Sixteen
Rex Hogan returned home to his own rented apartment
for the first time in weeks. The closed rooms had accumulated unpleasant
odors wafting up from the meat market below. Connie had thrown windows
open, but the gray, rainy day and cloying humidity did little to alleviate
either the smell or the gloom of faded wallpaper and worn rugs. The only
redeeming factor of the gray morning was the soothing pitter-patter of the
rain on the roof and its tinny rattle on the living room air-conditioner
protruding out the front window. It would put him to sleep in an instant.
Cardboard boxes and brown paper grocery bags filled
with clothes and household items littered all three rooms. Connie had
replenished his empty cupboards and refrigerator with salvaged food. He
could hear her snoring softly from the bedroom.
Rex weaved his way through the mess, rummaged through
the freezer, and tossed two frozen gourmet dinners into the microwave. He
stood zombie-like before the humming oven, his thoughts deadened by
fatigue. When the oven chimed, he made a quick cup of instant coffee and
sat down to eat. Fatigue had already stirred vague dreams to life,
warning of nightmares to come should he have trouble sleeping. He doubted
if Leon would let him sleep as long as he needed.
Leon and Connie both. He heard her moan and stir in
her sleep from the bedroom, lost in one of her recurring dreams of being
lost and unable to find her way home. Reluctantly, he finished eating and
went to join her. He stripped on the way and soaked beneath the hot
shower before crawling beneath the covers alongside the familiar warm
body. He gave himself up to the engulfing need to sleep and tried hard
not to worry about her. He tried even harder not to worry about Caitlin
out running the woods like a hounded doe.
Connie woke him hours later, lying flush against his
body. Rex came half awake, hoping she wouldn't disturb him further.
"Rex, are you awake?" she whispered in his ear.
"Not unless I'm a glutton for punishment," he
murmured.
"Rex, I'm still sick. I'm hungry, and I feel funny."
"Eat." And with that, he tried to go back to sleep.
"I threw up."
"Uh-huh."
"I was having such strange dreams. I'm frightened."
She fell silent for a time. Rex opened his eyes,
deciding that further sleep was going to elude him.
"What was that thing!" she hissed at him, her
breath hot in his ear. "What did it try to do to me?"
He wondered about Doc's paranoid idea that every one
of the green meteors might contain the same manner of creature. No
sleeping nightmare could compete with a reality of that magnitude. How
likely was the possibility?
Connie hadn't thought that far ahead. "I don't have
insurance on the house," she whispered harshly. "What are we going to
do? We can't continue to live like this, Rex. We don't have to put up
with this maggot-infested town, not if you take that job in Pittsburgh.
We can be married and have children, if that's what you want. Please.
I'll do anything."
For too long, she had tried too hard. Desperation
had crept into her every word and touch. Connie abhorred children. That
alone had stipulated that the roots of their relationship not sink too
deeply. Trying to make it work had become futile torment for the both of
them.
Connie fell silent. She thought she had other
weapons in her arsenal. They had been lovers for years. She knew every
inch of his body and exactly how to arouse him to passion. She had banked
on physical passion overpowering his petty sentimentalities, and Rex had
done nothing to discourage her. Even their crippled, dead-end
relationship was better than nothing, and better than falling prey to
Caitlin.
Connie ran her fingertips across his body, unaware
that his thoughts had drifted elsewhere. He was thinking that naive and
unworldly Caitlin Kingsley, a girl with a bounce in her step and eyes
bright with boundless enthusiasm and joy for life, would gladly share his
simple dreams of home and family. Even as Connie caressed him, balanced
as he was on the edge of sleep where dreams were as bright and real as
day, he could see Caitlin standing before him. With her hands clasped
behind her back she rocked her slender body to and fro on tiptoes, beaming
the smile of an innocent child up at him. She offered him everything she
had to give. All he had to do was to reach out and take.
Connie wasn't blind to the danger. Neither was she
blind to the wedge that kept him and Caitlin apart, his inability to stand
up to Leon Biggs. He shuddered at the thought of what Leon might do
should he succumb to the temptation to run off with Leon Biggs' baby girl.
Connie sensed his tension and guessed its nature.
She snatched her hand away and stared at him, angered and puzzled by the
man she needed so badly to bend to her will. Rex turned away from her and
drew his knees to his chest, trying to shut out the world and its
temptations and hazards, but knowing somewhere along the way, he was going
to have to decide which way to turn and make a stand.
Outside, it began to rain. It thundered, and then it
rained hard and quickly lulled him to sleep.
