Slippin' Into Darkness

by Norman Partridge

  And now, here he was, going through with April’s crazy scheme. He hadn’t been sure if he’d do that, not even when he saw April lying dead in the coffin he bought for her, but the thought of getting to Amy had been enough to make his mouth water.

  After all these years, to really get her. He couldn’t miss that. He had to be here. He had to see it happen. And maybe April secretly wanted that. After all, she had given him Austin’s key when she wanted the duplicate made. That was like telling him to make one for himself, wasn’t it?

  Maybe. He couldn’t be certain, but it was a possibility. The one thing he was sure of was that April didn’t understand Amy. Amy wouldn’t keep quiet while a nut like Steve Austin tried to paw her. Amy wouldn’t go along because she didn’t scare—

  God, how that woman could scream! Doug hurried to the doorway. This would be better than watching from the shadows. Standing there with a gun in his hands, telling them what to do. Watching them do it. He wouldn’t hide, either, not like he’d hidden in Todd Gould’s basement on that night back in ’76, peeking at Bat and Todd and Derwin and Griz and April, oh sweet April from behind that old furniture.

  God, he’d been blitzed that night. Completely out of control. This time it would be different. And when it was over it would be like it was with the kid, Ethan. Doug wouldn’t feel bad about it. He had never liked Austin, never liked sharing April. He’d feel strong, decisive.

  In control. Doug stepped into the room. Austin’s back was turned, but Amy saw him coming.

  Doug followed her gaze. For the first time he saw the corpse leaning in the far corner, parallel with the doorway.

  For the first time in his life, Doug Douglas acted without thought, without worry.

  He aimed his gun.

  * * *

  Steve Austin froze as April drew the pistol from the waistband of her cheerleading skirt, and then he heard the voice behind him.

  “You bastard! I told April you were sick! I told her to stay away from you!”

  Steve whirled. There was something familiar about the man, but this wasn’t the time to put names to faces.

  The man pulled the trigger.

  Steve dived out of the way. The bullet hit concrete.

  April fired.

  Petals of flesh opened on the big man’s neck. Blood geysered across the door and

  across the room, masking Amy’s face with a ribbon of blood.

  Doug’s body toppled to the cement floor.

  Amy stared at Doug. She couldn’t think. Numbness overcame her.

  She knew she shouldn’t allow Steve Austin to touch her. Smelling the sour stench of April Destino’s corpse and the hot stink of gunpowder, she knew that with overpowering certainty. But he did touch her. He took the gun from her numb fingers. His hands were on her, as if he couldn’t believe that she was real, and a startled gasp escaped Steve as his fingers brushed the heavy letter stitched to her sweater. His fingers sank into a thick fold of wool, pressed warm flesh.

  She was real!

  The gun was warm in his hands. It was April’s gun, the one he had given her for protection. He couldn’t contain his happiness. “You’re real. Jesus! You’re real!”

  He turned and scooped up the fat man’s gun. Two quick steps and he was in the garage, closing the oak door behind him. April had stepped from a dream, but she could also fire a gun. She was real! He closed the hasp—the one he had installed only a few hours ago, when he was certain that April’s corpse was going to be a permanent resident in his basement—and threaded a Masterlock through it. The lock made a satisfying click as he snapped it closed. He stood back and stared at the door and the lock.

  He pinched himself, and he had to laugh at that.

  Sure he felt it. He was awake. But she was a dream.

  Her fists beat a steady rhythm against the door, and he retreated, afraid that he might lose her again.

  Would a locked door keep a dream?

  The door rattled under her fists. The Masterlock jumped and slapped against cherry-stained oak, scratching the finish. She screamed, and the sound was sharp and clear.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, and his soul was wrapped up in every word. He knew that she was frightened. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Not yet. “Believe me, April, I’ll make it okay.”

  He had to explain things to her.

  He had to make her understand.

  But first, he had to understand.

  Then everything would be okay.

  They would be together.

  As they were in his dreams.

  * * *

  Hot blood spurted black and sticky, sluicing over his neck.

