Johnny Sullivan wondered what it was like to be dead. He wondered this often, many times between the hours of three and six o’clock in the morning. While most slept and dreamt of marvelous mansions or of masked marauders, Johnny’s nightmares were real. Or at least he thought they were—and when stepping over that translucent boundary where night fades into day, that’s all that matters.
He wondered how it felt to be inside a grave. Cold, dark, forgotten. He took comfort in that. Gravity pulling him down and nothing pulling him back up. Eternal life or eternal decomposition—or both. He didn’t want his body to help the living. He damn sure wasn’t an organ donor and he couldn’t stand to think of his remains becoming nothing but nutrition—and slim nibbles at that, considering his slender frame—for the worms and maggots and whatever else happened across his rotting corpse.
Thoughts of eternal life pained him more than anything and made him writhe beneath his sheets. He despised nothing more than life, and imagining another, unending version was utterly detestable. He dreamt of an end but didn’t think he deserved the only thing he ever wanted, nor believed he would ever achieve it. This is the sole reason he was afraid of suicide. It wasn’t the idea of everything he ever knew ending—he reveled in the hope of that. It wasn’t the notion of meeting his maker and facing everything he had ever done—he was a firm believer in taking responsibility for his actions. It was an astounding fear that the infinite nothingness he so longed for did not exist—that some god had blessed his wretched soul, goddammit—and he would be forever doomed to join the white-robed goody-goodies or the squalid scumbags cloaked in black. Deep down, he was neither.
Anyway, he had tried to kill himself once. After swallowing a handful of Acetaminophen, Seroquel, and Valium, he awoke in his bed feeling disembodied and boundless.
Johnny followed no religion and found those who claimed the devil to be specifically comical. To him, greed and gluttony were foolish, more foolish than the Bible-thumpers who at least believed in some sort of sacrifice. When it came down to it, he couldn’t believe in anything. And wouldn’t, to keep his sanity—or at least the dismal portion of it he had left. He was the stoic epitome of atheism. He found everything trivial, he was very hateful, and he was very tired.
So, so tired.
* * *
Johnny was an insurance agent. Had been for six years now. The pay was good, but not if you consider the cost: his soul. He didn’t mind that though—the dull drone and never-ending numbness of the job was, he believed, quite similar to death. His compliance through depression and self-loathing is what allowed him to move up in the company so quickly. Four promotions in his tenure there and not much further to go. He was a model employee, just not a model human being. He was 26 years old and lived in a small early-21st century American city just like yours.
He felt an uncontrollable envy when taking fatality calls, an envy causing him to unleash a morbid monster upon clients on the other end of the line during their most trying times. He once asked a woman what her brother’s last words were, before his fatal motorcycle accident. He questioned another on her daughter’s facial expression, after she had been decapitated. Their appalled reactions satisfied and amused him. And, somehow, he never received a single complaint.
Nevertheless, his job—his career he could call it at this point—caused him to lose a lot of sleep. This was a problem. When he managed to fall asleep, he never dreamed. It was quick, black, nothing. That was his perfect vision of death. That was when he was happiest. That’s the only time he was happy at all, within that void absence of everything. As inconceivable as your consciousness before you are conceived. But, instead, most times he lay awake, thinking about that which he most desired.
He tried pills of all shapes, sizes, colors, and types. This one for anxiety, that one for depression, this one for insomnia. They never worked; he gave up. He didn’t like depending on anything or anyone else anyhow, and he told himself he deserved nothing, which is exactly what he wanted.
* * *
Johnny was in love once and he loathed it. She was almost as morose and macabre as he was—until she found her dog strewn across their kitchen tiles with its ribs stomped in. For Johnny, it was all an experiment. He was young and Elizabeth Connelly had caught his eye.
Johnny left anonymous notes of terror and torture in her locker at high school. He observed her from hidden locations anticipating her shock. She shocked him when she looked up from the letters, each one of them filled with increasingly violent descriptions, cocking her head up and down the hall, smiling like a sinning saint, searching for the author more eagerly each time. His disappointment delighted him. Her unpredictability caught him unbelievably off-guard. He began to doubt his most diabolical and dynamic attribute—his self-appointed title of deceptive mastermind. He saw her as a challenge and he was not to be topped. It was time to kick it up a notch.
Ultimately, he planned to use a socket wrench to shatter a few bones belonging to her boyfriend. She was thin and pretty and much to his surprise she didn’t have a boyfriend—mark that upset number two. He pondered many times how it would feel to smash fragments of the kid’s skeleton out of his body and through his letterman jacket—something he was positive this town would never forget.
