Inconsolable

She smirked and looked off to the side, contemplating. “Two cards each. Well, two for you and one more for me. Then full body massage, and …” She leaned in and kissed him. Without looking, she seized a card, pulled away, and put it in front of his face. He grabbed it. “From Bill.” He opened it. “What! What is this?” He was completely confused. “Oh wow, I’ve never even heard of this before.” He handed the paperwork to her. “Plane tickets! Round-trip to anywhere in the continental U.S.” “Oh my God! He’s crazy.” They looked at each other wide-eyed for a couple seconds in disbelief. She put the tickets down. “Where we gonna go?” “Somewhere,” she said matter-of-factly, as she picked up another envelope. “Dean and Bert … dinner at Carluccio’s. Ahhh. I loved that place. Remember?” “Of course I do. I think I spent my whole paycheck on that date.” She threw her head back and laughed, teasing, “Yeah you did.” “Okay, one more for me, but I don’t know about the massage now that you made me open all these envelopes. This might be the one that tires my hands out for the rest of the night.” He cut her a sly smile and picked an envelope out of the pile. Ant’s neck jerked back slightly and his lower jaw jutted out when he read the envelope. “Hmm. A. Friend.” He jabbed the letter opener into the body of the envelope, ignoring the slight opening that was already there. He ripped a jagged cut through the flap of the envelope. When he pulled out the five-by-seven photograph, all the blood drained from his face, and he immediately went ice-cold. His heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was compressing his lungs, making it impossible to get a good breath. His wife could only see the pure, white back of the picture, but she was mortified by the look of absolute horror on Ant’s face. “Honey! What is it … what’s wrong?” He didn’t even hear her over the blood pounding on his eardrums. He was shocked into his own world. “Anthony!” She raised her voice half out of fear and half out of frustration. Ant managed to pry his eyes away to stare blankly at her. She could see that he was breathing hard, and his lips were grayish-blue. She started to stand up to look over his shoulder. “What in the world is …” “Don’t!” He shot the word at her with so much force that it stopped her in her tracks. She stood there, perplexed. “Someone’s sick joke. You don’t need to look at this.” “What’s the big deal?” She continued her approach and began to crane her neck. “Lindsey!” he shouted. She stopped for good this time and sat down exhaling a hard audible breath through her flaring nostrils. “You know what I’m going to think if you don’t let me see.” He was too stunned by the image to answer. “It’s either a naked picture of one of your old girlfriends who still has a thing for you, or something you and your friends did that you don’t want …” “It’s nothing like that, baby,” he interrupted her without taking his eyes off the photo. “Just a gross picture that will ruin your night.” It was a picture of Shawn’s face and naked torso on a medical table. He was all cleaned up so that you could see every gash and stab wound in excruciating detail. There was a deep slice all the way down the left side of his face that appeared to cut right through his eyeball. Multiple shorter gashes and puncture wounds covered his face. There was a hole in his windpipe, and a slash across his collar bone where you could clearly see the exposed clavicle. His shoulders, chest, and arms were riddled with over thirty puncture wounds and slashes that exposed the raw meat beneath several layers of skin and fat. “I don’t need to see it, because I trust you.” Lindsey said it with complete confidence and not a hint of condescension. “That’s why I married you, Anthony.” Ant began ripping the picture furiously, ensuring that he kept every tiny piece in his hands. Lindsey realized that he didn’t want her to say another word about it, so she sat, silent. Ant got up slowly and walked to the back door. He needed some air, and he didn’t want to have to hide his face from her for another second. He slid open the door and walked out onto the cold cement slab. He breathed in deep and turned to face the house. Right next to the kitchen window, scrawled in what looked like fresh blood, was the phrase “No Nightmare.” Ant whirled around to see whether the perpetrator was still there, lurking somewhere in the shadows. He stuffed the pieces of the picture into his pocket and grabbed the water hose. He turned the faucet furiously till the water sputtered and then finally began gushing out. Ant sprayed the siding clean and quickly turned off the water, keeping his eyes toward the tree line, which was about fifty feet from the back door. He rushed inside and locked the door. Lindsey met him in the kitchen, shaking her head with concern. Ant was visibly shaken. My God, have I not been forgiven? Fire! Fire … A bright yellow-orange fire blazed tall above the rim of a dull-gray trash can. Three shadowy figures huddled around it, engaged in a heated conversation. The flames flickered and danced until they became one solitary, undulating spike at the top of a candle. The candle sat firmly in an ornate holder, part of an altar in a huge church. Then the flame started to spark and flicker. Bright white specks jumped from within what was now an angry inferno that danced like a voodoo priest, possessed. The warmth from the fire in the cast iron skillet on the stove is what brought Ant back. Lindsey stood with her arms wrapped tightly around his waist as they both stared at the flames melting the fragments of the picture.