Halfway to Hell

Halfway to Hell Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

Someone is screaming.

            I think it’s me.

            Hard to tell.

            So many different voices in my head.

            Which ones are real?

            Which ones are just my imagination?

            Back in the war, there was a guy in my unit who had nightmares. Even when he was awake. Irish kid name of Eddie Lafferty. Nice guy. Except when he ‘crossed over’. That’s what he called it. Said the world just went away and he found himself in some other place. A scary place. Then he’d start screaming, running around, talking to people who weren’t there.  It got so bad, he used his bayonet to cut himself. Said it distracted him from the voices in his head. The medics said he was faking it. Trying to work his ticket. When he shot a Captain in the leg because he thought he was a giant spider, they took him seriously. They shipped him out. That was the last we saw of him. Often wondered what happened to him. Often wondered what it must have been like to be inside his head. Now I know. Only there’s no-one to ship me out. Nowhere to go to even if they did.

            I woke up in a pool of my own blood and vomit. The chair I’d been sitting in was on its side. My hands and feet were untied. The projector was gone. I was alone.

            If it wasn’t for the fact that I looked and felt like I’d been through a threshing machine, I’d be tempted to believe I’d imagined the whole thing.

            That’s what I wanted to believe.

            If everything I’d seen had been real…

            Couldn’t have been. It was just a movie, right? So, if that guy on the screen really was me, why didn’t I remember making that movie? Hell, I was no actor. And Rachel. I’d remember doing that scene with Rachel. Wouldn’t I? Or had I ‘crossed over’? Had I become Eddie Lafferty?

            One thing I knew for sure. Sitting here, feeling sorry for myself, wouldn’t get me anywhere. I needed answers and I needed them fast. I pushed myself to my feet, waited for the room to stop swaying, and headed up the stairs. I came out into a glossy magazine kitchen. All gleaming chrome and steel, chequered tiles on the floor, smelling of lemons and fresh bread. Where the Hell was I?

            I left bloody footprints on the tiles and a rust coloured stain on the door handle as I made my way outside. The thunder clouds that had chased me up the hill had all gone. The sky was bright blue, the sun was a flaming orange disc that blazed off the white tiled patio and blinded me for a few seconds. I shaded my eyes and stared out over some film stars idea of a back yard. Not so different from the one I’d seen earlier in the day, just before Sal had slugged me. But this one was brand, spanking new. The cabins off to my left were newly painted, I could smell the paint from where I stood. The low walls were whitewashed and perfect, the tiles under my feel, sand coloured and gleaming. The pool to my left had shiny hand rails and two diving boards, one at either end, that were straight and taut and looked as though they hadn’t been used. I stumbled forward, trying to orientate myself. No-one was about, so I figured the place was empty, maybe just built, waiting to be sold for more money than I could make in a lifetime. Maybe it was one of those places I’d passed on my way up the hill? One of those fenced off places with iron gates. But that didn’t figure. I shuffled forward, peering out over the back wall at the view of the city in the distance and the tops of the trees that sloped away down the hill. We were too far up for it to be one of those places. And I didn’t remember seeing anything else near the house when I came in. It hurt to think, but I tried anyway. It was while I was trying to figure out where I could be that I saw it. In the pool. Floating there like some abandoned beach toy.

            A body.

            Face down. The shape told me it was female. The shape and the fan of golden hair that spread out on the water like a halo. And drifting slowly around it, staining the crystal blue water red was something I knew only too well. Blood.

            My heart hammered in my chest. I looked at that shape, the hair. My throat was too parched to speak but I managed to croak out a single word:     ‘Delores.’

            I didn’t even take off my shoes. I just lurched forward and jumped in. I went straight down and swallowed half a gallon. Came up choking and spitting, looking round wildly, half hoping I’d imagined the whole thing, praying that in that instant I really was Eddie Lafferty. But she was still there. I made a clumsy doggy paddle towards her. Grabbed her under the arms and kicked out for the side. There were steps leading down to the pool at the shallow end and I dragged her in that direction. I had to rest there to catch my breath, but I managed to haul her up the steps and onto the concrete apron. I knelt down and flipped her over, cradling her head in my lap. I was blubbing like an idiot and calling her name over and over.

            ‘Delores. Delores. Delores.’

            I smoothed the hair away from her face, and, God forgive me, I felt a surge of joy when I saw her face.

            It wasn’t Delores.

            The joy was short lived. I looked at that sweet, dead face staring up at me. The blonde hair. The cheekbones. I also looked at the hole between her breasts. The one that was still leaking blood that ran over her stomach and down her ribs to pool on the concrete. In that instant I knew two things. I knew who she was. And I knew she was dead.

            I cradled the dead body of Didi DiMarco in my arms and I wept.