Johnny Gruesome (20 page)

My fucking hair!

His rosy lips and cheeks made him resemble a clown or a department store mannequin. Gray flesh peeked out through the furrows Todd’s fingers had dug through the layer of mortician’s wax covering his face. Using both hands, he wiped away as much of the wax as possible without using soap and water. God only knew what that would do to his complexion!

Drawing his lips into a snarl, he gazed at the twisted barbed wire protruding from his dry gums. He gripped the wire between the thumb and forefinger on his right hand and untwisted the wires, then pulled each one out, his hand trembling with effort. Pink formaldehyde spurted at the mirror and ran down the glass like blood. Tilting his head back, he reached inside his mouth. His fingers tickled the back of his throat, but with no gag reflex, it was easy for him to withdraw the cotton Old Man Lawson had stuffed down there. He threw the cotton and wire into a wastebasket, then clawed at his neck, scratching off the mortician’s wax and exposing the purplish black bruise that encircled his neck.

He stripped nude, disgusted by the plastic underwear, a diaper, really, and gaped at his dead gray body; Lawson had only made up his head and hands. His body hair had grown longer. He rummaged through his dresser drawers, took out gym socks and briefs, and pulled them on. Next, he stepped into his favorite pair of black Levis, and pulled a wide belt with a leering, pewter skull buckle through the loops. Opening his closet door, he examined his assortment of black T-shirts, feeling pressure to assemble the perfect ensemble. He found one with a glowing green rib cage printed on it and he snatched it from its hanger and jerked it over his head. He removed his M.C. jacket from the box and pulled it on, then plucked his skull rings from a clear plastic bag and returned them to his long fingers. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his boots. Standing before the full-length mirror he thought,
Fuckin’ A.

He strode over to the plywood shelves he had built for his comic books, CDs, and DVDs. Action figures and model kits posed on the black shelves, their grotesque faces staring back at him. Freddy, Michael, Jason, Leatherface, and Chucky mingled with the classics: Frankenstein’s monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Phantom of the Opera, and the Zuni Warrior fetish doll. He had always loved monsters.

Twisting his lips into a grin, he spoke in a hoarse voice:

“Gruesome.”

I
n her bedroom, Karen used a rolled-up dollar bill to snort two lines of coke, then dabbed at the excess powder with her fingers, which she rubbed against her gums. Her entire mouth turned numb. And right now, she liked feeling numb.

Gary had dropped her off at home after the funeral, and she had dashed upstairs to her bedroom with her new stash. An hour later, she lay on her bed, gazing at the ceiling, her mind clouded as Slipknot blasted from her CD player. She lit a cigarette, licked residue from her gums, and moaned.

Gary had done all right by her. He was right: she did feel better. Johnny had disapproved of anything harder than weed, but Gary knew how to party. And he’d re-upped her at the funeral. She massaged her nose.

Gary.

She didn’t want to encourage him, but he offered her the support she needed. And he had promised to get her more stuff anytime she wanted it, free of charge. How could she pass that up?

The telephones throughout the house rang in synch, one in her mother’s bedroom, one in the living room, and another in the kitchen. She sat up, her eyes wide and unblinking. Maybe that was Gary now. She hoped not. She didn’t trust herself to be around him when she was high. She stood, wearing nothing but a long T-shirt, and crossed the hall to her mother’s room. Sniffing, she cleared her throat and lifted the phone from its cradle. “Hello?”

Silence on the other end.

“Hello?”

Dead quiet.

“Who is this?”

Click.

She set the phone down, agitated that she had left her room for nothing, and turned to head back.

The phone rang again.

She stopped in the doorway and turned toward it, an unnerved expression on her face. Didn’t coke make you paranoid? She seized the instrument in midring. “Hello?”

No response.

“Listen, asshole, if you don’t stop this right now I’m calling the cops.”

Click
.

Good, she thought, hanging up.
That will show him—whoever he is.

Her hand had barely left the phone when it rang again, causing her to jump. She swallowed, her heartbeat gaining speed. The ringing filled her ears and pierced her brain. She snatched the phone and raised it to her mouth. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Go to hell, you son of a bitch!”

She slammed the phone down, then picked it up, checking for a dial tone, and pressed star-sixty-nine. A moment later, she heard an automated message from an operator: she had reached a cell phone that had no voice mailbox activated. She hung up and made it as far as the hallway before the phone rang again. She faced it, her movements strained, and slid one hand over her heart.

She didn’t want to answer it, so she marched along the hall, the telephones downstairs ringing. She closed her bedroom door, picked up the rolled-up bill on her bureau, and snorted more coke.

The sky had darkened by the time the limousine dropped Charlie off at the house, where he had changed into his street clothes and put on his coat and hat. He had already decided not to visit Tommy’s Lounge that night; he needed to grieve in private. But he still needed to get shit faced. So he walked six long blocks to Darry’s Liquor Store, where he bought two bottles of vodka. He nodded to the cashier, whom he knew only by face, and walked home against the wind.

