Death Rhythm (21 page)

- leave, goddammit, leave -

The moan coming through Hector's throat rose in pitch. Andy couldn't take his eyes from the window.

Leave
, goddammit.

Hector's legs began to convulse. The muscles in his face twitched. Natalie's eyes rolled in pain, as Hector's teeth ground into her nipple. Hector was having an orgasm. His penis was lodged inside his boxer shorts, Natalie wore slacks - there had been no penetration - but Hector was having an orgasm, brought on by his excitement, and the slight bouncing motions of Natalie.

My god, she's trying to give the bastard a heart attack, Andy thought.

Hector slumped back into his wheelchair. Natalie slowly got up, hooking her bra back together and snapping up her blouse.

Andy's feet moved slowly. He forced them forward, propelling himself around toward the front of Natalie's house. His breath formed a thin curtain in front of him.

THIRTY-FOUR

She came at him in a blur of motion, tucking her shirt in, her face twisted in a look of confusion and surprise. "I didn't hear you knock."

"I didn't."

"Let's go outside," she said.

"What's wrong with it in here?" Andy asked.

She looked at him, trying to read him, the look in his eyes, trying to figure out if he knew something was going on.

"It's nice outside. Nice and cool," she said.

You're sweating up a storm. What's wrong?" Andy's voice was calm.

Natalie gave him that look again, that searching look.

"It's hot in here. I've been baking. Apple pie. Did you see the apple tree out back? It's brimming over this year. I kept picking them up off the ground all summer, but I could hardly keep up." She talked very fast and forced Andy back towards the door.

"Apple pie sounds good," Andy said.

"It didn't turn out," Natalie said. "It burned. Can't you smell it?"

A bird. That bird. That woodpecker.

"I can't smell a thing."

Natalie reached for the door handle.

At that moment, Andy decided to pretend nothing happened. He had trouble believing what he'd witnessed. Was he going at this the right way? He decided to drop it.

He backed out the screen door, averting his eyes, almost tripping off the front steps.

"Careful," she said.

"Emma!" Hector's raw voice came from inside the house.

Natalie stopped halfway out the door. She glanced over her shoulder, then at Andy. "Let's go," she said.

"Emma!"

Natalie closed the door, and ushered Andy down the steps.

"Who's Emma?" he asked as she took hold of his arm, pulling him along with her.

"She's my mom. Didn't I tell you that?" Her pace quickened.

"I thought she died."

"She did." Natalie looked over her shoulder at the door. It remained shut - no Hector peering out. "He sometimes thinks she's still around. He calls out for her, like she's gonna stick her head around the corner and suddenly say, 'Hey, I'm back!'"

They walked into the field between the two houses, headed towards the woods. She held his hand tightly, hers slippery with sweat.

Andy looked up into the sky. "It's getting cold out."

"I heard it might snow tomorrow," Natalie said. They watched their breath climb into the air. Natalie looked over her shoulder once more, watching her house as they slipped into the darkness of the woods.

Andy shivered. "Aren't you cold? I'm freezing."

Natalie slowed her pace. "No. At least not until you mentioned it."

Andy felt numb. Natalie was only a feeling in his hand, a shimmer, a tremor of pulse, sweat. The words coming out of Andy's mouth were meaningless to him, as if he wasn't aware of what he was saying. His mouth just moved, formed words, because that was all he could do at the moment. Form words and breathe. And be pulled along by Natalie's moist palm.

"I wanted to say good-bye to you," she said. "I thought you were going to leave without saying good-bye."

The moon was covered by clouds. The wind picked up. They headed in the direction of the cemetery. Of the headstones.

The stone building.

The flies.

Andy thought he could hear them. But they weren't close enough, were they? His temples throbbed. That pulse. That beat. He let go of Natalie's hand and put his fingers up to his forehead. He stopped walking.

"What's wrong?" Natalie asked.

He stood still. The pulse, the beat. Throbbing, pounding. The rhythm, familiar, too familiar. And for some reason, he knew it wouldn't go away. It was embedded in his skull.

It had always been there, this pulse, this rhythm. Only now with Natalie, it was magnified a hundred times, a thousand times.

