A/N: Alright, this is the end of part one, and thus the end of all of the phone calls. Part Two = crazy stuff happening. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing so far. A lot of you have been really loyal with my updates, and other's gave this story a shot, and it makes me happy that someone out there is enjoying my efforts at writing this thing. Again, this all belongs to Stephen King and the creators of Glee.
-TSL
PART ONE: A FEAR THEY'VE NEVER KNOWN
CHAPTER SIX:
12 PHONE CALLS (2018) - continued...
10
Sam Evans Takes A Line
It's not that he's addicted.
Nope, not at all.
He just likes the feeling, and for some reason, the more that he does in one go, the less that he seems to feel. It's a vicious cycle, but he can't help himself. He stands at the far wall of a large house, the rooms are crowded and the speakers blare ridiculously causing his body to hum. He scans the people around him, the glitter floating around in the air. And he smiles. His fingers find his credit card in his back pocket, and he's digging it out as a twenty something girl beside him cranks out a baggie. She's already halfway gone, and he loves that. He envies her. His eyes watch her hands as she empties the small contents onto the counter that they're leaning against; she grabs his card and shuffles it into four identical lines.
It feels so good going down.
Like golden sand, and California poppies.
The burn doesn't even sting anymore.
He can already feel his heart rate climbing, and he's only done two lines. Eventually he'll need more, but he doesn't want to overextend himself just yet. The girl next to him – her eyes are blown, and dilated – she smiles at him lazily and raises her hands above her head as she begins a sloppy dance.
"FUCK YES!" She screams. Sam watches her writhing there. Her clothes are skimpy and almost nonexistent. She has glitter on her face and feathers in her hair. She's probably a model he thinks. Probably Ford.
"ARE YOU A MODEL?" He yells over the loud music. She smiles and nods her head as she dances, oblivious to the world spinning around her.
"LET ME GUESS…FORD?" This time she shakes her head somewhat seductively as she stops to stare at him. She blows him a raspberry and squints her eyes. Yea, she's totally blown.
"No…Elite. All of those motherfuckers at Ford can kiss my tits."
"Oh…well they are nice." The model in question squints her eyes even further; he recovers himself in time to elaborate.
"Your tits I mean…they're nice." She smiles slowly, and breaks out into a barking laugh. She nods and grabs for his hand, spinning him around her as she begins another dance. The song changes to dub step and he's completely gone. Spinning in a world of glitter and feathers and fairy powder, with people that he won't even remember tomorrow. And he's perfectly okay with that.
Some might say that Samuel Percy Evans is throwing his life – for lack of a better word – away. He would disagree with that sentiment. He would probably counteract that argument with an argument of his own. You see, he's quite successfully made something of himself over the past few years when you think about it subjectively. From the way his life started out, things could have turned out much worse for him in comparison. By the next morning he's waking up in his bed with no recollection as to how he could have possibly made it home. His shirt is hanging off of his shoulders, and his boxer briefs are missing. He looks to his right and sees a size-one mystery woman lying naked in between his sheets. She has feathers in her hair and dried paint caked in streaks and handprints along her smooth skin. He rustles her awake with little consideration.
"Hey, get up, please." She moans loudly and shudders beneath his fingertips. He rustles her again, earning a cough and a grunt.
"Hey I don't remember your name. And I don't mean to be rude but, I've gotta get out of here. And when I go, you go." He watches her nod her head evenly. She turns around on her back, her breasts bared and perkily pointing toward the ceiling. She sits up relatively unbothered, and reaches for a cigarette and a roll of matches off of one of the night tables.
"What day is it?" Sam sits up and grabs his black boxer briefs, pulling them up his legs in a tricky maneuver as he still manages to stay seated on the mattress.
"Uh…Thursday I think."
"Holy shit, that was a long fucking bender." She hits a drag and takes a moment to actually study him as he grabs a towel off of the hard wood floor and drapes it over one of his bare shoulders. His abs and chest are visible beneath his open button down; he follows the mystery woman's line of sight and sees the red welts rising up on his skin in five-nail patterns. She smirks, he does too.
"Looks like we had a good time last night."
"Can't say I remember it, but from the looks of things…I think I agree."
She laughs and he joins her hollowly as he makes his way to the en suite bathroom. He doesn't bother closing the door before he starts undressing. He turns to look in the mirror and plays with his hair, running his fingers through the cowlicks absently. He looks down along the countertop and sees the lines of powder they must have left from the night before. Eyeing it, he clicks his tongue.
"Shit, what the hell." He mutters to himself as he bends over the countertop with a single finger holding the side of his left nostril. It takes him less than five seconds to get it into his system, he's already buzzing from the high. He hits on the shower and climbs in, sighing as the water hits the muscles of his back. Within minutes he can hear the woman from the night before find the remainder of their supply. He can hear her snort it from behind the glass, and when the door is pushed back and her naked body falls into his line of vision, right beneath the stream of water…he doesn't have too much to hate at the moment.
"I've got work in an hour."
"Me too, babe. We'll make it quick."
