Awake Page 4

  “Huh, well I guess we’re going to have to make a stop there then. I’ve never been one to miss a tourist trap,” Lee said. Ivy laughed and agreed that it would be a fun stop.

  Lee picked up the intercom and announced in his best tour guide voice “Coming up in around two hours, we’ll be stopping at Wall Drug, the home of the world’s biggest jackalope, if their signs are to be believed. Get ready for a sexy, life-changing adventure.” Ivy laughed again. Lee wasn’t sure if he was on a roll with his jokes or if she was just doing it because she liked him.

  “I was born ready!” Ben said from the living room, chuckling.

  Exactly three hours later, they were pulling into the mythical Wall Drug. It hadn’t been hard to find and with all the signs directing them to the store, Lee didn’t even have to punch the location into the GPS.

  Everybody was hungry, so they went straight to one of the restaurants, working their way through a gift store and an ice cream shop to get there. The shops were laid out haphazardly, confusingly; but thankfully, there were helpful map printouts that they had all grabbed.

  The restaurant was huge, laid out cafeteria-style, and was packed with tourists. Lee insisted on paying, and though Ivy insisted she could pay herself, she eventually relented.

  The food was nothing spectacular, typical American food: hamburgers, sandwiches, fries, steaks, mashed potatoes and the like, almost everything that could be found at a diner or fast food restaurant. They each got what they wanted, Lee paid for it and they went and sat down.

  “Did you guys see the back yard on the map? I’m definitely going to go by there after this, I want to see the animatronic T-Rex they go on about,” Lee said as they ate, studying his map.

  “I’ll go with you,” Ivy said, “I remember seeing the giant jackalope forever ago. It’s always a trip seeing things as an adult that you haven’t seen since you were a little kid.”

  “Aw, I wanted to check out the Western Art Gallery and then the bar,” Ben said, studying his map as he demolished a chicken fried steak.

  “Well let’s split up and meet back in front of the door we entered by in an hour then,” Lee said, looking at his watch. “Ivy and I will go look around the backyard and you and Stella can check out what you guys want to see.” Stella rolled her eyes. Though she’d undoubtedly hooked up with Ben, she was still acting snooty. Lee was glad he’d picked Ivy.

  “Sounds good,” Ben said. “You in, Stella?”

  Stella sighed and rolled her eyes again. “I guess so.”

  They finished up their meal and then split up. The entrance to the back yard was by the restaurant, so Ivy and Lee didn’t have to go far before they were out on the enormous back yard mall.

  The mall was filled with playgrounds, more shops, and lots of novelty statues. There were people everywhere, playing arcade games, taking pictures, and fanning themselves with their maps to try and keep cool. A kid running at breakneck speed with an ice cream cone almost barreled into Lee, as soon as he stepped out of the door, but the kid managed to spin around him at the last minute and kept running, miraculously not dropping his ice cream.

  “Holy crap, that kid should be in some sort of a stupid talents contest or something - that was amazing!” Ivy said, laughing as the boy scampered off.

  Together they walked around the yard, taking in the view. There was a store called the Wall Drug Mining Co. that sold touristy stuff, but also had a focus on rocks and child mining gear. He bought a t-shirt for himself and Ivy, and she wanted to get a coffee at the food stand next door.

  “Are you going to get anything?” Ivy asked after she’d ordered a latte and paid the pimply-faced cashier.

  “No, I don’t drink coffee anymore,” Lee said. He had never been much of a coffee drinker before his diagnosis, and he really didn’t want to get near the stuff now. He knew that he’d have to explain his condition to Ivy at some point, but he was having so much fun with her right now and didn’t want to ruin the mood. Also, he worried that she wouldn’t treat him the same if she knew his days were numbered.

  “Your loss,” she said. Another worker at the stand handed her the latte, and she tried it. “Wow, this is freaking amazing. It’s probably got enough calories for a full day, though.”

  “Don’t worry about that, you look great,” Lee said, smiling at her and winking.

