Slippin' into Darkness

4:33 A.M.

For a guy who’d blown his life savings burying a dead whore, Doug Douglas was doing better than Amy had expected. His neighborhood was solidly middle class. New cars were parked in most of the driveways; well-maintained yards with clipped grass and pruned bushes fronted split-level houses that aspired to a Spanish look but actually resembled something that a Taco Bell architect might create.

Amy double-checked the address and parked her Mercedes in the driveway. The muffled slam of the car door was like a thunderclap on the quiet street. She stood by the car for a moment, staring at the dark windows of the house, listening to the even sound of her own breathing. She was going to be okay. She was going to give Doug Douglas a lesson about the power of will and the value of a good memory, and she was going to get Doug’s film, and she was going to be okay.

She checked the address a third time. She checked the pistol and tucked it under the waistband of April’s cheerleading skirt. She tore the key from the map.

She was going to put this behind her.

The pistol was cold against her stomach.

She imagined warmth. The gentle hand of Ethan Russell resting on her belly. The passion they would share. All the wonderful places they would visit once her divorce came through. The smell of him, and the taste of him, and the pure magic of his lips. She would put this business behind her, tonight, because what lay ahead was pure perfection.

Tonight it would end. No matter the cost. No matter the risk.

Doug Douglas waited in the shadows.

Amy was here. He heard the front door open and close. He heard Amy’s footfalls on the staircase.

April hadn’t wanted this to happen. Not this way. She had wanted something different. But Doug wanted something, too. And he needed what he wanted just as badly as April needed her revenge.

April never understood that. No one understood. People always told him what to do. First his parents, then his baseball coaches, then Amy, then a string of lousy bosses, and finally April. Nobody cared what he wanted. Everyone pushed him, prodded him, made him submit.

Submit. He hated that word. He wouldn’t hear it tonight. Tonight, everything would go his way. He was calling the shots.

Calling the shots. Funny, thinking that, with a gun in his hand.

Amy glanced at the note scrawled on the bottom of the map. It directed her to a room under the main part of the house, a room that adjoined the garage.

Some people might call such a room a basement.

Amy Peyton wasn’t going to let a simple word frighten her. She wasn’t April Destino. She wasn’t weak. Doug Douglas was the one who was weak. Amy was here to remind him of that. She was here to remind him of Todd Gould’s party, and Todd Gould’s basement, and the things that had happened there on a cold night in the winter of 1976. She was here to put Doug in touch with the hard-bodied eighteen-year-old he had once been.

She was sure that easily manipulated coward still lurked under all that flab. Tonight she would shut his mouth once and for all. She thought she had done that job in 1976. She hadn’t. But it would happen, tonight, any moment now.

She smoothed the sweater over the pistol, thinking it through. There had to be something Doug was afraid of losing, even if it was only his miserable life. She smiled. Life. That would be enough. For anyone.

Amy opened the door to the room that adjoined the garage.

And with that one simple action, everything went wrong.

The fluorescent tube flickered above, threatening to go out, but even in the dim light he could see that it was her. She stood in the doorway, a beautiful girl in a cheerleader’s sweater. A sizzle of dying light revealed frosted curls resting on blue wool. But it was her eyes that trapped him. The hard iron irises caught the flickering light and held it, and he realized that someone had clamped a vise around his heart.

She stepped into the room, one hand on the door, one hand close to her belly. The Six Million Dollar Man backed away instinctively. For the first time he realized that he was well beyond fear. He was terrified.

“Let me wake up, April. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be.”

She smiled, moving into shadow, but her eyes were still hard and bright and unyielding. “I’ll admit that this isn’t what I expected. But I’m not here to play I games.”

“You mean I’m not dreaming?”

“Do I look like a dream?” She glanced around. “C’mon. I know you’re not alone. Olly olly oxen free! Let’s get everyone out in the open.”

Something inside Steve crumbled. “You promised that we’d be together, and I didn’t believe you,” he said, trying to sound calm and controlled. “I couldn’t, because I was so scared. When you died, I thought I’d screwed everything up because I couldn’t I believe. I thought I’d be all alone. But now you’re here…”

He stepped toward her. He had to explain. Because he knew now that what he had done was insane.

