999_ Twenty-Nine Original Tales of Horror and Suspense - Al Sarrantonio [232]
Not a wasp. No … The noise was the telephone on the bedside table. He grabbed for it instinctively—tried to grab, could not. What was wrong with his arms? He bucked against the mattress, the tan print comforter sliding away from his lower body. Legs slipped off the mattress, feet slapping against the carpet and the slick mess of spilled magazines.
He smelled something heavy and terrible.
The sheet stuck to him as his body, levered upright, lurched against the bed table. His left arm swung around loosely, hand smacking the phone. It felt like incandescent steel wire flaring up molten inside his shoulder. He screamed.
The telephone tumbled to the floor as the handset swung around the base of the banker’s lamp. The receiver jiggled up and down as if the coiled cord were the hemp rope dangling someone newly executed.
If he could have gotten his breath he might have cried. He heard the modulated wasp buzzing coming from the telephone earpiece. The tone was familiar and angry. He knew who it was. It didn’t matter.
He needed help and so he sank to his knees attempting to align his face with the receiver.
“—the fuck are you doing, jerkweed?” the tinny voice was saying. “Too early for you? I told you last night I was coming over today to pick up my stuff.”
His voice caught on a sob. “I need help,” he gasped out. “Please.”
Silence. Then the tenor of her voice changed. Curiosity and alarm replaced the fury with the suddenness of a carousel projector clicking ahead to the next slide. “Danny? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I can’t move.”
“You’re paralyzed?”
“No, no. My arms. They don’t work. And it hurts,” he said. “It hurts like a son of a bitch.”
“Is this a goddamn trick?” she said. “Are you telling me the truth?”
“Yes,” he said, voice catching on a sob he couldn’t help. “Louisa, I swear to God something’s really, really wrong.”
“I’m on my way,” she said.
“You got your key?” Danny said. “I can’t unlock the door.”
“I’ve got the key,” Louisa answered. “I was gonna sharpen it like a razor and cut your balls off.” Her voice sounded perfectly controlled. “I’m leaving now, baby. Hang on.”
Danny heard the click as she set down her phone. He listened as the computerized phone company warning came, then the ear-rasping alert tone, finally silence on the line. Even if he used his teeth, there was no way he could hang up his phone.
He tried to sit up straight on the edge of the bed, wishing he were anywhere else, anyone else.
What’s happened to me? he thought. Was he whining? Of course he was whining. It hurt too damned much to be brave.
In the twenty minutes it took for Louisa to drive over, he managed to stagger downstairs to the kitchen. It was a cold, cold January morning and something had obviously happened to the heat. A few wisps of warmth emanated from the register just inside the kitchen. He stood there quietly, aching, attempting to soak up what furnace air he could.
He heard the front door open and close.
“Danny?” she called.
“In the kitchen.”
He listened to the steps approach. He wanted to shut his eyes. Louisa poked her head through the kitchen doorway and surveyed him, eyes wide, head to feet. “Danny, sweetie, you are a mess.” Her voice sounded sincere but amazed. She wrinkled her nose.
He knew how he appeared, standing naked save for his soiled briefs, back against the register, hands dangling in front of him with the thumbs locked together, liquid excrement drying in thin rivulets down his legs to the floor. Louisa shook her head. She involuntarily reached out toward him. As soon as her fingertips touched his arm, he cried out. She jerked back. “It hurts that much?” He nodded, jaws clenched. “You called a doctor?” He shook his head. “No,” she said, “I guess you really couldn’t.” Louisa looked up at him from her five-feet-even vantage, chocolate eyes serious beneath the pixie-cut raven bangs. “First thing, maybe