Lost the Sky Again Book One, page 25
part #1 of Lost the Sky Again Series
Lucy was huffy and put up a fight, but ultimately agreed to give Hannah a try. And though she stomped and talked rather louder than was necessary, she didn’t break even one thing. So that was always a win.
* * *
She got into Donald’s house by sneaking in the back gate of his fence and using the dog door he had for his large German Shepherd, who would have been terrifying if Lucy hadn’t happened to know that he was an insatiable attention grubber and wouldn’t have hurt a fly even if someone was being murdered in front of him. Lucy fed him a few dog biscuits and patted him, which led to his subsequent happy stalking of her as she wandered through the house.
He hadn’t been difficult to find in the least. He did still live at the same address, and Lucy was horrified by the fact that Stryker had been forced to live his whole life knowing exactly where this piece of shit excuse for a human being was, and that he was still hurting children. Stryker was nice and kind and followed the rules, and it was time for someone who was a little less nice and kind and far more lenient with the rules to help him out, as far as Lucy was concerned. She didn’t puke or have a panic attack this time. She still didn’t care for going outside, but she could manage it now, and it wouldn’t be for very long.
Donald’s revolting house was tastefully decorated but smelled vaguely of cigarette smoke and body odor. Or maybe that was just in Lucy’s memory. Could she smell memories, too? Another interesting thought. She had been here once before, or more than once, she supposed, if you counted the times she had infiltrated his head while he slept. That hadn’t been difficult, either. Everything was falling into place so spectacularly well that she worried a bit that it was too easy. A few times coming into his mind, and one real life visit to assure herself that, yes, he was the correct man and yes, he was a terrible human being whose presence on the earth ruined the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to come into contact with him.
She had learned a lot from his mind as he slept. He had been married, several times. The second wife (who moved to town and met him long after rumors of him molesting a child died down) left him when she found out that he was molesting their two very young daughters. She had tried to send him to jail, but no one believed her, either. She and her daughters were the only people other than Stryker to have accused him, and because of a combination of contacts in the right places, reputation in the community, an unfairly charming personality, and bribes, the courts had decided that his wife was piggybacking on the previous false charges made against him. In addition to not pressing charges and working valiantly to keep his name out of the public ear again, he had also been awarded primary custody of the children, with the mother getting weekend visits. Perla, who would have died before letting her scumbag now-ex-husband hurt her beautiful girls any more, was still on the run. She had successfully started over somewhere and no one had any idea where. At least, Lucy had to assume that they were living happily without him because anything else just would have been too unfair.
His first wife he had killed. He'd gone to great lengths to make sure that it looked like an accident and had played the grieving husband so well that not a single person, as far as he knew anyway, had ever harbored the thought that he may have had a hand in it. She had found out his secret and threatened to turn him in unless he got help. That was before Stryker.
That alone did not make up Lucy’s mind, though. Last time she had crept in while Donald was at work, she had found his stash of tapes. He taped what he did to children, some of whom were scarcely old enough to talk, let alone convey what the sick, perverted excuse for a human being had done to them. When Stryker had leveled charges, he had been forced to burn the store of tapes he’d created up to that point. Lucy was profoundly grateful for this, because she intended for the whole world to see what a monster this man was, and she never would have been able to choose whether to take Stryker’s tape to spare him the humiliation or leave it to vindicate his name after all these years.
Last time Lucy had visited, she had gone straight to his hiding spot, watched less than thirty seconds of one of the videos, puked in his toilet and checked his kitchen cupboard quickly before running all the way home.
She moved across his kitchen floor now, unhurried. He wasn’t going to be home for many hours and her one small task would be done in moments. She put her backpack on the counter and pulled out a box of cookies, which was opened but still half full of cookies. Next, she opened his pantry door and found an identical box of cookies, also already opened. She counted the cookies to make sure that his box still had seven cookies (it did) and that they were both in the same spots in the flimsy brown plastic cookie packaging (they were), and then placed her own box of cookies on the shelf. She fed a few cookies to the dog (they were not chocolate), who wagged his tail in glee. The fucker she had just pulled a cookie switch on never gave his dog nice treats because he was a selfish prick, but in this case she was grateful, because she would hate to hurt an innocent dog because the slime ball was generous with cookies.