Renata. That was her name. He had gotten it just before they parted ways, she had yelled it to him just as she was getting into the back seat of a Yellow Taxi Cab. He hadn't planned on remembering it, or holding on to it after she left. But here he is, at work…prepping for a scene, and the name is stuck in his head like super glue. He probably won't ever see her again. And he's fine with that, more than fine actually. What's a decent fuck nowadays anyway? But it doesn't mean that doesn't bother him…he shouldn't be this fazed by a name. He only has a few minutes, and that chick is throwing off his entire routine. He closes his eyes and takes two deep breaths.
"Evans, you ready in there?"
"Give me like two more minutes!" He yells back.
"You need some different material or somethin'?" Sam looks up at the medium sized television screen in the small room. A pornographic film plays loudly, and he watches dazedly as the woman on screen engages in fortuitous amounts of sex and foreplay. He still isn't where he needs to be for this scene, and it bothers him. He stares at the TV again, and pales. On a last minute whim, he lets the events of the morning come to him, the model-esque girl with the feathered hair and slim waist. He remembers the fresh welts she made on his back this morning, and he smiles. And as the seconds tick by, he can feel it, he's practically there. God Bless Renata.
"Evans you ready in there yet?"
"Yea, yea. I'm good." The door swings open, and he walks out with a white towel wrapped around his waist. The lights are too bright and he flinches as he walks through cables, wires, and cameramen. The bed in the center is wide with satin sheets. A pack of condoms and a bottle of lube sit just off screen in the corner, both unused. And as he sits down on the bed, he waits for the crew to do their last adjustments and light metering. A sound disturbs the silence and he looks to his left to see his costar arriving, wearing a similar white towel around his waist. He's fairly thin, but oddly muscular with a warm smile. Sam is relieved; he can tell that this guy's done this before. One thing he hates more than anything is a novice…this business was made for professionals. And Sam is nothing but professional when it comes to his profession. He extends a hand warmly.
"Evan Reed." He says brightly; the other man, at least no older than twenty-three smiles and nods as they shake.
"I've seen your work. Timothy…Hyde." Sam nods.
"Hey man. Looks like they're almost ready for us, you know the basics?" Sam watches Timothy intently for a moment.
"Yea, I've got the rough script. Looks like we're starting with the standards."
"Yep, that's what I hear too, and from there…we can play it by ear."
"Sounds like a plan."
The rest of the afternoon is spent in a state of professional adult filmmaking. And if anyone knew that Samuel Percy Evans had come to this, well they may not be so forthcoming. But Sam makes good money. He's a classic in his business, with a six figure bi-monthly sales salary and a production company (The XXX) situated firmly beneath his slim belt. Yes, he does male pornography, no he isn't gay himself. But at eighteen, with no money in his pocket and hungry mouths to feed he had only been given two options: The local Shelter, and seeing his brother and sister end up in the foster care system, or modeling with a local agency. The modeling led to an agent, which led to a small starring role in a low budget soft-core project. The director liked him, and he moved up as a regular. He was in high demand. But what he learned about this business rather quickly was that some of his straight friends were making triple or sometimes quadruple his salary on films. And when he heard about the pay rates in gay male porn, he was sold. The sex was never an issue, most of the other men started in the same boat that he did, gay porn just paid better – it always had. And where food on the table and bill money were concerned, Sam Evans was nothing but grateful.
And here he is at thirty-five. Driving home along the 101 in sunny Los Angeles in his custom painted '73 Mustang. Porn's been good to him all of these years, he can feel the check pressing into his back pocket as he shift gears and he smiles – staring at a bright highway and taillights ahead of him. After a moment he feels his Bluetooth beep in his ear and he clicks the CALL button as he switches lanes.
"Evan Reed, professional adult film star and producer…"
"Sam." He stops short for a second and almost rams into the car to his immediate right. A loud honk resonates in the air somewhere and Sam suddenly finds himself pulling the wheel over and turning on his hazards just as he parks along the side-rail. No one's called him Sam in years.
"Who is this? Do I know you?"
"Sam…it's me, Matt. Remember?"
"Oh…fuck me." Sam remembers it all now, at least what he can. It comes to him in spurts and blips and it stings at his eyes. They were so young, so goddamn young. His family up and moved from Lima right after that summer, his Dad lost his job at the plant, and the family packed up the Astrovan and moved somewhere out in Virginia. Sam remembers this as the period where they lived out of their car for six months. He doesn't like to dwell on his past…but this. Lima…is a totally different kind of pain altogether. He sees it burn his retinas, and the images cake themselves against his eyelids, indelible. Clowns, and monsters that live under children's bed's, lake creatures and aliens, spiders and werewolves; things like that don't just exist inside of television and movie screens. No, those things…they're fucking real.
Hey, Sam I am! Come back here. I heard you like green eggs and ham!
Sam I am…Sam I am…Sam I am…
Come here…
Here…Sam I am.
SAM I AM AND PENNYWISE, ain't that right Sammy boy!
