Mary turned over and buried her face in the pillow. She hated dreaming about him, and really hated when they were sex dreams.
He’d never stop being inside her, but he hadn’t actually been there in three years. They’d been divorced for two, but once she found out about Natalie Farmer, the bitch that was 10 years too young and as perky as a sitcom schoolgirl, she couldn’t touch him without a shudder.
She hated him for the innocence he stole and the lives he abused. But a large part of her could never forget the way he made her feel — the way he made her laugh, the way that, for no reason at all, he used to slip behind her and whisper treasures in her ear. The way he truly seemed to love her and their daughter, Paola. And the way he always reassured her that everything would be okay, even if he only did so in her dreams.
Mary rarely slept past seven. During the week, Paola had to be at school by nine and they usually left by eight because Paola liked to go early. Unlike most 12 year olds, Paola would wake early even on the weekends. Sometimes, Paola would join Mary for some early morning yoga before Mary worked a few hours on the greeting cards that paid for the $1.1 million house high on a hill in Warson Woods, just outside St. Louis – no thanks to Ryan.
A million dollars bought a palace in Warson Woods, the kind of house Mary liked most, even though it made her feel guilty all the time. Her cousin lived outside L.A. He said nothing was for less than $350,000 unless you were willing to settle for bullet holes.
It was probably thinking about bullet holes that made Mary realize how quiet the house was. More than usual. She sat up in bed. More than quiet – eerie. The trees were swaying, but that was it. No birds chirping. No dogs barking. And no lawnmowers. In Warson Woods, people loved lawns like children, and spoiled them the same, either themselves or through their teams of landscapers. Mary started calling lawnmowers the “Missouri Symphony” the second week she moved in. To not hear lawnmowers on a Saturday morning made her briefly question whether she’d slept straight through to Monday.
Mary left the bed and padded toward the stairs. She needed coffee. That would help the oddness fade. The hallway was dark. Mary flicked a light but nothing happened. She sighed and kept walking. One million for a house, fine, but everything should work.
She would have a hard enough time this morning without light, but being without caffeine might make it impossible. So she wasn’t happy when her new Keurig wouldn’t work either. Maybe there was an outage in the neighborhood? A sudden chill iced her insides. It wasn’t logical, but it came from the place that keeps its eyes peeled for the stuff logical doesn’t.
“Paola?”
Paola didn’t answer, but the Keurig rumbled to life and started warming its water as the hall light came on and the air conditioner cycled on. She would’ve called for Paola a second time, but she didn’t have to. Paola called for her instead. “Mom!!!” Mom sounded like a war cry rattling from the throat of a warrior who knew she was about to die.
Mary was at the foot of the stairs in less than a second and all the way to the top in two after that. She flew through Paola’s open door. Her daughter was screaming at something out of view.
It was gone before Mary got there, but it had left Paola a vibrating mess. Mary tried to soothe her, but Paola pushed her away. “It’s okay, Honey.” Mary pulled her closer. Paola surrendered and Mary’s hands fell in a familiar pattern behind her daughter’s head.
“What was it?” Mary asked.
“I don’t know,” Paola shook her head. “I don’t know the words.”
“Try.”
“It was like,” Paola fell into a second fit of sobs. Mary continued to pet her. “It was like ...” more sobbing, then, “It was like Daddy.”
“What? What do you mean, it was like your father?”
Paola shook her head. Her cheeks burned. “It was Daddy. He was in my room but he wasn’t. It was just him, but not all of him.”
“Your father was here?!” Mary could feel her white face making Paola’s redder.
“No.” Paola started to say something, then closed her mouth. A long three seconds passed, then, “It was like if a ghost was there without the ghost. Daddy, but not Daddy.”
“How do you know it was a ghost, or your father, if you couldn’t see anything?”
Paola just stared at her mother. “I’d know daddy anywhere.”
Her face cracked and she started to cry again as the power went off again.
