Bottled Abyss (22 page)

10

It happened much how it had with Sam Gerdes, just not as quickly for some reason. Janet pulled into her driveway and experienced the “passing” sensation again, but it wasn’t the young boy Jerry who traipsed through her mind. It was Mrs. Horrace.

The passing thrilled Janet’s every nerve and reminded her faintly of the joys of alcohol, but the sensation was a different monster, more striking than drink but not as enduring. Like so many other things she couldn’t explain right now, this scratched at the back of her mind. She resolved to visit Sam, maybe tomorrow morning, and see what had become of the coin since it had fallen into his possession.

Her body trembled. She tried to calm her breathing and think. The passing, however puzzling, was much welcomed after coming to grips with this new development.

She opened her eyes to the disorderly garage and could see it from here, coiled up above the washing machine. That rope had been her exit strategy. She’d almost been craving it earlier today, sitting in that daycare. Good dependable rope—that beautiful final door in a house of horrors and now she was too terrified to pull the handle.

The idea of her neck snapping was bad enough to consider, but strangulation? She didn’t want to imagine her lungs collapsing while her lips turned blue and body struggled through ensuing shadows. And here was the bottom line: if she couldn’t have booze, pills or asphyxiation, then she couldn’t have the death she required. All other methods were too awful to entertain and now those she’d once coveted as “tolerable ways to die” were just as horrendous.

She was trapped. She would have to live out the rest of her life.

Janet glanced at the repulsive coin, at the wondrous bottle. This was a dangerous attraction she’d developed. She decided to leave both items in the truck.

Time to straighten her head a little.

Faye had left the house, probably to go looking for her. Janet would take advantage of any spare alone time in her home while she could.

Or thought so.

Evan waited in the living room. He sat on the couch with his hands folded. A stack of papers sat on the coffee table before him. On seeing her, he sprung up. “Oh, it’s you Janet. I glad you’re home. You didn’t take your cell phone.”

“I needed to be alone.” Janet put her wallet down next to her vase of wilted flowers and pointed to the papers. “What’s this?”

Evan’s eyes darted behind his glasses. He couldn’t look her in the eyes and began to nervously scrub behind his neck. “I thought Faye and I—well, it was going to happen eventually. I was hoping you both would come back here together, so we could do this all at once.”

Janet read the document’s title. “These are divorce papers.”

“Yes.”

“Get rid of them. You’re not divorcing Faye.”

He crossed his arms. “Oh, I’m not?”

“I won’t let you do that to her.”

“I don’t love her.”

“Evan, why are we talking about this craziness?”

“Because,” he attempted to reach out and Janet moved back, “Faye’s a robot and Herman’s run off. We’re the only two decent people left in this equation.”

“No, we’re the assholes, and you are the bigger one.”

He snorted as she swept up the divorce papers and cleanly ripped them in half. Heading at once for the trash can, Evan was hot on her heels.

“It doesn’t matter if you tear that up or the next one after it. It doesn’t change how I feel. I’m still going to tell her. I’ve made my choice, with no regrets.”

Janet tossed the papers into the trash and covered them with an emptied Styrofoam meat tray containing a banana peel lying inside. She went to the sink and washed her hands. Evan regarded her with quiet resolve.

“I’m not trying to upset you. You need somebody now. Faye hasn’t ever needed me. I’m—I can make you happy, Janet.”

Janet hatefully dried her hands on a towel, before tossing it into the sink. “You’ll make me happy if you’re good to Faye and the baby. Seriously Evan, with Melody and Herman and the bottle…”

“Bottle?”

“Nothing.”

“You mean alcohol?”

“Yeah…”

Evan took the back of a chair and braced himself, his eyes far away. He cocked his head and his face tightened. “You just made me remember something Herman said, on the day he left. He was rambling, but he said he’d gone on a walk—which obviously wasn’t true, because his truck was left here—but he mentioned he’d be back with a bottle. What was he talking about? I thought he might mean medicine. Did he mean medicine? Hey, Janet, you okay?”

Janet walked over to the dinner table and sat opposite of Evan. She blew into her hands to warm them. “Is it cold in here?”

