Halloween Is For Lovers (18 page)

"You're going to let her go."

"No, did you not follow my metaphor? She's wrapping paper, she must be destroyed."

"You're going to kill her." Hugh struggled against the chains.

"I believe the religious term is ceremonial sacrifice. You know, the swan tears out its own breast to feed to its babies. Swans move across the surface of the water just like me." Steve paced again. "Once in the land of golden awesomeness, the kids and I thrive. I teach them my ways, and when they are ready we return to earth, gliding effortlessly across blue waters, conquering. And it is written, I think in chapter seven." Steve quickly thumbed through his rough draft. "Humanity trembles. Begging for mercy. Wearing nothing but adoration for their perfect God."

"Wait." Hugh stopped pulling and kicking at his chains. "Wearing nothing but adoration? You want everyone to be naked when they worship you? Didn't you do a rotation through psychology in med school? You are textbook narcissistic personality disorder."

"Ha. I did do a rotation through psych and I'll have you know that narcissism is no longer classified as a personality disorder. They took that one out of the book. See, I am smart." Steve posed smugly in front of Hugh. "But irregardless, why—"

Hugh interrupted, "You keep using that word, irregardless. It's not really a word. It's just regardless."

Steve's undies went into a bundle. He didn't deal well with criticism. "I didn't realize demons were the end-all and be-all of vocabulary." He doubled down on the word, unable to fathom it wasn't correct. "Irregardless, shouldn't God be able to love himself? And irregardless of that, just because I might be a little, just a little, narcissistic ..." He pinched his fingers on the word
little
. "That doesn't mean I'm not awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome!"

"What does Lily see in you?"

"I have tuned in to a celestial broadcast and it's playing my song, Hugh." He began to dance to a rhythm is his head but then stopped and checked his Jean-Claude Killy Rolex. "It's almost morning. I'm not sure how this works, but my theory is if I leave you chained up down here long enough you'll decay and maybe leave behind a glittery powder with mystical properties. And if that doesn't happen I'm going to dissect you and use your zombie organs in some kind of black magic, witchcraft this-or-that. Maybe plant your kidneys out back and see what grows." He walked to the foot of the stairs and waved good-bye. "Time for God to get married. Toodles."

Morton to the Rescue

Morton stumbled through the graveyard holding his breath, trying to pretend he wasn't scared. He stopped and looked at the bottle cap. It was impossible. She was buried with that bottle cap. She held it all those months in the hospice. She made him promise to bury her with it. The last thing he did before they closed the casket was fold it into the palm of her hand. His mind was racing, he couldn't figure out how this could be. It was a trick, but the cap was real and it was in his hand now. He shook his head. No, he thought. Someone must have dug it up. He marched toward her grave. Bastard dug it up, took it from her.

He had never been to her grave. After the wake, he got an early start on mourning by drinking a liter of whiskey out of a plastic bottle. When he realized friends and family knew where to find him and would intervene, he took a second plastic bottle of whiskey and ran into the woods. He found an abandoned school bus scuttled in tall grass, the engine stripped of parts, the wheels replaced with wood blocks. He climbed on board and took the bus for a ride.

When he stumbled off she was already buried. Six feet of dirt pushed down on the small bulb of a casket. The light would never shine on her again. He couldn't bear it. He tried several times to walk up to the cemetery with armfuls of her favorite flowers. He always turned back. He ditched the flowers and picked up a bottle. He got back on the bus, where nobody would find him. Next stop nowhere.

Now, for the first time, he was walking toward her stone, empty-handed except for the bottle cap. He wasn't sure what the stone looked like because his sister-in-law had picked it out. He knew the section of the cemetery where it was, for he had circled that section many times in his darkest hours. Now he was close. He slowed, gripping the bottle cap tight in his trembling palm. He thought to look at the names on each stone to make sure he didn't pass her by accident, but before he bent to look he saw it. A plain stone with a graceful arch across the top. There was no doubt, he knew it was hers. He took meaningful steps toward it like a groom down the aisle of a church. Her name and a simple flower were carved onto its white face.

He knelt before her and stroked his hand down her smooth stone. He should have been crying but his eyes were dry. Morton’s tears had always been invisible, they trickled down with a gulp, often with a taste of peppermint. He couldn't explain it, but suddenly something shifted. His body and mind racked from side to side like an old truck slowly rolling over a speed bump. He stood with a nod and almost a smile. "I miss you," he said.

He looked around at the other stones, at the spot next to her, the spot waiting for him, the spot where he thought he wanted to be. Truth be told, a little part of him deep inside was no longer ready to surrender to that spot. Not just yet. Morton looked in Frederick's direction and shook his head, muttering, "This night is too strange to be a dream."

The night sky was warming to the color of lead. The new day’s sun was waiting in the wings; the improvisers on stage could already feel its presence. Hugh looked out a small cellar window at what was left of the Halloween night sky. He was hopelessly trapped and alone. The reapers would ride for him and Crain would throw him down the vent where he would suffer in endless terror. His mistakes, his flawed view of the world, were catching up with him. He looked at the bassinets, the garment bag holding the prairie dress, the box holding the hideous shoes. This was all his fault. He broke her heart. The shattered pieces radiated like shrapnel, tearing into every part of her life. Because of his selfish act she'd be interred
in natal hell and then murdered in a ceremonial sacrifice. A worse demise couldn't have been dreamt up for Lily. She wanted a family but she wanted only one child, delivered via a cesarian section, scheduled weeks in advance and performed under general anesthesia. That, and she was deathly afraid of murder. If asked what her three top fears were, she would have listed public speaking, being murdered and naturally birthing a baby.

