MISSZ-SPARROW: Hehe, okay! One little tidbit – Layla was definitely seeing Shooter's face. Mort is nowhere to be found in these dreams.
Chapter VI: Manifest"Through this world I've stumbled, so many times betrayed. Trying to find an honest word, to find the truth enslaved. Oh, you speak to me in riddles and you speak to me in rhyme. My body aches to breathe your breath. Your words keep me alive." – Sarah McLachlan
No sooner had Mort entered the house, returning after an hour of making an effort to help Tom, his shirt streaked with sticky black grease, and dog-tired to boot, the phone rang.
Naturally expecting Layla to get it, as it was probably her fuckwit ex-husband, he set the toolbox down by the door, pulling off his tuque and heading upstairs to change his shirt. Normally he wouldn't have cared enough to change into something clean, he didn't even care that he may have permanently stained the shirt, but the feeling of the viscous substance soaking through the fabric and onto his skin was an icky one. By the time he headed downstairs, comfortably numb in his bathrobe, the phone continued its vexatious squawking.
"Layla, will you please answer th—" Mort began to shout, until he noticed Layla at the kitchen table, out cold, having fallen prey to the Sandman. He stared at her, then at the phone, not knowing how she could sleep through such an irritating racquet. Pleasant dreams must be in her wake; otherwise, she wouldn't be so resistant in withdrawing from them. "I envy you, cupcake," Mort muttered, heading over to the ringing bitch ruefully, as though he knew he was going to regret answering. He snatched up the receiver and slowly placed it against his ear. "House of Insanity, how may I help you?"
"Very charming, Mort," the voice on the other end sighed.
"Amy…" he breathed, startled.
"That would be me…how are you doing?"
Who knew she was such a great actress? For a second, he thought she almost sounded as though she cared what his answer was. But he knew better. Swallowing hard, he subdued the urge to tell her how he really was. "Fine."
Amy said nothing for several seconds, as though expecting him to pose a how-are-you to her, but he never did. She sighed again, then started in condescendingly, "Look, I called you yesterday. I left a message with your cousin, I hope she didn't forget to tell you."
"No, Layla didn't forget to tell me," Mort responded, not at all appreciative of Amy's patronizing. "I just chose to disregard the message entirely."
"Why would you do something like that, Mort?" she wondered, shocked at the idea of her cuckolded ex-husband not wanting to talk to her. "What's wrong?"
He groaned, anxiously running his hand through his hair, mussing it up, "Just because I don't want to talk, something must be wrong?"
"There are things that need to be discussed," she said firmly, moving away from the subject of whatever she thought was wrong with Mort. He could envision her now, in their beautiful home that was to have been for the two of them, and the two of them only. Perhaps she was having some wine in the kitchen…or watching television in the living room with the volume now on mute…or lying stretched out on her bed…Ted next to her… "I don't want to be a bother to you, I just want to get this thing done—"
"I've been busy, Amy. Excuse the hell outta me if I have a life that doesn't involve you!" Mort said, the volume of his voice on the way to a yell. It was her fault that everything he wrote was a retelling of his traumatic discovery six months ago. She was the source of all his desperation, his hatred.
"Believe me, Mort, I know that. You still had that life when we were married, a life I could never hope to be apart of…"
Mort cracked his jaw, sick of taking this whiny bullshit from her. He couldn't stand listening to all her demands, her complaining about how guilty she felt, her I-was-married-to-an-obsessive-writer,-poor-poor-me schtick. But he especially couldn't stand listening to her say his name. He hated the seductive-without-trying way it rolled off her tongue, the feeling it gave him inside that if he had nothing, he would always have her, encouraging him, saying his name endlessly.
"But I didn't call to talk about the past."
"Coulda fooled me," Mort muttered.
"How is your writing coming along, by the way?" Reverting back to the snobbery.
"I've got a few new developments, actually," he said testily, hoping she believed his ruse.
"That's nice…" Amy commented. "Is the cabin inspiring enough for you?"
"Speaking of writing, I really ought to get back to it. I'm on a roll," he lied. As a smug aside, he added, "So let's be honest here, are you done wasting my time?"
Amy hesitated before saying anything, flabbergasted by his insult. "Wasting your time? I'm trying to be reasonable, Mort," she wailed, the tears in her voice all too audible. "And I really wish I could get the same courtesy. If you would just cooperate, we can make this as painless as possible—"
He shook his head, appalled at how simple-minded she could be. "If your intent was to keep pain out of this situation, dear heart, I gotta say, you've done a bang-up job."