“Don’t be crazy!” She was reading his mind, and her anger was as palpable as a knife. “You know what’s going on. You’re not scaring me.”

“Calm down, April.” He took another step forward, angling toward the door, and she reacted instinctively, backing away from the door, into the darkest corner of the room.

Amy’s legs weren’t working right. Everything was wrong. This wasn’t Doug’s house. But it had to be. It didn’t make sense any other way.

But it wasn’t Doug’s house. Amy could see that. It was Steve Austin’s house. His pictures hung on the wall. Even in the dim light, she could see pictures of Steve on the baseball field in high school, posing with Bat Bautista and Doug. Other pictures showed Steve in uniform. And there was a diploma with his name on it.

And he was coming closer, and she couldn’t move. Her strength was slipping away.

She couldn’t allow that to happen. She reached under the sweater. Her fingers closed over the gun.

An icy buzz sounded above her, and the light brightened suddenly. For the first time she saw past Steve Austin’s shoulder, past the La-Z-Boy chair, into the shadows that draped the far side of the room.

Amy couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t. But she had to breathe, because she had to scream. April was screaming, and Steve knew that she had seen that thing propped in the far corner. He held out his hands. Open, conciliatory. “I didn’t understand. I didn’t know that you could come back to me. I wanted to believe, but you know how my head works. A + B = C. Simple, right? I thought I had to be with her to be with you.” He sighed. “You’ve got to try to understand that I love you. I only felt sorry for her. She was so sad. That woman you became. The dreamweaver. She was so alone…she was like your ghost.”

He wanted to touch her more than anything because touching her would prove that she was indeed real. But she wedged herself into the cement corner, pulling away from him, and her mouth remained an open red scream.

“No,” Steve begged. “Don’t be upset. I didn’t understand.” Again, he held out his hand. “I can explain. It’s not as crazy as it looks.”

But he knew that it was. His big hands pawed the air. He was afraid to touch her, afraid to do anything that might be wrong. He watched his fingers dancing in midair, unsure, his hands damned by pink fingernails rimmed with little halfmoons of black dirt. Graveyard dirt.

“She died and I couldn’t sleep. I thought that without her I couldn’t have you anymore. So I went to the graveyard…and I got her…and then I brought her here…”

Doug moved from his hiding place in the garage. Things weren’t going right. Amy was screaming, and Austin was babbling some crazy stuff that Doug couldn’t quite make out.

He had told April. He had told her that it wouldn’t work. Christ, she hadn’t even wanted him to be here. At least that was what she’d said. But with April you could never be sure. Just like with her suicide. Doug had wondered if she’d really go through with it. She had talked about it for so long; he had to admit that he’d been really surprised when she actually did it.

And now, here he was, going through with April’s crazy scheme. He hadn’t been sure if he’d do that, not even when he saw April lying dead in the coffin he bought for her, but the thought of getting to Amy had been enough to make his mouth water.

After all these years, to really get her. He couldn’t miss that. He had to be here. He had to see it happen. And maybe April secretly wanted that. After all, she had given him Austin’s key when she wanted the duplicate made. That was like telling him to make one for himself, wasn’t it?

Maybe. He couldn’t be certain, but it was a possibility. The one thing he was sure of was that April didn’t understand Amy. Amy wouldn’t keep quiet while a nut like Steve Austin tried to paw her. Amy wouldn’t go along because she didn’t scare-

God, how that woman could scream! Doug hurried to the doorway. This would be better than watching from the shadows. Standing there with a gun in his hands, telling them what to do. Watching them do it. He wouldn’t hide, either, not like he’d hidden in Todd Gould’s basement on that night back in ’76, peeking at Bat and Todd and Derwin and Griz and April, oh sweet April from behind that old furniture.

God, he’d been blitzed that night. Completely out of control. This time it would be different. And when it was over it would be like it was with the kid, Ethan. Doug wouldn’t feel bad about it. He had never liked Austin, never liked sharing April. He’d feel strong, decisive.

In control. Doug stepped into the room. Austin’s back was turned, but Amy saw him coming.

Doug followed her gaze. For the first time he saw the corpse leaning in the far corner, parallel with the doorway.

