The Darkest Lullaby

by Jonathan Janz

  She watched herself unzip her shorts, sit down, and urinate.

  With tears in her eyes, Ellie shuffled forward and stopped the tape. She was about to go back to the kitchen to wait for Chris when a terrible thought dawned on her. With a queasy feeling in her belly, Ellie bent over the box of Lillith’s things and touched the second stack of tapes. She lifted one out and glanced at the label, already knowing what it would say.

  Bed.

  She shivered and set the tape on the couch. She reached down and came out with two more tapes.

  Labeled the same way.

  She inserted one bedroom tape.

  An eerie green light lit up the middle of the screen. The bed sheets and their faces were stark white, everything else a mixture of green and black. You gotta be kidding me, she thought. Lillith’s cameras had night vision?

  Of course they did, a voice in her head answered. Because it wasn’t Lillith who was responsible for setting it all up. She paid some unscrupulous jerk—

  Her thoughts broke off as, on screen, Chris’s hand slid under the blanket and came to rest between her legs. The bulge of his hand began to rise and fall; Ellie’s face melted with pleasure.

  Watching herself, she could scarcely breathe.

  As in the earlier shots, the camera had been fixed in a corner near the ceiling, yet in this instance, the framing was a little tighter; the bed and about three feet on either side were visible in the shot.

  Chris fingered her under the blanket, and Ellie, three years younger, writhed with pleasure.

  “God damn you, Lillith,” she whispered on the couch. “God damn you, you vile bitch.”

  She watched her arm snake out of the covers and slip over Chris’s bare shoulders. She said something at his ear—Ellie couldn’t hear what—and he slid on top of her.

  Ellie had never seen herself on tape, and now she was amazed at how relaxed she appeared. How…experienced. Her fingertips played over Chris’s shoulders, the sinews of his triceps. She heard herself moaning, no words, but very audible nonetheless.

  She frowned.

  In the bottom right corner of the screen she’d sworn she glimpsed something dart in and out of the picture, something as pale as their bodies. Ellie pointed the remote control, rewound it, and peered harder, but the object still passed in and out of the frame before she could identify it. She glanced at the counter on the VCR and made a mental note to return to the spot when she’d finished the tape, to study the moment in slow motion, or even freeze-frame it until she figured it out. Probably nothing, just an odd fluttering of the covers.

  The session ended and was replaced by white noise.

  Ellie hit fast-forward. She’d begun to think there was nothing else on the tape when the bedroom swam into focus again, the shot farther away this time.

  In the greenish darkness, Ellie watched her younger self pass the camera on the way to bed. Chris, evidently, was already sleeping. She could just make out the pale curve of his shoulder as he lay facing away from the camera.

  She tried but could not suppress a grin as she watched herself turn to stare at Chris. Ellie knew exactly what she’d been thinking at the time: she badly wanted sex, but her husband had gone to sleep. As if to confirm this, the videotape Ellie heaved a sigh and threw an arm over her forehead. Then, after a few moments of gazing at the ceiling, she curled up behind Chris, spooning him, her right arm slithering over his and her lips nuzzling the base of his neck. He stirred, and she caressed his arm, obviously trying to coax him out of sleep. He glanced back at her, a pleased grin on his face.

  Ellie sat forward on the couch.

  The supple lines of her back curved as she rode Chris, her buttocks reacting to the pressure of his body without showing any cellulite. She heard her pouty moaning, and though she often faked it with Chris—his insecurity sometimes demanded it—she knew from the sounds that no acting had been required that night.

  On the couch, Ellie pushed her legs together, reminded herself that now was not the time to get so worked up. She and Chris were in a fight, and he deserved her wrath. When he came home she’d make damn sure he witnessed all this and understood what a sick, demented ghoul Aunt Lillith was—

  Aunt Lillith stepped into the frame.

  Ellie sucked in breath, her arousal instantly curdling into revulsion and dread. Dressed in a light-colored sleeping gown that draped the woman’s bony arms all the way to her walkingstick fingers, Lillith stopped next to the bed and watched them making love.

