Hag Night, page 37
It had been a long night. A good, long night.
There were two ways for Doreen to leave Razor in the early hours of a Saturday morning. She either left with a lover on her arm (Drew for the time being) and a few grams of coke in her system, or she left relatively sober and supremely disappointed. A little closer to death, either way. And so long as dying was inevitable, she preferred the former to the latter.
Likewise, being a creature of polarity rather than habit, Doreen also had two types of friends in her life. They were easy enough to differentiate. There were her friends who doped and the ones who didn’t. The ones who doped hadn’t been around nearly as long but they were exactly seven times more fun to go out with on a Friday night and they were always very generous when it came to portioning out ‘little doctors’: the new drug of choice within their circle.
That was how she’d met Drew, or part of it anyway. The little doctors.
He was great. He was the best she’d ever had. Tall, thin, fair hair, white teeth, always smiling, always wanting to have a good time. And he always had a good time, regardless of the circumstances. He never let anyone kill his buzz. When you brought Drew out with you, you were guaranteed a night you would hardly remember and never forget.
Doreen did the best she could to keep Drew from her other friends (her old friends from high school like Katy and Lindsey and Vic and Blake), who’d gone away to other colleges and hadn’t run awash in the sweeping wave of debauchery that was a university campus. Not like her. They didn’t understand what she saw in Drew and probably never would. She’d only offered his presence a couple of times to her girlfriends when they were all back home for winter break, and their frowns were enough to dissuade her from ever bringing him up around them again ... except, of course, when she was thoroughly wasted. Like in Blake’s mother’s car just then. But they could sense his grip on her all the time.
She didn’t blame Katy and the rest of them for being irritated with her. She would have felt the same way if she’d been called for a ride at one forty-five in the morning. The bar closed at two and she was too inebriated on a mixture of coke and vodka to drive herself home. On top of that, she was too poor a judge of character to hitch a ride (and part of her knew it). Drew, of course, was out of the question because he never came through when she really needed him. It was part of the game he played, and she didn’t blame him for it. She hated needy people. That was why she forgave Katy’s sharp tongue and even felt the smallest tingle of regret beneath the vomit threatening her lips.
She would make amends tomorrow, she decided. She would be feeling much better in the morning. All she had to do was hold out for the rest of the dirt road, suffer through the detour to Jessie’s house because she had no right to dictate their plans now that she’d essentially ruined their night, and curl into her bed for about ten hours praying she wouldn’t get the hangover hammer too hard in the meantime.
Then everything will be fine. I’ve only been back a week. We can patch things up. I’ll settle down for a while to make it up to them.
That seemed to settle it.
So she accepted the weave and wobble of the tires, which sometimes narrowly avoided the potholes but often struck them full force, and closed her eyes. She tried to remember the second verse of “Creep” to keep herself from thinking about dying friendships and undercooked burrito while the dark country roads passed by, but wound up wondering just what the hell she was doing with her life and how long it would take for her soul to leave her body.
Did she have to be dead?
TWO
It was a large house. Brand new, too. No more than six months old. Three floors, a sizable, finished basement (big screens and billiards included), lots of windows with flowing white curtains, and classic leather furniture staged in welcoming postures throughout. Five bedrooms, three and a half baths, somewhere in the neighborhood of three and four thousand square feet. The landscaping around the winding front walk was immaculate. Bright flowers were everywhere. Half of the home’s exterior was made of sensible brick, half of equally sensible aluminum siding in dull tones to make it seem older than it really was.
Inside, the floors were hardwood in the halls and kitchen, carpeted in the living room, family room, dining room, study, and upper floors. Cream carpeting, too, because that was non-offensive and the absence of real color drew attention to the colorful walls, which were adorned with equal measures of abstract artwork from local festivals and generic black and white photography. The kitchen counters were pristine and marble. The appliances were dark gray steel. The bed in the master suite had a silk canopy like the ones in sexy ‘80s music videos. There was no dust to be found anywhere.
In other words, it was one of the cookie-cutter types that had been breeding subdivisions across the farmland for well over a decade. Doreen knew them well. South Lyon and Northville were little more than testaments to the triumph of a new wave of Suburban Manifest Destiny over forests and farmland. Jessie’s house was the crowning achievement of millions of years of evolution.
Doreen had plenty of time to study the exterior on their approach because there was nothing else to look at. There weren’t any other houses on the street (though she doubted it would stay that way much longer) and she needed something to focus on to distract her from nausea.
At first, the only aspect of the home that struck her as strange was the driveway. It was at least fifty yards long and another twenty wide. There didn’t seem to be any reason for it to be so big, unless the owners were expecting to throw a lot of parties. Big parties. Governor’s Balls and what not. Maybe that would explain the garage, too, which was almost twice as big as the three car monstrosities in the Northville McMansions. What else could they use it for? It looked more like a good-sized warehouse and docking area than a traditional Mercedes stable.
Any further thoughts on the matter were driven away when a fresh sting of indigestion burned up her throat.
Deep breaths, she told herself. Almost there.
She turned her attention back to the house.
