CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I awoke with a start. A giant, blinding flash of light ripped beneath my eyelids and prompted me awake.
I sat up quickly, still in Dex’s arms. The sedan’s headlights from outside the basement windows were on and flooding the room.
“Oh f*ck,” Dex murmured, flinching awake and leaning forward, still keeping his arm around me. We watched as the Spook Factory’s car backed out of the parking spot and roared away into the night, leaving us in the dark, dank basement once again.
“Guess they got what they wanted,” I said groggily. “What time is it?”
Dex picked up the phone. It was 1 p.m. My phone had died, thankfully, but now the reception was suddenly non-existent.
“I can’t believe it…were you sleeping?” I asked him.
He nodded and a yawn shortly followed. “I guess so. Wow, we must have been out for at least three hours.”
“Jenn didn’t call back.”
He let out a short snort of air through his nose. It reminded me of an impatient horse I used to ride when I was young. “Well, she might have now that the phone’s out of service.”
“Dex…” I started, unsure of what I was going to say and how I was going to say it.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to hear it.”
He took his arm off me and sort of huddled himself against the wall.
I stared at him, unable to let it go. “Don’t want to hear what?”
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“What am I going to say?” I would much rather he said it.
His hand flew up to his head and he tugged a bit at the ends of his hair. His left leg started to shake a bit.
“Dex…” I tried again. “Don’t you think it’s strange that we’ve been sitting here, in the basement of a haunted mental hospital for a few hours. And your girlfriend hasn’t come to get us yet?”
“I don’t want to get into it now.”
I inched back from him and grabbed his wrist, taking his hand away from his hair. I leaned in so he could see my face. He was avoiding my eyes but I could see them just the same. They were panicked, glossy and all over the place.
“This, of all times, is probably the best time to get into it,” I said. “There’s no one here. At least, no one alive.”
He didn’t say anything to that. So I decided to step up to the plate.
“Do you think Jenn is having an affair?” I asked point blank.
He closed his eyes. He didn’t look exactly pained, more that he was searching for which route to take. Let it all come out? Get defensive? Play ignorant? I sat back a bit and patiently waited for the story to come, whatever version it was going to be.
He opened his eyes and they slowly slid over to meet mine. “What makes you say that?”
His voice was blank, unreadable.
“Well…” I looked down at the phone. I picked it up and flipped it over in my hands nervously. “I just think…look, Rebecca, at lunch, told me she had a theory about Jenn and Bradley. And she wouldn’t say what it was but then when we were at the club the other night…”
“Yes?” And now a tiny bit of panic came through his voice. He bit his lip.
“Well. The reason I left is because Bradley showed up and then they went off on their own and…”
I looked back at him. His eyes widened. “And?”
“I don’t know. But they went upstairs; he said he had friends she had to meet or something, and I guess it might be nothing, but when they went upstairs, I saw him slip his arm around her waist and it…looked a bit too…natural. If you know what I mean.”
He kept staring at me wide-eyed. His brows were raised creating a ledge of lines between them and his hairline.
“So the reason you left the club was because Jenn basically ditched you to hang out with Bradley?”
“Pretty much.”
“Perry. Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked this so sincerely, his tone so soft and vulnerable that I started to feel a pinch of guilt at my heart for not being honest about it.
“Because,” I stammered. “She’s your girlfriend. I was afraid…that you’d think I made it up. That you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I always believe you,” he said, sharply with a look that matched. That wasn’t exactly true but I ignored it.
“OK,” I said. “But honestly, what do I know? Maybe this was normal.”
“You were protecting her. Why the hell would you do that?”
I shrugged. I guess I kind of was. “Maybe I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes, she really is quite nice to me and I feel sorry for her in some ways. I know you guys are together and if anything was going to mess that up, I didn’t want it to fall on my shoulders.”
He looked away. I watched him chew on his lip till I was pretty sure he was going to draw blood.
“And I still know nothing,” I added. “I mean, forget I said anything. So she’s friends with Bradley. She was friends with you before…”
I trailed off. He gave me a wry look.
I looked away and sighed. “Oh man...seriously. Ignore me.”
“It’s too late for that. So you think Bradley and Jenn are boning?”
“No,” I lied. “I just…you know what, I’m wrong. Wrong idea. Jenn’s not like that, I’m sorry.”
