Where We Live and Die (12 page)

He’s thinking about this when his waitress returns with his iced tea and some dinner rolls. She sets them down in front of him.

“Thanks,” Roy says.

“You’re welcome.”

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, how did you end up working here?”

“My previous employer laid me off.”

“I’m sorry. There’s a lot of that going around these days.”

“I’m sorry, too. But this job isn’t so bad. It’s something to do until I find another. And it’s good for people watching.”

“You’re a people watcher too, huh?”

“Oh, yes. I like living vicariously.”

Roy grins. “Yeah, I do a fair amount of that.”

“I know.”

Roy blinks. “You do?”

The waitress nods. “I know that you’re lonely. I know you feel trapped in a job with no 401K, no retirement, and no health insurance. I know that job feels more pointless every day, and you keep wondering what the point is.”

“Trust me, a lot of writers in my pay range feel that way.”

“I know that your last girlfriend moved out a year and a half ago. You met her at a book signing. She was a fan of your work. Before she moved out, she told you that while the fantasy of dating you had been exciting, the reality of being in a relationship with you was anything but. You did not blame her. You’ve never liked living with yourself either. I know that when you were writing, you spent all day in your head. I know that you’re doing that still, but now your head is empty. I know that your parents are dead, you have no siblings, and no children, and no heirs. For the last year, you’ve been wondering who to will your literary estate to, and it bothers you that there’s no one to assign the rights to your work. I know that—”

“Wait a second,” Roy says, louder than he intended. “This is getting creepy. What did you do, Google me back there in the kitchen? Don’t believe everything you read about me online.”

“I know that the reason you can’t write anymore is because you don’t have anything left to feel. You don’t remember what it’s like to love someone, or hate someone, or to fear them or want to keep them safe. You’re numb, and how could you not be, when looking at the world around you? A writer’s job is to study the world and the people around them and mirror it back to the reader—to unveil truths. But the truth is, Roy, you don’t know what the truth is anymore. When you look at the world, all you see is loss and regret and heartache. All you feel is loneliness. You don’t understand the world anymore, and you no longer feel like you’re a part of it. You’ve watched others for so long that you no longer know how to relate to them. And when you look around, all you see is horror. Everything is cancer and terrorism, and humanity’s increasing descent into regressive post-modern barbarism. Your numbness grows every time you turn on the news. Every missing child, every massacre, and every bureaucratic injustice makes you disconnect a little bit more. And so, you push away anyone who was close to you or matters to you, and try to take comfort in strangers and people on the internet—because you can keep them at arm’s length, and therefore they won’t hurt or disappoint you. You push away your muse, your lovers, and your friends, until you’re left with nothing to write about except the horror of everyday life.”

Roy wants to make a joke. He wants to tell her that maybe she should switch over to writing garishly-covered horror novels instead, but when he opens his mouth to speak, all that escapes is a low sigh.

“No offense, Roy, but do your job. If hopelessness and betrayal and terror are all you know now, then let yourself feel them. More importantly, let your world feel them. You’re an artist. Make art. The laptop screen is your canvas. If that doesn’t work, then try a new form of canvas. But it’s time for you to start telling the truth again.”

Roy nods, still unable to speak. The waitress gives him a sad smile and then walks away.

He sits there, head hung low, staring at the table. He doesn’t look up again until Marsha brings him his meal. It occurs to him to ask about the other waitress but he still doesn’t trust himself to speak.

He eats slowly, considering what she’s said. Marsha brings him his check, which he pays, leaving a thirty percent tip. Then he leaves, and heads back to his car.

A few minutes later, Roy opens the door to his apartment. He sees the couch and the coffee table that his girlfriend left behind. He sees the worn, brown carpet that was new decades ago when this apartment complex was built. The kitchen appliances and bathroom fixtures are just as dated. The blinds over the windows are new, but only because Roy bought them himself when he first moved in. Everything else in the apartment is either broken or failing. The windows are drafty, the water pressure sucks, the bathroom mirror is cracked, the molding around the front door is loose, and the heating takes forever to warm the place. The chipped paint on the walls is a dingy shade of cream, and is about twelve coats thick. If you look closely at the walls you can see hair and dirt embedded in the previous layers of paint, and poorly patched nail holes left over from previous tenants.

Before today’s lunch, the decrepitude deepened his depression. Now, it inspires him.

Roy scans the living room, looking at his possessions. A plasma television which is only four years old and already shows ghost images in the upper right hand corner. A DVD player that was new back when most people still bought videotapes. A few framed photographs of people he no longer feels anything for. And books. Six cheap pressboard bookshelves bought at Walmart and put together over a long, frustrating weekend, crammed with over two-thousand paperbacks, hardcovers, first editions, and signed limited edition collectibles.