"What's wrong?" she asked again.

He was losing himself, losing the world around him. It was all disappearing in that beat, that tempo.

Natalie reached out and shook. "Andy, c'mon. Are you okay?"

Slowly, he took his hands from his head, rubbing his fingertips together in circular motions. "Let's go back to Mae's," he said, trying to find Natalie's face in the darkness.

"What?" she asked. "Why? I don't think she likes me very much."

"She doesn't. But I want to get to my car. We can take a drive. It'll be warmer in my car."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yeah. I'm freezing." His voice was monotone, void of emotion. Void of anything but the breath that came out in a white mist. Even the mist was barely visible in the darkness.

Andy tugged on Natalie's hand, leading her away from the graveyard, toward Mae's house.

His skull was empty. A shell. A bleached out bone full of air and that constant pounding; that constant pounding that was grew and grew, bouncing around and building inside of him, each rebound feeding on the one before.

They stepped into Mae's backyard and found his car.

THIRTY-FIVE

They drove only a short time, looking straight ahead, their eyes fixed on the beams of the headlights.

Andy turned onto the gravel road that led into the cemetery, and drove through the wrought iron gate. He coasted to a stop, the beams of his headlights illuminating a conical swath of gravestones. He turned off the engine.

Natalie leaned towards Andy and put her arms around his shoulders. "Wait," he said. "Let's get in back."

They stepped outside, and then slid into the back seat.

"Aren't you going to turn off the headlights?" Natalie asked.

He looked at the beam lighting up the headstones and the fallen leaves. "No, not yet. I like the light."

"Just so your battery doesn't run out," she said.

Andy stared at the light. It soothed the throbbing in his head. It didn't quiet it completely, but the light seemed somehow in sync with the throb, making it bearable.

"Hold me," Natalie said.

He turned to her and felt his arms rise up and over her. They draped over her shoulders, around her neck. Natalie leaned forward, putting her arms around Andy, and squeezed.
Can she feel my pulse?
He was afraid to touch his head to her, afraid that the pounding would rock against her skull, and she'd be able to see into him.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

His answer was wooden, though he struggled to put some feeling into it. "No. It's just that I'm leaving tomorrow, you know?"

Her breath caressed his neck, its warmth lost to the beat in Andy's brain.

BAM, BAM, BAM, was all he could feel, all he could hear.

Natalie leaned forward, forcing him backward. Her lips pressed against his. Her tongue darted through his lips and flicked against his teeth. His hands were on her back, but he couldn't feel her. His hands tingled.

"Andy," she whispered. The roof of the car seemed to vibrate above Natalie's head. Her hair rippled and wavered as if made from rising heat.

Andy closed his eyes.

"Andy," she whispered again. "Make love to me."

She vibrated in tempo with the throb in Andy's skull. She vibrated, making the pounding worse. It made the pounding in Andy's head reverberate and echo, bashing against the rock walls of the cave inside his head. She vibrated and shook, as if someone held her head in a paint mixer and turned it to full power. Andy shut his eyes. Moved his hands to her hair, her wavering, shimmering hair, and grabbed hold of it, tried to force it to stop vibrating, to stop fucking
moving
.

Natalie's lips were pursed, but quivering - still shaking. Still vibrating. He felt them against his lips. Was it Natalie vibrating, or him? It didn't matter. He had to stop it. Had to stop that pulse, that beat, that tempo.

He let go of her hair, barely aware of the sounds coming from her lips. Words poured out of her, spilling into Andy's deaf ears. He reached beside himself, grasping for something solid. The car. The car couldn't be moving, could it? It had to be still, had to be solid. It was connected to the earth. The earth was still, wasn't it?

It felt like an earthquake. An earthquake shaking the ground, shaking the car, shaking Andy's head. An earthquake? Couldn't be. Not in Minnesota.

He grabbed hold of something, a strap beside him. The seat belt.

The seat belt couldn't be shaking, could it?

Everything moved. Cannons blasted in Andy's head. Dynamite exploded inside his brain.

