Page 55 of Stay Awake
Thirty-Two
Wednesday 3:40P.M.
The bill from the electricity company lying by the front door might have my name on it, but there’s no way I actually live here, I think as I unlock the door with a loud rattle of the keys and step into a grim apartment.
The yellowing drapes covering the windows cast a mustard gloom. The apartment is furnished with a badly worn brown vinyl sofa and a cluttered coffee table. Rays of dust particles hang in the air.
This place couldn’t be more different from my cute two-bedroom in Brooklyn. The view from my bedroom window is of my neighbor’s brightly decorated flower box which overflows with vibrant blooms in spring and summer. It’s most certainly not the ugly sight of Dumpsters in an alley that I can see through the grille windows set high up on the walls of this basement apartment with its claustrophobically low ceilings.
Dust chokes my lungs, already burning from the noxious smell of wet paint that fills the place. The delivery guy who escorted me here said I have problems with my memory and that I don’t alwaysremember this apartment is my home. He’s wrong. Never in a million years would I live in such a dump.
I reach blindly for the front door handle to let myself out and come face-to-face with a black-and-white photograph stuck on the back of the front door.
What’s Marco’s photo doing here?
There are other photographs stuck on the door. There’s a photo of Amy in a swimsuit, her sunglasses pushed to the top of her head. That photo was taken on the girls’ trip to Cancun when Amy charmed the manager into upgrading us to a luxury seaside villa. There’s a group photo taken at the staff Christmas party atCulturawhen I first started working at the magazine. I’ve circled the face of the staff photographer, George, standing in the crowd. There’s also a photo taken by the waiter of everyone raising a glass to celebrate Amy’s birthday at Café Lisbon.
A sudden mechanical noise startles me. I swing around to see what’s caused it. It’s the motor of a clunky refrigerator. I head across the small living area to a narrow galley kitchen that’s about three decades out of date.
A window lets in meager light from the rear alley. Underneath it, an overflowing bag of trash is slumped in the corner, swarmed by tiny flies. Some of the trash has spilled to the floor. Among it are blister packs of pills with names such as NoDoz and Alert. In the bag are piles of empty cans of caffeine drinks.
Colorful magnets in the shape of letters are arranged on the dented white fridge door. They’re the type preschool kids use to practice spelling.
The magnets are arranged into colorful words and phrases.STAY AWAKE, it says across the freezer door. I look at the back of my hands. Under each of my knuckles is a letter spelling the same thing:S-T-A-Y A-W-A-K-E. Under one of the magnets is a doctor’s appointment cardwith my name on it, along with an appointment date and time. I slip the card into my pocket.
Seeing another link between me and this hovel makes me light-headed. I open the fridge. Every shelf is stacked with caffeine drinks and individual bottles of store-bought coffee. Extra strong.
The sink is filled with a pile of black ash. It’s the burnt remnants of paper. Among the ash are yellow bits of charred Post-it notes. There’s also a badly burned book. The word “Journal” is embossed on the scorched remnants of a blue cover. The burned pages turn to ash when I touch them. Whatever was written in this book has been destroyed.
I rush away from the kitchen to the living room. It’s filled with a headache-inducing odor of wet paint. I pull open the dusty curtains to get some light in here. The longest wall has been partly painted black with a roller brush. On the floor is an empty can of black paint. Alongside it are a roller brush and a paint tray stained black. It looks as if someone left in a hurry, perhaps to get more paint to finish the wall.
The white, as yet unpainted, part of the wall is graffitied with an array of random sentences. Most are written in pen. A couple are in marker. One appears to be written by a finger dipped in black coffee.
Memories lie.
Don’t trust anyone.
He’s coming for me.
The writing strikes a chord. I pick up a dusty pen lying on the floor and neatly copy the messages onto my arm. When I’m done, I move through a doorway into what must be a bedroom, although it looks more like a prison cell, perhaps because all the walls are covered with fresh coats of black paint.
A single barred window is set high up on the wall. A ray of light captures dust hanging in the air as if defying gravity. The only furniturein the bedroom is a bare camping mattress on the floor with a crumpled pillow and a half-open sleeping bag on top of it.
Across the room is a closet. I open the door to see what’s inside. Empty wire hangers sit at odd angles on the metal rod, giving the impression that someone packed in a hurry. A couple of garments and a few socks are scattered on the floor.
Whoever painted the bedroom walls black also painted over several newspaper clippings stuck to the wall. A newspaper article in the far corner of the wall appears to have sections that weren’t painted over, probably because the paint roller couldn’t get into the corner. I peel the newspaper clipping off the wall and read the bits of text that aren’t covered in paint.
“Police are hoping to question a comatose woman who they believe witnessed… Doctors are bringing the woman out of the medically-induced coma… Police hope she will be well enough to undergo questioning later this week.… Mystery continues to swirl around the brutal…” The rest of the article is painted over and indecipherable.
An old-fashioned telephone rings so loudly that I drop the clipping to the ground. The phone is ringing somewhere in the apartment. It makes my blood run cold.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Wednesday 3:49P.M.
Detective Darcy Halliday watched a live feed of CCTV footage on a screen behind the counter in the liquor store as the owner gave change to a customer buying a bottle of malt.
