Dwelling (3 page)

“My leg! My fucking leg! I can’t move it. I can’t move it.”
Johnathan began to thrash. His head spun with searing pain. He clutched at his wound.
“No! Save it, save my leg. Don’t make me a cripple, please, please, please!”
he screamed. “
Smith?
Ricky, can you hear me? Smith, answer me, you asshole.”

Darkness approached. Johnathan could feel himself fading in and out of consciousness.

Cobbett could do nothing but hush him gently, as a father would comfort his teething babe. Until the medic came, it was all he could do. It was all anyone could do as the insurgent attack ended and the Renegades stood by, watching the horror show unfold. They waited for the medivac. Those that believed, prayed, and even those that didn’t joined. One of the gunners, Smitty perhaps, was on the ground, pushing one of the Iraqi policemen, yelling at him, calling him every vulgar word there was. He smiled at this in a dreamily, sleepily kind of way.
Smitty always had a temper.

“Smith…Ricky…please say something…” Johnathan fought to sit up. He needed to see his friend again, just again, just one more time.

“Sit still, dammit,” Cobbett hissed, fatherly.

Outside Johnathan could feel his squad mates watching him, praying for him, but those prayers meant nothing. In the sudden quiet, he knew his best friend was gone. He knew, and in the moment, wanted nothing more than to join him on the other side, wherever that side may be.

“Where’s that fucking medivac?” yelled Cobbett over his shoulder.

“Ricky…?” Johnathan lifted his head, peering past Cobbett’s large ACU clad form. He could see Ricky still sitting in his seat. A noxious fume came off him in rolling waves of rotting stink. He could see the singe marks. The soot. The blood. He could see everything. His childhood friend, limp and smoldering dead.

There was more shouting. Jubilant, almost. Johnathan could hear the muffled swirl of fan blades, whipping at the air, but still did not care.
Let me die.
Just let me die
. The sound was meaningless. Nothing. Mere echoes. He reached out with weak arms. And fought to touch Ricky, feebly so, then thumped back down.

He closed his eyes and turned away. He stared with grey eyes through the ruined and shattered window opposite the medic. Outside, the
Thing
from before was looking in with its foul, red bulbous eyes and broad wet mandibles. Clicking. Clicking. Clicking.

Johnathan screamed and thrashed, but was held firmly down. “Don’t you see, don’t you see?” he moaned, but no one heard. No one listened. The
Thing
scurried over the truck. Its eyes looked down at him from on top gunners hatch. He gazed up, panicked.

Have you come to collect me? Have you come to take me away?

Another thought came into his mind, a thought not entirely his own.
Soon
, it said.

Soon!

Then the sorrowful blessed black abyss of unconsciousness took him.

CHAPTER 2

BOBBY WEEKS

Bobby

Houston, 2005

Bobby hadn’t moved from the gutter for over an hour. He was fairly certain he’d been soaking in his own piss and not just the typical street water that floated down El Dorado. He knew he’d eventually have to vacate before the restaurant, or someone else, called the cops. But for now, he had time. Besides, there was still three-fifths worth of whiskey left in his bottle of Jack Daniels, the remnants from proceeds collected at the intersection of Bay Area Boulevard and Space Center. Typically good, hearty folks would burn past him in a haze of exhaust. Today, however, in a rare turn of charity, some robust, jolly man with rosy cheeks and a white beard wearing a red t-shirt had handed him
twenty big ones
and had told Bobby to spend the money well.

And spend it well I did
. Bobby smiled, propping himself on the curb, dragging himself in his own waste. He took a long, biting chug, stopping only for air, watching headlights drive by in white, turning red as they passed.
No need moving just yet
, the homeless veteran thought.
Not ’til this baby is done for.
He closed his eyes against the burn.

The burn felt wonderfully terrible. It was the best thing really, he knew the darkness inside hungered for release, and the booze often helped subdue his memory of it. So while his belly swelled from the hooch and the muck he’d eaten from the 888 Bistro dumpster, he enjoyed the momentary reprieve. The white Styrofoam box now sat beside him, scraps of Chicken Chow Mein hanging low, tickling the cement.
Whisky and Chinese Food, fine living right there! No doubt about it!

Another pair of headlights came close, casting him in a burning brightness unnatural in the night. Darkness returned, followed by the sound of doors opening. The patter of expensive shoes clicking on cement near his resting spot; it was a sound Bobby knew well enough. He didn’t bother looking up. Instead he pondered which to finish first, the booze or the food. Hushed whispers spoke in another all-too-familiar tone. Disgust, with a dash of pity.

I don’t need your fucking pity, asshole!