For the first time in his life, Doug Douglas acted without thought, without worry.

He aimed his gun.

Steve Austin froze as April drew the pistol from the waistband of her cheerleading skirt, and then he heard the voice behind him.

“You bastard! I told April you were sick! I told her to stay away from you!”

Steve whirled. There was something familiar about the man, but this wasn’t the time to put names to faces.

The man pulled the trigger.

Steve dived out of the way. The bullet hit concrete.

April fired.

Petals of flesh opened on the big man’s neck. Blood geysered across the door and across the room, masking Amy’s face with a ribbon of blood.

Doug’s body toppled to the cement floor.

Amy stared at Doug. She couldn’t think. Numbness overcame her.

She knew she shouldn’t allow Steve Austin to touch her. Smelling the sour stench of April Destino’s corpse and the hot stink of gunpowder, she knew that with overpowering certainty. But he did touch her. He took the gun from her numb fingers. His hands were on her, as if he couldn’t believe that she was real, and a startled gasp escaped Steve as his fingers brushed the heavy letter stitched to her sweater. His fingers sank into a thick fold of wool, pressed warm flesh.

She was real!

The gun was warm in his hands. It was April’s gun, the one he had given her for protection. He couldn’t contain his happiness. “You’re real. Jesus! You’re real! ”

He turned and scooped up the fat man’s gun. Two quick steps and he was in the garage, closing the oak door behind him. April had stepped from a dream, but she could also fire a gun. She was real! He closed the hasp-the one he had installed only a few hours ago, when he was certain that April’s corpse was going to be a permanent resident in his basement-and threaded a Masterlock through it. The lock made a satisfying click as he snapped it closed. He stood back and stared at the door and the lock.

He pinched himself, and he had to laugh at that.

Sure he felt it. He was awake. But she was a dream.

Her fists beat a steady rhythm against the door, and he retreated, afraid that he might lose her again.

Would a locked door keep a dream?

The door rattled under her fists. The Masterlock jumped and slapped against cherry-stained oak, scratching the finish. She screamed, and the sound was sharp and clear.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said, and his soul was wrapped up in every word. He knew that she was frightened. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Not yet. “Believe me, April, I’ll make it okay.”

He had to explain things to her.

He had to make her understand.

But first, he had to understand.

Then everything would be okay.

They would be together.

As they were in his dreams.

Hot blood spurted black and sticky, sluicing over his neck.

Doug stared at Amy. She was jammed in a corner, crying. He couldn’t hate her. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t a spiteful person. Not really. He was a good person. But life had put the knocks to him. Starting that night in Todd Gould’s basement, ending this night in Steve Austin’s. Most people got through life without facing such tough decisions. Most people didn’t have everyone tugging and pulling at them like that. They just didn’t know.

He wasn’t spiteful. Not Doug Douglas. Seeing Amy like this…Amy crying…he wouldn’t have killed the kid, Ethan Russell, not if he had it to do all over again…if only people could stop hiding…the kid would still be alive if Amy had ever once cried and showed him…that she had tears inside her if they had come out just once… His eyes weren’t focusing right… All he wanted to do was make things right for April. He knew she was tired of living. She suffered. He knew she had to go. He let her go; he didn’t even try to stop her, and now he just wanted to make things right for her. He was tired of living, too. But he had to make things right, finish the job. For him, for her, once and for…

A girl stood in the corner, wearing a cheerleading outfit.

April Destino. April wasn’t dead after all. Really stupid, imagining something like that. Getting shot over his imagination. Imagining that he’d seen April’s corpse when April was here.

And it was April. It was the eighth of April. It was morning. He ate breakfast in the morning. He eighth breakfast and the date was April ate…

April made his breakfast. She cooked eggs and sausage and hash browns and toast…and she squeezed ripe oranges into juice. And she kissed him. She always kissed him when breakfast was over. Doug dosed his eyes. He kept them closed. He didn’t know why April was pouring warm syrup over his neck, but it was kind of funny. Everything was dark.

He smelled the syrup. It was red syrup, a red smell. It was sluicing over his neck. Cherry, or strawberry or… He waited for April’s kiss.