Horror Showcase, page 12
Terrible events, always just before they happened. No time to do anything about them.
Ever.
And the one time he did try, mommy came in and beat the silliness out of him, a sneaker in her hand and Ol’ Jack on her breath.
So he suffered in silence yet it was others who paid the price. The guilt didn’t help. Nuzzling against him, keeping his company through college and university. And after that there was Denise. No desire to impart his abilities to his wife to be. Just a bold lie to smooth the edges. He called them his “Blackouts”. He’d had two decades to say the words enough to make them sound real.
But never to himself.
Because when he did start to believe his visions were part of a brain dysfunction that medics had given a thousand and one names, the images and events would strike him down without warning, a little psychic reminder that the curse was still along with him on his life’s journey.
And the dream of the quake had been such a reminder. But Faulk consoled himself with the notion that at least this particular vision had been dulled by sleep. He closed the shower door and let the hot water blast away the last vestiges of memory, the steam fogging any lingering thoughts. It was working well, to the point where Faulks was about to count himself lucky for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime.
Then, as it usually did, a searing bolt of pain ripped through his brain, and then the world changed.
*
The shower cubicle is gone, yet the space about him is no less confined, metal panels, a mirror, toilet of stainless steel, the blended, over powering reek of piss and detergent. In his ears there is the reverberating roar of Rolls Royce engines. Beneath his feet the floor vibrates as the aircraft hits turbulence.
In his head he can hear the ping ping of the seat belt signs going on. He looks to the mirror where he sees a face that doesn’t not belong to him. It is bearded and the eyes are dark. A scar snakes down the left cheek. The man in the mirror is silently recounting the same phrase over and over. Misplaced honour masquerading as a prayer for the righteous.
His eyes drop down and the mirror is replaced by the sink unit. There is a grenade rattling around in the basin. It sends a metallic stutter through the cubicle, until three heavy thuds on the toilet door have the man reaching for it. Faulk can feel its weight as though the hands are his own.
“Sir? Are you okay?” The voice from behind the door is that of a woman with a Philly accent. When the man doesn’t answer the voice returns. This time it has bite. “The light is on, Sir. I need you to return to your seat.”
Faulks is no longer in the man, in the plane, he is soaring above the 737, looking down on it, watching the sun bounce off the white fuselage in a series of bright starbursts. Then he hears the dull thud, sees the explosion near to the tail, a small thing that punches fire and flame and debris into the atmosphere where it is whipped away by the gale.
The 737’s sleek out line buckles to a “Z” shape. It reminds Faulks of a bird riddled with buck shot falling from the sky. Then the plane breaks up into three pieces, disgorging its cargo as it tumbles through the clouds, the howling wind indiscriminate in its assault, shredding paper, dismantling metal, bolt and pin, stripping bodies of their clothing.
While his corporeal view affords much in terms of spectacle, his influence remains impotent. Yet this doesn’t stop him screaming one word in a futile attempt to be heard above the wind.
*
“No!”
Faulks pressed his hands upon the smooth wet tiles. If the hot water wasn’t enough to rouse him, the post vision headache was there to bring him into the here and now with the immediacy of a shark warning bell.
He fumbled for the shower controls, his head still bowed, hoping that the pounding jack hammer at his temples would take the edge off of his recollection of the 737’s final moments. In days past he would have fleeting considered calling someone, demanding that something be done. Yet he knew that something had been done: a passenger plane had been brought down by an act of terrorism, if not right now, then it was imminent. Such was the nature of his abilities.
Sluggish, he climbed from the shower, towelled off and dressed for work. He picked up his ID badge and read his role in life:
Ray Faulks: Risk Assessor.
“Risk Assessor?”
The irony wasn’t lost on him. Faulks broke into laughter, gripping a nearby dresser to take his weight, tears coursed down his face, the pain in his head threatening to pull his skull apart if he didn’t stop. But he couldn’t, wouldn’t, for fear his mind would decide to go for a morning stroll and not come back.
*
“Have you been crying?”
Denise Faulks scrutinized her husband over the breakfast debris.
“Um?” Ray replied.
“Your eyes are red. Have you been crying?”
“Got soap in them.” It was a good lie, fast enough to get the job done.
“Oh.” There it was, her interest gone. Not just down to the lie of course. Their twelve year marriage had weathered storms and found tranquil waters long ago, now it languished in a sea of apathy, a Sargasso Sea, always under the threat of sliding off the map to a place marked “Here there be monsters”. A place where Ray didn’t wish to dwell for fear he uncovered the kind that spouted home truths instead of fire and teeth.
There was still love, that’s the way he saw it. But you’d have to look for it beneath the familiarity. And Denise? Well, he hadn’t asked her in quite a while, afraid that the “I love you’s” and weekly cavort under the covers were nothing more to her than token platitudes, day to day duties no different to filling the dishwasher of taking out the garbage.
They’d talked of kids, tried for them even. But for some reason it didn’t happen. Incompatibility saw to that, their careers did the rest. And time? Well, it worked its magic and created a languid world where one day became no different to another. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. The stability creating safe haven from the powerful interludes the visions brought to him.