“You think Jenn’s not like that?” he asked. He said it in such a way that I had to glance at him. He looked like he was on the verge of laughing but there was real conflict behind his eyes. Pain, almost, like some brutal battle was going on inside. But the pain…it wasn’t related to Jenn. I knew that much.
“I’d like to think she’s a pretty decent girl,” I said. Truthfully, too.
A smirked tugged at his lips. “You know all those Anonymous comments you’ve been getting…”
My heart crackled in mid-thump. The air went out of me. I couldn’t find the words to follow up. I knew where this was going and it throttled me.
He continued, “It was Jenn. She’s been leaving them this whole time.”
I was stunned. Floored. I could only blink hard, as if that would help me process what he had just told me: The truth.
He clamped his mouth shut, perhaps a bit afraid of my reaction. I couldn’t blame him. I wasn’t sure what to get angry over first. And angry was putting it lightly. I wanted to explode.
I got to my feet quickly and walked down the length of the basement, not feeling the boxes and crates that I bumped into in the dim light. I sucked in my breath and let it out in a vigorous fashion, needing to keep my emotions in check.
“Are you sure? How do you know that?” I eked out, trying hard to keep my voice low and calm. I faced the wall, not wanting to look at him.
I heard him get up and take a few steps forward, his footsteps echoing coldly. He stopped some feet behind me. I could feel the hesitation rolling off of him. He was unsure whether to come forward. I waited for him to explain himself.
“Well?” I repeated, louder now.
“I caught her,” he mumbled. It made my blood boil beneath my cheeks. “Not in the act, but afterward. On the computer. I accidently hit the back button on the browser and it took me to one of her comments.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Since the beginning,” he answered, quiet and worried. “Maybe the second asinine comment you got. Then I checked into the IP addresses and they were all coming from my computer. I haven’t told her about it, yet.”
Holy shit. I closed my eyes and balled my hands up into tight little fists. There was so much wrong with all of this. I was furious toward Jenn, feeling like I had been duped by her stupid veneers and false sincerity, and I was even more furious that Dex knew all this time. All those times I was pouring my heart over the comments, about the way they made me feel. He knew and he didn’t tell me. No wonder he was so mad about them.
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I tried to keep my voice at the same controlled level, but I failed. The last word croaked and rose above the rest.
I heard him come closer. He hovered behind me. He put his hand on my shoulder.
I whipped around at his touch and shrank back from him. “Don’t you f*cking touch me!”
He didn’t listen. He reached out and grabbed my wrists, forcing my palms to uncurl. My fingernails had cut into my skin and stung at the open air.
He held me, his shadowy face looking tormented where the pale streetlights hit it.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Let go of me!” I yelled. I wasn’t afraid of him, I just didn’t want him anywhere near me. I’d give him another broken nose, if that’s what it took.
“Fine, punch me!” he yelled back, knowing my thoughts. “But you have to listen to me first!”
“You’re a f*cking liar!”
His grip tightened on my wrists. Not painful, but very firm. I could feel his arms shaking from the strain. He pulled me closer to him and I went, feeling that struggling would be useless.
“Put yourself in my shoes, Perry, please,” he pleaded. The torment on his face turned into something short of desperation. “She’s my girlfriend. You’re my partner. What was I supposed to do? Who was I supposed to protect?”
Me, I thought. You were supposed to protect me.
I closed my eyes, feeling stupid. Of course he was right. He had to choose one of us. It would be her. Why on earth would it ever be me?
His grasp on me loosened, perhaps at seeing my face in all its downtrodden glory. I took the opportunity to wrangle myself away from him and walked off toward the corner where the straightjackets and the zombie rat were. I preferred both of those hideous things to him.
“Baby…” he called out after me.
“Don’t you f*cking call me that,” I shrieked, leaning against a cold pipe, staring absently at the dark shadows in the corner. “You don’t get to. Not after what you just said.”
“Why is this bothering you?” he asked. I felt him closer again. Was he just going to slowly follow me all over the basement? Like a mosquito that wouldn’t go away, no matter how many times you swatted at it?
I chuckled viciously. “Heaven forbid this should bother me.”
“Did you want me to tell you?” he asked quietly.
“What the hell do you think?”
“Did you think I owed it to you?”
His questions were strange. I didn’t know what he was getting at.
