Warmed and Bound: A Velvet Anthology (11 page)

I launch the cleaver against the side of the desk on the opposite side of the room. Telephone off the hook and Kleyton bleeding out, I nod at the scene and leave the room and the hotel as fast as a ghost falling from the heavens.

———

Another shot of tequila with no chaser. I stare at the butcher knife Penny used to use on our clients. The wooden handle is beaten and raw. I’m surprised the splinters never found their way into her palm. I finish the rest of the tequila and move onto the half-empty bottle of whiskey across the table in our kitchen. Penny’s asleep in the bedroom but nowadays slumber to her isn’t really rest at all. She says they talk to her when her eyes are closed. They tell her about what’s beyond the arc of this world and the next.

I toss my black T-shirt onto the kitchen floor, feel the cool breeze of an October evening across my bare chest. I stretch my fingers, crack the knuckles with a deep breath. Eyes closed, I grip the knife, let it sway over my wrist before swallowing the last mouthful of whiskey. I let it fall with a resounding screech and picture Penny’s face in the moonlight, her smile as soft as a seraph’s voice. 

The first one skitters from the corner of the kitchen and over my head. The next one sniffs the new wound, its horns and oval head shifting from side-to-side with a magnetic swing. One of them walks into the kitchen, a pure obsidian form nearly blanketed by dark light. Its eyes glisten with a scarlet glow.

——————————

The Tree of Life

by
Edward J Rathke

‘Your eyes are like fire.’

‘Sounds like bad poetry.’

He gives her his back. ‘Never mind.’

‘Aw,’ she wraps round him, ‘don’t be such a baby.’

‘Sometimes it feels like you don’t want me around.’

She sighs and lets go, falling to her back and blowing black hair out of her silver eyes. ‘I’m going for a walk.’ She gets out of bed and dresses.

‘It’s the middle of the night.’

She pulls up her pants and throws on a coat. ‘It always is.’

‘You can’t go for a walk.’ He rests on his elbow. ‘It’s not safe.’

The streets glisten and a veil hangs over the sky, blotting the moon, the sun, and stars. She pulls her hood up and pushes her collar high and lights a cigarette. Smoke blooms from her mouth into the thick air where it fingers apart, snakes winding through a desert. She hurries with no direction, each step carrying her further from him and his heavy blue eyes, curly hair, and thin lips. Duned and waved, long cracks and deep chasms fill the roads. 

Drifting through the streets like a fog, she loses herself outside looming cemetery gates. She wanders past, her shadow clinging to the high fence, cast by the streetlights. She stumbles, a tug at her feet like hands wrapped round her ankles. 

Behind her, her shadow climbs the cemetery wall and hops over. The cigarette drops from her mouth. She inspects her feet, lifting one boot at a time and seeing no shadow left beneath. Her hood falls, hair dancing in the wind, she turns back and forth, but the streets are wide and empty and silent. Another cigarette in her mouth, a cough pushes from the back of her throat, long strides bring her over the pavement, away from rogue shades. 

Her phone vibrates.

‘Hello?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Walking.’

‘Where?’

‘Around.’

‘Are you smoking?’

She exhales loud for him to hear.

‘It’s not safe out there. Please, Jenny, come back. I can’t do this without you.’

‘I’ll be back soon.’

She thumbs it closed and turns off her phone. The new sodium light pours onto her and she watches the smoke linger and surround, like fairies in flight. Spotlighted there, her thoughts reach after the phantoms, and she turns in all directions looking for her shadow. Closing her eyes, she gives her face to the overhanging light. The hum catches her ears, the sound of fireflies in heat. The roar of fire returns and the warmth is real.

She finds herself an hour later sitting on the stoop of his apartment building chaining cigarettes. 

———

‘We can’t do this.’

‘We don’t have to.’ He kissed her, long, and she wanted to swallow him. 

‘I have a boyfriend.’

‘I don’t care.’ He kissed her again and tugged down her pants, tasting her skin. She writhed in his hands and bit her lip.

———

‘Should I tell my boyfriend?’

‘If you want.’

‘I feel like shit.’

‘Do you love him?’

‘I don’t think so. But, still.’

He kissed her again. ‘You should tell him.’

She buried her head in his chest, tasting sweat.

———

‘This is the last time.’

‘It doesn’t have to be.’

‘I can’t keep doing this to him.’

‘Then tell him.’

She curled away, but he pulled her waist to his.

She put her palm to his beard and kissed his cheek, the hair tickling her nose. ‘I don’t want to hurt him.’

‘Then stop.’

‘I don’t want it to stop.’

