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THE DAY AFTER
10. The complication.
[AMY, Sean Catlett]
The last couple of days have been grueling. Yes, past tense. It works.
Two days after the phone was pulled out, I finally plugged it back in. I expected it to immediately start ringing, waking up Rouge and throwing another bout of frightened screams.
Silence. Relief flowed over me, and I tried to get a hold of Tails. To apologize, or something.
But he didn't answer. I hate leaving messages, but I do it anyway, trying to sound as polite as possible.
I still haven't called the police.
Rouge had long ceased going to work, so I was pretty much scrounging what I could from what little we had saved, from what little people are willing to donate or throw away. I did manage to buy some canned food. We both ate them with reusable plastic spoon-fork things. Sporks, I think they're called.
Ha. Sporks.
I bought some blankets and a first-aid kit to take care of Rouge's needs. The powder burn from the gun is pretty nasty, but we didn't and don't talk about it. It's silent consent that neither of us go to a hospital.
Our apartment gradually turned into a bomb shelter. The windows were blocked with furniture and ripped up floorboards from one of the closets. The doorknob had an empty bottle of Mickey's 24 Voltage sitting on top of it, something I had seen in a movie once and thought was quite creative. If someone tried to sneak in, we would hear the bottle crack on the hard entrance and we'd fight or die or whatever happened next. It's a control thing, anyway.
Look, it's not being paranoid if you're right. You're not crazy if everyone else is too.
Four days locked down in the house. And the phone still didn't ring. Everything was quiet, so quiet, save for our chewing or snoring.
About here. Yes, about here, this is where Rouge taught me how to use a gun.
________________________
Back to the present, the gun cold against the skin on my back. Slightly comforting. It's been a few days since the phone rang last. The horizon is starting to look clear again, free of stormy skies, and I decide to try and call Tails again.
I pick up the phone from the floor, watching the door across from me. I start to dial. I finish, and I wait.
Click, click, click.
He picks up on the forth ring.
He sounds distracted, not like himself, so I verify him anyway.
"Tails?"
"Oh… Hi, Amy. What do you want?"
What indeed.
How do I ask for help this time? What is the nicest way to mooch off of someone?
I decide to take it slow. He'll understand if I-
"Look," I start, "this is . . ." I hear angry pounding at the door, and I see the doorknob start to turn violently from left to right. "Oh my god, hold on."
I drop the phone and I dive over the couch, hitting the hard entrance floor and I barely catch the bottle heading towards the floor. The knob still turns above me and I stare at my reflection in the bottle in disbelief.
Wow. Bad ass.
I stand up, unlock the knob, click the bolt, and crack the door, leaving the chain on.
It's exactly who I thought it would be. It's the superintendent, the one I saw pulling at himself a week and a half prior. You remember, I'm sure.
"Rent," he puts simply, his face thin and his eyes beady.
He eyes me up and down, seeing my black skirt halfway pulled down, the empty bottle of Voltage in my hand, and when he reaches my eyes again, he stares with newfound contempt.
"Can't you come back later? I'm a little busy . . ." Probably thinks we're fucking or something.
He points his finger down into my face, through the crack of the door, almost reaching my right eye. "Listen up, you little fucking dike. You are about this close -" he doesn't move his hand back, and makes a length with his index and thumb, a length that is about the size of his dick- "from being kicked right out on the fucking street. And this time that whore of a mother of yours can't help you." He continues pointing, trying to push in the door some more.
He doesn't realize that one grows a hefty set of balls in life threatening situations.
I push the door back, and he's very surprised all of a sudden. His finger gets slammed a little by the door. Beauty.
"Come back later-" I lean down to put the bottle on the floor. "-or else, I will have to do something-" I reach behind my back and I pull the heavy revolver out. "-I will later regret." I cock the hammer, the click staring him in the eyes. "Fuck off."
Despite most of his expression covered by hatred, there is a flicker of fear before it dies out, gone in obscurity. "Don't threaten me, you ugly ball of pink pussy." He walks off, stomping down the hallway.
I door closes. I slip the heavy hunk of metal in my skirt again, the feel of it cold against my ass, and I put the bottle back on the doorknob.
When I pick up the phone, I verify again.
"Tails?"
"Yeah?"
"Where the hell have you been? I left you a message."
"Funeral, then… went to . . . get some food, then I came home. I think my parents deleted it."
His parents have a thing about certain individuals who go down women, although his dad probably does the same thing to his mom. Intolerating assholes deleted my message.
Oh well. Doesn't matter now.
Fuck being subtle. "Look, how fast can you get here?"
"And why should I go over there at this hour?"
Sarcasm again, the light humor. Typical. Good thing I know how to deal with it.
"Answer the goddamn question, Miles." Score. Using his real name is a wild card.
"On foot about two hours…"
Swish. Point.
But . . . that's cutting it too long.
