The Dark Roads (15 page)

Richie opened his eyes, now seeing with both of them. His headache was getting worse. It was one of those that you got from looking into the light for too long. It was like a spike was being driven into his left eye. He stood, leaving the sketchpad and pencil on the table beside his chair, and went back into the bathroom to check for some Excedrin or something to kill this headache. The radio was on again, for some reason. Hadn't he just turned that off?

"We can't leave until he wakes up," the radio broadcasted, "We'll just have to hope nobody comes."

Richie kept listening to the voice. It was familiar. He thought it might be one of the people from his dream.

"
They
live here Buddy! If they come back, they'll kill us. We have to take him somewhere else."

"Where? Where the fuck can we ta-"

He turned the radio off, almost threw it against the wall for good measure. The voice, one of the voices, sounded like Buddy, but a Buddy who'd started smoking three packs a day. His throat sounded like it was full of gravel. It couldn't have been him, though. How would Buddy get on the radio?

Richie looked at the medicine cabinet, thinking that he would have to open it to get something for his head, which was pounding like a real bitch now. It was getting so bad that the vision in his left eye was blurring. The eye, itself, was even beginning to hurt.

He rubbed at it, looking in the mirror at his short, well styled blonde hair and clean shaven face and his roughly shaved head and thin patchy beard. He closed his eyes again, turning his head from the mirror. He was seeing things now. When he opened his eyes his reflection was normal again.

"It must be the headache," he told his mirror image, pulling the mirrored door open and reaching in for a pill or two.

That would do the trick. He'd take a couple of Excedrin and life would be good again. Maybe he would go back to bed. Maybe he could catch a nap and rid himself of this horrible (sunburn?) headache. He closed the cabinet and the mirror was in front of him. His reflection was gone. In its place was his friend Elvis, leaning down close to his face, telling him to
be quiet don't make no noise cause buddy says they might be comin' he's gonna help amanda make em go away but we got to be so quiet be okay richie just-

Richie turned away again, stumbled out of the bathroom and into the main room without looking where he was going. His eye felt like it was going to fry in the socket and he just wanted the headache to go away.

All of the things he was seeing and hearing reminded him of the dream, but that was a very odd thing. He didn't normally remember his dreams. He'd told Amanda that when she asked-

What in the hell was going on? Was he still half-asleep or something. His mind was mixing things up between the world of dreams and the one of waking. Amanda had been a figment of his imagination, part of the dream.

Bed, he thought, I just need some sleep.

Richie lay down in his full size bed, lying flat on his back for some reason. It wasn't comfortable. He liked sleeping on his side (
They're carrying me)
or stomach. He tried to turn, but was restrained by nothing more than the air. He tried to sit up and couldn't. He'd just have to sleep like this. It must be the headache. It was getting better now that he was laying down. He'd just have to ride it out and everything would be fine. If not, Richie would go straight to the doctor.

What time was it? He'd have to check and see because the doctor's office wouldn't open until nine or so. He raised his wrist a few inches from the bed before he remembered that his watch had stopped (
we need to pick up another watch
) in the night. They sold batteries for them (
we'll have to get a pocket watch if we can find it, the kind that doesn't need a battery, the kind you have to wind every day
) at the drug store. He'd have to replace his.

"We need to stop and take a break. He's too heavy to keep going all night," a voice said.

"We can stop here for a little while, but we can't stay the night. We have to get further away from them," another voice replied.

The fucking radio was going crazy today. Any other time it might have been amusing, but he just didn't feel good at all. He was starting to shiver in the coolness of the room.

He felt like he was being carried, the ceiling becoming the sky from time to time, but it had to be a dream sky. He could see stars and the moon, but it was daytime. He'd just woke up and it was morning. His head was killing him and he really wished it would just go the fuck away.

"He's going to die if I don't go out and find some kind of antibiotic, Elvis. We can't all go. You've got to stay with him for me. He's going to be your responsibility. You take care of him"

That was probably the goddamned radio, again. He wanted to get up, go in there, and smash the thing to pieces but he couldn't get up because (
I'm hurt really fucking bad and I need to wake up so that I can tell them not to get penicillin because that'll kill me faster than the injuries)
his head was killing him and he just wanted
(Wake the fuck up! You're going to die! Wake the fuck-

***

"Up!" Richie yelled, suddenly, just as Buddy was clearing the exit of a basement that Richie wouldn't have recognized.

"What?" Amanda asked, turning back toward Elvis and Richie.

"No," Richie choked out, "No fucking... I'm allergic. No pen... Shit!" he screamed, the pain in his face and eye like being stabbed over and over.

"Calm down, man. I got you. I hear you," Buddy told him as Elvis soothed his face with the damp cloth.

"No pen-"

"No penicillin, Richie. I got it," Buddy said, thanking God that Richie had come awake in time to tell him
that.

If he hadn't, they would've surely used it to try saving him. He'd have died in minutes.

Richie nodded a shaky nod. His good eye turned toward Elvis and then back to Buddy. Only part of him knew what was going on. The other part, the frightened one, wanted only to sleep, to dream and be so cool like he'd been in the fantasy.

"Elvis is going to stay with you. He's going to take care of you while we go get you some medicine," Buddy told him, taking the rag from Elvis and soaking it again, "We'll find something for the pain. I promise."

"The lock... The lock piiiick! Oh God it hurts, man!"

"I know Richie. We'll take care of all of it. Sleep man. Just go back to sleep."