  “Jesus Christ,” Ellie muttered, her thumb pressed to her front teeth. “What are you…”

  Ellie rode Chris with growing enthusiasm, her shoulders rolling with their movements. Less than three feet away, the gaunt, wraithlike figure stood unmoving, the expression on her puckered face impossible to make out from this angle. Ellie could see the woman’s profile, but Lillith was turned partly away from the camera, so that the eyes remained veiled.

  Sickening, she thought. How could they not have known? Yes, the bedroom was dark—unusually dark, she remembered thinking—the room situated at the back of the house and bordering a wooded ravine. But shouldn’t they have heard the woman enter, seen the outline of the door as it swung inward?

  The old woman bent closer, shook her fists at them in rage.

  No, that wasn’t right. Lillith wasn’t shaking her fists at them, she was shaking her fists at Ellie. All the woman’s ire, all her snarling jealousy, was laid bare before Ellie’s eyes, and though she knew this would prove to Chris beyond all doubt that his aunt had been a fiend, she didn’t know if she could watch this bizarre scene played out again.

  The younger Ellie leaned back, her short, glossy locks swaying. Lillith collapsed, sobbing, the tears streaming freely down her wrinkled cheeks.

  Oblivious of Lillith only two feet away, Ellie climaxed, her hands grabbing hold of Chris’s splayed legs, her body tremoring once, twice, three times, before she collapsed forward and lay gasping on her husband.

  Their lovemaking ended with the old crone still at their bedside.

  Numbly, Ellie reached out, her fingers closing over the remote, but rather than shutting off the VCR, rather than putting an end to the unholy scene playing out before her eyes, she simply sat there watching herself climb off Chris and lie next to him. Lillith was mere inches away, her face inching toward Ellie’s.

  “Oh hell,” Ellie whispered. Her eyes were closed, but even if she’d opened them, she’d probably not have sensed Lillith watching her because she wasn’t looking for Lillith, had no reason to suspect the woman had slipped into the bedroom to engage in some up-close voyeurism. Ellie touched her throat, told herself to shut off the goddamn tape, but some perverse impulse demanded she wait, compelled her to see the thing through to its end. Surely Lillith wouldn’t go on watching her as she descended into sleep; surely the woman’s vigil would end soon. What possible reason would she have to continue this—

  Something in the corner of the bedroom shifted. The shadows there, just beyond Chris’s side of the bed, stirred and came to rest again. Ellie sat forward, strained to make out what it was. She brought the remote up to rewind the tape, and as she did she saw what she’d been too distracted to notice earlier.

  There’d been another figure in the bedroom all along.

  It sat in a wooden chair, the completely black figure, and though she knew that couldn’t be—the night vision should have illuminated this person the way it had illuminated her, Chris, and Lillith—she was nevertheless certain of what she was seeing: a large, inky figure, its legs crossed, hands folded in its lap, observing Chris and Ellie’s lovemaking.

  Lillith whispered something. Heart stuttering, Ellie leaned forward to better hear the woman’s voice. Lillith whispered again, and this time Ellie could make it out—“Can’t take this”—and in the corner of the screen, one shadowy hand came up, silencing her.

  Ellie’s skin tingled as the broad figure rose and pointed an index finger toward the camera. Lillith stared up at the figure a
nd, after a moment, nodded. Ellie watched Lillith stand, move out of the room. Whoever it was, he was able to control the old bitch in a way Ellie would never have thought possible.

  The figure turned slowly, its stygian gaze never leaving the sleeping couple, and strode deliberately around the bed. For a moment Ellie was sure the figure would follow Lillith out, but it kept moving, kept to the edge of the bed, and now the hulking shadow loomed toward her sleeping body, reached the head of the bed, and gazed down at her. She strained to see the figure better, but she could not.

  The shadow lowered, and she realized with sick fascination that he—it was undoubtedly a he, a monstrously large he—was leaning closer and closer to her slumbering face just as Lillith had done.

  The rain tumbled harder outside, the thunder boomed closer, but Ellie was hardly aware of it. She drew her feet onto the couch, hugged her knees to her chest and wondered why she was still watching.