Bobby braved a look. A posh looking lady wearing some kind of designer black dress and her gentleman companion, some shmuck in a pair of trendy-worn jeans, a graphic-tee, and a sports coat, snuck a glance from over their shoulders as they walked toward the restaurant.

Spare a dime?
The veteran allowed the bottle to clank to the ground. Lifting his heavy arm, he gave a clumsy half-salute and smiled, proudly showing the bits of Chicken Chow Mein stuck between his unbrushed teeth.

The couple gushed with a mix of vile contempt and embarrassment as they rushed for the looming wooden doors of the Chinese bistro.

Bobby let his salute fall. He retrieved his bottle of Jack and finished the contents. He sat there for a moment—not sure what to think or do.
Fucking rich assholes
, he thought darkly. On unsteady feet, he stood, and sure enough, his pants were wet. He reeked of urine and God knows what else that flowed down the gutter to the storm drain. He watched for a moment as a wad of paper drifted by and flopped down into the sewer.

Bobby gazed into the darkness. The pitch black was deep and consuming. Somewhere off in the distance, in another time and place, he could hear gunfire and shouting and the sound of an eruption of metal and earth. Snapping back into reality, he searched for his soiled ACU pattern hat.

He brushed bits of dirt from the OIF patch, slapping it against his thigh. Satisfied, he pulled back his greasy hair and put it on. Turning to the car the posh couple had arrived in, Bobby held tight to the empty bottle of Jack.

How’s life? Not bad, I’m guessing. I’m happy for you. I really am.
He arched the bottle and chucked it into the car’s windshield. Broken glass erupted. The alarm screamed. Some far-off dog barked.

No one came out to see the damage, but he assumed the cops were already on the way.

My gift to you. No really, no need to thank me.
Bobby grinned ear-to-ear. Turning to leave, he looked above and watched with murky pitiful eyes as a haze of dark grey clouds drifted apart, as if Moses himself had done the work with his snake like staff.

The moon above was bright, but not quite full—not yet at least.
A few more days…
A miserably cold chill ran up his spine.
Only a few more days till that damn moon is full again. Has it really been a month? Is it time already? Fuck me. Again and again and again, it never ends. It will never end, unless…

Bobby stood on the edge of the street. A pair of large, thick yellow beams came barreling toward him. The roar of the engine was deafening. A city bus, he guessed. He watched. His feet inched closer to the edge. He could feel his body teetering forward.

Do it. Do it. End it now. End it now before you kill again. You will. You know it. You know it. It’s only a matter of time. Do it.
Do it!
Jump!

Bobby inched closer. The bus was almost upon him. He closed his eyes. The bus roared its horn. His eyes shot open. “I can’t!” he screamed and then fell backwards on the curb. The siren bellow of the passing municipal bus whipped at his hair.

Fucking coward
.

Bobby begrudgingly picked himself off the ground and stumbled down the road, to one of the many underpasses littering Interstate 45 for a resting place to turn in and dream a sleepless night. The next morning he knew he would have to make the journey south toward La Marque, toward Hitchcock and Bayou Road, toward Luna and her cage before the next moon.

CHAPTER 3

MAGGIE SMITH

Maggie

Maggie could not sleep. Everything was hot. Her sheets were drenched, but her skin shivered, crawling with cold goosebumps. Her body cried out for rest, yet her eyes remained alert. She sat upright, her back resting against the headboard, struggling in a sea of confused and wandering thoughts. “No more dreams,” she moaned, she prayed. The alarm clock on the nightstand said 3:00 a.m. Her eyes fell on Ricky’s side of the bed. Forever empty.

The painful memory pushed her legs over the side.
Enough!
Eyes on the floor. Sweat rolled down her face. She smeared the beads with a clammy, unsteady hand and snuck another glance over her shoulder to where her husband used to sleep, half hoping to find his ghost looking back at her.

Nothing.

“Shit,” Maggie whispered.

Her naked feet carefully tested the cold wooden floor. She closed her eyes.
Dammit, Ricky
, y
ou’re supposed to be here. Tell me to drink some milk or take a shot of rum, or something. If you were here, you’d tell me not to worry about nightmares. But you’re not here, are you?

Maggie got up. Her legs quivered against her weight. She steadied herself and moved toward the door.
Don’t do it. He’s not there.
She looked over her shoulder, despite herself, and found the empty bed greeting her once again, painfully taunting her, reminding her that Ricky was dead, and had been dead for nearly a year.

She closed her eyes and breathed deep the stale air. For a moment, she imagined Ricky snoring underneath the covers. Deep, laborious breaths that seem to rock the walls. She smiled, remembering how she’d tease him about it, pretending to be playfully concerned.
‘There must be something wrong with you,’
she told him.

