Lovely Death Page 15

  Nick clutched his hand to his chest, as if it had been burned. It was the hand he had been strangling her with. Layla noticed that despite her current air-deprived weakness. The key still lay in the console, where her fingers had brushed it. She wasted no time in picking the thing up. As soon as it made contact with her skin she knew what she had to do with it. The key itself did not rid her of the aftereffects of being nearly choked to death. It did, however, present its clarity of mind to her.

  Layla tumbled awkwardly over the console, and before the thing that had snatched Nick’s body could respond, she planted the key directly against the skin of his wrist with her open palm.

  The result was as instantaneous as it had been the first time. Nick’s body writhed and contorted for a few seconds, muscles tensing up in unison like a spring while his gaping mouth screamed silently at the roof of the car. And then he went limp. His taut muscles gave way to slack indifference, letting him crumple like a discarded rag doll in the passenger seat.

  The dark man had departed. She could feel it as soon as it happened. His dread presence had lifted from the interior of the Cougar like a blanket of smoke. With the key still in hand, Layla sunk back into her own seat, fingers clutching her neck as she fought to regain her breath and her bearings. After a few moments her rasps returned to some semblance of normal breathing and she was able to regard Nick’s collapsed form again. He was breathing deeply through his nose, lost somewhere between reality and the land of dreams.

  “Nick,” she said, preparing to reach for his slumped head.

  But sounds from outside the car demanded her attention. There was a growing number of agitated citizenry gathering around the fallen officer. Cell phones were out, not only being spoken into, but held aloft in clear indication of being used to take pictures and record video. The central focus of the action was currently directed at the opposite side of the road, at the median, where the officer had landed. Curious glances at the muscle car were growing in number however, and soon enough some good Samaritan would notice that it was parked directly in front of the officer’s patrol car, whose lights were still blazing through the night.

  “Shit,” Layla said. Adrenaline had served to clear her mind rapidly, but her hands were still shaking. She knew there were only two options. Either sit there and allow Nick to be arrested for a crime that he did not actually commit, where he would likely never even make it to trial for being driven to maddened and violent suicide by the shadow man. Or she could help him. She didn’t know how, but she could help him. She could at least try.

  Layla put her hand to the ignition. The keys were still in it. After taking one last look at the increasing mass of people outside the car, and blocking the highway with their vehicles behind her, she cranked the key forward. The engine fired without complaint, purring back to life through throaty tailpipes. She depressed the brake, dropped the shifter into D, and rolled away from the area as quickly as she could without drawing any more attention to them.

  The city loomed ahead of her. It was bright with light and skyscrapers, but seemed more cruel and cold than any other skyline she had ever seen. It was a looming testament to the gloriously successful, but not far beyond that pole it was surrounded vastly by rough-and-tumble grit. The exit ramp Layla took was lined with long forgotten piles of discarded trash and refuse. The bridge above her had lost substantial chunks of concrete from its pillars, which had been stained with both graffiti and the rust from its overhead fittings. A shoddy pair of occupied sleeping bags sat nestled together on the inclined concrete underbelly of the bridge. Broken glass glittered under the street lamp.

  Chicago looked to be a hard place, full of hard people. Layla had no idea where she was headed, but she knew that the city was her only choice. If there was any hope for Nick, it resided there. It had to. The man was running out of options. And out of time.

  “Weak,” Nick said, from nowhere. His voice was faint, and faded quickly into heavy nothingness as he shifted in his seat. “He’s weak.”

  As she let her hand rest atop the gear shifter, with her eyes planted firmly on the sprawling city streets ahead of her, Layla shuddered. She knew that the dark man was anything but.

  Nineteen

  Nick was sitting at a bar. The heavily-shellacked wood beneath his elbows reflected the dismal glow of the few overhead lights. Two empty shot glasses sat before him, turned upside down in defeat. A third rested between the fingers of his right hand, brimming with amber liquid.