**
It seemed to take longer than normal for Mary to calm Paola’s whimpers down to heavy breathing. Right when inhales and exhales were starting to meet, Paola broke the rhythm.
“Why is it so quiet?”
Mary had almost forgotten. “I’m not sure, honey. The power’s out and everything feels...”
“Wrong,” Paola finished.
“Yeah, wrong.” Mary stood and held out her hand for Paola. She was almost as tall as her mom, and would likely tower over her in another year or two. Paola followed her mom downstairs and into the kitchen. The coffee machine had died before it could produce enough for a cup. Frustrated, Mary went to the fridge and grabbed a Diet Coke for herself and poured some OJ for her daughter.
When they finished, Mary looked out the front window.
“Let’s go look outside.”
They walked the neighborhood that had gone from posh to ghost town overnight.
They peered through windows and into cars, and crossed well-manicured yards, starting at Mrs. Parker’s house on the corner, because she was the first to move into the sub-division and had made it family business to know everything about everyone every day since. She wasn’t home.
After two empty streets, they rounded the hill and hit the hiking trail, thinking there might be a neighborhood gathering they didn’t know about. The trails were empty, too. Odd for the weekend, when the housewives and retirees were usually out en masse.
They followed the trail, then rounded the avenue back to their street. They were surprised, and thrilled, to see someone standing in front of their house. It was their neighbor, Jimmy – Jim, as he’d been introducing himself since 8th grade, even though no one would listen. He was a head too tall for his age. That, along with his long dark hair that he let hang in his eyes, made him look a bit older than his 16 years. Any advantage he had in looking older was usurped by his immaturity. While he was generally a good kid, as far as Mary knew, he got into frequent trouble for skateboarding in the shopping center, trespassing at the pool after hours, skipping school, and the stuff that unfocussed kids generally did to pass away the time.
“What’d you find out Mrs. Olson?”
“Nothing,” Mary shook her head. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Other than the entire world going POOF!?” Jimmy made jazz hands, “I’ve no idea. I woke up, my mom and dad were AWOL. So were both my brothers. I figured they were fu ... messing with me, but I can’t figure out the angle, plus there’d be no way they’d get the whole neighborhood to play the reindeer games.”
Jimmy seemed oddly unfazed by events.
Mary was about to ask him if the electricity was working in his house when her neighbor from the other side John, appeared in the distance. He was walking fast, directly toward them. Mary closed her mouth mid-sentence, Jimmy and Paola turned to see why.
“Thank God!” John was running toward them.
“What’s going on?” All three asked, hard to tell who was first.
“No idea. Jenny’s gone. No note. Nothing. She doesn’t even go downstairs without kissing me goodbye.”
It was true. With any other couple it would’ve been disgusting. But John and Jenny were probably the two nicest people alive. And so adorable and doting, it was almost creepy.
No one had a chance to console John, or consider Jenny, before a smoke-colored Audi appeared on the drive coming toward them. It was Desmond Armstrong, the neighbor from across the street. The Audi’s engine died but Desmond stayed inside. They could see him through the
tinted windows, sitting and staring into space. It was an endless minute with no one knowing what to do. Finally, the door opened and Desmond put his boot on the grass.
“There’s no other way to say it,” Desmond shook his head. “The world is dead.”
* * * *
CHARLIE WILKENS
Saturday
October 15, 2011
morning
Jacksonville, Florida
Charlie Wilkens wasn’t upset when he woke to find an empty world. In fact, it was the best damned thing that had happened in his 17 years on the planet.
He was frightened at first, of course, when he woke to find his house empty, both cars in the driveway, and no sign of his mother or asstard step-dad, Bob. But when he went door-to-door and discovered his entire block was as empty as his house, he was a few planets past the moon.
As he tottered down the street on his 12 speed, he stopped to knock at each house, considering its occupants and the offenses they’d committed against him over the years. He knocked on the bully Eddie Houghton’s house, remembering the time the fat red head made Charlie eat dirt in front of his classmates in sixth grade.