"Any choices?" I hope for a bus route he could take, or at least a friend that could give him a ride . . .
But no. The answer he gives me is something that I do not expect at all.
"You have GOT to be kidding me!"
"Hey, either that, or I walk, and two hours later I see Rouge's dead corpse."
"Can't you . . . . I don't know . . . fly or something?"
"They still sprained."
Excellent. Really. "Is this your way of impressing me?!"
"Take it or leave it."
Sigh. Shit, this is gonna be weird. "Fine, whatever, I guess it's fine. Just, I need . ."
There is a crackling, or a click I hear on my line. The same from earlier.
Oh fuck.
Oh fuck.
Eyes dilate, breath catches, muscles tighten.
"What was that?" comes out before I can stop myself. Mistake, mistake, mistake.
My eyes move wildly around the apartment, and they check the doorknob to see if the bottle is still there. It's almost too dark to see.
"Probably just your breath on the receiver. Go on."
Holy shit.
He heard it too.
Now, this COULD be my breath on the receiver; it COULD be the connection being messed with; or, it COULD be them, tapping the line, listening to our conversation.
Play dumb, play dumb. Don't let them know.
"Look, I need you here as soon as possible." My voice is calm but shaking like a leaf. "This is-"
Rouge starts crying from her bedroom. "Oh shit, hold on again." I set the phone down on the floor, and my hand goes unconsciously to the gun at my back.
I walk quickly into the dark room, and I see Rouge crying on her bed, the bandage wrapped around her head now fallen to the floor. The wound is an ugly mark of a red, twisting river.
I lean down next to her, my hand still on the gun. I comfort her, my other hand flowing through her greasy, untended hair. She's still crying.
"They're coming!" She screams out suddenly, hugging herself tighter.
I don't say anything . . . because I already know.
"Look . . . Mom . . ." Her eyes meet mine. I show her the gun. "Take it back. If they're after you, then you'd better look after it." She eyes the gun, then me, then the gun again. This could be a bad idea. "I trust you enough that you wont try to hurt yourself again. Even so, don't do it. I love you too much." I stroke her hair as the tears well up in Rouge's eyes, and she kisses my hand, takes the gun back. She smiles, so weak, so weak.
I run back to the phone, feeling somewhat relieved. Well, that is, until I hear Tails' voice.
"And just why should I help you?"
"What?!"
"I went to you when my cousin got killed, and you just blew me off. And it's seven effin' thirty, you want me to go traipsing into the city this time of evening?"
That's right. The revenge thing.
Did that . . . happen?
"Look, I don't have time for your fucking pity games, okay?! If you're going to act like a little baby, I'll handle this myself, but if you DO get off your ass and come, bring a weapon."
And I hang up the phone.
What the hell is wrong with me?
________________________
Time passes with the speed of a slug. The creature, not the projectile.
My hand falls to my back to find that the gun isn't there. Shit.
It was kind of comforting to have that hunk of metal connected to me. Even if I don't know how to fire it, at least I can maybe scare someone off . . . . or get myself shot.
I go in the kitchen and I grab a butcher knife. I slip it end down, sharp end pointing to my left so it pulls away when I yank it out, down the back of my skirt. It's cold, but not as cold or as heavy or as comforting as the gun.
It's 10 minutes before I hear the slight roar of motors. They get closer, and I sit comfortably on the couch, thinking about how I'm going to convince him to help us. I'm worried because I didn't tell him quite the entire story . . .
The motorcycle outside stops, right below my window. I don't get up to check. If he's trying to get a chance with me he's going to have to try a little bit harder.
. . . That's really stupid.
Suddenly, I remember the noise, and I rush to Rouge's room.
I don't hear her screaming over the sound of the engines, and when I open to door to the bedroom, she's thrashing around on her bed, clutching the gun to her chest, barrel pointed at herself. By accident I'm sure.
I jump down next to her, falling in front, my hands gripping the gun. I can feel her heart beat beneath my hands.
"Please," I tell her, her haggard breaths falling on my face. There are tears forming in her eyes. "We're safe now. We're safe. Don't worry, I'm ok. We're both ok. It's help. Someone's helping us." Babble. Hardly poetry, but she seems to get the point, because she nods and gives me a peck on the check. The gun slowly lowers. She composes herself. For now.
I've never seen her this bad, through all the hardships we've suffered through. The amount of pain she must be going through, and the only thing to keep me from crying is to think that at least she has hell to look forward to.
"Is this what you called me here for?"
Tails.
Already inside.
"Shit!"
I walk swiftly over to him, across the length of the apartment, past the center room and into my bedroom. I close the door and stare angrily at him. We're the furthest from Rouge that we can be before leaving her entirely.
"How did you get up here so fast?"
He stares at me for a sec, then shrugs. Over to my right, the fire escape window, which used to be barricaded before he got here, is broken open, the boards pulled off. Debris all over my floor.
