"Hey, Luke," Gladys's voice, typically a beacon of familiarity and friendship, now pierced the thick curtain of my shock, anchoring me back to a reality I wished I could deny. Her words, innocent in any other context, felt like a siren announcing my descent into a bigger nightmare. This was a crime. A murder. And I literally had blood on my hands.
"Shit!" The expletive was a whisper, a feeble attempt to voice the turmoil swirling inside me. My body responded with uncontrollable shivers, a physical manifestation of the horror and disbelief that clutched at my mind. My eyes darted around, seeking an escape, a denial, anything other than the truth that lay gruesomely before me.
Beatrix's scream tore through the air, a raw, visceral sound that echoed the chaos of my thoughts. Her presence, the intrusion of the outside world into this private hell, cast the brutal scene in unforgiving light. "What the fuck, Luke!?" Her words, laden with horror and accusation, felt like physical blows, each one landing with a weight that threatened to crush me.
I raised my head, meeting their gazes, finding no refuge in their expressions of shock and terror. The world seemed to tilt, reality skewing into a grotesque tableau where I was both witness and suspect.
Gladys, her usual composure shattered, paced in turmoil. Her words, a mix of denial and despair, added layers to the nightmare, painting me not just as a bystander to tragedy but as its architect.
"You can't do this to me," she uttered, her voice a blend of betrayal and anguish, before disappearing from my view. Her departure was a physical severance, an isolation more profound than the physical barriers of the truck's walls.
"I didn't do it," I found myself saying, the words tumbling out in a desperate rush. My voice, rough and strained from the acid taste of vomit, carried my plea, my denial, my truth. "I swear, it wasn't me." The declaration was a lifeline, thrown into the turbulent waters of judgment and suspicion that now surrounded me.
The absurdity of Beatrix's curiosity clashed violently with the grim reality I was enveloped in. Her question, "Who is he?" echoed in my head, a haunting reminder of the human life lost, now reduced to a subject of intrigue.
"Fuck, Beatrix! Don't touch anything!" My warning came out as a hiss, a desperate attempt to preserve the integrity of the scene, though my voice trembled with the effort to maintain control. My mind was a whirlwind of panic and disbelief, struggling to process the scene before me, the implications of my involvement, and now Beatrix's reckless intrusion.
But my caution was ignored, discarded as easily as if I'd commented on the weather. Beatrix, with a shrug that sent waves of frustration through me, hoisted herself into the truck. "Sorry," she offered, her tone light, dismissive, as if her curiosity justified the disturbance of a crime scene, as if the gravity of death and the sanctity of an investigation could be sidelined by a mere whim. "I can't help it. I'm curious."
"Curious!" The word burst from me again, a hissed rebuke. I was aghast at her lack of sensitivity, her cavalier attitude in the face of such a visceral reminder of mortality. My voice was strained, barely contained, as I added, "I'm covered in a dead man's blood and you're fucking curious!?" The absurdity, the sheer insanity of the situation, was overwhelming, each word I spoke feeling more surreal.
"Well, yeah. A bit." Her response, so nonchalant, so devoid of empathy, struck me as the pinnacle of absurdity. How could one be merely 'a bit' curious in the presence of such tragedy?
"You're fucking nuts, Beatrix!" The words were out before I could temper them, a raw, unfiltered burst of emotion. Her indifference, her intrusion, her curiosity—it all felt like a grotesque mockery of the solemnity of Joel's untimely demise.
In that moment, the truck wasn't just a vehicle; it was a scene of loss, a space where the finality of life was laid bare. And Beatrix, with her casual curiosity, seemed like an alien entity, disconnected from the human fabric of empathy and respect. My plea for her to understand, to recognise the weight of our situation, was as much a cry for sanity in a moment that felt overwhelmingly insane.
The absurdity of the situation spiralled as Gladys, wine bottle in hand, suggested calling the police. My gaze shot up to her, eyes wide with a mix of fear, frustration, and disbelief. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!" The words burst from me, a raw expression of my escalating panic, the tension in my voice mirroring the chaos unfolding around me.
"There's so much blood," Beatrix observed, her voice tinged with a morbid fascination that did nothing to ease the growing knot in my stomach.
"We can't, Gladys," I countered, my voice laced with urgency. The implications of our actions, the scene before us, it was all too much, too fast, too surreal.
"Why not?" Gladys's question, so straightforward, so laden with ignorance of the seriousness of our predicament, felt like a slap in the face.
I laid out the grim reality for her, my words sharp with a biting sarcasm born of desperation. "Well, that'll look great, won't it? I'm covered in blood, your sister now has her fingerprints all over the crime scene, and you're standing there drinking wine out the bottle." The scenario was damning, a perfect storm of incriminating circumstances that no amount of explaining could easily untangle.
Gladys met my accusation with an icy glare, her response—a defiant swig from the wine bottle—only fuelling my frustration and helplessness.
"Fuck!" The expletive exploded from me as I slammed my fist against the truck, the metal echoing my fury. The repercussions of our situation began to fully dawn on me. Jamie's reaction, the potential for our entanglement in a criminal investigation, the looming threat of the real perpetrator still at large—all of it converged in a maelstrom of fear and anger.