Sam shudders and feels his fingers tapping nervously against the steering wheel. The sun in the sky isn't quite so bright anymore…if only he could disappear.
"I need a favor from you Sam. I think you know what it is."
"I think I do too."
"Will I be seeing you?" There's a long pause along the line and Sam clenches his jaw as he shakily nods his head. He could really use a line right now more than anything else, he feels like he might be suffocating.
"Yes. You will." He croaks it out, but Matt hears him. And a few moments later when the line clicks off and Sam's Bluetooth stops crackling in his ear he just lets the panic settle in. And his eyes flash as he digs into his pockets and into the zippers of his leather jacket manically. He finds what he's looking for and sighs in relief when he pulls out the emergency stash of powder that he keeps inside one of his old rings. He brings it to his nose and huffs on the inhale. And as the familiar haze of contentment settles around him…things don't seem quite so bad.
In fact…
They're looking up.
11
Mike Chang Learns A Lesson
Michael John Quincy Chang watches out from beneath bespectacled brown eyes at the distracted classroom before him. He glances slowly from one wall to the other in a complete panorama—staring at the complete disarray that his eleventh grade physics class has become.
"Mr. Flynn, would you please cease to text in my classroom." It isn't a question, but an expected demand. It's not Mike's fault that he's only met with a smirk and a nonchalant shrug of adolescent shoulders. He sighs and looks up again at his students in all of their unspectacular glory. He sees Amanda Greene in the back filing her nails, to her far right sits Eric Howe, who seems to have his iPod headphones on. Jennifer Reeves plays some game on her phone in the front row. And in all of this cacophony, what Mike Chang concludes…is that he is spectacularly unhappy.
Teaching was never a necessary evil for him per se. It had always been dance. His family bolted out of Lima when he was fourteen, moving the family to Connecticut. And his life of success and happiness never failed to flash before his eyes. He's learned not to dwell on the dreams of his youth since then. He successfully made it into a performing arts school – Julliard. He was going places, making something of himself, proving everyone else wrong. He had offers and plans to join some of the largest contemporary studios and dance troupes in the country…. in the world by his second year. He was going to make it.
Until a motorcycle accident took that away from him on the day after his twentieth birthday, on a turnpike just outside of Trenton.
A torn anterior cruciate ligament, and an obliterated medial collateral ligament, among other things – he just couldn't dance anymore, not with a partial knee replacement. Not like that.
And by the time Mike Chang turned twenty-two, and was mostly rehabilitated, he finally closed the door on his adolescent dreams, and waved goodbye to a future that simply wasn't there for him anymore. He applied to City College, took online courses during his recovery months. And by the time he turned twenty-five, he found himself at the University of Michigan, on his way toward a Master in Secondary Teacher Education.
He just wasn't happy anymore. Ever since he gave it all away for black ice, and a slightly tipsy soccer mom who didn't see him pull into her lane through a broken taillight, and foggy dollar store glasses. He should blame her, people told him he should – but he's never been able to bring himself down to that level. Instead he stares out at his eleventh grade physics 1 class with a sad indifference, and exhales deeply. All of these children, with their dreams and their parents, and their futures…reminding him of all of the things he never attained for himself.
"Kiss my ball-sack." Mike nods his head at Wyatt Flynn, the boy towards the back of the room in an over-sized Nirvana sweatshirt. His hair is still in cowlicks, and if it weren't for the beginnings of slight facial hair on his weak chin, he would still look the portrait of pre-pubescence. These kids are only seventeen…and they have no idea, how the world is already plotting to kick them all in the ass.
A few of Flynn's classmates snicker, iPod kid takes off his headphones. And Mike stands at the foot of the room, with a blue EXPO dry-erase marker in one of his hands, and he smiles. He smiles so wide that his cheeks hurt, and he can feel curious and oddly intrigued eyes passing between this unwarranted standoff. Mr. Flynn ignores the challenge and sinks back into his phone, a smirk crawling on his face amidst his quiet resistance— his fingers tapping out on the keyboard, the clicks audible in the silent room.
"Mr. Flynn, I've already asked you once." Another smile, a few snickers and laughs. The girl in the front seat stops her game and pockets her phone, joining in on the spectatorship that this is undoubtedly becoming. Mike can feel his forehead throbbing; he feels the muscles underneath his blazer and tie flexing, still ingrained with the need to move. His white knuckles clench the marker in his hand, and when he hears the sounds of the keyboard ringing into his eardrums, he's finally had enough of their bullshit. He's finally had enough of everything.
Wyatt Flynn flinches and shrieks when something sails through the air, colliding with his nose. It leaves a scratch that's already bleeding, and when he looks down he sees a blue EXPO marker rolling around by the heels of his feet.
"What the fuck!" He yells. Mike smiles again, his chest rising and falling. He seems to have acquired their attention now.
And before he can stop himself, he feels it like a virus in his bones…the need, the primal urge to prove all of them wrong. To show them that he means something, that he isn't just some loser physics teacher in god-knows-where Connecticut. His arms wave before he even understands what he's done. Muscle memory. All of those years of training, not forgotten as he strobes his upper body to dance beats and rhythms in his head; iPod boy turns on his camera feature.
