Summer Sons(79)
“Shut up.” Riley finished the circle, stared at it for two seconds, and threw the salt container out the door before kicking it shut. “Salt is a thing, right? I’m making this up as I go along.”
“What is this, an episode of Supernatural?”
“Looks just like one,” he agreed without humor.
Andrew angled to the side and tucked into a hunch to better support his own sagging weight. Exhaustion dragged his muscles loose. The quiver that rippled from his sacrum set up shop in his molars. One messy salt circle made no difference to him.
“Bed, please,” he requested.
“Hang on.” Riley had his phone in his hand. He tapped the screen a few times and lifted it to his ear, then said, “Hi babe, it’s me. I have a weird favor to ask.” Silence. “Bring some groceries over, most especially a motherfucking big container of salt? Andrew’s sick, so I’m gonna cook him dinner. And we’re out of salt. Okay, good. Thanks.” He hung up.
Andrew cracked one eye to regard his flagrant, stilted falsehood with disdain. “Which one was that?”
“Ethan, I ain’t stupid enough to pull that kind of thing on Luca. She’d see through it and have my ass,” he said.
“Good for her,” Andrew grunted.
He slipped into helpless drowsing until damp fingers touched his palm. The chair skidded an inch with the power of his reflexive jerk. Riley sat crouched outside the salt line with a first-aid kit, watching him. Andrew allowed him to wipe the wounds with antibacterial cleansing cloths, alcohol stinging as the beginnings of scabs flaked off. The gouges were shallow, as Riley has said, but also long and grislier for it. Riley smeared ointment on them before wrapping gauze over the whole mess. White cloth on tan skin, as if he were mummified.
Andrew flexed his fingers. “I’m going to lie down.”
“Not in his bed, you’re fucking not,” Riley said.
“I’ll sleep in mine,” he said. “This circle thing isn’t going to do much, even if it was real.”
“Why not?” Riley challenged him.
Andrew scuffed his shoe through the line, scattering salt. The present, constant heartbeat in his chest thumped a steady reminder. He said, “I’m the conduit, it’s coming from inside me. I don’t think drawing a circle around me is going to keep the thing out.”
Needing assistance up the stairs galled him, but it was either lean on Riley’s shoulders, hips bumping each other and the banisters, or crawl to his room. The synaptic feedback from brain to limbs was on the fritz. He fumbled the doorknob on first attempt, roommate’s arm around his waist, though he succeeded on the second attempt. Stale air wafted out in a gush.
“Text if you need me,” Riley said.
Andrew rolled to the center of the mattress, toed off his sneakers, and grabbed one edge of the comforter. The door shut with a creak as he bundled himself in. Soft pillows surrounded his face. Eddie’s final dissolution had come in the trunk of his car, wrapped in a cheap tarp with his own blood soaking his clothes. The oak tree, in comparison, made for a serene place to rest.
Not two minutes later a text from Riley arrived: you were convulsing and i couldn’t wake you so i got the pitcher from the kitchen. i don’t know how long you’d been laying there. getting kinda tired of playing nurse so take it easy
The clock on his phone read 7:48. Startled fear sloshed across his nerves. If he’d finished meeting with West around five-thirty, and Riley found him closer to seven-thirty, that was two hours unaccounted for. Two hours spent in haunted limbo, collapsed behind his fucking house unresponsive to the world, shaking apart at the atomic level. It wasn’t the first or even second time he’d been rescued from himself or the revenant by one cousin or the other. He’d set a hell of a pattern, and it was getting nastier each time.
Six nights after their return from the cavern he’d climbed on top of Eddie in his neighboring twin bed, buried his face against his slender neck, and sobbed until it hurt while eerie hissing shadows clawed at the corners of the bedroom. Eddie had murmured it’s nothing, just pretend it’s not there, it can’t bother you. He had gotten used to their curse and what it could do in the years since, and that had made him complacent, but now he was scared again. The version of Eddie lingering under the rattling of the windowpanes, the hush of the air conditioner, offered no succor and kept no promises to him. The bandages on his itching arms proved that.
* * *
Expected to see you when I got in from work
You good?
Got one more interview lined up for you later
Andrew considered the messages Sam had texted him in the middle of the night, and decided to sort himself out before he answered, rolling himself free of his pillow nest to face the morning. Under harsh bathroom lighting, the unwrapped gouges scrawled across his forearms spelled a message of violence. He ran his thumb along the edge of one, a millimeter short of the soft scab. Firm pressure worsened the itching. Long sleeves in the miserable heat of summer’s last gasp would provide camouflage if not comfort, so he crossed the hall to Eddie’s room and snagged a lightweight, pastel green Henley from the closet. Fabric caught on the scabs with miniscule stinging yanks. He rolled the sleeves up to his elbow.
Aside from the revenant waiting to drag him under, what else might be hiding in the Challenger that he hadn’t noticed before? Bodies left traces behind; he’d listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that. The house was empty when he descended the stairs. Another quick tap on his phone screen to remind himself of the day of the week; on determining the date, he realized he was due in class later in the afternoon, if he so chose. With practiced motions, he turned on the single-serve coffee machine, filled a glass with ice from the dispenser, popped a pod of grounds in place, and tapped the button for OVER ICE.