By-Product
Part 2
"So," Eileen said as she pulled away from the curb, "tell me."
Henry had just clicked in his seat belt. He had changed into jeans and a long-sleeved gray shirt, which were mostly dry, only spotted with rain from him running over to her car without an umbrella. He looked up at her, and out of the corner of her eye she could see him frown. "I… I don't want to talk about it."
Eileen blew a strand of hair out of her face. "Oh yes, you do," she replied. "You know it helps."
"Eileen--"
"And you know I'm just gonna bug the shit out of you until you tell me."
He laughed, a real laugh. "That's true."
"Spill it."
His smile receded. He folded his arms and stared at the glove compartment. "I was just watching TV, and, you know, the headache started." He closed his eyes. "I always hope it's a normal freakin' headache. I don't get normal headaches anymore."
"What did you see this time?"
"This woman standing on a sidewalk. She's crying."
"Do you know her?"
Henry shook his head. "It's a woman I've never seen before. She's old. She's wearing a pink dress."
"What happens to her?"
Henry shifted in his seat. "She just cries for a while. Then she steps off the curb." He didn't say anything more.
Eileen finished for him. "She gets hit by a car."
He nodded.
"Accident?"
"Suicide, I'm pretty sure."
Eileen opened and closed her hands around the steering wheel.
Henry opened his eyes. "This is going to drive me crazy, eventually."
"Could be worse," Eileen said, trying to be casual, trying to not to make Henry feel any more awkward than he had to about having visions of death. "When this first started, you were getting them all the time."
"Yeah."
"Have you talked to Deena lately?"
Deena, a woman between Eileen's and Henry's ages who owned a small, eccentric shop downtown in the nearby city. When Henry had started getting his headaches again, with disturbing visuals, he and Eileen had gone on a small quest to find someone who could help him. Both would admit that the woman had scared them at first, but now they found her merely odd. She had been able to help Henry, at any rate, by teaching him some concentration techniques to control his problem.
"No," Henry sighed. "I don't think she can do any more. She told me that I could never make them all go away." He let his head fall back onto the headrest. "No good deed goes unpunished, right?"
"Don't look at it like that. It's not like this is some kind of… revenge, or anything. It's… Did you ever see that movie, Stir of Echoes?"
"No."
"Well, there's a line in it and it basically talks about how during hypnotism, a switch was flipped in the lead character's head, and that's why he keeps seeing visions of this dead girl. So I think it's more like that. Your switch just got flipped when all that happened to us."
"Well, I wish I could flip it back off."
"Deena has to know someone."
"Deena knows lots of people. I happen to think that most of them are totally out of it."
"They are kind of strange, but I guess they have reason to be."
"Seriously, all that incense has messed up their brains."
"No offense," Eileen said, with a chuckle, "but maybe they used to be like you. Maybe you just haven't lost it yet."
"Please don't joke like that."
"Sorry," she said quickly. That had been one of the problems, hadn't it? She joked too much. He would get all serious and she would be uncomfortable and make some kind of humorous remark to loosen up. But then he would get offended, and then the argument would start.
She glanced over at Henry. Yeah, that was the problem. Even now, despite her apology, he had turned to look out the window, with his body turned ever so slightly towards the door. She knew that it wasn't funny, not in the least, but she didn't know any other way to react to it.
They reached the store, Roland's Crafts. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained cloudy. Eileen pulled into the parking lot, slipping into one of the many available spots. She parked the car and turned to him with a hopeful smile. "Well, personally, I've never had a problem a good shopping round couldn't cure."
He turned to her, and she was relieved to see a small smile. "Liar."
"Shut-up and come on."