  He knew where he was. Furthermore, he knew that he should not be there. But most importantly, having recognized the starched, static quality of the scenery around him, he knew that he was not alone. This empty, poorly sketched rendition of a memory was a place to which Nick had been summoned against his will.

  In the background the jukebox whirred to life, its metal arms squealing as they laid down a record. Instantly, the guitar riff came, followed by that all too simple drum beat.

  “Imagine me and you,” sang along the silky voice at Nick’s side. “I do.”

  Nick tried to stand, but found that most of his body was immobile. It was all he could do to turn his gaze to the sultry redhead sitting beside him. Her face was hidden behind the luxurious mess of her draped hair but Nick could see that she stared down at her own drink. It was the color of honey, probably some kind of bourbon. She continued to sing the rest of the first stanza in a melancholy tone.

  “I think about you day and night, it's only right.

  To think about the girl you love and hold her tight.

  So happy together.”

  When Nick spoke he did not feel his lips move. In fact, he was unsure whether he actually spoke at all, or if his words had just reverberated within his own head.

  “What have you done to me?” Nick asked. His thoughts were muted, airy and dreamlike. But he was still aware of his own logic.

  Laura gave a soft laugh as the music carried on in the background.

  “Me? What have I done to you?” When she shook her head her hair danced across the surface of the bar like crimson tentacles. “You just don’t get it do you, lover?”

  “Get what?” Nick demanded. “What the fuck is it you want from me, Laura? Where are we?”

  Laura tipped her head back as she brought the glass up to her lips. The curtain of unruly hair still hid her face from view and she kept her eyes trained on the back of the bar. She was still wearing the crimson dress, the one in which she had died. It looked less brilliant now, like everything in this place. It seemed that this botched memory had begun to crumble around the edges, fading like an old tattoo to a decrepit version of its former self.

  And Laura was fading too. It was not just her dress; Nick saw that her arms were painfully thin, the skin pulled taut around a layer of hardly existent muscle. Her shoulders were like those of an extreme anorexic, a nearly skeletal thing. The soft red cloth hung in baggy reluctance on her frame.

  “You know where we are, Nick. This is where we talked for two hours straight about the dismal state of the world. Where we discussed the decline of art and the festering underbelly of the capitalist regime. Where we talked about the genius of Richard Matheson and Warren Zevon.”

  Laura’s glass was full once more and she brought it to her lips. When it was downed, she set the glass gently back on the bar.

  “This is where you told me I was the only honest person you’d met in Los Angeles. You told me I was beautiful and you kissed me. This is where we connected, Nick. For the first time. And then I invited you to my home, to my sanctuary. My safe place.”

  “Laura…”

  “And then we fucked,” she said. What little trace of happiness that had been there before had now left her voice. “And you cast me aside like a broken toy.”

  “Goddammit, Laura.” Nick’s head swam as he tried to gather his thoughts. “You stalked me. You made my life a living hell. You remember the phone calls? And the letters? Jesus Christ, even after the…the restraining order. You…goddamn you,
Laura.”

  Nick wanted to slam his hands on the counter. He wanted to throw his chair across the room and smash Laura’s face into the goddamn bar. He wanted to see her nose crumple as he drove it into the surface of the finished wood. But he could not move. Instead, with nowhere else to go, his rage boiled inside him. He gave a furious scream.

  “It’s okay, my lovely man. I know what your heart really wants. You and I, Nick, our souls touched that night. I saw who you truly are, deep down. I know that you didn’t mean to betray me. I know that success is what warped your perspective and that you really do love me. I know that you know that we belong together. And we will be together, lover. It’s so close I can taste it.”

  “Fuck you!” Nick blared. “Tell me right now what the hell it is you’ve done to me! Who is the Black Tar Man?”

  “I’m running out of time, lover. I made a deal with the dark man and it’s up to you to keep the bargain.”

  For the first time, Laura turned to look at him.