Alas, Beth’s boyfriend did not exist. Johnny’s mind had run away with him once again. After all, he was a thoughtful kid.
* * *
So, Johnny followed her for a few months. He learned Beth’s schedule. She worked part-time at the movie theatre behind the mall. Not the big, boisterous building of ostentatious modern architecture, illuminated with irritating ion bulbs and unnecessary neon outlines even the blind couldn’t miss—where the kids from class met on weekends in hordes, attracted to the screen like mindless mosquitoes to a fluorescent lamp, to do drugs and try to get to second base and watch everything except the feature presentation. No—she worked at the shoddy, shady little theatre behind the economic curtain on a dead end street in the dead end (cold, dark, forgotten) part of town where the old mobsters used to bring their dazzling damsels draped in grandiose garments and fantastic furs to see the golden classics like Casablanca and A Streetcar Named Desire. Back then it was as prestigious and magnificent as the thriving theatre across town, now referred to simply as “the cheap show.” Johnny was intrigued.
His meticulous plotting came to culmination on October 30th—Devil’s Night—when he deemed it was time to act. It was Thursday, the day Beth closed, and she would get out of work at ten o’clock—perfect timing. Just after dusk; full nightfall.
As Johnny gathered his tools—one roll of duct tape, one thick rope, one black garbage bag, one freshly sharpened Ginsu blade—and placed them in the trunk of his car, he noticed something strange in the crisp autumn breeze. He took a deep breath and felt a rush of life throughout his body, yet the crush of impending doom also coursed through his veins. He was overwhelmed by déjà-vu, then overcome by visions of the future. He had everything, yet he had nothing. He was an angel; he was a demon.
Just as quickly as it came, it vanished. It was something he had never experienced before and never thought he would again.
* * *
At 10:11 p.m. Beth exited the theatre and locked the once glamorous, now rundown double doors behind her.
How luxurious this place could be again if renovated, Johnny thought, a piece of history like so many of the other remarkable displays of architecture lingering around this pathetic town. An upset stomach told him it would be torn down when an investor saw potential in the locale, making way for another corporate plaza in the name of the great modern day American forces that be: convenience and currency.
Regardless, no matter how many times he saw her close shop by herself, he was still impressed she had such responsibility at only 17. He wanted to see how responsible she could be with her life.
He snapped back to reality from his distracting thoughts. Beth was already out of sight from where he hid on the side of the theatre. Johnny knew her short walk home well; she lived only a few blocks away. He fired up his loud V8 engine as quietly as one could and rolled up alongside her with his lights off.
“Hey, how’s it goin?” Johnny asked through the passenger-side window.
“Took ya long enough,” Beth replied without looking his way. Johnny was puzzled.
“I know, right? 18 years to look this good—and I get better lookin every day.”
Beth rolled her eyes, looked at him, and found she couldn’t fight the butterflies fluttering inside her when gazing into his pupils. There was an unmistakable fire there, a fire burning without convention or control. All the times she had seen him in school she recognized an ember in his eyes which attracted her, along with his dark irises surrounding this flame, his defined features which surrounded his eyes, and his disheveled hair which made him seem dangerous. But it never burned this bright, this wild. Or maybe she had never been this close.
Looking back Johnny saw something similar in hers but it was the antithesis. It was the rupturing and roaring of countless gallons of crystal-clear water; it was the constant push and pull on the beach, eroding the rock until receding back before a tsunami; it was the ocean. He couldn’t help being attracted to her either. Her big blue eyes which surrounded these seas, her flawless porcelain skin which surrounded her eyelids, and her light blonde hair which made her seem delicate. He noticed her beauty before, but it never made him feel so uneasy, so unsure of himself. He had never been this close.
“Why don’t you hop in? It’s chilly out there,” Johnny offered, smiling. “I know I wouldn’t want to walk alone at night if I were a doll such as yourself. Never know what kind of creep could try to pick you up.” He winked, feeling the way Ted Bundy must have felt in his prime.
“Oh, you are so right,” Beth responded, “It is very dangerous out here for a doll like me. Everywhere I look I see schools,” she approached the car, “and grocery stores,” and got inside, “and suburbs,” looking at him face to face now, up-close and personal. “It is a little nippy though. And I knew it was you the whole time, Johnny.”
“Couldn’t be that hard, I’m the only one in town who drives a black ’73 Mustang,” he said as he pulled away.
“Cut the bull. You are my ‘mystery’ writer,” she proclaimed, air quoting the word mystery.
He jerked the wheel but remained cool. “How did you know?”
“You’ve been stalking me for months!” she laughed. “It’s obvious. You could use some help in that category. As well as with your adjectives and transitions. But, overall, very good. B plus for effort.”
“Then you know what has to happen.” Johnny abandoned his charismatic tone for a somber one. “You think it’s all fun and games, but you just walked into your own death.” He sped up.
He didn’t plan on hurting the girl—at least not too bad—just duct taping her mouth shut, maybe her neck to her knees, tying her hands behind her back, tossing her in a garbage bag with a couple holes in it, and tossing the bag in the woods for an hour or two. A little harmless fun. The knife was strictly for theatrics.
He blew by her house at 60 mph as Elton John and Kiki Dee’s “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” played on the radio.
Beth laughed. “That’s too bad. I have a Halloween party to attend tomorrow night, and you’re going to be my date. Actually, you’re going to drive me.”
Johnny remained silent. His driver-side tire began lumping up—followed by the other three.
Laughing harder, she said, “After you get your ride fixed.”
He pulled over with four flats. The tires weren’t punctured, the air was only let out of them by a clever young woman who recognized his dark hearse-like vehicle outside the theatre since around 7 p.m. when she went on break.
“Stop zoning out like a fucking zombie,” she advised, “especially when you’re on a ‘stakeout,’” once again quoting the air delightedly. “It’s Devil’s Night, Johnny, you gotta watch for pranksters.” She opened the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow night at 9:30. My house. You know where it is.” She stepped out of his car and walked home.
Johnny was in disbelief. He was astonished—rendered speechless. She was screwing with his head and she was doing it well. He was questioning everything he thought he knew as he sat motionless on the side of the road in a stone-cold stupor. He did know one thing though. He was going to pick that girl up at 9:30 the next night.
They went to the party as the Phantom of the Opera and his lover, Christine Daaé. For the next six years, they were inseparable.
* * *
Through Johnny’s tenure as an insurance agent there was only a small portion of time when things did not go swimmingly. That portion of time was in exact correlation with the time following the hiring of a certain co-worker. That co-worker was Bill Varone.
Bill was a threat to Johnny from the day they met. Johnny knew it the moment he laid eyes on him, when Chuck Hutchins, the general manager, introduced Bill to the rest of the “family” with the same title Johnny had worked tirelessly for six years to acquire. Bill wore a tailored golden-tan suit with a navy-blue tie, accompanied by a glistening, honest smile and a glimmering, wholesome look in his eye. Bill never had it out for Johnny, Johnny had it out for Bill. Because of this, Johnny’s work began to slip.
Johnny never spoke to Bill directly. He never acknowledged his presence and acted like he couldn’t hear him at meetings. Bill noticed this but didn’t let it bother him. He was used to this type of treatment at former jobs, where he was singled out for being an above average employee and an easy target. But this time he wasn’t going to wimp out or run to human resources. He was going to play Johnny’s petty game his own way.
Bill slipped under Johnny’s skin when Johnny was most stressed out. Once, when dealing with a particularly difficult client, Johnny lost his cool and shouted, “How many times do I have to explain this to you? It doesn’t work like that!” and slammed the telephone down.
Bill heard the argument brewing through their shared wall a few minutes prior and lingered outside Johnny’s door waiting for his chance to make a snide remark. He said, “You’ve really got to keep your cool when dealing with clients, John,” then smugly took a sip of his coffee and walked away.
Things like this pushed Johnny over the edge. As the competition heated up between the two, Johnny stalked Bill as he had Beth several years prior. He followed him a few times, found the gym he frequented, his apartment building in the quiet north end of town, and that he lived alone. Johnny contemplated what he was going to do with Bill over a few sleepless nights and decided to call the whole thing off. He remembered how Beth had outsmarted him and he could not risk that with Bill. Something told Johnny that Bill would not be as enthused as Beth was if he caught him; he would not invite him to a Halloween party, and they would not fall in love. He recognized the detrimental effect Bill had on his work and realized it wasn’t Bill causing the quality of his work to plummet—it was himself by wasting time and effort messing with Bill, and letting Bill bother him since day one for no reason. He decided the next day he would try to settle their differences and befriend Bill, right before he fell into a deep blank sleep—his favorite kind.
* * *
These memories ran through Johnny’s mind as he lay in bed that serene, silent night. How had his life come to this? Where was it going from here? Would he ever be happy? Did he ever really want to be? If he couldn’t answer these questions, who could? He was in the dead center (cold, dark, forgotten) of a lightless and never-ending tunnel, not a pinhole of hope, and that’s how he liked it. He felt a twisted pleasure in despair, the idea of sliding into the hidden hole descending below rock bottom—that nothing really mattered and nothing ever would. The most nonsensical part was that nothing was even wrong, except maybe a chemical imbalance or two.
We can’t choose our brains.
A crevice leads to a channel, a channel to a valley, a valley to a pathway, a pathway to a forest. Next thing you know you’ve built a log cabin within which you reside inside your mind.
He was strolling through his own forest now and he began to dig. He dug
and dug
and dug for what seemed like hours, and found he was asleep—and he was dreaming for the first time.
He looked around at a perfect autumn day in the woods. A plethora of warm colors, an ancient energy floating up from the ground, light and slow, shimmering up above the trees’ impossibly high branches. He heard the trickle of flowing water somewhere in the distance, out of sight.
He breathed the crisp scent of the air deep into his lungs—then the breeze swept something strange over him he had felt before, something he thought he would feel only once: the same feeling that enveloped him that day years ago when he was preparing for Beth’s attempted kidnapping. He was a king, yet he was a peasant. He was the earth, yet he was a pebble. He was life, he was death. Nothing could stop him. At last, after all these years, he felt the will to live. At last, he could feel a genuine smile grow across his face from ear to ear. At last, he was happy. Why had he spent so much time in despondency, despising life? Life was extravagant.
He ran through the forest like a child let out of their last class for the summer. He found a creek a few hundred feet away and drank from it, allowing the cool, clean water to penetrate his soul. Just as he could not explain his pessimism before, he now could not explain his optimism. The world was brand new, and it was his. There were so many possibilities—endless exploits to be had—and at 26 he was still young; he had his whole life ahead of him.
He heard muffled screams echoing back from the direction he came, and ran toward them with the speed of a soon-to-be-father who’s just been informed his son is making his grand entrance to the world. The cries radiated from the hole he was digging when sleep had taken him. He came up to it gingerly, looked inside, and saw something squirming frantically in a black garbage bag. Tearing the bag open revealed a young girl with light blonde hair, her hands tied behind her back and her neck duct taped to her knees. He cut the tape with a sharp Ginsu blade which was sticking out of the mud. Beth’s head jerked up, face as fearful as the girl who sees the killer behind her friend in a B-level slasher flick, itching to scream “look out!” but can only emit misconstrued shrieks and signals due to being gagged. The oceans in her eyes crashed and smashed and ravaged as storms turned once calm waters into violent pinnacles of destruction. The bellows of ungodly beasts spewed from her throat as she flailed. Johnny ripped the tape from her lips. The tides in her eyes calmed once again and she fell silent, staring into the dirt.
She turned her head, slow and eerie, until her eyes fell onto his and warned, “Don’t go in the attic.”
* * *
Johnny awoke in the morning with no recollection of his dream, yet he had changed. He couldn’t explain it, but some type of subconscious epiphany had taken place overnight and he felt phenomenal. He felt like he never had before. Everything was altered in his favor and it was time to start anew. As he brewed a pot of coffee, he called work to tell them the fabulous news: he was quitting.
“Ahhaha!” Chuck Hutchins produced a brawling full-bodied howl. “I gotta say, John, I think that’s the first time you ever made me laugh!”
“Chuck, I’m serious. I’m done.”
Silence on the other end. Then, “Ahhaha!” Chuck Hutchins in even more raucous hysterics than before. “I take it you found a job in Hollywood, buddy, the way you’re pullin this off! Oh, man.” Calming himself down Chuck said, “We’ll talk about this more when you come in. I gotta tell Ralph. It’s too good, John—too good!” and hung up. That was the last reaction Johnny expected but he didn’t care. He was thrilled he could provide Chuck with a chuckle.
The question at hand was: which avenue of life did he want to explore first? His bank account was healthy—over the years he hadn’t spent much at all. A trip around the world seemed to be in order but he didn’t want to embark on such a journey alone. First, he’d find a woman whom he believed to be a worthy companion of this adventure, and he’d find her by finding himself. He remembered how his dad used to ski and how interesting he thought it was as a kid. He was going to give it a shot—he still had his father’s old skis stored somewhere in the attic.
The pull-down stairs were squeaky and rickety. How cliché, he thought. The pungent odor attacked his sinuses with an unbearable stench. “Wow,” he winced, “something must have died up here.” Upon entering the attic, he yanked the string attached to a single, dangling lightbulb which illuminated the small, crowded room with a soft glow. If I were a ski, where would I be? he wondered. The smell was even more rancid now that he was inside the attic, insulting the back of his tongue with a putrid taste that told him he couldn’t stay for long. Searching on the far side of the room, almost blending in with the aged, worn wood of the foundation, he saw two skis poking out from behind a stack of boxes. He began to make his way over there through the labyrinth of junk.
Working through the mess he speculated as to why he ever kept all this stuff. He arrived at a box with “BETH” written on it in big black letters. He opened it and out sprung holiday and birthday cards, photographs, and other accumulations from the time they had spent together. He returned the items, took a half-step forward, and froze.
Lying between the boxes, strewn across the floor just like her dog on the kitchen tiles, was Elizabeth Connelly—or at least what was left of her. Her once flawless porcelain skin was wilting from the bone, her blonde hair was old and gray and patchy as her skull peeked through, her big blue eyes were as dry and barren as the rugged basin of an empty lake. Johnny’s mouth hung open as the memories came flooding back full throttle.
* * *
He remembered their last argument—her last argument ever—over her mutilated dog which he left on display in their kitchen.
“You’ve gone too far this time, Johnny, you sick fuck! I don’t even want to see you! I don’t ever want to see you! Get out or I’m calling the cops!”
Cue Johnny’s smooth, silent entrance. “I mean it, Johnny!” Cue Johnny’s smooth, silent approach. “You better back the fuck up!” Cue Johnny’s smooth, silent hands around Beth’s smooth, now silent neck. The last thing she ever saw was those flames in his eyes taking over everything as he saw the oceans in hers evaporate.
* * *
Revulsion filled his heavy heart and tears filled his sorry eyes as he sobbed and stared down in remorse upon her innocent, still delicate body. More delicate than ever now. He was stiff; stuck in time. Pulling himself out of his daze, it dawned on him that he had to give her a proper burial.
He grabbed her hand and pulled… and flew backwards. Crashing through boxes, he was overcome with fear when he realized he was still holding her left hand in his… and that it still wore his engagement ring on the fourth finger.
His panic mounted when he looked to his right and was face-to-face with Bill Varone.
There was no glistening, honest smile—only a twisted expression of horror. There was no glimmering, wholesome look in his eye—only the eternal stare of death. The memories hit Johnny like a steaming locomotive.
* * *
It was the evening Johnny contemplated making amends with Bill. He decided it couldn’t wait—he might not feel the same way the next morning. The quiet late-night drive would remind a normal, sane person how abnormal and insane this was—but not Johnny Sullivan. Upon arrival he buzzed Bill’s apartment repeatedly until finally, “Jesus, it’s the middle of the night. Who is it?”
“John.”
“John? Who the hell is John?”
“It’s Johnny Sullivan from the office. I know it’s late but it will only take a minute.”
A moment of silence. Johnny heard crickets chirping down the street. The door was unlocked by an electric current sent through a wire by the push of a button from the thumb of a man who was thoroughly perplexed. “Okay. As long as it’s quick.”
Johnny wasn’t surprised by Bill’s apartment. A quality suite. White walls with portraits of contemporary art placed upon them in a painstakingly even manner. Not the good stuff, but the abstract off-the-wall stuff—which was an apt title for where it belonged, Johnny thought: off the wall.
They sat at Bill’s dining room table and Johnny put everything out there: how he felt when Chuck first introduced Bill, his jealousy, his anger, how it was all his fault for dividing the two of them, how he felt it was now his duty to unite them, how together they would be strong enough to take over the company. Bill apologized for his behavior. Johnny assured him it wasn’t necessary. The men shook hands.
As Johnny was on his way out, Bill made the worst—and last—mistake of his life. He looked Johnny in his eyes and said, “Remember, John. You’ve really got to keep your cool when dealing with customers,” a prelude to his glistening, honest smile, then a laugh—a little friendly jest.
It mattered not. That line was like teasing a starved, abused animal backed into a corner. Johnny lost it. His rage exploded from him like Vesuvius. He wrapped his hands around Bill’s throat and squeezed as hard as he could until Bill’s heart and lungs stopped contracting and relaxing, in exchange for remaining relaxed.
* * *
Coming back to reality Johnny’s brain spun in his skull like a rat on a wheel. Or was this reality anymore? This had to be a dream—this time a nightmare. He cherished life now, he wanted to live at last, this was just his subconscious bringing back all the small wrongs he had done to people and magnifying them to epic proportions. Everything was going to be okay. He just had to wake up and make things right.
He picked himself off the floor and continued toward the skis. Something told him that was the key, and though he tried to fight it, something else told him he wasn’t asleep. He pushed through the clutter now, pushed through his own insanity. At the far wall he noticed a third body on the floor. It had dark disheveled hair. Slender.
He moved closer to get a better look and tripped over one of the skis.
As he stumbled, the corpse’s head snapped up and gazed into his eyes with fires burning as violent as the depths of hell. He heard the flames whipping and whirling as he fell into his own body.
Quick. Black.
Nothing.
Ghost Town Theatre 