CHAPTER ELEVEN
When I wake up I’m still on the alcove floor and Uncle Wayne is still on top of me. I can feel even more blood on my face, but the flow from Uncle Wayne’s wound has stopped completely. His skin is grey and he’s definitely not breathing. For a moment I draw a blank on who he is, and why he’s on top of me. But then it all comes rushing back. “Oh my God,” I moan.
“Caril? You okay?”
Lynda’s voice, from just outside the alcove. I try to twist around to see her but can’t get her in view.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. It’s his blood, not mine.”
A few hesitant footsteps and then my sister is leaning over me. There’s blood on the sleeves of her sweater. “We tried to get him off you but he’s too heavy. Maybe now that you’re awake we can all push him off. Taylor?”
No response.
“Taylor, she’s awake. She’s okay. Help me get him off of her.”
Still no response. And I know why -- because he was the one who threw the superspade and put down our dear uncle. Twelve is way too young to be a killer.
“Is he freaked out?” I ask.
Lynda nods, then grimaces and rubs the back of her neck. “I think I made my neck worse.”
“I can do this. Step back.”
Lynda steps back. I slide my arms out from under Uncle Wayne and push my hands up against his shoulders, lifting his upper body and turning it to the right. At the same time I turn my upper body to the right and press my left knee up against his hip, flipping him onto his side. After that it’s just a matter of wiggling and sliding out.
I turn over and crawl out of the alcove on my hands and knees. Lynda helps me to my feet, but I immediately feel dizzy and sit down on the nearest stack of newspapers. From where I sit I can see Taylor planted on the center of the couch with his head back, staring at the ceiling. His jacket and Lynda’s are now with mine on the coffee table.
“You had to do it Taylor,” I tell him. He was trying to kill me.”
Silence.
“You saved my life.”
Lynda whispers in my ear. “He was okay when we first tried to lift him off you. But then when he saw him stop breathing . . .” She doesn’t finish.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. I reach out and take her by the hand. “Go back and sit next to him. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Lynda nods and does as I say. I sit there on the stack of newspapers and wait for the dizziness to pass. As I wait I ponder the implications of Uncle Wayne’s violence. The homicide situation has definitely changed. It’s not just parents killing their kids anymore. Now it’s all adults killing all kids. What will it be a few hours from now? Everyone killing everyone?
“It’s gonna be okay,” Lynda tells Taylor. Hearing her comfort him makes me ashamed to be just sitting there on my butt doing nothing. Still slightly dizzy, I rise to my feet and join them in the living room. I squeeze past the coffee table and start to sit on Taylor’s other side when I remember the blood on my face. If I sit next to him the way I look now he’ll freak out even more. I have to clean up, but I’m certainly not going to use the sink in the alcove. I have no choice but to find Uncle Wayne’s bathroom and rinse off in there. But God only knows what kind of sty his bathroom’s going to be.
I pick up my knife. “I’m gonna look for the bathroom,” I tell Lynda. “You wait here.”
“You think someone’s back there?” Lynda asks anxiously, looking at my knife.
“No, but I’m not taking any more chances.”
There’s a narrow, unlit hallway to the left of the couch. The light switch doesn’t work, but luckily just enough light slips in from the living room to illuminate two closed, scratched wooden doors on the right. I put my ear to the closer of the two and listen. Nothing. I knock.
“Hello?”
No answer. I open the door, feel around for the light switch, and click on the lights. Uncle Wayne’s bedroom is even more of a cesspool than his living room. In addition to more stacks of newspapers there are bulging, open plastic bags filled with garbage, piles of dirty clothes, scattered empty liquor bottles and beer cans. No adults though. I turn off the lights, shut the door, and proceed down the hallway to the second door. I take the same listening precaution as I did with the first, hear nothing, and open it. When I turn on the lights I find what has to be the cleanest bathroom I’ve ever seen. It’s small, but the sink is spotless, the bathtub and shower tiles are mildew free, and the floor is newly mopped. Even the toilet is sparkling. I remember reading somewhere – or did I see it on TV? – That hoarders like my late uncle often keep one room or one small area of their homes as clean as possible. I guess this bathroom was Uncle Wayne’s clean place.
I check myself in the mirror. Most of the blood is on my face. There’s some in my hair on the left side, and some on my sweatshirt on the shoulder area. I hate to dirty the spotless sink, but I have to get the blood off. I look behind the door and find a bath towel and washcloth on the rack. I take off my sweatshirt and wash my face and run water through my hair. As soon as all the blood is off I gulp a few handfuls of water. Then I get to work on my sweatshirt. I scrub it with the washcloth, wring it out, then squeeze it in the bathtowel to absorb as much of the remaining moisture as possible. Finished, I check myself in the mirror again. Except for my damp hair I look exactly as I did when I left my house this morning. Inside I’m a completely different person of course, but outside I look the same.