His arms and shoulders bounce fluidly, and he moves like liquid. He wraps his tie around his head in a swift motion and spins on his heels in four full revolutions before stopping with his toes perched on the ground. His feet glide beneath him into a moonwalk, and within seconds…he has them. He really does – and he remembers what it was like to be this happy.
He jumps into the air and kicks out, landing perfectly before his arms push out from his torso onto the front row table. He props himself up by sheer upper-body strength into a BBoy pose, wind-milling his legs wildly around him. The students cheer and yell, a few in the back start an impromptu beat-box as a backing rhythm. He has them captivated, and listening…and he knows that he's making a difference for at least one of them. It's more than he could have said for his life here before. Spurned on by a rush of adrenaline he climbs the table and air walks across it with refined finesse as a hand runs through his short black hair. And as he reaches the end of the table, he looks up and sees Wyatt Flynn staring wide-eyed. And he smirks, because this is one thing that Mr. Flynn could never disengage from, this is one thing that Wyatt Flynn could never taunt him for. And just as he makes the split second decision, he closes his eyes to a millisecond of bliss, as he kicks out from the table and soars backwards into the air. He can feel his sleek body, and he concentrates on it as he back-flips off of the table – it's his grand finale – to end this with a tuck into a full split.
But once his feet connect with the cool linoleum, he feels a jolt ring up through his spine as he lands on the wrong footing. He falls into a split regardless, as he hears an unmistakable pop from his busted knee. And as he falls to the ground clutching his leg, red-faced and in tremendous pain…he realizes that no…there was never going to be a second chance for him. He sees the students all rise out of their chairs to get a better look at their broken Physics teacher, and he hangs his head, already seeing that someone has had the wherewithal to call the nurse.
And forty minutes later, as he sits in an ambulance, he closes his eyes to the realization of what his life has become.
"So what's the story Mr. – Chang? Was that your way of trying to be cool? Trying to relate?" The paramedic isn't outright laughing at him, but he can hear the inflection in his tone of voice. He decides to shrug his shoulders noncommittally – this stupid paramedic could never understand anyway.
"Well speak to me or not – it looks like you'll be out of commission for a bit. From what I've assessed you might be looking at a torn ACL. Your knee's pretty week. You shouldn't have been dancing on it at all." And just as Mike is about to tune out the entire world, he hears his cellphone vibrating against his thigh in his pocket. He reaches for it, and fishes it out – noticing the Private number before grimacing at the pain in his knee as the ambulance pushes through a pothole.
"Sssss - shit. Who's this?" Mike has to bite his lip as they bump along, turning toward Hartford Hospital no doubt.
"Matt. Matt Rutherford."
"Matt…Rutherford?" Mike cringes. He knows that name, something about it rings so many bells in his already pain addled brain, and he works the cogs quickly as they hit a series of stoplights.
"Yep, in the flesh. It's been a while Chang. I almost miss those dance battles we used to have by the old fort." And suddenly Mike can feel it all coming back to him. It physically hurts, the assault. And he almost wishes his knee were more fucked up had he known he would have received this call – maybe then, this wouldn't hurt so much.
"Why are you calling me." Mike realizes that this really isn't a question, but more of a chilled statement as he stares through the paramedic that hasn't seemed to stop laughing at him internally. He closes his eyes again, but all he can see are images of Lima, Ohio – a town his family left far, far behind. And he sees things that terrified him in the dark as a kid. Things that made him afraid to wake up in the morning— things that make his blood run cold.
"Hiya Chink."
"You're such a FOB, chickenshit!"
"We're gonna fuck you up, chink…we're gonna make you wish you had never
been born you cocksucker!"
Mike clenches his teeth, biting his tongue and drawing blood.
"Mike…I had to. I have no choice…we promised each other." And Mike nods as he struggles to catch his breath, his white knuckles clutching at his bad knee as his lungs squeeze the life out of his chest.
"I-didn't, I don't –"
"We've all done things we aren't proud of Mike, giving up dancing was yours…but this is more than that…we're all fucked up. We're in this together …or not at all." And Mike has the gall to throw something, to watch all of the tools and instruments clang and shatter all over this cramped ambulance in a show of his immediate and impending desperation. But he knows…as clear as day. Just as he knew then, when he felt the wheels of his Kawasaki fly from underneath him, and his knee hit the pavement so unnaturally – that the future as he knows it…is nearly all but gone. And so he grits his teeth and nods his head, acquiescing to a fear he had hoped he'd never have to relive again, and headed to meet people that he had hoped would have forgotten much like he had. But for Michael Chang, the future has never been so kind.
"Sure. I-I'll make it. I'll be a cripple and not of much help…but I'll be there." He hangs up the phone quietly, and re-pockets it. And with that he says goodbye to the life he's constructed. He sees it all, the tenure, the teaching job, the empty nights alone with glasses of wine and boxed Stauffer Lasagna. This life was never meant for him, he was always destined for…so much more – he just never thought that it would come at such a fucking price.
