I Will Rise (22 page)

I knock with my remaining hand and depress the doorbell with my stump. My feet tap in nervous anticipation. A minute or so passes and nothing. I ring the bell and knock again. Another minute passes and still nothing. This time I knock extra hard and ring the bell three times. Still nothing.

What if Annabelle doesn’t exist? What if her dream form, my hallucination, only thinks she exists? What if I have fooled myself into believing in a fantasy? But this address is real. This house and this street are real and with my limited knowledge, I know nothing about Arizona, so how could I have known to come here? I had never even been outside of California up until a couple days ago.

I knock again.

Nothing.

My face goes flush and teary warmth tingles throughout. I am crazy. There’s no Annabelle. I bang on the door savagely. I depress the doorbell over and over and over. Tears start to roll. I am crazy.

It feels like I am depressing the doorbell with my left index finger. It could be that strange phantom limb effect, or, as crazy as I probably am, it could be that I never lost my hand. It could be that Jim and his small army aren’t even real. It could be that none of this is real. Maybe I am truly dead and this is hell or heaven or wherever you go when your soul vacates your body.

If Annabelle doesn’t exist, then none of this exists.

I rest my forehead against the grainy wood of the front door and sob unenthusiastically. Even my tears, my sorrow pangs, don’t feel real.

“Charles?” Annabelle’s voice travels faintly through the door.

Internally kicking myself, I wipe at my miserable face and straighten up. “Annabelle?”

“You made it.” She sounds pleased.

“Are you okay?” Why hasn’t she opened the door?

“I’m fine. Are you okay?”

I clear my throat and try to project. “Yeah, I’m good. So…”

“You sound different. I guess this is the first time we are really hearing each other. Do I sound different?”

“No. Well, yeah, the door is kind of muffling. Are you going to let me in?” Excitement has returned. It ratchets inside me, sending giddy little explosions of pleasure up and down my spine.

“In a minute. I still can’t believe you are here.”

“I’ve been out here for a while. I got worried when you didn’t answer the door.”

“After I left you in the parking lot I took care of some things and fell back asleep. I just woke up.”

“You fell back asleep? Where were you?” Has she been watching me? “Did you see what happened?”

“Go around to the garage, I’ll open the door. Get in the car. The keys are already in the ignition. Start it and wait for me, I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Wait, where were you, why didn’t you come to me in your dreams?” I could have really used her guidance.

“Just go around to the garage.”

I turn from the door and make for the garage. Annabelle’s muffled voice calls after me, “Charles?”

I walk back to the door. “Yeah?”

“Remember, I look different. I’m sorry if I disappoint you.”

“You could never disappoint me,” I respond encouragingly.

“Just brace yourself, okay?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I wait for a response and hear the garage door opener straining and groaning. I run around to the front of the house. The garage door is halfway up. I duck just in time to see a door leading from the garage interior into the house swing shut.

No matter what she looks like she will still be beautiful to me. Right? I turn this over as I wait for the garage door to finish its beleaguered, squeaky climb.

Annabelle’s parents’ car looks like a newer version of Eddie’s mom’s car: big and boaty and undoubtedly comfortable. I hop in and start her up as instructed. It idles as smooth as silk. I rest my head against the seat back and wait in fluttery anticipation. In the rearview mirror I notice Mr. Sunshine’s cab. I’ll have to move it to maintain inconspicuousness. Barring Jim and his kind, who can supposedly see me when they sleep, this car should make for a veritable safe haven. It isn’t stolen or red-flagged or in any way associated with the destructive swath I have carved across the American West. The cab on the other hand, what with its dead driver, would only help police tie things together. It has to be disposed of.

Something inside, something impatient and anxious, can wait no longer. It blows up within and tells me to check on Annabelle. I’ve been waiting for a little while and she may be in trouble. In actuality, this is her house and she’s probably fine, but maybe she needs some help. I can’t just sit here and let my girlfriend do whatever it is she is doing without at least offering a helping hand.

I get out of the car and approach the door. I am about to enter when I stop myself. Where are her parents? Maybe that’s why I am waiting outside. Maybe her parents are in there with her. Maybe she is saying her good-byes. Maybe she is afraid I will accidentally touch them or harm them.