In that moment, the truck wasn't just a crime scene; it was a symbol of our entrapment in a web of circumstances so tangled, so fraught with danger and accusation, that every possible course of action seemed like a path to ruin. The spectre of the killer, the one who had turned Joel's life into a horror scene, loomed over us, a silent, unseen menace that cast a long, dark shadow over the already grim tableau of our predicament.
Beatrix's inquiry cut through the dense fog of shock and disbelief that enveloped me. "What happened to him?" Her voice was tinged with a morbid curiosity that felt jarringly out of place in the grimness that lay before us. Her gaze shifted, landing on the mess at my feet. "Is that yours?" she asked, her nose wrinkling in distaste at the acrid smell of vomit. "It smells disgusting."
"It is," I admitted quietly, the words barely escaping my lips as a wave of dizziness washed over me, my head spinning in a nauseating dance that blurred the edges of my vision.
Gladys, seemingly oblivious to the gravity of the moment, posed her own question, her voice muffled slightly by the bottle she'd raised to her lips again. "What are you going to do with him?" The casualness of her inquiry, juxtaposed with her steady consumption of wine, only deepened the surreal nature of the scene.
I couldn't face her question. My head dropped, my hands becoming a temporary refuge as I grappled with the enormity of the situation. Internally, I was torn, wrestling with the prospect of telling Jamie, imagining the devastation that would ensue, the grief that would inevitably consume him. Could I even bring myself to utter the words?
"I don't know," I finally managed, the words heavy with uncertainty. An idea flickered to life, desperate and unformed. "I was thinking of taking him through the Portal." The thought was a mere whisper of a possibility, an option born of panic and a dire lack of alternatives.
But my momentary lapse into contemplation was abruptly shattered. My head snapped up. "Shit," I muttered under my breath, the reality of my spoken thought dawning on me with chilling clarity.
"Don't worry," Beatrix offered, her attempt at reassurance as she lightly tapped my shoulder feeling grotesquely misplaced. "Gladys already told me about your Portal." Her words were meant to comfort, but they only served to heighten my sense of betrayal and exposure.
My glare turned to Gladys, who met my eyes with a sheepish, apologetic look. "Sorry," she murmured, the word barely audible over the sound of her taking another drink, her actions seeming to retreat further into a place where the grim reality of our situation couldn't reach her.
The weight of their knowledge, the burden of the decision before me, and the raw, unfiltered reality of our circumstances converged in a crushing tide of despair and urgency. I was cornered, trapped in a scenario with no clear path forward, every option fraught with peril and uncertainty.
"Can I see it?" Beatrix's eagerness to see the Portal felt surreal. Her curiosity, so misplaced in the face of death and crisis, left me grappling with a blend of frustration and disbelief.
"I don't know," I responded, my voice tinged with the weight of the situation. The idea of using the Portal as a means to deal with Joel's body seemed like a dark twist of fate I hadn't anticipated.
"Oh, come on," Beatrix pressed, her insistence brushing dangerously against the edges of my fraying patience. "You have to get rid of this body anyway, so you may as well." Her words, so casually pragmatic, felt like a slap in the face.
I found myself pausing, the turmoil of my thoughts mirroring the chaos around me. Was transporting Joel's body through the Portal to Clivilius really my best, or only, option? The moral implications, the logistics, the sheer audacity of the plan—it all swirled in a maddening vortex of desperation and urgency.
"How are the two of you being so calm about all this?" I couldn't help but question, my voice rising in a mix of anger, fear, and incredulity. The situation was spiralling, yet their reactions seemed detached, almost dissonant with the circumstances.
"Calm?!" Gladys's screech broke through, a sharp contrast to her previously subdued demeanour, yet it did little to anchor the reality that was slipping through my fingers.
Beatrix's nonchalant shrug in response to my gaze only deepened the surreal nature of our conversation. The casualness, the disconnect—it was all too much.
With a heavy heart and a mind clouded with doubt, I made the decision to move Joel. Rising to my feet, I felt the weight of the moment settle upon me. My hands, acting almost of their own accord, found their way under Joel's armpits, and I began the macabre task of dragging him deeper into the truck. Each movement was a grim dance with reality, his body a dead weight that anchored the nightmare firmly into the realm of the tangible.
"What are you doing?" Gladys's voice cut through, her inquiry laced with a hint of sobriety that the wine hadn't yet erased.
"I need to move him forward," I explained, my voice strained under the physical and emotional weight of the task. "His foot is stopping the door from closing properly." The practicality of the words felt hollow, yet it was a hint to the gruesome task at hand.
As I heaved Joel's body, dragging it through the mingled mess of blood and vomit, a new realisation hit me. I was entangled in a web of my own making, each decision, each action, pushing me further into a corner from which there seemed no escape. The thought of involving Clivilius, of dragging the Portal into this morbid equation, was a desperate measure—one that bore its own set of consequences, not least of which would be Jamie's inevitable heartbreak.
