Authors: Andersen Prunty
Alvin turned onto Payne and gunned the accelerator. Archer ducked into an alley on the left. Alvin turned the car to the left and sped down the alley.
Archer jumped a chainlink fence to his right. Alvin ran the car into the fence. It tore it down with relative ease.
Archer was now on the wooden porch of a house. Alvin gunned the accelerator one final time and flew into the porch. The car smashed and shattered against it but did a good deal of damage to the porch. Archer stood in front of the car. Alvin could see him very clearly because the windshield was broken out. Archer had his bow in his hands and an arrow nocked but he couldn’t draw his arm back far enough because it was pinned against the house. Alvin threw himself to his left, out of the car, hitting the glass- and wood-covered ground. An arrow landed just to his left. It was a weak shot, the arrow barely penetrating the soil. If Archer were able to see him and draw a correct shot, he wouldn’t have missed. Once again, Alvin felt pretty lucky. He searched around on the ground until he came to a large sliver of wood from one of the porch railings. Maybe it would work.
It didn’t. The second he stood up, an arrow pierced the hand holding the piece of wood and he dropped it. Then he collapsed to the ground again but not before he had a chance to see that Archer was still pinned.
Think.
Another arrow landed nearby. From nearly beneath the car, Alvin scanned the wreckage of the porch. He smelled something he thought was just the gassy scent of the car. But the more he smelled it, the more it smelled different. Like propane from a grill. He looked harder. Everything was so dark and twisted up it was hard to see. Then he saw it. A propane tank sitting in the twisted metal of the grill. Further back, he saw Archer’s foot on the underside of the porch. The bastard was trapped. He wasn’t going anywhere without amputating his foot.
Alvin took off his shirt and wrapped it around one of the pieces of wood. He still had the lighter he had used on the sleeper. He pulled it from his pocket and quickly lit it. He touched the flame to the shirt until it was blazing and then tossed it toward the porch. As soon as he heard the initial
whoosh
he took off back toward the alley. He still had faith in Archer’s shooting ability so he just kept running. Turning around might mean taking an arrow in the eye.
A Hospital at Night
Part Nine
Mirabel had to leave to make her rounds. April sat in the chair and thought about funeral parlors. She was very tired. She had been awake for a very long time, the day starting relatively banal and ending in catastrophe. Ending in something she wasn’t even sure she had pieced together just yet. She wondered if it was wrong to wish Alvin would remain in a coma the rest of her life. Of course it was wrong. But, if he remained in a coma then she wouldn’t have to deal with the guilt of his death or with him. She didn’t think she could deal with him anymore. She hadn’t been able to deal with him for a long time. She knew her love was supposed to be unconditional, but she didn’t think hers was. Sometimes she thought love was the only thing she had to give and, therefore, was the only thing she could take away. She felt wrung out and exhausted. Maybe Mirabel was right. Maybe she should go check into a hotel and get some rest. Her being here wasn’t doing Alvin any good. She didn’t even want to be here. She felt like it was something she had to do. She had closed herself to Alvin a long time ago. It was sad. It was sad to admit that to herself, but it was the truth, a comfortable sadness. If it was up to her, if she didn’t have to worry about anyone talking about how heartless she was, she would have left the hospital as soon as she found out Morning was dead. He was the one she loved. Alvin had become an inconvenience but it was an inconvenience she could never abandon, not completely. She felt herself begin to nod off and squeezed her arm. The pain snapped her awake.
Mirabel was back by her side.
“I feel like such a terrible person,” April said.
“Why? Because you want him to die?”
April couldn’t say yes. She looked at the mummy sprouting tubes and nodded her head.
“That doesn’t make you crazy. It doesn’t make you like him. You know, you spend enough of your life around crazy people and start to think you’re crazy too. You start doubting everything and thinking every thought you ever had is wrong. My mom died from Alzheimer’s a couple years back. She had been in a bad way for a long time before that. We moved her in with us and, eventually, we had to put her in a nursing home. I felt bad about it. It was one of the hardest things I had ever done. But there wasn’t any other choice. And after she went into the nursing home, I begged God to take her, I
wanted
her to die. For her sake. For my sake. I didn’t want to see someone suffer like that. And then she finally passed. So far gone she didn’t even know I was standing right beside her when she took her last breath. But she talked. And she saw a lot of people. Old friends. Old family. All long since dead. Maybe they were just hallucinations, maybe she was glimpsing heaven, I don’t know, but when she finally went, I was relieved. It felt like I had my life back. It wasn’t complete anymore, not without her, but it was mine.”
April was crying again.
“I didn’t mean to make you cry.” Mirabel patted her knee. “It’s like this creepy movie my husband took me to see a few years back. It had this girl who lives in a trashy motel and she lets this man start staying with her. And he sees all these bugs,
aphids
, everywhere. On the walls. In the bed. Under his skin. It isn’t long before she’s seeing them too. By the end of the movie, I was convinced they were
every
where. Then, on the way home, you know what my husband said?”
April shook her head.
“He said, ‘There wasn’t a single bug in that movie. Them folks was just crazy.’ He was right.”