By the time the ambulance pulls up to the hospital, and they cart him up through emergency, he already knows the course of action that he must take. He stares the doctor in the eye after an MRI, and nods when he sees the evidence of his most recent tear. He nods when they schedule him for surgery, he grunts when they tell him that he'll never run or play physical sports again. And then he laughs at that irony…because where he's going – he'll be running for sure, from things far scarier and much more painful than torn ACL's and ruptured ligaments. And as they dope him up with morphine as he rests, he has the coherency to call his superior at the high school – and with a slightly slurred speech and glassy eyes; he smiles into the receiver as his voice echoes off of the white sterilized walls.
"I quit."
12
Quinn Fabray Takes A Life-Change
Behind these pale walls is a woman with a complex.
A woman that is both tall and regal. With beautifully marred hazel eyes and rose-tinted lips. Her cheekbones are lithe and graceful, the angle of her jaw simple in it's symmetrical beauty. Her hair has lost the length of her younger years, opting instead to fall in short waves to barely scathe the fleeting cells of her neck and shoulders if she were to turn her head. A woman that seems to outwardly possess everything that one would simply dream of possibly attaining.
Quinn Fabray is gorgeous.
She is the embodiment of envy, and the rue of jealous fodder.
Because her life is perfect.
She is perfect – and perfection is worthy of envy. But – as perfection is impossible in worlds like these – as is the illusion of its merit. Quinn Elizabeth Fabray, more than anything else…is a woman haunted.
Like rolling waves on stormy oceans, or like valley rifts on the sea floor, Quinn Fabray's life has been nothing if not…difficult. She's worked hard for where she's become; she's worked hard for years. And while she stares into the pale walls of her terminal at JFK it's almost as if she can see the reflection of her unimportance mirrored to her from within the plaster. An airline attendant approaches cautiously, clearly rendered speechless by her lucky day's brush with fame and the likes of Hollywood Royalty – Quinn narrows her eyes, letting her lips purse as the hazel within churns deliciously.
"M-Mrs. Fabray?" The attendant is thin, and mousy, her DELTA airlines pin hangs off of her fitted button down shirt crookedly. Quinn spots her fingernails, and quirks an eyebrow at the chipped red lacquer. She doesn't acknowledge the woman with a response; she doesn't have time for pleasantries. When the attendant notices that she won't be getting an answer, she fumbles– rising the hazel waves in their ire, Quinn begins to tap her perfectly manicured short nails against her vintage Chanel purse.
Tap, Tap, Tap.
"Um…Mrs. Fabray, boarding for flight number #3211 for Los Angeles will commence in fifteen minutes. We will be escorting our Delta Sky Club Elite members to the terminal for early boarding." Quinn looks out at the fairly empty bar and lounge chairs around her. She nods her head, barely holding in a smile as the attendant releases a worried sigh of momentary reprieve. They follow through the airport in a cart; she has a hood on her head, and jeans on with sunglasses despite the indoor lighting. People don't recognize her in airports, they're usually too busy rushing to their own flights or looking for their lost children to pay people like her any attention. If she could stay this inconspicuous all the time…she would revel in the invisibility. She would thrive on it.
They arrive shortly, and after many fake smiles and wide berth's she is ushered onto the plane into first class. The curtains are drawn, and she sets down her belongings before pushing her headphones into her ears. And as the flight attendants flurry around her in their haste, she pays them no mind as the world around her fades into the background.
With the music thrumming in her ears, and her eyes closed, the time finally escapes her. And she lets the hum of the Airbus turbines lull her into her thoughts. She wavers just between that space of dreaming and wakefulness, and as her mind wanders as do her deep-seeded and forgotten imaginings. They always find her when she's in places like these, they come from the bottomless pits of her oldest fears, and they rock her bones with their rot and their stink. They bubble up in a white haze behind her eyelids as sleep swirls around her…
"Samantha? I told you not to go too far away from the house. There are things out there, they'll hurt you." Quinn can feel her cast itching her skin and the images before her blur and swirl in a haze ephemerally. Samantha sits in front of her on the sidewalk, Tannie resting by her mary-jane clad feet. Her smile is bright, and the gap is still there where her "Grown-Up" teeth haven't yet materialized. Her pigtails fly in an invisible breeze while she laughs. It's a melodious thing, thick with happiness and wonderment.
"I just want to play here for a little while…there's candy here!" Quinn smiles and leans down, joining her sister with a light step. She can smell it down here from the sidewalk, and she turns her head in the fog, seeing an empty drain just a few feet away down the chalk-adorned curb. She furrows her eyebrows, her hazel eyes swimming.
"Sam, I don't know…"
"But you love candy Quinn, it'll make your arm feel loads better!" Quinn smiles but she knows it doesn't reach her eyes as she watches Samantha get up and run for the drain. The smell of candy and chocolate is thick in the air now and Quinn recoils from it, taking a moment to look down at her casted arm. It throbs painfully in her haze.
