Residual Fumes

                      by Margaret L. Carter

boomp3.com

 

 

 

     The garage reeked of gasoline fumes.

     Marcie told herself once again that the odor sprang from her morbid imagination.  Eight days had passed since the -- incident.  She had aired out the place and even mopped the concrete slab floor with soapy water.  The police had impounded the car.  No physical traces remained.

     Nevertheless, she felt half-suffocated.  She raised the garage door and paused for a breath of air, gazing at the closely mown and edged lawn.  The grass was turning brown.  Marcie hadn't remembered to water it since her sister JoAnn had gone to the hospital.  As if I don't have enough to think about.  Mom sure can't cope, so I'm stuck with all of it.

     As usual, Marcie's thoughts shied away from the details of "it."  She had plenty of work to keep her grounded in the here and now, clearing out her late brother-in-law's things.  When JoAnn came home, she wouldn't want physical reminders of her husband.

     She will come home.  Of course she will.  Marcie squelched the inner voice echoing the doctor's opinion that JoAnn's coma would most likely end only in death.

     Hoping for a breeze, she propped open the door that led to the kitchen.  She scanned the garage, debating where to start.  Despite several moppings, oil stains dotted the floor where the car had been parked.  She swallowed against sudden queasiness and instead turned her eyes toward the wall where Lou's fishing rods hung.  Tackle boxes sat on shelves next to the washing machine, and a golf bag leaned in a corner.  Stacks of sports magazines and Playboy issues covered other shelves.  The only property of JoAnn's immediately visible was a pile of folded laundry on top of the dryer.

     Marcie had brought her van to haul away every remaining trace of Lou.  After donating his clothes and other personal items to the Salvation Army, she'd put off this ordeal until the last.

     She marched over to the wall and stripped the fishing rods from their racks.  As much as JoAnn had complained about Lou's neglecting her for his male bonding excursions, she'd been better off with him out of the house than in it.

     A glimpse of the kitchen through the half-open door woke a memory:  Drinking coffee with JoAnn at that very table one Saturday afternoon.  Lou had walked in with a brace of large rockfish, which he'd plopped in the sink.  When he bent over to give JoAnn a peck on the cheek, Marcie smelled beer on top of the fishy aroma.  "Clean those for dinner, babe.  And do it right this time."

     JoAnn's fingers curled into a fist around her coffee mug.  "What's that supposed to mean?"

     "You wasted half of my last catch trying to fillet them.  Pay attention to what you're doing for a change."

     "Like I've got nothing else to do."

     "Yeah, you're real busy, drinking coffee all day."

     "How would you know what I do all day?  You're never here."  She banged the mug down with a slosh of warm liquid.  "If you're so particular, clean your own damn fish."

     "Watch your mouth!  Nobody talks to me like that."  Lou grabbed her arm to haul her out of the chair.

     Marcie's chest tightened.  She sprang up and took one step in their direction. "Get your hands off her."

     Lou glared at her.  "And you mind your own business.  I'm sick of you butting in."

     "JoAnn, don't let him --"

     JoAnn cast her a pleading look.  "Go on, Marcie.  I'll be fine."

     Knowing intervention might make things worse, Marcie had left.  She felt a familiar flush of anger, reliving the times she'd seen her sister with bruises on arm or cheek.  Again and again, Lou's long-stemmed roses and crocodile tears had overridden JoAnn's sporadic attacks of good sense.

     Breathing hard, Marcie wrestled piles of magazines from shelves into boxes.  Dust puffed up and made her sneeze.  A deep breath sucked the remnants of gasoline odor into her lungs.  Noticing a wad of oily rags on the nearby workbench, she decided that was the source of the smell.  With the fumes, the images of that last day flooded her mind.

     The phone call had come late on a weekday afternoon.  "Sis, he's gone crazy.  You were right, and I'm not putting up with it anymore."