April laughed a small laugh. It felt good.
“Aw, I love you, Mirabel.” She put her arm around the older woman’s shoulder and the women laughed together.
A figure moved in front of the door, closing off the light from the hallway and plunging the room into almost total darkness.
Nine
Alvin stalked down the alley behind the house with the burning porch. He knew Archer wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of screaming. That would let Alvin know he was alive and, when the screaming stopped, it would let Alvin know he was dead. His right hand bled profusely. He held it against the thigh of his pants as he trudged along. He was bare-chested and felt stupid. He didn’t even like to take his shirt off at the beach. He supposed he could just break into one of the houses and raid their closets. That wasn’t a bad idea. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing anyway. He was lost. Everything seemed to be melting away from him. Inside and outside. Not just melting but fracturing into jagged pieces and then melting so the edges of all those sharp pieces were dulled and then they couldn’t even cut you anymore. The definition of meaninglessness. He had a purpose. To get to the Point and file a petition or some paperwork or something but everything May had told him was already starting to break up. His purpose seemed like something his brain had to seize upon and struggle with so it didn’t slip away.
From the alleyway, he came to a street he didn’t know the name of. He walked up to the first house he came to. Besides being embarrassing, it was cold without a shirt. He could probably steal a sweater.
The porch creaked beneath Alvin. He put his hand on the doorknob and noticed the house number:
1333
He squinted at the street sign on the corner. He couldn’t make it out. He stepped back off the porch and walked across the yard until he could read it. Ohio Drive. It seemed impossible. He thought May had told him it was a couple streets over from his house. He was blocks away from his house. It didn’t make any sense. Did the street just move all over the city, disappearing and reappearing? He went back up to the porch and turned the knob. The door opened freely. It was dark inside. The sound of snoring came from behind one of the doors. That must be a bedroom. The man of the house would probably have a drawer full of t-shirts and a closet full of sweatshirts. Supposing there was a man of the house. He could probably find a leather jacket or puffy winter coat with some sports team’s logo emblazoned on it. That was how people here dressed, like people just getting out of or going to prison. He opened the bedroom door. A couple lay in bed. Older. Alvin was secretly relieved by this. He had the fashion sense of an old man. Not that it mattered, he knew, but he still didn’t want to have to dress like a clown.
He hadn’t turned on any lights since coming into the house. He hadn’t needed to. Maybe his eyes were adjusting to the darkness. Or maybe those flickering lights made him feel too weird. His mouth had gone dry again. He jabbed his tongue with his finger. He gagged and nearly vomited. The room swam around him. He braced himself on a dresser and took some deep breaths. He was freezing and shivering. He needed to get a shirt on.
He pulled open a drawer. He grabbed the first white t-shirt he came to and put it on. It was pretty large. That didn’t bother him. He went to the closet and opened it. It smelled like an old person. Moth balls, maybe? Was that the smell he always associated with the elderly? Something medicinal with just a trace of bowel or bladder issues. His stomach lurched without him being able to help it. He turned away from the closet and vomited onto the floor. It spattered up onto his pants. He could see chunks of it on his shoes. The smell and the sight of it made him vomit again. He dropped down onto his knees and vomited until he had nothing but dry heaves left. He wiped his mouth with the back of his right hand, slathering blood across his lips. He stood up slowly so the room wouldn’t swirl around him again.
Focus. Focus, he told himself. Get a shirt and get to the Point. There wasn’t anyone here who could help him. It was probably just a joke Benjamin was playing on him. It was probably something he did with all the inmates. Something to get their hopes up. Maybe something to give them hope like he had tried to do with May.
He turned back to the closet and sifted through the rack until he found a button down shirt, either dark blue, brown, or black. He couldn’t tell in the dark. His night vision wasn’t that good yet. He buttoned the shirt and decided he would go check the other closets of the house to see if he could find a winter coat. When he stepped out into the living room, he jumped.
A rade stood there, glowing in the darkness and sniffing the air.
Fuck.
The rade turned, freezing Alvin with its milky stare. He thought about running back into the bedroom and hiding in the closet but knew he wouldn’t do that. How long would he be stuck there if he did? He didn’t know. How many more rades, smelling fresh meat, would show up while he was in there? Would they hurt the elderly couple sleeping in the bed? Alvin didn’t want to put them at risk. At least they were alive, somewhere, while he walked this purgatory.
The rade began walking toward him, smooth and glowing, ominously long needle fingernails extending down past its knee.
Then Alvin didn’t know if he wanted to move. He imagined those needles sliding into him. He almost longed for it. He felt all the throbbing wounds over his body, tasted the blood and vomit on the back of his tongue. All those needles could make the discomfort go away. He straightened up and faced the rade. He was ready to give himself to it.
There was a flash and a loud explosion. The rade’s head burst in a green corona. The fetid stink of a sewer filled the room. Alvin would have vomited if he’d had anything left.
He looked to his left. Benjamin Teats stood in the doorway of the house holding a shotgun against his shoulder.
“Courtesy of the police,” he said.
“Ben!” Alvin was glad to see him.
