The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [67]
To the right of the television, past rows of steel-grey shelving replete with books and other objects, past a freshly-dusted metal manual typewriter resting upon a crooked stand, stood a ramshackle recliner baring a color to nearly match the tile floor. There Scratch seated himself, the silent young woman stretched upon the bed before him.
He scratched his beard.
He reached over to the metal shelf beside him, leaning, fingers fumbling through the clutter of paperbacks and unwashed drinking cups and the morning’s breakfast remnants, until he withdrew a plastic sandwich bag. He raised it and peered into it, his hands opened it, entered it, pulled out a square paper object. On this square were dotted creases bordering more than a few dozen tinier squares, tan squares, blotter acid. LSD tabs. Carefully, he folded two of these tiny squares until they tore loose. He returned the bulk of the paper to the sandwich bag, returned the bag to the metal shelf.
He stood, a move preceding a silent approach to the edge of the bed, knelt against the mattress, before the side of Alice’s lovely head. He brought the fingers of one hand to her mouth, separated her lips delicately, the pink-red glistening of her tongue rolling, seeming to gag her. Her eyes flickered open, then shut; Scratch did not know whether she saw him, in her drug-induced hallucinatory Reap-the-Wild-Wind, nor did he care. He slipped the tan paper squares beyond her teeth and moved his fingers to close tight her mouth.
“I am not here.” His words stroked the air like vapors of hush vanishing as they gently met with her ear and caressed it slyly. “You do not know me. I do not exist. This is a dream. Hmmmm? Yes, you’re doing reeeal good. This is a dream. I am a dream. Hear me, young Alice. A dream. I am a dream. When you awaken...that’s the real world. And in the real world, you must bare the child, Alice. Our child. Your child, and the child of the dream. I am the dream. You must bare our child for me...so that everything that is pure in the dream can enter into the real world and be born again, can live again and be pure....”
As he repeated these words over and once more, he arose, stepped back; he crept, avoiding the recliner, further back, until he arrived at a darkened, pillow-laden corner near the farthest window, beyond the dim light streaming in from the outside afternoon haze. There, his gaze drifted around the expanse of the attic, bathing in the shady, surreal atmosphere, so dark...how he cherished the pleasant dark....
When he sat, he leaned back, and when he did so the palm of his hand met with an uneven stack of typewritten pages embedded between two pillows beside him. He fumbled for a firm grip, then, lifted the stack into his line of vision, into the dim light.
The title page of the manuscript faced him, typewritten and centered, and it read:
THE EVERBORN
A Novel
By
Ralston Cooper
Scratch knew who Ralston Cooper was. And he had read every single title the acclaimed horror author wrote, and loved it. He had waited in long, long lines leading into bookstores, for book signings of Ralston Cooper books signed by Mr. Ralston Cooper himself. He had mail-ordered Ralston Cooper books, purchased Ralston Cooper video movie releases without waiting for them to go down in price.
But never ever had he acquired any Ralston Cooper work this way, by it typing its own self out both magically and prophetically through Scratch’s personal Corona typewriter.
Conventional people, normal people, would have freaked over such a seemingly paranormal experience. But Scratch and Scratch’s circumstances were far far faaaaar from conventional and normal.
So he took it differently from the rest of us.
He took it as a Godsend.
He took it as something special.
He took it to heart.
And, reading it, he took it as destiny.
He was doing what he had to do.
To save himself.
18.
Max Goes To Church
Max sped past this vehicle and that, as the mild flow of Sunday