"Mort, just hear me out—"
But Mort wouldn't hear her out. By this time, he had to hang up. If she said his name one more time, he really was going to lose it; a big part of him wanted to slap the shit out of her. Hadn't a wise man once said to never trust a limping dog nor the tears of a woman? But still, another part of him, buried deep deep inside his soul, believed that she truly felt horrible about what happened, and so he wanted nothing better than to hold her in his arms again, to comfort her, to let her know that it was all going to turn out alright. But as of late, that part of him was too difficult to reach. He felt not even a scrap of sympathy for her.
Immediately, the phone rang again. Mort wasted no time in snatching it up and slamming it back down on the hook. Growling in frustration, with both Amy and himself, he rested his head in his hands, the beginnings of another migraine ripping through his forehead.
"What'd she want?"
Mort lifted his head and turned over his shoulder to see Layla leaning on the couch, groggily eyeing him with concern. "Fuck if I know," he responded ambiguously. He shook his head and turned away from her, reaching into his bathrobe pocket for his pack of L&Ms. The pack felt rather flat, and as he pulled it out, he realized it was empty. Another growl rose up in his throat as he hurled it onto the ground. He sat there a few moments, fuming, before looking over his shoulder again. "What?!" he demanded.
Layla was still standing there, unfazed. "I just wanted to know if I should fix you a sandwich," she said calmly, deciding not to tell him about the latest dream, the only explanation for her sudden high, bound to be a temporary one. She would almost feel like she was betraying him, if she wasn't completely miserable. Their little lakeside cabin was Misery Headquarters.
"Don't trouble yourself," he said, waving her off. "I've—"
"—lost your appetite. I know." Shrugging, she headed back off to the kitchen, trying to get her mind off the dream and on to tonight's meal. Never had any aspect of her dreams continued to pop up in subsequent dreams. And her dreams had never had another person in it that was so real, who could be anyone she met on the streets. But most importantly, she hadn't had dreams of even a remotely romantic nature in a long time. God only knew what it all meant. It could be just some Freud psychobabble; the result of desires for another man, the perfect man, after her flawed marriage and cheating husband. A man who would kill for her. A being her mind had created as a means of helping her cope. And as she had said before, things would be so much easier if Frank just dropped off the face of the earth. Or better yet, if he was brutally and mercilessly slaughtered, until he was unrecognizable by even his closest relatives. Maybe she was losing it, funny farm style. Probably the biggest nutcases out there started out with trying to sleep their miserable lives away, but the lines between fantasy and reality began to blur, and they no longer knew the difference between the two realms. In the end, it was all about wanting something to live for.
Not knowing what else to do, Mort rose from the couch and went to make the long trudge upstairs to write shit that he was just going to delete anyway. But as his foot grazed the first stair, something caught his eye.
The dream book.
Don't bother looking through the book, Layla had said. I'll just tell you my dreams.
(But she never did, did she?)
The book was right where she had left it, laying open on the kitchen counter, a great and terrible temptation. Priceless story ideas to get him out of his rut.
(On second thought, I don't think I approve of this. You'd be invading her privacy. If she found out…)
The voice was to be ignored. Stealthily, Mort poked his head into the kitchen. Layla was searching through the pantry for flour, reaching into the very back. Her rummaging around was creating quite a lot of noise; so she wouldn't hear him. Half her body was obscured; so she wouldn't see him. If he just grabbed it now, and ran for it…
(Do you really think it wise to piss off your one and only ally?)
Without another thought in his mind, Mort quietly lurched forward, snatching the book, and then flew to the staircase, storming up the stairs. Breathing hard, he plopped down onto his computer chair, making Chico raise his head suddenly, sensing Mort's presence, before laying it back down again.
(I don't know why I even try.)
"You only think you understand desperation," Mort replied flatly, flipping to the very beginning of the dream book. "I'm just looking for ideas anyway. You can't base a whole story on one dream. There have to be other aspects to it…and I'm sure they'll come to me…"
(But…these are her thoughts, the depths of her mind on paper. You're a thought thief!)
(Plagiarist!)
Mort didn't accept nor deny the charges, and his silence was what finally silenced his inner voice. He didn't spend a great deal of time reading, just skimmed for anything that caught his eye.
