by Mav Skye
Mama Nola hasn’t had another episode, but she does seem to be tired a lot. And forgetful. I think the interaction with the community has been good for her, stabilizing. I know it’s been good for me.
But…
I keep waiting for the ball to drop. I know something is going to happen. I feel it. Every day I expect Mr. Jingles to come hacking at me while I’m taking a shower, or I think we’ll hear from Shirley that one of the twins have gone missing.
I would think at the very least that Joey would sense the danger, even if he can’t see it with his own two eyes!
On top of that, school starts in a week or two, and I keep thinking I can’t show my face there, not with what happened at Donny’s party. Donny. Every time I think of him, I have this ache in my heart, and I miss him so much. Then, I think how cruel I was to him. How could he ever forgive me?
Kara Leigh. She haunts my nightmares with those dark circles under her eyes. With that broken nose with stitches, and that limp. The cuts on her arms, the baggy sweatshirts and jeans. To think she was once that bouncy, cocky girl who had the whole world wrapped around her pinky—Spindler High’s favorite cheerleader. She now resembles the Bride of Frankenstein.
I did that to her.
Me.
Maybe, I am an awful person.
Maybe, I deserve what’s coming.
I deserve it.
His Journal
August 20th, 1990
I sense the end is near.
I fight it. I fight it every day.
But every day has its night.
And night is coming…
15
The Horned One
BESIDES FINDING THE HATCHET, THE REST of the day was blissfully uneventful. While it stormed outside, Mama Nola opened all the windows, lit her candlesticks and spent the afternoon knitting. Chloe organized the kitchen cabinets and read a mystery novel. It was quiet. No one visited, not even Joey. Shirley had taken the girls exploring in Seattle, and wouldn’t be back until the next morning.
Chloe welcomed the peace. She could almost forget about what was under her mattress, but when Mama Nola began to weep, the burden came crashing down on her like, well, like a strike of lightning.
“Mama.” Chloe wrapped her arms around her mother, hugging her, dabbing at her tears with a napkin. "What's wrong, Mama? Why are you crying?"
Her mother turned sad eyes to Chloe, but before she spoke, the fire alarm blared. The fry bread was burning on the stove. Chloe turned and dashed into the kitchen to find it filling with smoke, the frying pan hissing.
Mama Nola’s sobs became louder, louder…and soon she was shrieking over the loud beep beep beep. Chloe grabbed a hot pad and threw the frying pan into the sink, before bolting to the hall where the smoke alarm hung from the ceiling. She leaped up, barely scratching the plastic with her fingertips. Chloe realized she was too short to reach the alarm’s buttons, which meant she had to run back to the dining room. Mama Nola had slipped off her chair and hid beneath the table, screaming, crying and terrified while Chloe dragged the chair into the hallway.
She pushed the buttons, but the alarm kept blaring. She tried to twist off the top to remove the batteries, but the old threading refused to give it up.
“Dang it!” She covered her ears, dulling the noise of the alarm and her mother’s voice as she hurtled to her bedroom. She seized the hatchet from beneath her mattress, raced out to the hall, bounded on top of the dining chair. Chloe was just about to swing at the beeping monstrosity when she startled at the sight creeping toward her. “Etsi?”
The old woman crawled on her hands and knees, her white blouse hanging loose like a sheet. Her dark hair flipped over her face draping all the way to the floor, making it look like her head was twisted backward. Even above the noise of the alarm, Chloe understood the harsh, raspy voice that slithered from beneath that curtain of hair. “Become the beast!”
It was a scene from a horror movie. Thunder struck nearby, and the little trailer shook.
“Become the beast!” Her mother crept closer, closer to Chloe’s chair. She lowered onto her forearms as she crawled, her hind end stuck up in the air in a feline stretch. She scratched her palms with her long fingernails while sliding her elbows on the floor. Her curtain of dark hair parted just enough to show blood red lips peeled back, bone white teeth snapping like a hungry piranha.
Chloe was screaming now. She needed to kill the fire alarm. If she could just get it to stop everything would go back to normal, the way it was earlier. They’d eat their supper and retire to the living room where Mama Nola would continue to knit, and Chloe could finish her mystery novel.
She swung the hatchet at the smoke detector just as thunder shook the trailer. The electricity went out, and so did every light in the house. The alarm fueled on batteries continued to alert. Thunder shook the trailer again, and Chloe dropped the hatchet and teetered on the dining chair. Mama Nola snatched her ankles and howled, “Become the beast!”
“Mama, no! Why are you doing this?” Chloe reached her arms to the hallway wall as her mother shook the chair. Chloe heard the distinct shake of a rattlesnake’s tail the second before Mama Nola sank her snapping teeth into the flesh of Chloe’s pinky toe. Chloe shrieked in horror and tried to kick her foot away, but her mother snarled and ripped at her toe like a wolf ripping the flesh from its recent kill. Chloe kicked again and the chair fell backward, and then she was falling, falling in the darkness. Her head hit the floor, and that pain far outweighed the teeth in her toe.
She felt her mother’s hair sweep over her bare stomach, then quick warm breaths in her ear as her mother’s snapping teeth drew near. The monster, no longer her mother, chanted in a whisper, “We trixied the eyes, but not the hearts. We trixied the eyes, but not the hearts. We trixied the eyes, but not the hearts.”
Candlelight from Mama Nola’s room lit the hallway enough for Chloe to see her mother’s form rising on her knees. She held the hatchet above her head. “We trixied the eyes, but not the hearts. Become the—”
Chloe passed out.
Chloe awoke screaming just after midnight. Had it been a dream? She wiped her palms across her sweaty forehead. But it wasn't just sweat; she was soaked as if she had been standing in a shower. A single sheet covered her body, tucked into the sides of the mattress. She tore it away, sat up and breathed deeply. Chloe clutched her ribs, aware of her heart thundering inside her chest. Am I having a heart attack? And then she gripped the sides of her head; it pulsed as if a dozen horses galloped upon her temples, then grasped her earlobes, letting Godzilla calm her.
She froze when she heard weeping. “Mama?” The vision of that terrible monster gnashing its teeth as it crept along the floor filled Chloe’s mind. That hadn’t been real, couldn’t have been. It was a dream, she insisted to herself.
Chloe stood in the dark, her nightgown wisping against her damp knees. She had been fully dressed earlier. The fire alarm was silent. She could even see the dim glow of the hallway nightlight sneaking beneath her closed bedroom door. She felt relief at this. It must have been a dream. And then, she felt her pinky toe throb. She fell back onto her bed and lifted her foot to her bare knee. Her pinky was bandaged. Chloe touched the bandaging and frowned.
In the next room over, the old woman wailed.
Chloe limped across her bedroom floor and retrieved her hot pink plastic bat from the closet, praying the long-haired, snapping-teethed monster wasn’t lying in wait outside her bedroom door.
She touched the doorknob, then pressed her ear against the door, listening, but all there was to hear was the sound of weeping.
Chloe opened the door to the hallway where there was only her shadow hovering above the light of the nightlight.
She knocked on her mother’s room door, then opened it, ready to fight off whatever might be waiting.
The candles had burned down to the very nubs, revealing an old woman in a frail nightgown. Mama Nola sat on the bed with the quilt and sheet drawn back as if she h
ad just woken up. Her tidy braid slipped over her shoulder as she placed her hands over her face, wailing as if she had lost everything and everyone she loved.
“Mama?” Chloe dropped the bat and rushed to her mother’s side. “Etsi, why do you cry?”
The old woman paused, and raised her head. Chloe was afraid she’d start snapping her teeth and hiss that awful chant, but instead, she dropped her head back into her hands and continued to wail.
It grew worse when Chloe tried to comfort her.
Mama Nola clutched her elbows and began to rock, a sad sigh escaping her lips before returning to wet sobs. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“You’ve had a bad dream. Nobody’s hurt, Mama.” Chloe took one of Mama Nola’s hands in hers. “It was a nightmare.”
“No, no, no.” When Mama Nola drew her hand away, Chloe caught a glimpse of bright scarlet on her palm. “I hurt somebody.”
Chloe’s breathing picked up. She plucked her mother’s hand away from her elbow and examined it. Deep scratches crisscrossed over each other. The vision of the woman beast pressing her nails into her palms and ripping them open flashed through her head. It hadn’t been a dream.
