I Rize (12 page)

Madison quickly packed up her stuff, stumbling over the chair on the way out. “I’m not coming back to this shit hole.”

Detective Miller allowed her to leave without any trouble. His thumbs twiddled against his chin as he watched one of the videos Junior gave him a few days prior.

The nightmares are worsening. I was scared to open my eyes this time. When I woke up, my room smelled like salt from the ocean water. My shirt felt damp as if I took a bath in it. This dream was slightly different from the last because Madison was standing alongside Terri. They both pushed me one step closer than before. I don’t understand why Madison is in my dreams now.

What if I lived on a deserted island and was forced to kill someone? Madison controlled the food, and Terri controlled the water. I would definitely kill Madison. I would rather die a slow death of starvation, than to be left alone even for a minute with the wicked witch of Maddypsychoville.

Detective Miller stopped the video for a moment and tapped his fingers against the wooden desk. “She was in your dreams, and you are in her thoughts. This doesn’t make sense if you don’t get along.”

Tonight was the annual homecoming dance in honor of the football team. After three years at this school, I still don’t understand why the homecoming dance still exists. Valley High’s football team is worse than the peewee team at the local middle school down the street. A rumor circulated indicating our loss against the middle school team.

The score: 7-21.

Jace asked me to come to the dance through a text message. That kid is getting weirder and weirder each day with texting because Madison is always around. I was scoping out the room for Jace when Madison came up and sat beside me. She turned her nose up. Out of nowhere Jace grabbed my hand from behind.

I looked over at Madison texting on her phone. Literally five seconds later, I heard laughter from the middle of the floor. Terri, Shandi, and the same group of girls came toward me playing the same stupid game. They shouted, ‘Whore.’. It has been well over a year now, and their little game is beyond tiresome.

“I did not know there were many other people involved. Poor, poor girl.”

Jace had an incoming text. When I looked down at his phone, I saw a notification from a Facebook group I didn’t know existed. The group was titled:
Fun Night
. My yearbook picture was uploaded and the picture caption read:
Adny wants all holes filled tonight boys
.

There were many hateful comments below the caption from classmates and unknown people. Jace looked at me. I felt the need to run out away from the dance floor. I know Madison made this group. It is likely she sent that picture around last year, too. I have no proof, though.

“In my general assessment, the strain with the relationship between her parents causes her to act that way. I will not stop searching within her crooked soul until I find out why you were the chosen target of hate.”

After a year of torture and me trying to explain to my parents, I guess they finally realized how deep my depression was. I was recommended by the family doctor to see a therapist.

I was so nervous not knowing what to expect. I remember in her office, she had a lot of pictures of her husband plastered on the walls. Think he was a police officer or maybe a detective. I can’t tell the difference. It is amazing how pictures can capture the essence of happiness. They looked so happy in every single picture. If I could be happy for even a day, my whole world would be different.

The session didn’t help. She prescribed these Zoloft pills which are supposed to make people feel less depressed. I have been taking them for two days straight and feeling even crappier. I threw them away tonight. I’m just gonna deal with life as I always have.

“My wife should have paid closer attention to the signs. It’s her job.”

I just had a realization.

Wait for it…

Madison does the mean things to me because the voices in her head tell her to.

I forget how to say the right term, but I think Madison might be a schizo—one of those people who hear the voices in their head.

I was wrong; I know for
sure
she is a schizo. No other explanation seems plausible in her case. I wonder what the voices will tell her to do next.

Once the video ended, he immediately called his wife. “Hello, hon. When are you coming home from work?

Silence.

“How is the Adny case going? Have you found any new leads?”

Silence.

“Why aren’t you talking to me?”

He released the phone from his ear before finally responding, “We failed her. Everyone failed her.”

“Hun, come home and relax. I understand the case is beginning to get to you because it has already gotten to me.”

Silence.

He fumbled the phone back and forth in his hands for nearly thirty minutes before the office was closed for the night.

A
LAYER of fog formed a veil in the center of the village in the evening hours. Groups of people separated into the two equal lines on either side of the fog. Six men with masks carried a large wooden casket above their heads, causing Jace to look in their direction. He stood amongst the increasing crowd and didn’t see any familiar faces. The men lowered the open casket for viewing. Inside laid Adny’s body.

When the men looked away, he gently touched her arm. His fingers twirled in a loop around the ends of her hair. All of a sudden, both of her hands slipped up toward his shoulders. All parts of her eyes were completely black. She was unrecognizable. It wasn’t the same Adny he knew. The men pushed him onto the ground and when he gained composure, the casket was closed, back above their heads.

The lid started tilting back and forth until her face could be seen again. Time slowed down around them. Words escaped her mouth without sound:
help me.
Before he could respond, she was carried into the fog and never seen again.

Mosi continued to pour the rest of the water on Jace’s head to finish waking him up. Jace remained in his bed trembling, while Mosi grabbed the dream catcher and hung it above the bed. “It keeps bad dreams away. It lets good dreams come inside.”

Jace was too shaken up to bother him with Adny talk for the night.

T
HE NEXT morning before school started, Junior sat on the stair railing with Darla looking at another video.

It’s been a few months since I made a video. Even though junior year is coming to an end, the depression has gotten worse.

Early releases are the days I live for. I was jumping with joy when I found out my P.E. class was cut early. I’m so stupid to wait until the end of junior year to take this wasteful class. Not only do I have to deal with whining freshmen, but I’m forced to deal with the psychotic duo Madison and Terri.

When I got dressed in the locker room, the same group of girls played another round of their sick game. They walked by snickering “dyke” this time. While they said the word together, I imagined each of them getting hit by a bus. Then I imagined them being run back over with the same bus and their bodies being set on fire, while a family of crows nibbled on the piles of burnt, tasteless skin.

