The Key to Everything (17 page)

She awoke in a heap on the floor. Fortunately, her head had landed on her left arm instead of on the hard floor. She couldn’t feel her legs. They were folded beneath her body in an awkward position that even the most seasoned yogi would find difficult to achieve. Rolling forward, Emily touched her lip and jerked her hand away quickly. It hurt, but at least the bleeding had stopped. 

She stretched her legs out and started rubbing circulation back into the blocked veins. Pins and needles crept in, and she winced at every touch. The feeling started coming back, and she wiggled her toes. Her stomach ached more from shock than from getting sick. Tears swelled at the base of her eyes. She could just imagine how wrecked she looked and was briefly happy that Auden had never hung mirrors in the kitchen, like she’d originally wanted. 

Her legs were almost ready to stand. Leaning back against the cabinet door, she gave herself a few moments to collect herself. She rubbed her eyes with the sides of her fists. A gentle breeze blew through the branches of the oak tree outside, and Emily listened to the crackle of leaves rustling. Finally a natural sound, from reality, bringing her back to life. 

She leaned her forearms on the seat of the nearest chair and slowly pushed her body up to her knees. Her legs still felt weak. She tested her balance by letting go of the chair for a few seconds. Feeling like she was strong enough, she pushed herself up to her feet. Her head swooned, and the room wobbled like unsteady stilts in the wind. She fell back onto the edge of the counter and was able to hold steady until the rollercoaster ride ended. 

Against her better judgment, Emily’s eyes moved behind her to the window. The squirrel was no longer on the fence. Standing strong and tall, the fence almost appeared to be mocking her. Cracks of sunlight burned through spaces between the thin planks of wood, shining in elegant patterns on fallen branches and drying leaves. 

-31-

EmilyDedra: Comes the Flood

All of the lights were off at the top of the stairs. Emily flicked the hall switch and headed up to check on the boys. Jason’s door was almost closed, with just a glimmer of his nightlight glowing through from underneath. Glancing in Jeremy’s room when she walked past, his bed was still made and empty, his stuffed giraffe on its side just below the pillow. Back across the hall, her fingers gently touched Jason’s door and gave a light push. If they were asleep, she didn’t want to wake them. There was a quick, cold rush of pain in her chest as her eyes sent the signal to her brain that this bed was empty as well. The door swung open a bit wider, but her relief was instantly shattered.

The ragged, impossible image of the two pajama-clad boys stood motionless in the center of the room. Three footy-pajama feet pressed flat on the floor, side by side by side. Three legs grew upward from the ground, to the point where finally, at the waist, the two small bodies diverged into each of her sons. Jeremy on the left, wearing his favorite Sponge Bob Square Pants cotton shirt, and Jason wearing Yoda on the right. Emily looked at the light shining on the tops of their brown heads as they stared down at the floor. The lower door hinge creaked, and their heads popped up in unison, wide-stretched eyes staring at their mother. No blue or green irises peered out from the empty orifices.

She saw no movement, yet suddenly their right arms were pointing straight out toward her, vibrating with the strain of tearing muscles and joints. Their heads snapped to the right, pressing ears flat on shoulders, the obscene angle in the center of their necks tearing skin to expose veins and bones. Their mouths gaped horrifically wide, stretching lips beyond the limits of human skin. White-and-black static filled the opened space, hissing and screeching at blood-curdling volume. Emily reached up to cover her ears. She backed into the hallway, slammed the door, and fell to her knees. She crawled to the bathroom and hid behind the door. There was a shuffling sound at her back that did not emanate from the hallway. Sitting up, she stared into the full-length mirror on the back of the door. The color of the bathroom in the reflection was different. The towel hanging from the edge of the tub was green with a flower pattern on it, not a solid light blue like the one hanging next to her. Instead of a stepstool beside the toilet, there was a grey can filled with sunflowers and long stalks of straw. Emily slowly pulled her eyes away from the items in the background of the room to finally see that the woman in the mirror’s reflection was not her at all…

