Ionic Resurgence: Book Two of The Doll Man Duology (Volume 2)

by Howard Hachey

  The screen door slammed shut behind her, but Tammy could still hear him in there, drunk as a rodeo clown and twice as filthy.

  “You nuthin’ but ah gaht-damn skeeze, Tammy Doogle! Ah no good whoour! Jes like yer wertless muddah!”

  “Shut your drunk mouth, old man!” Tammy screamed back over her shoulder as she walked past her dad’s rusted-out Ford Bronco. She stopped her stride across the front yard to take a couple long kicks at its back bumper; orange snowflakes of rust rained down onto her shoes.

  “Yer nuttininah… fuckinbitchface!” her dad screamed from his chair. His scratchy two pack a day throat buzzed with phlegm like an angry wasps’ nest. Tammy could still see him in there. The picture never changed. Wearing his dirty wife-beater and shit spotted boxers, a half empty bottle of Ol’ Grandad resting between his veiny hotdog legs, her father would always be the first and last thing she saw. Day in, day out, Tammy existed quietly in a vicious cycle of abuse. All the name calling and crazy outbursts were his way of compensating for a life spent in regret, but Tammy didn’t think he knew that. He had wasted his youth, let his dreams die, and now was here to spread his misfortune to others. On the surface, the baseless insults were his way of instigating fights. And if she decided to get mouthy and defend herself, he'd have an excuse to beat on her, like he did with Mom before she left.

  Tammy was barely sixteen, but wasn’t allowed to act like it. Her dad, an ex-machinist turned raging drunk after a minor accident with an industrial drill press, forced Tammy to become the breadwinner of the house. The accident was common enough. Tammy’s dad wasn’t paying attention, probably half in the bag, and nicked his arm a little while fixing a broken rivet on a boiler face plate. It was a nasty cut, but not debilitating. Nothing that six stitches and a bottle of Vicodin wouldn’t fix.

  If, of course, the pain had stopped there.

  After the bandages came off and the prescription refills ran out, her dad started complaining all the time that his arm hurt. Said the only thing that helped was liquor. He’d take his wife’s hard-earned money every week, get the drink, feel good for a couple hours, then go right back to being miserable. No amount of poison was ever enough. Too sick to work, too capable to collect disability, Tammy’s dad was in a deadlock. Everyone pointed out to him that his arm, while heavily scarred, still worked. He wasn’t disabled. Hearing this, he’d throw a fit and start crashing around the house like a pissed-off orangutan in his stained wife-beater. Mom quietly put up with it all, holding two jobs while Dad stayed at home and licked his wounds. He never appreciated anything Tammy’s mom ever did for him, for all of them. Instead, he saw it as a direct attack on his manhood. How dare she step in and try to wear the pants, his pants, leaving him to look like a jackass in front of the entire community? He probably wouldn’t even drink if she wasn’t constantly riding him all day about this and that.

  The conspiracy held until someone questioned why he didn't just get off his fat, hairy ass and go back to work. Truth was, Tammy's dad had no intentions of ever going back to work. Not at the factory. Not anywhere. He was adamant on how the metalworks company owed him a fortune in workman’s comp and that maybe there was a lawsuit in there somewhere.

  “Who's tah say that drill ain't broke before I gots on it?! Cheap ass Korean made piece ah shit… pro’lly built by ahbunch ah ten-year-old rice pinchers!” Her dad would scream this when anyone tried to reason with him. Everyone fucks up from time to time. It’s a part of life. The only thing a person can do afterward is move on or fester. Her dad chose to fester. To him, every day was the day he hurt his arm. He never did act on the claim of faulty equipment.

  Non-stop bitching and bellyaching was apparently all the compensation he needed.

  “Gaht-damn lawyers’ fees alone would bleed us dry,” he’d say over the blaring TV set in the living room that never turned off, an almost full bottle waiting to be drank sitting in his lap. “Cucksuckers would take the last bit ah corn out my shit if they could!”

  Finally, after years and years of having to put up with his excuses and drinking, Tammy’s mom got out of bed one morning, made breakfast, kissed Tammy goodbye, left for work—same as always—and never came home. That left Tammy, only fourteen at the time, in charge of herself.

