Revival House (23 page)
Authors: S. S. Michaels
“We can revolutionize the whole death experience,” Avery says. “But you need to be alive and in one piece.” He sobs.
At that second, I want nothing more than for Avery to be out of my life. We are no longer friends. We have not been for quite some time. I’m only now realizing it.
“I’m doing it,” I yell to be heard above Four’s shrieking and Avery’s sobbing.
The drill makes a whirring sound, drowning out Four’s screams, the sirens, Avery’s moaning, Trent Reznor, my own vomiting. The whirring deepens to a low buzzing. A core of my scalp is ripped free from my head in a clockwise rotation of spinning metal teeth. A sheet of blood colors my kaleidoscope vision red and I see everything in exact geometric shapes. I recite the periodic table of elements in my head and scream for Avery to watch me bear down on the drill.
I can feel the jagged metal of the bit scraping my skull. I can’t hear anything above the screaming whine of the drill, I can’t see anything through the red.
The three-quarter inch circle of bone is completely severed as if by a devilish cookie cutter.
But the diamond teeth don’t stop.
I’m going for the dura mater.
I am sick of Avery’s shit.
Chapter 56 – Four
The paper says the body of a girl was found in the river, under the Talmadge Bridge. She’d been ripped apart by a passing cargo ship. The coroner thought she might have committed suicide, just another bridge diver taking the plunge at low tide.
I throw the paper onto the crappy waiting room coffee table. The fluorescent lights are bright and some nurse brought me a shirt to put on, one of those blue scrubs things.
Caleb drilled too deep and grazed the membrane surrounding his brain, the dura mater or something. He might be okay but they won’t know for sure for a couple more hours.
Funny thing is, his Aunt Billie died tonight.
Caleb doesn’t even know.
I called one of my tour leaders and told him I’m going to be out for a couple of days, which is a shame because he said business is through the fucking roof.
I can save the funeral parlor.
Caleb doesn’t even know.
The lump in my throat won’t go away, no matter how many times I cough or take a drink. I can’t control the tears dripping down my face. I didn’t even really know he was sick. I mean, I did, but I didn’t know he was
that
sick.
If only I had known maybe I could have saved him.
I should have checked on him more often after Sterling died, after he really started withdrawing. I thought Avery had everything under control, that poor bastard. I don’t know what he’s going to do. Go home, wherever that is, I suppose, or find a job someplace.
My mind plays and replays the images of Caleb sprinting up to Boo and shoving him over the wall, Boo’s head splattering on the concrete, Caleb sitting in his bathroom holding a drill to his own head, spraying his purplish-red blood everywhere. I can see blood running in lines down the side of the claw-footed bathtub, collecting between the paws’ toes. I can see the mirror with Caleb’s blood running down it like torrential rain.
I cry but I have nothing left to vomit.
I don’t know what comes next.
I wait, I guess.
Chapter 57 – Caleb
Aunt Billie died. They told me the day I was released from the hospital. I’m told her funeral was nice. She was laid to rest in Bonaventure Cemetery next to Uncle Sterling, in nothing less than a solid mahogany Montrachet. Four went to the funeral and bought her tons of flowers. In fact, he’d paid for the whole thing. All the neighbors were there, even the ones she hated before The Accident. She took my green tie with her to her grave, I’m told.
The hole in my head will heal, Doctor Fowler told me. I’m not supposed to poke anything in it and I have to keep a bandage over it for a couple of weeks.
Four stays here at Exley & Sons with me now. He bought the place, settling all the debts Uncle Sterling had racked up, and business has started to pick up just in the past week. He sent Avery back to Pittsburgh, shaken and questioning his research.
Four is now a local celebrity. His tour company has an actual office in City Market now and he has nine people working for him. He seems truly happy for the first time in his life. He doesn’t have to ask his parents for money any more, which seems to be a load off his shoulders.
I can’t talk like I used to. I’m a little slower now, but I get by.
I’m just glad to be rid of Avery. He took her from me.
Started working at the parlor again a few days ago. It’s kind of nice to get back into a routine. My headaches are gone— I guess the doctors took a tumor out of my head right under the spot that I’d made the hole.
“Hey, Dude,” Four says, rushing in through the kitchen door, surprising me. He wears normal clothes now, too. Suits and everything. He’s a new man. Like me. “Have I got some news for you.”
“Okay, what have you got?”
“The network Boo’s show was on loved us. And you know who they’re owned by? Take a guess.” He’s smiling at me like a child on Christmas morning.
“Um, a bigger network?”
“No. Wanna guess again or should I just tell you?”
“Tell me, I’m dying of curiosity over here.”
He rubs his hands together, pulls out a kitchen chair across the table from me, and sits down. “Entertainment World Studios.” He laughs.
“Okay, so?”
He puts his hands flat on the table and looks me right in the eye. “They. Want. To. Buy. Us. Out.” He squeals and giggles like a girl.
My mind tries to wrap itself around what that might mean.