I groan.
"What?" Acting as though he did nothing wrong. "Shit, it's dark. Why are all the drapes closed in there?" He motions to the center room.
If we start fighting, then this could take all night.
"Never mind." I started picking up the broken fragments of wood. "I'm glad you're here."
"Glad to know I'm appreciated."
I turn on my light, squinting in the harshness of it, adjusting. Tails is dressed in his normal street clothes, a hat on backwards, and he has sunglasses on even though it was late at night. It's so obvious that he's feigning ease. Faux relaxation.
"Why are you so tense?" I ask him, slightly concerned but worried about the answer he'll give me.
"Look . . . . Amy, if this is some sort of fucked up way for you to get me to relax so I fuck you, I'm sorry to disappoint."
"Why, are you gay too?"
"And I see the place looks just as perfect as ever," Tails says, walking around my room, picking up my glass snow-globe that I bought at the beach. I pretend like I care.
"Put that down!" I say, clumsily setting it back on the dresser. I'm a few feet away from him, and after setting it down, I look back and he's staring at me, squinting.
"Just . . . . . it was a gift." I can feel him staring at me like I'm the oddest thing in the world, like I'm a green slug, the creature, not the projectile. I just start to pick up the glass on the floor.
Change the subject.
"Where'd you get a motorcycle, anyway?"
"A friend of mine," he says, not elaborating.
"Okay . . . . . don't you think that it's a little, oh I don't know, strange to be riding something like that?"
"What, you've never seen an underage adolescent driving a motorcycle at about two in the morning?"
"No."
He's smiling. "You don't get out much, do you?"
I can't help but laugh. The tension of the last couple of days had been getting to me. I hadn't relaxed in a long time, getting the feeling that I was actually starting to go insane, and suddenly, it's all released. I laugh for a long time before I finally stop, embarrassed. When I look back up at Tails, he's still smiling, even chuckling a little.
"God, I'm so glad you're here . . ." I say, meaning it more this time. "Thanks for doing this, Tails. I'm losing my mind here."
At first, he smiles earnestly, that faux ease fading into honest comfort, but his façade comes back up like a brick wall, and his lips go tight and his expression becomes a mask. I frown.
"What's wrong now?" I say, a little irritated.
"Nothing." He shrugs, walking over to the window again and picking something up.
"Wait . . . . . is that a bat?!"
"No, it's a knife. Of course it's a fucking bat, Amy!"
"What are you thinking?!"
No, no NO. NOT THIS! NOT NOW!
"You told me to bring something," He says, handling the bat carefully, like it's going to go off any second or some shit.
"I told you to bring a weapon, Tails! Not something used as a secondary dildo! I was fucking serious! I wasn't joking!
"Well, what the fuck was I supposed to get, then?!" He yells loud enough for me to jump, but I'm too pissed off to be scared. Or vice versa.
"I don't know, use that big fucking brain of yours and INVENT something! Certainly something better than your mom's stress reliever. No wonder you get the shit beat out of you."
Whoops.
Uh oh.
His eyes go wide, and he spins his entire body around, swinging the bat full force at the broken window. The hard wood goes straight through the glass, shattering what's left of the pane, littering the floor with pieces no bigger than a fingernail. Then he throws the bat across the room, smacking the far end of the wall, leaving a dent. Tails storms up to me and screams in my face, "Will THAT fuck someone up, you cunt-sucking bitch?!!"
I wipe the spit off my face as he leaves, muttering to himself, out into the living room, towards the door. I catch the words "ungrateful" and "nothing right" before he unlocks the door and storms down the hall. Rouge starts to scream again. The bottle shatters on the floor.
I did it again.
I fucked it up.
With Rouge screaming again and our last hope quickly exiting, I saunter to Rouge's room.
I jump next to her and hug her. I wrap myself around her fetal, shivering form. She's drenched with sweat and as tense as a vice.
"Shhhh, shhhhhh, it's ok, it's ok . . . . . ." It's more for myself than for her.
Suddenly, her hands come up and she grabs my face. Her eyes snap open, and she whispers, so quietly that I almost don't hear her, but the words dagger into me and make my heart stop.
"They're inside . . . . they're inside . . . ."
Fast backward. "What?" How did Tails get in? "It's dark." He didn't know the windows were boarded up. "Why are all the drapes closed in here?" In fact, he thought that they were only boarded up. "Never mind." Tails would never break in like he did.
Holy shit.
Someone else broke in.
My eyes search the room frantically, and they find something that I wish I didn't notice.
The closet door.
It's open. The crack is about one inch, but I remember it distinctly being closed last time I checked.
I don't breathe until two seconds later, when the phone rings, and I start screaming.
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To be continued. Reviews are appreciated. Oh, and visit our site: http://tdaproject.tripod.com.
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