Entombed (17 page)

“I’ve waited so long here…”

For a split second, I thought it was Eisenhower, but it wasn’t. The voice belonged to Alyssa. She was singing.

“For a reason to still carry on…”

I recognized the song right away. It was one of her favorites—‘The End of The End’ by Bella Morte. It’s a fair statement to say that most women in West Virginia liked gospel, hip-hop, or country music (or sometimes all three) but Alyssa had always been into gothic and industrial rock. That was one of the reasons I’d fallen in love with her in the first place—not because I was particularly into that kind of music, but because she was. That’s what I’d liked about her—that she was different from the other girls I met.

And I’d sullied that with my betrayal. Tears welled up in my eyes. I pushed the thought from my mind and took a deep breath.

“Alyssa? Where are you?”

“Feels like I’ve been living a lie, and I don’t want to face it alone…”

I had a flash of memory then, so strong that I almost thought it was really happening again, and that the bunker and the zombies and the divorce and my emotional affair with Hannah had all been just a dream. Alyssa and I had driven up to Charlottesville, Virginia to see Bella Morte in concert. She’d played their music on the way up, and we had dinner and a few drinks in a quiet little pub before the show. It was a good time. In truth, I’d gone along because it made Alyssa happy. It wasn’t really my kind of music or scene. The band was good, if loud, and I’d amused myself for a while by gawking at some of the Goths in the crowd. When I’d got bored with that, I’d pulled out my cell phone and updated my Facebook and Twitter accounts. Then I’d gone to the bathroom and texted Hannah. When I came back a half hour later, Alyssa was annoyed. She hadn’t been able to enjoy the show because she’d been worried about me. When I didn’t return right away, she’d thought something happened. I’d apologized, and lied—telling her there was a long line at the bathroom. Her glance flicked to my cell phone and then back to me. She didn’t say anything. Instead, she’d simply nodded and then turned her attention back to the show.

I hadn’t realized that until now. She’d suspected. Even then, she’d suspected that I was lying to her. She’d known about me and Hannah—known that it was more than a simple friendship. So why hadn’t she said something at that point? Why hadn’t she confronted me about it? Why did she let it drag on so long, doing incalculable damage to us all? She’d
made
me lie to her, and then allowed me to feel guilty about it. The more I thought about it, the more enraged I became. All that time I’d wasted.

“All this time that I’ve wasted…”
Her lilting voice taunted me.

“Fuck this shit.”

I stormed out of the media room, no longer caring if the others heard me or not. In fact, I hoped they would. That way, I could deal with them quickly, rather than drawing this hunt out any longer than it had to be. The only thing that mattered now was finding Alyssa and getting some answers for why she’d done the things that she’d done.

The corridor was empty. Alyssa’s voice echoed softly down the hall. Before, it had been ethereal and drifting. Now, it seemed real. More solid. It stayed in one place, making it much easier for me to find her location. I glanced over my shoulder. Far down at the other end of the hall, the dining room doors remained closed. If anyone had heard me, or heard Alyssa for that matter, they weren’t reacting. Of course, that didn’t mean it couldn’t still be a trap. Maybe Damonte or one of the others was waiting right around the corner. If so, then I had something for them.

Pausing, I moved over to the wall and stood with my back against it. Then, flattening myself out as best I could (which was easy, given then fact that I didn’t have a gut to suck in anymore), I inched forward and slowly edged around the corner. This hallway was empty, too, but Alyssa’s voice was nearer. My pulse pounded. As I walked, she stopped singing and began to hum instead.

“That won’t help you,” I whispered. “You wanted me to find you? Well, be careful what you wish for, sweetheart. You’re about to get it.”

