deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 6: the million dollar question

Those pages were as fresh as anything, and as smooth as the stones down at the bed of a stream. Sam cradled the book with the palm of one hand as if she was reading to an audience. There was art in there: the first task was to coax out of the paper. And the question there hung over her head: what to draw and then hand into her counselor down by the school. She flipped through the pages for a double check on the count: forty five.
"Make this worthwhile," she muttered to herself. She doubled back to the wall to click on the thermostat and a chill ran up her spine. It was going to be a cold night, that remained for certain. She decided on a bit of dinner by herself and then turned in for the night at around eleven; no sooner had she curled under the covers and switched off the light when something caught her ear.
She lifted her head from the pillow and looked about her dark room. No light except for the amber street light accompanied by those little ghostly white flurries outside. And yet she heard it again: a low quiet rumble emerging through the floor. She pay close attention to it to feel a bit of a melody to it.
She then snickered and nodded her head.
"It's awful late, though, Frankie," she said aloud as she lay her head back down on the pillow. And yet the guttural drone of his bass put her to sleep within time.
She turned her head to find that strange man once again, the one with the white stripe in his hair, but that time, he lay down next to her on a bed of sand. His hair fanned out from his head like he had been electrocuted; he lay his arms out from either side of his body so he was open for her. It didn't help matters that the top three buttons of his shirt were undone to show off most of his chest, either. His eyes appeared to be comprised of stone but the skin on his face was smooth and clean looking.
Sam crawled over to him for a look into his face. He resembled to a little doll, albeit one with more deep set eyes and more defined features. Now that she had a good look at him, she could tell he was very handsome. She looked down at his body, clothed in a white silk shirt and a plush dark red blazer.
"How'd we even get here?" she asked him in a voice so hollow that she might as well have been saying it through a tunnel. He said something but his words slurred into nothing. His eyes rolled into his head.
"Wake up—wake up!" she commanded with her hands on either side of his face. His skin was smooth but felt like nothing. He parted his sensual lips and she hung right over his face.
"Don't go on me, please," she begged in a soft voice.
"Not here—" was what she heard him say in a broken voice. She glanced down at the rest of him and his legs extended out from underneath her. He raised one knee and held onto her shoulders. He pushed her off of him and he rolled over on top of her.
Sam lay on the sand underneath him; she never unlocked her gaze from his. Fine tendrils of black hair streamed down from either side of his head like a filmy curtain, and then there was that stripe on the crown, so pearly and silvery in the sunlight around them.
"What're you doing?" she demanded, and he brought his face right up to hers.
"You tell me," he whispered. She looked down again to find he was right on top of her. His stomach was soft before, why wasn't it soft then? She then looked up at the blue sky over their heads and the sight of an airplane resting on the rock behind their heads. A little model airplane that looked to be made of paper.
"Do ya wanna punish me?" he whispered to her.
"For that?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Just do it," he begged her. "Punish me. Punish me for being so fucking bad."
But she was stuck there on the sand. There was no way she could lift her arms or push him off of her, this strange man who looked as though he just came out of a strip club. She raised her head off of the sand in hopes to at least touch the tip of his nose. His pained little whimpers. The fact he just begged her to do it. He wanted it more than her.
But before she could even so much as touch the tip of his nose, a wave crashed down at their feet and surrounded the both of them with rich royal blue water. He held onto her as the waves carried them over to the plane. She held onto the nose of the plane even though it was made of paper.
"Samantha!" His voice was drowned out by the rush of the waters around them. She said his name but no sound came out of her mouth. He pushed against the current and clung onto her body for dear life.
"Are you okay?" she asked him.
"I am, yeah," he said in a soft voice. His face was soft and his hair had been soaked down to the roots. But she saw him at a tender level right there in the water.
"It's going to be okay," she whispered to him; even there in the water, she could feel him trembling from the cold and from the fear. "Everything is going to be okay..."
Her words bled away and she awoke to complete dead silence around her as well as the pearly white from the fresh fallen snow outside of her window. She almost expected to hear Frank's rumbling bass from downstairs once again, and she wondered if they had gone back to the place from before. There was also the black journal in the next room, right there on the shelf.
She lay there on her back for a moment to think about the man in her dreams once again. She never found out his name but she said his name there, and it felt as though she spoke to someone she had known for a long time, too. The fear in his eyes was unmistakable, and she even woke up with such a cold feeling on her nose that it felt damp to the touch. He felt soft but he also existed in her mind, which meant she couldn't feel him at all. He was a contradiction, and a strange one that her mind had invented no less.
