Chain Letter (35 page)

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“I’m fine.” He lay down again. He heard her pour out a little oil and rub it briskly
between her palms. She laid her hands gently on his back, and her touch was soft and
greasy. He sighed involuntarily with pleasure. She began to rub the oil into his skin.

“Does that feel good?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you still thinking about Alison?”

“No,” he lied.

“You’re lying. That’s OK. You won’t be thinking about her soon.” Her hands shifted
under the towel, and before he could stop her, she had pulled off his underwear and
then re-covered him.

“Hey,” he protested.

“You’re too uptight,” she said, returning to her exquisite
massaging of the muscles along his spine. As her fingers probed deeper, he realized
just how tight he was. His back was one huge spastic muscle. It was funny how Alison
had never offered to rub his back before. There were a lot of things she had never
done for him that Sasha was already doing. Like being a friend when times were tough,
rather than a cheating bitch. He just couldn’t get that phrase out of his head.

Cheating bitch. Cheating bitch. Goddamn bitch.

Swear words had been invented for times like this.

“I appreciate this,” he mumbled.

“You just relax and go on appreciating it. Go to sleep if you want. Alison’s nothing.
Forget her. She’s already forgotten you.”

“I want to forget her,” Tony whispered. He let her touch travel all over his skin,
the scented oil sinking deeper into his pores. Every now and then she’d lightly scratch
him, making the nerves at the base of his spine moan with pleasure. But he didn’t
get sexually aroused. He was too exhausted. It occurred to him, just before he passed
out that the oil smelled like the rest of the apartment. It wasn’t a particularly
pleasant odor. He figured she must have got it at the hospital. He’d have to tell
her to use something else—next time.

Tony went to sleep.

The nightmare started where it had left off.

· · ·

He was back in the vast abyss of despair. The place of red and purple lights, foul
smells, and far-off cries. The pit of loud
thunder and watchful eyes. He was approaching the huge dark wall, and this time he
could see it clearly. It seemed to divide the very universe in two. But what a universe
it was. On one side was pain. On the other was only more pain. What choice could he
make? All he knew was he didn’t want to join the tortured people. He knew they were
trapped for eternity.

As he closed in on the wall, he saw that it was riddled with black portals or holes.
There was no wind, yet he felt himself being sucked toward one of them, and he was
unable to stop himself. His panic grew as the narrow opening swelled into a maw capable
of swallowing a battleship. He drifted inside, and the lights and thunder were lost
behind him. He was in a vacuum of blackness. Yet the sulfuric fumes had thickened.
He felt himself smothering and prayed for it to end, but even as he did so he knew
he was in a place where prayers were no longer heard.

But was that true? Or was it just another of
their
lies?

Them. The Caretakers.

Suddenly, in the black void, he could see into a bedroom lit by moonlight flooding
into rectangular windows. He saw the place as a slice of reality cut out of his space
of nonexistence. But the slice grew as he moved toward it, and soon he was inside
the bedroom, although he could still sense the void behind him, waiting for him to
return. On the bed lay his friend Kipp, snoring peacefully.

“Kipp,” Tony said softly. “Can you hear me? Wake up. Where am I?”

His friend stirred and sat up. “Hello? Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Kipp. Tony. I’m right here.”

Kipp didn’t hear him. But he heard something. “Hello? Mary Lou?” Kipp climbed out
of the bed in his underwear and walked to the bedroom door, passing right by Tony.
Kipp peeked out into the hallway. It was then Tony noticed the noise that had awakened
Kipp. He had to assume Kipp hadn’t heard him since he didn’t seem able to see him.

Am I a ghost? Am I dead?

The noise was coming from downstairs. Kipp started to call out to his aunt again—Tony
remembered that Kipp’s aunt’s name was Mary Lou—when he decided to go investigate
the noise himself. Tony didn’t like that idea. He ran after Kipp as he made his way
down the stairs.

“Don’t go outside,” Tony said. “One of the Caretakers might be out there. Kipp! Listen
to me!”

But Kipp wasn’t listening. Still in his underwear, he walked to the front door and
opened it and peeked outside. The noise appeared to be coming from the garage. It
sounded like someone scratching a rake across the hood of a car.