  The face drew nearer, nearer. My God, he was less than a foot away now, the outline of his nose drifting ever closer to her face.

  The man froze.

  Then, to Ellie’s infinite dismay, he began to turn toward the camera.

  For the first time she could make out the face, and she screamed as the man from the basement leered at her, the huge eyes rabid in their intensity.

  From somewhere in the house—it could only be the basement—Ellie heard the low thudding sound she’d heard the other night, the unearthly chorus that had presaged her confrontation with the man in the workshop, the workshop that was no longer there.

  She stood as the man on the tape stood, his eyes locked on the camera, locked on Ellie’s eyes, traversing three years of time and many miles of physical distance, and now she could see more of him, his gleaming, malicious grin, his satyr’s jaw, and he was stepping closer, closer to the camera, his ghastly face swimming into focus, and she realized he was nodding, his dark, naked body rippling with muscles, his huge phallus tumid with lust, and she brought a hand to her mouth, crept sideways toward the doorway, her eyes never leaving the figure that loomed larger, larger, and below her in the basement the demonic thumping swelled. The great hands reached toward the camera, and Ellie was certain the glass television screen bulged outward.

  She broke into a run. She burst through the front door and leaped onto the lawn. She was leaving forever this time; she didn’t care what it meant for her marriage. If she didn’t escape for good, she would die, her baby would die.

  She bolted across the lawn and threw a glance behind her, sure the man would be there, bearing down on her, completing his pursuit and forcing himself on her. Was there any doubt that’s what he’d intended to do? Rape her and murder her and exalt in the pain he inflicted? Yes, she thought, and ran faster. The man was a sadist and a monster, and he would slaughter her if she stayed.

  The night was black as pitch now, and the rain soaked her to the skin, the wet robe falling open. She didn’t bother closing it; she didn’t care if it came off if that would help her flee faster. Soon she would reach the bridge, and this time she wouldn’t stop. Chris would’ve left the keys in the ignition, and if he hadn’t, she’d run all the way to the road. From there she’d continue hoofing it, and if she was lucky, she’d hail a motorist. She’d ride into town with anyone, as long as he didn’t have those mad eyes, that appallingly muscled body.

  She grunted as a sharp pain dug into her belly.

  Better slow down, she told herself. Don’t wanna overdo it.

  She let up a little, but another pang seized her insides, this one powerful enough to make her cry out. The pain swelled and she was forced to slow. As the claws in her belly drove deeper, Ellie had to stop.

  No, she thought frantically, but the word rising up from the foul depths of her mind would not be denied.

  Miscarriage.

  “No, no, no,” she whispered. She bent, hands clutching her belly. She shook her head against it, but it drove her to her knees, the water sloshing over her calves. She cast a feverish glance down between her legs expecting to see a gush of blood spraying the ground, but it was too dark, the gusting rain too harsh for her to see anything.

  Another starburst of pain clenched her body. Ellie howled in agony as her vision grayed. Desperately, she rolled onto her side, where the gravel shoulder of the lane began. With the last of her energy, she crawled up onto the limestone, the white, jagged rocks piercing her flesh like wet needles. She flopped onto her back, the pain unbelievable now, and she shoved a palsied hand between her legs, brought it up to her eyes to see if she was bleeding. The world was darkening, dying. Soon there was nothing save the pain.

  Chapter Five

  The sensation was not unlike being at an amusement park, riding one of those attractions she used to enjoy as a very small child. The airplanes that rose and fell. The colorful boats that lurched drunkenly to simulate ocean waves.

  Only this rising and falling was quicker and less pronounced, and she recalled another memory, an even older one: her father carrying her to bed after she’d dozed off in front of the TV. She’d pretended to be asleep because she liked the feel of her father’s arms beneath her; he wasn’t ordinarily an affectionate man. She remembered the warm musk of his aftershave, the button on one of his sleeves pressing against the side of her calf.

  Ellie opened her eyes, saw trees overhead, brilliant sunlight knifing through in dazzling bursts. She was being carried, the arms cupping her strong and steady.