The pharmacy was on my left. The door to it was closed but I could see a glow coming through the crack at the bottom of the door, indicating that the lights were on inside. I put my ear to the door and listened. After a moment, I confirmed that the humming was coming from further down the hall. I tested the knob and found it unlocked, so I nudged the door open and gave the pharmacy a quick, cursory check. It was unoccupied. I stared at all of the museum displays and placards, and wished fervently that the pharmacy still had some real drugs or medicine in it, rather than the empty bottles we used on the tour to make the surroundings look authentic, as they had when the bunker was operational. At that moment, I craved painkillers almost more than I did food. There was nothing in the room that I could use for a weapon, either. I considered smashing one of the glass display cases or mirrors, but the risk of being overheard wasn’t worth it for a mere shard or sliver. My razor knife, screwdriver and newspaper rod would have to suffice. I’d killed with two of them already, and was eager to try out the latest addition, as well.

Closing the pharmacy door behind me, I continued down the hall, following the siren call of Alyssa’s humming. She was doing it sporadically now, as if she’d forgotten the tune. As I neared one of the lounge areas, she started up again, but the tune sputtered into a series of choked, muffled sobs. I peeked my head through the open door and saw Alyssa kneeling on the lounge room floor. Her back was to me, and she’d buried her face in her hands. All I could see was the back of her head and her shoulders, which trembled in time with her grief. My heart broke, seeing her like that. I wanted to call out to her, wanted to run to her and take her into my arms and tell her that everything would be all right, that it would all be okay now, and that I was sorry for everything I’d done, and that we could just start over—that we could just hit the restart button and renew our relationship. We could go back to the way things were before. I desperately wanted that.

Tears ran down my bloody cheeks. I wiped them away and sniffled. If Alyssa heard me, she didn’t react. Instead, she attempted to start humming again. It only lasted a few seconds before breaking into a new round of sobs. I eased the door shut behind me, not quite closing it, but enough that we would have some privacy for our reunion. The door made no sound, and the tension began to drain from my body. I stepped closer. She was so beautiful, even from behind. Even after months trapped in this bunker. I licked my lips, trying to work up the nerve to speak. Still holding the newspaper rod, I reached for her, not quite having the courage to actually touch her and make my presence known.

“I miss you.” Her voice was muffled through her hands. “I miss you so much, Jose.”

I froze.
Jose?
My name was Pete, or Peter as she referred to me when she was annoyed or angry. Who the fuck was Jose? I thought about all of the other men in her life—family, friends and co-workers. I’d never heard her mention a Jose before. Was he her lover? Had Alyssa been cheating on me, too? Had she let me feel guilty and forced me to lie to her in an effort to protect our relationship and maintain our happiness, while seeing somebody else all the while behind my back?

My anger returned, rushing back into my body in a flood of pent-up emotion. Tremors shot through me. My hands and feet trembled. My ears burned. The blood vessels in my forehead and neck felt like they were going to burst. So did my eyeballs. They seemed to inflate inside the sockets, and I wondered what I’d see if I looked in a mirror at that moment. Would my reflection be the monster they all said I was? I thought it might. At that moment, I was okay with being the monster. Somebody had to be.

Alyssa kept crying, whispering Jose’s name over and over again. Bile burned my throat. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. My teeth sank into the fresh cuts, and the pain was exquisite. Blood ran down my chin like the juice from a fresh peach. Shivering, I went rigid. The newspaper rod slipped from my grasp and clattered to the floor, and for a brief second, time itself seemed to freeze.

Alyssa stiffened at the sound of the rod hitting the floor. Her sobs turned into a gasp. She began to turn around and I charged forward. Her eyes widened when she saw me. She tried to stand up and back away at the same time, but her feet got tangled under her. She pitched forward, and would have fallen on her face had I not been there to catch her. My arms shot out and I wrapped my hands around her throat.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered. “I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.”

Alyssa stiffened in my grasp, and tried to push me away. Her movements were weak, but frantic. I tightened my grip.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to soothe her. “I won’t let go. I’ll never let go again, sweetheart.”

Whispering soothing words of comfort, I lowered her to the floor. I tried to be gentle about it, but the back of her head smacked hard against the linoleum. Alyssa’s bangs slipped in front of her face. She twisted her body, thrashing and trying to get away, and as she did, her hair parted, revealing her eyes. Those same beautiful eyes that I’d stared into so many times before were now wide and bulging and filled with fear. Tiny red blood vessels filled the whites of them like spider-webs.