  “See what he’s done to me? Only you can help me, Nick.”

  Laura’s face was beyond gaunt. Her cheeks were hollowed, and eyes sunken into her skull like glossy orbs in the bottom of fleshy pits. Her full lips sagged, dragging the rest of her face toward her chin in a web of overly stretched skin. Nick had seen toothless crackheads in the street who looked in better shape than she did.

  “You’ve got to keep up your end,” she repeated before turning her face shamefully forward once again. “So that we can be together forever.”

  “A deal?” And then it hit him, a fact that in retrospect was embarrassingly obvious. And it pummeled Nick’s gut with blinding pain. “You made me do this, didn’t you? You wanted to die. You wanted me to kill you. You fucking bitch, you made me a killer.”

  “What I made you was eternally happy. You just don’t know it yet. All you’ve got to do is use that little gift I gave you.”

  Heat emanated in waves from the front pocket of Nick’s Levi’s. It was the bullet, her lovely little gift.

  “What have you done?” Nick asked. “Laura, what the hell have you done? You’ve got to tell me how to fix this. I need to know where to find this fucker so I can get him off my back. What does he want? Money? I can give him lots of money.”

  Laura sighed. “There’s no getting away from it. You’re his just as much as I am. It’s just a matter of how mad you want to make him, honey. Do us all a favor and use the bullet, Nick. It won’t hurt even a little bit. Do it for my sake, won’t you? Look at what’s happening to me. The waiting is killing me.”

  “You’re already dead, bitch. Fuck you.”

  “I love you too, honey. See you soon.”

  And with that, the bar darkened. The lights dimmed, flickering into shadows. Even the jukebox went dark as the room was enveloped in blackness. The music, however, carried on. The tinny sound of The Turtles was the only sound Nick heard as the bar where he had first met Laura faded to an oil stain around him.

  He felt the brush of fingertips on his arm and wanted to jump out of his skin. The next sensation he felt was the rough, leathery touch of Laura’s lips on his own. It was horrific, like kissing the husk of a desiccated mummy. He felt her tongue rove into his mouth, grating across his teeth and making contact briefly with his own wet muscle. The sensation turned his stomach and the next thing he knew he was overcome with the urge to vomit.

  Nick felt himself thrown roughly sideways. He let loose of his stomach’s contents, watching through a parting haze as the world returned around him in a swath of swirling dark colors. The first thing he saw was asphalt, now covered in lumpy orange bile. It hung below him and it took Nick a moment to realize he was being supported from behind, suspended out of the Cougar’s passenger door by the back of his shirt.

  He braced himself on the cold steel of the door frame, felt the neck of his tee shirt relax a little against his throat.

  “Shit, I didn’t think you were going to make it out,” Layla said. She loosened her grip a bit and leaned back inside. “I can’t believe I got the door open in time. Jesus Christ that stinks. Are you done?”

  Nick wiped a strand of drool from his lower lip, pulled himself back into his seat, and nodded. He huffed heavily and with relief, tasting the fresh, frosty night air in his lungs.

  “Here, hold this.” Nick looked down to see the soft glimmer of the skeleton key in Layla’s hand. She was offering half of it to him, like a Chinese finger trap. “I don’t know what the hell this thing is or where you got it, but I don’t think the shadow man likes it much. I used it to get him out of you.”

  Nick extended his left hand to pinch the business end of the key between his fingers. It was smooth and cool to the touch, a refreshing sensation. He looked around, feeling better already. What he saw was a drastic change of pace compared to the scenery of the past few days on the road.

  Stark white streetlights beamed down on a four lane street, illuminating a line of cars parked on either side of the road. Traffic coursed along steadily in both directions, halted intermittently by a stoplight that was about a half block behind where the Cougar rested. He pulled the passenger door shut, where it narrowly missed grazing the ten-inch curb. Newspaper and fast food debris littered both the streets and the sidewalks, some of it slowly being huffed along on its urban journey by the soft wind.

