Edward Lee - Creekers

“Don’t forget our date tomorrow,” Susan reminded him when they both got out at Old Lady Crane’s boardinghouse.

Are you kidding me? He’d sooner forget his name. “I know, hell hath no fury like a dispatcher scorned.”

“See you at work tonight,” she said, skipping up the old carpeted stairs.

Phil smiled in spite of his fatigue, and walked down the first-floor hall to his own room. He felt a numb elation; he hadn’t been on a real “date” in some time. And what pleased him much more was the growing attraction he felt for Susan. It seemed easy and honest, not just his physical attraction to her—each day, though, she did seem even more beautiful, her eyes more blue, her hair more silken, her physique more alluring—but his personal attraction as well; he liked her in too many ways he could name, and she clearly liked him. I must be doing something right, he gave himself credit. Why would she want to go out with me if she didn’t think I was a cool guy?

Right now, though, he was a tired guy. Night shifts skewed his metabolism to begin with, and worse was the fact that, thanks to today’s unavoidable overtime, he was getting to bed hours later than he was used to. The simple prospect of sleep never seemed more luxurious as he closed and locked his door and began to undress.

He only had one wish.

No dreams today, okay, Mr Sandman? No nightmares.

The dreams were subtly haunting him now. It seemed that the instant he dozed off, his mind took him back to that byway of his childhood. Like a grainy, ill-exposed movie: his ten-year-old self wandering through the humid, vine-tangled woods. The little Creeker girl, pretty in spite of her deformities, running away into the blistering sun. The high hill surrounded by dying grass that was as tall as he was, and atop the hill—

The House.

Christ…

And its marred, narrow windows set into whitewashed wood. Windows like eyes glaring straight into the throbbing heart of the nightmare itself…

He hung up his gunbelt in the closet, unfastened his badge and pulled off his shirt. A moment ago he’d been in a great mood—now it was ruined. The nightmare festered even when he was awake; it sabotaged him. Why should he remain so obsessed with the memory? That had all been over two decades ago, if it had even been real at all. I should see a shrink, he considered. It wasn’t fully a joke. The nightmare was stressing him out now, making raids on his sleep, and pecking at his waking thoughts like some demented, needle-beaked grackle gorging on a pile of delectable worms. It was now to the point that, exhausted as he was, he felt afraid to go to bed. For he knew the specter would be waiting to feast on more of his memory, the grim, blade-sharp images of the things he thought he’d seen in the House that day…

Jesus Christ, can’t you quit thinking about that shit! he hollered at himself. What the hell is wrong with you, you basketcase!

And at the end of this self-explosive thought, the tiniest rap of knuckles sounded at the door. His mind felt so disarranged at that moment, he didn’t even at first contemplate who it might be. Susan, maybe. Maybe she forgot to tell him something. Or maybe it was his landlady, or Mullins. But when he answered the door he saw, in smothered shock, that it was none of these people.

“Hello, Phil,” came the subdued and slightly sultry voice. Slightly sultry, yes, but more than slightly familiar,

Phil gulped as if swallowing dry oatmeal.

“Hello…Vicki,” he replied.

««—»»

Ona…

The thought came like a single sob of joy. Like a herald, like a breath of—

Of what? he wondered.

Of hope?

No. Deliverance.

Enraptured in the tainted dark, the Reverend stood poised in the opposite comet. The darkness dressed him as if in a holy man’s mantle. He was, after all, a holy man. He gave succor to holy things. He bid blessings and cast absolutions. In his own cloak now, weaved of the most austere sackcloth, he stood in pensive, undeniable worship.

Save us.

From the shuttered window, the tiniest leakage of sunlight hung in the dark chamber like brilliant web-strands. The light of day provided its oblivion—didn’t it?—as it did their own souls, their own spirits, a sanctuary from the misery of their cursed and most obscene blight.

Like their savior, their only real freedom was the glorious dark…

Save us, I beg of thee, the Reverend thought.

A tear welled in his eye.

And past the minute webwork of light—in the haven of its own darkness—

Something stirred.

««—»»

“I wasn’t going to come by, but—”

Vicki’s words seemed to die of their own starvation, as though each were a little shrew expiring in its tracks.

“But what?” Phil asked after he let her in. He’d asked the question more out of his own mental famine. Her presence assailed him. Why had she come? What did she expect him to say? How did she perceive him?

She has every right in the world, he reminded himself, to hate my friggin’ guts.

Had she come to tell him off? To unload on him in an outburst of anger and betrayal that had simmered in her for years? Most women would, he thought. He was the guy who had professed his love, and then abandoned her.

Yet she seemed composed, if not a little nervous. In her manner and the shades of her voice, Phil could not detect anything of the rage he imagined.

“Didn’t want to bother you—”

“It’s not a bother, for God’s sake,” he replied so quickly he may have seemed irritated. “Christ, we almost—”

He bit the rest off. We almost got married, he nearly finished. And what a catastrophic thing that would have been to say. A pause, hard as concrete, floundered between them.

“You look good, Vicki,” he said. “And it’s good to see you.”

He expected some equally benign reply, but then he thought, How good can I look in crumpled pants and an old T-shirt? Yeah, dickhead, how good can it be for her to see me? The guy who walked away from her life and never looked back?

“I saw you last night,” she said more quietly, “and I’m sure you saw me—at least I guess you did.” She made a morose chuckle. “It’s probably pretty hard not to notice your former fiancée up on stage in a strip joint. I was going to come over to the bar and say something to you, but, well… Complications, you know?”

Complications? That could, mean anything, but to ask her to elaborate now would only make things more difficult for her; just coming here had to be difficult enough. “You want something to drink?” he asked instead, and opened the refrigerator. “I’ve got-uh…” The fridge was empty. “I’ve got some great imported sparkling tap water.”

“No thanks,” she laughed. “You remember me—I never touch the hard stuff.”

Phil took a few seconds to really look at her then, though those few seconds ticked by like full minutes. She was dressed revealingly: a short, tight denim skirt and a glittery vermillion tanktop, very sheer and as tight. Where Susan was attractive in a plain and simple sense, Vicki’s looks could be likened to a caricature, every stereotypical trait of feminine desirability all flawlessly converged into one woman. Her light red hair hung straight just past her bare shoulders; whenever she turned her head, the hair shimmered like fine tinsel. Trace makeup accentuated the lines of her model’s face. Her deep sea-green eyes seemed huge, gemlike, and the faintest pastel lipstick highlighted a pert, full mouth. She was more beautiful than even Phil could remember. She seemed more fit, more trim, more toned of muscle than ever before, which made sense—dancing, even in a strip joint, proved a vigorous exercise. Long legs, sleek shoulders and arms, the keen neckline, all bare and a creamy white. Even the mistlike spray of freckles just above her breasts seemed a perfect embellishment, while the breasts themselves, obviously braless beneath the sparkling tank, were firm and full. In Phil’s long absence from Crick City, Vicki Steele had become a sexist’s dream, a living monument to the numbers 38-24-36, a paragon.