The bedsheets he awoke swathed in had a flower print design. Once he noticed that, the rest clicked into place.
He bolted upright, terrified. Hands swept through the blankets, whipping them back with a sharp snap of fabric. They were clean, probably just changed recently.
Hadn't there been blood stains? His mind raced, confusion and fear mingling into poison. Waking up alone in Bath, that had made sense. Waking up here, in his apartment, what did it mean? Only one way to find out...
There was no smell of death, no foul rotten ambiance, and yet the thought of going into the bathroom terrified him. Still, he had to be sure, just as he had checked the crawlspace, car, and drainage tunnel before.
The fluorescent light flickered when he flipped the switch, casting a sickly glow upon the off-white walls. He looked into the mirror and found tired eyes staring back at him.
He touched his face, watching his reflection do the same. Yes, it was him. Him at age thirty, drained dry and corrupted to the core, tired eyes bloodshot, a bit of scruff around his drooping mouth.
Before he left the bathroom, he swept aside the shower curtain. Nothing.
He opened the closet and dug through cardboard boxes, locked wooden chests. Everything was gone. The shelves were all empty. Empty, empty...
All of it was gone. All his work, all his keepsakes, his totems. He turned around, looking dimly for the black table. But there was no altar to his ugly personal deities, and his demons were silent.
The city was too quiet. Everything was too quiet. The silence seemed loud, it was so noticeable, like a film over his senses. He went to the window, opened it, and couldn't even hear the wind.
He couldn't breathe. There was no air, and no need to breathe anymore. No need, no need. Why bother? Why—
Had he slipped? Was he pushed? Did he jump? A heartbeat passed, and he was out the window. But he didn't fall. He floated, higher and higher, up into the blue and into endless open space.
There was no need to breathe, and yet he still gasped for air he knew wasn't there, his hands grasping at nothingness. He reached down toward the earth, clinging to life. There was no room for ego here, no room for his guilt and pain and unhappiness.
"Without all that, what's left?" Martin's words came back to haunt him as he hurtled through the void. Time had disappeared.
And then, he landed again. The impact should have shaken the bones from his body, but his first contact was gentle. Stretching out, he felt soft grass against his palms.
His vision swam, flickering. There were doctors. Doctors, yes. My God, was he still alive? His brain was pulp in a caved-in skull, and yet he was alive.
But he was in pain, a wretched agony that begged to be silenced. He turned away from it, wanting to run and hide.
There was the grass again, brushing his fingers.
He rolled over on his back and looked up at the sky. The black void was filled to the brim with stars, planets, colorful gases like painted clouds. These things he had seen in science books, washed out and faded photographs, depleted by light-years and cheap ink.
He reached up and touched them. Heat and light that should have burned and blinded him was no harsher than a lightbulb.
There was music, too. Or the essence of music. He didn't quite know what to make of it, and he didn't care.
There was no more time to think of compulsions, of murder, of sex and viscera and hunger. No time to spend looking back, wishing he hadn't, wanting to stop, wanting more, always guilty. He was out of time. He was free.
He took a bus to West Allis, passing familiar landmarks. They took him through his old neighborhood. The Oxford Apartments had been demolished, leaving behind an empty lot of soft-looking green grass.
It didn't take long. He got out no more than a block away from his grandma's house and walked. Unlike Chicago, the neighborhood was far from deserted. He heard voices and laughter.
Even with these friendly, comforting sights and sounds, he hurried to reach the house. It looked the way it did when he lived there, strong and sturdy, flanked by his grandmother's garden.
He wondered if the cat would be there, then wondered why he was still standing on the sidewalk, afraid to go up to the door. This was what Evelyn had felt, but she was not there to hold him as he had done to her. He was alone.
Finally, he took a step forward, crossing over from the sidewalk to the lawn, and then another step, and another, until he was on the porch, reaching his fist up to knock on the door.
It wasn't his grandma who answered.
"Jeff!" his grandfather exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "Haven't seen you in a while. You've grown up!"
All the air left Jeff's lungs, and for several aching moments he couldn't speak. Herbert Dahmer guessed what was the matter and pulled him into a hug. When Jeff still didn't respond, his grandfather asked, "What's wrong?"
He'd reached the end of his journey, and yet Jeff was afraid. His grandfather felt real, looked the way he remembered, but he had learned not to trust what he saw and felt.
"Is... Is Grandma here?" he asked softly.
From over Herbert's shoulder, he saw her walk out of the kitchen.
His grandfather released him so he could run to her arms. He remembered Christmas Eve in prison, how he couldn't sleep, couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Lionel had called in the morning to tell him she had died in the night. For what seemed an eternity, he clung to her as if she were an apparition, liable to disappear at any moment.
"I'm not going anywhere, Jeff," she said soothingly, rubbing his back. Her hands were young again.
"Lionel's supposed to be coming soon," his grandfather added. "David and his family, too."
Jeff nodded silently, but he still wasn't ready to let go of her yet. His disbelief would pass in time.
His grandfather smiled to himself, turned around, and shut the door.