The Return by Rachel Harrison

Author:Rachel Harrison [Harrison, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-03-24T00:00:00+00:00

No. I’m not that upset. Dark for her.

Sorry about tonight.

You’ve got nothing to be sorry for.

I guess not. I wasn’t the one to dredge up my past, but I’m the one with the past that makes everyone uncomfortable. That was my doing.

I lock the door, the dead bolt. I walk to the back wall to make sure the door out to the balcony is locked, too. It’s not, which is weird, because I made sure it was locked last night, and I haven’t unlocked it since then. Not that I remember.

But I can’t trust my memory. I’m drunk. The edges of the room are frayed, and everything is hazy, like I’m looking through frosted glass.

I turn the music back on, low this time, dance around by myself as I clean up the few cans they missed. Two are empty. I crush them and put them in the garbage. The others still have liquid sloshing around inside. They aren’t my cans, or maybe they are, but another shot and I’ll be too drunk. I don’t want to catch the spins.

I go to the bathroom to pour the cans out in the sink. I hit the light switch with my elbow.

Red. There’s red everywhere. Red spattered against the turquoise, turquoise, turquoise of the bathroom. A thick red mass squirms down the sink drain. There’s red bubbling, overflowing from the toilet. I back up out of shock and disgust and hit against something. A body. A chest. For a second, I hear its wheezing breath, and in the mirror, I see it. A dark creature towering behind me, its long arms slowly lifting, its spiderlike hands coiling around my shoulders.

A moment later, after I black out or come to or nothing, there’s no one in the mirror but me, and behind me only ordinary shadows. The blood is still there. Not the crime scene I saw before, but it’s there. Evidence of it in the sink, around the drain. A few splotches on the mirror. A bloody tissue floating in the toilet. I flush it. The toilet gurgles, takes it reluctantly.

I run the tap, splash some cold water on my face to sober up, to calm down. I’m at the point where I can’t trust my own senses. I’m a drunk, paranoid mess, literally scared of my own shadow.

I take another look around the bathroom. It’s Julie’s blood. I don’t question that. Maybe after two years of living God knows where, she forgot how to clean up after herself?

I lean over the trash, and there’s a stack of tissues inside. I see blood on a few.

I don’t want to use the bathroom, but I really have to pee. I hover over the toilet. Flush. Wash my hands hastily, an ephemeral lather.

I’m drunk enough that sleep should come easily. I fling myself face-first into bed. I’m desperate to get some rest and put a cork in a shit night.

I can feel myself falling asleep, my grip on consciousness loosening. My thoughts slow, and all sensation dies.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.