Her parents cannot feel good about any of this. They’re probably worried sick about their blind daughter running off with some unknown stranger, providing of course she has told them. She must have—it’s not like she can just drive off on her own. That settles it—I have to say something to them. I won’t touch them or hurt them, I just have to assure them that Annabelle is in good hands (hand). I have to tell them that I will protect her with everything I am.

Opening the door, I step inside. Immediately, I am hit by a wave of fetid air. “Annabelle?” I call.

Nothing.

The smell is dense and eye-wateringly disgusting. Closing off my nasal passages I move through the house.

Everything is Picture Perfect Americana Normality: a country-style kitchen with cows, calico patterns and horrible shit like that, a comfy dining room complete with a massive oak dining table and I shit you not, a cornucopia for a centerpiece, an even comfier living room with soft, lived-in couches and an impressive home-theater setup. Annabelle’s parents have quite the pleasant home. I am impressed and envious. I salivate with Westernized desire. I would love to live in a place like this.

Two thoughts pull me from my meanderings and overtake my covetous feelings: what the hell is that smell, and where is everybody?

“Annabelle?” I call a little louder. Still nothing.

I creep down a hallway. Two closed doors line one side of the hallway, which terminates at a third door. They are all shut. The smell seems to be getting stronger. The hallway walls are peppered with framed pictures and I stop to look at a few. Annabelle looks infinitely different than her dream form. She has stringy brown hair and in the pictures that feature her as an adult, she is more than a little overweight. She isn’t ugly though. Despite what she says, she is fairly attractive. Or at least I think so. However, I understand her numerous warnings. She is definitely not as overtly beautiful or as intensely sexual as is her dream form.

In one picture she is a kid, smiling, still sighted, by all appearances happy and unaware of the impending blindness. Two adults who are probably her parents stand on either side of her and they too are smiling big. Cute. In another, she is older, easily in her thirties and obviously blind, and her eyes stare off into nothing, her mouth is a straight line. Again, she is framed by the two people who must be her parents. They are still smiling, but something is off. Their expressions have dulled and the smiles look rather forced. It is an odd photograph, the way both parents stare at the camera, pretending to be happy, trying to fool the outside world into believing that they are something they’re not while the woman standing between them looks as if she is staring into herself, trying to fool herself that she is something she’s not. It is an entirely unhealthy portrait. It reeks of dysfunction.

Speaking of reek, what is that awful smell?

I try the first door, opening it a crack and slowly peeking in as if to deflect the rudeness of my intrusion by intruding softly, with care. Nothing but an empty bathroom. The shower curtain is a cheery bright blue. It is pulled to one side and the tub beyond it, gleaming and clean, is empty. I shut the door quietly and try the next one.

That paint-peeling stench hits me full force. I bring my right hand up over my nose and mouth. The room is dark and stuffy, the air thick with rife decay. Straining my eyes I see nothing save for the shadowy outlines of bedroom furniture. Allowing my hand a brief reprieve from my face, I feel for a light switch. Bingo. My hand jumps back over my nose and mouth as the room comes to life, animated by a flood of illumination.

There is a figure lying on the bed.

He or she is wrapped in a maroon blanket.

“Hello?” I whisper.

Nothing.

I take slow steps and notice little splashes of what can only be blood or chocolate here and there—on the walls, the floor, the bedside furniture, even an armoire on the other side of the room.

The closer I get to the bed and the unmoving person on top of it, the less the maroon sheet looks like a maroon sheet. The less difficult it is to make the distinction between blood and chocolate.

The closer I get to the bed, the worse the smell gets.

Flies buzz and dance electric, forming a kinetic black cloud above and around the still figure.

I know what’s what, but I am compelled to move forward anyway. The dead person in the bed has been savaged, riddled with deep bone-revealing gashes (a knife? An axe?). Leaning in, I can see it is the woman from the pictures, Annabelle’s mother. Her eyes are open, gone milky, still staring in horror at whoever did this to her. Her neck is nearly severed and her head is just sort of propped into place. The slightest nudge would surely send it rolling to bloody freedom. The same goes for her right shoulder. It is practically cleaved from the body.

