He wedged a knee under Musamano's lower back and gritted his teeth, squeezing, squeezing. The sound from the crowd was outsized now, not just cheers but the din of a thousand stomping feet reverberating through the floor and walls, but he was only dimly aware of it. He might have heard a whistle blow but it didn't mean anything to him, he just kept working Musamano's shoulders to the mat, choking him, trying to pin him or kill him, he didn't care which. Then he felt strong hands tugging at him, prying him away, and it was only then he realized he'd done it, he'd pinned Musamano. It was over, he'd won.
He released the grip and rolled to his feet. His arms were shaking. The auditorium was pandemonium now. He looked over and even his ordinarily restrained parents were on their feet, shaking their clenched fists over their heads, whooping at the top of their lungs. Alex and Katie were jumping up and down and shouting. He grinned and looked at Musamano. The wrestler was getting slowly to his feet. He looked stunned. He looked beaten.
The referee took each of their wrists, walked them to the center of the mat, and raised Ben's arm. The crowd went crazy again. Ben couldn't stop grinning. He'd done it. He'd beaten Musamano. He felt like king of the world.
After that first-round upset, his other opponents were psyched out. He could see it in their eyes and their postures the moment they stepped on the mat. He was the guy who had pinned Musamano, for Christ's sake, and although he ‘d learned in one of his classes that If A can beat B and B can beat C, A can beat Cis a logical fallacy, he knew people still felt it in their guts. He pinned his way through the rest of the tournament. No one could stop him.
It had been the best two days of his life.
And then. And then. And then.
He shook the thought away. At least his parents had meant well. Fucking Alex, though, Alex never said, “It's okay, Ben,” or, “It wasn't your fault, Ben,” or, “I know how much pain you're in over this, too, brother.”
Well, the hell with him. The last time Ben had heard from Alex, he was in law school. Before that, it was some computer Ph.D. program. All those degrees, and what did he ever accomplish? He'd never gone anywhere, never even really left home. By now he'd be a rich lawyer, the kind of ignorant, ungrateful yuppie who never got his hands dirty and looked down his nose at soldiers. That was the only good thing about their parents, about Katie, being gone. He didn't have to deal with Alex anymore. And he never would again.
11 HAUNTED HOUSE
Alex spent so much time on Obsidian in the afternoon that he had to stay at the office until almost midnight to catch up on other work. He went straight to bed when he got home, but he couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned for an hour and wasn't even beginning to feel drowsy. Finally he decided the hell with it, he'd take a hot bath. Sometimes that helped.
There was a little moonlight coming in the windows, so he kept the lights off. He turned on the faucet, then eased himself in and sat, gritting his teeth, wincing as the hot water crept over his legs and up to his stomach.
He turned off the tap and the room went suddenly quiet, the only sound a few last drops falling from the faucet to the water below, breaking the silence like a dying metronome.
He splashed a little hot water onto the porcelain behind him to warm it up, then eased back. He slid down until his chin was just touching the water and closed his eyes, thinking this was good, this was what he needed. After a few moments, the dripping stopped and everything was utterly noiseless.
It was funny to think this was the same tub where his mom used to wash them as kids. Some people would say it was weird that he still lived in the house where he grew up, and he supposed they had a point. He'd never even left town for any of his degrees, and the only different addresses he'd had since he was a teenager were a collection of dorm rooms, which in retrospect felt like just a break, a vacation from this, his only real home. Sometimes he thought he should have taken more chances, explored a few more possibilities. But after the thing with his dad, and then his mother got sick, what kinds of chances was he supposed to take? And as for living in this house, well, yeah, you could say it was the safe alternative. But on the other hand, after everything that had happened here, it had taken a lot of courage.
After Katie's funeral, he and Ben had gone back to school. Alex focused on his studies, Ben stayed after every day for track and field. Katie's absence was huge-an oppressive, constant, almost physical force, a void touching everything in their lives. Katie's jacket on a hook in the foyer, slowly collecting dust. Katie's shampoo in the shower, the amount of amber liquid in the bottle unchanging. Katie's empty chair, staring at them at the dinner table. Alex thought this was where the idea of ghosts came from, this was what it meant to live in a house that was haunted.
Some of the fights Alex overheard were about what to do with Katie's things. One day he came home and her room was empty- a desk, a chair, a stripped mattress and bed. Alex closed the door behind himself and checked her closet, her drawers. Everything was gone. It was like Katie had just… vanished.
He looked around the empty room, dumbfounded. He remembered how once, when he was a little kid, he'd broken the arm off one of Ben's G.I. Joes, which Ben had specifically forbade him to touch. Petrified, he ‘d gone to Katie. He remembered the way she had smiled and shushed away his tears and helped him glue it back. And no, of course she wouldn't tell, not even Mom and Dad, pinkie promise. And when Ben had noticed anyway and confronted Alex, Katie said it was her fault, she had done it. And Ben had just let it go. Alex wondered if Ben knew- after all, what was Katie doing with a G.I. Joe?-and thought maybe Ben just couldn't stay mad once Katie stepped in. She was like a force field against anger and hate and accusations.
He dropped to his knees beside the bed, buried his face in the denuded mattress, and sobbed her name over and over. Where was she? How could she be gone, without even any evidence that she'd been there? It was impossible. He couldn't get his mind around it.
He cried until his throat was raw and his back throbbed, until he was so exhausted and drained he couldn't feel anything anymore. Then he stood and took one more slow look around the room.
Katie was gone. And if something like this could happen to Katie, who was as joyous and good and alive a person as Alex had ever known, who liked everyone and laughed at everything and had not a single enemy, then the best thing you could say about the universe was, it was random.
But randomness was merely a logical possibility. What Alex felt in the deepest places within himself was different. In his gut and his bones, he knew the universe wasn't random, or indifferent, or in any way benign.
The universe was hostile. You couldn't count on anyone against that. And Alex wouldn't forget it.
He lay in the tub for twenty minutes and was just thinking it was enough, he could sleep now, when he heard something downstairs. It sounded like the mail slot in the front door. These days he was never home when the mail came, but he knew the sound well enough from when he was a kid. This time it was softer than he remembered- stealthier?-but he recognized it just the same.