Monday - Chapter 12
A disturbing dream bridges Joe Richards’s past trauma to his current fears, another mystery finding him as he wakes.
New to The Road Cain Walks? See the Table of Contents to start the first chapter.
In the dark void of Joe Richards’s dream, a bright light beckoned. He swam through the abyss, emerging in a stone-pocked field with solemn strangers around him. Some he recognized. Sheriff Batten stood in uniform, arm-in-arm with his wife Marjorie. A younger version of Ms. Finch dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. They all gathered at Memorial Hill Cemetery, a dark polished casket hovering over an open grave. The hole beneath descended to shadow.
Joe grew dizzy with a fear that the ground might yawn wider to swallow him. Someone took his hand and squeezed. His attention rose to his father’s face, tears spilling from Garrett Richards’s eyes in a way they wouldn’t again for another thirty years.
Reverend McKenzie asked the mourners to bow their heads. When his father squeezed his hand again, Joe lowered his eyes but kept them open. He recognized the woman on the other side of his father but couldn’t remember her name. She drifted closer to Garrett while everyone else prayed, slipping her hand into his to lace their fingers together. Her lips parted to allow a single breath, heaving through her in a way that struck Joe wrong—like she was an addict getting her fix.
As his face grew hot, Joe jerked his hand from his father’s grip. “She’s never gonna be my momma.”
The preacher ended his prayer in stunned silence as Joe pointed at the mortified woman. His father clawed for his arm, but Joe dodged and ran. Within his first steps, he became disoriented, his perspective shifting from an all-out sprint to sitting in a cushioned chair.
A dizzying transition turned the cemetery into a theater. On stage, a boy ran in place six feet away from an older actor. The cardboard box painted to look like a coffin was pulled from behind them by a strand of fishing line to give the illusion they were running. A tub of popcorn sailed over Joe’s head, hitting the side of the boy’s face. Tripping over his feet, he hit the stage with a boom.
Joe scanned the room to find it packed with uniformed soldiers. Some were preoccupied with dates, hands so far up their skirts they could use them as puppets. The single men were restless, throwing more at the stage. Most of it was popcorn tubs and drinks, but someone whipped a small rock with a flick of his wrist as if skipping it over a pond. It hit the man playing Garrett Richards in the temple, dropping him beside the boy who was now on his knees with a blood-drenched hand over his broken nose.
Someone in the balcony shouted, “Bring out the pussy.”
Another called over Joe’s shoulder, “They both look like pussies to me.”
In a clatter, the maroon curtain closed and a dozen slivers of light rose from small glass fixtures. Footsteps stumbled across the stage as if the actors were afraid the audience might tear through the fabric and follow them.
When the lights dimmed again, the curtain billowed, the bulge traveling in a wave from the right side of the stage to its center. It parted on a man who was built like a bouncer, his hands clasped together as if begging. Despite his sharp jaw and bushy eyebrows, his voice came clear and eloquent.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for the delay. Ms. Shavonne has come down with the flu and will not perform tonight.”
The soldiers booed. The man’s face darkened.
“We’ve managed to find another act you should all enjoy. It’s not what you came for, but I promise you’ll leave satisfied. Please welcome to the stage Ms. Lana Rich!”
No one clapped as the curtain swallowed the emcee. Two men in dark suits emerged from the left, one carrying a stand-up bass as the other pushed a baby grand into the corner. With a synchronized nod, they played a low, moody tune. Footsteps clicked across the stage in rhythm.
An enthusiastic ripple of whistles greeted the singer as she stepped onto the stage. Her blue dress was tight enough to be painted on, the slight cleavage of her breasts all that proved it was actual fabric. Angled by matching heels, her calves flexed firm and bronze as the day Joe met her.
She was Elaine from nineteen years ago, before she gave birth to a son and sacrificed time at the gym for work and family. Dark brown hair brushed her jaw, swooping past her face when she moved her head. At the center of the stage, she stopped with a seductive smile.
A spotlight came on and the musicians disappeared, leaving Elaine alone. The music continued, her head catching its beat with a subtle nod. When she spotted Joe, she winked and sang “I Put a Spell on You.”
The soldiers sat captivated by the way she moaned the words, the slight sway of her hips. With her final note, they bellowed and pounded their hands in applause. Blushing, she became the Elaine Joe knew, embarrassed to accomplish anything great. She pressed her palm to her mouth and blew a kiss as the curtains closed.
As the audience stood and filed out, Joe kept his seat. When they were gone, he went down to the stage, slipping behind the curtain. Between the billowing red sheets, he crossed the wooden planks to a long, white corridor. He looked down the row of brown doors to one at the end of the hallway, a large star set in its middle.
The name “Lana Rich” was written in swooping glitter. Joe approached it and knocked, the door cracking to frame one of Elaine’s blue eyes, mascara thick on the lashes. Smiling, she swung the door wide and pulled him inside.
Elaine slammed the door behind Joe, pinning him to the wood with a rough kiss as if she’d waited years for it. His hands cupped her chin as he kissed back, steering her toward the vanity across the room. In the mirror’s reflection, he found the zipper of her dress and swiped it past the black bra strap, down to her matching panties.
Joe kissed her neck where her pulse pumped, unhooking her bra to slip it over her arms. She tugged his belt loose and pulled him to her. He lifted her onto the marble counter, her legs wrapping his hips.
It was the kind of sex reserved for dreams—her insatiable and him with an endurance to make porn stars jealous. In sleepy-eyed satisfaction, Elaine whispered a rough pant after Joe’s final thrust.
“Don’t leave me.”
The room shuddered as if a train passed beneath the floor. The dressing room darkened, the walls flaking to gray ash. It spread through the floor to the mirror and counter, rising through Elaine’s legs in jagged lines along her thighs and waist. Up her stomach. Over her breasts, neck, face. With skin the pallor of a corpse’s, she opened her mouth in a silent scream.
A rush of air crumbled everything—Elaine, the room, the world. Joe shut his eyes. Water pattered glass beyond their lids. Sitting up in the dark, he rolled out from under the covers and planted his feet on the Hovington’s hardwood. He stumbled to the desk and flipped open the laptop. It was just past eleven.
Slipping on his pants, he crept downstairs to the porch. Behind the clouds, the moon offered no light, but a flicker of it shone among the tall grass in the neighboring field.
From behind one of the porch’s pillars, Joe tracked the subtle bounce of a flashlight as it approached the leaning shack and vanished around the side. Another light, faint and orange, spilled between the kudzu and rotting boards.
It couldn’t be a good shelter. Rain surely streamed through the holes in the caved-in roof. Even so, a silhouette stood at the window, its shoulders square as if staring back at Joe.
The light went out.
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