I leave the light on and the door open and return to the cluttered, dirty living room, where I drape my sweatshirt on the arm of the sofa and sit down next to my freaked out brother. I try to think of something comforting to say to Taylor but come up blank. I’ve already told him that he had to do what he did. What else can I say?
“I have an idea,” I say finally. “Let’s rest a bit. Let’s just sit back and close our eyes and rest. Okay?”
No response from Taylor. Lynda gives me a pained look. “Okay,” she whispers. “But . . . “
“What?”
“I’m really thirsty.” Without raising her hand too high she points at the kitchen alcove. The bottle of orange soda is still on the counter. At first I can’t believe she wants some of it, but then I realize that she probably hasn’t had anything to drink since she escaped from our house this afternoon. She must be parched. But how will Taylor react if one of us goes back there and climbs over Uncle Wayne?
“I left the light on in the bathroom,” I say, tilting my head towards the hallway. “The bathroom’s really clean. You can drink from the faucet. Oh, and you can use the towel to help dry your sleeves after you wash them.”
“Okay.”
Lynda gets up, goes to the bathroom, and comes back a few minutes later carrying her damp, blood-free sweater. Sighing, she drapes her sweater on the sofa’s other arm and sits back down.
“What about you Taylor?” I ask.
I expect yet another non-response but still staring at the ceiling, Taylor shakes his head. “I can’t believe you wanted to drink that bastard’s soda,” he says.
Lynda opens her mouth to reply, but I raise a finger to my lips and shake my head.
“Why don’t you go wash up and drink some water?” I suggest.
“Screw it.”
Taylor closes his eyes. Lynda sighs again, sits back, and closes hers. I watch both of them for several minutes, then sit back and close mine.
I wake up an hour later. Immediately I glance over at my siblings. They’re both sound asleep. I close my eyes and try to go back to sleep, but it’s no use. Like it or not, I’m awake. My consciousness won’t surrender again. Considering our situation, I’m surprised it surrendered the first time.
How much longer can we stay here with a corpse? Soon it’s going to start to decompose. I suppose we could drag it out into the hallway and let it decompose out there, but that w
ould mean opening the door and leaving the apartment. It would also mean asking Taylor to help, and there’s absolutely no way I can do that. No, Uncle Wayne is going to have to stay where he is for the time being.
And what about food? I have no idea what our food situation is, but even if the refrigerator is full it won’t be forever. Eventually we’ll have to go outside to buy or find some. Then what?
I look over at my siblings again. I’m afraid for them, but the fact that they can sleep and I can’t really pisses me off. For a moment I’m actually tempted to wake both of them. I fight the urge though.
The white, deaf, blue-eyed cat jumps onto the same stack of newspapers it sat on before. I’d forgotten all about him.
“Hey Whitey!” I say. The creature just sits there for a moment, then circles around two times and curls up on its side. Even the cat is more relaxed than I am.
Enough sitting around! I get up and, without hesitating, make my way to the kitchen alcove. I step over Uncle Wayne and check the refrigerator for its contents. Just our luck – it’s practically empty. Two hamburger buns in a very old-looking, knotted plastic bag, several cellophane-wrapped cheese slices, a Styrofoam carton half-filled with some dried out Chinese noodles, an egg roll on a paper plate, a third of a bottle of cranberry juice, four cans of beer. That’s it. Oh, and there’s the orange soda on the counter.
Damn. I step over Uncle Wayne’s body again and return to my place on the couch. What to do? What to do? As I contemplate our situation I eye the ancient TV set on its rolling stand in the corner of the room. Does it even work? Probably not. The screen is covered in dust, and there’s no cable hook-up or digital conversion box. No DVD player either. I guess my late uncle really did spend all his time reading and re-reading old newspapers.
Considering that it’s not just parents versus offspring anymore, there should be a lot more killing going on now. And yet it’s awfully quiet outside. No screams coming from the hallway or adjacent apartments, no distant sirens, nothing. Could things be winding down? I take out my cell phone and dial Nine-One-One, just to see if someone answers. Nope. The system is still down. Shit. I put my phone away.
And that’s when the doorbell rings.
Taylor and Lynda immediately wake up and sit up straight. “Shh,” I warn them. Despite all the locks on the door, Lynda and I grab our knives. Taylor just sits there.
The bell rings again. I can think of only three people who could be on the other side of that door: the super, Mom, or – God forbid – Dad.
“It’s Dad,” Lynda whispers.
“I’m not going to kill him,” Taylor says, loud enough to be heard by whoever’s ringing the doorbell. “No matter what.”