“You working late today?” Denise said taking a carton of milk to her cereal.
“Yes. Why?”
“Thought I’d go catch a movie.”
He folded the newspaper, placing the Reuters image of a city devastated by a 7.5 face down on the table.
“Anything we could go see together?” Ray asked.
“Not really. It’s a chick flick. Thought I’d go with Amy, you know, from work?”
“Okay.” He used coffee to swallow his disappointment.
Oblivious, Denise opened the milk carton and poured a thin stream into the cereal bowl. Ray watched the milky cataract, drawn to it, fascinated by it, the flow of it. No, it didn’t quite flow did it? It oozed. And it wasn’t ivory anymore, not really. It was pink, like a strawberry shake, but with each passing second pink was turning to red, bright red, as though it were blood, blood like that which poured from the lips of Denise as her mouth opened in disbelief as a thin line appeared on her delicate, white throat and her head slipped forwards, leaving only a stump of a neck behind it.
In a quasi-dreamlike state the head of Ray Faulks’ wife landed on the table, upending the cereal bowl, rolled and came to a stop, lying on its left cheek, hair matted with milk and gore, the bowl trapped beneath it like some comical, ceramic hat.
And to his horror, Faulks heard Denise speaking, her voice distorted by blood and severed vocal cords.
“I’m so dirty.”
Ray pushed his body away from the table and emptied his guts onto the linoleum, his hands clutching his knees, his shoes and socks slick with his breakfast.
With resolve he pulled his eyes back to the table where Denise stared back at him. And she was talking again, though this time her head was where it had always been.
“You can clear that up before you get gone,” she said making no attempt to hide her disgust.
*
Stress. Couldn’t be anything else, right?
Faulks was sitting on a park bench, lunch sack resting untouched on his lap. His revulsion over the breakfast vision hadn’t dimmed with time, not merely because of the horror of it, but because it had felt different.
First off, no pain. Not before, not during, and no residual headache in the aftermath. Then there was the manner in which the vision rolled (like a head on a breakfast table) before him, no third party view, like a theatre goer watching the latest horror movie. And Denise had spoken to him. Interaction wasn’t a usual part of the deal.
He looked up at the sky, as if hoping to find answers. Instead he found only a flock of geese cruising in a V at high altitude. A radio broadcast emanating from a nearby smart phone couldn’t break his reverie. He already knew about the suspected terrorist strike on a Philly plane bound for New Orleans, after all. No suspicion in his mind, of course: fact. No survivors, no surprise.
Such was his world.
Until today.
“Ray?”
A voice on the breeze: soft, lilting.
“Denise?”
The day was turning sour. Like milk curdled by blood. Faulks shivered.
“I’m so dirty.”
Denise again, the Pied Piper on the wind, mesmerizing his senses, pulling him along as though he was a small fish in a very big net.
He stood and followed her call. Those who witnessed him meandering through the park would later testify that he appeared distracted, as though he could hear what others could not.
His journey took him past lawn and shrub, his feet crackling the gravel on the paths leading him to the wrought iron gates that were the park entrance. And all the while: the desperate pleas of his wife echoing about him.
“I’m so dirty.”
“I’m coming for you, honey,” he whispered. “Just tell me where you are.”
“Here. Here.”
Across the park, Faulks could see a row of stores. A bakery, a Laundromat, a coffee shop. Each bleeding into the other under a shared awning. He crossed the street without looking, ignoring the blare of horns and curses his recklessness received.
He made the row of shop fronts, the urgency in Denise’s voice mirrored in his foot falls. His breathing was rapid, fuelled by exertion and anxiety, his lungs curtains of steel in his chest.
“Hurry!”
The voice was close now. He locked on, the Laundromat mere feet away. Ray pushed open the door, its glass panel releasing dry cleaning fumes and the din from multiple machines chugging away in the confined space. But overriding this world: the sound of his wife screaming. It was the sound of terror and pain, fused as one long, thin shriek.
“Oh, God, baby, where are you?”
The machines were squat, bright blue things trimmed with stainless steel. There were several, all in use, but one drew him in with ease. It drew him because of the blood, three vertical tracks of crimson breeching the rubber door seal.
Through its translucent, portal hatch, Ray could also see it, fizzing and foaming, thick crimson bubbles painting honeycomb patterns against the glass. He ran to it, his loafers skittering on the tiled floor, where he landed hard on one knee, causing the other occupants to look up and quickly turn away fearing he’d been hitting the booze a little hard and a little early.
A young woman hid behind her magazine, hoping its pages would somehow make her invisible. A middle aged guy dressed in sweats and sneakers actually got up and left the Laundromat with the hunched swagger of someone who has never found time to run an errand and decided that this particular moment would do just fine, thanks.
Ray was oblivious to all of this, of course. In his world people weren’t reading or running faux errands. They were bleeding, and screaming, and bathing in their own blood.
He pressed his face against the machine door, trying to peer past the gore, trying to see his poor, poor Denise.
A hand slapped against the glass.
Denise’s hand.
It was writhing, slick with gore, the fingers working on finding purchase, the wedding ring tapping out its desperation. Instinctively Ray reached for it, placing his palm against the barrier. But Denise’s hand failed in its attempt to find leverage and slid beneath the red, fizzing waves.
