Appalachian Galapagos (22 page)

Sam sighed and stared down at the cat that was winding its way around his leg. He looked back up at his reflection in the mirror, frowning at the way his curly black hair was sticking out in wooly tufts. "No way, man. I'm dead tired here. I just got off a ten hour shift and I have to get up early. I need to take a shower, Lenny."

"Trust me. Once you see what I did, you won't regret
comin
' over here."

"What did you do? I don't want to play games here, man."

Lenny tried to speak, but his voice broke up in a brief sob before he managed to get it under control. "Remember when I told you I was gonna kill myself?"

"Yeah…you
tryin
' to tell me you want me to talk you out of
killin
' yourself again?" Sam asked, pushing the cat away with his boot. "Because if you are, this conversation ain't
happenin
', man. I'm tired of it. At this point, I'm so tired I don't care if you put the end of a barrel in your mouth and pull the trigger. In fact, I will applaud your ass on the way to bed. Now, if you don't mind, I need to get some sleep."

"I did pull the trigger, Sam. That's what's fucked up. I am dead...but I ain't either."

"I swear to god, if this is some kind of joke I am going to kill you myself, you won't need suicide."

"Just come, please."

Sam hung up the phone and closed his eyes, imagining himself lying in his bed, the pillow wrapped around his head like sleep inducing headphones. Sometimes Lenny was a pain in the ass, but most of the time he rather enjoyed his eccentric friend. At least when he wasn't tired enough to fall asleep where he stood.

Ten minutes later, he pulled into Lenny's driveway, yawning tiredly as he mumbled hateful things. The house was unlit, the windows staring out into the dark lawn ominously. Lenny's odd statement drifted through his head as he walked to the front door.

I am dead…but I ain't either.

Sam pushed the doorbell, imagining that it was the button to a bomb.

"Come in, Sammy!" Lenny said from far back in the house, probably the kitchen.

He hated when anyone called him Sammy and opened the door in annoyance. As soon as he stepped inside, a smell wafted into his nose—a thick deathly smell, a mix of iron, burned flesh, and gunpowder.

"I'm in the kitchen," Lenny said, his voice still sounding oddly hollow, almost like his head was in some sort of echo chamber. "Best ready yourself, it ain't pretty, man."

The puddle of blood was the first thing Sam noticed—it had trailed out from the kitchen and was already congealing on the gray living room carpet. The surreal sight of so much blood sent Sam reeling, a gasp of astonishment jumping from his lips as he peered around the corner and into the well-lit kitchen.

Lenny was sitting at the table calmly—his back straight in the bloody chaos around him—two large bullet holes in his head.

Droplets of blood were splashed about the kitchen so badly it looked like a horror movie set that had gone into violent overkill—bullet holes, flowery splatters, and crimson streaks snaking on the surrounding walls. Blood pooled so thickly on the floor that you could not even see the white linoleum underneath. The gun sat on the kitchen table innocently, like it had never hurt a person in its life.

"What...the...
fuck
," Sam whispered, his voice rising with every word, his tongue hitting the last consonant sharply, like a hiss. "Lenny, what the hell did you do?"

He shook his head, red swollen eyes glittering with desperation. "I don't know. It doesn't even hurt. It just itches a little."

Lenny pointed at the holes in his forehead. Sam could actually seethe splattered wall through the wound and he shivered.

"Why did you do this, Lenny? I don't understand."

Lenny sighed. "I can't take it anymore, man. Ever since Beth left me last year, I haven't felt the same. You know this. When I lost my job, that was just it for me. I have
nothin
' to live for. I just want to die. I may act in good humor around you, but when the night comes, I'm in agony. Everything I do is a major fuck up." He chuckled bitterly, the deep wounds glistening in the fluorescent light. "It seems I can't even kill myself right."
 

Sam studied the kitchen, his mind telling him to flee, his legs shaking underneath him where he stood. "There is no way you can be alive, Lenny. No way you can be
talkin
' to me. Look at all that blood, man. No one can lose all that blood and stay alive. No one."

Lenny frowned, his skin stretching deeply on his clammy face. A line of blood dripped from his forehead and across his eye. "I don't think my heart is
beatin
' anymore—and I'm not
breathin
'. When I realized this I got scared, man. What the hell am I gonna do? You gotta help me."

"No way. If I help you I can get in big trouble. They put Kevorkian into prison for this shit."

Lenny chuckled, his laughter the sound of glass scraping against concrete. "I'm already dead. How they gonna lock you up for
killin
' a dead man?"

"Obviously you're not dead, or you wouldn't be
talkin
' to me."

Lenny lifted his splattered hand up and pointed at a group of kitchen drawers. "The second drawer from the bottom. Get the mirror."

Sam sighed and stepped into the kitchen, his sneakers sticking into the gummy blood. He removed the mirror from the drawer and held it out to his friend.

The shock of being able to see the refrigerator through the hole in Lenny's head was the most unnerving thing that he had ever seen and he felt an involuntary shiver travel up the small of his back.