  And, of her father.

  Tammy was never resentful towards her mom for leaving. Naturally, she wondered why mom didn’t take her along, but it was useless to ask. Tammy knew she was as much her father's daughter as she was her mother's. Her mom and dad were only connected by union. He and Tammy were bonded by blood. They were two steps on the same evolutionary ladder. This polynuclear-chain meant she had to stick by him, no matter how cruel and unreasonable he’d become over the last five years.

  Not long after that, Tammy dropped out of school and got a job waitressing downtown at an all-night diner. Weekly pay plus tips, all under the table. The bills and Dad’s liquor store tab weren’t going to pay themselves. So instead of letting the state come and take her away, Tammy stepped up to the plate. She was a tall girl, nearly six feet, with a trim figure and clear skin, so lying about her age to get the job was no problem. The pay was mostly in tips, but it was the best she could do. If she could take orders and carry dishes, she'd be able to find steady work as a waitress. The one job became two. Then, after Central Maine Power threatened to cut off the electricity in July, three. She worked two eight-hour shifts, morning and night, Monday through Sunday. While other girls her age were gossiping about boys and going to the mall up in Bangor, Tammy was stuck clearing tables and pouring coffee for long-haul truckers and lonely barflies looking for shelter after last call. And since her father had his license revoked in 83’ for too many DUI charges, she either hitchhiked or called a cab. It seemed that no matter how straight Tammy flew, she couldn’t get more than an inch off the ground. At only sixteen, she was living a double-life: one as a young freckle-faced girl, and the other as a battered wife in her mid-thirties.

  Neither one knew what to do.

  After Mom left, her career in waitressing began, and Tammy was forced to choose sleep over school. The long overnight shifts gave her no time for friends. All the kids she knew slowly drifted away, leaving the rest of the time in her day to be filled picking up shifts at work. With little resistance from her dad—if his bottle money was waiting on the counter each morning—she continued skipping school.

  After the first two months of her absence, someone finally noticed. What happened next was a letter from Principal McGregor.

  It arrived every other week with the late notices and junk mail, asking whether Tammy’s family decided to change schools. Each letter ended with McGregor politely asking for Tammy’s school books to be returned by the end of the year. Six months later, the letters stopped. Just like Tammy's mother, the Maine State School Board quietly turned its head and looked the other way. Leaving behind a bill for her books and an address. Too ashamed to tell anyone the truth, Tammy accepted her conditions. She would do the honorable thing and carry the load. Not out of pity for her dad—a toothless old alki with blurry, hateful eyes as green as his liver—but for the fact that he stayed sober long enough to create her.

  That alone was her debt to him.

  On this specific night in the summer of ‘89, Tammy had just gotten off her p.m. shift at Jay’s Diner in Auburn. There was no way to know if she would walk head-on into one of her dad’s classic shit shows. If American Gladiators was on, the chances were usually good.

  In these times when he was belligerent, which was often, Tammy had to be careful. Usually when she got home from work she'd head straight upstairs, take a shower, change out of her greasy work clothes, and go down to the kitchen to do dishes and clean up. The peeling linoleum countertop, faded so badly that its original color was forever lost, would be covered in a raised cemetery of empty beer cans and liquor bottles. She would do her cleaning quietly, trying her hardest not to disturb him as he hibernated in the other room. And if by chance he was lucid enough to sense her pre
sence, he wouldn't miss the opportunity to tease and belittle her.

  “Well, well, ain't it the one ‘n only Linder Lovelace,” her father would croon as Tammy walked in through the front door. “Make good money on yer cornah tahnight?”

  She would do her best to ignore him, but that only made him bitter. The verbal attacks would soon turn physical. He was a fat old slob now, but he could be fast when he wanted to. At the first sign of a fight, he'd slide out of his chair faster than an eel through petroleum and start swinging with both fists. When he was like this, she would do her best to dodge him completely. Lock herself in her room and wait for him to pass out again. That was the best thing to do.

  Wait.

