The Rage Room Read online

  I wondered if I should kill myself, on the other side. But I felt strangely empowered by what I’d done, and I wanted to live, perhaps for the first time ever. I had gotten off the hamster wheel! I was living a different life, the life of a killer on the loose, yes, but there was a vitality to the whole thing and I wasn’t ready to die yet.

  I went home and ran a bubble bath, filling the room with scented candles, my unmanly guilty pleasure. I added lavender epsom salts to ease my aching muscles, and I lay in the flickering darkness with a lime and soda at the ready.

  I studied my toes at the end of the bath, and finally, soaked out and worn out, I put on my striped pajamas and went to bed.

  Tomorrow was another day. I’d face the future when I had to and not a moment sooner. I still had a few days left. I’d come up with a plan. I had to. That’s what I told myself anyway, and I even felt a glimmer of hope and happiness and a ridiculus feeling of invincibility. I’d come up with something. Why not? Good things could happen to me, right? I was the master of my own destiny.

  Very funny. I thought about the whole thing six ways to Sunday. I didn’t stop thinking about it, but I couldn’t come up with anything. I faced the facts: I was loser. And life was what it was. I’d already tried to change my luck by marrying Celeste and having kids. I’d had my shot at my perfect life, and it hadn’t worked out. The play had been called. Life would go on its way, inexorably dragging me along like a cat caught in the rain. No one had any faith in me, so how could I have faith in myself?

  I went through the motions in the remaining time. I called Celeste back and reassured her that I wasn’t losing my mind. I was just another loser; none of this was her fault. I was so considerate and loving that she asked me if I was having an affair. At work, Jazza asked me if I’d developed a terminal disease because I’d gone so quiet.

  I felt strangely rooted in time, as if the future wouldn’t come, that terrible future. You know when you know something’s going to end badly but you’re not in that situation yet and so you begin to believe that things will be fine? You settle in and you settle down. The thought of going back felt unreal. Maybe I’d dreamt up the whole thing about me killing my family. It didn’t feel like me because I couldn’t imagine having that kind of energy. But perhaps my coming back was a miracle, a gift from Celeste’s Jesus. Beautiful, blond, toned, and buffed neon Jesus had cleared my tab, restored my family, and sent me back so that they could live their lives. And I’d take that. Maybe He’d done it for them, not me. Maybe all I had to do was nothing, which was something I was pretty damn good at.

  29. BACK TO THE FUTURE PRESENT I AM THROWN

  SO IT WAS WITH SOME SURPRISE that I did go back to the future. Or the present. I’d hoped that it was Jesus’s miracle that I was delivered to my past, and I thought that it would stick, and that I wouldn’t have to go back or forward or anywhere.

  I wasn’t even thinking about my life when I jumped. I was just sitting at my desk when next thing I knew I was back in St. Drogo’s being mowed down by early morning workers who growled and hissed at me for standing in their way.

  I was dizzy, flooded with confusion and nausea. I managed to reach a wall and leaned against it. Sting Ray Bob had told me how awful I’d feel coming back, but I’d thought he was exaggerating. I’d never suffered from hangovers and I’d been certain it would be the same with time travel, but not so. I sank to my haunches and retched, which cleared a path around me pronto.

  I heard a familiar voice, but I couldn’t look up. I slid onto my side. I heard someone groaning in pain and a distant part of me registered that the noise was coming from me, but I couldn’t move. Drool snaked down my face, disguisting and sticky. I bit my hand to try to quell the nausea. I couldn’t bear it. Could one die from nausea? But it wasn’t nausea, it was time travel.

  “We’ve got this,” the voice said, and I felt myself being lifted up onto a stretcher. I was still in the fetal position, moaning, my eyes squeezed tight.

  The man spoke again, but I couldn’t make out what he said. I was lifted aloft and bumped along, every movement agonizing.

  Doors slammed, and then Jaxen spoke. “It’s okay, Sharps, you’ll be okay. We’re here for you.”

  Then darkness hugged me like a weighted blanket, and I floated away.

