Michael Collings - The Slab

He settled deeper into his armchair, grateful once more that his den had turned out to be the quietest room in the house. Ariel and the kids were probably in the family room watching TV. From back here he could hear nothing.

Except the throb of blood rushing through his veins and pounding against his temples.

He took a long pull on his beer.

Cold. Thank god for the mini-fridge back here. He didn’t think he could stand to walk as far as the kitchen right now.

The headache had begun during the drive home. That had happened more than once in the five months since he had placed the call to Maxwell. The call for help.

Five months.

An eternity.

There had been a few nibbles on the house almost as soon as it was ready to show. Two prospects had even tendered offers, but for some reason they had been withdrawn shortly after the marks had made a careful walkthrough. Slick hadn’t been too concerned.

“That’s the way the market is right now. Mostly lookie-loos. Don’t worry. Things will probably pick up after school opens.”

Easy enough for him to say, Jack thought bitterly. He didn’t have to come home to Ariel and the kids and these damned headaches.

He rolled the cold can against his forehead.

He knew that he sometimes had…problems. He tried to keep control, and most of the time he could. But every once in a while, situations arose and he just…let go.

But for the last few months, it had been worse. Much worse. Much harder to manage…things.

He knew from past experience what the red rages felt like, the need to lash out and hurt someone. He was careful, though. Never too much. Never too often. And usually he didn’t have to make an ER run.

But now.

He shuddered.

Hurting didn’t seem to be enough. A slap across the cheek. A punch to the shoulder. A good solid whack on a naked rear end. A belt on the back of the legs-high, where it wouldn’t show. Those didn’t work.

Now he wanted, needed more. When the mood was on him, he could close his eyes and easily-oh, so very easily-envision smashing his fist into Clark’s face, breaking a jaw and spilling teeth all over the floor like kernels of bright-red rice. Or crushing Mark’s nose with his elbow, feeling the sudden, almost orgasmic heat of blood flowing across the flesh of his arm. Shattering Ariel’s arm the next time she tried to restrain him, feeling the bones crumble into fragments, like the slab beneath his chair. Beating them all…all of them at once. Pounding them bloody. Destroying them.

When he was in control, that seemed bad enough. But it wasn’t the worst.

He took another long drink.

He probably should get up and turn on the light. It was already dark, even though daylight-savings time wouldn’t end for a week or two. His den was shrouded in shadows…and sometimes the shadows seemed to flicker, to move.

Sometimes they whispered to him to…to do things…horrible, terrifying things…not to Ariel or the boys but to himself.

It was the memory of those urges that utterly froze him. His headache geared up a notch or two.

Shit. How much more of this could he take.

Rap. Rap.

Small, tentative knocks sounded on his closed-and carefully locked-door. Anger flooded through him.

The knew that the weren’t supposed to disturb him when he was in here.

Rap. Rap.

“What!”

There was a short pause, then a faint voice. It was Clark. Jack could almost see the brat’s face, pale and drawn at the prospect of what he knew must be coming.

“Dad?”

“I told you not to…!”

“There’s a man here to see you.”

Jack sat bolt upright. The movement sent spikes through his brain.

“Cops?”

Another pause.

“No. Just a man. He says his name is Maxwell.”

Jack released his breath explosively and settled back into the chair. He upended his beer and drank the rest in a single long swallow.

He rose, thumbed the lock, and pulled the door open.

What the hell!

He jerked back convulsively, almost slammed the door closed, then blinked.

A phantom something seemed to be floating chest-high in the dimness of the hallway. Green glowing eyes, green glowing teeth, splotches of red glowing like baleful, fevered eruptions on dead skin. Everything else black, dead black. Black so deep it seemed to swallow what little light there was.

“Dad?” Clark sounded worried…and terrified.

“What are you…?” Jack hit the switch beside the door and the den light flared, casting stark shadows everywhere but emitting enough light into the hall to illuminate the figure that stood before him.

It was a fifteen-year-old vampire, Dracula-cape and all, its hair blackened for the occasion and slicked back.

Clark in costume.

Clark must have figured out what was going on in his father’s mind. “It’s my costume,” he said hurriedly. He backed a step toward the wall behind him. “For the Halloween party at school day after tomorrow. Mom was finishing it for me when the doorbell…”

Jack swept past his son, unaware of brushing the boy’s shoulder hard enough to force Clark further back into the wall. Clark groaned, but only a bit and mostly under his breath. He knew better.

Jack nearly ran down the hall. Now that the shock of seeing that damned costume was receding, excitement flooding through him in its place.

Slick was here. It had to be good news.

Five minutes later, the two of them were seated comfortably in the armchairs in Jack’s den. The overhead lights were on, as were the desk lamp on the top of the liquor cabinet and another on the small table he used as a make-shift desk. The room was harsh, stark, uncompromising in its brightness. Right now, Jack needed it that way.

“Yeah, this time the deal’s going through. No problemo,” Slick said, chuckling softly. “I gave them a sob story about how you had bid on a custom-built place in Newton Park and if you didn’t close on this house soon, you would lose it. They’re first-time buyers, excited by the prospect, eager, and above all gullible.”

“But you’re sure.”

“Positive. I took them through last weekend while you were in Palm Springs, and they burbled all the way about how perfect it was, what they were going to do with this room, who was going to sleep in that room. You could see her running up curtains in her mind and planning on ordering throw pillows to match the color of the living room walls.”

“They didn’t notice anything?”

“Nah. Oh, they tried to look nonchalant, even slightly disinterested, but you can’t kid a kidder. They’re hooked and they didn’t bother to check out anything too closely.”

“What happens if they find out about, you know, the real problems.”

Maxwell leaned over and slapped his old roommate’s knee. “Come on, Jack, have some faith in me. I’ve handled enough of these places, here and in Sunset Hills, to know how to protect myself…and, of course, you as well.

“I recommended an ‘outside inspector’ when they first got interested, even said I’d pay his fee. They took me up on the deal. Fred’s a good friend…and a good silent partner, emphasis on ‘silent.’” He chuckled. “He knows exactly how to word the reports. After all these years, and all the lawsuits, he’s a past master at saying things without actually saying them at all. Don’t worry about that.”

Jack relaxed into his chair. He grabbed another beer out of the fridge next to the chair, then grabbed a second and tossed it to Chuck Maxwell.

It wasn’t for nothing that his old friend had earned his nickname as far back as college.

“Slick,” indeed!

The two men clicked rims of their beers in a toast and laughed together.

From the Tamarind Valley Times, 25 April 2009: