The Sorrow King Excerpt

One
Suicide #4—Defenestration

Jeremy Liven walked down the sidewalk in the unseasonably warm March air. It was not quite a mile from the middle school to his house but, to a thirteen-year-old boy who wasn’t very athletic, it seemed much further. His mom usually picked him up but she couldn’t this afternoon because his little sister had a doctor’s appointment. He hoped they wouldn’t be there when he finally got home. He liked having the house all to himself—unless it was dark outside. That gave him the creeps. But, without his mom and his little sister there he could do whatever he wanted for a few minutes. He could drink all the soda he wanted and eat junk food in the living room with his feet on the coffee table while he watched a dirty movie from his parents’ collection. Of course, he couldn’t get too out of hand. He had to be able to undo everything in the time it took his mom to get from the car to the house. His dad would still be at work for another two hours at least.

He turned onto the walk leading to his front door, unfastened the latch of the black wrought-iron gate encircling the yard, and approached the house. When he saw that his mom’s Volvo wagon wasn’t parked in the driveway his expectations rose. Maybe he would have the house all to himself for a little while.

Walking inside, a strange feeling washed over him. He no longer felt like doing all the things he had originally intended to do. Something like depression crept into his body, weighing him down. Never having really been depressed, he didn’t know what to call this feeling. It was a mood. That was what his mother would have called it. “Jeremy’s in one of his moods,” his mother had often said to his sister whenever he was unnecessarily mean to her.

All desire left him. He didn’t want to gorge himself on junk food. He didn’t want to beat off in front of the TV. He didn’t want to do his homework. He didn’t want to do anything at all. Maybe, he thought, the only thing he really wanted to do was go up to his room and lie down.

Maybe he was just getting sick.

Tossing his book bag at the foot of the coat rack to the right of the door, he trudged through the foyer, the living room, and then up the stairs to his room. He felt more than just tired. He felt more than an impending sickness. He felt... burdened. Like he couldn’t stand up to do anything if he wanted to. Suddenly, he saw his whole life spin out before him in black waves. In this brief vision, nothing went the way he had wanted it to and, sitting on the edge of his bed, he wondered if what he had just seen was the truth. Had he just had some kind of premonition? And if this was some kind of future reality then what was the point of doing anything? What was the point of trying in school or in sports or with friends or preparing to go to college? If the world, if his world, was going to turn out that bleak and miserable then he wasn’t sure if he really wanted any part of it.

He stood up from the bed and went to his window on the eastern side of the house. The one that faced the neighbors and didn’t look out over the street. Standing there at the window, his fingertips pressed slightly against the cool glass, he realized he never really looked out this window. It came as no great shock. It was, by far, the least interesting of the two windows. The neighbors were an older couple, all their kids long since out of the house, and Jeremy didn’t think there would ever really be anything too entertaining to see.

A rush of heat swarmed his body.

He unlocked the lock midway up the window and, grabbing the plastic lip at the bottom, slid it up, letting in the cooler air.

Jesus, he wished he didn’t feel so awful. Maybe he should take some medicine. Maybe Tylenol or something would help.

He turned his right hand into a loose fist and gently stroked his knuckles up and down the screen, feeling its sandpapery abrasiveness rub against his skin. If he looked to his left, to the front of the neighbors’ house, he could see the whole tree-lined street. If he thought he could, he would stay here forever, but he knew he couldn’t. The day would come when he would have to leave the house and go out and build his own life. That idea terrified him, especially if it contained the swollen black images his mind had presented only moments earlier.

Maybe he wasn’t all that serious when he thought about killing himself but he didn’t really know. Just the fact of that thought entering his mind made him feel even sicker. He had never thought about it before. The thought itself contained something forbidden like the first time he had really thought about sex... like putting his penis in that spot he knew all girls had. That was his mind going someplace it had never gone before and he would be lying if he said he had thought about much of anything since then.

And now this. Suicide? Come on, that was ridiculous. Nevertheless, he wondered if the idea would always be there, lingering like some dark demon in the cellar of his mind.

He pressed against the screen knowing that, with just a little more force, he could pop it out. If he was going to kill himself, he didn’t think he would do it by hurling himself through a window. That left too great a chance he would survive only to be the laughingstock or pity of the town and probably disfigured or something on top of that.

“Jeremy!” It was his mom, calling up the stairs.

I could jump. I really could just go flying, setting myself free from whatever potential nightmare world awaits me.

“Jeremy! I brought pizza!”

He really wasn’t that hungry but decided he also didn’t want to be alone. Right now, he thought he might be just a little bit afraid of himself. Turning away from the window he crossed his room to his locked door. He grinned slightly to himself, thinking he was losing his mind because he didn’t remember doing that. Didn’t remember doing that at all. He usually shut his door but he almost never locked it. A brief, unnecessary bolt of panic ruffled through his skin as he fumbled with the lock and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief when it came undone and he twisted the handle and opened the door into the brightly lighted hallway.


-- -- --


The evening crept by in a dreamy wash, Jeremy acutely aware something was going to change. And this change, it contained no bright hope. No magical sense of revelation. Only blackness. Depression. A crushing weight. He didn’t even feel like he took part in his family’s evening. He felt only like he fulfilled a role. He was the son in a family of four in a well-to-do neighborhood in the small town of Gethsemane, Ohio. These things he did—dinner, a game of Scrabble, watching an hour of sitcoms, reading in his room—these were things a son in a family of four was supposed to do. Nothing more.

Jeremy went to bed early, around nine, not wanting to think anymore. Normally, he turned his bedside radio on—the noise comforted him—but tonight he didn’t bother. All he had to do to sleep was close his eyes to bring on the darkness. He felt like he had been asleep his whole short life.

When he woke up two hours later, it was to confusion and fright.

Sam Fitzer was in the room with him.

The room was dim but not dark. The powerful glow from the streetlights prevented his room from ever becoming truly dark. Even though he couldn’t see very well, he knew it was Sam Fitzer standing there by the door.

Fitzer was the closest thing the middle school had to a bully. He was large and athletic and had equal doses of immaturity and attention deficit disorder, rendering him the prime candidate. Jeremy didn’t know why Fitzer was in his room. He didn’t know what he had done to piss the prick off enough for him to break in and rouse him from his sleep but Jeremy found himself suddenly frightened.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying not to sound like he was threatening Fitzer.

“I’m here to kill you,” Fitzer said, moving closer to the bed.

“What did I do? Whatever I did, I’m sorry.”

“Too late.”

“Too late?”

“S’what I said.”

Jeremy whipped the covers off, thankful he had worn his pajamas to bed instead of just his underwear. He was shaking, his teeth rattling around in his head. How much harm can he do? This is my house after all. My parents are right down the hall.

Rolling out of bed, Jeremy squared himself away against Fitzer and said, “I think you’d better go.”

“Not gonna do that,” Fitzer said, his words flat and hard.

“I’ll give you five seconds to leave before I yell for my dad... He’s a big guy.” This last thing was kind of a lie but he didn’t see any harm in it if it got the behemoth out of the room.

“They won’t be able to hear you.”

“They’re right down the hall.” Jeremy was already wondering if Fitzer had done something to them. Maybe he had killed them but... why would he do that?

Probably for the same reasons he’s standing in your room and threatening to kill you.

“Why can’t they hear me?”

“’Cause it’s just you and me. We’re in the Obscura.”

“The what?”

“Never mind. I didn’t want to come here either. But I had to. Just like you had to.”

Okay, Jeremy told himself, this kid is fucking nuts.

“Dad!” he shouted, but his voice sounded pitifully weak, his vocal cords tightened by fear.

Fitzer moved in on him, swinging a large fist into his forehead, driving him down to the floor. Blackness swirled around him. His teeth hurt from bashing together and he felt the warm wetness of drool sinking in through his pajama top.

He stood up, suddenly wanting to feel alive, realizing all his fears from earlier were just that... fears. Things that would go away given some time and maturity.

He lunged to his left, going for his aluminum Louisville Slugger in the corner. He grabbed the leather-taped handle. Fitzer moved in on him, trapping him in the corner, disallowing him to gather enough momentum for a really good swing. Jeremy jabbed the bat at Fitzer’s knees but it didn’t have any effect. They might as well have been made of rubber.

Fitzer kicked the bat out of Jeremy’s hands and rained down with his murderous fists.

Jeremy’s skin opened up, weakening and then splitting over his skull, his lips and nose mushrooming with each blow. He tried to stand up but his head felt too swollen.

Fitzer grabbed the cloth of Jeremy’s pajamas, dragging him across the room.

Oh, God, please let him be done with me.

Fitzer pulled Jeremy closer to him, turning him to face the window he had stared wonderingly out of only hours before. Fitzer threw him against the window. It cracked but didn’t break all the way. Jeremy moaned and fell into a heap on the floor. Fitzer picked him up again, backed away from the window and propelled him against it again. This time it shattered, most of the glass falling outward, but Jeremy managed to stay in the room.

With one last effort, one last attempt to hold onto a life he couldn’t believe was ebbing away, Jeremy swiped with his right hand to grab his bedside lamp. He felt its thin brushed steel surface in his hand and, tightening his grip as best he could, took a wild and lunging swing at Fitzer. The lamp shade flew off, the bulb breaking over Fitzer’s nose, the remnants carving a jagged gash along his face. The skin opened up but blood did not come out. Instead, there was an awful stink. Jeremy couldn’t find anything to even compare the stench to and it was while having that thought, standing there for just a moment wondering what the hell was going on, that Fitzer struck him with all his force, lifting Jeremy off his feet and sending him through the window.

Jeremy was already so overcome with pain he did not feel the spike from the top of the fence punch into his back and puncture a lung.

Fitzer, who wasn’t a boy named Sam Fitzer at all, but something much worse, stood for just a moment in the room before becoming transparent and then disappearing completely.

Two
Steven Names the Clouds

Two miles away from Jeremy Liven’s fresh corpse, Steven Wrigley awoke from a horrendous dream. Sweat stood out on his forehead. He slept fully clothed (it made it easier for him to make it to school on time) and those clothes now stuck to his skin. Heart racing, he peeled the thin blanket from his body and clicked on the small desk lamp next to his single bed.

Nightmares were not something he had very often. Especially not ones he could remember. But this one stood out vividly in his mind. He didn’t think he would be able to sleep for the rest of the night.

The nightmare had taken him into a dirty hospital filled with an absurd multitude of corridors. The walls of these corridors were not solid. They were made of canvas sheets stretched between chrome tubing. He was going to find the doctor. That was the only thing racing through his mind. He had to see the doctor. He had to find the doctor. And this search led him down these dingy corridors, lit up too brightly from overhead. Why would someone use such intense lighting on a place so filthy, he wondered?

He came across a gurney, shoved into the corner. A patient lay on the gurney, old bloodstains covering his stained smock. He looked dead, the twitching nub of his amputated right leg the only animation on his body. It made Steven think the stump was full of something—insects or a small animal—trying desperately to get out.

He continued his voyage.

Around another corner and there was a nurse dressed in crusted scrubs and wielding an instrument that seemed far too heinous to benefit anyone’s health, staring longingly at him. She licked her lips and something inside Steven actually stirred. Some part of him that knew if he took this seductive nurse in her disgusting outfit no one would know and no one would care.

Did dreams make rape permissible?

But he couldn’t stop, no matter how much his throbbing sex begged him to. He had to keep moving. He had to keep going, moving down another corridor and along rusty grates, thickly caked with blood and excrement. He had to see the doctor. He had to see the doctor.

Down a short flight of stairs and there stood a chubby little boy, also filthy, with a bloodstained eyepatch over one of his eyes. The eyepatch had once been white and Steven thought most eyepatches were black. Perversely, he wondered what was behind that patch, regretting he did not have the time to stay and find out.

The doctor was close. The doctor was close.

Steven opened a steel door onto a very bright room, the light so bright it stung his eyes as they strained to find the doctor who seemed to be doing some utterly horrible experiment. The doctor, huge and looming, worked on a girl at the operating table. She was completely opened up, a bloody flap of skin hanging down from her side. Steven moved closer, wanting to see what was inside...

That was when he woke up.

Now he sat on the edge of his bed looking around at his dim surroundings, taking stock of reality.

Last summer, he had purchased a parachute at an Army surplus shop and had stapled it over his ceiling. The room was not very large and the parachute draped down, covering a good portion of the walls. It made him think of being in a tent and the parachute had a certain smell to it that now made him think immediately of home and this room. This room where he spent so much time.

He took a deep breath and pulled a steno notebook from a drawer in the desk beside his bed. Uncapping a black felt tipped marker, he wrote in the notebook:

cumulus

stratus

cirrus

nimbus

cumulonimbus

these are the names of the clouds


And, below that:

Alan Stanton

Serra Glover

Danny Wickham

Jeremy Liven

these are the names of the dead

destroyed (?)


But something didn’t seem right about that. What was it?

He ran a hand through his sweaty black hair with a shaky hand. He wanted a cigarette. Smoking was a hobby he had essentially abandoned the second he took it up but there was still a crumpled back of Marlboro reds in his desk and he thought he desperately needed one now. He needed one because he felt like there was a lot of junk he wanted to clear out of his head.

He didn’t know why he had written in the notebook. He had never done that before other than really pathetic attempts at poetry that inevitably found their way into the trashcan. He didn’t know where the writings had come from. Why was he thinking about clouds? Maybe it was something they had gone over in science class earlier that day but he couldn’t remember Mr. Parker lecturing about it. He was pretty sure they weren’t covering weather at all.

The second part... He recognized those names. The first three were kids from the high school, fellow students. That wasn’t, however, the only thing linking them. Over the course of the school year, they were the ones who, for whatever reasons, had committed suicide. This was earth shattering news in Gethsemane where there had maybe been one adolescent suicide in the past fifteen years.

And that last name... That last name, he didn’t recognize that at all. If this Jeremy character was one of the suicides then surely he would recognize the name. For each of the other suicides, there had been memorials in the gymnasium and public funerals most of the school had attended.

And ‘destroyed’? Why had he written that?

Nearly eighteen and already fucking nuts, he thought, reaching into the desk drawer for the forbidden pack of smokes.

Not in the house. That was his rule. He knew his dad wouldn’t punish him if he caught him smoking. Ever since the death of Steven’s mother he and his dad had been more like friends than father and son but his heart would definitely be broken if he knew Steven smoked and he didn’t think his dad could handle any more heartbreak in this lifetime.

He grabbed the crinkly pack, pulled on a pair of tattered black Converse and a sweater that was wadded up on the floor, half-under his bed, and slipped out of the house.

Slipped out of the house, thinking about the clouds.

He stood there in the doorway, tugging his tattered moss green sweater down over his waist so the chilly air couldn’t snake across his skin. He thought maybe he would just stand there and smoke his cigarette but, looking up at the bloated moon in the cold depths of space, some magic was worked on him and he decided he would go for a stroll around the neighborhood.

Green Heights was the middle-maybe-lower-middle class suburb of Gethsemane. A step up from the apartments sprinkling the outskirts of downtown. A long way from Shade Terrace, the suburb on the other side of Gethsemane. Here, in Green Heights, the cars were American or cheap Japanese, many of them purchased secondhand. If the family unit was intact then the chances were pretty good both parents worked. Most of them worked in retail, middle-management, restaurants, warehouses or factories.

He liked the little suburb. He liked walking through the neighborhood at night. It filled him with a sense of secret knowledge. The houses all sat quietly, most of the blinds drawn, some of the windows emitting the soft yellow glow of a night owl or the flickering image of a TV most likely left on for comfort more than entertainment.

The chilly air smelled nice. March in Ohio, winter teetering madly on the brink of spring, creating some kind of wild and schizophrenic season that could bring seventy degree balm one day and snow the next. Tonight it was somewhere in between. Just cold enough to be slightly uncomfortable. Just enough warmth in the breeze to remind him that summer wasn’t far away. People had already begun cutting their lawns and that smell was pervasive, along with the clean scent of laundry being dried and blown out of a vent.

He walked slowly along, looking up at the sky. The clouds were milky, swirling around the moon, formless and drifting over a darker sky.

Cumulus, he thought. And then, Jeremy Liven.

Who was he?

He didn’t know. He didn’t have a clue. Over the past year, he had taken to thinking about stories. While he never wrote any of them down, he constantly thought of ideas and characters. Maybe Jeremy Liven was a character’s name, waiting to be used.

Or maybe...

Maybe Jeremy Liven was the latest suicide.

He dismissed that thought. That was just his mind trying to creep him out.

Far enough away from his house, he stopped and lit the cigarette, pulling smoke into his lungs. It seemed acrid after wandering around in the clean night air but it was the nicotine he wanted. It had a way of perking up his blood and clearing out his head and he thought his head would desperately need some clearing out if he had any hopes whatsoever of going back to sleep later tonight.

First there was the nightmare and then there was the naming of the clouds and then there was the naming of the dead.

And now there was a person walking on the other side of the narrow street.

At first glance, he thought he just imagined the person. Now, looking closer but trying not to stare, he saw that it was a girl. Younger than him, he guessed and, from this distance, very cute. He looked at her just long enough to capture a picture in his head—long straight hair he thought of as reddish but knew could be brown in this light, a bulky gray sweatshirt and jeans that hugged her hips nicely—before looking down at the sidewalk and pretending he didn’t see her.

But not before she had noticed him, not before that brief eye contact that sent his nicotine-infused heart beating even faster.

He resisted the urge to turn and watch her walk the rest of the way down the street, under the lamps where he could see her a little better. That was just his teenage hormones, he figured. Each day was a struggle against the pesky hormones racing through his body, threatening to lift his sex and turn it rigid at the most inopportune times.

Walking with his back to the girl, he wondered why they had both looked so quickly away after spying one another. It seemed like they should have waved or exchanged a knowing nod or struck up a brief conversation. After all, it wasn’t every day he found someone else wandering the streets of Green Heights at two o’clock in the morning.

And who was the girl, anyway? She didn’t look familiar. That must have meant she was either in junior high (which made his restrained ogling seem a little disturbing) or out of school (which made her that much more alluring). Regardless, she took his mind from the other things that haunted him.

Turning the corner, he walked along the north side of the suburb, finishing up his cigarette and looking to his right, where he could see the water tower looming over the park that rested in the middle of the block. The water tower was immense, one of those that was almost as fat at the bottom as it was at the top but not quite. It reminded him of a more angular chef’s hat.

He tossed his cigarette into the street, stealing another glance up at the clouds, thinking about the girl he had just seen and looking forward to crawling back into his warm bed.

The walks always worked.

Lying in bed that night, Steven was totally unaware of the world that was ready to open up for him.

The dream. The clouds. The names of the dead. That was just the beginning.