"Sam, Mom's going to worry if we're gone too long."
"But there's Reese's down here, and Peanut M&M's…Rugrats popsicles with bubble gum eyes and Kettle Corn…even Snickers…" Quinn shakes her head, she gets up to grab for Sammie's polka-dot parka, clasping onto her arm to pull her away from the drain. She feels a cold shiver run down her spine as the fog around them deepens, casting them into a darkness she can't seem to escape from. Sammie's body disappears in the engulfment of black, and she can no longer see. The small arm in her hand loosens, and suddenly it feels as if Samantha is miles and miles away.
"You like candy Quinn."
"Sammie? Where'd you go…" She walks a step and her foot trips on something hard and rigid beneath her. She opens her clenched eyes to see that she's tripped over the murky drain – for some reason she can see it clearly now in the darkness, as if illuminated. And she struggles to regain her footing…she doesn't like the drain.
"Quinn! I'm right here!" Sammie's voice, chipper and deep with a tone alien in its delivery emanates from the drain's watery and deep depths. Quinn's head turns sharply to stare down into the graying abyss.
"Sam?"
"I'm down here Quinn! Eating Chocolate with Pennywise! Come join us!" Quinn swallows and can almost feel the plaster of her cast growing soggy from the drain's overflow. She shakes her head as her eyes begin to water, dinner is nearly ready she's sure of it, and they can't be late.
"Sam…please come out of there, it's time to go home." And as Quinn reaches a hand out to look through the water's deep and dark waves, she sees a picture of a clown with glowing yellow eyes reflecting against the water terrifyingly. His smile is warped and his teeth sharpened like blades. In one hand he holds Tannie Barbie, in the other a flock of purple balloons. And just as Quinn is about to scream, he vanishes…and suddenly there's Samantha; her reflection showing in its place.
"Did you meet Pennywise, he think's you'd love it down here…he thinks you'd float." Quinn shakes her head vehemently, letting the tears flow freely from her muddied lashes. And suddenly there she is, emerging from the water, Samantha Fabray. And Quinn sighs at the sight, at the possibility of an escape. She reaches out her hands just as a pigtail crests at the surface, and suddenly as her face lies inches away from her sister's, she watches in horror as those pigtails fall away. As the small face splits into a too-wide grin with devil's teeth and a missing nose. She screams as the flesh on once immaculate skin falls away to show the decayed remains and graying muscle and fat beneath. The eyes dissolve into desolate slits, and flies…they crawl from the crevasses in fleets and drones. And Quinn screams as a small rotting hand grabs her casted arm from beneath the water. The voice eerily chipper for the putridity that laces it.
"We're coming for you Quinn…"
"Finally, you'll float to. You'll float with us."
Her eyes jut open as her body flinches forward. She looks around to see her tray table up and all of her belongings where she'd left them. The man sitting across from her sleeps with a quiet hum, and Quinn pulls at her eyes, finding tears streaking her reddened cheeks. Her heart beats painfully fast, the images still chasing her in her wakefulness as she struggles to find purchase on her reality. She's had this dream before, since she can remember…of Samantha, and drains and terrifying clowns. And she knows that she should probably get help. But in all of the years of family therapy after her death, she's never felt compelled to bring them up. Because what would they think? What would they say?
They would have probably medicated her for depression and put her on Zoloft, and called her "troubled," way back when. And so instead, Quinn lives with these dreams sometimes. The same one, almost once a month now, they've grown in frequency again. She used to have them every night as a kid, and as she grew older and made a life for herself in Palo Alto, California the dreams faded to almost nothing. But in the last weeks, they've come back with a vengeance, and for Quinn Fabray…that thought alone is all but terrifying.
"Hello! This is Captain Wilke, we are currently at an altitude of 55,000 feet. We will now be making our final decent into Los Angeles. Current temperature in Los Angeles, is seventy-six and sunny. Thank you for choosing Delta."
Six hours!
Has she really been out for six hours?
The hazel within Quinn's irises dim as she adjusts to her current wakefulness. A stewardess arrives suddenly to ask her to lift her tray table. She flinches at the unwelcome jolt and grimaces weakly before turning her head to stare out of the window. By the time they're landed she can feel eyes on her as her fellow passengers take privy effect of exactly who has joined them on this aircraft. She passes off a surly look and remains unbothered as she makes her way outside of the cabin door. A cart waits for her, and she's escorted to baggage claim. By the time she arrives there are already photographers and paparazzi waiting for her curbside. Their flashes are no less blinding from behind paned glass. Her phone vibrates at her clad hip and she retrieves it, seeing the flurry of business messages and calls that she's missed while in the air. She flicks through them meticulously, one by one…until finally she settles on a number that she doesn't recognize. It's a New York number, and Quinn is immediately intrigued. Her finger swipes at the touchscreen, opening the message for her inquisitive perusal.