  I woke in a hotel room with Jaxen, Janaelle, and Sting Ray Bob. The blinds were drawn and the three of them were talking in hushed tones.

  From what I could see, the place looked swanky, cream and grey with touches of silver and coal. An IV needle bit into my elbow, tightly taped and pinching my skin. The room was cold as a butcher’s locker, and I shivered and jerked. Was I having a fit? My legs spasmed uncontrollably, and my teeth were chattering like half a dozen jackhammers firing on all cylinders. I groaned, and the three turned towards me as if they were surprised I was still alive.

  Sting Ray Bob rushed over, yanked the IV out, and handed the end to Jaxen who pumped it with a syringe. The shaking stopped almost instantly. Warmth flooded my body. I was parched, but the memory of the nausea was so strong I was reluctant to even swallow my saliva. Jaxen put a straw in my mouth and urged me to drink, but I twisted my face away.

  “It’s okay,” he said. He put his hand on my shoulder, and then I knew it would be okay. Jaxen was there. I could trust him.

  I took a small sip, and I swallowed just fine. There was no nausea, and I nearly cried with relief.

  “Sorry it was so bad,” Sting Ray Bob said. “The data on your tolerance levels didn’t suggest this level of hyperemesis gravidarum. We’ve run more tests, and it won’t happen next time.”

  I sat up slowly. “You’re right, it won’t. Because I’m not going back. There’s no point. I tried. I went back and I tried. The only data, as you would put it, is that I’m an official loser. And the world’s a terrible place. It’s better for my kids that they don’t live.”

  “You don’t get to make that choice for them!” Janaelle shouted at me, and I was startled. She leaned in so close I could smell the sweetness of her chewing gum. That or she used the world’s most citrusy mouthwash.

  “You don’t get to choose that for them!” she shouted again. “And the world will get better. It will! It always does. You think these are the worst of times? Everybody thinks that, no matter when they are born. You thinking it doesn’t make you special. And you do have the potential to change. We all do. That’s the whole point of this experiment, you idiot, to prove that we can change the future by going back and fixing our mistakes. We’ve been looking for a successful candidate for years and Norman said it was you and I believed him!”

  I couldn’t believe it, but the gothic little bitch was crying. I looked at Jaxen, and he shrugged. “Norman was wrong,” I said shortly. “Believe me, I’ve thought about it from every angle. Sorry, I let you down, but it’s what I do. I thought I could do it. But just like everything else in my life, I failed.”

  “Why don’t you talk us through it?” Jaxen handed a box of tissue to Janaelle and then sat on the edge of my bed, rubbing my shoulder.

  His warmth and tender kindness shot through me like an AK47 pumping into my chest at close range. Tears filled my eyes and spilled down my cheeks. Before I knew it, I was howling and snot was flowing down my face like a waterfall.

  “I’m so sorry!” I cried, and Jaxen pulled me in for a hug. I grabbed him and sobbed my heart out. “I tried so hard. I really did. Nobody could have tried harder. I knew my limitations and I thought fake it till you make it, but I didn’t make it and it broke me. It’s my fault. I know that. And,” I pulled away from Jaxen and turned to Janaelle, “and you’re right—it isn’t up to me to choose, but I can’t change things.”

  “We know you did your best, buddy.” Jaxen handed me the box of tissues, and it took a fistful to mop things up. “We watched the live feed. You did try.”

  “You watched me?” Just when I thought no further humi
liation was possible, I sank to a new low.

  “Of course we did. We thought you knew that. You gave up any right to privacy when you let us staple you with implants,” Sting Ray Bob pointed out, and I shrank back.

  “What else did you ‘staple’ into me?”

  “Nothing,” Jaxen said. He glared at Sting Ray Bob, who shrugged.

  “For starters, the nausea won’t happen again,” Janaelle said. “So forget about that. And we’ll help you by brainstorming some actionable alternatives for when you go back. We’ve got time. You need to stay in bed for two weeks to heal.”

  “Two weeks!” I was horrified. “I can’t stay in bed for two weeks! And anyway, I told you, I’ve thought about it from every single angle.”