Good riddance.
He stopped at Josie Robinson’s house, a girl he had a crush on since kindergarten, and who had been his friend until last year, before she started hanging out with Shayanne Wolfe and the rest of the cheerleaders in the Bitch Clique. It was bad enough that she’d shunned him, but at one point, she called him “pizza face” in front of half the lunchroom. It was all he could do to keep from crying.
Bye-bye, Josie.
Then there was that asshole, Mr. Lawrence at the end of the block. A short, creepy dude who once hired Charlie to go door to door and hand out flyers for his painting business. Mr. Lawrence had promised Charlie $40 for the job. But after Charlie spent the entire weekend canvassing the neighborhood with the ads, Mr. Lawrence claimed someone saw him dumping a box of the flyers in a dumpster at the Quick Stop (which was bullshit). So he refused to pay Charlie.
Sayonara, asshole.
Charlie laughed as he raced to the next block and repeated the process, growing more giddy with every empty house.
“Goodbye, assholes! Fuckers! Motherfuckers!” he shouted from the top of his lungs. It was an amazing release, even if no one was around to hear him.
For too many years, he’d had to bottle his emotions and take shit from everybody. He’d been the world’s doormat for most of his life, through no fault of his own. He just happened to be a bit geekier, a bit paler, and had a few more zits than everyone else in his class. If he didn’t have the zits, got tan instead of turned pink in the sun, and his hair was straight instead of a curly blond mop, maybe people would have seen him a bit differently.
All he wanted to do was get through adolescence under the radar. But ever since middle school, it was as if he had some sort of homing signal which seemed particularly honed to attract unwanted attention. And when you stood out, the wolves licked their chops.
Growing up a momma’s boy had made him soft.
He spent the first 11 years of his life practicing ways to make his mother happy. She’d been depressed since his father died, so it was his mission to bring her smile back. He’d put on puppet shows, tell her jokes, and would even go to painting classes with her on weekends. While most kids avoided their parents, Charlie was best friends with his mom.
But having no father figure in his life had made him meek and a magnet for the aggro assholes wanting to vent their frustrations and call him momma’s boy, faggot, and anything else their tiny intellects could muster.
He might have been able to cope, if it weren’t for Bob.
Charlie’s mom met Bob four years back. They began dating immediately. Dating turned into an impromptu wedding. Everything was good for a few months. That’s when Bob dropped the mask and let his drunken, violent colors bleed into Charlie’s world. In a land of bullies, Bob was their king. And there was nothing Charlie could do. And nothing his mother would do.
And for that, he was glad she was gone.
Smell ya later, Mommy.
**
Charlie rode around a while longer until he circled back to Josie’s. He knocked again. When nobody answered, he tried the doorknob. To his surprise, it was unlocked.
Hot damn!
He opened the door and stepped inside “Hello? Josie? Are you here?”
When nobody answered, he closed the door.
The house was cool, despite the loss of power. And it was well lit by all the large windows and open blinds. He hadn’t been in Josie’s house in three years, but it was as nice as ever. Her mother was in real estate, made good money, and routinely indulged in her premium tastes.
Josie’s dad had left her mother a few years earlier, but the a-hole was an investment banker, so the monthly checks were fat.
Despite her family’s wealth, money didn’t seem to affect Josie all that much. In fact, she seemed embarrassed by her mother’s extravagance, which was probably the thing Charlie liked most about her, other than how she was cuter than an anime character. She didn’t act like the other rich kids in the school, and had never treated him like the poor kid he was.
Well, at least until she started hanging out with the Bitch Clique.
Charlie trudged up the stairs to Josie’s room, and opened the door.