‘Stay with me.’ He brushed the hair from her face, his fingers glancing against her skin, and kissed her. ‘I want you.’

She rolled, face to face, and bit his lip and pressed their foreheads together. Smiling, she pulled his ashen hair, and whispered into his mouth.

He inhaled her words and slipped inside.

———

‘The sky looks weird.’

Butterfly kisses on the back of her ear, his beard grazing her neck, he propped on an elbow and looked to the sky out his window. Far away, past the skyscrapers and highways, at the edge of the horizon, a bloodred line erupted, biting into the sky. It flashed in furious shades, filling the air like an accidental dawn. Buildings toppled near the edge and the street waved, displacing concrete and homes and businesses. She screamed and he covered her when the apartment vibrated, shaking loose the pictures and shattering the windows.

Their ears rang and there was nothing but.

‘The fuck was that,’ his words gasped, quiet and unheard.

He knew she screamed from the vibrating of her throat and the pounding of her heart. Out the window, carlights flashed, streets glittered with broken glass, water fountained from broken pipes, and blood spotted the sidewalks beside broken bodies. 

The ringing dissipated, but the world remained muffled, a cacophony of sirens and car alarms and screams. The night glowed in orange shades.

‘Jack.’

‘Hm.’

‘Is it over?’ She whispered to his chest.

‘I don’t know.’

She raised her head and followed his eyes. ‘What time is it?’

The clock was empty. ‘Power went out.’

Her phone rang. ‘It’s Ricky.’

‘He survived.’

‘Should I answer it?’

Jack got out of the bed and put on his pants.

‘Hello.’

‘Baby, you okay?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine. What was that?’

‘I’m on my way over right now.’

‘No, don’t. It might be dangerous.’ Her heart increased its pace and she felt it would rip through her chest.

His breath was heavy like he was running. ‘I need to know you’re okay.’

‘Ricky, don’t. It might happen again.’

‘If I die, at least I’ll be with you.’

‘Jesus, stop. Stay home and be safe.’ Her hand clutched her phone.

‘I’m going crazy thinking about what might happen.’

‘We’re fine, but one of us won’t be if he keeps running here like a madman.’

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Ricky’s gasped breath.

‘Knowing my white knight is safe would help.’

His breath slowed, heavy. ‘Okay, call me when you’re ready. I need to see you.’

‘Okay.’

‘I love you.’

She hung up. Her eyes welled and she cried.

He put his hand on her shoulder and ashed into the carpet. 

She flung her arms around him, tears streaking down his chest. 

———

‘Think it’ll always be like that?’

‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Ricky writes me poetry sometimes.’

‘He would.’ 

‘He talks about sunsets and sunrises and the horizon after a storm. About me and my eyes.’

‘There’re no words for something like this.’ He grazed her arm with fingertips, up and down, his feet resting on the windowsill.

She nestled her head into the crook of his shoulder. ‘That’s why I like you.’

Out the window, the sky was on fire and had been since it erupted days before and sent the world into chaos. A lake of fire hung above the earth casting life in permanent daylight. It lapped down towards the earth, like staring inside a volcano, flamed demons reaching from hell with long claws and sharp fangs and curved horns. It made the air sticky, thin, and hot.

‘If you look at it long enough, it feels like you’re falling in there, like it’s gonna suck you right up, you know?’ He blew smoke out his nose and tossed the cigarette outside.

‘Icarus.’ Breathless and whispered.

‘It might burn till we’re out of oxygen.’

She rubbed a finger through his beard. ‘Suffocate.’

He kissed her forehead. ‘Someone’ll figure something out.’

‘What would you do?’ Her eyebrows curved in and up, but her pupils were discs, shining with the fire’s reflection.

‘Your eyes’re like fire.’

She smiled and pushed him to the floor, straddling him. 

‘I love you.’

She removed her shirt.

———

‘What is this?’ She traced a finger over his back along branches painted in his skin.

‘Hm.’

‘On your back.’

‘Yggdrasil.’ His mouth muffled by the pillow.

‘What?’

He turned his head, dark eyes drooping. ‘The Tree of Life. The Norse believed that every plane of existence,’ he yawned, ‘was a part of it.’ 

‘But why do you have it?’

‘Hm?’

‘Are you asleep?’

‘Hm.’

She nudged him.

‘As long as that tree lives, the world will too.’

‘I like that.’

‘Hm.’

‘Jack.’

‘Hm.’

She sang his name softly into his ear and touched her fingers to the wrinkles beside his eyes.

‘You get one wrinkle for every crow that you outlive.’ His voice was soft, dripping from his dreams.

‘You’ve outlived a lot of crows.’

He smiled.

