They came as a group. The ones he’d recently murdered. Joe DiGrazia, Pig Dornich, Phyllis Roberson, the hooker in East Boston, all of them. There were even some he recognized from his days with Herbie. There were a few he didn’t recognize. Somehow he knew they were guides.
They milled around him, looking at him as if he were insignificant, as if he were unimportant to them, and then they turned from him. None of them had spoken, none of them acknowledged him. It was as if he didn’t exist. Then they were gone.
The quiet was unlike anything Charlie Winters had ever experienced. A pure, absolute quiet. He almost welcomed it when he heard them.
The noise they made was like razor blades being scratched over glass. Millions of blades over millions of pieces of glass. A pure, raw terror filled him as the blades scraped closer, as the noise screamed through his every fiber. He still couldn’t see them, but he could sense they were almost on top of him.
They were on him then. Shredding him, engulfing him, their blades ripping his being to infinite pieces. Just as the quiet before had been absolute, his agony now was also pure and absolute.
When he had first learned how to slip into the dream world and then into other planes of existence, he searched for Herbie. He never found him, though, and he now knew why. Herbie suffered this same fate, or rather Herbie must still be suffering this same fate. Because Charlie Winters knew the shredding would never end. He knew the agony would never end.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The book had stated there was no hell, that you would keep going back to earth until you improved yourself to where you could enter a higher plane of existence. Which meant he and Herbie would keep going back to earth. That was how it was supposed to be.
Through the pure, absolute agony he felt an overwhelming sense of betrayal. It was all so damn unfair. After all, there wasn’t supposed to be any hell.
A voice cut through the swarming mass, it cut through the agony screaming through Charlie Winters’s consciousness. It told him: “You can’t believe everything you read in books, Charlie.”
Chapter 37
It had been ten months since Shannon had seen Susan. After that night with Charlie Winters, Shannon spent the next five days in a hospital as doctors tried to reattach his two fingers. They were unable to, though-the damage to both his bones and muscles had been too severe. When he got out he found that Susan had moved into her own apartment. She told him she needed some time alone. He agreed that it would probably be best.
Six weeks later, she asked for a divorce. They did it quickly. Afterwards, Shannon moved to Colorado. Since then he had spoken to her over the phone only a few times. Two days ago, she had called to tell him she’d be visiting him. Before that he hadn’t heard from her in over half a year.
Her plane was twenty minutes late. Shannon found himself oddly at peace. He felt no anxiety, just a warm calm. He watched as Susan got off the plane. She looked thinner and paler than he remembered, but she was still beautiful. A worried frown pinched her face as she searched for him. When she saw him she tried to smile. Shannon walked over and helped her with the overnight bag she was carrying. He told her he was surprised to get her call, especially about her wanting to visit him.
“I thought you could use some company this time of year. How are you, Bill?”
“Pretty good. We’ll talk later, though.”
He got the rest of her baggage and carried it through the airport to his car. They drove in silence as they circled around Denver to get to Interstate 80. Once on it, they headed east towards Boulder.
“I guess it used to be much easier getting to Boulder from the old Stapleton airport,” Shannon remarked.
“That’s interesting. When are we going to talk, Bill?”
“Soon. Let’s just enjoy the ride right now. It’s very pretty out here.”
After a while they could see the mountains. The plains were covered with snow and seemed to stretch forever. What Shannon liked most about Colorado was how he could go for miles without seeing anything but wide open space. He enjoyed driving the highways there, especially the trip between Denver and Boulder. It relaxed and soothed him. When he reached Boulder the traffic became more congested. He parked at the end of the Pearl Street mall and took Susan to one of the small bistros lining the street.
“The food’s really quite good in this town,” he told her. “Very healthy, wholesome stuff. I’ve become a vegetarian, but this place has good veggie and meat dishes.”
“After what we went through a year ago, I don’t want to ever look at meat again,” Susan said, her color dropping a shade.
Shannon couldn’t help noticing how tired her eyes looked. As thin as she had been before, it was obvious that she had lost weight. Her cheekbones were more pronounced, her lips slightly larger against her face. The overall effect made her look both somber and sad.
“You look tired,” Shannon said.
Susan started to laugh. “I should. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”
A waitress came with the menus. Shannon suggested that they split a pizza. Susan said that would be fine, and Shannon ordered one with olives and broccoli along with a bottle of wine.
When the waitress left, Susan asked why he ordered the wine. She looked as if she had been struck.
“I thought you’d be asking why I’d order something with broccoli.”
“I’m serious. Why did you order that?”
“It’s okay. I don’t drink much, only a glass or two of wine with dinner. Every once in a while I have a beer.”
“You promised me you’d stop drinking-”
“That was years ago, and besides, I would’ve thought any promises we had were voided with our marriage.” Shannon took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose. “I’m sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t very nice. I know you’re concerned about me drinking, especially with February tenth only a couple of days away, but there’s really nothing to worry about. I’ve never been an alcoholic and I now know what caused my problems before. I also know they’re never going to happen again.”
“I don’t understand. I thought we knew already, that it was because of what happened to your mother-”
“No. It was because of him, and he’s dead now.” Shannon had left his glove on his right hand. His face tensed as he grabbed where his two fingers had once been. “It’s been almost a year,” he said, grimacing, “and I still get these damn phantom pains.”
“Are you okay?”
“Just a minute.” After a long ten-count the muscles along his jaw relaxed. He let go of his gloved hand and leaned back in his chair. “Jesus, that was a bad one. It felt like my fingers were still there and were being bent back to my wrist.”
There was a wetness around Susan’s eyes. “You don’t have to wear that glove for me.”
“That’s okay. I feel more comfortable with it on.” Shannon looked away from her. “I never told you this, but somehow he was able to get into my dreams. That’s how I knew where to find you that night.”
“I know. He told me.”
“Yeah, I guess he would. My blackouts probably started when he first learned how to do it. You see, he had a long range plan to destroy my sanity. I think what he really wanted to do was convince me I had multiple personalities and that he was one of them. He had all those years in prison to work on me, to leave whispers and doubts in my mind. Around the anniversary of my mother’s death he’d whisper a little louder and dig a little deeper. My body’s defense against him was to shut itself down. Alcohol would help at first, but only for a while. When his whispers would cut through the booze, I’d have to shut down completely. If I didn’t, I probably would’ve gone insane. So that’s what caused my blackouts.”
“You never remembered dreaming about him?”
“No. He didn’t want me to. While he was in prison he only wanted to weaken me. After he got out that changed.”