  She laughed, “I won’t stay that way if I drink a lot of these.”

  They toured some more shops, but Lee suddenly realized that he’d lost time and didn’t know where he was. It was like looking up from bed to find out that it’s 6am when he couldn’t remember passing out. He looked around, and found Ivy was nowhere to be seen. Several tourists were staring at him quizzically, noticing that something was amiss

  He was still in the mall, but he wasn’t sure where. Looking at his watch, he saw that he had ten minutes left before everyone was supposed to meet out front. That left about fifteen minutes that he couldn’t account for. He reached into his pocket and was relieved to find the map was still there.

  Studying the map, he quickly figured out that he was on the east end of the back yard mall, on the opposite side from where he had come out with Ivy. He was only a little way away from the animatronic T-Rex.

  He looked up, towards the T-Rex, suddenly knowing what he was going to see. Sure enough, the head on the beast had changed to an animatronic version of the demon’s head, with the rest of the statue unchanged. It looked like someone had cut off the original green head and bolted on the demonic red one.

  It was staring down at him with its yellow eyes, its hinged metal jaw grinning at him. Just as he was about to turn away, its jaw clanked open, its head tilted back and a roar boomed out from the cavernous opening.

  Trying his best not to run screaming out of the yard, he spun and walked away as quickly as he could, while trying to seem as normal as possible. It didn’t work, and several people stared at him worriedly, clearly sensing something was wrong with him. He knew he must look terrible. He tried to grin as he walked, but it felt like a snarl.

  He looked around the yard for Ivy, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Figuring that she’d probably go to the rendezvous point, he went into the store and worked his way to the front doors.

  Sure enough Ivy, Ben, and Stella were standing at the meet-up point, waiting for him. Ivy and Ben looked worried and Stella seemed irritated.

  “Where did you go?” Ivy asked as he joined the group. “I was taking a picture of the giant jackalope and when I looked back you were gone,”

  “I started walking towards the T-Rex and spaced out, sorry,” Lee said, telling as much of the truth as he knew.

  “We were worried about you, I thought that maybe you’d been abducted and raped or something,” Ben said, and chuckled. Ben and Stella seemed slightly buzzed from their visit to the bar. Lee wondered how many drinks they’d managed to down over the hour.

  “Well, what do you guys want to do now?” Ivy asked, taking Lee’s hand in hers.

  “Mount Rushmore is only an hour and a half from here, according to the bartender,” Ben said.

  “Ugh, that guy was a douche bag,” Stella said.

  “The only thing is that we’d have to backtrack on I-90, we already passed it,” Ben said, talking through Stella’s comment.

  “Ooh, I’d forgotten about that! I remembered Wall Drug, but had completely forgotten about going to Mount Rushmore afterwards,” Ivy said.

  “That could be cool, I saw all the Rushmore merchandise in the shops and figured it was pretty close,” Lee said. “I’m an idiot, for some reason I thought that Mount Rushmore was in Vermont before today. I have no idea why.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I kind of knew it was around here, but I couldn’t have said for sure either,” Ben said. “So is everybody cool with going to Rushmore?”

  “Sure,” Stella said. “Let’s just get the hell out of here already.”

  Lee and Ivy agreed, and they all piled back into the RV. Ben ended up in the driver’s se
at, saying he wanted to drive on his “two-beer buzz”, and Stella sat up front with him. Ivy and Lee sat in the living room, watching TV; Lee hoped that Stella and Ben had put down a blanket on the couch before going at it the night before.

  The pair talked about the monument they were going to see as they drove towards Mount Rushmore, but Lee kept thinking about the demon. He still didn’t know what to make of it. He had almost convinced himself that it was a hallucination. After all, no one else seemed to be able to see it.

  It was always so real, though. He’d tried LSD and psilocybin mushrooms when he was in his early twenties, both resulting in hallucinations, but the demon was nothing like the visions he’d seen then. The demon looked like a nightmare that had found its way into the real world. With mushrooms and the acid the hallucinations hadn’t been so real, so vivid.