‘Sleepyhead.’ 

He opened his eye. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

He closed it, smiling.

She watched him sleep and caressed his back, running her fingernails lightly over the branches and roots.

———

‘I don’t get why you won’t stay here.’ His blue eyes dimmed by the constant burning sky.

‘I like my place.’

‘But it’s dangerous. Those men out there could get you and I’d hate to think about it.’ Ricky pulled her close to him, laying her head on his chest.

‘It’s too much to handle right now. I can’t just move.’

‘I could move in with you.’ 

She stared into the lake of fire and felt the pull, the flames cycling towards her, calling her deeper and higher. ‘I don’t know.’ His dark eyes were out there, deep and muddy, calling her name and tugging at her chest.

‘Why? It doesn’t make sense to be apart anymore. The streets are wild and it’s not safe for anyone to leave. The looters and gangs are everywhere and no one cares to stop them. More and more people join every day. It’s madness. Every time I think of you being so far away when I hear those screams and see all those stacked bodies, I feel my chest collapse. What if one of those bodies was yours or what if one was mine?’

‘Don’t think like that.’ Her voice was thick and her mind flew out the window to him so far away, each thought an outstretched hand reaching, if only to touch fingertips. ‘They’ll burn out.’

‘Like the sky?’

‘Like a sunset.’

He kissed her head, taking in the scent of stale sweat. ‘I’m just scared. For you.’

‘Don’t be.’ She shifted so they were face to face. ‘I’m a big girl.’

‘Why won’t you stay with me?’

She touched his bare chin and rolled to the window and waved a hand where the glass once was. ‘Do you ever wonder if there’s someone else out there for you?’ She stared into the street where five teenagers beat a bald man in a suit and stripped him of his clothes. His screams echoed against the fire. She brought her eyes to Ricky.

He kissed her hand. ‘No. There’s no one else for me.’

‘What if there is and you just haven’t met her?’

‘You’re perfect for me.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Where is this coming from? I love you. Believe me.’

‘No, I do. I know you do.’

‘Then what? Do you think there’s someone else?’

She blew hair out of her eyes. ‘Of course not.’ Heat ran up her back and touched her face.

‘Then stop. I love you.’ He tried to kiss her, but she leaned away.

‘But you’ve loved other girls.’

‘Not like this.’

She pulled his face close and kissed him. ‘You know how to make a girl smile.’

‘You’re not smiling.’

‘I will be.’ She kissed him again, hard, and pulled him on top of her.

———

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry, Ricky, I just can’t.’

He sighed and bowed his head, the blond hair tickling her chest.

‘It’s just there’s so much death outside. I can’t think of anything else.’ She pulled his chin up so he could see her.

He studied her face seeing his own reflection in her wide pupils. ‘You get me all worked up like this, though.’

She frowned. ‘I know. I’m sorry, but I just can’t. Not right now.’

‘It’s been weeks.’ He rolled off, crossing his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Will you stay here tonight?’ His eyelids weighed down his wilted eyes.

‘It’s never night.’

‘You know what I mean.’

She rolled over and watched the fire rage.

———

‘We’re almost out of food.’

‘Don’t go out there.’

Jack pulled on boots. ‘We need something to eat.’

‘You said almost.’

‘I meant, All gone.’

She stood and grabbed his hand. ‘Please, Jack, don’t. It’s scary out. It’s not like before.’

He kissed her fingers. ‘They won’t bother me. I’ve nothing they want.’

‘It’s not the same out there. They’re desperate and getting crazier. I saw them cut a guy apart. The screams were terrible and they lasted all night because they just left him to bleed to death out in the middle of the street. No one tried to help him.’

‘I’ll manage.’

‘But the radio’s out now, too, and, I don’t know, you can’t. If you die.’

His lips were on hers and the words were lost, never spoken, but carried between them. With tears, she wrapped her arms round him and kissed him longer. They separated, slow, their lips touching like fluttered butterfly wings. She whispered into his parted lips and he took it inside, deep, where he could taste it, live on it.

Her phone rang.

‘You still have Ricky.’

‘Not anymore. I live here, with you. I need you.’ She kissed him, ignoring the phone.

‘I know. I know.’

Her lip shipwrecked and her eyes drowned.

‘I’ll be right back. Trust me.’ He kissed her through her sobs and was out the door.

She collapsed.

———

She leaves the stoop and tosses the last cigarette into a puddle. Skeletal trees line the road back, replacing the streetlamps, most of which no longer work. The wind blows cold and she looks to the infinite cloud above. It hangs low, suffocating the earth with grey. The colors rot off the world and she is left only ashen shades.