The Donors (11 page)

The sudden memory of the men from the other night burst its way to the front of his brain—two bizarre men with glowing eyes, in long coats and top hats,. Jason felt the grip of certainty envelope his chest. He didn't know why he knew it, but he did.

The men with the glowing eyes were Nathan's Lizard Men. They had driven the police sergeant to kill himself and now threatened Jenny and Nathan.

And I know where I remember them from.

 

*  *  *

 

It's nighttime. The towels on the windows don't work this well.

She awoke to that thought feeling hot—still very tired—and scared. She kicked the blankets off of her body and discovered she was naked, coated in a thin film of sweat. She felt a chill course through her and shuddered, then pulled the sheet back up. Jenny cleared her eyes and saw the apartment was quite dark, save for a sliver of light from the partly opened bathroom door. She lay in the dim light, stared at the shadows on the walls of her bedroom, and tried to remember why she felt so anxious and frightened.

Did I have a bad dream? Is that it?

Her mind was bizarrely blank. She remembered she'd wanted to spend more time with Jason but she had an appointment. The emptiness returned as she realized she had no idea what that appointment had been for. She had a mental picture of the coffee kiosk at work and of feeling scared—of looking at herself in the mirror and sneaking out of the hospital. She wanted to avoid seeing Jason.

No, wait. That part must be a dream.

Images of the day felt weird and disconnected—like a dream. She searched her mind for some details but found only a few breadcrumbs that led nowhere. There had been a cave, hot and humid. She had been naked in the cave, and in danger from something so terrifying her mind wouldn't give it up, no matter how hard she demanded the details. But the boy had been there, had watched her from a ledge or something. He wanted to help her but couldn't. And there were monsters of some sort.

The phone beside her bed made her jump. A small yelp escaped her throat.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph…” That had been as close as her dad had ever come to swearing when she had been a little girl. She held the clearest recollection of the first time she had heard him swear. He had called someone a “damn asshole” on the phone from his den. She had been seventeen, not shocked or disappointed, but relieved.

“Human after all,” she repeated now, nearly a decade later. The phone rang a third time and she rolled to the side of the bed and picked it up, the sheet falling off of her. She shivered and cleared her throat.

“Hello,” she said, surprised at how raspy her voice sounded. Her throat felt dry and sore. Jenny cleared it again and swallowed. “Hello?” she said a little more clearly.

“Baby, is that you? It's Daddy, honey. Are you okay?”

Her head swam. Her stomach tightened. Why did she feel so anxious and confused?

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, Jen. Your mom and I are worried sick. Are you alright? We haven't heard from you in a couple of days.”

A bright light popped on inside of her head. A movie screen flashed a schizophrenic series of images, some horrible, some wonderful all of her family. She tried desperately to make the room stop spinning, to stop the nauseating barrage of memories, but couldn't.

“Jen, honey? Are you there?” Her dad's voice sounded deeply concerned. She had to say something.

Say something, damnit.

“I'm, uh…I'm sorry, Dad.” Her mind raced for an acceptable follow up to that brilliant introduction. “I've, um, been working nights…”

There you go—now you're talkin'.

“…and I was sleeping. Sorry, I think I was having a bad dream.” She sat up and leaned over to turn on the light beside her bed. It burned into her retinas and she rested her forehead on her free hand. “I'm sorry I worried you guys. I've just been real tired. I'm not a night person, as you know.”

Her dad laughed. “Yeah, we do. Just a little T and G, huh?”

T and G—Tired and Grumpy. That had always been the big tease when she was worn out in High School. Her brother had used a less kind “B” word for it when they were away from Mom and Dad.

My brother? Why does that feel weird, too?

“Yeah, I guess,” she said.

A voice called to her from the shadows, sinister and familiar. She pushed it out of her mind. “How's Mom?” she asked reflexively.

