It took him almost two hours but Dale managed to unpack, organize, and decorate his den. His bookcases were filled with books on Web design, true crime, and detective thrillers, along with crime-scene investigation and police procedure and old erotic novels from Anais Nin, Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, Henry Miller, and de Sade. In several boxes that remained unopened were black-market DVDs and old VHS tapes of vintage pornography, including S-and-M movies from the eighties and nineties and some more modern torture films.
His computer was up and working. A picture of his mom and dad hung on the wall opposite the window. He had even hung up a couple of movie posters from two of his favorite movies,
Pulp Fiction
and
Reservoir Dogs
. Dale loved Quentin Tarantino movies. Tarantino was his favorite director.
Dale had posters of several Russ Meyers films still rolled up that he was planning to hang in his bedroom. That would be his next project. The movers hadn’t even put his bed together and his mattress and box
spring were leaning against the door to the master bathroom. At this rate, he wouldn’t be done until well after dark. That would just barely leave him time for dinner and a brief nap before it was time to visit the new neighbors.
Sarah watched Josh rinse the dishes and stack them in the dishwasher while she curled up on the couch waiting for
Real Time with Bill Maher
to start. Josh had made dinner tonight and she had to admit that it wasn’t half bad. He’d found a recipe for enchiladas in one of those little recipe books you picked up at the supermarket and had baked her some, using tortillas, Monterey Jack cheese, fire-roasted red chilies, cream-of-mushroom soup, and Old El Paso green enchilada sauce. It was actually pretty good and Sarah had eaten half the pan. She’d have to do a long run tomorrow or else she’d be packing on the pounds. She knew Josh would love her even if she got fat.
“Would you still love me if I gained a bunch of weight?” It didn’t hurt to ask.
“When you marry a woman, you always have to assume that she’s gonna gain at least thirty or forty pounds. You’ve still got like twenty pounds to go.”
“What? I’m still the same size I was when you met me.”
“I don’t know about that. You’ve been eating a lot of ice cream lately.”
“You’re a pig. You know that don’t you? A male-chauvinist pig.”
“That’s just how you like me.”
“Now you’ve got me thinking about ice cream. Why don’t you run to the store and get us some?”
“Why don’t you? I cooked dinner. Remember?”
Sarah hugged the afghan wrapped around her.
“But I’m so comfy.”
“You’re the one who wants ice cream. I’m just the guy who deserves it.”
“You’re such a jerk. I can’t believe you’re trying to make me feel guilty.”
“Guilty for what? For not getting ice cream for your poor tired hubby after he’s worked hard all week and then slaved over a hot stove all day to make you a nice meal? I did cook you breakfast
and
dinner.”
“Well, I made lunch and you burned the pancakes this morning, so we’re even. But the enchiladas were pretty good. I guess that’s worth a trip to the grocery store.”
“Wait until I finish with the dishes. I’ll go with you.”
“That’s a good hubby.”
“Don’t push it, woman.”
Josh and Sarah were arm in arm, looking like new love as they walked out of the house and climbed into their SUV. When they drove off, they glanced only casually at the house across the street. There was a light on in the den and Sarah thought she could make out the silhouette of the neighbor’s head through the closed blinds.
An hour later they were curled up in bed with a couple pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, watching
Dexter
on Showtime. Sarah was asleep before the credits rolled.
Josh must have gotten up and turned off the television after she’d fallen asleep because the room was
completely black when Sarah awoke suddenly to the sound of her husband choking. She reached out for him and her hand came back wet. Josh was bleeding. His throat had been cut. He was choking on his own blood. When Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the new neighbor standing above her husband, stabbing him in his chest again and again.
“Oh my God! What are you doing? Josh! Oh my God! Josh! Get the fuck away from my husband! You’re killing him! Heeelllp!”
Sarah grabbed hold of her husband and began scrambling off the bed, trying to drag him with her, away from the crazed man with the knife.
The neighbor put the knife, dripping with her husband’s blood, against Sarah’s throat and raised a finger to his lips.
“Shhhhhhh. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I don’t want to kill you but I will and I’ll enjoy it.” Dale smiled to emphasize the point. “I’m going to fuck you anyway. Dead or alive.”