But the sunny memory dissolved into the cold dark uninhabited bed. Ricky was not under the covers. Maggie touched her heart and felt the hard lump deep beneath.
At least you’re here
,
in this hollow pit you left me with…why won’t you go away…leave me alone? I cannot stand you anymore. Please…please, just leave me alone. Let me heal. Let me forget.

Maggie disappeared through the door and headed for the kitchen. Her throat felt desert parched.
Maybe see what’s on. God knows there will be no sort of sleep tonight. Or at least not until I can get his face out of my head.

She filled her glass in the filtered tab on the refrigerator and then opened the icebox, spotting a half-eaten carton of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough sitting innocently beside a frozen steamer bag of broccoli. Maggie wasn’t necessarily hungry, but she took the treat anyhow and slammed closed the fridge. She brought her water and her ice cream into the living room and plopped down on the oversized couch.

A small mushroom cloud of sandy brown hair plumed in the dim light of the table lamp.
That dog sheds more than a sheepdog!
Maggie silently hated her dog, Moxie, the small Shih Tzu she and Ricky had bought together from a mom and pop breeder down in Texas City at one of those matchbox communities before Ricky’s deployment. They’d happened to be in town visiting family, letting Ricky say his
goodbyes
. A little R&R before the big day.
Deployment
, a nasty little word that had never sounded sweet.

Maggie remembered, painfully, that big, terrible, dreadful day he flew away on a civilian-contracted 747 and came back several months later in a pine box on a C-130. She recalled wanting the dog then. Needing the dog. In all her life, she never imagined going through something like this before. Who has? The Army was, despite Ricky’s best efforts to acclimate her, still new. Now she was a part of the military in an intimate, painful way.

Getting a dog was supposed to help during those lonesome months of deployment, or so she had thought. Maggie couldn’t explain why she needed the dog then. It was just something she
knew
she would need to do. They weren’t newlyweds in the traditional sense, she and Ricky. They had no plans of kids. And so, on the second day of Ricky’s two week long pre-deployment vacation, the two bought a dog. The breeders were nice enough. Small operation hosted from their kitchen nook. The pups yapping desperately for the tit of their bitch mother. The parents watched with an eerie disinterest from another cage as their children were sold one by one.

There had been a crate of Shih Tzu pups. A few boys and two girls. Maggie held one of the girls and placed it back into the pen.
It didn’t feel right.
She remembered the day. The second girl she picked up jumped from her hands and crawled underneath the kitchen table.
That little shit!

They named that little female pup hiding beneath the table Moxie, a white little thing with golden brown patches. Ricky paid for her right away and the two took her home. Maggie loved that dog to a fault, as did Ricky. The three returned to Hood and soon after, Ricky deployed. To this day, she couldn’t be certain whom Ricky was more torn up about leaving behind, her or the dog.

Moxie seemed just as lost as she was after Ricky left, waiting by the phone as much. Lounging around for those first few days without hearing so much as a peep in a junk food induced coma.
He’s going to call
, Maggie remembered thinking.
He’s going to call any minute now
. She was terrified to leave the house or to allow her cell phone to die on her. She kept her charger wherever she went. Eventually, Ricky did call, just after he arrived in theater.
Theater…? Strange name was the place for a warzone. As if they weren’t really soldiers, but actors in a dreadful play of life and death and boredom.

Maggie remembered how the calls had been few and far between. Once every few days turned into once a week and then once every few weeks to once a month. It was painful. And though she’d never tell him, she was beginning to harbor animosity.
Can’t spare a few minutes to call?
But she knew, even though it hurt like hell, her husband had little to no control when he’d be able to call home or not. All the same, the seed of resentment took root. Deeply. Where even she dare not look.

Eventually, Ricky came home for a short week of rest and relaxation. Maggie remembered being so excited when she heard the news. Ricky was going to be home for Christmas.
It was a real
blessing, she thought. The week came and went by in a flash, or so she recalled. Short glimpses of dinners, family get-togethers, and sex.
Every day
, she remembered, they would find some alone place, hardly able to keep curious hands from wandering underneath clothing. Maggie could feel her cheeks now, blushing red from the memory of his touch.

On one of the days, while driving to her parents’ house from Hood, they had pulled over into some abandoned alley between a store and a school only five miles from her folks.
What was it? A Rite-Aid and Clear Lake? Thank God the school was closed!
Ricky could hardly contain himself.

She had been driving. His hands brushed over her bare legs. Inching down beside her inner thigh. Cupping and massaging at the crotch on her jean shorts. Kissing her neck with hot breath.
About damn near wreaked the truck
, Maggie remembered, laughing. They found a spot. Pulled in. Pants tore off. His went just past his thighs.

