Dark Avenues Page 3

  “If your father and I ever catch you near that place,” She said. “you won’t sit down for a week.”

  I nodded and helped her lug the groceries inside. We were putting everything away when the phone rang. Having thought about the house and my mother’s severe promise, the sound was so sudden I nearly dropped the gallon of milk onto the floor.

  After she put the ice cream in the freezer, Mom picked it up on the third ring. I was about to go upstairs and try on some of my new tops when she snapped her fingers. She used the crown of her shoulder to keep the phone pressed against her ear and raised her hand in a protesting gesture.

  “Hold on and I’ll ask her.” She said, then cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Did Jared look sick to you last night before they left?”

  “No.” I said in a curious tone. “Why?”

  “Jared is running a fever of a hundred. Did he act funny to you at all?”

  “Not until we got back here.”

  “Oh ok.”

  She brushed me off, carried the phone into the living room and sat down. A few minutes later, a daytime talk show blared from inside the living room.

  I stretched across on my bed and picked up where I left off in my favorite Jane Austen novel. The cool summer breeze coming through my bedroom window across from the foot of my bed caressed my legs and prickled my skin.

  A few minutes later, I began to grow lethargic. I flinched and, my eyelids growing heavy and limp, tugged back on my book to keep it from hitting me in the face. I finished the chapter I was reading, tucked my finger between the last page of that chapter and the next one and rolled onto my side.

  I blinked and found myself standing in the corner of a wide unfurnished room with brown carpet and oak-paneled walls. There was a kitchen to my left, complete with an L-shaped Formica countertop, a tall white fridge with a metallic handle and a gas stove. The living room, which was where I realized I’d been standing in, connected to a small foyer that branched off toward the other rooms in the house.

  A large picture window looked out over the back yard, exposing a wall of shaggy-green pines and gnarled oaks dappled in moonlight and shadow. The one behind me stared out onto a rough-hewn concrete porch dwarfed by cryptic shadows from an overhead shingled roof.

  I snatched a few quick breaths to shake the uneasiness off of my bones and sighed, drawing that sickly-sweet smell of licorice back into the my lungs. I tried to squeeze my fists together but only managed to squeeze my left hand instead. I looked down and a saw tall plastic red cup in my right fist filled almost to the brim with a clear odd-smelling liquid; a freshly-picked daisy was fastened to the right side of the cup, its shadow eclipsing the light from touching the surface of the liquid.

  I raised the glass toward my face and inhaled. I pulled my head away from the rim of the cup and winced through my teeth, wishing I could take that back. I wanted to set it down somewhere, anywhere but I stood there instead.

  People wandered around the room, joining tightly-knit groups of their peers in mid-conversation or welcoming new faces with gleeful smiles; a few of them stood by themselves, bobbing their heads to the music and nodding ceremoniously at passerby. Men wore tie-dye shirts, headbands, small round colored shades and frayed bell bottoms while women varied between bell-bottoms with thinly-veiled shirts and tie-dyed dresses with plunging necklines exposing sloping pale breasts.

  They flashed peace signs, bright-cheery smiles, flirtatious glances and hushed conversations that always ended in either an overdone peal of laughter or an expression of mute belief. A halo of tiny rainbow-colored spotlights spun around the room, swiping the walls and other people’s faces. “White Room” by Cream spewed from an oak-paneled record player cabinet sitting in the far left corner of the room.

  A tall bald man in the traditional tie-dye tee and blue jean bell-bottoms watched a wafer-thin brunette sashay across the living room. She wore a pair of bell bottoms and a pink rib vest that exposed her slender pale stomach and the curves of her white flapjack bosom. A reflective sheen of romantic hunger flickered in their eyes as if they were the only ones in the room.

  “You’re looking ripe tonight, Iris.”

  “So are you, Ethan.” She said, her face creased by a seductive grin.

  She sashayed across out of the room, her apple-bottom ass swaying like it would if she had a tail, and stepped through a door at the end of the hallway. He went back to chatting with a pair of redheads standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen; the tallest one wearing the knee-high polka-dotted wrap dress laughed at something he said; her partner-in-crime wore a bleached-white rib vest that emphasized the curves of her pale flapjack bosom.

