House Guests
August 12, 2008
It was dark and I could hear crickets along the neighborhood streets. Mostly, I could hear my heart like an earthquake. I could still see Bill's face, white and damp and wincing something awful. Sweat was slipping over my temples where the blood quivered thumping under the skin. I felt dizzy and my vision was grainy. I kept on, one foot in front the other, listening to myself breath and running it all over and over again in my head. The two of them were walking and joking quiet just behind me.
"You keep moving," said Timmy. I winced. His voice came out like bullets on account of the gun in his hand. I would wince when he would speak and then I could see Bill's face again, clear as day, eyes wide in that white face. Something like a cough and a question and a ghost on his face, something awful.
Timmy had a mane like the one on a coconut or a hyena. It was wire and bristle and it made him look wild. His little teeth were sharp and spaced out, set against bad skin glowing oily in the cool night. I never did know how some people ended up with teeth like those. Darren was walking with Timmy. The other two were back at the house with that lawyer so scared that he'd pissed himself. They had taken my phone along with the others, and I knew that if I yelled they would shoot Jenny's boy. I couldn't stop thinking about Bill and his sweaty hands and his white face and his coughing and his eyes. He's probably dead now. Christ, Marcy had gone to hysterics when they'd shot him. She'd just snapped. I suppose they had to shoot Bill so we all knew they'd shoot the Boy. I suppose they had too.
Darren, walking behind me with Timmy, he was real big with wide shoulders and a face that became a neck. His eyes didn't sink or bulge. They sat still, flush with the rest of him. Darren and Timmy were walking me quiet down the street. They were joking and talking and Darren was smoking a cigarette. Like they hadn't just shot a woman's husband down. The sweat was dripping off the sides of my face, my hair slicked against my scalp. My heart like a hummingbirds and me forgetting to breath and feeling woozy.
"Tell this asshole to stop slowing down," Darren blew out smoke as he talked.
"Hey asshole," Timmy hissed, gesturing subtly with his pistol, his words hot and stinging, "stop slowing down." They laughed mildly.
My shirt stuck to my back, dripping and suffocating. Vaguely, I wanted to pull my shirt away from my skin, to let some air touch my back. I kept walking. I tried to spit. If I don't do something, someone else will have to do something, and if they don't, I don't know what. I scanned the ground frantically. I pictured Bill pale and empty. I pictured Marcy, shaking with tears, hugging one of the pillows on our couch and staring at Bill, her mouth open. I pictured Jenny trying to be calm and telling Tyler that everything will be OK, that this is going to be over soon. I pictured the lawyer, standing in the corner with all of the man out of him, a dark piss stain running the length of his pantleg. And then the men with the guns, I pictured them too.
I could see their van now in the street, tan and brown with the little plastic lips shielding the front passenger windows and the windshield. Oh jesus please don't shoot the boy. Not Jenny's boy.
"Round back of the van," Darren said, "not so fast now. Nothing funny either, nobody else has to get hurt."
Darren was doing the talking because Timmy wasn't cut out for it. He didn't have a reassuring bone in his body. With his pistol and his wiry hair and his sharp little teeth. Plenty more people had to get hurt and he damn well knew it and he didn't even care to lie about it.
"There you go," Darren said, "we're just gonna talk by the van for a minute. Right?"
"Right." Timmy tried, eyes shining.
Tags for this piece: fiction story strange dream violence