“I guess,” I admitted with a sigh. “I would have told you.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I turned around slowly to look at him. I could barely see him here, I could only make out his faint outline, which was tall and tense. “You’re…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t know how.
I swallowed hard and looked at the ground, trying to see the white rubber outline of my shoes in the dark.
“Perry,” he said carefully. His tone made me look up.
“What?”
He hesitated. The air between was heavy, laden with anticipation.
“Are you in love with me?”
My eyes widened until it felt like they might fall out.
“Excuse me?” I managed to say.
He walked up to me but his face still remained hidden in the shadows.
“Do you love me?”
Whether I could see him or not, the honesty, the, dare I say, vulnerability, in his words were apparent. He was serious.
And suddenly I saw my life branching into two separate paths, depending on what my answer was. I could play it safe and lie. Protect my heart and protect my pride. Protect my relationship with him and the future of us working together.
Or I could be honest. I could finally admit to him how I really felt. Tell him and hope for the best. For the small chance that he happened to feel the same. Or for the larger chance that he didn’t. I’d be humiliated and hurt. But I would do what Uncle Al wanted for me. For that giant knife to go into my heart, bleed myself dry. And get over it. >
“Perry,” he repeated. “Do you love me?”
I sucked in my breath, wishing I could see him better. Wishing he could see I was looking him right in the eyes.
“No,” I told him, my voice calm and steady. “I don’t.”
It was the biggest lie I had ever told.
His shoulders deflated an inch.
“Oh,” he said simply. Was that disappointment I heard? Or is that just what I wanted to hear.
“Why?” I asked. I found myself taking a step closer to him. I peered up at his dark face. “Do you want me to?”
I could tell he smiled.
“Well, kiddo…what man wouldn’t want that?”
My heart melted, swirling in thick confusion. Was he serious? I couldn’t tell without looking at him. I fished out my phone from my pocket and turned the light on.
I shone it at his face.
I barely had time to read it. A shimmer rippled through the air, like a wave of heat.
Abby’s disfigured, broken head was right behind him, those eye sockets of grey goo peering at us over his shoulder.
A scream escaped my lips and I dropped the phone as I turned to run. I didn’t know where to run, though, and I was quickly met with pipes and boxes that brought me to the ground in a heap. I heard Dex scream too, a terrible inhuman sound, and I struggled to my feet. I crashed through the basement until I was in the light of the main hall and ran toward the door.
Then I stopped myself in the middle of the room and looked for Dex to be right behind me like he usually was.
But he wasn’t there. I was alone.
“Dex?” I cried out, wringing my hands nervously. My words fell short in the large space. “Dex, are you OK?”
Are you alive? I thought.
I listened hard for a sign of him, of anything. I couldn’t hear anything except the occasional gust of wind from outside and the creaks and groans of the pipes. There was nothing else. The silence was terrifying. Nausea crept up my throat and held me paralyzed.
“Please Dex,” I said under my breath and started to quietly ease back down the middle of the room. My eyes flitted from side to side, examining the shadows, fearing any movement.
As I got close to the corner where I had last seen him, a thick fuzzy noise wriggled into my ears. It was like static. A drone that made my insides feel like they were being brushed with steel wool.
I paused and listened. The drone got louder until I heard individual sounds more clearly. It was the collective noise of buzzing wings. Insects.
Wasps.
And to make a point, something landed on my outstretched, shaking hand.
I swatted at it but my movement caused the insect to drill its stinger into my hand. I cried out at the pain and connected with the scaly, winged creature with force. I felt it fly somewhere across the room.
I grasped my hand and raised it to the pale light from the windows. It was already swollen and an angry red color. I was grateful I wasn’t allergic to bees, not like Dex was.
Oh, God. Dex.
The feeling came back into my feet and I hurried toward the buzzing noise in the corner. I was too horrified of what I might find but I couldn’t hide and let it happen.
“Dex?” I looked around the boxes. It was too damn dark in here. I stepped carefully. My foot landed on a limb.
I shrieked and dropped to my knees, feeling around me like a blind person. It was a leg. Dex’s. And it was still. I felt down his shin to where his boots were and felt the leg hair underneath his cargo pants.
Heart in my throat, I felt up his leg, adjusting myself on my knees. My foot nudged something metallic sounding. I quickly reached back and found my phone under my hands.
I whipped it forward and pressed the on button. It hadn’t cracked, miraculously, and I aimed it at Dex.