  Doug stared at Amy. She was jammed in a corner, crying. He couldn’t hate her. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t a spiteful person. Not really. He was a good person. But life had put the knocks to him. Starting that night in Todd Gould’s basement, ending this night in Steve Austin’s. Most people got through life without facing such tough decisions. Most people didn’t have everyone tugging and pulling at them like that. They just didn’t know.

  He wasn’t spiteful. Not Doug Douglas. Seeing Amy like this…Amy crying…he wouldn’t have killed the kid, Ethan Russell, not if he had it to do all over again…if only people could stop hiding…the kid would still be alive if Amy had ever once cried and showed him…that she had tears inside her if they had come out just once…. His eyes weren’t focusing right…. All he wanted to do was make things right for April. He knew she was tired of living. She suffered. He knew she had to go. He let her go; he didn’t even try to stop her, and now he just wanted to make things right for her. He was tired of living, too. But he had to make things right, finish the job. For him, for her, once and for….

  A girl stood in the corner, wearing a cheerleading outfit.

  April Destino. April wasn’t dead after all. Really stupid, imagining something like that. Getting shot over his imagination. Imagining that he’d seen April’s corpse when April was here.

  And it was April. It was the eighth of April. It was morning. He ate breakfast in the morning. He eighth breakfast and the date was April ate….

  April made his breakfast. She cooked eggs and sausage and hash browns and toast…and she squeezed ripe oranges into juice. And she kissed him. She always kissed him when breakfast was over. Doug dosed his eyes. He kept them closed. He didn’t know why April was pouring warm syrup over his neck, but it was kind of funny. Everything was dark.

  He smelled the syrup. It was red syrup, a red smell. It was sluicing over his neck. Cherry, or strawberry or…. He waited for April’s kiss.

  TWO

  APRIL 8, 1994

  LIGHT

  And all my days are trances,

  and all my nightly dreams

  Are where thy gray eye glances

  And where thy footstep gleams—

  In what ethereal dances

  By what eternal streams.

  —Edgar Allen Poe

  To One in Paradise

  6:06 P.M.

  Bat Bautista stepped from the Jeep Wrangler, gripping his nightstick so tightly that his hand seemed as heavy as concrete. His son Carlos romped on the front lawn, equal distance between Bat and Ozzy Austin.

  “Come here, Carlos,” Bat said, his voice low and even.

  The boy turned—a big grin shining on his face, a softball held in his hands. “Watch, Daddy!” Giggling, Carlos tossed the ball, and Ozzy Austin took two fast steps forward and caught it.

  Austin slapped the softball from one hand to the other. “Want a little pepper, Bat?”

  Bat ignored him. His attention was focused on his son. “Go inside, Carlos. It’s almost dinnertime.”

  “Watch, Daddy! I’ll catch the pepper!” Carlos ran toward Austin. The big man wound up, his face a mask of bulldog determination, and then he tossed the ball nice and easy.

  Carlos made a hobbling breadbasket catch. “See, Daddy, see!”

  Bat said, “Do like I told you.” />
  Carlos held on to the ball. “Okay.” The boy looked at Austin. “Are you from Texas, Mr. Austin?”

  Austin pushed his hat high on his forehead and looped his thumbs over his leather gun-belt. “No, I’m not, pardner.”

  “I just ask because Austin is the capital of Texas. Did you know that, Mr. Austin?”

  “I sure did. But only my name is from Texas. I’m from right here, just like your dad.”

  “And you’re a policeman just like my dad, too.”

  Austin glanced at Bat’s prison guard uniform, which was somewhere between washed-out brown and mustard, the unfortunate color of baby shit. “Well, I’m a different kind of policeman than your daddy.” He grinned. “Do you want to be a policeman when you grow up, Carlos?”

  Bat’s fingers were going numb around the nightstick, and Austin’s words were burning his ears deep red. Enough was enough. “Carlos…go inside.”

  “Yes,” Carlos said, but he was answering Austin’s question. “I want to be a policeman. My daddy says I can be one, too. Just like him. If I’m good.”