“She's great, Jen. Don't worry.” He sounded a little sheepish. “I'm so sorry I woke you. I guess we still see you as our little girl.”

More images assaulted her, like pictures on a screen, and a white pain shot through her temple. She nearly dropped the phone. They didn't make any sense, the nightmares of her dad doing unspeakable things. Where in the hell did they come from and why were they inside of her head? Her aching head.

He just wants to fuck you again, that son of a bitch!

Her voice, but not. A horrible thing to think. She wanted to scream.

“…you know how she is,” her dad said. “Go back to sleep, baby. Call us tomorrow?”

“Sure, Dad,” she choked out and managed somehow to keep the vomit in back of her throat from spewing onto the receiver.

“Love you, Jen,” her Dad said from the receiver now pressed forcefully to her forehead. “Mom sends her love too.”

Jenny pulled the phone near her mouth. She said, “Love you both,” then nearly slammed it into the cradle on the nightstand. She struggled to her feet, legs aching, and weaved to the bathroom.

She fell painfully to her knees in front of the commode, leaned forward and vomited. Wretch after wretch of burning, bilious vomit filled the bowl until her sides ached and she thought she would pass out from the need to breathe. She intermittently felt on fire and shivered from the cold air on her naked skin.

Finally, the slideshow in her head, the rapid-paced barrage of conflicting images stopped. Jenny lay panting over the open bowl, staring at her own vomit. She reached an unsteady hand up and flushed the smelly mess, then leaned back against the cool wall.

After a moment, she struggled to her feet and propped her hands over the sink. Her sweat-streaked face stared back in the mirror and she saw a brief flash of herself from the hospital—the same sweat streaked hair, white lines of salt and dead-looking eyes.

That's not a dream. That really happened earlier today.

She began to cry softly as she splashed water on her face…

Just like before

…and rinsed her mouth. She brushed her teeth, still sobbing quietly. She avoided looking at her reflection and wrapped herself in a powder blue terrycloth robe that hung behind the bathroom door. In the kitchen, Jenny grabbed a citrus peach Fresca from the fridge door, cracked it open, skipped the glass, and wrapped herself in the soft blanket she kept on her couch; the robe wasn't quite warm enough now. She sipped her cool drink, soothing on her aching throat, and watched with the calm of those resigned to fate as a new image materialized in her mind.

Just like a home movie, the memory of lying naked on her back, on the dirty floor of a hot, wet cave materialized in her mind. Just past her, horrible creatures feasted on the still-live body of a blood-soaked man. He fought back weakly, kicking up his legs in pathetic protest as the monsters tore strip after strip of bloody flesh from his body. The bloody man looked at her, but instead of pleading for help his expression was filled with anger and lust.

Another face peered down at her from another direction; she recognized it immediately. Confused, she watched Nathan over the lip of a little rise in the path that lead down to the large room she was in. He looked scared but seemed oddly older than five. As she watched, he slipped away, and disappeared from sight.

“Please help me,” she called after him.

The image dissipated.

Back on her couch, Jenny wiped away the hot tears burning her cheeks and sipped the cool soda. She wiped snot off her upper lip with the back of her hand.

I'm going insane.

The thought terrified her, but no better explanation offered itself up. So she lay there, vulnerable and alone.

A sudden thought gave her hope and she crawled off the couch. Her blanket fell to the ground and her can of Fresca missed the coffee table. It fell on its side to the floor where it slowly bled its peach-flavored contents onto her throw rug.

Her scrubs were on the floor beside her bed, where she'd left them in a heap, and she tore through them like a woman possessed, tears streaming down her cheeks. It was in the left side pocket of her scrub jacket.

Jenny looked at the little sliver of paper with Jason's name on it and scribbled below, his home and cell phone numbers. He had drawn a smiley face and “I had so much fun” underneath. Her heart warmed. What guy did that?

Jenny sat back on the couch in the other room with the phone and his number cradled in her lap. She rocked slowly back and forth.