  On the far right corner, a tall heavyset man in a long dark-brown blouse and frayed denims bobbed his head to the music between taking sips from a stout green beer bottle. A colorful beaded necklace hung loosely from around his fat pale neck and the bright green headband fastened above his brows looked tight enough to squeeze the circulation out of his head.

  I didn’t know where I was until I gazed across the room and saw the same curtain of colorful plastic beads draped across the same doorway Jared and I had been struggling to see through. My heart thudded as a fresh sheen of sweat spread across my pits and trickled down my temples; my skin tingled with fear.

  A loud clanging sound blared across the room, cutting me off. Iris glided across the room, banging an old tambourine against her left hand; the cute blonde standing beside of me blotted his hands on his jeans, his chest rising and falling with each rapid breath. She raised the needle from the record, ending the song in mid-chorus only for the crowd to replace it with an occasional whisper or a loud sip.

  She banged the tambourine again and gave a loud hum behind overlapped pink lips. A tall rugged-looking man in a breezy-white blouse and high-waisted blue flares stepped through the curtains of colorful plastic beads without using his hands. He scanned the room with deep-set gray eyes topped by sparse white brows; he had a gaunt tan face with a broad nose, plump lips and cleft chin.

  “Evening, Father.”

  A joyful expression softened his features, squeezing his eyes into tiny dark slits. He inhaled, sucking the smells of the room deep into his lungs and exhaled through evenly pursed lips that creased his face in a wide pleasing grin. He tented his fingers, pressed his hand against his lips and threw his hands in the air, his eyes shining with eccentric delight.

  “It’s so great to see all of you here tonight.” He said in a soft nasally voice. “It’s not just any night but a special night.”

  A third redhead began dancing across the room, her body shifting in graceful but twisted gestures. Her blue kaftan dress billowing out behind her, her eyes were closed as if she were listening to music only she could hear.

  Whispers filled the room as every face in the crowd followed him toward the far left corner of the room. Their eyes beamed with a ravenous mix of joy and admiration; the elation etching deep lines across their faces intensified my uneasiness. They closed their hands into tiny white-knuckled fists, raised them at shoulder level and opened their palms.

  Iris sauntered next to Ethan, her face creased by a wide jovial smile. When their hands touched, their pinkies intertwined.

  “Our long and exhausting journey as brought you to the end.” Father said, strolling across the back window. “I know because I’ve been there and back and when I go back again we will go together because I feel that you are worthy, aren’t you?”

  “We Are!” They said in unison.

  “Do you believe that you are ready to take what is yours? Do you trust me to guide you on this journey to a whole new world filled with the same promise and pleasure that I believe you deserve out of the kind of my heart?”

  The arrogant quality in his voice increased my nervousness.

  “Please take us with you.” Someone in the crowd exhaled. “We love you, Father.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. Beads of sweat peppered his forehead and cleave
d lucid concentric paths down his cheeks.

  A third redhead pressed her hand softly against her chest and said in a pleasing tone, “I feel your love, Father. I’m ready to take your hand and walk side by side with you.”

  Father opened his eyes and walked across the room, parting the crowd like The Red Sea. When he approached his apostle, the faces in the crowd were fermented with a mix of envy for the ones whom he’d brushed past and jealousy for the others who’d never been this close to him. He seized her hands and, scanning her from head to toe, appraised the network of bright blue veins streaking across the tops of her large pale breasts.

  He eased his right hand away from hers, held it high above his head and shook his fingers. His chest rising and falling with each breath, he sucked a pocket of air deep into his lungs. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he danced back and forth on the balls of his feet.

  “We’re ready, Father.” Iris added.

  At the sound of Iris’ voice, everyone raised their glasses and took one long swig. They dropped their cups onto the floor and sighed loudly like actors in a soda commercial after the first sip; the chubby blonde guy standing beside of me slipped something from the right front pocket of his jeans but the lights were so dim I couldn’t get a clear glimpse of what it could’ve been. Their faces twisted in masks of eccentric lunacy, they eagerly awaited his next move; their eyes blazed with something more sinister than hope.