…in a padded room…I wouldn't take their damn medication, so they forced it down my throat…
…then he got up from the table. We didn't talk for the rest of the night…
…A kind of a Mengele torture chamber, medical experiments gone horribly wrong, coupled with some children who had probably been born with deformities…almost inhuman-looking creature with no eyelids…two tiny infants surgically attached…a little girl with one head, but two faces…
…I'm not sure when it happened, but there was definitely a point in time when we killed her in the dark…mercy killing or maybe just so she would shut up…security guards came into the theatre looking for us, so we hid…don't know how we escaped…
…came after me with knives…it's hard to run in a wedding dress and high heels…Frank was on the top floor, watching as I ran about like a trapped mouse, yelling to the men to tell them where I was and where to go…I tried to get to the glass entrance, but one of them caught up with me…slit my throat as I began to wake up, and I actually felt the skin of my neck separate as he slashed me…
…Frank saw me laying there on the stretcher…I was outside myself and could see that my face was covered with blood…they kept telling him I was comatose, but he wouldn't listen…he left his friend behind on the street as he ran to me, grabbing for my hand…screaming my name…
Mort rubbed his chin, nodding, "That's very interesting…hardly anything about infidelity, just Frank…I could use this…" He went to turn the page, to look at the very last entry, when his psyche verbally intervened.
(Don't. Turn. The Page.)
"Why not?"
(There's something you shouldn't see…)
He rolled his eyes, pulling the page up with so much force, the edge ripped a little, "What do you know about that I don't? Is it some dream about me…?"
(…well…technically…)
Just as he wouldn't listen to the reasoning of his ex-wife, he wouldn't listen to his own reasoning either. Mort was met head-on with a dozen scribbles, cross-outs, and drawings. Layla had begun the entry several times, but had crossed out the words, now illegible beneath the thick black cross-outs. But there were the drawings…
(I told you not to, silly boy.)
Mort stared in horror, his breath catching in his throat. "I…I know him…from somewhere…"
(Just as he certainly knows you…)
He couldn't explain it, but something about the ominous man beckoned to his very soul. True, it was just a crude sketch, with no real talent behind it. Here, the man was made merely of ink, of smoke and mirrors, but at the same time, there was something flesh-and-blood about him too. Layla hadn't completely finished any of the illustrations. In each one, she had left out his eyes, turning them to vacant black holes in his cruel visage, empty as a promise. Mort wondered if he stared into them long enough, maybe he would disappear into them, never heard from again.
And worst of all, it simply would not matter. Not to anyone.
…
Never keeping a grudge against whiskey for long, Layla paused in her cooking to take a few gulps of the stuff. Hadn't Mort warned her against consuming whiskey today? Oh well. Too late now. "What would I do without you?" she muttered, half-drunken, before returning to fixing dinner. She took the pot off the stove, beginning to stir in the shredded asiago cheese for her pasta sauce. Frank had never cared for Italian, which happened to be her specialty; she was rarely afforded the opportunity to cook it at home, and was almost glad that he wasn't around to bitch and moan about her choice in cuisine.
Ah honestly doan know why any husband wouldn't be grateful for a home-cooked meal. 'specially when they're as good as hers look. Ah could tayll she waws thankin' 'bout him, the way she started stirrin' the sawse lahk she waws butcherin' meat, an' the way her eyes looked all cowld and empty, her mahnd on the past. Dammit, ah hate lookin' into those eyes and seein' her pained lahk that. Thayre she goes with the whiskey ag-eein. Ah'm gowna put a stop to that, soon as possible. She's been fooled into thankin' she can drank the pain away, but it jus' tisn't so. Only makes everythang worse.
Ah wasn't lyin' when ah said ah'd never hurt her. I reckon she remahnds me of wun o' those porcel-ein dolls…delicate and fragile. All it takes is to drop her once, and she'll break. Frank has about the loosest piss-poor grip of any man ah know. But ah'm gonna fix 'er. Ah'll pick up the pieces an' put her back together ag-eein. And ah'll never let her go fer wun second…
Can't say ah've ever seen her this close up. Shore, in dreams I have, but it's not the same thang. It's awl in her mahnd. A mahnd is the only place ah've been able to exist. Until now, at least. What ah wouldn't give to jus' reach out, touch her hair…just for a lil' bit. With the laght shinin' down on it the way it is, almost looks the color o' blood. The way it looks when it first appears from a wound…jus' beautiful. Lawrd. I cain smell the vanilla on her. Jus' the way she smelled in that dream. All that tahm, ah had to keep reassurin' m'self that it wawsn't real, else she was lahk to drahv me crazy. But now that it is real…it's takin' all mah weelpower not to jus' run up and grab her, taik her away from this place. It's not a healthy envir'nment. Not fer her, or Mr. Rainey. But there's still thangs that need to be done. And when ah've taken care o' them, and it comes tahm to claim her, Lawrd haive mercy on anyone who tries to stand in mah way.