“Quiet!” I hiss.
“Wayne? Wayne, are you in there?”
It’s Mom. I stand up.
“Wayne?” she shouts again.
“Mom!” Lynda calls out.
“Are you out of your mind?” I snap. But then I realize that now’s as good a time as any to deal with her. If we keep quiet and fake her out until she goes away, she’ll just come back again when she can’t find us on the street.
“Lynda! Oh my God! Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. So are Caril and Taylor.”
Taylor laughs. “Yeah. We’re fine. Just fine.”
“But we’re scared Mom!” Lynda cries. “We’re scared and . . . and we’ve seen some terrible things.” Her voice breaks and despite the strength that she’s shown since Uncle Wayne’s death she starts to sob.
“I know honey, I know,” Mom says. Judging from her trembling voice she’s close to crying too. But will she cry out of sympathy for us or frustration at not being able to slaughter us?
“What do you want?” I yell.
“I want . . . “ Mom starts, then stops. I understand her hesitation. What can she possibly say? That she wants us to come home? That she’s sorry for trying to kill Marky? Sorry for wanting to kill us?
“Is Marky okay?” I ask.
Silence.
“Well?”
“No honey. He’s dead. Your father’s with him.”
This time I’m the one who laughs. “Dad’s with him? Doing what? Trying to kill him a second time?”
“Caril . . . He’s sorry. He’s so sorry. We both are.”
“You’re sorry?”
“We don’t know what came over us. I don’t think any of us do. We just . . . we just went mad.”
“No shit.”
Now I hear definite sobs.
“It wasn’t our fault! We couldn’t help ourselves! You have to believe me!”
“We do?”
Lynda puts down her knife. “Are you okay now?” she asks tearfully.
“Yes honey. I’m sane again. And so is your father.”
“How do we know that?” I ask angrily.
Mom hesitates again. “You don’t,” she admits finally. “You can’t.”
“I believe you!” Lynda cries. She starts for the door, but doesn’t even make it past two stacks of newspapers before I grab her by the arm.
“No!” I growl. “You’re not opening that door!”
“We can look through the peephole to see how she looks. If she looks okay – “
“She can look okay but still be insane.”
“We have our knives. She won’t try anything when she sees that we’re – “
“He did!” I shout, pointing towards the alcove. With that my sister starts sobbing again.
“Where’s your Uncle Wayne?” Mom asks. “Is he in there?”
“Sit down,” I order Lynda. She does, taking her previous place next to Taylor.
“Caril? Where’s -- ?”
“He’s dead. He tried to kill me so Taylor . . . saved me.”
“Oh my God.”
“God,” Taylor echoes vacantly, sitting back with his eyes closed again.
“We’re not opening the door Mom. We can’t take that chance.”
“But it’s over honey. At least for us it is.”
“Just . . . just go away.”
“How long are you going to stay in there?”
“As long as we have to.”
Another silence. “Is he . . . Is your uncle’s body still in there?”
“Yup! Sure is!” Taylor pipes, then giggles.
This won’t do. I don’t want Taylor to hear any more talk about our late Uncle Wayne.
“Hold on a second Mom,” I shout. I edge my way over to the door so I can talk to her without either of us having to raise our voice.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yeah.”
I look through the peephole. There she is standing right in front of the door, hair disheveled, tears streaming down her face, but otherwise looking normal. She’s wearing her blue parka and a scarf but no hat.
“Taylor’s really upset,” I say. “We all are. So why don’t you just go home and take care of things with Marky. We’re not opening the door. Not tonight.”
“When will you? I mean, you can’t stay in there forever.”
I give her the only answer I can. “When I think it’s safe.”
“Can’t you see me through the peephole? Don’t I look . . . sane?”
“You look okay. But so what?”
“How can I prove to you that I’m not dangerous?”
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”
Mom takes a handkerchief out of her coat pocket and dabs at her eyes. “Okay,” she says, then adds: “Do you have food in there?”
“Some. Not much.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow with some stuff from the house, if that’s okay with you.”
“Okay.”
I wait for her to say goodbye and move away from the door, but she just stands there staring sadly at the peephole. I start to turn away.
“Caril?”
“Yeah?”
“Don
’t you want to know?”
I look through the peephole again.
“Know what?”
“Why your Uncle Wayne tried to kill you. It’s only been parents killing their children tonight. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Yeah, I noticed. I figured things were just getting worse – that the madness was spreading to everyone.”
“No. It’s not spreading. Just the opposite. It’s coming to an end. That’s why I’m okay. Don’t you want to know?”
A feeling of dread comes over me. I don’t want to ask, but I do.
“Okay. Why? Why did he try to kill me?”
“Because Wayne was your father. Bye.”