What would she say? Could she really let him see her like this? She barely knew him, but the intense draw she felt to him, and Nathan too, felt almost like love.

Did she dare risk that for this insanity?

Do you dare risk being alone right now? You know they aren't dreams.

A violent shake of her head pushed that thought from her mind and she dialed the home number from the strip of paper. The phone chirped in her ear as she collapsed backward into the cushion with her eyes closed. She could picture him, getting up and looking for a cordless phone. He wore boxers with no shirt.

That made her smile a little.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jason stared at the ceiling fan that turned slowly above his bed. His eyes had acclimated after several hours of peering into the darkness at the spinning shadow. He knew that sleep wouldn't come anytime soon, if at all.

He didn't want to visit the nightmare that had peeked over the wall he had built some twenty some years ago, but he felt more afraid not to. There were answers there that he suspected would be needed soon.

I've been there before and survived. I have to go again if I want to help Nathan and save Jenny.

His mind still kept enough hidden that fear of the unknown nearly trumped the anxiety of what might be revealed. He closed his eyes and drifted.

Let me sneak up on this memory…

His first nightmare of the cave had been the night they had drilled holes in his leg and driven long steel pins into his thigh bone. The medicine had made him feel weird and the dream—

trip

—had been easy to write off to the morphine haze. He was entitled to a few nightmares. His father (he could never think of him as “Dad”) had just hours ago punched his mother's face to a purple mass. He could still remember the feel of warm blood that spattered on his cheek when Mom's lip had split. And then he grabbed Dad's arm (a big hero at seven) and he remembered very little after that, except the feel of his femur snapping under the impact of a steel-toed boot and his head slamming into a counter.

Jason shook out a raspy sigh. He pushed the details of the beating away and tried to remember the nightmare instead. It happened right after the long steel pins had been drilled through his skinny leg just above his knee.

They had made it out of the ER and his mother leaned over his bed, her bruised and swollen face beside him, her eyes closed. He thought about how Mom's back must have ached in that uncomfortable position. He could see the blue threads they had used to sew her lip back together.

It occurred to Jason that she should have been in her own room, under observation for a closed head injury, instead of leaning awkwardly over her little boy. How had he never thought of that before? Had she refused treatment to be with him? All these years and he never wondered who had taken care of his mom.

You are one selfish fucking piece of work, Jason Gelman.

He wiped a tear from his face, this one just for Mom, and let the memory continue at its own rambling pace. Sleep had been pretty elusive that night too. He remembered having little pain, but he had been nauseous from the narcotics. There had been panic attacks where he imagined his father would come through the door, into his room, and finish what he had started.

Jason had no doubt the monster wanted them both dead. He could not fathom what he had done to create so much hate.

Then he had woken up in a dark cave.

His memory of the cave seemed quite different from what Nathan described—not the cave itself but the creatures. He remembered no one else being there with him. He had never seen them carrying anyone, much less the horrible picture Nathan had given of them tearing someone apart.

His little buddy believed that someone had been Steve, his own tormentor. Jason found it hard to picture the creatures he remembered preying on a shithead like Steve. They seemed more like Boogeymen after scared children. And that was what they had been. His recurrent dreams—

trips

—had been classic night terrors: monsters chased him in the dark and the feeling that he couldn't scream. Moving in slow motion no matter how hard he'd tried to run. He remembered the creatures fed somehow on that fear but never did they EAT anyone.

They're braver now, and stronger.

Jason shuddered at the thought. His horrible visions had been countless sprints through dark, humid passageways, the grunting creatures hot on his heels. He remembered the feel of hot, wet breath on his neck.

He had no memory of them ever catching him though. They had never actually touched him; he knew that with certainty. He would sure as shit remember being touched and had been haunted by that deadly possibility many times during his childhood. The thought of that had driven his fear, and maybe their hunger. No, this seemed different—and much, much worse. Nathan seemed convinced that his Lizard Men—

Our Lizard Men

—had actually KILLED Steve or would shortly. It just didn't fit.