I was not prepared for what I saw.
Dex was lying on his back, still as anything, except his hands were twitching at his sides.
His face. Oh God, his face.
He had no face. It was just a moving, writhing blanket of wasps that covered him from the neck up.
I cried out but no sound came from my lips. My chest constricted, squeezing the air out of me, lacing my heart until it couldn’t beat anymore.
Dex was deathly allergic to just one wasp sting. He had at least 100 of them on his face. Just one sting and he would be dead. Dead and dead fast. The only antidote, the EpiPen, was in the car. The car that was so close but so far. And though his hands were twitching, those glorious long fingers of his, I couldn’t tell if it was because he was alive or slowly dying.
I didn’t want to spook or startle the insects, even though a few of them were losing interest in him and started to fly around my head like winged demons. I let them land on me, let them sting me. I reached, ever so slowly, inch by inch, for one of Dex’s hands and covered it with my own. It was cold and clammy. But after a few seconds, it opened and he grasped my hand.
He was alive. My heart sang but the joy was short lived. The reality set in. Just because he was alive right now, it didn’t mean he would be in a minute. I mean, what the hell was I supposed to do? He was covered in wasps. His face. His mouth, his nose, his neck. They were even going in his ears. I shivered at the image, the light wavering, and tried to keep calm. I had to think. I had to save him.
“Dex,” I said with soft deliberation. “I’m here. I’m going to figure out what to do. You’ll be OK.”
That sounded so hopeless and ridiculous coming out of my mouth. But he squeezed my hand back, holding on for dear life. I was so close to losing it and bursting into tears.
I took in a deep breath and with the phone, gently swatted at another wasp that had landed on my shoulder. Luckily the thickness of my leather jacket was keeping most the stingers at bay.
What could I do? How did you get rid of wasps? There was no water down here. Not unless I found out a way to break open one of the pipes.
I sat back on my haunches and eyed the pipes by the walls. Though they had dripped from time to time, I doubted there was any water in the place. Why would there be?
If I couldn’t douse them, what could I do? What worked at home during those late summer days in the back yard?
Smoke. My dad would light the open fireplace and it would keep the bees away during the day and the mosquitoes at night.
I could smoke them out.
“Dex,” I said, projecting a calmness I didn’t feel. “I’m going to smoke them out. OK? Just stay still, no matter what. Stay with me.”
I placed the phone in my mouth and gripped it between my teeth. With one hand I searched his pants pocket for his trusty lighter; with the other I very carefully opened up the front flap of his cargo jacket and pulled out the bag of weed and the package of rollies.
I wasn’t sure if this would work, but I didn’t have a choice. I placed both of them on his chest, as close to his neck and face without disturbing the vile wasps. I pulled out the gold lighter and held up the rollie packet. I spun the wheel but the flame wouldn’t light.
I brought my thumb down again and again against the hard, ragged edge but it sparked hopelessly.
“Oh shit,” I cried out softly. This couldn’t be it.
Trying harder, I spun and spun the knob until my thumb was painfully raw. Now a wasp made a go for my own neck and started crawling around it to the base of my skull.
I felt the painful pinch of a stinger where my spine started. At the same time, the lighter’s wheel latched and a flamed sprung up. The sight of it, the minor triumph, erased the pain and the nasty spreading heat at my neck.
The flame caught the end of the rollie packet with ease. I waited before it was good and going and then I placed it on the Ziploc bag of weed, my fingers lightly singed.
I breathed in as much fresh air as I could, while I could, and watched as the plastic bag began to curl and smolder, giving off a sick, thick smell as the purple, blue toxic flames danced. A poisonous cloud of dark smoke rose, a potent mix of pot and chemicals.
I sat back on my heels, still gripping his hand and covered my mouth with my arm. I coughed uncontrollably at the smoke as the flames really started to spread; then, before it could catch hold of his jacket, I quickly knocked off the burning bag so it was on the ground near his head.
Now his jacket was on fire. I let go of his hand and took my own jacket off, throwing it on Dex’s chest to put it out.
The wasps buzzed angrily around his head. They weren’t doing anything but circling in a crazy motion up toward the ceiling and bit by bit, through the hazy smoke, I could make out Dex’s face. His eyes were shut. I feared he was dead.