This is what I really heard: ‘Dyke.’ SPLAT. SPLAT. SMOKED. CRUNCH.

“You’re not the only person who wishes that scenario was reality.”

When I walked in to the office, nutso one and two were sitting, watching me. Madison sat crying the most fake tears.

Our gym teacher placed her hands on the desk and started talking nonsense. ‘Adny, Terri said she saw you make advances at Madison while they were getting dressed in the locker room. Madison told me you tried touching her. Do you have anything to say?’

I didn’t know whether to be confused or angry. I told her how those two girls have mental issues, which need to be corrected at a loony bin. I don’t think the teacher thought I was serious because she raised her eyebrows at me.

I was so serious though.

Junior noticed the smile form on her face when she talked about the situation and knew she wasn’t serious.

While the gym teacher rummaged in her drawer for a detention slip, they both looked up, giving me an evil glare. I couldn’t help but laugh when they walked out of the room, defeated.

When the meeting was over, I sat outside on the bench for Mom to pick me up. I closed my eyes. My mind started to drift away into the abyss.

I opened them, and I was standing on Suicide Hill. This time Shandi was with Terri and Madison, pushing me much farther. I could feel myself falling. I hit the ground below me. Everything was clear again. This visual nightmare is starting to control me in ways I’ve never imagined.

I looked over to the opposite side of the bench where Shandi was finally alone. I guess her master Terri finally released her from the leash. She was holding her stomach really tight.

In those moments, I wanted to squash her like a bug into the depths of the earth. We both know she deserves it.

“All three of them need to be squashed and withered away.”

Terri has the biggest mouth. A few days ago, I overheard her telling some people about a rumor regarding Shandi’s abortion. I had nothing else better to do, so I decided to ask her about it. I handed her a pamphlet to show her a respectable doctor to go to for questions. I told her, I hoped she was okay. I faked my support throughout the entire conversation.

I have to keep my friends close, but Satan’s spawn even closer.

After he closed the laptop, Junior and Darla could hear Terri fighting with her dad from the kitchen. Junior put headphones over Darla’s ears, so she couldn't hear the argument

While pointing at Darla, Terri said, “All you cared about was Adny and her little sidekick over there.”

Her father reached in for a hug. “I love each and every one of you the same.”

The hug was rejected as she prevented him from getting too close. “You’re a liar. She was the golden, almost fucking perfect child in your eyes. 'Terri, you should act more like Adny. Terri, you should be smart like Adny.' Newsflash, I’m not Adny!”

“I thought letting you come here would be good for the both of us.”

“You were wrong. I had to make her life hell like she did mine.”

His muscles began to bulge. “Adny never did anything to you.”

A sly, devious smile cocked on the side of her face when she watched her father grab a cold rag to lower his temperature. “She is gone now, Dad. Get over it.”

Terri’s father raised his hand high in the air. The slap against her cheek caused her to lose balance. Leaning against the kitchen counter for support, she began spitting up blood. A car was heard pulling up the driveway.

While pushing Terri out the door, he yelled, “Get out of my house!”

Terri struggled to get herself up, when the doorbell rang. As Darla went to answer it, Terri pushed her out of the way, and slammed the door on the way out. Michelle came downstairs after all of the commotion was over, clapping her hands. “You should win an Oscar for the performance of a lifetime.”

She interrupted him before he could respond. “Guess what? I see right through your act.”

Outside, Terri held her face, trying to stop the bleeding. Her boyfriend stuck his head out the window and said, “You’re always slow with everything. I ain’t got all day.”

As Terri opened the door to the truck, Shandi came up and asked if they could speak. “Hey Terri, I really need to talk to you because something has been bothering me for a very long time.” She looked over at the driver’s seat and saw Terri’s boyfriend smiling back at her. The look he gave her caused her to lean toward the ground. They watched as Shandi threw up numerous times.

Struggling to close the door, she turned toward her boyfriend, ignoring Shandi. “I need to go to the hospital.”

He leaned past her to close the door. “I got other things to do right now.”

A
ll was quiet until Shandi found her way into Adny’s room. The frustration from the interaction with Terri made her want to visit Adny in the hospital. She stood motionless at the hospital bed for what seemed like the longest minutes of her life. For the first time, Adny was safe from harm.

“When I found out you were in the hospital, I thought about the day I was raped. So much guilt poured into my soul.”

No amount of tears or apologies could alleviate Shandi’s guilt. It showed in her body language. She pulled out the abortion pamphlet Adny gave her years prior. “I remember feeling so much anger when you asked about the abortion because I thought you were spreading rumors. Now, I know you were just trying to help. Then the party happened.”

After mentioning a few words about the party, she was face down on the floor. The chair flipped over from underneath her legs. Screams of shock alerted the nurses on duty. The nurses ushered her out quickly.

She ran through the hallway scared out of her mind. Standing outside of the hospital, her mind jumped back and forth. Thoughts surged in and surged out. All thoughts were placed aside when her mother pulled up. The secret she withheld from her mother would be taken to the grave.

M
ADISON LEFT school early to be picked up by Mike again. Once the thirty minutes were over, he left the money on the pillow, like usual. Sitting at the kitchen table, she allowed the marijuana smoke to send her into the demented dreamland she yearned for. The copy of Adny’s poem sat on the top of the trashcan. She eyeballed it, plotting her plan of action.

The lighter was hidden behind the measuring cups in the cabinet. The flames reminded her of hide and seek. She flipped the switch on and off chanting, “Now you see you me.” Her steps inched closer to the trashcan. “Now you don’t.” The edge of the flame lightly touched the poem, bending one corner from the intensity of the heat. “Now you see me.”