Summer Sons(23)
The dregs of bourbon called for him and he inverted the bottle, gagging down the last mouthful with eyes damp from the strain. His stomach rolled once in dizzy protest. Putting his fist straight through the drywall next to the closet door might have satisfied him, but he resisted the urge as he kicked the fallen stack of towels into the corner to unearth the remaining loose pages. One problem at a time.
“Stop doing this shit,” he said.
His fingertips landed on a sheet of paper at the same second a horror-movie creak from behind electrified the hair on his arms. The bedroom door latched itself shut with a quiet click and the scalded patch on his tattoo shone in the dim light: a reminder for him, especially around these parts, that it was never just the wind. Foolish to pretend otherwise, for even a second. He braced his wrist on the doorjamb and sat on his heels, stone still with his face tucked against the crook of his elbow to hide. It isn’t him. It isn’t really him.
Floorboards creaked scant inches to his left, but he refused to lift his head and look. He wasn’t asleep; he wasn’t on the cusp of sleep; he was awake. Manifestations this physical were not supposed to happen while he was awake, gloaming light shining through the big bold windows in streaks of red-gold, but Eddie had always been an exception to the rules. Don’t, he thought, but he reacted instinctively to the first brush across the knobs of his spine with a yearning, flexing shudder.
An icy burning gripped the back of his neck in the rough outline of fingers, their shape more familiar than his face in the mirror. Against good judgment and survival instinct he leaned into the too-solid hold. It hurt, but he missed that touch so much, even this noxious remnant.
“Stop,” he whispered again.
The papers rustled along their edges. Crouching in the hidden hollow of the closet, scruffed by the revenant that dogged his heels, he felt terribly and paradoxically alive. Rank breath drifted past his ear and cheek. The punishing grip pushed until his head bowed forward, forcing him to stare unseeing at his shoes, but the haunt kept going. It pushed until his skin chafed and his vertebra cracked, until the boundaries between its false flesh and his skin gave out. The cold sank straight through the gagging constriction of his throat to the cavern of his chest, grasping at him from the inside out. Blood and dirt were all he tasted in his drooling mouth, choked on the phantom’s invasive presence. His first sleep on native soil dredged itself up behind his eyes: wrists cut to exposed muscle, a frantic retreat from the fact of death. He echoed the vision’s desperate call for survival: I am awake I am awake I am awake—
The loud rattle of his phone vibrating on the wooden table pierced the film of the waking nightmare. The revenant disappeared as if a switch had flipped. He gasped like he was breaking the surface of a swimming hole and fell back onto his ass.
“Jesus fuck, holy mother of god,” he whispered tonelessly as he flopped out of the dim closet to grab for the source of the noise. His hands shook so hard, swiping in the password took two tries.
Why’d you come here if you’re just going to be a bitch
Eddie didn’t make you SOUND like a bitch but you’re proving him wrong
I’m trying to welcome you with open arms
Andrew barked a ragged shout and kicked the metal bed frame, sending it skidding across the floor. He snatched up the loose papers, hands full of secrets, phone as maddening as the ongoing ordeal of his possessed fucking house. The phone buzzed again while he was holding Eddie’s haunted research aloft, and he almost threw the papers out the window, blinded by a curtain of terror and rage. The documents rasped, page on page, in his shaking hands. Grasping for somewhere to stuff them back out of sight and out of reach, he yanked open the drawer of the bedside table, almost pulling it from its tracks.
He and Eddie had always maintained a handful of agreements. One was to never discuss their weird shit, as Halse had so eloquently labeled it. Another was no cocaine, based on lived experience. Eddie couldn’t control his temper at the best of times, and he made terrible decisions when he had powder on his nostrils and keys in his hand; it made him a bad judge of his limitations and other people’s patience. Which, for whole empty-headed seconds, made it hard for Andrew to comprehend the snipped green Starbucks straw, spare plastic gift card, and fold-over pill bag full of coke nestled in among Eddie’s spare change and receipts. What the fuck else were you doing, he thought with flat hysteria.
He crammed the notes in the drawer, forced it shut, and dialed the unknown number. The line rang three times before a rough drawl answered: “Is it working? Am I riding your nerves hard enough yet to get you to show up?”
“Did you sell Eddie coke?”
Halse snorted and said, “Of course, when he asked for it. I’m here to help.”
Andrew throttled his urge to shout. Help was a dangerous choice of words given the context. Eddie hadn’t needed help pursuing all sorts of things he should’ve let be. He responded tightly, “Right, sure. Yeah, let’s meet, let’s—I’ll come out.”
Off the line but audible, Riley said, “Is that Andrew?”
“Yeah, he’s giving in to my charms,” Halse said.
“Tell me where,” Andrew said.
“The boys won’t be around until—”
“Now. Where,” he repeated.
“Hold your horses.” To his cousin, Sam called out, “You good to go now? Your roommate is in a hurry.” Andrew missed the response, but then: “The gas station from the other night. That’s your game tonight, I’m assuming? You wanna drive?”