  Sometimes when her shifts were rough, she’d walk in, avoid all eye contact and stroll right upstairs, shower and change. But instead of cleaning up the kitchen, she’d leave again for a walk. These walks helped her clear her head of all his bullshit. And most of the time, when she got back he'd be passed out drooling all over the arm of his chair; an over pixelated Johnny Carson screaming topical jokes into his pruney raisin face.

  As Tammy kicked her shoes through the shaggy grass, rubbing off the specks of rust that clung to her Chucks, she wiped a single tear from her cheek. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Her father, a man who believed everyone in his life was out to put him down, would never know what kind of power he held over his daughter. In more ways than one she hated him, loathed his very existence. But in the biggest way, she loved him, no matter how much he set out to cut her down. He was her daddy, and unfortunately, there was no way to change that.

  Love can be a terrible thing. Especially for those chained to the boulders of heredity.

  Continuing off the lawn, Tammy turned and steered West. She didn't hear anymore drunken rants coming from the house, which was good. Hopefully, he was settling in for the night and would be asleep by the time she got back.

  Rounding the corner at the far end of her street, Tammy looked around at the darkened lawns and porches of the other houses in the neighborhood. All of them were so much nicer, so much cleaner, than hers. Their front porch had been falling apart for years, accumulating rotted wicker chairs and broken furniture that Tammy's dad had either broken or pissed on while shitfaced.

  Tammy sighed resignedly to herself, taking in much needed silence as her breath came rushing back. One foot in front of the other, she let the night air peel back the layers of stress clinging to her fair skin.

  As she crossed under the overcast glow of a solitary streetlight, she stopped.

  A tall figure stepped out of the shadows and blocked her path.

  “Eek!” Tammy squeaked, instinctively shrinking away from the unknown shape. Visibly shaken, her breath sat like a stone in her lungs as the figure took two steps, joining her under the hanging yellow streetlight.

  An older man only a little taller than Tammy with thick black-rimmed glasses, shiny black hair, and a firm chin stood facing her. His face was naggingly familiar, but Tammy couldn't put a name to it. He looked like a composite character of several people she knew. A cheesy B-movie body double. Different features of each mixed and matched to make a new person. The sense of déjà vu almost overshadowed the surge of fear still humming inside her. The most distinguishable feature of his painfully ordinary face was a single mark on his right temple: a pink fang, jutting across the skin under his cropped right sideburn. The scar was a soft exclamation point against the pale whiteness of his face.

  “Evenin',” the man said, his voice low and soothing against the wavering sound of the blowing trees and traveling crickets. “May I ask you question?”

  Tammy stood at the rim of the painted circle of light. Still half-turned in the other direction, her body refused to face his. Something didn’t feel right. Rigidly, she held her place. Scared stiff.

  “I’m just lookin’ for Elm Street.” He held both hands up, palms facing out. “If you don’t know where it is, I understand.”

  Standing up straight, Tammy forced herself to relax a little.

  “Y-yes,” she said, her voice quivering slightly, “it’s that street over–”

  As Tammy turned to point up the road, the man lunged across the circle and grabbed her hair.

  She screamed at the top of her lungs but all that came out was a mumbled whimper. The stranger's hand was welded against her lips, his grip so tight that she thought he might snap her jaw clean off.

  Standing just out of the circle, camouflaged by the night, the man held Tammy close. Her head was pressed so hard against his chest that she could hear his blood pumping. Stomach churning and growling, she then felt him hesitate, not sure which direction to go. After a moment of consideration, the man hoisted Tammy off her feet and started walking. She kicked and bit him—her screams muffled by his hand—but he walked on. Saying nothing, the man dragged Tammy across the deserted road.

  Grip tightened, he forced their way through unfenced backyards across the sleeping neighborhood.

  They stopped. Tammy immediately recognized where they were. Over four miles from her house, they were nearly across the town line into Lewiston. The man didn’t say it, but this angered him. He had gotten lost somehow. The cover of trees and fences had thinned out; Tammy could feel that the man had made a mistake. Not willing to turn back, he kept moving forward. The further in towards town, the more fuzzy orange street lights started popping up along the road like big metal sunflowers. Avoiding the more popular streets, he dragged her along for what felt like miles. Not a single car drove past them.