“Not really,” he replied. “Want me to get you a blanket?”

“I’m fine.”

“So what did he mean?”

“What?”

“Herman. What bottle? This doesn’t have anything to do with Josue Ramirez does it? Herman really didn’t go Death Wish on those people…did he?”

Janet took a deep breath. Her lungs rejoiced; it felt like the first air she’d ever breathed. Everything was so different now without the imaginary noose around her neck waiting to become real.

“I have time to figure this out now,” she whispered. “So, I’m going to find out. What happened to Melody. What happened to Herman.”

“I’ll help.”

“No, you won’t,” she promptly retorted. “Don’t worry about me anymore.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I don’t want your help Evan and I don’t want
you
. I’m not sorry for that either.”

He looked down at his hands and took a deep swallow. “I still have to tell her.”

Janet leaned forward and fixed on his weepy eyes. “No you don’t.”

A car pulled up in the driveway and they both turned their heads at the sound. Evan jumped at the sound of a door slamming. Lester barked at quickly approaching women’s flats on concrete.

Evan went into the living room. His voice was positively unconvincing to Janet, yet she knew Faye wouldn’t detect a single false note. “Honey, she’s here. She’s fine. Just wanted to take a drive.”

Faye came into the kitchen and clobbered Janet with a tremendous perfume-infused hug. “Don’t do that to me, babe. Please don’t do that.”

“Never again,” said Janet. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight.” She hugged her back tightly.

From the threshold of the living room Evan evaluated them, his face blank.

The phone rang just a little after midnight. It was Mrs. Horrace’s number. Through groggy eyes, Janet examined the illuminated screen. She didn’t want to take it, but it might have been about Herman.

“Hello.”

She could hear animal breathing on the other end.

“Hello?”

“I am Fury.”

“What? Who is this?”

“You are Janet Erikson.”

“Okay…”

“You must stop using the bottle’s waters.”

She cleared her throat. “What bottle?”

“The same bottle your husband died trying to steal.”

The words smacked her but she retaliated. “Are you some kid from the Horrace daycare? Did you steal Mrs. Horrace’s phone?”

“Bury the bottle in desert.”

“Look, if you know where my husband is—”

“His body lies at the place where the waters once receded.”

“I’m going to hang up and call Mrs. Horrace’s home number now.”

“The longer you wait, the more people suffer and die. I don’t belong to these new waters and am dying slowly. I cannot help you much longer. You must bury that bottle deep in the desert.”

Janet took a calming breath. This person was too insistent to be a child. “Bury it? And I suppose you’ll choose where, so you can go dig it up later? Right?”

“I want nothing.”

“Well here, have some, jerk!”

She ended the call and slammed the phone down on the nightstand. With everything she possessed, Janet screamed into her pillow, seeing images of Herman falling through her mind. Her husband wasn’t coming back. This person on the phone knew as much and hadn’t played around with the fact.

But wait up…
Herman had told Evan about the bottle, so he must have come back to the house for it while she was in the hospital—but what happened after that? How did the bottle end up with Lester? Did Herman go off somewhere else on foot? The voice on the phone said Herman’s body was on a riverbed somewhere, but what riverbed? Some place out in the badlands?

Janet searched the gloom in her empty bedroom and something occurred to her. The memory came back: Lester carrying a branch in his mouth all day long at the lake. Herman, Melody and Janet thought it hilarious he wouldn’t put it down. In fact, they laughed harder as the day went on and the dog wouldn’t relent. Herman started calling it the Staff of Lester. They’d seen the Border Collie carry things in his mouth, but not something as awkward as the thick tree branch and definitely not for so long.

Melody had eventually tried to pull the branch away from Lester and he actually pulled back on it so hard she fell down. Herman swatted the dog on the butt and he sheepishly released his prized possession.

Janet nodded. The gate had been open that day when she found Lester with the bottle. She got up, went to the window, and lifted a few blades of the Venetian blinds and peered out into absolute dark.

She whispered to the desert, “Lester went with you, didn’t he, He-Man? Were you hiding the bottle out there?” She let go of the blinds, uneasy with all the nothingness before her. “
Why wouldn’t you tell me?
”