…Dedra sat on the bathroom floor, staring in shock at the strange woman looking back from the mirror. Her hand lifted to her open mouth to stifle a scream. The woman in the mirror did the same. When Dedra breathed, the stranger’s chest rose and fell as well. The same shock and horror that were drowning her filled this woman’s eyes too. She moved closer to the mirror to examine the stranger’s features. When her finger touched the glass, it pressed against the mysterious ridges of the unknown woman’s fingerprint on the other side. Suddenly, the world lurched. She reached down to her belly and cradled the baby still inside of her. Everything tumbled around, and she turned for the toilet as quickly…

…as she could. Emily barely made it in time. She heaved up the contents of her already raw and empty stomach. She leaned her head into the cold porcelain and flushed the water, spinning it down the drain. She wiped her dry lips with a piece of toilet paper and glanced back into the mirror, hoping to see her own reflection, and noticed the rounded belly of the strange woman looking back at her. Strange hands supported a weight growing inside that Emily had not felt since before Jeremy was born. Without warning, she was slammed down to the cold floor by a violent kick inside her belly. She screamed and watched helplessly as the woman in the mirror writhed in pain. 

…Dedra’s howling was like that of a wild animal caught in a trap. The fabric of her nightgown pushed upward in the shape of a small foot. She pulled at the thin, yellow material, tearing it away from her body. The skin beneath was blue and black, with bruises outlined in a bright pink. Another white-hot bolt shot through her when the shape of an open mouth pushed outward from around her already extruded bellybutton. The teeth were crooked and malformed. Her skin flopped loosely…

…in the vast empty hole left between the upper and lower jaws. A muffled scream bounced off the tile and porcelain of the bathroom. The skin between the teeth flapped up and down as the waves of sound caused the impossibly malformed flesh to vibrate. Her lower back arched as a familiar urge to push rushed through the base of her instinctive animal brain. Fists or feet pounded at the outside of the bathroom door, shaking the hinges loose. This couldn’t be happening. She wasn’t even…

…pregnant for only a few months. Dedra knew it was too early for the baby to come. There was no way it would survive this early. Splinters of wood and plaster flew into the room as the pounding at the door increased its ferocity. The eyes of the woman in the mirror flared, panicked. A pool of blood formed beneath her thighs, and chills washed over her as her body…

…rode the oncoming contraction. The face withdrew, leaving her stomach skin stretched and tingling with millions of tiny biting pinpricks. In the mirror, fingers reached out from inside the mirror-woman’s body and grabbed onto her thighs. Emily slapped at the bloody hands squeezing and pulling at her legs. She felt a ripping…

…at the walls of her insides and fell backward, hitting her head on the edge of the tub. Dedra forced her eyes open through the pain. The beard appeared to be brown. There may have been flecks of red and grey too. It was hard to tell underneath all the blood and amniotic fluid. Another surge of uncompromising agony…

…and Emily let out a faint whimper. Her feet slipped forward as the grey-haired man’s arms pushed up from the floor. She wanted to reach for something to hit him with, anything to stop the horror from continuing. The man’s face turned and locked eyes with Emily, opened its mouth, and pleaded, “Help…

…me.” His arms lost all their strength, and he fell face-first to the hard tile. Dedra looked at the blood-spattered mirror. The man on the floor of her bathroom was not the man lying in the pool of blood in the mirror. She watched as the woman took a towel and cleaned Abram’s body…

…gently drying off his head and cradling him in her arms. In the mirror, Auden did not open his eyes, but he breathed in time with the older man in her lap. Emily fought the darkness creeping in for as long as she could. Helplessly, she relented, and her eyes closed with one final glance into the mirror at the strange woman and her husband tangled up together on the floor…

-32-

Auden: Boot Man

The floor is cold when you open your eyes. Fingers brushing through your hair are soothing and relaxing. A quiet hum of a woman’s voice speaks into your ear. You try to lift yourself up and get a better sense of your surroundings, but a hand pushes down on your shoulder gently, and the unfamiliar voice whispers, “Not yet.”

Your eyes trace through white patterns on the tile floor as your vision comes into focus. Your bare skin is splashed with blood. Your hand’s reflection moves in the mirror, a thick black-and-red substance oozing down from your fingertips to the floor. A woman’s hand with dirty and chipped red fingernails wipes your forearm dry with a towel. 

