Speaking of reek, what is that awful smell?
I try the first door, opening it a crack and slowly peeking in as if to deflect the rudeness of my intrusion by intruding softly, with care. Nothing but an empty bathroom. The shower curtain is a cheery bright blue. It is pulled to one side and the tub beyond it, gleaming and clean, is empty. I shut the door quietly and try the next one.
That paint-peeling stench hits me full force. I bring my right hand up over my nose and mouth. The room is dark and stuffy, the air thick with rife decay. Straining my eyes I see nothing save for the shadowy outlines of bedroom furniture. Allowing my hand a brief reprieve from my face, I feel for a light switch. Bingo. My hand jumps back over my nose and mouth as the room comes to life, animated by a flood of illumination.
There is a figure lying on the bed.
He or she is wrapped in a maroon blanket.
“Hello?” I whisper.
Nothing.
I take slow steps and notice little splashes of what can only be blood or chocolate here and there—on the walls, the floor, the bedside furniture, even an armoire on the other side of the room.
The closer I get to the bed and the unmoving person on top of it, the less the maroon sheet looks like a maroon sheet. The less difficult it is to make the distinction between blood and chocolate.
The closer I get to the bed, the worse the smell gets.
Flies buzz and dance electric, forming a kinetic black cloud above and around the still figure.
I know what’s what, but I am compelled to move forward anyway. The dead person in the bed has been savaged, riddled with deep bone-revealing gashes (a knife? An axe?). Leaning in, I can see it is the woman from the pictures, Annabelle’s mother. Her eyes are open, gone milky, still staring in horror at whoever did this to her. Her neck is nearly severed and her head is just sort of propped into place. The slightest nudge would surely send it rolling to bloody freedom. The same goes for her right shoulder. It is practically cleaved from the body.
Did Annabelle do this?
Is she capable of doing something like this?
And why?
We haven’t really talked much about her parents, but why would anyone do this? I mean, I myself kill, I am no saint, I touch and drain, but this is different, this is brutality and force and aggression. I back out of the room, shut off the light and quietly close the door. A hot chill spreads within and I feel fear nipping at my brain.
“Annabelle?” I call a little louder.
Still nothing, no direct response, but I do hear a muffled voice followed by muffled shufflings coming from behind the final doorway. Just as I am about to open the door it swings inward. I jump back in alarm and backpedal a few more long steps. Annabelle senses me and stops dead.
“Charles?”
Finally in the flesh. Her eyes are wide, unseeing, darting from side to side.
“Charles!”
I am tempted to soft-shoe my way out to the car and pretend I was never in her house, but I can’t lie to her. Besides, there’s no way I could get out of here without her hearing me. In the split second before answering I stare hard and get a good look at my lovely Annabelle.
She looks to be in her late forties. Dark eyes, dark, stringy, shoulder-length hair. She is what the world would call fat, but not me. The fact that she dresses conservatively—loose, comfortable pants and an oversized sweater— allows her the grace most fat people who think they are skinny and wear too tight clothes are denied. Love seizes my eyes.
“I’m here,” I respond breathlessly.
“Where are you?” She sounds panicky. Her hands are covered in blood.
“Are you okay?”
“Stay back!” she screams.
“You’re bleeding,” I stammer.
“It’s not mine. The blood. Stay back, Charles. You can’t touch me, remember? Not even a little, accidental bit.”
“I know.” I start backing up.
“I told you to wait in the car.” She sounds pissed. Her eyes stare through me.
“I wanted to see if you were okay.” I feel like a child caught, busted.
“I’m fine. Go to the car. I’ll be right out, I have to wash up.”
I nod my head and take off to the car.
Sitting in the driver’s seat, I try to turn things over in my head. This love thing has really got me. Be it the dreamer’s plan or something else, my insides twist and ache with regret. I didn’t mean to piss her off. It is crucial that she likes me back. If she doesn’t, I feel as if my dead body will truly die and crumble and cave. I just wanted to help, I scream at myself. I just wanted to help. The ache aches and I nervously await her arrival.