  “What are you thinking about? You seem kind of distant,” Ivy asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  Lee thought about telling her more lies, but he knew he couldn’t keep it up for very long and he was tired of not being truthful with her. “I was thinking about how I’d lost you in the mall. I had a hallucination and I saw a weird creature.”

  Ivy gave him a strange look, so he elaborated, “I wasn’t entirely truthful with you yesterday, I didn’t know how you’d take it. I’m not taking this trip for research. I’m sick and I wanted to see the country before I get too sick to do it.”

  “I see. What do you have?” Ivy said gently.

  “It’s a form of insomnia, though not the kind you’re probably familiar with. It’s progressive, and it doesn’t stop until you can’t sleep anymore. After that you… pass away rather quickly, from what I’ve read.” It felt great to get it off his chest.

  “Jesus,” Ivy said, and hugged him, “is there any cure for it?”

  “No.”

  “How long do you have?” Ivy asked, wiping away a tear that had suddenly appeared from one of her eyes.

  “It could be months, it could be a year.” Lee’s voice started to choke up admitting it, and he struggled to get each word out.

  Ivy hugged him again and began to weep earnestly. Lee was glad that Ben had the radio blaring up front, because neither he nor Stella noticed. He rubbed Ivy’s back and stroked her hair as he held her. It had about 24 hours since they’d met, but already he felt like he’d known her his whole life.

  “I’m glad,” she said finally.

  “Pardon?” he asked, pulling away and looking her in the eyes.

  “I’m glad that I got to meet you before… whatever happens. Glad that I get to be with you on this trip,” she said, smiling at him through tears. “When I got into your books, and realized you were the same age as me, I’d try and imagine who you were, what you looked like. I’d try to imagine me with you. I never thought it would actually happen, but I’m glad it is.”

  He started kissing away her tears. “Don’t worry about me, I’m fine with it,” he whispered. She started kissing him and soon they were making out like teenagers again.

  “Get a room, you two!” Ben shouted back, noticing them in the rear-view mirror. They took his advice and went back to the bedroom.

  4

  They had just finished dressing when Ben pulled into Mount Rushmore’s parking garage and announced “Put on your pants kids, we’re here!” over the intercom.

  “Good timing,” Ivy said, and flashed Lee her beautiful smile.

  As soon as the group got out of the parking garage they could see the faces carved into the mountain. They were gigantic. The immense and intricately carved stone profiles of America’s greatest presidents took Lee’s breath away and he heard Ivy gasp as well.

  “Holy shit,” Lee said, “I didn’t expect them to be so huge.”

  “I know, I was thinking the same thing when they came into view a few miles down the road and you guys were still in the back,” Ben said.

  They moved on after gawking at the distant faces for a few moments. Lee took Ivy’s hand as they walked down the long concrete path that led to the viewing area. He felt like the luckiest guy on earth when he saw man after man look at him with jealousy. Stella must have softened up a bit on Ben, because she allowed him to take her hand when he followed Lee’s lead.

  The walkway was lined with columns engraved with the names of every state, arranged in alphabetical order and flying each state flag from a pole projecting out of each column. Ivy and Stella had Ben take their picture next to the Oregon column, alongside other Oregonians doing the same thing. When they got to Washington’s column the girls insisted that Lee and Ben get a similar picture by their state column and they complied unenthusiastically.

  The viewing area at the end of the walkway was so packed with people that it was hard to walk around, even though the area was immense in size. After five minutes, they finally managed to work their way through the packed crowd to the edge of the platform, where they could take unobstructed pictures. Lee had a picture of himself and Ben and one of him with Ivy.

  They took a group photo afterwards, but when Ben tried to get a picture of him and Stella, she refused, saying she wanted to find a drinking fountain. Lee was starting to get the idea that it was just her way of flirting and playing hard to get.