Chloe swallowed hard and dropped her mother’s hand, and stood.
Her mother took no notice, wrapping her hands about herself again. Chloe moved away from Mama Nola’s bed slowly, snatching up the hot pink bat, and being careful not to stub her toe when she turned and raced out into the hall.
Her mind was spinning, her head thumping… Had it all really happened? Had her mother tried to eat her toe and kill her with the…
“The hatchet!” Chloe dashed to her bed, and heaved up the mattress. The hatchet sat in the same place it was before. She let the mattress fall and sat on it. She let her face fall into her hands, the same way Mama Nola had when she first started weeping, then one thought came to her that she knew her mother—if in her right mind—would agree on.
They needed Joey. She needed Joey.
Chloe slipped on her flip flops (being careful with her bandaged toe), and picked up her plastic baseball bat. She paused by her mother’s bedroom door. “I’m getting Joey, Etsi.”
For the first time, her mother paused in her weeping, looked up to Chloe with her sad, dark eyes and said one word, “Ohanzee?”
Chloe said, “Ohanzee.”
Mama Nola nodded once as if she understood, then confusion clouded her eyes and she began to rock again, moaning.
Chloe quietly shut her bedroom door and fled the trailer into the night.
Joey’s grandfather’s truck was gone from the driveway. With it being after midnight, she worried that something might have happened. She could see a dim light flicker behind the closed curtains. The TV had been left on. She pounded on the door. “Joey?” Perhaps Pops had a heart attack, and Joey had to drive him to the hospital. She pounded again. “It’s Chloe!” Or maybe Joey had taken off in the truck, sick of his grandfather once and for all. “Joey!”
The porch light flipped on. Chloe did a double take at the face behind the cracked door. She merely stood there with her jaw gaping open, her hand still raised.
Kara Leigh wore yoga pants and a thin white tank top. By the way the fabric clung to Kara Leigh’s generous bosom, it was obvious that there was nothing underneath. Her choppy blonde hair glowed in the soft lamplight. It highlighted her perfect cheekbones. If not for her tweaked nose and the scars littering her long arms, Kara Leigh would have resembled a dreamy nymph instead of a teen girl. A flash of the previous Kara Leigh lighted across the teen’s eyes before she lowered them and called out, “Uh, Joey, looks like your girlfriend caught us red-handed.”
Chloe remained speechless. Not only was it Kara Leigh of all people who answered the door, but she had been inside the house.
Chloe was never allowed inside. Ever. She stuttered around her words before touching Godzilla on her earlobe, and managed to spit out, “His grandpa let you in?”
“His grandpa ain’t home.” Kara Leigh’s perfect pout parted and blew out a ring of smoke, before drawing her palm and placing the cigarette between her lips.
Chloe shot back. “Yeah, well, ain’t ain’t a word.”
Kara Leigh raised an eyebrow at her, and Chloe realized what she said was an oxymoron. Chloe crossed her arms and acted as if she hadn’t said it. “Pops never lets anyone in there.”
Kara Leigh shrugged, then eyeballed the hot pink toddler’s baseball bat Chloe held. “What’s that for?”
Chloe growled, “Protection.”
“Ooookay.” Kara Leigh blew out smoke again, and watched Chloe a second before saying, “I hope you don’t mind, but…we’re busy.” She didn’t say this like the old Kara Leigh would. No, her voice was quiet and she looked away when the words left her lips.
It didn’t diffuse Chloe’s anger but fueled it. Was Chloe supposed to feel sorry for poor little head cheerleader because her face wasn’t quite as perfect as before? By the looks of it, she already had Joey wrapped around her pinky. Was playing sorry for herself how Kara Leigh won back Donny and now Joey? The little bitch.
When Chloe spoke, her voice was low and raspy. “I need to talk to Joey. Now.”
A male voice mumbled something from inside the trailer.
“Joey? Joey!”
But, Kara Leigh had started to shut the door in her face. “Sorry, he says we’re busy.” Kara Leigh flicked her cigarette out on the porch, and that is when Chloe saw the white smear on her cheek. “Why is there white makeup on your face?”