“No!” His fist beat upon the door filling the air with heavy, dull sounds. “Denise!”
Then the face of his wife came into view, and his frustration turned to horror, pure and absolute. Denise was barely recognisable as the woman he’d loved for over twelve years. Her long blonde hair had become slick, visceral tendrils slapped to her bloodied face as though she was enmeshed in thick, dark rope. One of her eyes was open, locked onto his, fear stamped into it. Yet the other was gone, leaving a vacant socket, that was periodically filling with a ghastly, gory bubble before popping like a thick raindrop hitting the street.
“Oh my God!” Faulks gagged.
“I’m so dirty!” Denise gurgled. Then her head upended, to reveal a stump of a neck that bobbed briefly in the red ripples before disappearing from sight.
The world winked out for a second and the bloody vista winked out with it, and then washing machine was once more a mere work horse full of pearly white suds.
Yet despite this, Ray Faulks reeled away from it, fighting his way out of the store, his tears fogging his view. When he finally got outside, he dumped his ass on the sidewalk and his head in his hands. And there, irrespective of those who peered through the plate glass Laundromat windows and the awkward glances of those passing by, Ray Faulks wept long and hard.
*
Running.
Tears forgotten and determination now back and operating at full throttle.
On the side walk, Ray Faulks had experienced a revelation. It began when he questioned how the flavour of his visions had changed, becoming more personal. And not merely due to the fact that the person who he saw in danger was his beloved Denise.
After a moment of hopelessness, Ray fought back; challenging, questioning and soon powerlessness fell away as a thought dropped into his head.
What if his powers were growing?
The notion had originally left him stunned. Yes, what if his ability was finally moving forward, evolving to the point where he could see things with enough fore warning to do something about it? And what better time for such a thing to happen than now?
He’d pulled out his cell phone and called Denise’s accountancy firm. Suzie Watkins, a softly spoken woman who had been Denise’s PA for three years told him that his wife had phoned in sick that morning.
“Taken ill on the freeway,” Suzie had said. “Had to pull the car over so she could, y’know, let the badness out?”
“Why didn’t she call me?” Ray asked. The silence in the receiver told him that Suzie didn’t have the first idea.
He’d hung up after Suzie asked him to give her regards. Then he called home where the answer phone took his message telling her that he was on his way, and not to worry, he’d be there soon.
He took the subway; he used his feet, ignoring the protest from his lungs and the slow trickle of sweat traversing down his back. He stumbled once, fell twice, the second time skinning a knee, yet he still kept up his pace, the pain spurring him on.
Fate had finally found favour in him; his powers were now being used to gain an advantage. To make a difference, not confirm the frailty of life. And he would not allow this chance to go wondering.
He fumbled with the keys to the apartment building, dropping them on the steps where they skittered away from him as though they had a life of their own. Cursing, he grabbed them; jamming the key in the lock with such force he jarred his elbow.
In the foyer now, aiming for the elevator, slapping the palm of his hand impatiently on the wall as he watched the car descend, illuminated numbers over ahead marking its painfully slow progress.
A bright chime as the door opened made his heart lift. In the car, there was hope in him. He only needed to see his wife safe and well. Be with her. Protect her from what ever ills were coming over the future’s dark horizon.
He alighted on their floor, ran the length of the carpeted hallway, and stood outside the door to their apartment, his hands outstretched, propping him against the door jamb.
There was music coming from behind the door. Wagner, rousing and insistent, and just loud enough to cover a ringing telephone.
Then he heard it.
A cry of pain. Faint. Distant. Coming from inside their apartment. He was too late. Too late to make his difference on the world.
“No!”
Ray unlocked the door and ploughed into the room. Frenzied, he scanned the lounge. Nothing.
“I’m so dirty!”
Her voice again, in his head. Calling him to her grisly demise. He was at the door to their bedroom before he realised and shoved so hard he fell into the room calling out her name.
For the next few moments time stood still.
*
Ray’s eyes were drawn immediately to the body of his wife, who lay bound and spread eagled upon the bed, each limb secured with a thin leather thong. To his horror her white skin was coated with a thick red stream, which Ray could see as a thin red line running from her neck, down to her flat stomach where it pooled inside her navel like a deep red well, before smearing her sex in livid crimson.
A shriek, high and bright with horror.
But it didn’t come from Ray. It came from Denise who writhed on the bed as she fought against her bonds.
Ray crawled towards her, confused now by what was reality and what was not. She should be dead, shouldn’t she? Cut up like that, she should be goddamn, sure as dammit, dead.
Yet here she was, still bucking on the bed, her bloodied breasts bouncing, her movement forcing a squeak from the springs whilst the head board beat out a tattoo upon the wall.
Then confusion compounded. The smell hit him. A mixture of perfume, sweat and…
Strawberries.
A thick cloying aroma of strawberries that he recognised even before he saw the bottle of Hershey’s in the hands of a bare assed man who was pushing himself into the corner of the room in an attempt to become invisible.
Not blood.
Not pain.
Not death.
