by Gina Ranalli
She was doing right. Had done right. There was no question about that now.
As the gum’s flavor began to fade, she considered getting more and thought it odd that the wad she was already chewing seemed to have grown in her mouth. Now it was as though she’d popped in four pieces instead of two.
Had she?
The movement of her jaw slowed considerably as she pondered this new development. Had she gone into another of those bizarre trance-like states? A fugue? Perhaps she’d already added to the gum she was currently chewing. How long had she been sitting in the silent dark?
The wad of gum grew larger still, until it filled up the entirety of her mouth and she leaned forward, gagging and trying to spit it out, immediately panicked, certain she was about to choke and suffocate.
Spitting out the gob, she discovered, was impossible. It was too big, stuck behind her teeth. Terrified, she used the index and middle fingers of her right hand to reach into her mouth and physically remove a chunk of gum. It fell to the floor with a soft plop but still more of it remained in her mouth. Again, she removed it manually, dropping the second clump down on top of the first, stretching her jaw as wide as possible in an attempt to breathe around the mass.
The gum seemed as though it were growing out of her molars, bubbling forth faster than she could scoop it out. She found herself on her knees, fallen forward off the sofa and onto the floor, reaching into her mouth with two hands now—four fingers, then six—yanking out glob after glob of the stuff. It wasn’t gum at all. The substance tried its damndest to form even faster, overtake her, pour down her throat and kill her. She continued to shovel out her mouth, tears streaming down her face from bulging eyes, endlessly gagging, saliva running down her chin as she sobbed and whimpered.
Time stopped. She had no idea how long her ordeal had lasted but slowly, the gobs of gum began to grow smaller and she could breathe freely again. Eventually, she was just using her fingernails to pick the stuff out of her teeth, flicking it away with disgust, terror, and now, above all else, fury.
The pile of gum on the floor in front of her made a small hill in the dark, pale in color, and she could hardly believe she’d basically choked that shit up.
Wiping her chin and mouth with the back of her hand, she shakily stood and made her way to the standing lamp beside the entertainment center. Part of her expected the light not to work at all, but it clicked on immediately, chasing the shadows back behind the furniture.
She stared at the huge wad of gum in front of the couch with wary, bloodshot eyes.
“Fucking bitch,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she moved back toward it, leaning over to examine it more closely.
Blinking, she bent over further still, assuming her eyes had not adjusted to the light yet, but no, her vision did not deceive her.
Small, black insects of some kind were swarming the gum, apparently coming up out of it like lava from a volcano.
Mites, Cherie thought. Some kind of tiny, black mites, pushing their way out until the gum itself was no longer visible.
Cherie backpedalled, fighting the urge to cry out. Whatever the shit was, the mites were not only born of it, but were also consuming it, the hill rapidly receding until soon it would be gone.
It had come out of her mouth.
Turning, she fled for the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before the vomit spewed forth, silently praying that her stomach contents, what little there were, were only that: stomach contents and nothing more sinister.
She stayed there for a long time.
15
When she finally looked up from the bowl, she noticed for the first time the words smeared across the underside of the toilet lid:
YOU SENT HIM
Cherie gasped, her mouth working, silently reading the words over and over.
How long had the message, written in lord only knew what—vomit? shit?—been there? Surely since before she’d gotten sick. But why hadn’t she noticed it when she’d first fallen to her knees in front of the bowl?
You were puking, she reminded herself. People don’t notice much else when they’re puking.
But still . . .
The message, greenish-brown block letters, dripping sick, but definitely dry, baffled her.
Sent him. Sent who?
She didn’t understand the accusatory statement, nor did she care to. It was more bullshit games from the little witch in the closet. That much she was sure of.
Clever.
The child was definitely clever. How was she able to predict where Cherie would be before she got there? Or was it just random? Maybe there were similar messages in other parts of the house and Cherie just hadn’t come across them yet.
No matter.
As soon as the police presence died down, she would rid herself of the body and then, she was certain, the little bitch’s antics would go with it.
The sun would be rising soon. An hour at most. She planned on sleeping when it did. She didn’t trust Maggie to let her do so before that, when it was still dark. She knew the cunt would make it impossible.
With a heavy sigh, she flushed the toilet, scowling at the message on the toilet seat as she rose up. From under the sink, she retrieved a roll of paper towels and a spray cleanser. The message wiped away easily enough and she flushed the dirty towels.
That done, she closed the lid and just stood there, hands on hips, looking about the rest of the bathroom, checking everything, from floor to ceiling, for more of the brat’s bullshit tricks.
As far as she could tell, there was nothing out of the ordinary, which was a relief.
From downstairs, a man called her name in a sing-song voice.
Cherie’s heart froze. It wasn’t Warren, she knew that much. But the voice was familiar nonetheless.
Almost mockingly, the man began to sing. The Four Seasons, “Sherry.” The falsetto was unmistakable.
Despite the different spelling of names, the song had been frequently sung by Cherie’s father and it was he who was singing it now. She was sure of it.