I just wanted to help and my brain constricts with curiosity so prevalent it’s painful. What is going on? Did she kill her mother? What was going on in the last bedroom? Why do I love her so intently? Her that I barely know. Her that changes form. Her that ravages through my emotions like a whirling dervish.
The door leading into the house opens and Annabelle feels her way to the passenger-side door of the car. I lean over and push it open for her. It swings too fast and hits her hard. She plops to the ground.
“I’m so sorry,” I yell and jump out to go help her.
“Stay there, Charles. I’m okay. Just get back in the car.”
I do as I am told and watch Annabelle stand and dust herself off. She gets in the car and shuts the door. Before I have a chance to speak she says, “I’m just going to get it all out and then we can get out of here, okay?”
“Okay,” I agree.
“I chopped up my mother with an axe. I think I cut off her head, but you know, I can’t really see. I’ve been torturing my father for two days. He is still alive, bleeding to death, tied to his bed. I made thousands of thin lacerations all over his body with a sharp paring knife. You might want to know how I did these things; you might want to know why. Let’s keep it simple. Just remember, this world is not about them any longer, it’s about us. In any case, they deserved it. Short and sweet. They deserved what they got. You ready to go?”
I nod my head, rather stunned, and then realize she can’t see me. “Yes,” I say quietly.
“Do I disgust you?” She crinkles her nose when she says “disgust.” It’s incredibly cute.
“No, I mean like you said, they deserved it.” Does anybody deserve that?
“Not my parents. Not that I killed them. Who cares about them? What I meant was me. Do I disgust you? My big fat ass and ugly hair? My wrinkled, plain face? My old-lady clothes? This”—she gestures with her hands at her body—“is a far cry from the hot bitch I become for you in dreams.”
“You’re equally beautiful.” I really mean it.
Annabelle’s pale skin deepens a few shades, “Let’s go.”
In the rearview I re-notice the cab and sigh loudly. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another.
“What?” Annabelle picks up on my frustration.
“I have a lot to tell you.”
“So tell me.”
“First off, there is a cab in front of your house, the driver of which is deceased and smeared across the front seats.”
“I thought you took the bus?”
“As I said, I have a lot to tell you. A lot went down since I’ve seen you.”
“I thought you took the bus and walked here and that’s that?”
“Well let’s see, I’ve learned that everything we know may or may not be a lie, I’ve learned that we are being watched, I’ve le—”
“What are you talking about, Charles?”
“I have to move the cab first.” It’s weird talking to Annabelle like this. She stares off sightlessly and I keep trying to catch her eyes.
“Is it blocking us?”
“No, I just don’t want anyone to tie the dead driver to this house and your dead parents and this car. The longer we can keep this car clean, the better.”
“True, but at this point I don’t think it matters.”
“How d
o you mean?”
“Epidemic, Charles. Ensuing pandemonium. The cops can’t get shit together because everything is falling apart. Filthy humans are dropping like flies and the world is moving into red alert. I wanted you to be cautious earlier because I was worried about you getting caught before the death had a chance to spread substantially. I think we are fairly safe now. Things are moving much faster than I expected. We just have to avoid any situations like back at that gas station.”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about.” I put the car into reverse, maneuver onto the street, hit the road to nowhere, and begin telling Annabelle all about Jim, my missing hand and the world of the dead.
Chapter Fifteen
Forever
“It’s all bullshit, Charles!” Annabelle pounds the bed with her fist, scrunches up her face and stares sightless daggers into space. “Fucking human germs. Don’t believe a word. Not a word.”
I figured as much, Annabelle’s reaction to Jim’s theories and all, and to be quite honest I’m still not sure what to believe, but if Annabelle says Jim is complete bullshit, I’m inclined to fool myself into believing her. Still, I can’t help playing devil’s advocate.
“But what about the dead rising? What about this?” I kneel down in front of her, hold up my stump and shake it before her unseeing eyes. “What about the shit that came from my stump?
“The dead haven’t risen and the shit from your stump is beautiful protection. The dreamer is taking care of you.”
“Maybe.” Maybe.
“Is there a television in here?”