“Dude, Savannah is going to be known as the haunted capital of the world. We’re putting this fucking place on the map. The house we’re sitting in is going to become the world’s scariest haunted house. The tunnels will be jammed with tourists. Instead of mouse ears, people who come here will all buy shit with ghosts on it.” He grins some more.
I feel like throwing up.
“Four,” I begin, not sure of what I’m about to say. “People died here.”
His smile fades. “Yeah, but we’re not only saving Exley & Sons, we’re making the town a better, richer place. A place where people can enjoy life, have fun. Live this life a little better. They don’t need some artificial afterlife.” His smile broadens again. “It’s gonna be okay, Dude. Everything is going to be great.”
Hot tears scald my clean-shaven cheeks.
“I can’t stay, Four.”
In my heart, I know that I am going to Hell. I’m not religious but I do believe in God. And I know I was sick and not in my right mind, but I killed two people just the same and I do not believe there is forgiveness for a sin that egregious.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Chapter 58 – Four
As soon as I put him on the plane, I missed the son-of-a-bitch. I wanted to sit in the Dead House with him and bullshit ‘til the early hours of the morning. I wanted to show him how to pick up waitresses on River Street. Shit, I wanted to bail him out of jail for getting his ass whipped in a bar.
I got a letter from him today.
He says Los Angeles is unbelievable and that I should visit.
He says Scarlet would have loved it.
I’ll go visit him sometime, but I’ve got work here that keeps me busier than ever. I am the CEO of Savannah Studios. As the name implies, we not only operate four separate theme parks, we also do quite a business making films in our very own studios. Mostly horror films because that’s what I like.
My family is proud. I took the worst possible situation and turned our city into one of the most popular vacation destinations in the world.
I want Caleb to be proud.
He should be.
Chapter 59 – Caleb
I float through the sitting room, littered with babbling old crones with the TV on too loud, men in tattered plaid bathrobes, trying to ignore the competing odors of chlorine and urine. I smile and nod at a man with grizzled cheeks and mismatched socks. He’s sitting in a plastic-covered floral print chair next to a shiny mahogany coffee table. Without thinking about it, I reach into my pocket for a business card. Then I realize I’m not in the dying business anymore. I smile wider and keep walking toward the elevator.
Room 513.
As I push the door open, the nurses take her pulse and temperature. They look at each other, twin quizzical expressions meeting above a plump and familiar body. The pinging heart rate monitor emits a very slow but steady stream of blips. The two nurses turn their eyes to me, wearing cautious smiles.
A corrugated white plastic tube snakes out of my sweetheart’s mouth like a rigid section of intestine. A familiar image dances at the periphery of what’s left of my memory. When the doctors removed the tumor from my brain, a large part of my memory disappeared.
I remember Scarlet only as a sweet art student, full of life and enthusiasm, and the love of my life.
Four sent her away after he had found her cowering in a tunnel. He’d been scouting the Dead Houses beneath the streets of Savannah for the new theme park when he came upon Scarlet, cowering next to an old concrete autopsy table. She had been babbling to herself, but clearly saying my name. She could move and speak in rudimentary sentences, so he put her on a plane, thinking she wanted to be with me.
When she arrived at LAX, I met her with the widest smile and a bouquet of white lilies. She wore a blank expression. Her hair was its natural dirty blonde color, save for an inch of black that hung on the ends, which I had never seen before. She wore an old pair of jeans and Four’s Mighty Mouse shirt, with a note pinned to the front of it. The note bore her name and her destination. Just another faceless traveler processed through the anonymous world of air travel.
Four had arranged for Scarlet to stay at a middle class assisted living facility in Burbank, knowing that I would not be able to give her the medical care she required. So, I drove her there, and I visited her every day. She’s been here for two weeks.
“Your dream,” I said, stroking her hair. A few strands come off in my hand. “You really made it. You’re in L.A.” I tell her this every day. I smile at her as the nurses scurry out of the room. There is no reaction. Scarlet is in some kind of walking catatonic state. I’m told any minute could be her last, so I treasure each one I spend with her.
“Oh, Scarlet,” I say, tears flowing down my cheeks, landing on her corrugated breathing tube with a muted plop. “I love you. I always loved you.” I wipe my nose on the sleeve of my plaid Ben Sherman shirt. “I thought you were lost to me forever. I think, anyway.” I give a pathetic laugh that falls somewhere between a sigh and a sob.
Her eyes are open, but she doesn’t blink.
I remove my windbreaker and throw it on a Naugahyde chair.
I unbutton my shirt.
Her eyes open wider, wider than I’d ever seen them.
Today is a very special day.
I unbuckle my belt and unzip my khaki pants.
Her mouth works around the plastic snake. I know she wants to say she loves me, too.
And I climb over the railing of her bed.
It is the best moment of my life.
THE END
About the Author
S. S. Michaels is the author of Idols & Cons, editor of Ice Picks: Most Chilling Stories from the Ice Plaza, co-editor of Detritus, and is a member of the Horror Writers Association. She has lived abroad, traveled widely, jumped out of an airplane, driven a race car, and worked in Hollywood. She lives in a haunted city on the Georgia coast.
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