As my contribution to the Halloween Blog Hop, I'd like to share a short story I wrote several years ago, when I first started writing. I took the idea from Stephen King in his book "On Writing". While this is not a supernatural scary thriller, its creepy all the same.
Escape
Dave
opened the door with relief and anticipation.
It had been a long day. It had been lasting, in some ways, for about 10
years. All he really wanted right then
was to escape to his self-made sanctuary, shutting out the signs of the mundane
world and relax, popping down a beer or two…or ten.
Josh
was gone for the night. Though he loved
his son, Dave was often (he felt somewhat ashamedly) glad for the respite that
solitude gave him. Teenage boys can be a
handful, after all. Yes, he knew that
while Josh did have a lot of common sense, he also knew that often, as a
parent, what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.
Maybe it was Pollyanna optimism; maybe it was simply trust. In any case, this night he was glad to just
be alone.
Closing
the door behind him, he entered the foyer and dropped his keys on the table in
the hallway. It felt good to be
home. Sanctuary? Yes, but that feeling was slipping away over
the last two years since… his escape.
Now, more and more, it seemed like his place… his domain.
God,
had it been two years already? Yes, he
told himself, it had, but it seemed like so much less than that. Maybe that’s because time, a wonderfully
fickle thing, loved to play with your mind.
How can hours, or days, pass, seeming like only an instant, while the
same period of time can plod along so slow, laborious? Yes, time was weird. It could rob you… if you let it.
The
18 years with his ex, Martha, were a blur, punctuated with blazing images. Some good.
Most bad. There’s that weird tapestry
of time again. Smears the memory. They say time heals. Did it?
He supposed so.
Dave
fumbled in his shirt for a cigarette, walking into the living room. ”Gonna have
to quit this someday” the little voice in his head chided, for the umpteen- thousandth
time.
He
grinned, despite himself. “I did quit
once,” he thought, “for ten years.” But
when life became intolerable, he had started again, and he just didn’t give a
damn. Not one single damn.
As
he approached the couch, he stopped suddenly.
A cold ripple of ice slithered down the back of his neck. Little voice is speaking again, but this
warning was much more eerie.
“What”? He thought.
Silence.
He
stood there, frozen, trying to make out the words, but they weren’t there. He hadn’t really heard in words. No, not really. It was more of a
feeling. He listened, straining against
the silence of the house that at times was deafening. How could dead
silence be so very loud?
Have
you heard something? What was the alarm
at that went off in his semi consciousness? The cold ripple had moved to cover
his whole body. Wet with sweat…a cold,
unholy sweat that made his clothes cling to him.
He
looked around the room, eyes and ears searching. Same old secondhand
furniture. TV in the same place, a week’s
worth of newspapers stuffed behind the easy chair. Keys sitting on the table in
the hallway where he’d dropped them. The
stinking, overflowing ashtray was still there, scolding him. The afternoon
shadows stealing across the carpet, same as ever. Outside, he can hear the muffled drone of a
lawn mower from the Sibley’s next door.
Nope… nothing wrong here.
‘Jesus’,
he said to himself, plopping into the couch.
“I thought you were over that”.
He should be, shouldn’t he? It’s
been two years for Chrissake. Yeah… right… but maybe it takes longer than that
to erase what you’ve been through. Come to think of it, can it all ever be really erased? You’ve been through some major shit, man.
“Damn”,
he thought, as the smoke exhaled through his nostrils. “Get a hold of yourself”.
Dave
had reason to be nervous though. His
journey through the kaleidoscope with the Queenofallwitches had certainly taken
its toll. Yeah, that’s what he’d come to think of her as. It seemed appropriate somehow. It wasn’t just
the alcoholism. Nor was it her lying, or
her damn near ruining him financially.
It wasn’t even the countless episodes of screaming, fighting, (under the
guise of “let’s talk”). Year after year he told himself, he would get through
this… make it better. Get through
somehow. Not even his suspicions of
abuse toward their only son were enough to make him give up. Of course, he told himself, good ol’ Dave,
ever the optimist, had turned a blind eye.
Was
it optimism, or was it fear? Did he
know, deep down, what he was up against, but was too afraid to face it? Had he lied to himself so convincingly that
he stayed, living in in total denial?
The
last three years were the worst.
Paranoia and delusion had taken her over. He mused, once again, as he had so often back
then, that if it were simply a matter of marital conflict… misunderstanding, or
atoning for words or actions born of inconsideration, there might have been a
chance. But how in God’s name can you
respond… much less defend yourself… much less succeed… when there is no
reality? When the demon sitting in front
of you isn’t the real problem at all, but the demons that drove her mind?
No. You couldn’t.
Dave had long since lost his self-respect. Sacrificing his family, his goals, his
dreams, “for the good of the marriage”, he felt ashamed. But there was one thing he just could not,
would not, sacrifice. And that she
insisted on having… and devouring.
They
say that the basic animal instinct for self-survival is the strongest there
is. Well, that certainly must be
true. For in the end, it was that which
enabled him to say, “No more”, and escape the clutches of the hell his life had
become.
