Preta's Realm (13 page)

He felt the creature’s words becoming more human, evolving beyond the guttural sounds it made from the dark corner.

“I don’t want it.”

It laughed again. “Not your choice. Nobody chooses hunger. Feel changes inside you? Feel greed and consuming fire?”

Drew shivered. He shook his head, hoping the motion would wake him from the nightmare. He realized the hopelessness of his captivity and began to cry.

“Hunger knows no mercy.”

A long finger reached out and turned Drew’s chin toward the left wall. He saw the single, dangling light bulb and the folding chair. However, a figure occupied the chair, one that had not been there when he first entered the subterranean hell of the dream. Drew saw the naked flesh and head of dark hair hanging low and realized the totality of the vision.

“No!” he cried.

Gaki laughed. A profane melody escaped the thin mouth and filled the chamber with a song that pulled at the hairs on Drew’s neck.

“Vivian?” Drew asked, directing the question at the figure on the chair.

At the sound of her name, Vivian raised her head. One eye looked at Drew, the other swollen shut in a mass of black, bruised flesh. Her nose pointed left at an unnatural angle and a swollen tongue poked through the gaps vacated by four teeth.

Drew closed his eyes, squeezing the lids in hopes of releasing Vivian from the suffering. When he opened them she remained, a vacant stare looking back.

“Drew, stop. Please stop.”

Sobs shook her entire body, the ropes burning deeper into her wrists and ankles. Drew thrashed about in a vain attempt at flailing from the dream by incurring pain in the real world.

“Stop it. Stop showing this to me. She’s already dead.”

Gaki tilted a finger back and forth, taunting Drew and ignoring his plea. “You must see. Feed on her fear.”

Vivian moaned and yanked her right arm tight against the hemp shackles. Dried blood stained her breasts and the tops of her thighs.

“Please kill me, Drew. I can’t take it anymore.”

He took a step towards her and for the first time caught her scent, a wounded animal at death’s door. He placed a hand on her shoulder, which transported Drew into a memory, a vision within a dream.

***

He saw the memory through his own eyes, heard the words spoken by his own mouth. It took Drew only seconds before realizing where Vivian’s touch had taken him.

Another college kid sat across the table, a clear, plastic pitcher of the cheapest beer between them. A Soundgarden video played on the television at the end of the bar. Drew remembered that night in 1992 as it replayed. Tommy sat next to Joe across the table and Vivian sat to Drew’s left. They spoke about music, and midterms, and whether Pearl Jam could top Ten. They called CDs “albums” as if yearning for a more pure time in rock history.

“Cornell is hot,” Vivian said, smiling into Drew’s eyes with the devilish look of a college junior.

“Not like me,” said Tommy, eliciting a laugh from the entire table.

A few members of the basketball team threw plastic darts in the corner. The machine buzzed and flashed.

“It’s the sum of the band,” said Drew. “Cornell is a great vocalist, but only because he plays so well off of Kim’s riffs. And man, that rhythm section is incredible.”

The other three college students at the table nodded. Joe grabbed the pitcher and topped off the plastic cups before pointing towards the bar.

“Who’s up? C’mon, you cheap assholes, who’s up? It’s fucking four-dollar pitchers.”

Tommy looked at Vivian, who was gazing bright eyed at Drew.

“Let’s get this round. Help me out, douchebag.” Tommy winked at Drew while grabbing Joe by the arm. “We’ll get a few more pitchers and some wings. Hot, medium, mild?”

“Hot,” said Vivian.

After Joe and Tommy slid from the booth, Drew felt the heat of Vivian’s leg on his. He could smell the strawberry conditioner in her hair and the electric touch of her finger on his knee.

“I’m having a lot of fun.” She tilted her head at Drew, let it rest on his shoulder for a moment, and then raised it again.

“Yeah, me too. This is the place to be on Thursday nights.”

“That’s not what I’m enjoying.”

“I know.”

Vivian used the tip of her index finger to draw a swirl on Drew’s thigh. She pulled the phantom trail from his kneecap to the bottom of the front pockets on his jeans. He gave up trying to conceal the excitement behind his zipper.

“Viv, you know I belong to Molly.”

She lifted her finger from his leg and turned Drew’s chin to face hers.

“She left, Drew. God knows who she’s out with right now.”

“I’m leaving. In May. You know this. I’m trying to be honest here.”

Vivian raised her plastic cup and drained the remainder of the beer in it. She slid closer, pushing the side of her breast against Drew’s arm.

“I’m here now.”

Before Drew could reply, Tommy and Joe returned with three pitchers and a basket of deep-fried wings dripping in bombastic red fury.

“Wings!” Joe tossed a handful of sanitary wipes on the table along with napkins and plastic forks.

“What the fuck are those for?” Drew asked, looking to Vivian and then to Tommy.

“I don’t know. I grabbed a bunch of shit from the counter. If you’re going to be a dick about it, then . . . ” Joe grabbed the chicken wing basket and gave it a fake heave towards the garbage can at the end of the bar.