The chains were hardened steel, unbreakable. There was nothing he could do but feel sorry for himself, sorry for her. He tugged at the shackles around his wrists and kicked one last time at the leg irons. Then he looked out the window again and gave up all hope.

Morton didn't have any trouble breaching Frederick's perimeter wall. He buttoned up his sport coat, smoothed back his tangled mop of hair with his fingers and picked the leaves out of his beard. In the early morning hours he buzzed the intercom to the right of Frederick's gate and waited for the estate manager to answer.

"What is it?"

Morton stood up straight and cleared his throat. "I'm here from the governor's office. I have a personal message for the doctor."

"It's three in the morning," the voice over the small speaker complained.

"Sir, important matters of the governor's office cannot wait."

"But it's three in the morning."

"My duties to the governor and this state know no time of day."

"Tell you what, just give the message to me and I'll make sure Doctor Moore gets it first thing in the morning."

"My instructions were to deliver the message in person," Morton snapped.

"Hey, listen, there's no way I'm waking my boss up in the middle of the night, even if it is a message from the governor."

"I ..." Morton danced his pitch around, "I also have a personal message from the senator."

"Which one?"

"Both. It's two messages, one from each senator, plus the one from the governor, so three very important messages total. High-priority state business, sir. Please open the gate."

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that, could you come back in the morning, around, like, eight a.m.?"

"Sir, far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but when a personal representative of state government has a message for a doctor, I think you should let them in."

"Yeah, you know, I'm making a judgment call on this one ... so that's a no."

"I can assure you that the governor and both senators will personally see to it that you're fired for not letting me in."

"Yeah, well, you know what? I don't even like this job very much."

Morton took a step back from the intercom and shifted side to side. He was quick-witted when he was more sober than drunk. "I also have a personal message from Michael Jordan."

"MJ?" the intercom perked.

"Yes, his Airness would have delivered it himself, but as you know, he's busy owning the Charlotte Bobcats and racing motorcycles."

The buzzer clicked and Frederick's gates opened.

Lily, unable to sleep, paced around the suite trying to generate a plausible reason for what had happened at the rehearsal dinner. She was raised without formal religion, so most of her deepest-held beliefs were based on movies and TV shows. She came up with several scenarios, but the one she liked best was inspired by
The Wizard of Oz
: She had slipped and fallen into a pen of pigs before the wedding rehearsal, and this was all a coma dream. Hugh in the graveyard, Hugh at the rehearsal dinner, a crazy mixed-up dream. She tapped the heels of her slippers together, hoping she'd wake up in bed and everything would be normal. She might even be a little thinner, she thought. Most people lose weight while in a coma.

Her second-favorite rationalization was based on
Star Trek
. A fracture in the time-space continuum. Just her luck, a wormhole opened up the night before her wedding. She had a harder time making this one work. If they had passed through a wormhole, why were the clocks still working? She toyed with the whole alternate universe idea, but she was never a big fan of the sci-fi series
Sliders
.

She had a nagging sense that she was losing her mind, that her life had put her through too much, that circuit breakers were tripping, wires were shorting out. If this was what crazy-town was like, she'd take her own life, but for now she was sticking with the Wizard of Oz coma dream theory of events.

Morton watched Steve descend Frederick's grand west wing staircase in a robe and flip-flops. Burton, the balding estate manager, was falling over himself to apologize. "Sir, once again, I apologize, a million times I apologize, but he said he had a personal message from Michael Jordan."

"Air J?" Steve tented his brow.

"Yes," Morton said, straightened up and reaching his full eighty inches of height. "Mr. Jordan, as well as the governor and both state senators would—"

The estate manager interrupted, "Sir, sorry for the interruption, but since you’re up, the staff in the east wing has been complaining that there's a lot of moaning and crying coming from the basement over there."

"I'm sure it's nothing, a stray cat stuck in a rafter or something." Steve's eyes nervously darted. "I'm sure it will eventually die off, you know, dehydration. Probably won't smell good for a while, but what are you going to do. You know what they say about owning a mansion, it's always something."

"Yes, sir, it's just that they specifically said that there was also the sound of someone crying for help. Sort of a frantic scream is how they described it. The staff wants to call the police."

"No," Steve snapped. "No need for that. Must be the new water heater. Plumber said it would make funny noises during the break-in period."

"Are you sure, sir? If you could lend me your keys I could go down and check it."

"Don't be ridiculous, Burton, you're not getting my keys." Steve reached into his robe pocket and double-checked that his keys were safe. Morton took notice.

"Did they say it sounded like this?" Steve shifted his voice to a whimpering song. "Pa-weeeeeze haaaaalp, shhhheeeeelp, halllllllllp."

"Something like that, sir."

"Yeah, that's what the plumber said it would sound like for a while. Don't go down there." Steve fidgeted nervously and looked to Morton. "The message."

Morton cleared his throat. "Yes, Mr. Jordan, the governor and both state senators would like to congratulate you on—"

Steve interrupted him, turning to Burton. "You know something, I'm up, tell you what, I'll go check on the east wing basement."

"Sir," Burton protested. "Please, sir, it's three in the morning on the night before your wedding. Let me."

"No, quite all right, Burton. I'll just pop down there and check on things, see if there isn't a bit of a leak. Maybe a quick stuff of a rag will quiet things up."

Steve sprinted down the hall toward Frederick's east wing. Morton watched and then turned to Burton. "Could I trouble you for a glass of water?"

"Sure thing." Burton turned to fetch it.