Inside the great empty house, he retrieved a glass from a kitchen cupboard, then sagged into his favorite living room chair. Removing both bottles from the brown paper bag, he set them on the end table. He opened one, filled his glass halfway, and took a deep gulp. The vodka burned his tongue and throat, and his body stopped shaking. He reached for the remote control and turned on the TV. A Sabers game came on and he saw they held a two-point lead over the Toronto Maple Leafs. He had no interest in watching anything; he just wanted some background noise. Christ, he needed to get rid of this house. He and Helen had purchased it after Johnny turned two, moving out of their apartment on Front Street.

Fifteen years ago.

Helen’s life insurance policy had paid off the remainder of the mortgage. Thank God she’d planned ahead. He suspected she’d known she was dying long before her diagnosis. His disability pay covered the taxes, barely, and put food on the table. And booze in his blood.

He could have provided his son with a better life. He could have gotten a job despite the intense pain in his lower back, where two discs had herniated in a fall from a scaffold, pain that had only increased with his waist size. He could have used what little cash he had for Johnny, instead of pouring it down his throat. So many wasted nights.

Wasted years.

He stood, weaving as he reached for the framed photograph on the TV. Helen, alive, and Johnny, age twelve, stared back at him, smiling.

My wife and son.

Sagging back into his chair, he barely recognized himself in the photo: slim, with a full head of hair, grateful for the present and looking forward to the future. He choked back a sob, and a teardrop splashed the glass in the frame. He wiped both eyes with the back of one hand, guttural sounds issuing from his throat.

A sudden thump overhead made him raise his eyes to the ceiling, listening. The sound hadn’t come from the ceiling; it had come from the floor above the ceiling. With effort, he got to his feet.

Johnny’s room—?

A sonic boom shook the house to its foundation, reverberating through his bloated heart. He flung his arms up, dropping the photo, and didn’t hear the frame strike the floor as the deafening roar shook the structure. The explosive sound dropped in volume, forming recognizable sounds: Screams. Screeches. Guitars.

Heavy-metal music.

Whoever had just turned on the CD player failed to notice that Johnny left the volume cranked up. The floor continued to vibrate.

He stepped into the hallway, moving through darkness, and stared up the stairway. Yellow light outlined Johnny’s bedroom door. The music came from the other side of the door. He swallowed hard.

Had someone decided to break into Johnny’s room after reading about the funeral arrangements in the
Red Hill Gazette?
Johnny owned nothing of value. His sound system and electric guitar had been purchased used, and his car had been destroyed in the accident.

Charlie stared at the door.

I should call Matt,
he told himself as he turned on the stairway light and slid his hand up the banister, the wood cold to his touch.

He raised his left foot and held it poised in the air before placing it on the first stair. Then he pulled on the banister, his right foot settling on the second stair. He squeezed the wood, knuckles whitening as he forced his body up the stairs, which groaned beneath his weight. Sweat formed on his brow. His fingers clawed the banister, his heart rate quickening. His eyes never shifted from the light around the door. The music grew louder as he neared the top of the stairs, and soon he no longer heard the stairs protesting his movement.

A shadow glided across the floor on the other side of Johnny’s door.

Trembling, Charlie crossed the upstairs hall and stopped at the door. Frozen with fear, he stared at the knob. Unable to move his arms, he stood there, his breathing labored. Sweat trickled down his face, and his underarms turned sticky. Smelling his own fear, he raised his right hand, moved it forward, and wavered.

Do it, goddamn it!

He closed his hand around the knob, then twisted it left and right.

Locked.

The light inside the room went off, and the music came to an abrupt end. Charlie’s heart stuttered in his chest. The sudden silence terrified him more than the music had. Releasing the knob, he spun around and charged downstairs, his footsteps thundering. He didn’t run to the closet to fetch his coat, or bolt outside without it, or even call the police. Instead, he ran straight into the living room, threw himself into his chair, and seized the open vodka bottle by its neck. He raised the bottle to his lips and tilted his head back, chugging the vodka like water.

Eric awoke with a start, gasping for breath. He sat up, digging his fingers into the fabric beneath him. Images of the Death Mobile submerged at the bottom of the school swimming pool lingered in his mind. Only the streetlight shining through the curtains assured him he had awakened from the nightmare in his own bed. The wind howled outside, and he wished he didn’t occupy a corner bedroom. The digital clock on his bedside table flashed 1:17 a.m. at him. He lay back down, his chest rising and falling. Almost six more hours until he had to get up.

Plenty of time for more nightmares.

His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, focusing on the dark light fixture in the ceiling. He threw his left arm over his eyes, shielding them, and tried to sleep. The funeral had provoked the nightmare, he reasoned, but what had inspired his subconscious to fabricate the image of his jaws fastened together with barbed wire? He’d never heard of such a thing. His heartbeat slowed and his breathing returned to normal.