  She stared at the underside of Chris’s jaw. He hadn’t yet noticed she was awake, and she supposed that was fine. At least he wasn’t the man in the basement. At least he wasn’t going to hurt her.

  In her periphery the woods opened up and were replaced by lawn. Disturbed by their passage, a large robin fluttered out of the grass, which glistened in the post-shower dawn. Chris’s feet made wet, sucking sounds each time they rose, and Ellie had time to wonder where he’d been, why he was just now bringing her inside. God, her throat was dry, like she’d inhaled a handful of dust.

  How much time had passed? Judging from the chill in the air, it was still morning. But not early morning. Nine o’clock? Ten?

  Without pause, Chris trudged up the porch steps, maneuvered Ellie’s body so he could grasp the doorknob without dropping her, and somehow got them both inside. She knew she should be terrified of the house, yet the solidity of Chris’s arms under her body, the warmth of the foyer after the shivery bite of the outside air, had lulled her into a contented malaise.

  He carried her up the stairs. To their bedroom, she assumed. It would be nice to be tucked in.

  They rounded the landing and approached the bedroom. Ellie glanced up at her husband again and noticed something that troubled her—red lines striping the side of his neck. She considered asking him about it but couldn’t muster the energy. The angry red slits reminded her of her pain last night, the talons shredding her guts. She brought a hand up and placed it on her belly. If he noticed the movement he didn’t let on.

  They reached the bed, and she was lowered onto it. Not roughly, but not delicately by any means.

  As Chris straightened, she watched him with wide eyes, waited for him to meet her gaze.

  But he departed without a word. She assumed he’d gone to the bathroom for a glass of water, maybe to bring her some Tylenol, but his heavy footfalls were tromping down the hall. She leaned over to see if he’d continue down the steps—to make her some soup perhaps, or to go fetch Dr. Stone—but instead he curled around the banister and moved up the next flight, ascending to the third floor. Why he’d go there, she had no clue.

  A chilling thought scuttled through her mind: What if he had no interest in helping her?

  Lending credence to this notion was the waterlogged robe still shrouding her. What the hell? Had he thought he’d infringe on her privacy if he got her out of this horrid, musty-smelling thing? Dull rage began to pulse in her head. The fact was, he considered his work done, his wife out of the elements but the fight they’d begu
n last night raging on.

  That he had the gall to extend their battle, that he refused to set aside his grudge to help his pregnant wife was unbelievable to her. Had he really changed that much in the weeks since they’d come to this place?

  Staccato clicks from above.

  Typewriter keys.

  The son of a bitch.

  She nearly dies—their child nearly dies—and he reacts by plopping her and her wet bathrobe in bed, sauntering upstairs, sitting down casually at the desk and cranking out some prose?

  The question rose again: Where had he been last night?

  And…where had those scratches come from?

  Or the better question, from whom?

  Ellie’s lips drew a grim line as she threw her legs over the edge of the bed and shed the freezing robe in jerky, livid movements. Naked, she shuffled over to the dresser—God, her back was sore—and not bothering with underwear, she picked out the first pair of shorts and T-shirt she found.

  Still shivering, she moved down the hall, the sounds of the clacking keys becoming clearer. Dull threads of pain squeezed tight around her leg muscles as she began the climb to the third floor.

  The typing grew louder. She winced as a nasty twinge of pain flared in her right calf. She was a mess, should really be in bed right now. Would be in bed right now if her husband were treating her better. She approached the study. He was typing faster than she’d ever heard him type, and for a moment she wondered if he were simply playing at it, depressing the keys as briskly as he could in order to give the impression he was being productive.

  She passed through the open doorway, crept silently toward his broad back. She wondered what she’d find if she lifted his shirt. More scratch marks, or the same smooth skin she’d always known?

  “You should be in bed,” he muttered without a pause in his typing.

  She stopped, abashed. She’d expected him to be sheepish, to beg her forgiveness for dumping her in bed and forgetting her.

  She arched an eyebrow. She didn’t know what to say, but if she got a little closer, she’d be able to read what he was typing.