It was alone in its cul-de-sac, the grim foreboding of a whole new set of McMansions that would soon overtake the surrounding forests, making the earth a barren wasteland of discarded construction equipment and fast food wrappers.
In that sense, it was a wasteland already.
From the entrance to the subdivision all the way to the front of the house, there was nothing but the stumps of neutered trees and varied chunks of clay, presumably from the basement excavation. After the girl’s house,
(What was her name? Jackie? Jamie?
Jessie.
Right.)
the woods still stood as proud as ever, though the trees mourned their sudden exposure to suburbia. It was easy to imagine those branches bending down to pluck a startled victim or two to exorcise their grief. And by the look of it, there were plenty of candidates during the day. All the CAT tractors scattered across the adjacent properties couldn’t have been for show. Any unfortunate worker wandering into the woods to take a shit while the port-o-johns were full or calling his wife to tell her he’d be home late could be a target.
Or Doreen could be next.
She looked at those branches and shivered, hoping the night wouldn’t take her out their way.
Jessie’s house was an oasis of grass amid mounds of clay, but the sod was as dark and healthy as any Doreen had ever seen. Rather than warming the scenery, it made the house seem isolated. Frightening. For some reason, it reminded her of the Addams family house, the way it glared. Even with the modern accents. As much as she’d loved the show and the movies as a kid, it wasn’t endearing in the least.
“We’re here.”
Blake guided the SUV into the driveway next to a blue Ford sedan and stopped.
The last shift into park nearly broke Doreen’s self-control completely. She could feel vomit rising in her throat again.
Blake and Vic shot each other a look while Katy and Lindsey helped her out of the car.
“Come on. We won’t stay long. You look like you’re gonna be sick, anyway. You should lie down for a while.”
Doreen didn’t like the way they were pulling on her. She shrugged off both of their arms.
“I’ll be fine.”
Lindsey backed away and put her arm around Vic’s waist. Katy put a guiding hand against the small of Doreen’s back.
She could feel how they were all watching her or making a point not to. They couldn’t even muster awkward chatter, and though Doreen would have been the first to admit she was a little more paranoid than usual in her current state, the observation afforded her only one possible conclusion: They were planning something. She didn’t know what it was, but she’d known them long enough to know they were trying to hide it. Probably just another good talking-to. Those came frequently enough lately.
The four of them, the two super couples, were fairly straight-laced and always had been. Other than some underage drinking once they were in college (and it seemed everybody from the valedictorians to the burnouts did that and considered it part of the ‘college experience’), they had nothing more than a high-school detention between them. They were jocks, cheerleaders, members of the youth group and the National Honor Society. Deceit didn’t come easy to them nor did they wear it well.
But being that they were so straight-laced, why did Doreen have the sense that they were trapping her somehow? Trying to jam something down her throat?
It couldn’t be too bad. She wasn’t about to be kidnapped and sold as a sex slave or anything. There was just no way they were capable of something like that. She’d known them too long.
So why did she still feel like that was exactly what was about to happen?
Not all kidnappers, rapists, and serial killers are the kinds of people you avoid on the sidewalk, she reminded herself, allowing Katy’s grip on her back to tighten the slightest bit so as not to cause any alarm. She couldn’t overwhelm the lot of them and no one was around to hear her scream.
Most victims know their attackers, otherwise they wouldn’t be caught so off guard.
Stop it. You’ve seen too many horror movies.
True, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.
Better to be safe than sorry.
It was a simple enough proverb, though she often ignored it in her own life. She only followed it when it suited her purposes in the moment. No one could condemn her for it, either, because everyone else was exactly the same.
Raising her head, she convinced the world to quit spinning for a moment and stared at the new (yet somehow rust-stained) front walk to try to get some equilibrium.
“Who’s Jessie?” she asked Katy.
Her voice was louder than she’d intended. She braced herself for rebuke. Her friends would be worried, she thought, that their host had heard her indiscretion. But no one seemed to notice or care.
“A friend of ours. We met her at Rebirth this year.”
“Rebirth?” Doreen scoffed, taking her eyes off of the ground just long enough to scowl at Katy. “Is that Jesus camp or something?”
“Something like that,” she replied loftily.
“You don’t even try to hide your condescension anymore, do you?”
Katy shrugged and they walked on in silence.
Doreen went back to holding down her food.
They were all the way to the door and Blake had knocked twice before she realized she didn’t have her purse with her.
“Shit,” she groaned, turning away from Katy’s grasp and staring ruefully back toward the driveway.
“What? What is it?” Lindsey whispered, clearly nervous.
“My purse is in the car.”
“You don’t need your purse,” Katy said.
“Yeah, I do. My phone’s in there. I’ve gotta call Drew.”
“Drew’s probably here already.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. He was on his way before we left the club.”
Doreen furrowed her brow and tried sobering up enough to make sense of it all.
“I didn’t see his car ... ”
“He probably parked farther up the street.”
Doreen was about to dig deeper, but then the door opened and she forgot about her purse. Something about the thrill and intrigue of exposure to new college friends always distracted her. She could forget about anything when she was trying to impress new people. Even her inhibitions.
