by L. T. Vargus
Nothing made sense. Everything I’d learned from him was somehow undone. I’d been learning from a monster. A serial killer.
Panic welled up in me. I smothered the feet with dirt as quickly as I could and hopped down into the basement. I shoved the window back into its spot, and it slammed into place with a bang that startled the crap out of me.
I turned to run up the stairs and get out of there. Nick stood at the top of the steps. He didn’t seem so listless now. A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. The hawk look.
“What the fuck are you doin’ down there?” he said.
They were the first words he’d spoken to me that day, and he sounded so angry that I thought I was going to shit myself.
“I just threw the puke covered clothes into the washer. This window was hanging out, so I shoved it back in there. It’s totally effed, by the way. The window, I mean. You should probably get the landlord to replace it.”
He squinted. I’d basically nailed the lie, but he still seemed suspicious.
“Oh,” I went on. “And you’re welcome for me cleaning the hell up and all. But it’s getting pretty late, so I’m going to go.”
He didn’t move, and I brushed right past him on the way out. I thought I carried myself right, though. I thought I fooled him.
Outside, however, I noticed that my hands were still caked with black soil.
Chapter 26
I RAN STRAIGHT HOME AND gathered up supplies into a duffle bag: a flashlight, a hoodie, my brown cloth gloves, a blanket, this notebook and pen, a huge thing of beef jerky, a six-pack of chocolate pudding cups, a couple of Powerades, and several bottles of water. Thankfully, my mom was already in bed, so I didn’t really have to worry about explaining why I was taking a bunch of food or where I was going with it at 11:30 pm. Not that I ever have to explain much to her, I guess.
So I can’t decide if it was because I was scared of waking my mom or just plain scared of Nick, but I did all of this in the dark. The streetlights outside slanted bars of light through the windows that reflected off of the black and white ceramic tiles along the kitchen floor. I shuffled around in that half light and grabbed the things I needed. It was dark enough that the fridge light hurt my eyes and made me squint when I opened it.
Anyway, it’s only been a couple of hours, but I barely even remember getting the stuff now. My head tingled the whole time, and my vision blurred and smeared along the edges. I think I was in shock. Maybe I still am to some degree, but my mind is a little clearer now, at least.
When the bag was full, I strode out into the dark. I wanted to be somewhere that Nick couldn’t find me, so I figured I’d just walk around all night. Maybe find a decently secluded spot here or there to sit and think and write for a bit and then move on. I don’t know. I felt like I had to keep moving. I still do, I guess. It feels like if I sit still too long, something will catch up with me, even if that doesn’t really make sense.
The grass swished as I walked through it to get to the sidewalk. The manager for our apartment building is pretty lax about the landscaping, and the grass reached past my ankles.
It’s hard to explain how messed up it all feels. It’s like I’ve been building my identity on sand that just shifted beneath me and tore it all back down. Nick guided me, gave me confidence, believed in me, but was it all wrong? Can I keep some of it and throw the bad parts away? I mean, what am I supposed to think of it all? What am I supposed to do?
I walked down the railroad tracks and balanced on one of the rails like a tight rope for as long as I could without falling off. It was hard to get to twenty in a row at first, but I got the hang of it pretty quickly. Soon I could just keep going without falling off. My count of the paces got lost somewhere after I got to over 117 in a row.
A siren wailed in the distance.
I moved away from the lights of the city, and before long it was too dark to play the balance game without risking a fall. Black. I didn’t want to trip over the beams either, so I walked in the gravel along the side of the tracks. It kind of hurt, to trod over all those points and hard edges.
The gravel crunched out a steady beat beneath me. When you walk a long distance, your thoughts start to take on the rhythm of your footsteps. A calm comes over you. Usually your mind goes as clear as water, but there’s no clarity for me tonight. Only the pitch black nothing in all directions.
