Gina Ranalli - House of Fallen Trees

“Do you have any Benadryl?” Karen asked.

“What? No! I mean, I don’t know. Maybe!”

Frustrated, Karen rose and ran upstairs, trying to block out the sound of Saul’s screams. She flew through the hall and straight into her room, into the bathroom where she ripped open the small cloth bag she kept her toiletries in. She dumped the contents out into the sink, sifting through all the useless crap until she spotted the foil packet with the antihistamines, each pink and white pill in its own separate blister bubble.

She snatched it up and sprinted back down to the living room where Saul continued to bellow in misery, Rory scratching him in places the other man couldn’t reach himself.

“Harder!” Saul screamed. “Do it harder!”

“I can’t! You’re already bleeding!”

Karen fell to her knees beside the men, popping pills from the packet and shouting, “Swallow these, Saul!” She pushed two into his mouth. “Swallow them!”

Saul, probably not even registering what was being asked of him, did it anyway, with barely a pause of his flailing hands as they tried to scratch everywhere at once.

“Will he need a hospital?” Rory asked, real panic shining in his huge wet eyes.

“We’d better hope not,” Karen replied. “Let’s try to get him into a tub. We’re going to need baking soda.” As an afterthought, she added, “And oatmeal, if you’ve got it.” She didn’t know exactly what kind of oatmeal was necessary but she remembered her mother giving her oatmeal baths when she was a kid and had sunburns, poison ivy, or particularly bad encounters with insects, usually mosquitoes or bees.

Twenty minutes later, Saul sat up to his chin in a warm bath seasoned with baking soda, Epsom salts, and packaged instant oatmeal, though Karen doubted the last ingredient would do much good. Rory sat on the closed toilet lid, watching his friend while Karen leaned against the doorjamb feeling inadequate and foolish for not knowing what to do in such an emergency.

She said as much and Rory responded without looking away from Saul. “You know more than me. I don’t even have the right kind of pills to give him.”

“Comes from a lifetime of allergies,” she said dismissively.

For his part, Saul had finally stopped thrashing around and digging burrows into his skin, though he had hissed viciously when his wounds had hit the warm water. Now he lay back, his eyes closed while the rest of his body gave an occasional twitch. His arms gripped the sides of the claw-footed tub and Karen knew it was taking every ounce of his willpower to not continue raking at himself.

“You think it was the fleas?” Rory asked quietly.

“I guess it’s possible,” Karen replied. “But I’ve sure as hell never seen a reaction like that, especially since he doesn’t appear to have any hives, except for the welts he gave himself. And if it was the fleas, why didn’t they start biting me too? I was sitting on the couch right beside him.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Saul said suddenly, surprising them both. “I’m not deaf, you know.”

“How do you feel?” Rory asked him.

“Like I’ve been flayed by a giant cheese grater.”

“Do you feel feverish?” Karen asked, stepping further into the room. When he shook his head, she said. “What about breathing?”

“I seem to be doing that.” Saul opened his eyes and tried to smile at her, but she could see it was a huge effort for him. His cheeks had not been spared the wrath of his furious fingernails any more than any other part of him had.

“Cute,” she said. “I mean, are you having any trouble? Your airways don’t feel swollen or anything?”

He shook his head again, closing his eyes once more.

Karen noticed Rory staring at her in bug-eyed horror. “Why are you asking him that?”

“Trouble breathing is a symptom of allergic reaction.”

“Shit. Why didn’t you mention that before?” Rory asked.

She shrugged. “I guess I assumed you knew. Not to mention, I didn’t want to think about it unless we really had to. I don’t know about you, but giving someone an emergency tracheotomy isn’t something I have a lot of experience in.”

Rory’s face darkened with anger, though Karen was fairly certain it wasn’t directed at her. “What the fuck is going on?” he demanded. “Everything is all fucked up now. This house…” He trailed off, unable — or unwilling — to finish the thought aloud.

“What about the house?” she prodded.

“I don’t know. I just know I’m sick of all this weird shit that’s been happening. It makes no sense.”

“Well, I wouldn’t disagree with that,” she replied.

“Nothing’s been right since you got here,” he said. Karen looked at him, startled he would be so blunt. He saw the look and said, “That didn’t come out the way I meant it.”

“How did you mean it?”

“It’s just that…I don’t know. Like the powers that be don’t want you here or something. And I know how crazy that sounds but…there it is.”

“I would never have been here in the first place if you hadn’t called me.”

“What?” he said sharply. “You called me.”

Karen stared at him. “Um, no, you called me .”

Puzzled, he almost smiled, but at the last instant frowned instead. “Are you kidding me?”

“Rory, you called me and told me about Sean’s papers. Don’t you remember?”

He got to his feet, stepped towards her. In the small bathroom, he didn’t need to take many steps before he was in her face. “What the fuck are you trying to pull?”

She could see he meant it. He really didn’t remember calling her.

“I…” She had no idea what to say.

“You’re the one who called me,” he insisted. “Saying that you found his papers. A handwritten will, you said.” Now the anger in his face was directed at her, making her more nervous by the minute. “So,” he continued. “I’m gonna ask you again: what the fuck kind of game are you playing?”

She swallowed a lump in her throat. She licked her lips, which seemed unusually dry. “I guess I’m just a little confused,” she said slowly. “With everything that’s been going on.” She did her best to fake a chuckle, rubbing her forehead. “God, you know, I just can’t believe how exhausted I am. I’m sorry. Of course I remember…calling you, I mean.”

“Right,” he said, leaning forward until their noses were mere inches apart, his blue eyes fixed intently on hers, scanning for any trace of a lie. After a moment, he pulled back, smiled without showing his teeth. “I figured you’d remember if I jarred your memory enough. No offense but Sean did warn me that you were a little flighty.”

She nodded, almost ready to make an excuse to get the hell out of the cloistered bathroom until what he’d said made her wonder. “He warned you?”

Rory, who had turned back to study Saul now faced her again. “What’s that?”

“You said Sean warned you about me. When did he do that?”

He waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, who knows? Probably a couple years ago.”

“Why would he have done that?” she asked, brows knitting together.

Rory raised his hands in a half-shrug. “He thought you were a little flighty?” He smirked as though making a joke, but Karen could clearly see the malice he intended with his words. He wanted her to see it. But why?

“It seems strange though,” she went on, determined not to be intimidated by him. “That he would say something like that when he had no intention of us meeting.”

“Yeah, well, that was Sean. Always pulling stuff out of his hat for no apparent reason.”

“Uh huh.” She glanced around him to see if Saul was having any kind of reaction to this odd conversation, but the other man’s eyes remained closed. She decided to give him a prompt. “How you doing over there, Saul?”