She rubbed her eyes and then she slid out from underneath the covers. The cold carpet sent chills up her legs and up her spine. She shivered as she tugged the covers back towards the head board of her bed, and then she ducked into the next room to switch on the thermostat again.
There was a knock on the door, albeit one so loud that it startled her. She was in nothing more than a little black camisole, silk pajama bottoms, and striped socks, and thus she hoped it was nothing too important. Shivering, she made her way over to the door for a look out the peephole. She recognized dark curls over a round face and a cleft chin. Sam flung open the door to find Charlie bundled up in a heavy dark sweater and dark sweat pants. He smelled clean and soapy, and she took a second look to find his hair dripping wet.
"Charlie! What's up?"
"I was wondering when—" He hesitated to have a look at her camisole and the silk covering her legs. "—when you'd—you—what'cha doin'?"
"I—just got up," she reluctantly said. He nibbled on his bottom lip, and before either of them could say something, a loud crack followed by a repeated ticking caught them both by surprise. Sam lunged forward and clutched onto Charlie's shoulders. He stared down at her chest as she pressed her body against his.
"I think that was just the heater," he told her in a low voice. "Like—the furnace doing its thing."
"I think you're right," she said with a break in her voice, "I feel the heat from the vent in there."
She peered up into his round face and his big dark eyes.
"I think you can let go of me now," he stammered out. She lifted her fingers from his shoulders and then dusted off the front of his sweater.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" she offered him.
"You know, it's funny—I was just gonna ask you that," he quipped as if nothing happened.
"You touched a girl and now you wanna buy her a drink," she taunted him.
"No! I, I mean, yes? Yes. I mean, no. No. I mean, yes!"
Sam burst out laughing at that and she set a hand on his chest. Charlie hunched his shoulders a bit, but she put her arm around him and guided him into her apartment. Frazzled, he closed the door behind him and let out a low whistle.
"Sit tight," she advised him, "I have to change my clothes."
"You can—still wear your jammies," he pointed out. "Frankie's got coffee."
"You just wanna see me in my jammies," she retorted. He nibbled on his bottom lip once again and he tugged on the hem of his sweater. She noticed a pinkish hue appearing in his chubby cheeks.
"C'mon, Charlie," she said as she folded her arms across her chest. She took a glimpse down to find she had accentuated her chest.
But then he shook his head, such that loose strands of curly hair stuck out from the crown of his head.
"You sure?" she asked him. "Mr. Bedhead?"
"Positive," he replied in a voice that sounded as though he was holding his breath. She ran her tongue along the edge of her teeth, and then she ducked back into her bedroom. She imagined a white bedsheet over the doorway and a light on the other side of the room so she could cast a silhouette on there. But she made her way over to the closet for a fresh change of clothes and her boots. Her regular shoes were around there somewhere, but she took what she could get at the moment.
Once she was laced up and had fixed her sweat shirt collar, she returned to Charlie, who had tucked his hands into his sweater pockets even though it had warmed up at a rather quick rate in those few moments. He raised his eyebrows at her, even though his bangs hid them from her view.
"Let's mosey on out," she declared.
"Wait, wait, wait, wait—hold up."
"What?"
He gestured to the other side of the room, where she spotted the black journal there on the shelf. She snapped her fingers and smiled at him.
"Of course!" She crossed the room for the journal and tucked it under her arm. She swiped the set of pens there and tucked those into her sweater pocket, and then she joined Charlie at the doorway. He closed the door behind them to keep the warmth in the apartment while they were downstairs. They reached the bottom of the stairs and Charlie took a seat on the banister.
"Ow—" He hit his foot on the bottom of the banister. He lost his balance and almost fell off the rail. She stepped forward so he could catch himself. He dusted himself off and showed her an awkward little smile.
"Some coffee and a bit of breakfast for our tums," she declared.
"Yes, please!"
Charlie followed Sam down the corridor to Frank's apartment, where they were met with another low, quiet rumble through the floor.
"Frankie's awake," Charlie remarked; Sam knocked on the panel of the door three times. The hum disappeared, so she knocked again, that time with the palm of her hand. The door swung open and Frank poked his head out. His lush dark hair hung down like the ears of a dog.
"Hey," he greeted them.
"Hey," Sam echoed him.
"What'cha doin'?" Charlie asked him.
"Hang on—" Frank ducked back into the room with the door left ajar for a second.
"Frankie?" Charlie called out.