Drew chuckled as the two guys sat down in the booth across the table. Vivian rested a hand on Drew’s knee. Without looking down, he placed his palm on her leg. Vivian’s heat pulsed through the black sheer stockings. He slid his hand from her knee towards her inner thigh at a slow, even pace. Drew felt Vivian shiver. She placed her hand on top of his, giving him full nonverbal permission to continue the exploration. Drew circled back around, creating a figure eight from Vivian’s knee to her inner thigh, a laced edge from her panties. As the conversation floated back to Soundgarden and then on to Alice in Chains, Drew caressed Vivian’s skin.

***

“Kill me.”

The request, spoken through a broken mouth and swollen lips, burst through 1992 and yanked Drew back into the subterranean chamber where Vivian sat before him, bloodied and ready to die. Gaki now stood behind her, thrusting.

“He rapes me for hours until I’m bleeding and I pass out from the pain. When I wake up he’s still going.”

Drew tried not to look. He tried to avoid the grin on Gaki’s face where the corners sat caked with drying feces.

“It’s just a dream,” said Drew.

“Smell her pussy,” replied Gaki.

Drew shook and stepped back. Vivian’s breasts swayed with every thrust of Gaki. She moaned from the pain rather than pleasure.

“Please, Drew. Kill me.”

“Satiate your hunger,” Gaki said to Drew. “Fill her with your seed.”

Drew closed his dream eyes. When he opened them, Vivian lay face down on the stone floor. Iron hoops sat between the stones, fastening her wrists and ankles. The blood and grime that covered her skin was gone. Vivian’s dark hair spread out over her back complete with a healthy shine.

“Take her,” said Gaki. The creature’s voice floated through the air and hung like an early morning mist.

Drew looked down and saw he was now naked. He was also aroused. Vivian turned and looked over one shoulder with inviting eyes.

“Put it where you want, hon,” she said to him.

He dropped to his knees and used them to nudge her legs apart. Drew caught a whiff of her excitement and the earthy, pungent fragrance of desire. He grabbed himself with one hand and placed the other on the small of her back.

“Fuck me, Drew.”

Drew heard Gaki laugh and felt his heart racing. As he was about to penetrate Vivian, she looked over her shoulder again. This time, he saw death. Her face morphed back into the misshapen, swollen mess it had been when he first entered the dream world. Dried blood caked her cheeks and her words whispered through holes where her teeth had once been.

“Please, kill me.”

Drew shuddered. He looked at Vivian’s shackled hands. Her left held a dagger. She curled her fingers, angling the handle up in the air as far as she could.

“Take her!” screamed Gaki. He materialized from the darkness and came reaching for the knife.

Before he made it to Vivian’s hand, Drew grabbed the handle. He took the weapon and drove the blade into Vivian’s neck at the base of her spine. He heard the air escape from her lungs as her tense body relaxed and collapsed on the stone. A dark red line of amber ran from the wound and puddled in the small of her back, where moments earlier Drew’s face had been. She sniffled and gasped one last time before her body ceased to move.

“Consume her!” screamed Gaki. The intensity of the words bored to the center of Drew’s brain. He threw his hands to his ears in hopes of defending his ears from the horrid yell. Gaki thrashed about, slamming his fists into Vivian’s lifeless body. Drew knelt between the legs of the woman’s remains, one that had been starved, abused, raped, tortured, and finally stabbed.

Gaki grabbed Drew by the shoulders, putting his face within inches of Drew’s mouth. The fetid stench brought Drew to the edge of unconsciousness inside the dream. The creature hissed and shook Drew’s chin to keep him from passing out.

“Your salvation is through their pain.”

Drew felt the words strike deep in his soul before he awoke on the living room floor, covered in sweat.

Chapter 10

“Corner.”

“Bullshit. You’ll kiss the five and scratch.”

Drew smiled while chalking the tip. He knocked the blue dust from the end by tapping the cue on the edge of the table. He mocked a childish goodbye wave at Brian while putting his finger on the twenty-dollar bill.

“Corner.”

Brian shook his head and stood back. He set his stick on the rack and picked up his beer, fumbling through his pocket for quarters with the other hand.

Drew hovered over the cue ball and closed his left eye. The talc powder helped to ease the stick between his fingers. He drew it back once, twice, and then a third time in order to make sure he hit the cue ball in the proper place. A millimeter could cost him the shot, the game, and the bet. Brian coughed, pushing the staged act as far as he could.

The cue ball launched from the end of Drew’s stick. It slid effortlessly and without sound across the green felt until slamming into the shiny, black eight ball. The cue ball stopped moving and the eight ball rocketed into the corner pocket, where it rattled and then dropped into the chute beneath the table.     “Fuck!” yelled Brian as Drew rolled his stick across the table with a victor’s touch. He scooped the twenty-dollar bill from the edge.

“C’mon, punk. Next round’s on me.”

Drew tossed an arm around Brian’s head and pulled him close into a faux headlock. They shuffled to the bar, where Drew slapped the money down and raised one finger towards the bartender at the other end. She pushed the head of the tap back on the beer she was pouring and winked at Drew, acknowledging his round would be next.

“Why do I continue to let you hustle me?” Brian asked.

“Oh, you let me?” Drew replied.

The bartender served two rum and cokes complete with a bright, plastic stir. They walked to the booth behind the pool table and sat while the next group of players stepped up with a handful of quarters.

“We haven’t been here in a long time.”

Drew whistled to add emphasis to the observation. “Maybe since college?”