  A mix of fear and confusion pressed down on me like a wet blanket, wrapping me up in its suffocating folds and snatching my breath. An alarm rang in the back of my head, urging me to leave now right now and never look back but I couldn’t; my stomach churned as my chest tightened with fear.

  He cupped Julie’s face in both hands, his face creased with a wide pleasing grin. Everyone mumbled under their breath, their lips moving in a rhythmic cadence that sent a wave of gooseflesh across my skin. He lowered his lips three inches away from her left ear and spun her head around until her neck gave a loud brittle snap.

  He grinned and stared down with horrid fascination at the pool of hot brownish yellow liquid oozing out from the bottom of her dress, his eyes burning with maniacal pride.

  When he dropped her onto the floor like a sack of unwanted mail, he raised his arms high over his head and backed up into the crowd. An electric silence crackled inside the room, raising the hairs along the back of my neck.

  The cute blonde guy raised his right hand, opened the pair of stubby metallic jaws of the pilers he’d slipped out of his pocket, squeezed its jagged metallic jaws onto the top right front tooth and tore it from the prison of his bright pink gums; a trail of tears, snot and blood slid down his face and dripped onto the floor. His body quivering with each gut-wrenching sobs, he moved onto the next tooth, then the next and then the next. Iris and Ethan slid thin razor blades from between their teeth, knelt onto the floor; she tore her dress open and exhaled as he etched a large gaping wound across the tops of her pale sagging breasts. The taller redhead knelt down, burying her fingers inside of her friend’s dripping wet crotch while the once dancing ginger etched strange symbols across her back, sending rivers of blood oozing down to the floor; the shorter redhead writhed and winced with the rhythm of the sexual electricity tearing through her. The others followed suite, conducting their own act of self-mutilation: making passionate love and digging their teeth into each other’s flesh until the skin broke filling their mouths with the sweet coppery nectar of blood; a heavyset man in a dark-blue tie-dye shirt and bell bottoms sobbed and began to smash his right hand repeatedly with a ball-peen hammer his joyous laughter failing to overpower the sound of wet pulverized flesh.

  My stomach churned; something rose up my esophagus and tickled the back of my throat with a sour bitterness I couldn’t suppress. The cup fell from my hand, struck the floor, kicking up a small geyser of clear liquid high above the brim before it fell onto its side and spilled along the floor.

  Loud cries of pain and pleasure rippled across the house in an abnormal sonata. The mixed stench of patchouli, sweat and blood spread across the room like a death cloud and stung my nostrils. A streak of nausea rose from deep in the pit of my stomach toward the back of my throat and prickled across the middle of my tongue.

  Father stood in the back of the room staring at his reflection in the large picture window facing the back yard, his face creased by a thin wicked grin. He pressed his hands together, mumbled under his breath, cocked his head toward the window and grinned at me, his cold gray eyes baring down on me li–

  I blinked and sat up. My book flew off my chest, bounced off the edge of my bed and, its pages flapping uncontrollably, hit my bedroom floor with a soft thud. I took a couple of deep breaths, my hands curled into clammy white fists, and sighed until the anxiety dissipated from my bones.

  Outside, the sun disappeared behind the trees, spreading a bruised purple tint across the sky. My curtains billowed in the breeze, their convex shadows weaving across the floor.

  There was no question about where I was, but there were other questions that were left unanswered.

  Who were all of those people?

  Why were they calling him Father?

  I raked a hand through my hair, threw my legs over and sat on the edge of my bed. Twenty minutes past three; it sure felt like I’d been asleep for much longer.

  “Did you hear your mother?” Dad bellowed from the bottom of the stairs.

  “What?” I asked, then lied. “I was listening to my music and I couldn’t hear her.”

  “She wants you to come and help her with dinner.”

  “Okay.” I said. “I’ll be down in a little bit.”

  I knelt down, collected my book from the pink and white braided rug spread out across the floor beside of my bed, set it on top of my bedside table and ran down stairs.