"Hang on," Frank called back. Something fell over inside of there. "Ouch—ow—ow—" Frank emerged from behind the door wearing an ugly puffy sweater. He tugged down the hem of the sweater over his skinny jeans.
"What're you doing?" Sam chuckled.
"I'm—playing," he replied with a stutter.
"Playing," she echoed as she stepped into the warm apartment first.
"Yeah—I was—playing a riff." Frank turned to his bass guitar, which he had leaned against the back of the couch.
"Were you playing the same thing last night?"
Charlie shut the door behind them and ran his fingers through his dark hair.
"I was, yeah!" Frank then knitted his eyebrows together and frowned at her. "How'd you know?"
"I heard it rumbling through the floor," she said.
"All rumbly rumbly in your bones," Charlie cracked.
"Nah, I was laying down in bed already," she pointed out. Her gaze meandered over to the shelf on the left side of the room: she spotted a framed picture of two boys rested against the wall.
"What'cha lookin' at?" Frank asked her.
"That picture there."
"Oh, that's us! Me and Charlie here." Sam picked the black and white photograph off of the shelf with her free hand for a look herself. She recognized the cleft in Charlie's chin right next to Frank's sensible little haircut.
"Aw, what cute little boys!" she squeaked, which brought a laugh out of Frank.
"Adorable li'l childs we were," Charlie joked with a shrug of his shoulders. She then dropped her gaze to the black journal tucked underneath her arm.
"Yes!" he exclaimed with a twinkle in his eye.
"Yes what?" Frank asked.
"Sam's got her little book and her pen set with her."
"Oh, yeah! Draw us as kids! That'll be your first entry for your portfolio." Sam nodded her head as she gazed on at the two young boys in the photograph. Sketch it out first and then add some pen.
"We actually came here for coffee but now we've got a better reason," Charlie pointed out.
"I was actually about to make myself some as a matter of fact..." Frank's voice trailed off as he padded into the kitchen. Sam gazed down at the photograph again to better study their faces: all the times she had drawn from a reference photo she had to take a good long look at it. The man in her dream was not enough of a reference for her to finish that drawing in her other sketchbook. She would have to dream of him a few more times for a better observation of his face and the streak on the crown of his head.
With her hands full, she strode on over to the kitchen table, right before the rack of bass guitars. She set down the photograph on the table right next to her journal, the latter of which she opened up to that first clean white page. She ran her fingertips on the surface of the paper to feel it yet again.
"Do you have a pencil on hand?" she asked Frank as he loaded up the coffee maker.
"A pencil? Like a straight up pencil or the artsy kind of pencil?"
"The artsy kind."
"I have a bunch of those back at home," Charlie added as he took a seat next to her; she spotted a black jacket draped over the back of his chair, "I know that doesn't really help, but—it's something."
"Would a regular ol' pencil work?" Frank asked her as he closed the lid of the coffee maker.
"Absolutely," she replied; Frank reached behind him to open the drawer and he took out a yellow pencil with a still pristine pink eraser on the end. Before she could thank him, the phone rang. He jerked back to the phone on the wall.
"Hello?"
Charlie turned to Sam with his arms folded over the top of the table.
"You wanna watch me?" she asked him in a soft tone.
"If you don't mind," he admitted with a shrug of the shoulders.
"Not at all," she replied, and she could not resist the smile from crossing over her face. Careful to not press down on the paper too hard, she began sketching out their little heads. Charlie rested his chin in the palm of his hand and watched her every move. She tuned him out for a few seconds before Frank's phone call broke her out of it.
"Wait, where are you?"
Sam and Charlie turned to look in his direction. Frank then turned around with his lips parted and his eyes large with concern.
"Okay—okay, Joey. We'll be there. Stay warm." He hung up the phone and returned to the two of them there at his table.
"What's going on?" Charlie asked him.
"Joey got stuck. He's up around the outside of Binghamton and he ran out of gas. He found a pay phone on the side of the road so he didn't have to walk far."
"What's he doing up there?"
"He was going to visit his parents. Apparently, the heater in his car malfunctioned a bit, too—so while he could get some heat into the car, it's not a lot. And then, of course, he had to walk a bit up to the phone."
"So we're going to have to go get him now," Sam concluded.
"I'm glad you changed your clothes," Charlie told her; he returned to Frank. "She wanted to come on down in her pajamas."
"Oh, no, don't do that just yet," Frank teased her with a wag of his finger. And then his face turned serious. "Okay, so when this thing's done, we'll boogie on outta here because the poor guy's been walking around in the snow and he had to go back to his lukewarm car."
