The Twilight Zone: Memphis The Pool Guy by Jay Russell

Author:Jay Russell [Russell, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General, Media Tie-In
ISBN: 9781844161300
Google: KPSsqIgtzIAC
Publisher: Black Flame
Published: 2004-08-14T12:00:00+00:00

TWO

"AAAAAAUUUUUUUGHHHH!"

The scream went on and on. Louder and louder. It sounded as if it would never end.

It was impossible, one might have thought, for a mere human voice to express such ferocious pain, such unspeakable horror. How could tiny human lungs contain so much air? How could a tender larynx and soft palate not be torn to shreds by the strain of the terrible vibrations resonating through them? How could teeth, lips and tongue give form and shape and sustenance to an onslaught of such interminable agony?

And still the scream went on.

"Ritchie! Yo, Ritchie! Wake up, Ritchie, wake up!"

The scream finally came to an end.

But not the terror, not the pain beneath it.

"Ritchie!"

Ritchie Almares opened his eyes and shot bolt upright. He was breathing as hard as a marathon runner in his twenty-sixth mile.

No, you couldn't honestly call it breathing: Ritchie was wheezing, heaving, panting like small animal running for its life from some massive and ravenous predator. Desperate, terrified, running only on instinct and the indefatigable will to survive. He sucked in the air and expelled it just as quickly. His chest heaved with the effort. He was bathed in sweat from the very top of his crown to in-between his twitching toes. The sheets and blankets had been transformed into a salty, dank swamp of sweat.

Sheets.

Blankets.

My bed, Ritchie thought, as consciousness reignited inside of him like a pilot light. This is my bed.

Ritchie is in his bed. In his room. In his apartment in Palms.

Ritchie was alive. He was sweating, breathing, screaming. Alive. Thank merciful heavens, he was still alive.

"Holy shit," he whispered. "Holy fucking shit."

He looked up. Leonard was standing at the foot of his bed. Leonard Howard, his roommate, wearing only his trousers, his concave chest as ugly as ever. Leonard looked more than half-asleep himself. It was Leonard who had been yelling at him to wake up.

Leonard woke him up from that terrible dream.

Ritchie could have kissed Leonard for rousing him, for springing him from his terrible nightmare cage.

Leonard wouldn't much like that. Leonard wasn't even big on shaking hands.

Woke him from the dream. Jesus, Mary and Joseph. It was only a dream: Cheto the sleazy gardener, the newspaper on the windshield, the dark-haired man with the beady eyes and the gun.

The searing death that spiraled out of the barrel and burrowed and exploded inside Ritchie's chest. It had all been just a dream.

"Yo, Ritchie," Leonard said again. "What the hell, man? What was that all about?"

"I had a dream," Ritchie croaked.

"A dream?" Leonard said. He was holding up his too-loose trousers with one hand, pointing at Ritchie with the other. "You must have woke up the whole building, man. The whole damn neighborhood. That scream you let out. I never heard nothing like it in my life. Man, I thought there must be some wolf man or monster or something in here tearing you to bits. Shit, I almost didn't come in the door it sounded so scary. For a second there I was just going to go ahead and call the cops.

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