  “Not with us on board you haven’t.” She was confident, and I closed my eyes. I was trapped.

  “Can we at least get me some food for starters?” I said rudely as I lay down and pulled the blankets over me.

  “Of course, buddy,” Jaxen grinned. “Your wish is our command. Meanwhile, we’ll log in algorithms and get started on a plan for success strategies. You aren’t alone. Go team!”

  That didn’t make me feel better. I was sick of the whole thing. I’d made a mistake messing with time travel, and now these guys had me wired up like a turkey and I was beholden to them, a prisoner of their experiment.

  Sting Ray Bob flashed me a comm:

  QuikDine menus.

  I flipped through the options. “Fettuccine Alfredo with garlic bread. Extra cheese. Extra butter. Three times root beer, tall bottles. Vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate sauce. The last meal of a dying man.”

  “Fats and carbs are good choices,” Jaxen said. “But you aren’t dying, buddy.” He turned to Janaelle. “Maybe we should give him a comedown dose of valium?”

  “No! Mood enhancers will render the results of the experiment null and void. He’ll be fine, but Sting Ray Bob, I’m thinking you should give him a shot of sodium thiopental. We need him emotionally unpolluted to gather information.”

  “That’s truth serum! I’m not stupid!” I shouted at her, and she put her hands on her hips—her rather broad hips, I noticed, for such a tiny woman. Mmm, nice boobs and shapely arms. I wondered what her legs were like under those long skirts, and then I remembered they were steel from the hips down. One leg or two? I couldn’t recall but regardless, the thought was arousing. I got a huge stiffie and I shifted, hoping that no one would notice, but Jaxen did and he grinned. “From what I’ve heard, a very worthwhile experience,” he said quietly, and I hoped Janaelle hadn’t heard him.

  “Come on, Sharps,” Janaelle said, taking the syringe from Sting Ray Bob. “Let’s get to the bottom of why you think you are so unlikeable and such a loser. It all goes back to perceptions of the self, and I’m guessing you had issues with your father.”

  “Jaxen’s got a Ph.D. in psychiatry,” she added, settling into an armchair in the corner of the room with a large portable comm in her lap. “While you guys go hunting around Sharps’s damaged childhood, I’ll run algorithms of potential action scenarios that we’ll marry to your findings. You make him want to return, and I’ll give him a map of what to do when he gets there.”

  “You can’t make me go back!” I shouted, and I turned over and refused to look at them. I heard them whispering, but I couldn’t make out what they said. The food arrived, and I decided to eat first and fight later. I was so ravenous I hoovered off the entire order in fifteen minutes.

  “What do you want to know?” I asked Jaxen, finishing off one of my root beers. “Let’s just do this. I know you won’t leave me in peace until you get what you want.”

  He dove right in. “What’s your first memory?”

  “I don’t know. Learning to skate I guess. I wanted to learn to skate, but my father didn’t know how. So he asked the neighbour to teach me, down at the arena.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Um, three or five I think. I don’t know. But I remember the skates. I loved them, and I loved being on the ice. My father came to watch me. He was drunk and he shouted at me, ‘Look at you, jello legs, you call that skating? Look at your friends, they’re much better than you but wait you don’t have any friends!’”

  “Why would he be so cruel? And what did the neighbour say?”

  “He told me to ignore my dad, but it was hard. Admit it, Wally, you’re not cut out for athletics.”

  “Wally? Who’s Wally?”

  “Wally was me. It’s what my father called me. I haven’t thought about it for years. He hated the name Mother had chosen for me. He said it sounded like I was a tool in the shed and not the sharpest one either. You can imagine the jokes. And even Mr. Williamson mocked me about it. It is a stupid name. Maybe Mother deserved what I did to her just for giving me such a ridiculous name.”

  “To get back on track, if you’ll pardon the pun, you stopped skating?”

  “My father took me home after my tenth lesson or so. He stood me in front of a full-length mirror, and he said, ‘Be honest now, does that look like a sporting kind of guy? You’re too emotionally weak, son, useless. I’ve seen you, with your head buried in a book. You’re a dreamer. Thank Christ the legislation will come soon, axing books, music, and faggot theatre. We need to attend to the serious things in life. We need hard workers. Work is the engine around which life is built. We’ll help you find your place, Sharps, although god knows it won’t be easy.’”

