feel, he found his battery-powered camp lantern and twisted the switch, bathing the room in an almost adequate light.

  With the lantern in hand, he moved about the apartment, gathering up a pair of small lights for use in tents and a pair of tactical flashlights. He positioned the smaller lanterns in the bathroom and at the entry. They were LED lights and so wouldn’t run the batteries down completely by morning. At least he would be able to find his way about the place without tripping over anything.

  * * *

  As he entered the house through the garage, Ike stopped dead in his tracks and simply stared at DeeDee huddled on one of the kitchen chairs. He moved forward quickly, his hand going to her back as she lifted her tear-streaked face to look up at him. A pot of stew boiled unheeded on the stove.

  “The pains hit a couple of minutes ago. Be careful in front of the stove, Ike; my water broke over there.”

  She grimaced and tensed up, crying out after a few seconds, the cry almost lost in an extremely loud peal of thunder.

  Suddenly anxious, Ike asked, “Will you be okay till I can get you to the hospital?”

  She was silent as she worked her way through the labor pain and gasped a few times before answering.

  “If you get me there quick!”

  He left her to run into the living room for the bag of stuff she had pre-packed to take with her for the delivery. Darting past her, he ran into the garage and all but threw it into the car, returning for her.

  As he helped her to rise, she pointed vaguely toward the stove. “Turn that off! No sense in burning the house down!”

  Feeling unequal to the task that was suddenly thrust on him, fatherhood included, Ike did as she bid and returned to help her to the car.

  * * *

  A huge peal of thunder woke her and she started up in bed with a cry, throwing her arms out to either side to support her weight. One hand encountered a body and she recoiled, staring down at the smooth back presented to her. The body was in the process of lifting itself from the bed to turn and stare back at her.
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  A pretty face under a shock of black and red-dyed hair with a piercing through the bottom lip and one eyebrow greeted her.

  “That was a big one!”

  To say that Julie felt consternation would be an understatement. She had thought that she was through with picking up college girls when she left Hollywood and Jinx’s hard-partying lifestyle. She guessed she must have had a lot too much to drink. She vaguely remembered thinking that if Carl wouldn’t see what she had to offer, she would make sure that no other man would ever experience what he had turned down multiple times. She lifted a hand to her head, feeling the pain of the hangover to come for the first time. Her mind went to the card of the psychiatrist she had kept in her purse for months now. It looked like she was going to go see the shrink at last. Julie’s first lesbian experience had been with Jinx; the occasion that had prompted Jinx to call her “Little Freak” ever since. There had been a few others, but she had always swung back in the other direction; she loved the way that making love to a man made her feel too much to have a steady diet of lesbians.

  Pushing her hair back from her face, she mumbled, “I remember getting wet on the way into the building.”

  Then it came back to her. As she and the girl, no more than twenty or twenty-one, staggered from the parking lot, getting soaked in the downpour, they had overbalanced and fallen into the pool in the courtyard. Their splashing and laughing had brought the building super out to run them inside, yelling about getting struck by lightning while in the pool and he wasn’t going to clean up the mess such a thing would leave.

  The girl leaned in, cuddling against her and she barely kept her dinner down. Maybe it was the alcohol she still had onboard, or maybe it was the sick feeling that she had let herself down, or maybe it was the sense of loss that she had from being rejected by Carl. Again. She bolted from the bed, darting through the lightning-lit darkness to the bathroom, uttering choked and unintelligible apologies.

  After she had lightened her load, washed her face and composed herself, she walked slowly out into the bedroom just as the girl tried the bedside lamp. The click of the switch produced no light and the girl straightened in bed to watch her pick her way through the discarded clothing to the bed. She sat down, leaning back against the headboard.

  “Feeling alright, Hun?”

  The girl’s hand was warm and soft on the side of her face.

  Julie felt dead inside. Wrung out. Tired. Wasted.

  She said, “I’ll call you a taxi. It’s time for you to go.”

  “Julie-baby, I don’t have to be back at school till tomorrow afternoon. Got a meeting, but I can blow that off if you want me to stay.”

  Julie turned away from her and put her feet back on the floor, feeling that she might have to bolt for the bathroom again. Whatever she had been drinking wasn’t being good to her. She was sure that diarrhea might be the next thing she had to contend with. She really didn’t want this girl to see her like that. Especially if her stomach rebelled again and she had stuff coming out of both ends. The girl’s hand lay on her back, rubbing slowly up and down and the sensation of the warm skin sliding up and down her backbone felt good. Not as good as the rough caress of a man, but it was soothing. Julie didn’t want soothing just now; all she wanted was the bathroom.

  Rising, she tottered to the bathroom and barked, “Get out.” as she closed the door behind her. She fancied that she felt the toilet quiver as her weight dropped suddenly onto it and definitely heard the ceramic knick-knack on the tank rattle on the top. The spewing began immediately, making her even more sick to her stomach. She dragged the small trash can to her and vomited into it as the poisonous liquids drained from her bowels. As she sat there, the light in the bathroom came on, causing her to wince and squint her eyes against it.