  Lee glanced over to his left, and then jumped back so fast he bumped into a man behind him, but he was too distracted to apologize. The demon was twenty feet away from him, looking at the faces on the mountain through one of the many pay binoculars that lined the viewing area. Now it was dressed in a dumpy tourist outfit, complete with a cheap plastic visor and a fanny pack. It was almost funny.

  Don’t worry, it’s just a hallucination, he told himself. You’re only getting half the sleep you used to, it’s perfectly explainable.

  He had just about made himself believe it, when a kid of about four years old standing next to him started crying and pointing at the demon, saying “Mommy, there’s a monster over there!”

  “Stop it! Stop making a scene. There’s no such thing as monsters,” the kid’s mom said, then picked him up and looked around embarrassedly.

  Lee’s mouth went dry, and he started shivering despite the fact it was nearly one hundred degrees. “Let’s go into the museum and take a look around,” he said, gritting his teeth and gently pulling Ivy towards the museum. Ben and Stella followed. The demon was still looking through the binoculars and Lee thought that maybe, if they were quick, it wouldn’t find him.

  The group spent an hour and a half in the two-story museum, looking at the exhibits. While everyone else (even Stella) seemed completely taken with the exhibits displaying the building of the monument, Lee was distracted, looking around and hoping the demon hadn’t followed them.

  “What’s up with you?” Ivy asked him, as they stood in front of a miniature of the monument, noticing that he was still sweating even after they’d gotten out of the hot humidity and into the air conditioned museum.

  “Just feeling a little ill,” Lee said.

  “Well tell me if you need to head back to the RV.”

  “Will do.”

  When they’d finished in the museum, Ben, Stella, and Ivy wanted to hike down a trail across the viewing area down to two other buildings and then eventually up to the monument itself. Lee wanted to leave as soon as possible, so that the demon wouldn’t find him, but he couldn’t think of a good excuse, so grudgingly agreed to go along.

  “I don’t want to hike all the way up to the monument, though,” Lee said as they made their way down the steep trail. “Let’s just check out the buildings and then head out. I’m tired,”

  “That’s fine, I don’t want to hike all the way up the mountain either,” Ben said, and the girls voiced their assent.

  The smaller of the two buildings turned out to be bathrooms, so they went over to the bigger one. It had an all-glass front, through which Lee could see that the building contained a giant plaster mold of the monument, probably the one that had been used to make it. Ben and Stella had gone in, and Lee was
about to follow in with Ivy when he saw something else through the glass.

  It was the demon, inside the building and looking up at the plaster mold. Even though it had its back turned to him, he could see its red ears sticking out from the side of its head, and its horns stuck out prominently from its head. It was still wearing the stupid plastic visor.

  “On second thought, I think I’m going to wait out here,” Lee said, stopping abruptly just outside of the door. “I’m feeling nauseous.”

  Halfway in the door, Ivy turned to look at him, “O - Okay, I’ll wait out here with you then,” she said, confused.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it,” he said. Lee would have insisted that she go just to seem normal, but he didn’t want the demon anywhere near her. He also didn’t want to be alone.

  They found a picnic table behind the restrooms, out of the view of the glass windows of the building the demon was in. “Why are we all the way back here? Stella and Ben won’t be able to find us,” Ivy said as they sat down.

  “You can just text Stella and tell her we’re back here, if that’s cool with you” Lee said. “I just feel like I need to sit down for a while.”

  “Okay,” Ivy said, and whipped out her phone to send the message. “Do you need any water or anything? I’ve got a bottle in my purse,” she asked after she sent the text, her brow furrowed with worry.

  “That sounds good, I’ll take it,” Lee said, wiping the sweat from his brow. Ivy fished out the water and handed it to him. He popped the top off and drank from it deeply, downing most of the bottle in one go.

  “Thank you,” he said, replacing the lid and handing the bottle back to her.

  “Lee?” she asked, still looking worried, “Are you… seeing things? Like you told me you do sometimes?”

  Lee debated lying, but he didn’t want to lie to her. “Yes,” he said.