“Who’s there?” Kipp called.

“It’s one of them!” Tony pleaded, standing at his friend’s side. “Don’t go out there.”

“Hello?” Kipp called again. He went outside. Tony tried to grab hold of his arms,
but he could have been trying to grab his own reflection in a mirror. Kipp strode
across the
overgrown lawn and entered the garage through a side door.

“Oh, God, stop!” Tony cried.

The raking noise inside the garage had stopped. Kipp fumbled for a light, but when
he threw the switch, the garage remained dark. Kipp frowned. His eyes grew wide when
he noticed that the paint on one side of his aunt’s car had been largely scratched
away.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tony hissed. “Get out of here.”

Kipp heard a sound coming from the bowels of the garage. Brave fool that he was, he
walked toward it. “Hello?” Kipp said.

A wave of liquid came flying out of the dark directly at Kipp. In a moment he was
drenched, and a metal bucket clamored to the concrete floor in front of him. Kipp
hardly had a second to register what was happening before a wooden match flared to
life, scraped along the side of the ruined car by a figure wrapped in black shadow.
Tony’s nose was working fine, and the air stunk of gasoline.

“Kipp!” Tony screamed even though Kipp couldn’t hear his words.

The shadowy figure tossed the burning match toward Kipp. It bounced harmlessly off
his chest without igniting the gasoline, but it landed in the puddle at his feet.
Kipp stared down at the tiny orange flame, amazed, but only for a second before he
was transformed into a human torch. The flames whipped up his legs all the way to
his hair, and the scream that poured out of Kipp’s throat rent Tony’s heart. Kipp
thrashed
up and down like a demented scarecrow for several seconds in the worst imaginable
pain a human being could experience.

Tony tried to grab him, to hold him, to do something for him. But he couldn’t, and
it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late. Kipp fell to his blackened knees, and his
screams began to die as the flesh surrounding his mouth was peeled away in crisp layers.
Yet the screams didn’t stop for Tony. After he watched his friend slowly die, he was
suddenly back in the black portal that ran between the two hells. And the screams
of those on the far side of the wall were no longer so distant, no longer so different
from human wails. In fact, they sounded very much the same as Kipp did as he passed
out of the world of the living. Filled with anguish, devoid of hope, forever forsaken. . . .

· · ·

Tony opened his eyes and found himself staring up at a strange ceiling. At first he
hadn’t the slightest idea where he was. Nor did he care. He was just happy the nightmare
was over. Never in his worst dreams had he experienced anything so terrible.

Tony moved his head to the side and saw Sasha curled up in a sleeping ball on the
couch. The entire evening came back to him in a flash. The relief of waking from the
nightmare faded as he remembered Alison’s betrayal. How could she have been kissing
another man when she said she still loved him? She was worse than the Harlot of Babylon.
She was a whore. Sasha had said it right.

Tony sat up and shivered. Except for the towel around
his waist, he was naked. He couldn’t imagine how Sasha had managed to turn him over
without waking him. But he’d been under a lot of stress lately. He was exhausted.
He had to get home and into bed.

The images from his nightmare wouldn’t leave him, though. Watching Kipp burn had seemed
so real. Tony wondered why he had dreamed Kipp was at his aunt’s house, although it
would be a logical place for Kipp to run. Kipp had not told anyone where he was going.
Hugging the towel around his waist, Tony slipped off the massage table and tiptoed
into the kitchen with his phone. He was being silly, he knew, but it couldn’t hurt
to give Kipp a call and see how he was doing. Tony dialed, and a moment later he had
Kipp on the phone. It sounded as if he had woken his friend up. Made sense—it was
the middle of the night. Tony didn’t mind. It was such a relief to hear Kipp’s voice.

“Yeah, what is it, Tony?” Kipp mumbled.

“I wanted to see if you were all right.”

Kipp yawned. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry to wake you. Go back to sleep. Call you in a couple of days.”

“Everything cool there?”

“Everything’s cool,” Tony told him. “Good night. You got your night-light on?” It
was a reference to a remark Kipp had made just before Neil had kidnapped him. Kipp
laughed quietly.

