“What happens to you when it rains on you?”
I tilted my head sideways so that I stared up at her through the tops of my eyes. There could be no doubt about my feelings toward the question, but she seemed unperturbed.
She gave her head a little shake, wiggling her jowls. “So?”
“So what?” I snapped. “I fucking melt in the rain. It’s common knowledge.”
Laura tensed next to me and squeezed my hand tighter; she, at least, could see that I didn’t appreciate the line of questioning.
Jenny tossed the empty pizza box beside the chair. It landed upside down and crumbs fell onto the rug. “What do you mean, ‘melt’? Do you just get all soft or what?”
“Whatever gets wet dies. Are you happy? Is that what you want to hear? Whatever the rain touches dies and dissolves, like the rain was acid. Is that clear enough for you?”
She smiled her greasy grin but didn’t say anything else. I glanced over at her boyfriend, but he wasn’t looking at anyone. He had stopped eating his pizza halfway through, and it lay forgotten in his lap while he continued to examine the floor. He had been paying attention though, I could sense his ears following the exchange.
I tried to turn my attention back to the cheesy movie the two had interrupted, but I couldn’t get into it. Jenny’s good eye bored into me. I could feel it as perfectly as if it had been a knife thrust into my chest.
Unable to stand it anymore, I got up from the couch and went the one place I was certain Jenny wouldn’t be able follow: up a flight of stairs.
Thunder cracked outside when I stepped into my office. Great, just what I need. I crossed to my desk and powered up my computer, intending to lose myself on the internet.
There was a knock on the door, and before I could answer it, Laura walked inside.
“I’m sorry about her,” she said, closing the door behind her. “Jenny’s a sweet girl, really. She just doesn’t think about what she’s saying.”
“I don’t think she thinks about much at all.”
Laura gave a weak smile. “Can we talk, or do you want me to leave?”
“We can talk.” I turned my computer off and spun the chair around so that I faced her properly. She was just as beautiful as always, even with that sad, embarrassed smile on her face. She was holding two cans of the beer Jenny had produced, and she offered me one.
“I don’t drink,” I said, shaking my head.
“Always time to start,” she answered and placed the can on the desk beside me.
I picked up the beer and popped the top. It must have been old, really old, because it didn’t so much as hiss. My parents had become teetotalers a few years ago—courtesy of some jumped up health craze instilled by one of the TV docs—and therefore I had never had access to beer, but I had seen enough television to know it was supposed to at least make some noise. I took a draught of it anyways.
It was warm, caustic, and completely flat. How much of that was just because it was beer and how much of it was because of its age, I couldn’t say. But I did have a feeling that I would never turn into a beer loving man.
“No good?” Laura said, having seen me wince.
I shook my head but took another haul at it anyways. Maybe it would make me feel better; I felt a little light headed already. “I don’t want to be rude, but can you get your friends to leave?”
“Sure, baby.” She walked forward, rubbed my hair and kissed my cheek. “Let’s just sit up here and enjoy these then I’ll run them off. We can have some fun after that.” She winked at me.
I smiled and closed my eyes with the pleasure of her touch. Thunder peeled again, and I took another drink of the beer. My head was getting very fuzzy very quickly. I must be a serious lightweight, I thought.
“I don’t want to be rude, but what does happen to you?” She rubbed my back, speaking softly.
“Like I said, whatever gets touched dies. It melts away, like it wasn’t even there.”
“Everything? Like if you went walking in the rain, you would just stop existing.”
I shook my head gently, trying to get my senses cleared up a bit. The can was half empty but I put it on my desk, finished with it. “Well there would be a lot of pain involved, but ultimately, yes. I would just go away.”
Laura whistled in awe. I glanced up at her and thought I saw something in her eyes for a moment—triumph maybe?—but it disappeared, and she just looked forlorn. “ I shouldn’t have made you invite them,” Laura said. “I’m sorry.
“ ‘s okay,” I muttered. My vision was foggy now, and I blinked rapidly to try and clear it. Was this normal?
“We’ll all leave just as soon as we’re finished,” Laura promised, stroking my scarred face.