“Yeah. It’s old and dusty.” The entire hotel room is old and dusty.
“Turn it on. Find a news channel. If the dead have risen, it will be all over the place.”
“They’re not supposed to rise yet. Jim said three days from the first death.”
“Let’s listen to the news anyway. And just so you know, even if the dead do rise in a couple days or whatever, I still say this Jim fellow is full of shit. If they can see the future and see you in their sleep, how come they didn’t know your arm would explode? How come they didn’t know their attempts to destroy you would fail? The human virus will do what it can to stop you. I’m not gonna let it happen.” She crosses her arms across her chest defiantly. She looks like she is forty-five going on thirteen.
I get up and turn on the TV.
It feels good to be shut away in a hotel room with Annabelle. I’m still surprised she agreed to the downtime, but I’ve been through a lot and I think she is sensitive to the fact that I am on edge. We had driven for about an hour, aimless, on the freeway out of Arizona, Annabelle telling me she was only another bout of dream time away from finding us some direction and getting some answers. When I pressed—answers from whom, answers from where—jealousy rioting in my brain like a hive of fire ants, she changed the subject and asked, “What did you want to tell me?”
Plenty. Plenty, and I had talked up a storm. Annabelle kept shaking her head no and making faces and refuting the cult of Jim by any means that bubbled in her head. Somewhere in the middle of my ramblings I had thrown out the hotel idea. You know, lie low for a few hours, rest, and thankfully, mercifully, she had accepted.
The hotel clerk was a greasy fuck with badly thinning hair. I didn’t want to waste him. I wanted to negotiate for a room, work something out, plead to the wealth of human decency and generosity that surely welled within, but alas there was something about his twisted sneer, something about his holier-than-thou attitude. He looked at me, respectable suit and all, as if I were the nearly crippled, seizure-prone misfit I used to be. Needless to say, I fixed him.
The world isn’t exactly falling apart. TV still looks the same, no red alerts or DEFCON Four Paranoia Emergency Broadcast Signals, just the standard early evening programming. I turn the dial and settle on a local news channel. A skull graphic with the caption Epidemic? floats in the right-hand corner of the screen. Maybe things are falling apart. The news anchor is a mess. His hair is frazzled and he has a jumpy look in his eye. Epidemic. I have begun a full-fledged epidemic. Thousands dead. A little over a day and a half and already thousands dead. I feel a little sick inside.
Annabelle listens intently. Her eyes look as if they are focusing inward. The anchor sputters and wipes sweat from his brow and informs the world that despite the climbing death toll, a number of highly skilled agencies, government and otherwise, are fast at work getting to the bottom of this strange phenomenon.
“Suckers,” Annabelle snarls. “Yee-haw,” she hoots and hollers. “You’re making it happen, Charles. You’re saving the world!”
I guess I am. Annabelle smiles big and her eyes go squinty with glee and goddamn she is cute. The brimming excitement is infectious. That sick feeling inside curls up and dies and I find myself smiling. “We’re saving the world,” I giggle back.
“That we are. It feels good, doesn’t it?”
I sit on the bed, careful to keep a substantial gap between us. Annabelle looks a little alarmed what with my weight shifting the mattress. “Don’t worry, I’m way over here,” I reassure her.
“It’s okay. I trust you.”
“You do?”
“Completely.”
The news anchor rambles on mutely, a dull murmuring somewhere in the unheeded recesses of my eardrums. I want to continue talking, strike up a conversation, but Annabelle’s declaration of trust has rendered me speechless. No one has ever said that to me before. No one has ever even remotely implied such a thing. Buffoonish and clumsy and on the stupid side, I’ve always been a source of concern. No one has ever trusted me with anything. Suddenly, all doubt is erased and true purpose, not half-assed, easily swayed possibilities, but the truest of true purposes floods throughout me. I was put here to be trusted. What Annabelle says, is. She trusts me completely, no less, and I trust her with every fiber in my defective being.
“Charles?” Her voice is sweet and small and (joy of joys) trusting.
“Yeah?”
“Just checking—you went quiet on me all of a sudden.”