With that, she gave the dog a pat and crawled back out through the doggy door. The dog followed her out and licked her hand as she prepared to climb the fence at a spot that was conveniently hidden by bushes on the other side.
“See you later, Frumpy, you’ll find a better owner soon.” Frumpy wasn’t his name, but it was what she called him. He seemed to like it.
She patted him one final time and climbed quickly over the fence. She peeked out from around the bushes and when she saw the coast was clear, began her walk back home, thankful that Stryker had been sleeping so much lately.
* * *
Stryker couldn’t sleep. Hadn’t been sleeping well at all, lately, though he spent a lot of time in bed. He stared, glassy eyed, at the wall, just as he had for the last three hours. Guilt washed over him at the poor care he was taking of Lucy. He had scarcely been out of bed in two weeks, and if anyone found out, Lucy might end up being taken from him. He cared about her desperately but just now he couldn’t even fathom moving his body to a more comfortable position, let alone getting out of bed and playing board games, or even sitting on the couch and watching television. He felt heavy; his body still hurt but it was slowly getting better. His mind, though, his emotional state, was sliding slowly away from him and all he could do was ride out the numbness without letting Lucy know he wished he was dead.
He still got up to cook for her. He made sure that she had everything that she needed, and that she thought he was cheerful, but physically tired. He forced himself to laugh and joke during the times he came out of his room, and if she came in to talk to him or ask him a question. He made sure she was getting to her appointments, got her tutoring, and had the company he couldn’t provide.
The phone rang and his heart leapt into his throat. His eyes went wide and he held his breath, listening hard. Moments went by and he struggled to hear what was going on. He was frozen in place, straining his ears, waiting for a knock on his door that he would have to deal with. Was she calling again? Or was it someone else? Was he going to have to beat his psyche into submission and act okay for some lawyer or social worker? He almost cried with relief as he heard Lucy tell whoever was at the other end that he was napping and would call back later. After a few moments passed and there was no knock at the door alerting him to a message, he noticed that he was crying. Not heaving, dramatic sobs, just hot tears that slipped from his eyes when he blinked.
He lay like that for a long time, leaking tears and bathing in his own numbness. Had it been Marcy who called, again? He had been avoiding her calls for several weeks; he knew that he was ruining everything but he couldn’t fathom seeing her after what had happened last time. He had assured himself over and over that he wasn’t going to let anything happen with her until he was on more solid ground in his life, but it had just felt so good to be touched.
When he first broke it off with Olivia he’d felt so lost. His feelings toward his ex had changed with the wind; he was angry with her, sad for her, betrayed by her cowardice, ashamed of how much he had taken from her and how little he returned, wistful for good times that had become suddenly iconic in his mind, mourning for what he had wanted and what might have been, that was now lost. He’d struggling fiercely in the beginning and he knew it. For fuck's sake, it had only been four months since he’d talked to Marcy about his feelings for her. Since then, he’d started to find his stride, he hadn’t been thinking of Olivia nearly as much and when he did, it didn’t hurt so badly. He’d grown complacent, started seeing Marcy more and more frequently. They’d started sharing small, intimate touches, a hand on a knee or lower back. One night, they’d fallen asleep together, watching a movie on the couch.
He was falling in love with Marcy and to make any kind of move had been a disservice to her and to himself. To let himself get swept up in physical sensations would mean to lose the possibility of what could eventually happen between them in a cheap night of physical pleasure. And yet he had still fallen into that exact trap. It hadn’t felt cheap at the time, it never did, but since it had happened, he seemed unable to pull himself together. He was avoiding her and he was suddenly the guy that he had strived his whole life to not be.