“Wha’… no. Don’t weave.” The fog was really dense now. I could still make out her beautiful face, but only just.
She noticed my slurred speech and unfocused gaze. “John? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” She stood up quickly and gazed into my eyes.
No I’m not okay, I tried to say, but my mouth felt like it was glued shut. The sounds I made were like a baby’s grunts.
She grabbed my face, concern etched on every line, and then that face faded away into the white mist as well. My hearing lasted a moment longer—I could hear her run from the room--then that went away as well.
Thunder, booming, distant, getting closer. I swam back into consciousness, paddling up through the dense fog of the white world into which I had fallen. The journey was slow, but I made it. There were voices to guide me. Harsh, clipped voices. Who were they? Where was I? Never before had a mystery been so complete.
The first thing I became aware of was the bright, flickering light overhead. It turned my eyelids into horrible, painful, pink blankets. I tried to raise my hand to cover them, but my hand wouldn’t move. My first instinct was that it was some adverse side effect of the alcohol. But then I felt the coarse ropes that bound my wrists.
I pushed my eyes open, moaning against the painful flare of bright light. I squinted. Hazy figures hovered around me, peering down at me. They were talking; I could hear their voices, but their words made no sense. The fog in my brain was still there, seeping away little by little, but keeping me from understanding what was truly going on.
My eyes stung, but I wouldn’t let them close. I blinked hard and each time they reopened the world got a little clearer.
“Can he hear us?” one of the figures above me said as my brain remembered how to interpret English.
“Doesn’t look like it,” said another. “How much did you put in there?”
“Enough.”
I blinked hard, rapidly, my brain picking up speed like a roller coaster just cresting a hill. My stomach leapt as the rational side of me—curiously absent for most of the day—started to feed me information.
A few more blinks and the faces slipped into focus. Jenny’s massive, jiggling head was the first thing I saw clearly. Her real eye bore down on me. Behind her, closer to my feet, Mitch looked at me. I realized that it was the first time I had made eye contact with him. His hazel gaze was sharp, intelligent, and cold.
“I think he’s back now,” Mitch said. His voice was no longer the mumble it had been. It was still low and quiet, but it came with absolute confidence. He was a man in his place. But just what was his—this—place?
“You think so?” Jenny said. She leaned down and slapped my cheeks hard. Stinging pain flared away the last remnants of the white haze. Her breath—dead animals and rotten feces—stung my nose. I gagged and turned away from her. “You awake, big guy? All here now? Good.”
I tried to push her away, but the ropes tying my arms were like iron clamps. Fully conscious, I took in my surroundings, sweat built as my situation was confirmed.
I was laying in my garage. I recognized it from the bright, fluorescent lights which cast a sanitary feel to the white walls and polished concrete floor on which I lay. My father’s corvette sat a few feet away from where I laid—in the spot meant for my mom’s jag, w
hich was stowed away in the airport’s long term parking lot—trussed to some kind of frame that my captors had built. It was constructed of two-by-fours, and my first thought was that it was a cross, but the pressure on my back told me that the shape was entirely wrong for a simple cross. Struggling against the last effects of whatever had sent me under, I managed to raise my head. My feet were spread and bound to the wood just before it fed into the inside of a wooden circle. That circle ringed my entire body and the star I was tied to.
It was a pentagram. A giant pentagram. I moaned and laid my head back onto the hard ground.
“I think he sees the whole picture,” Jenny chuckled. The pupil of her glass eye drooped toward the floor while her real eye sparkled with delight.
Where was Laura? How had she let this happen to me? I thought about screaming for her, yelling until they gagged me, but I decided that I might be able to pull off that old movie cliché and get them talking to while away the time before Laura could rescue me.
“You think you’re a witch?” I said, my voice thick with phlegm. I swallowed and steeled myself. I might be able to talk my way out of whatever was about to happen; it was doubtful, but I needed my senses all the same.
Jenny laughed and clapped her hands. “A witch! Oh that’s too much. No, little Johnny, I’m not a witch. I’m no superstitious fool; I just enjoy symbolism.”
“Well that’s good to hear,” I said. “Are you like most morons who watch too much television and enjoy telling me all