As Layla continued mixing the sauce, the whiskey warming her momentarily as it flowed down her throat, a strange feeling came over her that she couldn't shake; the feeling that she wasn't alone. And just out of the corner of her eye, she could see the culprit that gave her this feeling. She whipped around to face him, but before she could get a good look at him, he fled, a flash of black. "Mort?" she called out, stunned and bewildered as to why he would run from her. She scurried into the living room after him, just in time to see him disappear into the darkness of her bedroom, the door closing behind him. From the slit under the door, she could see the light turn on, her room now bathed in illumination. "Mort?!" she shouted again, her stomach working up into knots of fear, for reasons even she couldn't explain.
"What? What is it?" Mort stood up and peered over the railing of the loft, having shaken his concentration from the man on the page to answer her. His complexion was nearly as ashen as Layla's.
"But…you…it…" She pointed wildly, between Mort and her bedroom, while he just stared down at her, dazed. Was this just a drunken hallucination? It had to be. There was no one else in the house. It just wasn't possible. And yet her door was closed, the light on. None of that happened by itself. Layla quickly made for the stairs, frightened out of her mind. "Oh God, Mort…I…it was…" She began trying to explain, babbling drunkenly, reaching the top of the stairs in record time.
"Slow down…slow down…" Mort interjected, trying to recover from his own scare. Even as his attention was on Layla, he knew the man in the sketches still watched him with sightless eyes, from Mort's desk. He hadn't had the presence of mind to hide her book before she came upstairs like a bat out of hell.
"I was cooking and…it…you…" While she frantically tried to get the situation across to Mort, while trying to make sense of it in her own mind, she noticed her dream book sitting on Mort's desk and for that moment, the possibility of a stranger in their cabin played second fiddle to this discovery. "What in the hell are you doing with my book?!" she screeched.
"Um…well…"
(Told you so, told you so…)
"What, are you trying to do…use my dreams as basis for your stories?" Layla demanded, suddenly enraged.
Mort slammed the book shut. There. He couldn't see the man now. And the man couldn't see him. "After the conversation we had this morning, I didn't think you would mind too much," he said sullenly.
Layla scowled, crossing her arms over her chest, "What conversation? You were passed out in front of your little storymaker."
He blinked, staring at his word processor screen with a blank look. "No, I wasn't," he denied. "I've been awake since yesterday afternoon."
"Whatever you say. The point is, Mort, I do mind. It's like a journal of sorts for me, and it wasn't for your eyes. Just as your writings-in-progress aren't for my eyes. I certainly don't go snooping around on your computer, do I?"
Mort raised an eyebrow, remembering the point his inner voice had made the other day. "Well, I don't know. Do you?"
"No!" Layla shouted, furious that Mort would ever think her to be nosey like that. "We may share a house, but we don't have to get into each other's business. I would think you of all people would want to uphold that little guideline."
He sighed, casting his gaze ashamedly downward. "If this is about us not…talking—"
"Believe me, I'm over that," Layla said, still shouting. It had become terribly obvious how tipsy she was. She noticed Mort crack his jaw in irritation that she had forewent his no-more-whiskey request today. "But I'd like it if we could trust each other. I was certainly ready to trust you. But how can I do that now? I wouldn't have minded if you just asked to see the book."
Mort turned to her, suddenly as irate as she was. He jumped up, getting up in her face. From then on, it became a screaming fiasco. "I did ask!"
"When?!"
"This morning!"
"But you didn't!"
"What are you saying?!"
"You just dreamed it!"
They both stood there for a second, at each other's throats, boring into one another's icy stares. It was in this time that Layla remembered the phantom in her bedroom downstairs. No way was she going to investigate it. But would Mort investigate it if he knew what was going on? Doubtful. He was far from brave. She swallowed hard, stepping back a few steps from Mort. "Look," she said, trying to regain her composure. "just forget it. How about you go downstairs, put the book back in my room, and I won't say another word about it."
"Whatever the lady desires," he muttered disparagingly, snatching up her damned book and marching downstairs.
Layla followed behind him down to the bottom of the steps, then stopped. She wasn't about to follow him inside, not even to the doorway. If whatever was in her room did attack Mort, she would be closest to the door and would have a running start. She could escape…she could get help. When Mort reached her doorway, he looked back at her. "Well aren't you going to watch me put your book back? You know, just to make sure I don't whisk it away again? Maybe hiding it under my robe?"
When she didn't answer him, just eyed him with the most expectant of stares, Mort hmphed to himself, slowly turning the knob, and shambled in.