The headless rade took a couple staggering steps to the side before collapsing onto the carpet, oozing stinking green fluid.
“It took you forever to find this place,” Ben said. “I guess I overestimated your intelligence.”
“I got sidetracked. I think I found it by chance.” Even with the shirt, Alvin was still freezing. He wrapped his arms around himself.
“I’ve come here five times waiting for you.”
“I’ve only been out of the station for a day, at most. Besides, I thought you weren’t going to leave your cell?”
“I was just waiting for the right person to leave it for. I know the secret so I can leave it whenever I want.”
“Did you bash your head against the bars too?”
“No. I have the keys.” He held up a key ring and jangled them.
Alvin drew closer to him until he remembered his putrid smell.
“So,” Ben said, “I trust you have a plan?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Ben. The demolition crew is up on my house. They could detonate it at any time. I need to get to the Point so I can file some papers and make them stop. I need to get to my house and make sure they haven’t blown it up yet. I feel sick. Everyone’s turning to rust. Am I turning to rust, Ben? Is that what happens to people when they go to sleep? Is it the rust that makes them go to sleep in the first place? We need to go. We need to get out of here. We need to go. We need to go by my house. Can you take me by my house, Ben?”
“Relax,” Ben said. “I got us a car from the station, too. We’ll be able to make good time. We can cruise by your house and see how far along they are. Then I have something I need to do. Then we can go to the Point but, I have to tell you, if you don’t have any ID or anything and you’re not the only one who owns the house, it’s almost impossible to get them to reverse a decision.”
“But they
have
to. They can’t just blow up the house. Where will I go? What’ll happen to April?”
“They hardly ever detonate houses at night.”
“I thought you said it was always night.”
“And they like to detonate houses at the crack of dawn.”
“When is dawn? It has to be close. It’s been night for so long. I can’t remember the last time I saw the sun. What was it you had to do?”
“I have to settle a score. It’ll be quick. I promise.”
“Can’t you just take me to the Point?”
“No. I need your help.”
“Then you need to tell me what it is we’re doing.”
“I have to find out what happened to Lars. I have to know what happens to those people. Is that good enough for you?”
“Why?”
“Because I have to find out if life is worth living or not. If I think what happens to those people is really what happens to those people, then I’m not so sure I need to continue living. But I’ll need someone to keep an eye out. Maybe create a distraction.”
“Let’s go. We have to be quick.”
They went outside and a blast of cold air hit Alvin as they began walking toward the cruiser. He looked up at the night sky. White flakes drifted down from it.
“Is it snowing?” Alvin asked.
“No. That’s just some shit that comes from the Point. That’s how they clean out their smokestacks. They just blow everything into the sky.”
“It’s still kind of pretty.” Alvin watched the white flakes fluttering through the night sky, settling on the dirty houses and vacant lots and ruins of detonated houses. A dog howled sickly in the distance. Alvin and Ben got into the car. Alvin shivered so hard his teeth were chattering.
Ben pulled away from the curb. “No offense but you look like shit.”
“I’ve had a rough time. Archer was trying to assassinate me.”
“Oh, Archer. He was another good reason to stay in prison. You know, he’s famous for hunting rades but he hunts humans as well. You’re not the first.”
“I think I killed him.”
Ben looked momentarily stunned. “Hm.”
Ben gunned the car and nailed a rade. It got caught under the car and Alvin watched the glowing trail of green from the side mirror until the rade dislodged and went tumbling limply along the asphalt. Ben stopped at a red light and Alvin looked to his right. A skinny dog was humping the mangled corpse, bones visible, of another dog. Behind them, a dilapidated house loomed.
Alvin poked his tongue, rolled down the window, and dry heaved out of it. A horrible stink wafted from the dead dog. The living dog caught the cruiser out of the corner of his eye and started growling.
The light was still red.
“Jesus Christ.” Alvin wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Can we get the fuck out of here?”
Alvin’s voice snapped Ben out of a fog. “Oh, sorry.” He jammed the accelerator and they went speeding up Payne, diving into and skidding around an elaborate series of alleyways, before ending up in front of Alvin’s house.
“Looks like they’re still up there,” Ben said.
The house was now completely covered in the multi-colored wire, even the windows. Were April and his simulacrum in there? He imagined them fucking. He imagined April on her hands and knees while the simulacrum plugged her from behind. He imagined her barking out in furious ecstasy. He imagined her getting pregnant. He imagined her happy. He imagined both of them happy with a child.
He couldn’t give her that.
That was what he needed to get back into the house. He shook the thought away. That was ridiculous. He couldn’t just give her a baby.
He rolled the window down and leaned out.
“I’m going to the Point to fill out some paperwork!” he yelled. “You’d better not blow up my goddamn house! It’s a mistake! You blow up my house and there’s going to be hell to pay!”
A number of the workers moved to edge of the roof closest to him. He didn’t like these men in their black jumpsuits and gas masks. Why did they need gas masks anyway? They were acting like his house was toxic. The white flakes were still fluttering from the black sky. The worker in the center of the group faced Alvin, put his hands together in front of him, and made motions like he was plunging a detonator.