"Don't hand it to me, dumbass, put it to my mouth," Lenny said, spraying red spittle into Sam's white t-shirt. "What the hell you think I want to look at myself for?"

Sam put the mirror up to Lenny's mouth and waited for it to fog up. Nothing happened.

"Guess
callin
' an ambulance is kinda out of the question, eh?" Lenny said, smiling eerily.

"Lenny, this is way too weird, man."

"We need to finish the damn job."

"Fuck that 'we' shit. I ain't
helpin
' you do
nuthin
'. Maybe God wants you to stay here for a reason. Ever think of that?"

Lenny smiled widely, exposing his mouth—his tongue was cherry red. "You don't even believe in God."

"I ain't
helpin
' you kill yourself regardless of that fact. And the fact that you are
standin
' before me as a dead man makes me want to seriously reconsider my beliefs. If this ain't a fuckin' miracle, I don't know what the fuck is."

"Okay," Lenny said, grabbing the gun and putting it to the front of his face, wincing. "I'll have to keep
tryin
' 'til I do, then."

"LENNY—"

The gun went off explosively, sending the top half of Lenny's head hurling into the kitchen cabinet, splattering the wood with skull bits and brain matter.

Lenny looked up, his right eyebrow shaking back and forth convulsively from underneath the smoking maw in his forehead. "See? It doesn't even hurt."

Sam stood there silently, his breath shooting out of his throat in rapid heaves.

"You gotta help me, man," Lenny said, his hand feeling where the top of his head was supposed to be. "You gotta kill me, make sure I'm dead."

Sam tried to speak, but all that came from his mouth was a mouse-like squeak. He pulled a chair out from the blood-caked table and sat down, rubbing his temple to gain some form of sanity control.

After a few minutes, Sam found himself able to speak, but his voice had the tired edge of a battle worn soldier. "Lenny, I can't do this."

"Listen, Sam. I'm fuckin' scared here. For all I know, I won't be able to die. I can already feel my body
decomposin
',
hardenin
' as I speak. If you call the police, the media will be on me like vultures, man. I'm miserable. I want to die. If you were truly my friend, you would help me. Don't let the media turn me into a freak show."

"A true friend would have prevented you from
committin
' suicide."

"Well, it's a bit too late for that, don't ya think?"

"Don't you want to at least try to discover why you ain't dead? I mean this is weirdness of Biblical proportions, man. Maybe somebody upstairs doesn't want you to die just yet."

"I don't care about none of that. The way I figure is that God is just
playin
' one cruel trick on my ass."

"Maybe he's
playin
' this trick for a reason."

"Goddammit! You gonna help me, or not!"

"Do I have a choice here?" Sam asked. "Looks like you're my ghost and you're gonna haunt me 'till I help you rest in peace."

Lenny smiled. "I guess if you think of it that way, it works out better. Lenny the friendly ghost, I am."

Sam watched his friend speak—thinking of all the good times they had together. Although they had grown apart a bit over the last few years, Lenny had helped from quite a few scrapes. Hell, they had known each other since kindergarten. Lenny smiled then, somehow sensing what his friend was thinking.

Sam returned the smile, grinning like an idiot. "You ain't so friendly
lookin
' with the top of your head off like that. And I don't think that ugly-ass purple cowboy hat you always wear is gonna fit you too good anymore, either."

Lenny nodded. "You can have the hat if you want. And it's not purple, it's black. It just looks purple sometimes in the light."

"Ain't no way I want that purple hat. I can't even believe you offered."

"We need to figure out a way to kill me."

"What's this 'we' shit? I think it's high time you stopped using the word we. It's
pissin
' me off. How the hell you gonna help? Don't seem to me like you will be much help at all. If
them
bullets in your head don't work, I don't see what will."

One hour later, after much arguing, they were in basement, the dim lighting bestowing Lenny with the ghoulish appearance of a bad B-movie villain.

Sam had his bloody sneaker on the side of Lenny's ear and was standing over him with a hacksaw poised, teeth clenched, eyes lit up with fiery determination.

"You sure you ain't gonna feel this?" Sam asked, staring down at his friend.

"If I didn't feel them three bullets, I sure as hell ain't going to feel this, man."

Sam sighed. "It's been real, buddy," he said as he started to saw.

"OH MY GOD! FUCKIN' OW!" Lenny howled.

Sam shot backwards, dropping the hacksaw, his eyes wide as softballs. "Shit! I'm sorry! I told you it was gonna hurt! You bastard!"

Lenny was laughing from where he lay on the floor. "I was
kiddin
', you dumb fuck."

Sam was quiet for a moment, listening to the harsh sound of his own breathing and his friend's hollow laughter. "I hate you."

"Good! It will make it easier for you to saw me now."

Sam picked up the hacksaw and approached cautiously. "You pull that shit again, and I ain't
doin
' it. You can saw your own fuckin' head off! I mean it!"

"I'm sorry, man. I couldn't pass it up."

"Do it again and I stop. Remember that."

"I'm gonna miss you, man."