Did Annabelle do this?

Is she capable of doing something like this?

And why?

We haven’t really talked much about her parents, but why would anyone do this? I mean, I myself kill, I am no saint, I touch and drain, but this is different, this is brutality and force and aggression. I back out of the room, shut off the light and quietly close the door. A hot chill spreads within and I feel fear nipping at my brain.

“Annabelle?” I call a little louder.

Still nothing, no direct response, but I do hear a muffled voice followed by muffled shufflings coming from behind the final doorway. Just as I am about to open the door it swings inward. I jump back in alarm and backpedal a few more long steps. Annabelle senses me and stops dead.

“Charles?”

Finally in the flesh. Her eyes are wide, unseeing, darting from side to side.

“Charles!”

I am tempted to soft-shoe my way out to the car and pretend I was never in her house, but I can’t lie to her. Besides, there’s no way I could get out of here without her hearing me. In the split second before answering I stare hard and get a good look at my lovely Annabelle.

She looks to be in her late forties. Dark eyes, dark, stringy, shoulder-length hair. She is what the world would call fat, but not me. The fact that she dresses conservatively—loose, comfortable pants and an oversized sweater— allows her the grace most fat people who think they are skinny and wear too tight clothes are denied. Love seizes my eyes.

“I’m here,” I respond breathlessly.

“Where are you?” She sounds panicky. Her hands are covered in blood.

“Are you okay?”

“Stay back!” she screams.

“You’re bleeding,” I stammer.

“It’s not mine. The blood. Stay back, Charles. You can’t touch me, remember? Not even a little, accidental bit.”

“I know.” I start backing up.

“I told you to wait in the car.” She sounds pissed. Her eyes stare through me.

“I wanted to see if you were okay.” I feel like a child caught, busted.

“I’m fine. Go to the car. I’ll be right out, I have to wash up.”

I nod my head and take off to the car.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, I try to turn things over in my head. This love thing has really got me. Be it the dreamer’s plan or something else, my insides twist and ache with regret. I didn’t mean to piss her off. It is crucial that she likes me back. If she doesn’t, I feel as if my dead body will truly die and crumble and cave. I just wanted to help, I scream at myself. I just wanted to help. The ache aches and I nervously await her arrival.

I just wanted to help and my brain constricts with curiosity so prevalent it’s painful. What is going on? Did she kill her mother? What was going on in the last bedroom? Why do I love her so intently? Her that I barely know. Her that changes form. Her that ravages through my emotions like a whirling dervish.

The door leading into the house opens and Annabelle feels her way to the passenger-side door of the car. I lean over and push it open for her. It swings too fast and hits her hard. She plops to the ground.

“I’m so sorry,” I yell and jump out to go help her.

“Stay there, Charles. I’m okay. Just get back in the car.”

I do as I am told and watch Annabelle stand and dust herself off. She gets in the car and shuts the door. Before I have a chance to speak she says, “I’m just going to get it all out and then we can get out of here, okay?”

“Okay,” I agree.

“I chopped up my mother with an axe. I think I cut off her head, but you know, I can’t really see. I’ve been torturing my father for two days. He is still alive, bleeding to death, tied to his bed. I made thousands of thin lacerations all over his body with a sharp paring knife. You might want to know how I did these things; you might want to know why. Let’s keep it simple. Just remember, this world is not about them any longer, it’s about us. In any case, they deserved it. Short and sweet. They deserved what they got. You ready to go?”

I nod my head, rather stunned, and then realize she can’t see me. “Yes,” I say quietly.

“Do I disgust you?” She crinkles her nose when she says “disgust.” It’s incredibly cute.

“No, I mean like you said, they deserved it.” Does anybody deserve that?

“Not my parents. Not that I killed them. Who cares about them? What I meant was me. Do I disgust you? My big fat ass and ugly hair? My wrinkled, plain face? My old-lady clothes? This”—she gestures with her hands at her body—“is a far cry from the hot bitch I become for you in dreams.”