Not
that it was easy. Dave knew that he was
dealing with a brittle, unpredictable mind the first time she spit in his
face. This was reconfirmed when this
graduated to her hitting him. Man, it was so
hard not to retaliate. The fact that he
held on to enough self-control to not hit her back gave him a trace of
pride. At least he hadn’t sunk to her level. But as bad as that physical
abuse was, he never felt truly afraid until the night he’d had to wrestle the
gun from her.
“The
only way this marriage will end is in death”!
She’d screamed.
Dave
was overcome with fear then. Oh, yes,
indeed. A fear a bit akin to what he was feeling now. So much fear, he didn’t dare ask whose death…
hers, or his, she meant. From that moment on, he’d taken her very
seriously. And for the first time, his
life of depression and despair had become one of fear and terror.
When
he told his friend the State Trooper what had happened, he made him file an
official report, but it was practically worthless. “Dave,” he’d said, “We can’t
really do anything with this now. All it
means is that if she turns up dead, we won’t suspect you. But if you turn up dead, we’ll suspect her.”
To
say the least, that wasn’t very reassuring.
But
that had been two years ago. The
Queenofallwitches was safely locked away in the Looney Bin, wasn’t she? She wasn’t going anywhere; all comfy behind
steel doors and drugged with God knows what. Right?
“Geez,
cool it, man”, he thought to himself.
“You’re just tired, and on edge from a long week”. Still, something
“pinged” in his mind. Something he could
not quite put his finger on.
He
snubbed the cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray and kicked off his
shoes. Yes, everything is all
right. You’ve got your life back. Things
are coming together pretty damn good. He
was laughing more, drinking less, had started to carve out a good life. Maybe even the buxom schoolteacher he saw at
Wal-Mart would eventually give him a chance. They had known each other from
years past, in what seemed like a whole different lifetime. She did
seem glad to run into him. And she was available, after all.
He
smiled at that. Yeah, she was a
head-turner all right. Something told
him that they could have a lot of good times.
Images of perky breasts with pink nipples flashed across his mind. These were followed by scenes of holding
hands, walks in the park, candlelight dinners, raucous laughter and dancing.
His mind played the sound of moaning sexual ecstasy and orgasmic release. His smile grew wider.
“Yes,
maybe I could have a regular life again”, he sighed.
Just
then his reverie was snapped shut with a cold metallic clang. The icy feel in the back of his neck returned. What the hell was going on?
Fumbling
for the remote, he brought the TV to life, surfing the channels as he always
did. The Mets lost to the Braves
(again). The Palestinians broke off Peace talks (again). Roger on “General Hospital” was
boinking Laura Lou (again). “not sold in stores. Order ‘smooth ‘70s, $18.95 for cassette,
$29.95 for CD’” (again). Then he stopped, with the local news. The bleach blond anchorwoman was giving the
late breaking story.
…
“has escaped. Authorities are not giving
details, but at least one person is dead and a massive manhunt is in progress”.
But
it wasn’t those words which froze him where he sat. It wasn’t even the superimposed picture
behind Ms. TV Anchor lady. It was that damned smell. The smell he had known only too well.
The
TV sound faded away in his mind, but the smell lingered, making the
superimposed picture on the TV cruelly more vivid. The picture of Martha, in one of her more
hideous moments, when she’d been arrested. It was the smell. How many days/nights/years has that horrible
aroma entered his nostrils? The smell of cheap gardenia perfume, which was the
only stuff that woman would wear. If it had sickened him then, it positively
revolted him now. Yes, it had been that smell, unnoticed, which had sent the
silent alarm.
“Oh
my God! It can’t be…!”
With
great effort, he found his legs enough to stand. Slowly, agonizingly, afraid, yet afraid not
too, he turned toward the kitchen. Life, like time, can be funny. Sometimes, when something is so impossible…
so unlikely… that when actually confronted with it there’s no surprise. This was one of those times.
There
she was. Standing in the doorway to the
kitchen. Her dark eyes ablaze with a
vacant, mad determination.
All
the fear, the revulsion Dave had tried to the first live with, then suppress,
engulfed him like a wave of hot dirty water from a ruptured sewer line.
“What…
How”? He could only mumble a soft
unbelieving whisper.
She
made no response. She just stood there,
framed in the doorway. She was like a
snake, with cold unseeing eyes that knows it will soon dispense with its prey.
Slowly,
deliberately, she raised her right hand, which held the gun. Dave was only dimly aware of it. His mind was reeling with a myriad of sights
and sounds.
The
Sibley’s lawnmower droning outside. The TV had moved on to Oprah. That god
awful gardenia smell that would forever be associated with Martha.
And
then he noticed, unwilling to see, the curl of her lip as she began a
half-smile. Yellow teeth glared in the
late afternoon shadows, and for a moment, he thought he could actually see
blood dripping from her lips. God! Surely not!
He
didn’t really hear the shots, either of them.
His mind racing, feverishly, trying to comprehend. Nor did he feel it when his body was
ruthlessly thrown back, knocking him to the floor, overturning the coffee
table.
The
sound around him faded. He looked down
to his hands clutching his chest. They
were filled with blood. His blood. It was the last thing he saw as his vision
began to blur.
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