He clutched the seat belt, squeezed it in a vain attempt to lose all the feeling in his hand, so that maybe - maybe - that numbness would spread through his entire body. A comfortable numbness sucking him up, enveloping him, protecting him from the vibration.

He squeezed, squeezed the seat belt, his head seeming to bounce between walls of granite at rapid-fire speed.

He knew that the words spilling from Natalie's mouth were her confession. He knew she was trying to get him to understand what she had done.

" - she killed my
sister!
My twin
sister!
Don't you understand? Mae's sister killed her, killed my mother with grief, killed any hope my father had for living - I was his only hope after that - my
sister
, Andy - I had to do something, had to make my father feel again, show him I was there, show him I loved him, someone loved him still - don't you understand? My sister, my sister, my sister - "

Andy's fingers began going numb. Natalie's words spilled onto him, rolling off his ears onto the car's floor. He lifted the seat belt up and over Natalie's head so that he could grab hold of it with his other hand. He had to squeeze harder, spread that numbness around.

Natalie's mouth continued to move, faster now, forming more words that fell off of Andy in an endless waterfall of sound. Spittle flew from her lips as Andy realized she must be screaming,
had
to be screaming, as he pulled on that seat belt, trying to spread that numbness around. Her head bounced back and forth in the air like a jackhammer.

Somehow, Andy had managed to wrap the seat belt around Natalie's neck. Somehow, as her head seemed to vibrate until it was a blur, he'd begun to pull the ends tight. The numbness in his hands felt good. Whiteness spread from his knuckles to his fingers. The numbness spread into his wrists, starting up his arms. He squeezed and pulled the belt, trying to stop this earthquake, this pulse, this
rhythm
.

Suddenly, Natalie's eyes rolled to the back of her head. A long line of drool slowly spilled from her mouth to Andy's. As the moisture hit Andy's lips, he realized that it wasn't Natalie. It wasn't Natalie who conducted this pulse. She was a part of it, part of the rhythm, but it wasn't her creation.

Natalie's head slowly rolled from side to side, her skin turning a purplish black in the darkness. She fell forward onto Andy.

He loosened the belt.
It's not you, Natalie. It's not you
.

Her face was pressed into Andy's, her eyes open. For one terrifying moment, Andy looked at his hands, the feeling in them completely lost. For one terrifying moment, Natalie was still. Too still. Then Andy felt a breath on his neck. A weak breath. Natalie coughed. She choked and gasped for air, sat straight up, struggled to get away from him. She bumped her head on the ceiling of the car, still gasping for air, and backed away, fumbling for the door handle. She found it, and fell backwards out of the car.

"Jesus Christ, what was that? What was that all about?" she asked, her eyes frantically searching over Andy. "Just what the fuck was that all about?"

Andy said nothing, looked at his hands, flexed them, waited for the feeling to come back into them.

"It's not you," he said. "I thought it was you, but it's not. I don't know what it is, but it's not you."

She looked at him perplexed, then stood up, her head above the top of the car, out from Andy's line of vision. Andy watched her arms, her hands hung limply at her sides. She turned away. "I have to go back." Her voice lacked emotion, lacked life. "I have to get back to Hector. He needs me." She started to walk away.

"I'm sorry," Andy whispered. "I thought it was you, but it's not. I'm sorry."

Soon Natalie was gone, out from the circle of trees, out from the clear night sky, out from the cemetery.

Andy lay in the stillness of the car. Breathing. The windows of the car were full of his breath. Full of Natalie's breath. He sat up.

The beams of the headlights had dimmed, and he stared at them as he got out of the car and walked to the front of the seat. The light acted as a mental source of warmth to Andy, as he sat shivering. He turned the key in the ignition, and the car hesitated. Started. He wiped a finger across the windshield, then a hand. The headlights glared against the tombstones. He closed his eyes. The stillness. He opened his eyes again and focused on his breath slowly drifting up into the air, hitting the roof of the car, and dissipating as it rolled across the top and down the windows.

Breathing. He was breathing. Still. Silent. Breathing.

He drove the car back to Mae's.

Andy stepped into the entryway, walked down Mae's front hall, and found Mae in the kitchen, drinking gin from a Styrofoam cup.