  “Well, that means you have to do like your dad says. If you do that, your dad and me will swear you in and make you a li’l deputy.”

  The boy’s eyes were wide, astonished. “You can do that?”

  “Sure.”

  “All right!” Carlos caught hold of the screen door and threw it open. He was halfway through the doorway before he turned and asked, “Daddy, is Officer Austin going to stay for dinner?”

  Bat shook his head, glowering at Ozzy Austin’s dark blue uniform. He glanced to the street, but he saw no sign of a police cruiser. There was only a beat-up sedan pulled close to the concrete curb in front of his house. It had to be Austin’s car.

  The cop wasn’t here in any official capacity, that much was plain.

  Bat’s son had his answer; he sighed and closed the door. The two men stood on the lawn, separated by clumps of grass that were losing the battle to bindweed and clover. Both men wore gun belts. Both had clubs. Austin’s tonfa hung from his belt; Bat Bautista’s nightstick filled his concrete hand, and now the chipped black wood was slick with sweat.

  “The boy’s smart,” Steve Austin said. “Knows his state capitals. How old is he?”

  Bat studied Austin as he would study an insane person. “I’m only going to say this once. I want you to stay away from my family, and I want you to stay away from me.”

  Austin snorted. “Jesus. I just dropped by for a friendly little chat. No need to get tense, Bat.” He took a step forward, one hand motioning toward the nightstick. “And why don’t you put that thing away? You never could hit worth a damn, you know. That was plain twenty-five years ago on the sandlot, and it’s plain here…. Just look at the way you’re sweating.” He laughed, short and low. “I always thought it was funny, you being called ‘Bat’ when you had about as much chance of getting a piece of a pitch with a little old toothpick as you had with one of those aluminum cannons we used to swing.”

  “Shut up, asshole.”

  Austin stiffened. “Well, now. I can see this isn’t going to be very friendly, after all.”

  “I don’t have any interest in being friendly with you. Why don’t we just leave it at that.”

  Austin pushed his dark glasses high on his nose, and Bat glimpsed himself in the mirrored lenses. “That would be just fine,” Austin said. “But unfortunately I have an interest in you.”

  “Oh? And what’s that?”

  “I want you to leave April alone.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Austin, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but April’s dead.”

  Austin stared up at the sky and his mirrored sunglasses were masked with clouds. The clouds rolled and heaved as he shook his head, and his voice was the whisper of a cold spring rain. “You were at April’s grave last night. You and those other morons. I don’t want you going near her. You guys were her nightmare, and you tried to bring it back—”

  “Wait a minute. You’re way out of line.”

  “Don’t get jumpy. Bat.” Very slowly, Austin unbuttoned his pocket and produced a reel of film. “Y’know, Shutterbug handled this a little better than you.”

  “Give me that.”

  “Not likely”

  “Shit.” Bat stepped toward his car. He turned and advanced onto the lawn. He slapped his nightstick into his other hand and pointed it at the coil of 16mm. “That’s nothing. Doesn’t mean a thing. Nobody says anything on it. It’s a goddamn silent movie. It’s just a party, everyone having a little fun on a choo choo ride, and you’re just pissed off after all these years because you weren’t in on it.”

  “It’s not a party, Joaquin. I don’t have time to explain the difference, but what’s on this film is a rape. And it’s—”

  “Come off it, Ozzy. I know you had the hots for her. You just never had the guts to—”

  “—it’s a nightmare, and April is very tired of it.”

  The two men stared at each other. Austin slipped the plastic reel into his pocket, and Bat almost laughed. “Are you trying to hit me up for money? Is that what this is about? Because if it is, do I have a surprise for you.”

  “No. Not money, Joaquin. I just want you to leave April alone.” Austin shook his head. “You just don’t get it. We don’t have to lock horns on this. It’s real simple. April doesn’t want to be part of your nightmare anymore—she’s been stuck there too many years already. Now she wants to be with me.”

  Bat exhaled, smelled beer on his own breath. So much for his plans to blackmail Austin. Jesus. The guy was pitching mental Nerf balls.