Then he coughed, his mouth opening, trying to suck in air but only getting smoke. I held his shoulder down with one arm, waiting for the last two wasps to leave his neck.
Once they did, flying groggily above him and then off to join the others, I quickly stuck my arms around his shoulders and pulled him forward to get out of the smoke.
“Come on,” I coughed and got him on his knees. Down low by the floor, the smoke was thin. I kept one arm around him and urged him forward out of the corner and into the rest of the room. As we reached the more open area where the smoke hadn’t reached yet, I stopped and he collapsed on the ground next to me, aching for air.
“Did they sting you?” I asked between chokeholds of air.
He shook his head violently, unable to speak.
I looked back at the cloud of smoke. It was spreading. The pot and bag were all burned up but now flames were jumping onto the boxes of straightjackets. That wasn’t exactly good.
“Uh,” I said, pointing at the new fire. When Dex was able to get enough air, he looked up, his face contorted and a scary shade of blue in the darkness.
Just then, the zombie rat came screaming out of the darkness toward us, on fire, with insects popping off its back and scattering on the concrete floor like wayward sparks.
I scampered to my feet, hoisted up Dex, and without thinking, I half ran, half dragged him toward the basement door. When we couldn’t go any further and my lungs burned, we stopped and watched. The rat had run straight into the wall beneath the windows and was lying on the ground twitching as its own fire died down. A terrible, sick smell, like someone was roasting bad meat, filled the air along with the smoke from the boxes, which were now totally on fire. The flames leaped out from around the corner and into the basement, illuminating the space around us.
I leaned against the door after trying to open it one last time. Dex was hunched over, leaning forward with one arm propping him up against the wall. He was spitting on the ground and trying to compose himself.
“What are the chances of this place going up in flames with us stuck down here?” I asked uneasily.
Before he could look at me and answer, a deafening ringing sound broke out, blasting through my eardrums. It was the fire alarm. One second later, we were being doused with water.
I looked up and through drops of icy water, saw a never-ending spray spewing from the ceiling. The sprinklers had gone off.
Dex suddenly sprang into action and ran over to the camera and EVP, which he had left against the wall where we had slept. He scooped them up and buried them deep beneath his singed jacket in order to protect them from the water.
I wiped my face and looked back at the corner of the room. The flames were dying quickly under the deluge.
Dex watched the light die, holding his stomach to prevent the equipment from falling out beneath his jacket. He looked like a drowned, pregnant rat.
“What are the chances of this place flooding while we are stuck down here?” I asked about our brand new predicament and for some reason, I started laughing.
Dex looked up at me sharply. I couldn’t help it. The situation, everything that had just happened, was so absolutely ludicrous.
He shook his head, droplets of water flying everywhere. Then, as if on cue, the sprinklers and the alarm stopped. We were left soaking wet. I was impossibly cold. But at least the fire was out. The wasps were gone. And both of us were alive.
When I gathered my wits up enough to keep the inane giggles at bay, I reached over and brushed his wet hair off his forehead. He looked extremely sexy when wet. A part of me wanted to physically attack him. Not out of anger, and not really out of lust, but just out of still having him standing beside me. I was so close to losing him. The reality of that made my nerves feel like they were still lit with flames.
He hadn’t said anything yet. I wondered if he was shell-shocked.
“Dex?” I said, letting my hand slip down to his neck. I traced his wet skin with my fingers, feeling for any signs that the wasps had been there at all. It felt smooth and slick and the blood pumped furiously along his jugular.
“Are you OK?”
He nodded quickly and eyed my hand uneasily.
I took it back. I wanted to say so many things to him but I wasn’t sure how.
And I didn’t have to. Through the leftover drips from the sprinkler system, we heard the pitter patter of feet from the pavement outside, a flash of a shadow as it passed in front of the lights and the sound of the main door opening.
I looked behind me at the door’s window. Roundtree was running down the stairs with a large spotlight and a security guard in tow.
She flung the door open and gasped when she saw us standing there like waterlogged ghouls.
“What on earth?”she cried out. The security guard raised his own flashlight on us and brought out his walkie talkie.
“We had an accident,” I said as lightly as possible, feeling like the master of the understatement. She growled under her breath and pointed to the top of the stairs like she was my mother or something. We were more than ready to comply. We ran up the stairs, into the hospital foyer and out into the fresh night air.
We were going home.