But there was no warm face here. No half-drunk party animal gleefully admitting anyone and everyone to share a good time regardless of background or affiliation.
The girl who answered the door was thin, grave, and hollow. She was like a ghost, nakedly assessing Doreen’s physical and emotional stature. She didn’t even pretend to look at the rest of them until she’d locked eyes with Doreen for no less than five full, agonizing seconds. Doreen found herself shivering again in the warm summer breeze.
“Everything’s ready,” the girl muttered to Blake and Vic. Doreen wasn’t sure whether or not she was supposed to hear it but no one seemed too concerned either way.
“Is this Doreen?” she asked pleasantly. For the first time, she forced a smile and took a step onto the front porch.
By the light of the porch lamp, Doreen could see she was a user, or had been once. No doubt about it. The sunken cheeks, bruised eyes, and bone-thin resilience were unmistakable. She reeked of drugs in a way only an experienced doper could identify.
Doreen grinned in spite of herself.
Oh, how nice it will be to shove that back in all of their faces when this is over.
Their self-serving, snobby, holier-than-thou bullshit. Always condescending on her and her lifestyle, she thought, when their ‘pure’ crowd, the ones who went to Jesus camp and sang songs about how their purity and faith were all they’d ever need, were even worse off than she was.
They must not have realized their friend was a druggie or they probably wouldn’t have given her the time of day. Not unless they’d known her at least as long as they’d known Doreen. Long enough that they could still remember her before the fall.
“Hi,” Doreen forced a smile of her own. “Jessie?”
“Yeah! Nice to meet you! I’ve heard so much about you!”
“Really?” Doreen laughed, making sure Katy and Lindsey picked up on the accusation. The boys didn’t know enough about body language and tones to get it. Not like the girls. Girls were born with a sense for that or else they had an undiagnosed social retardation, Doreen thought. Not one found in medical journals, but a valid one nevertheless.
Lindsey’s face was white and drawn. Katy only smiled. It was another bitchy response given the circumstances.
“Oh, nothing bad,” Jessie assured her.
They all laughed uncomfortably.
But was there a hint of smugness behind the laughter? Was there another underlying insult in Jessie’s assurance? Doreen couldn’t tell. After all, Jessie was a user just like she was, and that meant she was much more comfortable with deceit than the rest of them. She would be much harder to read.
Doreen found herself liking and distrusting this new girl all at once. The distrust was strong, but Jessie presented just enough of that thrilling mystique to get her through the door, against her better judgment.
Katy and Lindsey fell in behind her. The boys led the way without turning around. They were so confident they had her now that they didn’t feel the need to look to their girlfriends for assurance. It was impossible not to mark the ease with which the two of them passed into the foyer, and the way the tense rise of their shoulders slouched once their shoes were discarded at the front door.
They’d been to the house before. Doreen was sure of it. And though it shouldn’t have been a cause for alarm (Jessie seemed a close friend of theirs, after all), it still didn’t sit right with her.
It was too late to turn back, though. She was far away from any landmark she knew and couldn’t remember what country roads they’d turned down. There was no way she could find her way back until morning, and so long as Blake had the car keys, she had little hope of escape.
So, she stepped into the house and slipped off her shoes with the rest of them, not knowing what awaited her inside. The idea was thrilling.
Only time would tell.
What a beautiful possibility.
THREE
Jessie immediately vanished into a small, dark room to the right which Doreen took to be the study (or ‘den’ depending on the homeowner). She couldn’t see much with the light reflecting off the glass doors, but imagined there was a nice computer desk inside with sensible shelves and a dictionary above the desktop computer (a Mac). There was probably an imitation Victorian grandfather clock, too, that only rang out the hour in the afternoon when it wouldn’t disturb anyone’s sleep. Maybe a nice leather chair in the corner by the window and a solitary lamp by the desk so mother and father could play solitaire late at night while they waited for their sweet little Jessica to come home from doping with her burnout friends.
She didn’t actually see any of that, but you got used to the scene growing up in Northville and Novi. Sweetly predictable, non-offensive parents in sweetly predictable, non-offensive homes worrying whether or not their children would miss church on Sunday. Somehow, those same parents maintained denial to the fact that their children were routinely busted by the cops for having sex in parked cars at the local Starbucks, or were over at Mr. and Mrs. Whoever-Was-Out-Of-Town-This-Weekend’s house getting high and drinking until they puked because they assumed their physical limit for alcohol consumption was Mars.
In other words, she’d seen a lot of those houses and a lot of those dens.
“I think everyone’s upstairs,” Katy said, tugging softly on Doreen’s arm. “That’s where we usually get started.”
Doreen took a quick look around.
The first floor was dark except for a dull light over the island in the kitchen, but she could tell even from that little bit that it was a well-furnished, modern home with all the amenities one would expect near the Oakland County border. It was gigantic, hollow, and filled with the sort of expensive electronics and sterile, upper middle-class dreariness that reminded her of every summer and every school project she’d collaborated on in middle school. If she had to put a date to it, she would have guessed it was less than a year old.