  But Austin had the film. That could be dangerous. Bat had to play it cool, close to the vest. He could figure out the rest of it when he had a little more—

  “I want an answer, Joaquin.”

  “You’re nuts, Austin. Oh, man, you are loony.”

  Austin ignored the comments. “I want you to pass the word to Derwin and Griz and Todd. If you don’t do that, there’s going to be trouble. And you don’t want trouble with me, because the movie will only be the start of it.”

  Bautista flushed. He tossed the nightstick on the cement driveway, and it rang hollowly there, and his hands balled into fists, and he wanted to blurt it out: YOU DUG THE BITCH UP YOU SICK MOTHERFUCKER!

  No, that wasn’t the way. That wasn’t smart. Austin had already turned and started for his car, but Bat caught up to him, walked with him from the weed patch that passed for a lawn to the broken cement curb.

  Find a way to get under his skin. Punch the robot’s buttons. That was the thing to do. “Your problem is that you just can’t handle it,” Bat said. “That I was better than you. That I did everything you wanted to do. Won all-city. Fucked April Destino. She was just a whore—”

  “Don’t call her that.” Steve whirled, and Bat saw his own wild eyes reflected in Austin’s mirrored sunglasses, and seeing his eyes hanging there on Austin’s face frightened him more than he could have imagined.

  Bat stumbled backward.

  Austin grinned. “I just knocked you out of the box, and I didn’t even have to throw a pitch,” he said. “Maybe you did win some ball games. Maybe you did that. But you raped April Destino, and you stole her dreams.” He took off the glasses, and his eyes were cold green things in a face too white.

  Austin chuckled at Bat’s baby-shit brown prison guard uniform. Glanced up at the crummy house where Bautista lived with his wife and kids, understanding that Bautista’s glory days were the only memories that kept him going. “Maybe you were a winner when we were kids,” Austin said. “But you never won when it counted. Now did you. Bat?”

  Bat fought for control, but his fingers slipped over the scored grip of his pistol. The house behind him was honeycombed with dry rot. Even with his back turned, he could hear his kids yelling in the living room because the TV was on the blink again, and he could smell Hamburger Helper and pepper oil coming from the kitchen, and he could
feel the uneven weeds beneath the worn soles of his boots, and his burning gut screamed for Maalox.

  “You get the hell out of here,” Bat whispered.

  Austin nodded, opened the door of his car, slipped on his sunglasses. “Don’t make me come back.”

  7:15 A.M.

  This is what did the trick for Steve Austin: fifteen minutes under a cold pulsing shower, a close shave with a new blade, a couple slaps of Old Spice aftershave, and a pot of a potent espresso-Kona blend brewed courtesy of Mr. Coffee. Then down to the neighborhood coffee shop for eggs over easy and four link sausages and extra hash browns well done skip the toast and four more cups of coffee that were pretty strong for restaurant brew but paled in comparison to Steve’s double-barreled espresso-Kona blend. The morning ritual took a couple of hours. When it was complete, the alcohol and the Halcion were behind him.

  Or so he told himself. He had always treated his body like a twitchy machine that ran out of whack or not at all. It made things easier, just as it sometimes was easier to think of himself as The Six Million Dollar Man. He couldn’t fix the machine, but he could keep it running. For a time the machine ran on nothing more than dreams, April Destino, and Halcion. Last night, when it was ready to blow its main circuit, it ran on April alone.

  Today it needed food and coffee. There was work to be done. The girl of his dreams was alive, living in this moment. Everything would be okay if he could just hold on to her.

  Sunlight glinted off the spotless windshield of the Dodge Diplomat patrol car. Steve stared at his big hands on the hard black wheel, at the perfect creases in the sleeves of his uniform shirt and the swollen knuckles that had KO’d an umpire. The whole damn thing seemed so unreal. A living, walking dream was locked in his basement. A living, screaming dream. Every passing minute that separated him from April created another little hole in the window of reality. Yet Steve was sure that everything had happened just as he remembered it.