FROM: (917) 452-1118
Quinn,
I don't know if you remember me. But I'd like to catch up if you
have any availability in the near future. I have a feeling we might be
seeing more of each other very soon.
Give me a call.
xo, Rachel Barbra Berry
Oh God.
Holy Fuck.
Her fingers tremble as she reads through the message over and over. Her fragile memory raking through the files of her childhood, through Sammie and her parents- who just drowned themselves in wine and sorrow afterward. She rifles through books and books of information that she's kept locked and shelved away over the years – of Lima. Of Midwestern haunts and small-town fairs, summer water fights during the good years, and morbid floods during the bad. She remembers leaving Lima in the spring of '95. Memories of packed cars, and empty UHAULS travelling cross country in a means of an escape. She remembers seeing the wide palm trees of Northern California and sighing at the sunlight, feeling as though perhaps here…things would be different.
They never were. She found herself living alone with absentee parents who worked and drank themselves into stupors. She lived in a home where every photo of her sister was either turned down or locked into a cobb-webbed covered basement. In a home that wasn't really a home at all. It's miraculous that she's come so far despite her failings. She left Palo Alto as soon as her feet could rid themselves of the illuminated pavement, leaving her parents behind to fend for themselves while she made a new life in New Haven, at the Yale School of Drama. By twenty-three she was back in California, living in a seedy apartment outside of Calabasas. And by twenty-five, she nailed the breakthrough role of a lifetime, starring opposite Raleigh Dunn in a small independent film about teens and alcoholism, about failure. She related to the script so well, it was as if she weren't acting at all.
And as the years have dragged on, Quinn hasn't looked back, not when her father passed away from psoriasis of the liver…and not when her mother crashed herself into a tree off of the 5, totaling her car and turning her into an invalid in the process – her blood alcohol had been at a staggering .19. Quinn didn't have the heart to feel pain over that particular situation…she just tucked it all away into the vault of memories that have followed her ever since Lima. And so it is with wide eyes that she stares down into the beacon of her past. Into bright hazelnut eyes that have always grounded her, despite the madness – she remembers reading the name earlier that morning, seeing familiar flashes of brown hair flash before her as her tongue tripped over the words.
Rachel Berry.
It took everything that she had to keep her composure on the telecast, acting skills be damned. And now as she stares at an opening into a life she's all but tried to forget, she can't help but feel the nagging sensation of something else settle deep into her frame. Why is Rachel texting her now? Why is Rachel texting her at all?
And like a premonition of foreshadowing nature, she feels the buzzing of her cellphone in her pale hand. She sees the PRIVATE printed atop the screen, and as she swipes her thumb across the glass, an ominous feeling of dread settles her. In the background, the baggage carousel beeps to life.
"Hello?" The bags begin to fall from the center ramp in heaps and bounces, scuffing along the metal railings.
"Quinn. I have this odd feeling, that you already knew I would call." Quinn's face pales, she turns her head to look around her and remembers the flashes going off from behind large EXIT windows. She tries to hide the flurry of emotions that are currently eclipsing her delicate features.
"Matthew?" Her voice is a whisper, and as she expels those two heavy syllables, the deluge of grief and fear is heavy and thick like mud. It cascades around her, engulfing her within its waterfall of melancholy. Samantha, Pennywise, The Fort behind Carroll Farm, The Sewers…Sam, Britt, San, Puck, Finn, Kurt, Arthur, Tina, Mercedes, Mike, and….Rachel. Everything seems to have finally come full circle.
"What we thought we killed on a cold afternoon twenty-five years ago…IT's back." And the fear is evident in Mike's hushed tones, and all that Quinn can do is fake a smile as her world crumbles before her eyes. She sees them all, their gang of misfits, struggling with death in the throes of childhood – trying to save a world that didn't believe it needed saving. And for Quinn, it was always her. A little girl in polka dot wellies and a lady bug parka, running out to play in the aftermath of a storm. Her hands electric with happiness, and the promises of a future that never came. Quinn remembers her face like it was only yesterday, her sister who was cheated by IT…A redemption that has never truly come. And she knows that she has to go back. She knows that she has no other choice.
"Will everyone be there?" Matt is sure and calm over the line, he's always been their steady rock, even in times of complete madness, even as kids. She's always respected him for that, and she realizes now that he must have stayed behind. A martyr for the evil that hasn't evaporated, a martyr for Samantha and all of the children that she exemplifies; left to rot beside the piercing body of a smiling clown.
"Yes. Everyone. They're coming." She knows that Matt is holding something back, but she chooses not to dwell on it. Instead calming herself with the steady beeping of the carousel. She sees her bags come off of the line, and an attendant is already there to grab them for her.
"Okay… I'll be there as fast as I can, and Matt?"
"Yes, Quinn?"
"Watch out for them, will you?" And she hears his affirmation. The line cuts off just as she makes her way to the large exit doors of LAX and into a stampede of shouts and flashbulbs, of yells and distractions. She is tired, and her eyes are wild with fear as she makes her way past, she's sure that their photos will show this clearly across her face tomorrow morning– and they'll blame this on a recent split or a failed audition for a serious role. And none of them will even bat an eye at the storm brewing in Lima, Ohio…none of them will even care.