“Sure do,” Kipp said. “Happy dreams, buddy.”

Tony set the phone down. He walked back into the living room, still clutching his
towel, and found Sasha sitting on the couch. A tunnel of moonlight cut through a nearby
window and landed on her legs. But her face remained dark. Her green eyes—he could
hardly see them.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Where are you going?”

“Nowhere.” He reached for his pants.

“You must be going somewhere.” She stood and smoothed her nightgown over her sleek
hips. “You’re getting dressed.”

“I have to go home.” He couldn’t find his underwear. What had she done with it? She
strode across the room and put her hands on his shoulders, interrupting his search.

“Why?” she asked.

“You don’t want me staying the night.”

In response she reached up and kissed him on the lips. A hard wet kiss. And he kissed
her back, and her hand went around the back of his neck, into his hair, and began
to pull at his blond strands until they hurt. He yanked away from her and took a breath.
She mocked him with a naughty smile.

“Why can’t you stay?” she asked again.

Her lips had tasted like pure pleasure. Suddenly he couldn’t think of a single reason.
“All right,” he said. “But I’ve been told I snore.”

She took his hand and led him toward her bedroom. “Who told you that? Alison?”

He hesitated. “Yeah.”

“Is that who you were calling?”

“No. I was calling a friend of mine—Kipp Coughlan. He’s staying with his aunt in Santa
Barbara for a few days.”

“Why?”

“There’s some trouble that he’s trying to stay out of. It’s a long story.”

They entered her bedroom, and she let go of his hand and pulled back the covers. He
couldn’t believe what he was doing. He was about to make love to a girl other than
Alison. He should have felt no guilt, after what he had seen that night. But he did—plenty
of guilt. He felt scared, too, and he didn’t know why. Sasha took his hand again and
pulled him onto the bed and kissed him some more. These kisses were softer, slower,
like the strokes of her massaging fingers when they were not probing deep into his
sore body. She scratched her fingernails across his hard belly.

“Tell me your long story,” she whispered.

“You don’t want to hear it.”

“But I do. It’s on your mind. I want to put your mind at ease.” She nibbled on his
ear with her wet teeth. “I want to make you happy.”

Tony began to talk. He didn’t know why. Maybe because he was exhausted. Maybe because
he was in the arms of a beautiful
girl. He talked a lot. He told her about Neil and the original chain letters. He even
told her about the new Caretaker, and the horrible nightmares he’d been having. Sasha
listened silently between caresses and kisses. When he was done, she just nodded and
touched him all over, and kissed him so deep he felt as if he were being swallowed
whole. But she didn’t let him make love to her. She kept her nightgown on the entire
night and eventually he fell asleep and dreamed no more.

E
ric called Alison early Sunday morning. He had good news and bad news. The new owner
of James Whiting’s record store was not going to be in till Tuesday, and the help
refused to give out his home number. That was the bad news. The good news was that
James Whiting’s brother was the guy who had bought the store. If anyone knew where
James had been during those missing two weeks, it should be him, Eric thought. Eric
told Alison to keep her head low and call him if anything happened between then and
Tuesday. All day Sunday Alison tried to reach Tony, with no luck. His parents didn’t
know where he was. That made her worry all the more.

Come Monday there was still no sign of Tony.

He didn’t even show up for Fran’s funeral.

They buried Fran in the same cemetery where Neil had
been laid to rest. Of course, Neil had been alive at the time of his funeral, and
they had unknowingly spent the afternoon mourning the remains of James Whiting. Such
could not be said for Fran. As the doctor at the hospital had said, she was as dead
as they came. Alison stood dressed in black beside Brenda and couldn’t be free of
the idea that Fran lay only a couple feet away without her head properly attached.
The attending minister spoke about the valley of the shadow of death and lying down
in green pastures to rest beside clear waters. It all sounded like a badly written
fairy tale to Alison. If there was a God, he was keeping his address secret. Maybe
he didn’t want to get a chain letter. Alison was beginning to believe the Caretaker
was working for the devil. She had had a hellish dream the night before, filled with
weird colored lights, sick smells, and tortured souls.