"How far is it from here?" Sam asked them.
"It's three hours. Joey told me he's got a big Indian blanket in his back seat so he put it up there with him to keep himself warm."
"Why can't his parents come get him?"
"Apparently his dad doesn't like driving around in the snow, which is a little ridiculous because this is New York. It snows this time of year like clockwork. They live up near Syracuse, which is like the prime example of that. But, whatever."
Within a minute, the coffee maker finished the brew and Frank took out a pair of gray travel mugs with black lids.
"I'm sorry, I just have two of these," he confessed.
"I'll drink mine down real quick," Charlie offered.
"You sure?" Sam asked him as she closed her journal and tucked her pens back into her pocket.
Frank poured Charlie a little cup full of black coffee.
"Be careful, Char—it's a little bit hot."
Indeed, once he handed Charlie the cup, he proceeded to blow on the surface. Frank then poured the coffee from the carafe into the travel mugs.
"A bit of cream, right?" he asked Sam.
"Yes please."
He took the cream out of the fridge and poured it into her travel mug. When he put the lid on his mug, Charlie tipped the mug into his lips and gulped down the coffee in four large swallows. He set down the cup on the table and hung his tongue out of his mouth like a dog. He then stood to his feet and took the coat off of the back of the chair and put it on over his body.
"Come on, puff daddy," Charlie commanded as he held onto the back of Frank's shirt collar. He gathered himself and handed Sam her travel mug and they bustled out of his apartment; using his free hand, Frank locked up the place and led the way down the hall, where they were met with Emile in his doorway.
"Was that you making those bass sounds earlier?" he quipped to Frank.
"Yeah, it was totally me," he replied with haste.
"Can't really talk about it, though, Emile," Sam told him with even more haste; she reached the front door first.
"Be careful, kids!" he called after them.
The three of them bustled out into the snowy blustery morning: a blanket of gray clouds covered the sky overhead, although Sam could see the clouds thinning near the sun so the snow around them glowed with such a bright white glare. Frank overtook her at the base of the stairs and he kept going on down the sidewalk to his car. Again, with one hand, he unlocked the passenger side door.
"Shotgun," Sam called out.
"Damn it!" Charlie groaned, and Frank burst out laughing. She slid into the cushy front passenger seat with her journal still tucked under her arm; she put the travel mug in between her thighs so she could on her seat belt. Frank meanwhile unlocked and opened the driver's side door, still with his right hand. He slid into the seat, right behind the steering wheel.
"You wanna hold onto this for me?" he asked Sam.
"Gladly." She put her fingers around the travel mug so he could close the door and strap into the seat. Charlie closed the door and shook his head about. Frank stuck the key into the ignition: a little bit of rough noises, but the car roared to life. Sam shivered under her sweater and she regretted not taking her jacket with her. But then again, it was an emergency so there was very little time to do anything else.
Sam held the mug up to her mouth for a little sip. Warm and smooth, and warm enough to keep her comfortable until enough heat got into the car. But she continued to shiver at the feeling of the intense New York cold.
Frank brought them to the stoplight up ahead, just in time for the light to turn green. At least the windows were closed against the cold winds and the icy puddles on the pitch black pavement; at one point, she looked over at him when he let go of the steering wheel. He balled his hand and breathed onto his fingers and his palm.
"Jesus," Charlie sputtered.
"Yeah," said Frank as he blew on his hand again and shook it about. "I hope once we get onto the highway and cross the river, I can turn on the heater. Holy shit."
Indeed, they reached the onramp to the freeway and Sam huddled down even more in the front seat. The tip of her nose felt like ice once again: her sweater proved to only do so much as the cold sank down through the fabric into her skin.
"Even that puffy shirt can't keep you warm?" Charlie asked Frank.
"Just barely," he confessed as he took another sip of coffee. "My hands are colder than anything."
"My hands and my nose are freezing," Sam told them. "Three hours of this."
"Hang on—" Frank changed lanes so they could cross the bridge over the vast Hudson River: the dark waters looked frigid and stony under the gray sky and the banks of snow.
"Is it the Hudson River that's polluted to death?" she asked them.
"That's the East River," Frank corrected her, "it's like you have Manhattan on the peninsula and then Brooklyn on the island. In between there is the East River. You don't wanna fall into the East River."
"You really don't," Charlie told her. "I imagine it's like falling into a vat of radioactive waste."
"So is that the other reason why New Yorkers are so tough?" she joked, which brought a laugh out of Frank.