Amanda shook her head at Buddy. She pointed to the food and water that would be left behind for Richie and Elvis before pointing to Richie. Buddy nodded. He reached for one of the water bottles and spun the cap, putting it close to Richie's lips.

He was nearly out again, his good eye closing. His bad eye would never open or close again. Buddy looked at the blistered skin on his friend's forehead and left cheek, where the sun had caught him the worst, and cringed.

There wasn't much they could do for him until they found what was needed. Amanda had taken care of some relatives and knew more about medicines than the rest of them, so it was up to Elvis to care for their injured.

"Drink this, Richie. You got to drink," Elvis said, taking the bottle from Buddy.

Richie drank, but refused more than a few swallows. He hadn't drunk much in the last two days and that could be just as bad for him as the wounds. Elvis was persistent, though, making him try again and getting a little more in his stomach. When Elvis turned to Buddy, there was a smile on his face.

"I'll take care. You go. Just get back soon," Elvis told him.

"The King has spoken," Buddy said, turning to leave.

"Long live rock n' roll," Elvis imparted as they walked out into the world.

***

Richie stumbled along the road between the hellish world of reality and the quiet one of dreams. The two came together for him from time to time, but over the next three days and nights he began to know which was which.

Though he'd have rather dreamed all of this away for eternity, he knew that his friends needed him in their world. He tried to keep a small piece of the dream with him at all times, but it was fading with the pain. Elvis had been the only one at his side during the worst of it, listening to his friend scream and consoling him when he woke.

Buddy and Amanda had come back just after sunset on the next night. They'd found a small grocery store with a pharmacy attached. They started him on Vicodin for the pain, which didn't do as much for it as Richie would've liked, and vancomycin to treat the infection that had probably already set in. They couldn't be sure how bad it was, so only gave him four of the antibiotics throughout the night.

Elvis was always with him, forcing water down his throat and trying to feed him when he was awake, giving him his pills at the right time. Now, instead of a damp cloth, Elvis was spreading aloe over his wounds, carefully, and making sure that his injured eye was clean and clear of contaminants. Amanda had tried to take over the duty only once, and Elvis had balked.

"You need rest, honey," she'd said to Elvis.

"I get rest. You leave us alone," he'd stubbornly demanded, "I can take care of Richie."

"You can come right back, after you sleep."

Elvis had simply looked at her, deciding that the subject was closed and that he didn't need to say anything more. She didn't get angry. She didn't try to help him again.

There were times when everyone would be quiet, eating or drinking, and Richie would say something unintelligible. Amanda and Buddy would try to get closer and Elvis would wave them away. He'd tell them that Richie was in his apartment and talking to the radio. They would agree with him and back off, knowing that Elvis had made the decision to bring their friend back by himself.

"He listens," Buddy told Amanda when she asked why Elvis was acting this way.

"No he doesn't. He won't sleep. He won't eat if Richie won't. He's obsessed."

"I told him that Richie was his responsibility. He listens. Elvis won't leave him until he gets better or dies."

Richie was awake on the fourth night, finally able to sit up and eat voluntarily. He took small sips from a water bottle and got used to the idea of only having one eye. Elvis was there with every request, giving Richie the things that he needed and talking about his old apartment, asking questions about where he'd been in the dream.

It was as if he were trying to ease Richie back in to the world of the living. Richie was thankful for that. He'd been mostly gone during those three days, but was coming back quickly. His eye was gone and his face was a mess, but he would live. When he asked what had happened after he fell, Elvis allowed Amanda to tell him, finally relinquishing his responsibility.

"You fell hard and the door closed. We couldn't see anything until Buddy found the lantern. When he turned it on, we figured out that we hadn't made the best choice of lodgings for a long term stay. There were supplies in one corner of the basement and sleeping bags piled everywhere," Amanda said, as if she were setting a scene.

Her voice became mechanical, almost emotionless, as she explained their plight. Richie wished that he'd heard her talk, been able to listen to the way she'd told stories, before all of this.

He was indebted to her. He knew that. The woman had gone with Buddy, into a dangerous world, to find the drugs needed to keep him in the land of the living. In a way, she'd become as close to them as they were to each other in these past months.

"I saw some bones on the floor. They looked like somebody had cracked them to get at the marrow and I knew who's house we'd managed to invade. Cannibals."

"You're," Richie started, "You're shitting me."

"She shits you not, my friend," Buddy added.

"So we had to get you and us out of there as soon as the sun set, but we had to figure out if you were even going to live first. I've never seen someone get burned like that," her voice fell into normal tones again, "I saw this kid get sun burnt one time on vacation. He got burnt so badly that these big watery blisters came up on his back and that's what it looked like. Jesus, Richie, I can't believe you're alive."

Richie nodded, thinking of the way he'd lain on his back in the dream, unable to turn over. He must have stolen the feeling from his real body and incorporated it into his delusion.

"How long?" he asked her.

"We carried you for most of a night. Elvis remembered some TV show where these people made a stretcher out of their back packs and we tried doing that, but they weren't strong enough. We had to rummage for conduit in that house we were under. Buddy's a slave driver. He barely let us stop to rest. We made a stretcher and carried you here."

"Thank you," he whispered.

"Fuck you, dude," Buddy interjected, "No thanks needed."

Elvis nodded and gave him the finger, one corner of his mouth perking up into a smile. Amanda saw this, turned back to Richie, and copied the gesture. Richie smiled, ignoring the pain it caused him.

"So this is how they say ‘you're welcome’ in Canada?"