Ink (20 page)

Keep on knocking, you can’t come in.

Jason closed his eyes and, after several long minutes, fell asleep.

5

His father stood in the corner of his room, wrapped in shadows. Jason didn’t want to see him; the smell was enough—sweet and sickly, the kind of smell that climbed inside and stuck to the back of the throat. It wasn’t the not-father—the dadmonster—this time. Jason sat up, unafraid. His dad didn’t want to hurt him. He just wanted to talk, to stay on this side for a little longer. Once he crossed the line, he wouldn’t come back. He couldn’t.

“Son, what did you do?”

“Nothing, Dad. I didn’t do anything.”

“It’s bad, Jason. I think you know it is. You should’ve read the fine print.”

“I don’t understand.”

His dad shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It is what it is.” The words echoed off the bedroom walls. “I can’t stay long, but you have to find a way.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know you’re smart, but he’s tricky. Don’t forget that.”

How could he forget what he didn’t know? And who? Who was tricky?

“I’m sorry, son. I have to go now.” His flesh made a wet and sticky, slithery sound as he stood up, gripping the wall with his right hand.

“Wait, don’t go. Please.” Jason crossed the room and reached out. When his fingertips brushed against his dad’s hand, the smell of rot grew stronger. Thicker. He gagged and stumbled back.

His father began to spin in the corner, moving in a tight circle, and as he spun, he faded. The dark blue of his suit turned transparent, then his father turned into a spiraling column of ashy gray. It lifted from the floor like a tornado. Jason smelled burning flesh. His father’s voice twisted and turned inside the column, then a scream, high-pitched and inhuman, exploded from within. Jason stumbled back, covering his ears. A horrible nightmare of pain and rage moved inside the spiral. Something not—

Not-father! Not-father! He’s back and he wants me.

Jason scrambled back on the bed until his back pressed hard against the headboard. The scream came again and again and again and its eyes… Green, gleaming eyes, filled with a liquid hate. They bored into Jason’s, and the venom behind the gaze burned into his mind. The swirling mass lifted and moved toward the bed, toward him. The end stretched out into a long, needle-sharp point and stabbed into his left arm. The pain of a thousand needles, tipped with poison, tipped with fire, burning their way inside him. The column spun faster and faster around him, engulfing him in rushing wind and screaming fire.

Just a dream. I need to wake up. I need to wake up right now!

Caught inside the spiral, he couldn’t scream. Heat scored his cheeks. The eyes found his and screamed their fury.

Jason woke up with his hands pressed to his ears and a ragged whisper in his throat, and sat up, staring out the window at the lightening sky while his heartbeat slowly returned to normal. He pulled off his sweat-soaked T-shirt, wincing as the left sleeve stuck to his arm. After he tossed the shirt onto the floor, he looked at his arm. Smears of blood streaked the skin and oozed from a scratch, three inches long, right below the tattoo, a curved and bleeding wound that wasn’t deep, but stung when he touched it.

And he had blood underneath the fingernails of his right hand.

6

Jason picked Mitch up at eight on Friday night and took her to a small restaurant not far from her house. The spare key to his house, Shelley’s old key, rested heavy in his pocket. He hoped it would be okay. Maybe it was crazy—he and Mitch had not been dating that long—yet it felt right.

Once they’d ordered their food, he took her hand and kissed the top of it. “I meant what I said the other night,” he said against her skin.

“I know.”

“I just didn’t want you to th—”

She pressed her fingertips to his lips, cutting off his words. “I didn’t, and I meant what I said, too. I wouldn’t say something like that if I didn’t.” She took her hand away from his mouth. “You have huge circles under your eyes. You’re not sleeping well, are you?”

Jason shook his head. “No, between dad and the weird kid, I’m not.”

And the nightmares, he couldn’t forget those, but he kept them to himself.

Mitch frowned. “What weird kid?”

“The kid who lives across the street from me. The one who looked in the window that night.”

“Oh,
that
kid. Has he been peeking in the window again?”

The kid’s dull eyes hung in Jason’s memory. Why hadn’t anyone noticed just how far from normal those eyes were? “No, but I caught him in my backyard, and he’s been watching me,” Jason said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “And some neighborhood animals have gone missing. I think he might be responsible.”

“Responsible?” Mitch asked. “In what way?”

Jason looked into her eyes. “In a serial killer-in-training way.”

The waitress brought their appetizers over, then a busboy refilled Jason’s almost empty water glass, a glass he didn’t remember drinking from.

This is not a good dinner conversation at all.

“What was he doing in your backya—”

It was his turn to press fingers to lips. “No, I’m sorry I brought it up. We can talk about it some other time. I don’t want to ruin dinner, okay?”

She kissed his fingertips and smiled when he took them away. “Okay.”

“Close your eyes,” he said when they were finished with the appetizers. “And hold out your hand.” Mitch giggled, but she did both. With a shaking hand, Jason placed the key in her palm. “Okay, you can open them now.”

She looked down at the key, frowned, then smiled.

“I thought it might come in handy sometime,” Jason said. “It doesn’t mean we’re married or anything.”

Mitch laughed and curled her fingers tightly around the key.

7

After dinner they took a walk in Fells Point. Music drifted in the air from the bars around the center square and groups of patrons stood outside on the sidewalks, smoking. Five motorcycles roared by, filling the night with exhaust and engine noise.

Mitch kept her hand in his as they walked. “So tell me about this kid. He was in your backyard?”

“I found him there the other day, crouched down by my porch. He ran away before I could ask him what he was doing. I thought at first he might be looking for you, but the driveway was empty, so he knew I wasn’t home.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No, he wasn’t really doing anything. I figured I’d talk to the parents first. I just have to figure out what I’m going to say.”