  Arms and legs weak, Tammy struggled to gain ground. She was nearly as tall as her abductor, just an inch or so shy, and could easily outrun him. When she was in school she had been on the track team. With her long legs and wiry frame, she was a natural runner. But for what the man lacked in height he made up in muscle. His stranglehold around her never faltered even as they climbed over dumpsters and wiggled through chain-link fences. Tammy, panicked, fought against the bands of flesh and steel wrapped around her. By the time the man stopped, she had no fight left.

  Like an Eskimo carrying a skinned baby seal, he slapped her body down at the end of a small alleyway. Behind the condemned Jiffy Lube next to the bad Jade Palace, Tammy was flopped to the ground with a hollow thump, her chest collapsing as the last little bit of breath was knocked out of her. “Don’t move,” the man said—hovering—the faint light from the mouth of the alleyway glistening against the sweat on his face. “If you try to run or scream, I’ll cut out your tongue and hogtie you with it. Understood?”

  Tammy didn’t reply; only continued to lay face down on the cracked pavement, crying silently. Just like with Dad, she wasn’t going to give this guy the satisfaction. She listened, bare elbows skinned against the ground, as the man’s footsteps circled around her.

  “Sorry for the technical difficulties. My original plan didn’t involve dragging your ass into town.” He wiped the sheen of sweat from his brow. “Jesus, kid, you’re a lot heavier than you look. Shit. Maybe there's a reason why They led us here. Who knows, right?” The man paused, then reflectively added, “Won’t be able to shoot ya, not here. Too noisy.” Fibrous orange light filled the hallows of his gaunt face. His steps wobbled, unsure of where they were on the pavement. The walk of any forest animal thrown out of its natural element.

  She felt him closing in.

  “I’ll try to make it quick on your end. I got a lot of work to do, so I won’t drag this out. Oh, wait–” He stood back a second to pull a silver flask from his back pocket. He spun off the cap and took a long swig.

  Schink

  Tammy looked up from the ground to see the glint of a switchblade sticking out from the hanging shadow’s right hand. Its shine punched prismic dots across the already wet scope of her vision. The onslaught of tears forced out of her body by the terror building up inside left dark stains on the crumbling asphalt. Tammy watched the orbital specks turn to ghosts: a weak afterglow.

  When sud
denly, they stopped.

  The tears and the inescapable fear that drove her away from home—away from herself—were completely gone. What replaced them came in a seismic flash of combusted light and fire, like an atomic bomb. A loud boom rumbled through her; old, dilapidated buildings full of memories disintegrating upon impact. The roaring wall of smoke spread across everything. Dry white clouds of soot replacing smells and faces. The dreams and the nightmares. Only one thing survived the blast.

  Vengeful rage.

  Wayne closed the flask, belching loudly as he fumbled it back into his pocket. Once he got it, he made his final steps towards Tammy, blade pointed down at her back. As he leaned in over the fetal shape, one of its scrawny legs suddenly kicked out—sweeping him off his feet. Wayne fell back, the knife flying out of his hand. His head hit the ground and bounced like a cabbage. Tammy scrambled to her feet much quicker than Wayne could register what was happening and grabbed the knife from the ground.

  “I don’t love you!” Tammy screamed, her voice echoing through the distant rows of concrete buildings. “I fucking hate you, Dad! I fucking hate you!!”

  Trying to catch his breath, Wayne gasped and clutched at his heart as Tammy held the switchblade open unsure of what to do. After a couple seconds, she closed the blade and stuck it in her front pocket.

  Wayne’s breath was starting to come back to him. He tried to get up again but was still too dizzy. The long trek into town depleted his reserved energy. Not to mention the couple pints he had for dinner. Shallow breaths were starting to squeeze through his chest, when suddenly he noticed Tammy was going to escape. Wayne pulled himself into a sitting position, still unable to get to his feet without risk of falling over. He was determined to stand. He’d come too far to let this one go. The thought of taking her down with his .38 fluttered by his mind, but wouldn’t do. He was in no position to run once the shot rang out and the kid’s brains painted the gutters. The ritual needed time. They were very hungry.