He dozed, dreamed about her on top of him, so careful not to hurt him, and woke up sweating and already crying. He loved her and yet he had taken advantage of her and left her to wonder what had gone wrong and why he was ignoring her. She had done so much for him and like Olivia, he had taken from her and ditched her. How was he becoming such a disgusting human being? How could he think he was qualified to raise a bright young girl when the way he treated women had deteriorated so dramatically in the past few months?
He glanced at the clock and then grabbed the sheet to rub the tears off his face. He was going to have to pull it together enough to cook dinner for Lucy soon. He never quite knew how he managed to eek out the energy to do the daily tasks that needed to be done but he did. And as long as he could, he would wait for this storm to pass. If the day came when he was unable to take care of Lucy’s needs, he would tell Dr. Macarow. But until then he would strive to not let his charge know his feelings and would press on. If he was lucky, his mood would soon break like a fever, as it usually did. This was the worst depression he had ever had, but not by much. It had always passed before; all he had to do was hang on until life got a little easier again.
* * *
Stryker puked up his breakfast into the trash can. He hadn’t eaten much, and half a blueberry pancake and some oj hurt a lot more coming up than it would have if he’d had a good meal. It seemed to tear at his throat and he fought until his stomach was under control. He tripped on his own feet as he moved to rinse his mouth out with water but caught himself and sat down instead, hard, painfully, resigned to the acrid flavor he would be tasting for a while.
With steady hands and a shaking psyche, he lifted the paper once again to look at the face that had shocked him into tossing his biscuits in the first place. The face that had ruined his life and torn holes throughout every part of who he was, staring up at him, smiling that same shit-eating, cocky, fuckface grin that he always sported. That grin that had mocked him in the courtroom throughout the pathetic show that was his trial, looming large as the judge read the verdict that proved he had failed to make them understand how bad Donald was, and that he was certain had been there, too, at his mother’s funeral. Everyone else thought he’d exaggerated that little tidbit but he hadn’t. That son of a bitch had been there, just long enough to make sure Stryker had seen, and then disappeared.
He was dead. A heart attack. The picture was on the front page of the Athey Times, their Podunk little newspaper. His eyes landed on the headline and his eyes widened. He had expected a happy crappy article about what a fine man he was and how he would be missed but the headline read “Local Hero Dies, His Pedophile Past Revealed.” There was no way that could be true. After all these years? But as he read the article, he found that it was, and his whole body felt cold and tingly. That pervert would never hurt a child again. He had finally gotten justice, and it didn’t feel any less vindicating for being entirely by chance. But they would start calling him again, as soon as they looked into his past. Shit.
Suddenly profoundly grateful that Lucy had gone into her room to have a nap (her head was hurting her) he somehow dragged his ponderously heavy body into his bed and pulled the covers over his head. He didn’t cry, sleep, move, or feel. He simply existed in the same position, awash with full body emotional numbness.
* * *
It took a few hours, but he did finally fall asleep. She could feel him resisting it. He thought she didn’t know how depressed he was, like he was fooling anyone. She was fooling everyone, though. She had waited and waited for the story to break, and made sure the paper was there for him to find. Now that he was asleep, she settled herself into her blankets and got comfortable. She didn’t need to be asleep for it anymore, or to be close to him, she was getting quite good. For this, though, he had to think he was dreaming. She relaxed and let herself drift into her brother’s head. He wasn’t dreaming this time, so she initiated it.
* * *
He felt himself drifting in the black void of his brain. That was weird, he didn’t usually, but he went with it, grateful for it as long as it lasted. It didn’t last long and he nearly cried out as the room formed around him. That fucking room, that fucking video game, that fucking destruction of his soul, same as always. As the man entered the room; little boy Stryker gagged on his putrid smell, but got up to follow him. His heart pounded. He wanted to die.