     Having begged JoAnn several times to leave her husband, Marcie had heard this resolution before.  Nothing had come of it.  This time, though, JoAnn had her bag packed.  "Can I stay with you awhile?  I'll be over there as soon as I finish getting my stuff together."

     After an hour's wait, Marcie had started to worry.  With no answer on the phone, she'd rushed to JoAnn's house. 

     Entering through the unlocked front entrance, she scurried from room to room.  All empty.  Last, she wrenched open the door between kitchen and garage.  A cloud of smoke hit her in the face.  She held her breath and dashed forward to raise the main door.  Then, coughing and retching, she stumbled to the car and reached into the driver's side, across Lou's inert body, to switch off the ignition. 

     Both of their faces were flushed a deep red.  Blood matted JoAnn's short, blonde hair.  Lou must have knocked her unconscious to keep her from escaping.  After a quick check of Lou's wrist, finding no pulse, Marcie hurried around to pull her sister out.  She dragged JoAnn into the kitchen, laid her on the cool floor, and called 911.  Until the ambulance shrieked into the driveway, she worked frantically at CPR.

     The ER staff had declared Lou DOA.  JoAnn had remained comatose ever since.

     Again, Marcie could smell that asphyxiating cloud as if the room had never been ventilated.  Yes, she knew the real danger wasn't the stink of the exhaust, but rather the odorless gas hiding behind it.  Still, the memory choked her.  Just my imagination.  She fought the urge to rush outside to the fresh air of the summer day and leave the cleanup for another time.  No time like the present; it won't get any better.

     A scraping sound broke into her thoughts.  She looked up, wiping grimy sweat from her forehead.  With a groan of hinges, the garage door slipped downward.  Hadn't she braced it open?  She headed for the entrance.  The gap between door and driveway shrank at increasing speed.  Before she reached the door, it fell shut with a crash.

     Marcie walked over to raise it.  Just as her hands touched the lever, she heard the kitchen door slam.  The idea of spending one minute in that space with no escape hatch made her feel stifled.  She scurried back to the smaller door and grasped the knob.  Her sweat-dampened palm slipped on the brass.  After wiping her hand on her shorts, she tried again.  The knob wouldn't turn.

     Okay, it's stuck, she told herself.  Or I accidentally pushed in the lock button.  No problem, I'll just open the big door.

     At the front of the garage, she tugged on the latch until she managed to wrench it into the unlocked position.  But all her strength couldn't budge the metal door.  Panting and sweaty, she paused to rub her aching arms.  It's not that heavy.  The heat's making it stick.  That has to be what's wrong.  She braced herself and shoved again.

     After another minute or two, she leaned against the immobile barrier, gasping.  In the stuffy warmth of the room, she scented gasoline again.  Lou must've spilled a puddle of gas, filling the lawn mower, in some corner where I didn't see it.  Taking shallow breaths, she made her way to the workbench and rummaged through the tools for a miniature screwdriver.  Picking the flimsy lock of the kitchen door shouldn't pose a problem.

     She poked the screwdriver into the hole in the doorknob and jiggled it every possible way.  The fumes got stronger minute by minute.  At last she heard the mechanism click.  The knob still wouldn't turn.  She rattled it, kicked the wooden panel, beat on it with both fists.

     The smell of exhaust smoke was now unmistakable.  She felt smothered by the heat, and her head throbbed.  She started across the concrete floor to the front of the house.  She stumbled and had to hold onto walls and shelves to steady herself.  The odor made her stomach churn.  Reaching the large door, she gave it one more futile shove.  Pounding on the metal, she screamed until her throat turned hoarse.  She sank to her knees and laid her cheek against the hinge, trying to pretend she felt a stirring of air.

     If I just had my cell phone.  But she had left it in her car in the driveway.

     This is ridiculous.  She couldn't suffocate in an empty garage, shut in by an ordinary pair of doors.  If nothing else, she could batter a hole into the kitchen.  She pulled herself to her feet and began groping her way toward the workbench.  Fighting nausea and dizziness, her vision graying, she fumbled among the tools until her fingers closed on a hammer.  Now all she had to do was find the door.