"Yeah, I guess?" he said; he overtook a car in front of them and returned to their lane. "It's like—when you're growing up in a literal shithole that gets ridiculously cold in the winter time and hotter than hell in the summer, yeah, it's gonna give you a tough skin of sorts. I dunno what growing up near L.A. was like, but I would think it was along those lines."
"Nah, with L.A., it's more heat and garbage air," she replied. "I had a few friends growing up who had asthma because of it. And the fog coming in from the ocean doesn't really help much, either." They reached the end of the bridge and the beginning of upstate New York stretched before them for miles and miles on end.
"Speaking of air..." Frank reached forward to switch on the heater. They were met with a blast of lukewarm air, but it was better than sitting in the cold. The sun burst out from behind the clouds.
"There we go!" Charlie clapped.
"Yeah, let's get our asses warm!" Frank cheered as he took another sip of coffee.
The sun followed them all the way up the winding highway into the snow blanketed woods. The whole stretch of forest reminded Sam of Northern California, and also the forested mountains to the north of of Los Angeles. She cradled the mug of coffee in both hands and watched the wilderness rise up before her eyes, and even more so when they reached the cut off that led up to Binghamton. Within time, enough heat had built up in Frank's car, and the heater vents blasted out all that warm air. Frank himself downed the rest of his coffee and nestled the cup in between his thighs. At one point, he rubbed his hands together while leaving the wheel free.
"Look, ma! No hands!" Charlie and Sam burst out laughing at him.
Within a few hours, they reached Binghamton, a cozy looking town straddled right on the Susquehanna River, blanketed in a fine white layer of fresh lake effect snow. The sun dipped behind the clouds once more.
"Let's see," Frank recalled as he stroked his chin, "—Joey said he was broken down—right there!"
"You sure that's him?" Charlie rested either elbow on the tops of the seats and hovered right in between them.
"I recognize that junky piece of car he drives."
"Junky piece of car?" Sam chuckled.
"Junky piece of car, yes!" Frank laughed along with her. Indeed, Joey's black car had posted up on the side of the road, just before the interchange and a bit away from a faded blue pay phone, which poked out of the snow. They pulled up behind his car, which looked empty from the rear view window. Frank left the car idling as he and Charlie climbed out to check on him. Sam watched them congregate on the driver's side: Frank looked confused where Charlie rounded the back end to open the passenger door. She climbed out of the car to check on him for herself right next to Charlie.
Joey had stretched himself across the back seat with the Indian blanket spread over his little body. He had brought the hem up to his ears and he wore a pair of mirrored sunglasses over his face. Strands of jet black curls dangled down into his face.
"Is he okay?" she asked them.
"We have no idea," Charlie confessed. "I'm almost inclined to grab a rock and just smash open the window—"
Joey opened his lips to say something but they could barely hear him.
"What'd he say?" Frank asked.
"Joey, can you hear me?" Charlie called out.
He said it again.
"Louder for the people to hear, Joey!" Frank declared.
"The girl with the black journal," he proclaimed in a broken voice, but she never said anything.
Charlie turned to Sam with a bit of a sneer on his face.
"He wants you," he said.
"I think he was just making an observation," Frank pointed out as they were met by Joey tapping on the inside panel with the sole of his foot. Charlie held onto the door handle and pulled it open.
"Looks like we got here just in time," he noted.
"Yeah, you did," Joey replied with a shudder underneath the blanket. "The temp dropped off like an hour ago so I got under the blanket here. There was no way in Earth on hell I was walking all the way to Binghamton when my feet are achin' me like crazy."
He peered over his sunglasses at Sam: those deep brown eyes as dark as the bare patch of drenched pavement beneath her feet.
"You wanna tell me sump'n?" he asked her; she kept her eyes fixated on his two front teeth, to where she spotted a little gap on the right side. She never saw that gap before.
"Not—really, no," she confessed. "It's—cold here. I'm—feeling the cold in here."
"Yeah, that's upstate for ya," he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. "It's my fault, I should'a known it was gonna get this cold. But, Sam, I'm gonna tell ya this right now, too—it's only gonna get more and more damp the further we go towards the lakes. So—"
"Better bundle up?"
"I was actually gonna say, watch the lid on that li'l cup of coffee there, but—" He nodded his head. "—yeah, that, too! Drive in a car that actually gives you heat, too. Can't forget that, like ever. And stock up on fuel—gotta remember that."
Frank rounded the back end of the car to join Sam and Charlie.
"Do you need some help?" he asked Joey.
"The million dollar question. I need a lift and also a lift."