Rob Thurman - Blackout

Coming home …

I was on the path and turning that last curve in the woods, almost in sight of home. A dark path, but I liked the dark. I controlled the dark. Then there were times that it controlled me.

Fair is fair. Share and share alike.

I felt a sudden spasm in my stomach. Shit. My hand resting on my knee was shadowed where a shadow shouldn’t be—like that dark film covering my face in the Halloween picture. Leandros and Goodfellow didn’t say anything. They didn’t see it; they couldn’t see it. If they had, they would’ve said something—something like Wake up, Cal. You’re having a nightmare. But it wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t a nightmare. Nightmares never are nightmares when you want them to be.

I held my hand out under the brightest light by the couch and it was still there, that murky film. The Cal of the worst day ever … pathetic, lame excuse. The Cal of the Halloween picture with ice in his eyes and a flat expression that said killing was nothing but a hobby. You—in the sights of my gun? Sorry—you’re nothing but a pastime. You didn’t come close to ranking as personal. Hope you had a littermate who cared you died, because the only thing I cared about was making sure your blood stayed off my new sneakers. Your blood? That was easy to come by. But good shoes? Much harder.

Shit. Shitshitshit. It hurt. Why the hell did it hurt? “My head …” It wasn’t my head, but I couldn’t say where exactly it was. I knew what it was, though, not that it made any sense.

It was my soul; my damn soul hurt.

“I feel wrong. Something bad is coming.” They were stupid, overly dramatic words I couldn’t stop myself from saying. I hid my shadowed hand under my leg, sandwiched by the couch cushion. They couldn’t see it, but I could. Why had I said that? Something bad is coming? What the hell did that mean?

Something bad is coming.

No, something gooooood.

“Wrong?” Niko echoed, the corners of his mouth tilting downward.

“Sick. I meant sick. Not right. Just a headache.” With my other hand I took the dish towel my brother handed me and wiped my suddenly sweaty face with it. It was a cold sweat, like beads of ice frozen to my skin. “Why did I do that to the mummy?” Because he deserved it and I’d liked it. I’d slipped my leash and let myself like it. I shouldn’t have, but I did. I’d chopped him up and I’d enjoyed every second of it. Whether it killed him or not, how could that be right?

How could it be wrong?

Jesus. If you were going to have voices, your own voices, screwing with your head, they ought to have the fucking decency to agree with each other at least once. I wiped my face again. “Why didn’t I just leave him like he was? Why’d I go that far?” I asked it aloud, to myself but not to the others.

“You see?” Leandros said to Goodfellow quietly.

Before I could ask what he was meant to see, Goodfellow stood suddenly. “If you’re sick, then I had best be off. I can’t afford to come down with some ancient, dusty disease you picked up in that equally ancient and dusty basement. I have places to go, things to do, peris to puck.” He put on his coat. “I don’t suppose you had a chance to tell Wahanket about my monogamous ways before you roasted and chopped him into Mongolian barbecue? Don’t bother with excuses. My condition is everyone’s concern.” He tossed a handful of business cards on the table. They were green with bronze-colored lettering. Trying to cover up my confusion, reaching for casual, I picked one up with a hand that wanted to shake. I didn’t let it, and read the lettering aloud. “‘Robin Goodfellow, Monogamite, established 2010.’” Beneath that was a phone number.

“What’s the—”

“Suicide Hotline,” Robin answered before I had a chance to finish. “I’ve heard their call volume has increased tenfold.” He bowed his head in a solemn tilt. “I do what I can.” Then he was heading for the door. “Niko, I left you a few things as you’ve not been eating much while we looked for your wayward, apron-wearing brother. Enjoy. I’ll see the two of you later. I just have time to surprise Ishiah before he heads to work.” He paused as he opened the door, his eyebrows rising as he smirked. “Forget mice and men. The best-laid plans of vice and sin never go astray.”

He added more seriously, “But other things often do, well intentioned or not. Something to keep in mind.”

As the door slammed, I said, “There’s a lot I didn’t understand with that whole conversation and a lot I wish I hadn’t understood. Maybe I’ll skip the Ninth Circle.” There was no way I was going to the bar. Halloween Cal waited at the bar. I wasn’t ready to be Halloween Cal. At that moment I wasn’t ready to be any kind of Cal. “You don’t think Goodfellow and my boss have done it on the bar, do you? Where I serve drinks? Gah. I think I need a nap to wash my brain.” That was good. That sounded offhand, not on the edge of losing it at all … Never mind the sweat still soaking the back of my neck, the pain, the sickness so sharp I’d have left my own body to escape it if I could.

Leandros was already in the kitchen area, investigating the bags Goodfellow had left behind. He pulled out containers of yogurt, soy cheese, and various other inedibles, but then he tossed me a boxed tube of toothpaste. Minty fresh. Chocolate minty fresh. “You took your own with you to South Carolina and judging from the sounds of gagging coming from the bathroom last night, mine doesn’t meet your approval.”

“Seaweed is apparently not my dental care of choice. Hard to believe, I know.” I pushed up off the couch, steadying myself while he watched from the corner of his eye.

“Are you all right?” He tried to sound casual too, but he didn’t pull it off well. Not with me. Leandros … No … Niko. Niko—he’d always hated lying, all the lying we’d had to do as kids when we had run from … from …

The pain sharpened, leaving only thoughts of bed and collapse. “Just a headache, that’s all,” I repeated, my lie not much better than his. I avoided his face and a concern as sharp as the sickness in me and headed back for my bedroom. I didn’t stop by the bathroom … until Niko spoke up as I passed it.

“Chili cheese dog with extra onions.” That would’ve been the vendor five blocks from the museum. “I’m surprised your breath alone didn’t do to Wahanket what lighter fluid and a lighter did. Brush.”

I was barely on my feet, but I didn’t argue. That would only lead to more time wasted before I made it to my bed. I also knew bitching about it would result in an educational beat-down on the sparring mats or toothpaste squirted into an unsuspecting body orifice. I chose to brush my teeth. I wasn’t afraid of my brother, but I was aware of his limits—none that I knew of.

None that I remembered.

Memories, feelings, pain, fear—fast, coming so damn fast. I was close—God, I was right there, as if it all were on the tip of my tongue. It was, surprisingly, not the best taste in the world. Not sweet, almost bitter with a copper hint of blood. Should coming home taste of blood? I brushed quickly, but extra hard. Chocolate and mint had it all over seaweed, even if the mint had a helluva tingle. If that didn’t erase onion breath and the metallic taste of a brand-new penny, nothing would. Then I made it across the hall to my bed. I didn’t stagger, but it was close. I could feel my brain bunched like a fist, one that was getting ready to relax into an open hand. I had every expectation that a little sleep would finally reset my brain and when I woke up, it would be back.

All of it.

And fighting it was senseless. There’d be no more wondering who I was. No wondering if I was Halloween Cal. I was thinking bad things, wrong things, because all the knots unraveling in my brain were confusing me; that was all. I wasn’t wasting any more time on the imaginary right and wrong of them. I’d spent only days in this life. How the hell could I know right from wrong in this bizarre world in just days? When I woke up, I would be who I was meant to be. No more doubts, no more freaky voices or hallucinations of shadows that didn’t exist. I’d had enough, and I didn’t mind telling myself or my brain so. I yanked the covers up and rolled over as the afternoon light spilled down from above. I closed my eyes and yawned. The pain, wherever it was, head or heart, was suddenly fading, slipping away like sand between my fingers—Egyptian sand. The sickness and pain disappeared along with the last grain to fall. God, that was better.