“Y-you-you killed Josh. Oh my God. You killed him!”
The neighbor’s fist lashed out and punched Sarah in her mouth, knocking her back onto the bed.
“I told you to be quiet. Since you won’t cooperate, I’m just gonna have to kill you first.”
The neighbor climbed over her husband’s corpse and straddled Sarah’s stomach. He drew the knife across Sarah’s throat, cutting through both her jugular vein and carotid artery and lacerating her windpipe all in one clean cut. Sarah watched her own blood spray out over her breasts. She was struggling to breathe, lungs filling with blood, drowning, as she watched the neighbor begin to undress. When she saw him remove his
erect penis from his pants she hoped that she would be long dead before she felt that puny uncircumcised thing inside of her.
The neighbor was fondling her bloodied breasts and stroking his ugly little cock. Her blood squished between his fingers as he squeezed her breasts and pinched her nipples. Sarah was beginning to lose consciousness. The neighbor slid his cock between her breasts and was using the blood from her severed throat as lubrication as he fucked her tits. When he finally came, his cum splashing onto her neck and face and mingling with the blood in a sickening mess of red and white, Sarah had already begun to convulse. By the time the neighbor was hard again, she was already dead, sparing her from feeling his cock between her thighs and in her mouth.
It was still dark when Sarah woke up in her bed with the taste of blood and semen on her tongue. Josh was snoring quietly beside her. The sheets smelled fresh, like they had just been washed. So did Sarah. Even Josh smelled unusually clean. He smelled like Irish Spring and ammonia. Sarah screamed.
She kept screaming even when Josh woke up and wrapped his big, strong arms around her. Even when he began to rock her back and forth and stroke her hair and tell her that everything would be okay. She was still screaming as he kissed the tears from her eyes. His eyes were half closed and he was still blinking the sleep from his eyes and trying to clear his head but even half-asleep his first priority had been her.
“It’s okay, Sarah. It was just a bad dream. Everything’s okay.”
Sarah checked Josh’s neck and chest. Then she checked
her own. There were no wounds, no blood. She dropped her head onto Josh’s shoulder and began to weep.
“That sick bastard. You don’t know what he did to me. He killed us. You were dead. We both were. The new neighbor…that guy…uh, Dale…he murdered us!”
“It was just a dream.”
“No! He stabbed me! He stabbed you and…and he raped me! It wasn’t a dream!”
“Baby, you’re okay. You’re not dead. I’m not dead. It was a dream. That’s all. A bad dream. Now go back to sleep. You’re safe. I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Sarah laid her head down on the pillow and pulled Josh’s arms around her. He snuggled up against her back, spooning with her as she slowly drifted back to sleep. He didn’t notice the door across the street open and the porch light click off, but Sarah did. Sarah shivered and began to weep again. She buried her face in the pillow and shook her head back and forth.
“No. No. No. No.”
It was a long time before she fell asleep again.
When Sarah woke the next morning she didn’t remember anything that had happened the night before. Her mouth still tasted like pennies and the smell of soap and disinfectant still permeated the air, tickling the fine hairs in Sarah’s nostrils. She stretched, looked over at Josh, who was already dressed and ready for work, and smiled.
“Good morning, lover.”
“Good morning. That must have been one hell of a dream you had last night.”
“What?”
“You woke up screaming in the middle of the night. You said you had a dream about that guy who just moved in across the street killing both of us?”
“That little skinny guy? I’d probably kick his ass.”
“You said he raped you and stabbed us both to death.”
“Wow. He must have really creeped me out the other day. I don’t remember any of that.”
Sarah looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was seven thirty in the morning.
“Aren’t you late for work?”
“I’ve got a few minutes. I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I left.”
“I’m fine. Go ahead and get to work. I’ll let you know if the neighbor tries to break in and kill me.”
Sarah winked coyly and draped her arms around the back of Josh’s neck and gave him a light kiss on the lips.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“Not unless you’re going to spend the day fucking me. But honestly, I’m still sore from yesterday. I need a few hours to rest up.”