  3

  I’D kept myself busy for the next two days and did whatever I could to avoid thinking about that god awful place again.

  On the first day, I finished the book I’d been reading, started another one (Watership Down by Richard Adams) scrawled a fresh entry into my journal and watched a couple of movies with Mom and Dad until it was time for bed. On the second, Mom and I camped out in the living room under a makeshift tent made of couch cushions and soft fluffy blankets, binge-watched our favorite shows and stuffed our faces with junk food until it hurt.

  On the third day, I was contemplating the perfect word to add to today’s entry when Mom called me down stairs. I put the cap on my pen, stuck it inside of my diary, stuffed it back inside of my secret hiding place and ran down stairs.

  When I arrived inside the living room, Aunt Ruth was sitting on the edge of the couch in a pink-tee shirt, denim shorts and sandals. She greeted me with a wide joyful smile and waved me over for her one of her patent Aunt Ruth hugs–which came with a soft kiss on the crown of my forehead–and bragged about how pretty I was.

  Jared was sitting next to her, cradling a bright blue bookbag tightly against his chest. He wore a white Mickey Mouse tee shirt, denim jeans and white sneakers with blue stripes. He didn’t seem too eager to say hello when I exchanged pleasantries with Aunt Ruth, which left me feeling confused if anything.

  “Aren’t you going to say hello to your cousin.” Ruth asked, nudging Jared’s shoulder.

  He mumbled something under his breath and shot up from the couch, his boyish features creased by a wide happy grin. He leaped over the coffee table, his stick-figure shadow floating in mid-air, and ignored the loud uncomfortable gasps uttering from our mothers’ lips. I caught him in my arms, nuzzled my face against the thick tuft of coarse brown hair and hugged him tightly.

  “Jared’s going to stay the weekend.” Mom said, carrying two cups of hot tea into the living room. “Isn’t that great?”

  Ruth nodded, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Can we go upstairs and watch a movie?”

  “Sure.”

  “If you misbehave,” Ruth said, wagging her finger in Jared’s direction. “you
’re gonna be in trouble. The rules at our house are the same as they are here, understand? You are to do whatever your Aunt Larissa and your Uncle Kyle tell you to do, got it?”

  Jared nodded.

  We hurried up the stairs, our feet pounding like a herd of angry buffalo and into the rec room between my parents’ bedroom and the bathroom. Large colorful posters depicting colorful landscapes dotted the room’s egg-shell white walls; a large closet was located on the right side of the room, stocked with a few tall plastic totes (a few of them were labeled MOLLIE’S WINTER CLOTHES and HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS) A flat-screen television sat in the far right corner across from a pair of overstuffed bean-bag chairs; a DVD player and two game consoles sat on the top shelf above a bottom shelf holding a mixed stack of DVDs and video games.

  After I put the first disc of the entire fifth season of our favorite show, he gave me another tight hug. We sat down on our favorite bean bag chairs (he liked the blue one whereas I preferred the yellow one), pressed our bare feet against the bright blue carpet and waited for the disc to load. Although we’d seen them hundreds of times, we still laughed until it hurt. We were halfway through the second disc when Aunt Ruth dropped by.

  “I’m gonna head back home, okay honey.” She said, kneeling down to meet Jared’s gaze. “I’ll miss you baby but I hope you have fun while you’re here.”

  When she began smoothing out the wrinkles in his tee-shirt, he gave a protest through his teeth that sounded like a whisper.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom.”

  “I know.” She said in a morose whine. “Just have fun, honey.”

  She exited the room and stopped halfway down the stair case. She peered at him through the balustrades in the second floor railing and flashed a wide pleasing grin.

  “Remember to text your father before you go to bed tonight.”

  “Father knows where I’ll be if he needs me.”

  After Aunt Ruth finished her descent down the staircase, Jared hurried back into the rec room and sat down. I caught a slight trace of something odd in his voice, in the way that he’d spoke to Ruth just now. It was a tone I’d never heard him speak in but I knew something had to do with it.