Wind whispered through the leaves in the tree tops above me. It was too dark to actually see them, but the sound reminded me they were there. With the wind blowing, it was cool enough that I stopped for a second, pulled my hoodie out of the duffle bag and put it on.
I couldn’t stop picturing the pink and black toenails shrouded in the earth under that back porch. I thought about who the other three people might be and shuddered. And it suddenly occurred to me that Nick had really only lived in that apartment for a few months now. Who knows how many others came before that?
A bell rang somewhere ahead of me, and red lights flashed where the train tracks crossed a road. A train was coming. I wandered down into the brush along the edge of the tracks and waited. Trees reached out knotty limbs that prodded at my neck and torso.
How could I not have known? It seems like if anyone in the universe should have known, it’d be me. I mean, I was the one that saw him strangle Tony Vasser all those years ago. I guess it’s been so long that it didn’t feel real anymore. It feels like a bad movie I watched a long time back.
The train chugged by very slowly. It was only a few boxcars long, and I couldn’t imagine its small load being of any real significance. One time I watched a reality TV show where some real housewife of somewhere called every car in a train a caboose. None of the people she was talking to corrected her. Pretty dumb, but that’s what sprang to my mind just then.
The smell of the decaying bodies still clung to my nostrils. The weirdest thing was how indistinguishable it was from a possum festering on the side of the road. I guess rotting meat all smells roughly the same. And that seemed weird, you know. How we’re all just meat.
The train pulled around a bend and out of sight as I started down the tracks again. I was thinking about how the longer you’re with someone, the more your brains start to wire the same way. I mean, you’re sharing the same experiences, you know? Being exposed to the same sets of stimulus on a regular basis.
All of these things are etched into the circuitry of each of your minds. And you start to pick up on each other’s speech patterns and thought patterns, too. You start knowing what they are going to say before they say it. I mean, Jesus, in certain circumstances, women in close quarters will even have their menstrual cycles synchronize if they spend enough time together.
So what did that mean about this time I’ve spent with Nick? Was it too much? Were we wired the same? Was he part of me now?
My mind kept running circles around these same ideas. And every new thought eventually trailed back into the same loop.
The violence of the crunch of the gravel beneath my feet made me realize that I was walking faster now. The moon glinted through gaps in the trees above to reveal the endless rocks stretched out in front of me like rows of teeth to stomp over and through.
As the reality of Tammie’s death sank in, I began to sense the depth of it all. I think initially I couldn’t really bear to confront it. I was in shock. And early on, I could only see it in terms of how it affected me directly and my situation, but now it was finally all becoming real.
I kicked up some gravel and a small chunk went down the back of my shoe. It ground into my heel as I walked, and I stopped to pick it out.
I mean, I didn’t even know Tammie that well, but I felt this empty space where she was supposed to be. I guess it must be something about the way our imaginations understand the world and the people we know. Before, when I thought she was in Ohio, she was gone, but I knew (incorrectly, of course) she was somewhere out there, and that was OK. Knowing now that she was actually gone — actually dead — felt different, th
ough. And I’m talking about the feeling of it. My left brain knew she was gone — understood it to be factually accurate — but my right brain felt it. And it felt like my existence was a jigsaw puzzle with a gaping hole in it. Like something that was supposed to be there was just gone. The universe felt incomplete.
Waves of guilt crashed into me and tried their best to drag me under as I walked. I couldn’t stop thinking about myself. I mean, I know that makes sense in many respects, but it didn’t seem right to be having a mini-identity crisis — to be obsessing about myself, I mean — when someone else was dead.
To see someone else’s death as merely something bad that has happened to you might be the most egocentric thing someone can do, but I guess it happens all the time. Maybe it has to. It’s not like the dead person will get jealous or anything. It’s not like paying attention to them instead would make anything better. Maybe that is what is so hard about it all. There’s nothing useful to do with yourself in so many ways. Your mind just gropes along the edges of that empty space and can’t make any sense of it, can’t find any meaning in it, so you go back to thinking about yourself. It might be that’s all you can do.