“You are incorrigible.”
“Maybe dreaming about the neighbor all night made me horny.”
“Dreaming about Santa Claus makes you horny.”
“He does look good in those big leather boots and he carries a whip.”
“You have problems.”
“And you have fifteen minutes to get to work.”
Josh bent over and kissed Sarah again.
“Good-bye, sweetheart.”
“Bye, lover.”
Sarah rolled back over and snuggled up against her pillow as she listened to Josh’s footfalls descend the stairs and walk out the front door. The door closed quietly with just a slight click and then the garage door rose as Josh pulled the SUV out of the garage. Sarah squeezed the pillow and a small red dot appeared on the pillowcase. She threw back her sheets and the indentation of her body was outlined with blood that had seeped up through the mattress.
“What the hell?”
Sarah climbed from the bed looking at the bloody mattress and pillow. Vague, dreamlike memories, nightmarish flashes of blood and meat and pain drifted into
her head, then fled almost as soon as they appeared, leaving terrifying afterimages and a horrible feeling of unease. Images of Josh with his throat cut open, the neighbor’s face grinning at her, her own breasts splattered with blood. Bile rose in her throat, burning her esophagus.
“Oh, God. Oh, God. What’s going on? What the hell is going on?”
Sarah ran into the bathroom and regurgitated into the toilet. The image of the neighbor fucking her blood-soaked breasts with his oily little cock invaded her mind and she vomited again and again until green stomach bile was the only thing that would come up. Sarah sat by the toilet, trying to catch her breath, the nightmares receding from memory. She stood up, walked into the bedroom, and began stripping the sheets from the bed.
The mattress looked like an abattoir. It was saturated in red. There was a small red puddle where she had lain. The blood had soaked through the sheets and stained the bottom of the comforter.
“What the hell?”
Sarah flipped the mattress, then took the sheets downstairs along with the stained comforter. Her hands shook and tears ran down her cheeks as she shoved them into the washing machine. She dumped a scoop of detergent into the machine, turned it on, and ran out of the room.
Scooping up her cell phone, she dialed Josh’s number. There was no answer. He must have already been on the casino floor. The voice mail picked up after six rings.
“Josh? I think something’s wrong with me. I’m bleeding. I mean…I think I am. There’s blood all
over the mattress. I don’t think I’m on my period, but there’s blood everywhere. And I keep seeing pieces of that dream, that nightmare. It just feels so real…and…and all the blood. Call me back. Please call me.”
Sarah hung up the phone and sat down at the kitchen table. She tried to remember the dream from the night before but the images were growing increasingly faint. By the time she took the sheets out of the washing machine and put them in the dryer, the dream had been completely forgotten. She started the dryer, then piled the comforter into the washer. She dumped a scoop of laundry detergent into the machine and shut the lid.
Sarah gradually convinced herself that she’d simply started her period early and experienced an unusually heavy flow. She thought about going to the doctor’s office. It couldn’t be healthy to bleed that much but she supposed that that was the reason they made the jumbo-size tampons for “heavy-flow days.” She’d never had a heavy-flow day before. It looked like someone had bled to death. Sarah tried her best to ignore all the elements of her menstruation theory that didn’t fit. She walked into the kitchen and popped a multivitamin and an iron pill.
While the sheets were drying, Sarah decided to go for a run. She needed to clear her head, to get away from the house, to think about anything but blood and death and nightmares. Feeling the wind in her hair, her heart pumping hard in her chest, the steady rhythm of her own breaths synchronized with her footfalls always made her forget about everything else.
Sarah put in a panty liner just in case she started to bleed again; then she pulled on a pair of running shorts and a dry-fit tank top. Sarah grabbed her iPod
and her Garmin GPS navigator and headed out the door. She went through a quick routine of stretches on the driveway, staring at the new neighbor’s front door as if she expected him to burst out of the house and attack her on the front walk. The vertical blinds on the front window parted slightly and Sarah hit the play button on her iPod, squeezed the tiny headphones into her ears, and took off jogging down the street faster than she’d intended just as “Kerosene” by Miranda Lambert began to play.