  After an eon had passed, she unrolled a length of paper from its roll and wiped herself, pushing the stinking trash can away; the smell was revolting. Pushing herself up from the toilet, she depressed the lever and turned to remove a washcloth from the rack beside the shower. Wetting it, she wiped her face, scrubbing away the last vestige of her makeup, a little spittle and an unidentifiable bit of former food, all the time avoiding the mirror. She really didn’t want to look at herself just now.

  A light knock at the door heralded the girl’s arrival. As the door opened, she was assailed with the scent of something hot and steaming in the coffee cup the girl held.

  “Granny Cuthbert’s hangover cure. Get it into you now and you’ll feel better in the morning.”

  Feeling immensely thirsty, Julie took the cup with a muttered “thank you” and sipped of it, detecting the taste of honey, tea, lemon and a few spices she couldn’t identify. There was something acidic in it that detracted from the taste, making her a little nauseous for just a moment. She gagged and bent over the lavatory until the feeling passed.

  “What’s in it?”

  Unseen, the girl shrugged, which sent the flesh of her still naked breasts jiggling.

  “This and that. Grampa Cuthbert used to drink sometimes and Granny had to get him back into shape to go to work the next day.”

  Julie leaned against the wall beside the mirror, feeling the cool tile on the side of her face. Her tired eyes took in the girl’s form and she silently reflected that she could have done worse; the girl was nearly as pretty as Jinx was, even with the piercings, though considerably shorter. Julie’s mouth quirked on one side as the wry thought came to her that she didn’t seem to have a type. Unless it was a man. That thought brought her mind back to Carl and the lonely darkness closed over her mind again, making her feel as worthless as she had when she began drinking that night.

  Thunder pealed again, setting the windows to rattling and the light in the bathroom abruptly went out, leaving them in darkness again. The little, battery-powered trouble light she had plugged into one of the outlets in the bathroom came on, leaving them with a dim illumination. Good enough to find the bathroom if needed. She knew that once their eyes became adjusted to the dark again, the dim light would be more than sufficient to find their way around.

  She pushed herself away from the wall.

  “Let’s go back to bed.”

  Carrying the half-full cup with her, she moved unsteadily to the door and the girl didn’t back up, instead, one of the girl’s arms went around her as the other hand grasped her elbow to assist her to the bed. Julie felt old and decrepit as the girl helped her, still stumbling and reeling to the bed. The girl took the cup from her and placed it on the bedside table as she half-fell into the mussed sheets and blanket.

  She lay back, feeling the cool pillow against the back of her head and the girl lay beside her, one hand going to her breast. Julie quickly grasped it, slurring her words as she said, “I wan’ ‘a sleep…” It was strange; she hadn’t felt this sleepy when she was in the bathroom. Why was she suddenly so sleepy?

  In seconds, she was asleep and didn’t feel the things the girl was doing to her.

  Chapter Seven

  Carl’s home phone rang in the darkness and he bolted upright in bed. Trust the phone company to still have power while half the city was blacked out. He fumbled the receiver to his ear as another peal of thunder rumbled outside the windows and the wind howled through the trees.

  Static, followed by Ike’s voice, “Carl! We’re at the hospital! It’s time! I couldn’t reach Julie, will you pick her up? Be careful on Cascade Drive; trees and power lines are down all over town. I…I gotta go!”

  The line went dead with a click, leaving Carl holding the receiver at his ear with nothing but the dialtone and the sound of the wind and storm. Sighing, he pushed himself up in bed and looked at his watch, the tritium markers glowing in the dark. About midnight. With the power out, there had been nothing to do but go to bed, and he was surprised that he had slept. He was rarely able to sleep before midnight, but he had gotten three hours sleep and felt refreshed.

  Carl slid out of bed and got dressed in the dark with only a few lightning flash
es to guide him to his clothes. Once dressed, he took the stairs down to the ground floor and used one of his flashlights to light his way into the parking structure. The emergency lights were on and the structure wasn’t completely dark; the way out to the street was lighted by small, red lights. Since he could expect street-flooding all across town, he took his old pickup out onto the street and immediately felt the winds buffeting it as it rolled through standing water. The old wipers had poor going to clear the rain from the windshield, but he drove slowly to avoid any of the pitfalls he was sure to find along the way to Julie’s apartment building.

  Ike had been right about Cascade Drive; it was almost impassable and Carl had taken the first exit he found that would let him continue across town. The lesser-used streets weren’t much better, but at least there were fewer power lines down along them. A few tree limbs, and in two places, whole trees, had fallen into the streets, but Carl had been able to drive around them. He grimaced as he arrived at the parking lot beside Julie’s building; someone had parked a windowless van in the parking slot next to Julie’s car. It was reserved for her visitors but that didn’t mean anything; anyone who felt like it could park there if they felt they could get away with it.

  Carl clapped the waterproof hat on his head that he kept in the truck for just such weather and exited the pickup, slamming the door behind him as he raced through the rain. Coming up even with the van, he saw that the sliding door on its side was only partially closed and, being naturally nosy, he stopped to shine his light inside the vehicle. The interior of the van was cluttered with a lot of audio/visual equipment and battery-powered lights. A few cases seemed to be missing, indicating that someone had taken part of the load. Why would they leave the door partly open though? That was a good way to have some pretty expensive equipment stolen. As the wind gusted, blowing rain into his face, he reflected ruefully that anyone who was out stealing on a night like this needed their head examined.