In the bedroom, there are six more shelves, also stuffed with books, but these are all ones that have been written by Roy, along with magazines, anthologies, and other
outlets that have featured his work. The bedroom also has a cheap pressboard desk (purchased the same weekend he bought the shelves). His laptop and printer occupy the desk, along with stacks of miscellaneous papers receipts and dirty coffee cups. The laptop is on its last leg. It takes forever to start, and the battery only lasts a few minutes when it’s not plugged in, and the question mark key doesn’t work. Anytime Roy wants to type a question mark into a manuscript he’s working on, he has to open Google, find an image of a question mark, and then copy and paste it into the document. Luckily, due to the writer’s block, he hasn’t used the laptop much in the past year. The bedroom also has a bed, and next to that, a rifle cabinet, containing the various firearms he used when he was still an avid hunter. He hasn’t gone much in the last five years. As he gets older, the cold bothers Roy more and more. But he still has all the guns.

Roy realizes that the only things of value that he owns are the books and the firearms. Everything else is shit. The police will probably take the guns as evidence later, but what of the books? They’ll probably be unceremoniously tossed in the dumpsters by the apartment complex management. He’s seen this happen before, almost on a weekly basis. Someone doesn’t pay rent, the sheriff puts a notice on their apartment door, and they abscond in the night, leaving behind their belongings, which management then tosses in the dumpsters. He’s seen furniture, bedding, toys, and even electronics equipment thrown away in such a manner, and has also seen his neighbors dumpster diving for it all after management has left. He thinks about his books filling up a dumpster, and the illiterate tenants picking through them, looking for DVDs or videogames because who the hell reads anymore? For a brief moment, this image is almost enough to make Roy reconsider his decision.

But then, shrugging, he walks into the bedroom, opens his rifle cabinet, and takes out an AR-15 rifle and a .357 handgun.

Nobody reads anymore.

His muse was right. He needs to reflect and communicate the horrors of the world around him.

The restaurant will be his first new canvas and he will paint it red.

As he drives toward it, Roy hopes the other patrons will still be there.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

Michaels didn’t answer. He, Adam, and Terrell were hunkered down in an alley behind a stack of corpses. Raw sewage bubbled up from the cracked pavement, soaking their knees and feet with filth. The black sky boiled and spit. Instead of hail, decapitated heads fell from the clouds. Michaels hoped the storm would end soon. He much preferred rains of blood or shit—they didn’t hurt when they struck you.

Terrell tapped Adam on the shoulder.

“What?” Adam whispered.

“Check this out.”

Terrell buried his face between the rotting breasts of a particularly obese corpse and made motorboat sounds. The mounds of flesh jiggled, disturbing a nest of beetles that had burrowed inside them. Terrell came up for air and picked insects and decaying flesh from his chin. He and Adam giggled.

Ignoring them, Michaels peeked over the carrion pile and stared at the barracks. Nothing had changed. Two Ushers still stood out front, guarding the door. Their chisel-slit eyes remained alert, and their nostrils flared. They did not move. Shivering, Michaels ducked down again and glared at Adam.

“What did you ask me?”

Adam repeated it. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“The worst thing I ever did was let you assholes talk me into doing this.”

Terrell grinned. It was not a flattering look for him. Every day, the Mephistopolis blossomed with new diseases, and Terrell always caught them. It had been the same way when he was alive. Any time a new venereal disease came along, Terrell got it. As above, so below. This week, the flesh was sloughing off his face in waxy, glistening sheets.

“Come on, Michaels,” he slurred. “You want out of here as bad as we do. So don’t even front.”

“Of course I do. But there’s got to be a better way.”

Even as he said it, Michaels knew it wasn’t true. This was the only way, unless they wanted to wait for another Deadpass to open somewhere else. Who knew how long that could take? A week, a decade, an eternity? Of course, here in Hell, every day was an eternity. Terrified as he was, Michaels knew this was their only shot at escaping—right through the very bowels of Hell—into the House of Ushers. Deadpasses—holes between the living world and the Hellplanes—were few and far between. The only other ways out were through the Labyrinth, ascendancy to demon-hood, or divine intervention. As slim as the chances were of finding another Deadpass, those options were even less viable. Adam’s plan was their only opportunity to escape.

A head splattered against the pavement, showering them with brains and interrupting Michaels’s thoughts.

“Seriously,” Adam asked a third time. “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done? Humor me.”

Michaels sighed. “First of all, you’re ripping off Peter Straub. That’s the opening sentence to
Ghost Story
. You’re a writer. That’s theft—a sin.”

Adam shrugged. “Have you taken a look around? Given our current situation, I don’t think that matters. It’s one small sin among a sea of great ones. The end result is the same. And you’re right. It is the opening sentence to
Ghost Story
. But it’s a good sentence. It has presence and weight. It fucking resonates, man. If you hit it with a hammer, you’d hear a resounding gong. So I’m stealing it.”

Michaels grinned. “Is that the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

“No...”

Adam fell silent, suddenly afraid. Each man felt it. In Hell, the obsidian sky never changed. There were no moons or sun. Daylight was a memory from their previous existence. But now, against that churning blackness, a shadow soared overhead—predatory and horrifying. For something to inspire fear in this place, it had to be exceptional, and the shadow was. It glided over the city, blotting out the falling heads.

A dead cat hissed at the far end of the alley. The cat had seen better days. Apparently, it had been mummified at some point during its existence. Dirty, tattered bandages hung from its skeletal frame. Without warning, the shadow swept down from the sky. It made no sound as it attacked. Something black and shapeless seized the howling cat and the shadow took flight again, leaving coldness in its wake.