Page 52 of The Undead

Sylvia’s head came up, eyes glittering like wet gems. She didn’t say anything at all, just stood and went up the stairs. The blanket swept the wood behind her like a wedding train. Adam never turned to see, but I saw his eyes focus on the reflection in the glass before him.

Like all glasses, this one did not reflect his body, so he had a clear view of Sylvia’s exit.

“What about Maggie?” I asked. Adam’s eyes didn’t move. He tracked his lover until she passed out of sight upstairs.

“What about her?” he asked, falsely mild.

“I have to make sure she’s safe.”

He turned, faster than he had on Sylvia, and crossed to me. His hands closed on my shoulders, yanked me to my feet, and shoved me across to the window. I froze, staring, and he stood behind me in silent menace.

“Don’t you understand anything? Do you really think,” he hissed in my ear, too soft for human ears to hear, “that you can save her fromthat?”

In the dimness of the backyard, almost hidden in the trees, something white looked back at me. And smiled. I gasped and stumbled backward, into Adam’s strength. His hands closed over my shoulders again, more gently.

“You’re poisoned. If you go to her, he’ll know you care for her. He knows how to take things from you, Michael. You can’t afford—”

His voice failed, abruptly, and his fingers tightened enough to be painful. I looked back out the window, but there was nothing there, just the wind and trees.

“I can’t afford to love, and neither can you. Take a lesson: let yours go. I wish to God—I pray—that when the time cones, I can.”

He turned and walked away from me, up the stairs and into the darkness. I stayed at the window, staring blindly out.

If William was out there, he didn’t show himself again.

At sunrise, in the safety of the darkened room, I felt the water pour into my lungs again in a black and suffocating rush. I writhed in my haphazard cocoon of blankets on the bare floor, I’d expected this little death to be easier this time. It wasn’t. My last thought before the darkness was that no one, not Adam, not William, was going to take Maggie away from me. Not this time.

***

Three days of unbearable waiting. The tension between Adam and Sylvia was enough to make a dead man sweat, much less a claustrophobic not-so-dead one. Sylvia mentioned, out of Adam’s hearing, that Maggie had been released from the hospital and was home; he hadn’t wanted me to know, because he didn’t want me out of his sight. Me, or Sylvia.

I could have told him, you don’t always get what you want.

I palmed the car keys sitting on the marble counter in the kitchen and shoved them in the pocket of Adam’s borrowed jacket. I’d also borrowed a dark shirt and pants; the shirt was long in the shoulders, and I looked as if I’d had my tailoring done at K mart, but I’d pass in the dark.

On reflection, that sort of described my entire future.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Sylvia asked from the top of the stairs as I quietly slid the deadbolt back on the door. I turned to look at her, and she stopped with one hand on the banister. She looked better today, or at least resigned “Mike, think about what you’re doing. You’re not ready yet.”

“I’m going to make sure Maggie’s all right,” I said. Her eyebrows came together in a straight black line over worried eyes. “Are you going to tell Adam?”

“Of course I am.”

“Are you going to try to stop me?”

“Of course I’m not. I’m not stupid. Go ahead, if you have to. You can’t do a thing for her, all you can do is cause yourself pain, but go ahead.”

All very easy for her to say, standing there with her own lover somewhere upstairs, waiting for her return. I shook my head.

“It isn’t that easy. I love her. I—need her. It’s as if I’ve had something ripped out of my body by the roots, and it’s still pumping blood—I can’t go on like this. I have to see her. I just do.”

Sylvia didn’t say anything, but I saw the softening in her green eyes, the understanding. I opened the door, unlatched the screen, and went out. Her words echoed faintly after me.

“Be careful.”

The car started on the first try, and I backed it out of the driveway with cautious speed, in case Adam took a notion to try to stop me. I knew Sylvia wouldn’t try; she probably just noted the time, like a parent whose teenager leaves for a late date. Noting the time until sunrise.

She was better, but not well. She was clinging to Adam’s love, a spar in the midst of this emotional wreckage. I wondered what Adam had to cling to. Me? God help us.

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