In that moment, as I moved Joel's lifeless form, the truth was inescapable: I was caught in a no-win situation, each path forward fraught with loss, danger, and the looming shadow of irreversible consequences.
"So, who is he anyway?" The question from Gladys, so innocuous yet so loaded, caught me off guard. I fought the urge to let the bile rise again, the acrid taste a cruel reminder of the personal connection. "He's just the delivery guy," I managed to say, my voice barely above a whisper, laden with an unspoken truth I wasn't ready to confront.
"Who?" Beatrix's inquiry cut deeper, her tone implying a suspicion that I harboured more knowledge than I was letting on. The tension between us thickened, a tangible force that seemed to constrict my chest.
A tear escaped, trailing down my cheek, an involuntary betrayal of the turmoil within. My gaze lifted to meet Gladys's, and in a moment of raw vulnerability, I confessed, "He's Jamie's son." The words hung heavy in the air, a devastating revelation that seemed to echo against the concrete and metal surrounding us.
"Shit," Beatrix murmured, her voice a whisper of realisation, the weight of the truth bearing down on her as well.
The crash of Gladys's wine bottle shattering against the concrete punctuated the moment, the sound jarringly loud in the oppressive silence. The remaining wine splashed across the driveway, its aroma mingling with the metallic scent of blood and the acidic stench of vomit, creating a noxious cocktail that seemed to encapsulate the totality of our predicament.
"Oh dear," Gladys uttered, her eyes fixed on the spreading stain on the ground, perhaps a welcome distraction from the unforgivable reality we faced.
Beatrix's stammered questions echoed the confusion and shock that rippled through the air. "What the... how... when did..." Her voice trailed off, unable to form a coherent query amidst the swirling maelstrom of disbelief.
"I had no idea. No idea at all," Gladys protested, her gaze flicking frantically between her sister, Joel's lifeless form, and me. Her denial, vehement and desperate, underscored the surreal nature of our situation, a feeble attempt to distance herself from the grim tableau that unfolded before us.
In that moment, surrounded by the consequences of actions and decisions far beyond my control, the weight of Joel’s demise settled heavily upon me, a burden of guilt, grief, and an overwhelming sense of helplessness that bound us together in a shared nightmare from which there was no easy escape.
The urge to flee from the truck, from the reality of Joel's lifeless form lying there, was overwhelming. As I leapt out, the world seemed to tilt, my balance faltering, sending me crashing into Gladys. The physical impact was a jarring reminder of the situation's immediacy, the tangible consequences of the horror we were enveloped in.
"Luke! Where are you going?" Beatrix's voice, tinged with anxiety and confusion, followed me as I staggered away from the scene.
"Don't leave us here with him!" Gladys's plea anchored me back to the moment, her words echoing the shared fear and disbelief that clung to us like a shroud.
Ignoring their calls, I pushed forward, propelled by a desperate need to rid myself of the blood that marked me, a visceral symbol of the tragedy I was entangled in. Inside the house, I stripped off the stained fabric, each piece a reminder of the grim tableau outside.
From the kitchen, Gladys's voice cut through the silence. "Hey! Where are Duke and Henri?" Her words were almost a lifeline, a grasp at the familiar, but they also underscored the surreal displacement of my new reality. She moved with a semblance of routine to the cupboard, seeking solace, perhaps, in the numbing embrace of alcohol, a small act of defiance against the tide of despair that threatened to engulf us.
"Oh," I responded, the word slipping out as I turned to face Gladys. "Henri accidentally ran through the Portal earlier this morning, and I accidentally took Duke with me."
"Can they get back out?" Gladys asked, her voice laced with a rare note of worry.
"Nope," I answered, the brevity of my reply masking the depth of my frustration and regret. "We tried that already." The memory of our failed attempts to reverse the one-way passage through the Portal weighed heavily on me, another failure in a day that seemed comprised entirely of them.
I needed to escape, if only for a moment, from the eyes of Gladys and Beatrix, from the relentless pressure of their questions and the suffocating reality of our predicament. "Anyway, I'm going to shower," I announced, eager for the solitude and the temporary respite it promised. I retreated up the hallway, the blood-stained clothes in my hands a reminder of the unpleasant task awaiting.
Discarding the soiled garments into the empty bathtub, I vowed to deal with them later, my mind shying away from the implications of their disposal. Stepping into the shower, I felt like a newborn, unsteady and uncertain, as I sought refuge in the spray of warm water.
The shower cubicle became a sanctuary, the water a cleansing torrent, yet it did little to wash away the turmoil within. Clutching my hands to quell their trembling, I was besieged by a relentless torrent of thoughts. What do I do? The question echoed, a mantra of despair. The notion of transporting Joel's body to Clivilius was unbearable, an act that would irreparably sever the bonds of trust and affection with Jamie.
As the water cascaded over me, I grappled with the enormity of the decisions before me, each option fraught with consequences, each path a journey through a landscape of guilt and recrimination. The weight of the choices I faced was suffocating, a burden that the cleansing waters could not wash away, leaving me isolated in a storm of doubt and fear, searching for a beacon of clarity in the tempest that raged around me.