     A deep voice rumbled in her ear, "What do you think you're doing with that, bitch?"

     Her stomach lurched.  Lou!  A second later, sanity asserted itself.  No way.  Hallucination.  Got to get out of here.  She turned in a half circle, unsure which way she needed to walk.

     "Damn it, I'm talking to you!" the voice roared.

     When she took two blundering steps in what she guessed to be the right direction, she hit an invisible barrier, staggered backward, and fell.  Her elbow struck the floor with a nerve-jangling pain.  For a few seconds she lay hunched over, coughing and choking.  As soon as she could move, she clutched the nearest shelf to pull herself up.

     "You're dead," she gasped.

     "Yeah, and it's your fault."

     Blinking, Marcie stared at the figure that blocked the path to the kitchen.  It looked like her brother-in-law, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with untidy brown hair framing his deceptively handsome face.  Hallucination or not, he appeared solid.  She caught a whiff of beer and fish.

     "My fault?"  The words came out as a feeble croak.

     "You encouraged her with that independence crap.  Because of you, she tried to run away."

     Marcie felt the fumes thickening around her in a noxious cloud.  "Go back to hell, you --"  She gagged on the foul air.

     He glided toward her.  She threw the hammer.  It went right through him.

     Laughing, he reached for her.  She lurched to one side, and he let her go.  Circling around him, she tried to snatch up the hammer and fell to her knees.  With her head spinning, she struggled to stand up.

     "Thanks to you, I'm stuck here like this," Lou's voice said above her.  "I wanted to keep JoAnn with me, but I can't find her anywhere."

     "Because she's not dead," Marcie gasped.

     "Then she will be soon.  And we'll be together forever."

     Using the dryer for support, Marcie stood up once more.  Her hand explored the top of the machine and found the folded lingerie from the last washload, over a week before.  She plucked out a sheer nightgown, which she pressed to her nose and mouth as a barrier against the gas.  The cloth still held a hint of her sister's jasmine cologne, under the fragrance of soap.  JoAnn -- don't let him win.

     "She'll never be with you."  Gray spots clustered in front of Marcie's eyes.  Her head pounded.  She fought to keep a grip on consciousness, knowing that if she passed out, she would never wake.  If she could only retrieve the hammer and reach the door, she had a chance.

     Another voice spoke:  "No, I won't.  Give up, Lou."

     Startled, Marcie tripped and fell again.  She tilted her head to stare upward, bleary-eyed.  A female shape hovered between her and Lou.  From Marcie's angle, she saw the woman in profile, with short, tousled blonde hair.  JoAnn stood straighter than she had in life, her head high with new confidence.

     "You're here, babe.  I knew you'd join me."

     "Think again.  I'm here to send you where you belong."  She stretched out her right arm and touched him delicately on the chest.  He began to fade.

     "But honey, I only did it so I wouldn't lose you --"  His voice trailed off to a thin squeak. 

     "Go away, Lou."

     Crouched on hands and knees, Marcie watched him turn transparent and dissolve to nothing.  The kitchen door popped open, and the front of the garage rattled as the other door lifted up.

     A breeze drifted through the garage.  She gulped a deep breath.  JoAnn gazed down at her, smiling.  "Thank you for trying to save me, sis."

     Oh, God, if she's here, she must be dead too!  Tears welled in Marcie's eyes.  Through their mist, she saw JoAnn vanish.

     Slowly Marcie stood up.  The vertigo and nausea receded.  The odor of gasoline was completely gone.  Through the open door, she heard the telephone in the kitchen ringing.  Only the hospital knew where to find her this afternoon.

     They're calling to say she died.

     Marcie stumbled into the house and grabbed the wall phone.  Swallowing her tears, she answered the caller.

     "You'll probably want to come over here right away," said the voice on the line.  "Your sister has just regained consciousness."