The phone on his nightstand hollered a sudden, loud chirp and Jason nearly shit himself. His left fist smacked painfully into the headboard when he jumped. The impact made him swear under his breath.

The phone rang again and he leaned over to grab it as he looked at the clock—eleven fifteen p.m. Who the hell would call him this late? He pulled the phone out of its cradle, which crashed to the floor between the nightstand and his bed, and pushed the talk button as he put it to his ear.

“Hello?” he said a little louder than he meant to. There was a long pause but he heard a sob on the other end. For a moment, he thought it might be a wrong number or a crank call but then a soft response broke free.

“Jason?”

He knew the voice immediately, even through the strained breathing.

“Jenny? Are you okay? What's wrong?”

Jason listened to the contorted sniffles and wished he could reach through the phone to hold her.

“I'm sorry to call so late,” she said softly. She sounded a little more in control.

“No, no,” he said, fearful for a moment that she might try and end the call. “It's okay. I'm up.” Jason swung out of bed and started pacing the room in his boxers, the nervous energy more than he could handle lying down. “What happened? Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” she said, and he heard a nervous laugh. “So much for the low-maintenance-girlfriend thing, huh?”

Jason smiled.

“Look,” she said. “I had this really bad nightmare and I'm just feeling kind of—I don't know—scared a little and”—she paused and he envisioned her closing her eyes—”lonely.”

“I'm right here,” he said simply.

She sighed again. “Jason, I don't want to ruin whatever we're starting here and I don't want to sound... I just…” She paused again—gaining some strength. “Look, if it isn't too crazy sounding, do you think you could come over here and just hang out for a little while? I'm just kind of scared.” Her voice cracked.

“I'll be right over,” he said. “Give me two minutes to pull on some clothes. Can you give me directions?”

He pulled on some jeans with the phone tucked between his shoulder and ear as she told him how to get to her apartment. Then he tossed it on the bed to slowly lose its charge, not nearly patient enough to set the cradle back on the nightstand. He pulled on a sweatshirt, grabbed his cell phone and his keys, and practically sprinted out of his apartment.

 

*  *  *

 

Jason reminded himself that her nervousness had nothing to do with him being there. He naturally defaulted to the assumption that a woman acting uncomfortable around him meant she almost certainly wanted to be somewhere else. But this time, no matter what the relationship cards held for them, he knew exactly what had her upset.

“Are you sure I can't get you something?” she asked for the third time and twisted her fingers together in her lap. She looked adorable in her jeans and long-sleeve T-shirt with a pair of fuzzy pink socks on her feet. Jason knew that she really needed to have something to do, so he relented.

“Sure, I'll have whatever you're having. Do you want me to get it?”

“No, no,” she said, clearly relieved to have a task. She got up and headed over to the adjoining kitchen where she leaned across the breakfast bar toward him. “I kind of want a glass of wine,” she said a little sheepishly. “Is that okay?”

Jason considered himself more of a beer guy, but he would drink anything if it would make this woman he felt so drawn to feel more comfortable. “Wine sounds great.”

Jenny smiled and disappeared into the kitchen where he heard a drawer open and the sound of a bottle on the counter. The small, comfortable living room looked exactly as he would have pictured it—simple and feminine—a few girly knick-knacks, a large picture in black and white of a city street in Spain over the couch. On the built-in bookshelves beside her TV stand, he noticed several pictures that lay face down.

“Sure I can't give you a hand?” he asked.

“I'm good, just grabbing a corkscrew.”

Jason figured he had a moment, went over to the bookshelves and quickly peeked at the three facedown pictures. All three held pictures of what he assumed to be her family. One showed a middle-aged couple, smiling in the way that only happy couples with a long history can, their faces pressed together closely. Another showed Jenny in a cap and gown, flanked by the same man, presumably her Dad, and another guy, who looked a few years younger than her—brother perhaps?