“I don’t believe in Jim. I don’t believe in God or the power of human compassion. I only believe in us, you and me. I put my undying faith in you and your beliefs.” I stare into her empty eyes solemnly. Though she can’t see me, I know she can feel my intensity.
Her mouth tightens and she blinks a few times and in an earnest, important voice she says, “Nothing can stop us now.”
Nothing can stop us now.
And for once in my pathetic, wasted life, I feel a pure, real connection to another human being. Our goals, objectives, wants, desires, whatever, encircle one another and fuse and become motherfucking unbreakable.
I wait for a few moments and everything inside remains solid. My powerful feelings are cemented firmly in place, inextricably meshed within my gooey internals. They are a part of me and I am happy and relieved to discover that this isn’t one of those flippant epiphanies I am prone to having. This isn’t going to unmake itself and unravel and fall around me like so much dead skin. This, like Annabelle and her dreamer and my duty to save the world from the human virus, is genuine. This is forever.
“Charles!” Annabelle pulls me from my internalizing, “Charles!” with a trio, “Charles!” of exuberant name checks.
“What?”
“Listen. Er, look.”
I do and there I am in grainy black-and-white, draining the life from the lady in the minivan. The news anchor talks over the footage: “…it is unclear how Mr. Baxter is tied to the recent rash of deaths, but this chilling, graphic surveillance footage from Las Vegas, Nevada, along with reports of a massacre in a Mesa, Arizona, grocery store, place Mr. Baxter atop a number of most wanted lists.”
The footage ends and a sketch artist’s on-target rendition fills the screen. A hotline phone number appears. “If you have any information leading to the whereabouts of Charles A. Baxter, please call 1-800-xxx-xxxx immediately. Do not approach Mr. Baxter yourself or attempt t
o restrain him in any way. He is reported to be extremely dangerous.”
“Holy shit, I’m on the news.” I can’t believe it.
“Way cool,” Annabelle giggles.
“No, no, now they’re gonna catch us for sure. Haven’t you ever seen, heard, America’s Most Wanted? That shit works.”
“Things are too far along. In a few more days they’ll be up to their elbows in corpses and catching you will fade from an afterthought to a nonissue. ”
The news anchor continues reporting on me (this is too bizarre). He goes on about my extreme dangerousness and then intros an on-location correspondent. A reporter, standing outside of the fancy seafood restaurant I used to work at, jabbers into a microphone. In defense of his jabbering, he is trying to build a case in my favor, calling me things like mild-mannered, quiet, and law abiding. The camera pans out and reveals Mr. Shithead, looking extra slick in a smooth suit and tie, standing next to the reporter.
My eyes bug out and my jaw drops and I lean in toward the television.
“Charles Baxter is a good person,” Mr. Shithead says in a silky, commanding voice. “He is an excellent employee and an all-around nice guy. He wouldn’t hurt a fly and we are all hoping he is okay.”
Mr. Shithead nods at the camera, the same way he used to stiffly nod at me in acknowledgement. The reporter continues on and interviews one of the servers, a woman named Sheila, whom I’ve passed by on my way to and from the kitchen, but have never talked to. I remember her as being a bit cold, never saying hello or good-bye or recognizing my presence. She proceeds to call me “sweet” and “harmless,” and I smile, mentally retracting my cold assessment. “He was kinda slow,” she adds. Perhaps I retracted my original assessment a little too soon. Annabelle chuckles as embarrassing warmth flushes my cheeks. Sheila adds insult to injury, concluding her interview by stating, “I always thought he was retarded.”
Annabelle’s chuckles turn to outright laughter and my embarrassment turns to hurt. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I grunt as stomp out of the room.
Fuck that Sheila bitch. Retarded? Well, she’ll get hers. Who’s retarded now? A pathetic, soon-to-be-dead waitress, or the destroyer, the bringer of death, the end personified? My blood sizzles and my left wrist buzzes. I take a few deep breaths and try to get a hold of my anger. I need to take a shower, cool off, clean away the death sweat and grime.
I Will Rise Page 23