But this time, the man didn’t look at him with that leer, that horrible grin that made him want to slit his own throat. This time the man looked as if he was in pain. Stryker watched for a long while, and realized that it wasn’t physical pain; the bloated, splotchy face that had haunted him for as long as he could remember was scrunched up, tears rolling down his ugly grimace. Unsure what to do, Stryker just stared. After what seemed like an eternity, the man beckoned him to the bedroom, as usual.
His stomach dropped; the anomaly couldn’t last of course, now it would be back to regularly scheduled soul killing.
Only it wasn’t. The man, crying harder now, sat down hard on the bed and patted the bed next to him for Stryker to sit down. Wide eyed, he complied. As he sat, he noticed now that the man didn’t smell of rancid sweat and bad breath anymore, he smelled like flowers. Lilies, he instinctively knew, funeral flowers. Lilies, which symbolized the innocence that is restored to a soul after it has left the body. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did.
The man sobbed. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. I’m so sorry. I knew how bad it was, how bad I was, but I kept going. I hurt you and it’s all my fault, it’s because I was evil, not because you did anything wrong.”
Stryker swallowed. He had never vomited in a dream, but he thought he might now. What was happening? What the actual fuck was happening!?
The man sobbed and sobbed and it took a long time for him to gather himself enough to speak again, but when he did he turned to Stryker and grabbed him by the shoulders. Not roughly, but firmly. The young gazed into the eyes of the old and realized that the face wasn’t gruesome anymore. It all looked the same but somehow his almost debilitating remorse had turned the face into something, not beautiful, not lovely, but welcoming. Stryker’s feelings of fear began to dissipate as the man spoke to him urgently.
“I’m the opposite of you, son. I was hurt, and I let my soul get twisted by it and over years and years I let it turn me into a foul, sinful being that delighted in the pain of others. I became a monster that got off on the most sick, loathsome things that one human being can do to another. I deserve to be dead and the world is better off without me!
“But you, you took the torment I gave you and let it make you into a kind person who cares for others. Don’t you see how rare and perfect you are? You took the most wretched evil that exists, you took so much pain and abasement and you turned it into something beautiful. You are the opposite of me, and I had to die to realize it. I’m gone now, Stryker, and I can’t ever hurt anyone else. Don’t let me steal anything else from you. Any more time, any more sleep, any more self-worth. Celebrate my death, Stryker, by being you, letting yourself be loved, by letting go of the hurt that I forced on you!
“You won’t dream of me anymore. I’ve arranged it. It’s the very, very least I can do for you, after the pain I put you through. Be free, it’s the one thing I can do for you after all I’ve taken from you.
“I have to go now. I’m sorry, Stryker, for what I did to you. Death brings such a painful clarity and I will mourn for you and for everyone I hurt for all of eternity. I’m sorrier than you will ever know, goodbye.”
* * *
He knew Lucy noticed that he wasn’t himself at lunch. He murmured something about how it was his turn to have a headache haha and was relieved when she went back into her room after they ate. Well, after she barely ate and he pretended to eat because he would probably throw up again if he stopped to think about anything for more than a split second. The dream had not faded as dreams typically do. It had stayed with him so clearly. It couldn’t possibly have been just any other dream. He felt numb; he didn’t know what to do with himself. Did he feel better? Worse? No, not worse. More numb. Was that better?
He had slept dreamlessly for the first time he could recall. It usually started out that way, and some nights were better than others, but there had never, never been a sleep that had not been demolished by his nightmares. Could it really be over now, just like that? He was contemplating the trudge back to his bed when there was a knock at the door. He knew he could ignore it because Lucy wouldn’t get it. He put his head on the table and banged it gently. Maybe it would relieve a little bit of the pressure from his brain. Only, Lucy didn’t come out to peer at the door to see who it was when he opened it, and he had a sinking feeling he knew who had called earlier, and that the two of them had chatted more than he would have liked.