The last showed her and the same guy.
Definitely a brother,
he decided, sitting in front of her smiling parents, an overly decorated Christmas tree in the background. Jason felt the tug of sadness he always had when he saw happy families. Jealousy, he knew. But something else about the pictures troubled him and it took a second to grab it. The family in the picture seemed happy.

“Everything okay?” He turned around quickly like a kid caught with Dad's
Penthouse
and blushed. She looked at him without anger or irritation but did seem pretty curious about what he was doing. She held two glasses of red wine out in front of her.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snoop,” he said, taking one of the glasses. “Just sort of looking around and trying to get to know you. You can tell a lot about someone by what they have on their shelves.” He shrugged awkwardly.

God, please don't be pissed.

“What did you learn?” she asked. She seemed relieved to have something to talk about.

“Not much,” he said sheepishly as he joined her on the couch.

So now what? He watched her sip her wine and tasted his own. Not bad actually. Should he wait for her to bring up the nightmares? He couldn't very well dive right in.

Thanks for the wine… have you been transported to a dark, hell-like cave where Lizard Men tore a man apart while he was still alive? Oh, by the way, was Nathan there?

“You doing okay?” he asked instead.

“Yeah,” she said and ran a hand through her hair. She smelled fantastic. “I'm really sorry that I called you so late. I'm a little embarrassed now that you're here.” She sipped her wine again. “It's kind of hard to explain.” She looked at him—gauging his response it seemed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a moment. “I have bad dreams sometimes too,” he added and then regretted it. What the hell difference did that make?

Jenny scrunched up her (very cute) face as she thought about something. Her hand found his on the couch.

“It's not just the dream.” She squeezed his hand. “It's how I felt when I woke up. It's not just tonight either.” She looked at him tentatively. “Lately, I have this weird, kind of… I don't know—this weird feeling—like things are sort of out of place.”

She sighed and looked down at her hand in his. She studied their hands, their intertwined fingers, then smiled. She looked back up at him and held his eyes. “I swear this wasn't a trick to get you over here.” She looked down again. “But I am afraid, Jason”—her hand squeezed his tightly—”of the dream and other stuff—and I would really like it if you would stay.”

Jason was mesmerized.

“I'll be a perfect gentleman, and I would love to stay with you,” he said. “I'm off all day tomorrow and I have no where I need to be.”

Jenny laughed. “Well you don't have to be a total gentleman,” she said nervously, then kissed him gently on the mouth. His heart swelled. He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly.

“I'll keep you safe.” It sounded pretty corny but he hoped she knew he meant it.

She leaned back, took his other hand and stood up. “Can we just go to bed?” she asked awkwardly. “I'm exhausted.”

Jason nodded and followed her into the bedroom. The lights were out but she looked gorgeous and erotic silhouetted in the crease of light from her bathroom. She pulled off her jeans, left on her top and slipped quickly under the covers. Jason joined her and she slid over to make room.

Jason's hands trembled as he fumbled with the button to his jeans and awkwardly kicked them off, leaving them under the covers. The smell of her on the sheets drove him crazy as she snuggled up next to him. Her soft, bare legs sent a chill up his spine as she got closer. Jason shifted his hips away from her slightly. The last thing he wanted after his noble I'll-just-hold-you-and-keep-you-safe line was for her to feel the effect she had on him. He breathed her scent in and wrapped his arms around her tightly.

“Thank you so much, Jason,” she said.

“You're welcome,” he said, unsure what else to say. “Do you want to tell me about your dream?” he asked.

“In the morning, okay?” she said sleepily.

Jason lay with her, but his mind raced. He had lots of questions and he suspected a few answers that he wanted to share.

In the morning.

He held her close, lost for a moment in the softness of her hair, then he thought of Nathan.

He sighed and waited for morning.