They sidestepped a girl who tottered by on high heels, trailing the sour smell of vomit.

Mitch leaned up against him. “How about ‘your kid’s been looking in my windows and I found him in my backyard’?”

Jason pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Several shouts of approval rang out and when they parted, a group of guys standing on the corner raised and shook their fists, grinning. Mitch’s cheeks turned pink.

“What was that for?”

“No reason at all.”

They crossed a street still lined with cobblestones from an earlier era, passing by the same drunk girl. She stood, swaying, in the middle of the street, trying to pull off her heels, ignoring the blare of a car horn. They stepped up onto a curb and Jason stopped, looking up at the street sign—green with white lettering, like every other sign in the city: Shakespeare Street.

“Do you mind if we walk down here?”

Mitch scratched the back of her neck and peered down the street. “Is there anything down there? It just looks like old buildings.”

“Maybe,” he said, forcing his lips up into a smile.

Their shoes made little noise on the pavement, and the bar noise disappeared into a muffled hush behind them. The darkened windows of the buildings loomed like giant, unseeing eyes, and Jason fought a wave of unease, but if Mitch felt anything, it didn’t show.

And what was he going to say when they get there and saw that blank brick wall? What was he going to tell her? He got his tattoo in a shop that didn’t exist? Impossible. He didn’t see it the other night because he was upset, then the homeless man showed up, and things got weird.

The light from the streetlamps didn’t illuminate the street; they filled it with shadows. Farther down, the glow from the streetlamps vanished into gray as if the street just stopped.

“Why so quiet?” Mitch asked.

He kept his voice low. “I don’t know. Just thinking, I guess.”

She pressed her shoulder up against his. “The buildings are different on this street. I don’t think I’ve ever come this way. See the arches above the windows?”

Jason tipped his head back. “Yes.”

“I know my street doesn’t have them. I don’t know, it makes them a little…creepy. They all look empty, too.”

Another wave of unease slipped under his skin.

Maybe the buildings are different because this street is different. Maybe we’re not in Fells Point anymore. Maybe this is one of those streets in between the real streets, just like Sailor’s shop is between the real buildings.

He laughed at the absurdity of his own thoughts.

“Okay, what’s so funny?”

“I was just thinking this is kind of stupid. There isn’t anything down here, after—”

1301.

The café. The closed café. He didn’t think it was ever open. It was an illusion, like the fake western towns in the theme parks. Maybe none of the buildings were real.

“Jason?”

He’d stopped right in front of the café. If he took another step, he’d be in front of 1305.

But there’s nothing in between. Just a space where the door should be.

“Jason, is everything okay?” A crease marred the skin between her brows.

Just take the step. Just one step.

His right foot lifted, as if in slow motion, swung forward, and came back down, then the left foot—up, over, down. A thin trail of laughter slipped from his lips. A door with faded gray paint. The old brass handle. The weathered sign. The numbers. 1303. No need to step back and stare. No need to touch palms to brick. The entrance sat exactly where it should be, because doors didn’t disappear.

Mitch had a half smile on her face, but the crease remained—a tiny frown of worry. “What?”

“This is the tattoo shop. Where I got mine done.”

“Here?”

“Yes.” Jason looked over his shoulder. Shadows lined the street, but no people, homeless or otherwise. His arm gave a tiny throb of pain and he rubbed it, hard.

“It looks abandoned.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

Mitch stepped back, close to the curb, and looked up. “It’s weird. I can’t tell which windows belong with what door. It’s like they’re all part of the same building. They’re all dark, too. The shop must be closed.”

Jason stepped closer and stretched out his hand. For one split second, his hand passed through the air where the handle should be, and the hairs on his arm stood on end, then his hand touched the brass, the metal warm under his hand. His arm throbbed again. It would be locked, but it was okay because now he knew the shop was really there. He pushed. The door swung open with a low creak, and Jason jumped.

Mitch giggled. “I guess it’s open after all.”

The hallway appeared exactly as Jason remembered. Pale gray walls, worn steps, narrow stairs and the sickly yellow lighting. Dim lighting. Shadows concealed the top of the stairs. All the hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention.

“So, are we going to go up?”

“Do you want to?”

“Sure. I want to meet this guy,” she said, but her voice held hesitation.

She doesn’t want to go. If I just tell her we should go, she’d say okay. And I should, but I want to. I think.

Jason crossed the threshold first. As he stepped up onto the first step, Mitch slid her hand into his. The yellow light turned her eyes green; something about the color struck him as oddly familiar, but he brushed it away. Another jolt of pain, small and sharp, burned in his arm.

“Ewww, mold,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “You really had your tattoo done here?”

“Yes,” Jason said. “But the shop doesn’t look like this at all.”

The steps creaked and groaned as they went up. With each step, Mitch’s grip grew tighter. Jason kept his eyes forward, refusing to look at the swirling wallpaper; the faces could move all they wanted.

“Ugh,” Mitch said in a whisper. “My grandmother had wallpaper like this in her bathroom. I hated taking a bath at her house. The paper always looked like faces watching me. It was creepy as hell.”

Jason didn’t know how many steps they climbed when Mitch stopped. She pushed a strand of hair behind her ears and frowned. “It’s weird. Doesn’t it feel like we’ve been walking up a long time? What floor is the shop on?”

“I don’t remember,” Jason said. He didn’t remember the staircase being so tall or so narrow. He and Mitch’s shoulders touched, even though he stood one step ahead of her.