She recalled feeling his pulsing erection in her hand before guiding him inside her. The sex had been brief, but magical nonetheless—even though she hated using the word—an almost religious experience, if she even believed in such a thing. That was how Ricky’s week long stay had gone, a blur of laugher and pleasure.
There was something different, though. Something he wasn’t telling me, didn’t want to tell me. How bad things were, no doubt. I think he wanted to bury it in all the horror movies we went to, the food, the television, and the sex. But it was there, in his eyes.

On the last day,
when Ricky hugged her and said goodbye and then boarded the plane, she recalled having a
feeling
, a sort of bad vibe, an omen, maybe, something dark and foreboding, perhaps. She had attributed it to nerves or loneliness or both at the time.
But was it? Knowing what I know was it just nerves? Ricky didn’t come back…but did I know then? Could I have…warned him? No. Impossible. Don’t do that to yourself, Mags. Don’t do it.

Maggie killed off the remaining spoon full of ice cream and then placed the empty carton on the dark oak stained coffee table her parents had bought for them two years back as part of their wedding gift. She stared at the remnants of water in her glass feeling utterly alone.

Where’s Moxie?
She normally sleeps out here.

“Moxie?” Maggie called out.

No answer.

“Moxie, where are you girl?” Maggie began to whistle, feeling that
need
again, the need for that mystical comfort only dogs can give.

The cry of whimpering echoed down the hall. Maggie abandoned the couch, walking down the hall; she stood in front of Ricky’s study. The door was closed, as it had been for several months now. The sound of Moxie crying was hardly audible. Maggie reached for the door knob, not really wanting to go in. She closed her eyes and took a long breath. The door hinges moaned.

Moxie sat staring at the photos on the wall near the back of the room. The place flooded her mind.
This was Ricky’s place; his…what did he call it? Oh yes, his
man-cave
. His inner sanctum. His dungeon of doom. His fortress of solitude.
He always loved this place, the remnants of our youth or something, I guess.
Along the walls was an assortment of various posters. Ricky had hung
The Empire Strikes Back
,
Pulp Fiction
, Romero’s
Night of the Living Dead
with the girl glaring at the screen with dead eyes and a
Batman Forever
poster with Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey and Val Kilmer looking sleek in their character portrayals. Maggie remembered vividly the amount of heat Ricky got for having the poster. Bobby, Jake, Johnathan, and even she had teased him on several occasions for having such a second rate Batman movie poster on the wall of his room.

He was such a nerd about it too. Said we never gave that movie the chance it deserved, or whatever. He would always just kinda laugh and start singing…? What was it?
“Kiss From A Rose!”
Oh my God, I haven’t thought about that song in years.
Maggie was smiling. Her heart was warm, fluttering with the glow of childhood memory, of first dates and first kisses, and first prom dances, and first everything’s.

Walking further into the room, Maggie gazed at the bookshelf, noting the dust gathering on the edges of her husband’s comic books, his graphic novels, as he liked to call them. He kept his older issues in white boxes in the closest, like a strange secret he dared not share. The ones he kept out for display were more appropriate to his tastes as they had grown. Ricky had started collecting
’68
, a gruesome zombie period-piece based during the Vietnam War. There were also a few
Walking Dead
books,
Mass Effect
, a few
Hellblazers
, the death of
Captain America
collection,
Dead Space
, a
Tales from the Crypt
collection, and, at the very end of the shelf, a cardboarded and sleeved copy of the 1987 issue of
Suicide Squad
. Maggie reached for it, her hand trembling slightly.
Oh my God…is this the copy…? Is this the copy from the clubhouse? He kept it. All these years, Ricky kept the comic. Johnathan is going to shit when he finds out Ricky had it all along.
She pulled the comic from its hiding spot. She gazed, longing for the era when she’d first laid eyes on it. She licked her lips, staring at the near black cover.

“These eight people will put their lives on the line for our country. One of them won’t be coming home,” she mouthed without even realizing the tragic irony in which she shared. Her heart burned to be there once more, in that clubhouse in Bobby’s back yard; to be young, and not just with age but with experience as well. She wanted to be
naïve
again. Putting the comic back in its proper place, tears began to swell behind her eyes. She needed to get Moxie and leave.
This place is nothing but a tomb.

“Moxie. Let’s go girl. Come on,” ordered Maggie, wiping a rogue tear from her cheek.

Moxie did not move. Her eyes locked on the wall, on one of the many photographs hung near Ricky’s old desk.
He used to read comics here
, Maggie remembered without much desire. She looked to the wall. Tracing the many framed pictures. She spotted one of the gang together on some farm out in Giddings.
Was it Giddings…? No. This was somewhere else.
A large and ominous looking white house stood behind them in the photo.
Our Suicide Squad
, she recalled.