  “Sounds like a gem, your father,” Jaxen said sympathetically, and I nodded. “There was no talking to him. And when I annoyed him, which was often, he’d make me stand in front of the mirror and say, ‘You see that guy? Is there anything likeable about that guy? You’re right, there isn’t but we’re going to change that, aren’t we, Sharps? We’re going to bring that guy into line.’”

  “And how did he do that?”

  “He got hold of psych evaluation tests from somewhere, personality tests. He said that the tests would identify traits of weakness and that he could train them out of me. Math and logic questions, drawings, measurements in spontaneity, risk aversion, and peer acquiescence. You want to know the results? He concluded I was a daydreamer with my head in the clouds. He said I had no talent for anything useful in this world. I showed an aptitude for the written word, which wasn’t even on his totem pole of worthy achievements.”

  “Then what?”

  “Mirror exercises. What do I see? A loser. An unlovable loser. My father’s theory was that it would snap me out of my funk and get me behaving like other boys. He said he never wanted a boy, but I was like half a girl which was even worse.”

  “How weren’t you behaving like the other boys?” Jaxen asked, and I shrugged.

  “I don’t know exactly. Father disappeared when I was ten. He went to work and never came home. Mother filled out a missing person’s report, but nothing came of it. He didn’t withdraw any money before he left, nor did he use his bank accounts afterwards. There were no sightings of him, and he took no belongings. His employers didn’t understand it either. Mother was happy. She said he was a sex maniac and she was tired of him constantly screwing her literally and emotionally. She said men should just stick it in a hole in the wall for all the emotion and respect they show for the act. Oh my god. The Lucky Hole! How disgusting! Argh!”

  I heaved, and out came the fettuccine Alfredo, the bread, and the root beer. Sting Ray Bob grabbed a trash can and shoved it under my face.

  “The Lucky Hole,” I explained, once I was composed and had rinsed out my mouth, “is the only way I could have sex. Oh my god, Mother was even worse to me than my father. She ruined my sex life!” I shouted.

  Jaxen looked thoughtful. “You suffered a lot of damage, and your anger runs deep. So when things became chaotic and uncertain, your go-to solution to control the situation was to clean. In the most extreme way, your brain saw killing your family as
tidying up.”

  “I was protecting them,” I shouted.

  “I believe you honestly thought you were. How do you feel now having told us all this?”

  I rubbed my face. “Humiliated. Embarrassed. Disgusted. My father was right. I saw the truth on the other side when I went back. I’m nothing. Nobody. Worthless. I couldn’t change a thing. Maybe I should go back and kill myself, only I bet I wouldn’t have the guts. If I go back, can you kill me in that time zone? Can you reach through and kill me? That way my family will live. You’re right, Janaelle. They don’t deserve to die. And so what if everyone knows I failed? I wanted to control the narrative, but I just proved myself to be more of a freak than ever.”

  “You need to stop thinking now.” Janaelle came over. “Sting Ray Bob, why don’t you and Jaxen go to the lab and start correlating alternative action plans for when Sharps does go back”

  “I’m not going back,” I objected weakly, but they weren’t listening. Jaxen and Sting Ray Bob gathered equipment, and Sting Ray Bob took the IV out of my arm. “Between you and me,” he whispered, “your parents were a real piece of work. You deserved so much better.”

  His words helped clear some of the shame away, but my self-loathing was a suffocating strait jacket and I wished I could bang my head against a wall until I bled, just to create an opening for the blackness inside me to escape. Because I couldn’t get away from it.

  I got out of bed and walked over to the window, opening the blinds and looking down at St. Polycarp. “The world is so rotten,” I said to Janaelle. “There’s nothing left to live for.”

  “There is this,” she said, and I turned to face her. She had unbuttoned the bodice of her long gown, and she stood before me, shapely and perfect, her steel legs like an artist’s sculptures. She looked at me, waiting.