She bustles herself into a black Escalade and someone shuts the door. And forty minutes later she finds herself pulling up to her flat. A rustic gated house on the outskirts of Los Feliz. It is quaint but easily not cheap, simple in it's furnishing and architecture – perhaps Quinn knew when she bought it, that she would never stay for long. Walking through the long foyer and empty hallway, she drops her bags to the tiled floor and pales when she sees her. Laying down on the large wrap around black sofa with an open bottle of wine in the decanter and two glasses set aside, one already mostly gone. Her strawberry-blonde hair falls over the armrest as she sleeps, her cheeks rosy and pale in the moonlight that streams in from the back-patio doors. As Quinn drops her luggage, she cringes as she watches her girlfriend stir – her green eyes opening with a sleepy start to land happily on Quinn who still stands uneasily in the doorway.
"Hi baby. How was your trip?" Quinn goes to take a step forward but tilts unsteadily, her girlfriend rushes up on thin legs to catch her – wrapping her arms around Quinn's slender waist.
"That bad, huh?" Quinn fakes a laugh and grimaces an exhale as she disconnects their bodies to sink against the adjacent wall. Her barely contained emotions finally coming out to show themselves – battling with her resolve.
Her name is Lila Connor, the girl that has currently sunken to rest with her against the wall. And in all of the ways that one girl can be perfect, Lila embodies all of those qualities. She's beautiful with vivid green eyes and pale skin, strawberry red hair draped over her shoulders. She's on television, the new FOX comedy "Book Club" to be exact, and if the public knew of their budding romance, they would no doubt be on the front page of every magazine across the world. If those magazines had known of the stunning engagement ring currently hidden in the upstairs office cupboard, they would certainly keel over from the shock. But as it were – Quinn sits here thinking of her present life, and all she realizes, is that nothing fits. Not since New York. Not this house, not her career…and not Lila.
"I have to leave for a bit, Liles." The taller girl furrows her eyebrows once, twice.
"Is it for a new movie?"
Quinn chuckles hollowly, the tone causing Lila to flinch away for a moment, suddenly scared for no reason whatsoever…there was just something about that sound…something dark, and unnatural.
"No…I – I got a phone call on the way home from the airport, from an old friend. I have to go back home and settle some things."
"Oh, back to Palo Alto? I can come with you bab –"
"No…Ohio."
"Ohio? But I thought you grew up in Palo Alto?" Quinn shakes her head and really takes notice for once at all of the ways in which her life has shifted into the territory of false reality. She brings up a palm to rub at her weary eyes and that's when she sees them…the scars…deep and red, like fresh wounds against the white of her hand. Her eyes widen in shock.
The scars…they're back.
She shifts her wrist, and feels it lock against the motion, and the bulge on the inside of her wrist, the bone that never completely healed is there again, mocking her. She had forgotten about that…
I had a cast too? I thought that was only in my dreams.
"Baby you're scaring me..."
Quinn stares up again, this time with a hardness to her eyes and a coldness to her tone, an ode to the leadership role she used to claim so easily in her youth.
"Did I ever tell you about my little sister, Samantha?" Lila shakes her head, clearly baffled.
"She was murdered right before my tenth birthday." Lila's face falls into a gasp as she clutches for her mouth, covering it in a silent plea. Her eyes are wide and they hold so much sympathy that Quinn honestly does not need or care for.
"Who w-would do such a thing?" And Quinn has the gall to smile as she sees the clear image of a grinning clown flash before her eyelids.
"The real question Liles, is not who…but… what?" And as the words process behind Lila's pale skull, Quinn lets herself rise off of the ground. She finds herself grabbing for her suitcase, and only replacing some of the clothes for others in a quick flurry. Lila walks behind her in a daze, and within twenty minutes – Quinn finds herself face to face with a familiar black Escalade. The tires squelch in the gravel pavement of her driveway.
"When will you be back, sweetie?" Lila's voice is scared and broken, if only she knew how Quinn felt. And Quinn smiles, ruefully – the evil of Lima lurking not far from the surface of bold hazel.
"I don't know." And with the slam of a door, and the crunching of tires she sees herself in the rearview mirror – heading back to LAX. She sees her phone in her lap and remembers a certain message that she received just moments before her phone call from Matt…Rachel. And she pulls it up to her face, to type out a responding message in the night.
FROM: (310) 672-4290
Rachel,
I got the call. We have much to discuss.
I'll see you soon… please be safe.
Quinn
And as the message disappears into the flurry of satellite transmissions that compose our modern day cellular database – Quinn bides her time by staring out into a vast nighttime view of Los Angeles as it passes by in a blur. The lights and darkness distorting into a flurry of shapes and images before her eyes; they stop at a red light and Quinn turns her gaze to an empty sidewalk, where alone…rests a drain.
And she recoils…thinking that for once,
She may not be quite so brave.
Maybe this time…
IT will win.