The weight of the duffle bag tugged at my hand and pulled one shoulder a little lower than the other. The bag bobbed at my side like a fishing lure on the water’s surface, and it slapped into my thigh periodically. I peeled my hood down and ran my fingers through my hair.
You feel vulnerable out in the dark like this. Even after your eyes adjust and you get used to it, you feel alone. Empty. Doubt eats your soul right down to the core.
I came around a bend, and walls sloped up around me on each side of the tracks. A bridge. I had to clamber out of the rocks and walk on the planks. My footsteps suddenly sounded so different. Hollow. I thought about the scene in Stand by Me when the kids get out on the bridge, and the train comes barreling at them. They had to jump.
As I got to the middle of the bridge, I stopped. I turned and faced the wall, stepped toward it and ran my free hand along the cold steel. The duffle bag plopped down at my feet as my fingers released their grip. I climbed up onto the wall and stood and gazed over the edge of the bridge into the black water about half a football field below. The wind kicked up and blew my hood up onto my shoulder, so I swatted it back down. I could just faintly hear the water gurgling down there.
I dismounted the wall, scooped up the duffle bag and moved forward. It started to sprinkle. I held my free hand out to catch a few droplets and smeared the cool moisture between the tips of my fingers and thumb. Then I ran my moist fingers across my forehead, just above the brow. It felt good.
On the other side of the bridge, I trekked into a less wooded area, with cornfields on each side of me. No longer concealed by the branches, the swollen moon now joined me officially. It looked huge and not very high above the horizon, like my own weird sunrise of the night. With the moonlight providing better visibility, I continued to walk on the railroad ties. My feet needed a rest from trudging through the rock pile.
I came upon a stump shortly after that, and I decided to sit and write. I popped the foil top off of one of the pudding cups. Seconds later I realized that I hadn’t packed any spoons. Shit. I tongued off the top layer of chocolate goo, smearing my chin in the process, but that only worked for about half of the cup. I ultimately had to resort to a series of finger dips.
Maybe it was the extra light or getting some food in my stomach, but I finally felt a little better now. I started working on a plan.
* * *
Do you ever even think about these things? Do you care at all?
Chapter 27
THE WINDOW SLID OPEN WITHOUT a sound just like I knew it would. (Of course, I don’t know how I knew. I just did. Maybe they opened this bathroom window to vent the room often and forgot to lock it? Only one light switch, so there’s not a built in vent. Anyway, that’s my guess.)
I couldn’t stop my thoughts from racing around everything like that as I worked. My brain lurched into some hyperdrive mania that I could not switch off. I wrote neurotic monologues in my mind, endlessly commenting and speculating and wondering about everything I encountered.
I ascended into the opening, my feet finding purchase on the smooth burgundy bricks of the home’s exterior. My arms strained to pull my weight up onto the sill, and I poked my head through the hole. (You always have to go face-first into these things, I think. Always. There would be no more hemming and hawing for me now, though. I plowed forward once again.)
The lack of light surrounded me as I eased my torso over the threshold and into the house. My hands reached out until they found the carpet below. (The texture of the Berber felt interesting through the brown cloth gloves. The tightly woven bumps somehow reminded me of a head of raw cauliflower. Cruciferous.)
(And I know what you’re thinking, too. Carpet in the bathroom? It’s definitely not normal, but some people apparently like it. And personally, I think these people aren’t all that realistic about the sloshing and splattering that goes on in the bathroom on a consistent basis. Let’s face it: A carpet in the bathroom is basically a sponge for bacteria and mold spores. Dr. Oz would be furious.)
I knelt between the toilet and frosted shower stall, the stench of a vanilla scented air freshener drifting around me. (Does anybody actually like the smell of these things, by the way? It doesn’t eliminate foul odors. It doesn’t really even cover them. Once it mingles with the poop smell, it’s just a vanilla-ass fragrance. Nobody wins.) I unplugged the freshener and placed it in the trash gingerly enough to avoid making a sound.