  Two- and three-story buildings lined both sides of the street and after a moment, Nick realized that he recognized them. Storefronts comprised the lower levels, most of which were now closed and barred with black steel gates. A half dozen bars dotted the single block, and people stood outside most of them, smoking cigarettes.

  “Where are we?” Nick asked. He pressed the fingers of his right hand to his temples, trying to clear his head of the groggy aftermath that Laura’s visitation had left behind.

  “I don’t know,” Layla said. “I just—I just kept driving. I got off the highway after we passed a few exits. I figured it would be harder for them to look for us.”

  “Them?” As the haze drifted away from Nick’s mind he tried to recall how exactly he had come to be sitting in the passenger seat of his own vehicle. And then it flashed inside his head in an instant replay. He witnessed the change, how he had been forced inside himself while the dark man hijacked his body. He saw the police officer, Marczyk was his name; he watched helplessly as the demonic possessor had thrown the man into highway traffic with monstrous strength.

  Nick released his hold on the key, buried his face in his hands. He steepled his fingers in front of his mouth as he tried to draw air. It would not come, because shock had suspended the function of his lungs.

  He stared at the black leather of the glove box, fingers going numb against his cheeks. His life was over. He was going to go to prison forever. There had probably been a dashboard camera in that police cruiser and it was only a matter of hours before the entire City of Chicago came looking for him. Fact. And Layla, that poor girl, would be going to prison too for helping this newfound cop killer flee from the scene of the crime.

  The bullet pulsed in his pocket, urging him to touch it, to accept its bloody solution.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Layla said, coming as close as the console would allow. She outstretched her arms, wrapping them around Nick’s neck. Her jacket was off and her flesh was a warm welcome against him. He leaned into her, still trying to draw breath. At last it came.

  He pulled himself away from her, wiped a hand down his stubbled jaw.

  “Nick, it wasn’t you. You didn’t do that.”

  “No,” he said. “But it was my fault. All of this is my fault. Too many people have gotten hurt because of me.”

  “I don’t think they know,” she said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Layla cleared her throat, pointed toward the radio. “I’ve been listening to the local news channel while you were out. They’ve been talking about the accident on the highway, but that’s all they’ve said. It was an accident. The police a
re saying there were witnesses, but that all anyone saw was an unknown vintage car fleeing the scene.”

  “That really doesn’t make me feel any fucking better,” Nick spat. “A man is dead because I threw him into the goddamn road.”

  Layla shook her head. “We need help, Nick.”

  “Thanks. For saying we. But no…I don’t think anyone can help me. The longer I’m alive, the more likely it is that someone else is going to get hurt. And let’s face it. If I die, life goes back to normal for you.” He reached out, touched the glove box knob.

  Layla stopped him by putting a hand to his cheek. It was firm. She turned his chin to face her.

  “Don’t you dare talk like that, you fucker. Don’t you dare think about leaving me here with that shit on my conscience.”

  “But you’d be—”

  “No. Fuck you. You want to take the easy way out? Leave me to blame you, live in the spotlight for a few months as what, your escaped victim? Meanwhile knowing that it’s all a goddamn lie? Fuck you, Nick. If you seriously consider shooting yourself ever again I’m going to blow a hole in you myself. Besides, the cop isn’t dead. He’s in critical condition at some downtown hospital.”

  “How long were you planning on waiting to fucking tell me that?”

  “Calm the fuck down,” she said. “You just woke up and you’re clearly agitated. I need you to take a deep breath and just get your head on straight, okay?”

  He paused, clasped his fingers together, and closed his eyes. He did as she said, and although he was irritated at being talked to like a child, he was pleasantly surprised to find that his heart rate started to slow. He thought of the policeman, the fact that he was not dead—yet—and found an eerie relief in that.

  When he opened his eyes Nick’s attention fell upon the chrome knob of the glove box. Without fully knowing why, he reached out and turned it.