“Calm down, Alyssa.” I squeezed harder, relishing the feel as my fingers dug deep into the flesh of her throat. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her tongue popped out of her mouth like a glistening jack-in-the-box. Shifting my weight, I kept my grip on her neck and knelt on her stomach with both of my knees. Her entire body convulsed beneath me. She slapped the floor with her hands and kicked out behind us. She tried to raise her leg to knee me in the back, but I dug in deeper, sinking my fingernails into her flesh. Her tongue stuck out farther.

“See?” I hissed. “You wanted me to find you and I told you I would. Here I am, baby. You told me to look for you.”

Alyssa punched my shoulder, but I barely felt the blow.

“This is what you wanted, right? You wanted me to look for you? Or maybe you were looking for me? Or was it other men you were looking for all along? Like when we divorced. Remember that? We signed the papers and you updated your Facebook status from the parking lot outside the lawyer’s office. You’d just got done telling me that you loved me, and you were sorry it didn’t work out. Then you changed your status to single, and said you were interested in dating and looking for men. Who does that, Alyssa? Who goes from ‘I love you’ to ‘Hey, anybody on Facebook want to fuck?’ that quickly? Is that how you met Jose? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”

Alyssa didn’t respond. For a second, I got pissed off at her reticence, but then I realized that she probably wasn’t answering because I was choking the shit out of her. I thought about letting go, but found that I couldn’t. My fingers refused to obey. It felt good to squeeze her neck, so I did it some more. Her eyes grew wider. I clenched my teeth. My lips pulled back in a snarl. Saliva dripped down my chin and landed on her forehead.

“You played me, you bitch. Don’t deny it. You got me to do all your dirty work. You were just as unhappy in our marriage as I was, but you didn’t want to be the bad guy, so you played that passive-aggressive bullshit on me. Did it for so long, hoping I’d leave. Got me to fuck up so that you’d have an excuse to leave me. You couldn’t just be honest. You had to make me be the one to lie and cheat. Fucking coward.”

Alyssa struck at me again, raking her fingernails across my cheek. I gasped at the pain, and tore my head away from her reach. My cheek stung and felt warm. I put all of my weight into my knees and tightened my grip around her throat even more.

“I could have had a good thing with Hannah. She loved me. She actually fucking loved me. I didn’t have all the history and baggage with her that I have with you. I hadn’t lied to her. We could have made it work. But you couldn’t let me have that could you, Alyssa. You took her away from me. Made me turn my back on her. And then you went right out and hooked up with this…this Jose.”

Spittle flew from my lips as I said his name. Alyssa’s struggles grew weaker.

“You were looking for men? Well, you found one, Alyssa. You found a man. Congratulations. Here I am, and I’ll never let you go again.”

I kept squeezing, even after she’d stopped moving. I didn’t let go until her bladder and bowels did the same. Then I stood up quickly to avoid the mess—too quickly. The room began to spin as I gained my feet, and I reached out to steady myself and found only empty, unforgiving space. I tottered forward, stumbling, and my foot came down on Alyssa’s face. I glanced down and saw that she was no longer Alyssa, but Susan.

“Oh, shit. But…but that—”

Something warm and wet tickled my neck. I reached up to touch my face and found four long claw marks running across my cheek where Alyssa had scratched it. I looked back down at Susan’s left hand. Her nails were bloody. There was skin beneath them. My skin. My blood.

“But…”

I didn’t recognize my own voice. It was whiny and weak. Indecisive. I hated the sound of it. I stared at Susan, confused. Then someone else called out from the hallway.

“Susan? Are you okay?”

It was Phillips. Without turning around, I recognized his voice. Unlike mine, it was strong and certain and defined. Still staring down at Susan, I reached for the screwdriver in my back pocket. The door swung open and Phillips, still speaking, stepped into the pharmacy.