The humming stops and is replaced by the sound of sobbing. Your head moves in time with the shallow inhales and exhales of breath, your head resting on the woman’s lap. You are about to ask why your wife is crying when you see the reflection in the mirror. This bathroom tile you are laying down on is not yours. This woman holding you is not your wife. 

Knife-like daggers of wood and shattered glass fly across the room, piercing into the wall behind the tub, as the bathroom door explodes. The woman’s arms squeeze you tight, but it feels more like trying to use you as a shield than holding you prisoner. You hear the harsh click of the military boots on the floor before you see them. There is no time to react before the polished boot lifts up and slams directly into your solar plexus. 

A friend once told you that your lungs never completely blow out all the air that they contain. There is always a little bit of oxygen left, stuck in the bottom somewhere. You used to try blowing out as hard and as far as you could, imagining the powerful lung walls closing tightly together, pushing every last bit of oxygen out of your body. It made you feel as thin as paper. The tiny, sharp pang of emptiness hurt a little bit, but the next huge inhale immediately brought relief so keen that it felt like a rebirth.

This kick was not like that. Yes, all of the air rushed out of your body. The fact that it was preceded by a steel-toed boot crushing your ribs removed all the pleasantness involved in your youthful memories. It also made it rather hard to take that refreshing inhalation after the lungs were emptied out.

You roll over on the floor, gasping. You can almost feel the imprinted boot-bruise rising on your skin. On your back now, you try to focus your eyes on the boot-wearer. The woman is screaming as Boot Man leans over her. You can’t see anything clearly at first. He moves closer, and you finally see his face. 

Long white hair trails down from his head and his chin. Hollow eyes look out from deep sockets embedded in nearly transparent skin. Cracked lips peel back, revealing yellowed enamel on what teeth, with blackened roots, remain. 

Boot Man grabs you by the ears. “You… Where the fuck is he?” He slams your head back down on the floor. A lightning flash of pain, and then nothing.

-33-

Auden: Unlock the Pages of Forever

Pages flipping in wind… words too blurry to comprehend… neat rows of text melt into black lines… waves foam and curl down from high above… fingers pinch and squeeze and hurt you… can’t move… waves breaking down closer now… pages slap louder… lines turn to words turn to letters turn to teeth biting tearing shredding pages flesh blood water falling down down down over head no breath no air no breath no light no no no…

You cough over the sound of a metal bucket clattering across a concrete floor. Water drips down your face, and you swallow air for the first time in forever. There is enough light in the darkened room to see Boot Man pacing back and forth frantically, in front of what looks like an old fireplace or furnace. Boot Man looks younger now. His hair is trimmed neatly, and his beard is short. He is slim, but muscles bunch and uncoil underneath his sweat-stained white t-shirt.

“Not him… not him. How could it not be him?” The words curl out fiercely through clenched nubs of teeth. For some reason, they don’t echo from the concrete walls, as the sound of his hard-soled military boots do. 

Your wrists are free, so you reached down to feel what’s holding you locked in place. There is a chain of some kind around your waist. Another chain attached to the front stretches tightly out beyond reach, and another chain stretches behind you. The ground is moist beneath your bare feet, surprisingly warm despite the biting cold in the air. 

You hear no sound other than that of your own breathing, and the occasional clatter of the metal links rubbing together when you try to move. You dare not close your eyes again for fear of losing focus. You count seconds. You time your breath. You stretch your toes out in the mud and tried to picture the thickness of the earth. Anything to stay in the present and ready for whatever comes next.

Not knowing how long you were unconscious terrifies you. Boot Man’s odor is strong. He must have been in the room with you for some time if the scent is still this powerful. He brought you here without waking you. Your eyes burn at the brightness of a match igniting and providing fire for his cigarette. In its glow, you can make out more of the basement. Hand-built rock-and-mortar walls with varying sizes of stone set at odd angles. Wooden shelves holding barrels with a smudged and unreadable brand, alongside bulging bundles wrapped in old potato sacks.