She had redecorated since he’d last seen it. She used to be obsessed with stuffed penguins, which once lined her shelves, closet, and even her bed. Now, her room was more adult with pinks, blues, and the sort of furniture his mom circled in the catalogue but never bought. No childish stuff anywhere, save for one lone penguin standing guard at the foot of her unmade bed. His name was Percy, Josie had once told Charlie. That was something else he’d liked about her. She wasn’t afraid to be goofy, one of her most endearing qualities, actually.
Charlie sat by the headboard and picked up her pillow. He lifted it to his nose and took a deep breath. It was soft, fluffy, and smelled just as he remembered her.
He closed his eyes and sent his mind to a time when they were sitting on the floor in the room. They were both 12, and she’d asked Charlie to give her a neck massage. It wasn’t sexual of course, he’d barely even thought about sex at that age. And she wasn’t that kind of girl. But sitting behind her, with her long hair spilled in his face and his hands on her shoulders, along with a glimpse down her shirt, gave him a raging erection.
When she lifted her shirt, and asked him to rub her back, he was painfully erect. Then, to his utter horror, he ejaculated in his pants, and had to make an excuse to rush home.
So, technically, Josie was his first, and only sexual experience with another person, even if she never knew.
Thinking about Josie as he sat on her bed, he was hard again.
He began to look around her room and found a photo album she’d made. He thumbed through the book and saw pictures of her, taken recently at the beach. Her lips were full, her skin the color of honey, and her breasts practically falling out of the pink bikini. He was rock hard.
He went to her dresser and thumbed through her drawers, investigating her underwear, surprised to find such lacy numbers. He wondered if her mother knew what Josie was wearing under her skirts. In the mirror, he caught a glimpse of the expandable hamper in the corner, pink, of course.
Charlie retrieved a pair of pink silky panties from the top and smelled them. The faint scent of piss and perfume made him wince, then smile. He closed his eyes, imagining the prettiest of her pink that he’d never see, then went to her bed, dropped his pants, wrapped her underwear around his staff and started stroking.
He lasted three seconds longer than he had when he’d given her a back massage.
Charlie caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, denim snaked around his ankles and wiping himself with her underwear. Shame flushed his face. He threw the panties into the hamper and yanked up his pants, then glared at himself in the mirror, angry at his lack of self control. Josie was
right to shun him — maybe some part of her had sensed his perverted thoughts. Maybe she’d only become a bitch to him because he was such a creepy geek.
The thought depressed him and he went downstairs to her fridge. Rich people always had good food.
He grabbed a piece of birthday cake. It was half gone, but enough remained for Charlie to imagine the “Happy Birthday Mom!” scrawled across the top. It had a chocolate ganache frosting, at least he thought that’s what it was called, and it tasted better than delicious. Maybe even the best cake he’d ever had. He was about to grab a glass of milk, when he thought better. Though the contents of the fridge were still cold, the milk (even thought it was soy milk, whatever the hell that was) might’ve already started to spoil. The last thing he wanted to do was get sick, especially if no doctors were left in the town, or hell, maybe the world!
Instead, he found himself eyeing a four pack of red wine coolers.
He’d never drank before. As a child, he’d never had the urge. And Bob was a living poster for why NOT to drink. But he knew a lot of the kids in school did drink. Mostly the dumb jocks, cheerleaders, and the “Fiesta Crowd,” as they were called. Charlie considered them all about as smart as a hot dog and didn’t want to be anything like them, even if that meant being a pizza faced geek, but they did seem to enjoy their lives. His life, on the other hand, was a constant broadcast of misery.
It didn’t take long to do the math. Charlie grabbed the four pack, locked the front door (just in case), and headed back to Josie’s room.
He decided there were worse places to hang out at the end of the world. He sure as hell wasn’t going to go back home to his shitty little house.
**
Three bottles in, Charlie wondered what all the fuss was about. He didn’t feel all that different. If anything, he felt worse. His head was hurting, and he was feeling sad.
He decided to take a nap. He slid off his jeans and shoes and laid down in Josie’s bed, nestling his head into the cool, perfumed pillow.