“Stop spazzing. It’s flour. It’s also after midnight. Go home, Chloe.”
“That’s not flour. That’s makeup.” Chloe poked Kara Leigh’s face and looked at her finger. “It’s makeup.”
“Hey! Don’t touch my face!” Kara Leigh made eye contact for the first time since that night and tried to shut the door again. “Back off! I’m warning you—”
Chloe shoved the door open and swept Kara Leigh aside in one swift movement. Kara Leigh fell, but grabbed for Chloe on the way down. She clutched Chloe’s bandaged pinky toe and held on to it.
Chloe shrieked when the hot bolt of pain struck and tripped over the doormat.
On the carpet, Kara Leigh was still gripping her toe. “I said outside, bitch. Joey! She’s inside!”
Chloe freaked out, and did the one thing she knew would make Kara Leigh let go of her. She kicked her in the nose.
Kara Leigh yanked on Chloe’s toe, and both girls cried out at the same time.
Blood flooded down Kara Leigh’s face and she let go of Chloe.
“Joey!” Chloe scrambled up and limped through the living room and was about to spin around the corner to the hall, when Joey dashed out from it. He was wearing jeans with no shirt.
They smacked into each other.
Chloe bounced off him, and would have fallen backward if Joey hadn’t grabbed her arms, stabilizing her. “What the heck?” His hair was ruffled and unruly.
Chloe pointed at Kara Leigh who was on her knees, clutching her nose. Crimson leaked onto her thin, white tank. “What’s she doing here, Joey?”
“Chill, Ayita, we were just hanging out.”
“Why does she have white paint on her face. Huh?” She spun and pointed at Kara Leigh. “You are Mr. Jingles, aren’t you?”
Kara Leigh had gotten back on her feet. She was crying. “I…I don’t know what you are talking about!”
Chloe glared at her, then tapped the plastic bat up and down on her palm. “Oh yes, you do!”
Kara Leigh scrambled backwards toward the front door, screaming, “She’s crazy!”
Chloe prepared to launch herself at Kara Leigh, but Joey’s hands clamped around her shoulders. He ripped the hot pink bat out of her hands. Chloe was so seething that she didn’t even notice. Her feet moved, but she wasn’t getting anywhere. She roared at the blonde who was also Mr. Jingles. “It was you all along!” She fought to get away from Joey as Kara Leigh cried pitifully at the front door.
Joey
said, “Knock it off, Chloe!”
“I’m going to knock something, all right!” Knocking Joey’s arms free, she sprang like a fierce lioness at Kara Leigh as the girl ran crying out the door and down the dark driveway.
Joey grabbed Chloe about the waist mid-air. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Let me go!” Chloe swung her fist around, planting a tart punch on Joey’s jaw. Stunned, he touched his chin. “Ow!”
Chloe paused, glancing at her fist just as surprised as he was.
Joey took advantage of the opportunity by picking Chloe up and slinging her over his strong back like a sack of grain. She kicked and slapped at his bare skin as hard as she could. “Dang it, Joey Parker!”
“If you’re gonna act like an animal, then I’m gonna treat you like one.”
He snatched a flashlight off a table by the door, and carried her out into the dark, down the driveway. Chloe pounded on his back the whole way. “Let me go, Joey Parker! Put me down or I swear I will make you wish you were never born!”
Shirley met them on Gander Avenue between the two driveways. Her arm wrapped protectively over a sobbing Kara Leigh. She plucked a small flashlight out of her housecoat and shined it in Joey’s face. “Joey, what’s going on?” and then she said, “And where’s your shirt?”
Chloe said, “Shirley—you’re home!”
“Chloe?”
Joey turned, and Shirley shined the light on Chloe’s face. Shirley looked from Joey to Chloe. “I decided to come back early. Now, what in the world are you kids doing? It’s after midnight!”
Chloe said, “I—”
Joey said, “We—”
Kara Leigh pointed at Chloe. “She kicked me in the nose!”
When Chloe heard Kara Leigh’s voice, it spurred her into another frenzy. “Put me down!” She clawed, pounded, bit and then resorted to the dirtiest trick in the book. She kicked, and she kicked where it counted.