I waited. I could hear a clock ticking loudly somewhere in the distance. The tick-tock sounded like a hammer banging at the silence in the house. That warm tingle came over me again. The feeling of adrenaline and electricity throbbing through my heart and streaming through my veins. This was being alive. Fucking terrifying, yes, but the biggest rush in the universe.
I flashed my light and turned right into the hallway, staying crouched. The cauliflower carpet stretched out in front of me, leading into the giant chamber that was the living room. Vaulted ceilings. Giant fireplace. The skylights let in enough moonlight for me to maneuver around the antique furniture (Seriously, it looked like something a goddamn king should sit on.) without my flashlight. I weaved my way left and started up the stairs.
The destination was so close now. Just a few steps away. I made sure to take it really slow on the stairway. My heart thumped in my chest. Sweat oozed from my forehead. I couldn’t get over the idea of somehow blowing it at the last minute.
I pictured myself tripping and falling down the steps and bashing into glass cabinets, plates tumbling to the floor and crashing like cymbals. Pots and pans clanging into each other. Figurines of owls and cardinals taking suicidal plunges with glassy explosions of sound. But in real life I moved up another step and paused for a beat, moved up another step and paused for a beat.
I hesitated again at the top of the staircase and tried to take a deep breath as quietly as possible. I knew the sun would perk its head up very soon. It was a new day. I flashed my light for a second. To my left stood a white door with purple butterfly stickers plastered all over it. It was only opened a crack, so I shuffled over to it and slowly inched it open. It made the faintest tapping sound when it hit the door stop, but I don’t think it was even as loud as the thunderous clicking of the clock that echoed through the house. Even so, I squatted in the doorway to let the sense of silence resettle itself over the room like a blanket.
My light revealed a twin sized bed in the far corner, with a lone figure in it. Long blond hair draped itself over the flowery pillow case like a pile of spaghetti noodles spread over a plate. A pink bedspread with tiny white polka dots blanketed her. I moved in, stopping momentarily when my feet tangled in a pair of dirty jeans on the floor. My outstretched hand eventually felt the edge of the bed in front of me, and I stood from my crouched position to stand over it.
Birds sang outside the window, and
gray light peeked in from the edges of the curtains. I needed to hurry.
I flashed my light and clasped my hand around the girl’s lips, shoving my face to her ear.
“Don’t be afraid,” I whispered.
My lips grazed her ear. She jerked, but I held her still.
“Beth, it’s me,” I said. “It’s Jake.”
I let her go and shined the light on my face so she could see me. She squirmed, but she didn’t scream. This was good.
“What are you doing here?” she said. Her voice veered into that gravelly half whisper tone, which seemed so fucking loud just then. I could detect a lot of fear in it as well, which I had not anticipated.
I leaned in again. Her hair smelled really good like shampoo mixed with some kind of super soft suede.
“Beth, I think you might be in danger. I need you to come with me, and I need you to trust me.”
It felt like a damn movie. She rubbed at her eyes.
“Well, let me get dressed,” she said, whispering finally.
I turned my back and turned off my light.
* * *
The garage door was still unlocked as I’d hoped. Beth and I made our way inside the empty house — the foreclosed one that Nick and I had mistakenly broken into. That seemed like forever ago. It looked different with the morning light streaming through the windows. Shiny wood floors sprawled everywhere. The rooms were all much smaller than I realized the first time, and each one was painted an interesting color. The living room was the color of egg nog, the master bedroom the color of butternut squash, the hall was the aforementioned Smurf blue from the paint cans in the closet, and the remaining rooms were Carolina blue, cilantro, Prussian blue and lime green. Quite a mix. Seemed like a pleasant enough place, actually, but the lack of window coverings made me feel a little vulnerable upstairs, so after a quick look around, we went straight down into the basement.