But of course it couldn’t really be him. She was sure of that too. It was Maggie. Doing what she obviously did best. Fucking with her.
Her father abruptly stopped singing and playfully called, “I’m gonna get you!”
Cherie’s heart stuttered. It was something from childhood. Her dad chasing her around the yard, waggling his fingers, trying to “attack” her. She remembered how Nikki had always hated the game and run away from her father, sometimes even starting to cry as she went. Cherie had always thought her sister’s reaction had been odd but then the memory vanished like smoke as her father repeated the teasing threat.
She had to go down there. She pressed one hand to her mouth, a gesture to stop herself from crying. Crying wouldn’t do. What if the neighbors, or worse, the police, heard her?
Slowly, she exited the bathroom and somehow just kept herself moving, through the bedroom and into the hall. She hesitated at the top of the stairs, but only briefly. She would show no fear to this fucking little cunt.
No fear.
Cherie descended the stairs, her pulse beating in her head, pounding her eardrums, as she held her breath.
In the kitchen, she found her father, his back to her, at the counter by the sink. He still wore that old army green coat, blue jeans and CAT boots, as he always had.
When she entered, he turned to smile at her from over his shoulder, a handsome smile, dimples peeking out from under his salt and pepper facial scruff that never quite grew into a beard.
He was a big man, imposing when he wanted to be, but always gentle with her. Nikki he’d been gruff with, but not Cherie. Never Cherie.
She saw he was pouring some kind of alcohol into tumblers, something that looked like burnt amber, but his body blocked the bottle from her view.
“You want to have a drink with me, sweetheart?” he asked, humor tingeing his voice.
Cherie couldn’t believe her eyes. He was so perfect. So fla
wless. How was the bitch doing this?
She’s not doing it, dumbass. You are.
Fuck.
Pressing her fingers first to her temples and then hard against her eyes, Cherie willed the voice in her head to shut up.
Too much pain will break your brain.
“Shut up!” she shouted, dropping her hands.
Her father turned to look at her, a concerned expression on his face. Then he smiled again. “I know you aren’t talking to me, sweet thing. Are you?”
She thought she saw his eyes darken, as though a cloud had passed over the sun.
She swallowed. “No, Daddy.”
He grinned and handed her a glass. “Drink this, kiddo. You’ll feel better.”
The tumbler was solid in her hand and she automatically took a swig from it. The liquid inside turned out to not be so liquid after all. It had the consistency of bacon grease—or snot—but it was already halfway down her throat before she realized it.
She gagged and coughed, dropping the glass just as her father lunged at her, knife in hand. He slashed her upper arm, grinning so widely she thought the top of his head should be toppling to the floor after the glass.
“You’ll learn to like it,” he said. “You’ll love it after a while. I promise.”
Cherie screamed then. She couldn’t help it. As much as she had prided herself on remaining calm no matter what, she
Too much pain will break your brain.
couldn’t stand this. It was
Too much.
too much.
She spun and ran, racing back up the stairs to her bedroom. Her father didn’t follow but she slammed the door behind herself just the same.
Would this night never end?
16
Nikki sat at the foot of the bed.
Not alive Nikki, as her father had seemed, but dead Nikki. The way Cherie had found her all those years ago. Her feet, lower legs, lower arms and hands were all purple-black. Her hair stringy and knotted, lackluster and dull.
“You sent him,” Nikki said, her gray tongue visible as she spoke. “It was your fault.”
Cherie slowly shook her head, looked away from Nikki toward the closet, but she couldn’t see within it from where she stood. She knew Maggie would be there, though. Just as dead as her sister was now. As she had been that day.
Nikki, maybe mimicking Cherie, shook her own head slowly, as if she were disappointed, her flat black eyes never leaving Cherie’s face.
“You know what you did,” she told Cherie. “You know what he did.”
“I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Cherie did her best to sound defiant, but she felt like she was made of dry, brittle leaves, about to turn to dust. Inwardly, she marveled at the fact that her legs still held her up somehow.
Nikki gave her a sad smile, but her dead eyes blazed, black flames dancing.
“You need to be punished, Cherie. What you did wasn’t fair.”
Cherie couldn’t reply. Her tongue was thick and parched. The room swam in and out of focus.
“Remember,” Nikki told her. “Remember and this might all end. All of it.” She waved a hand toward the closet.
Leaning back into the door for support, Cherie fought hard against fainting, her vision narrowing to only a pinprick of light with Nikki’s moon face in the center.
Remember what? What had she done?
“Remember this.”
Nikki was no longer on the bed, but standing directly in front of Cherie. She clasped her bruised black hands to the sides of Cherie’s head and squeezed. Cherie let out a miserable whine, her knees buckling, but her sister held her up, clutching her head so tightly Cherie expected it to just pop free from her neck.
She groaned, clamping her eyes closed.
“Remember this,” Nikki repeated, her voice now an inhuman growl.
Cherie opened her eyes and saw that she was alone in a bedroom but not her bedroom.
But that wasn’t entirely true either.
It was her bedroom. The bedroom she’d shared with Nikki when they were children. The wallpaper, stripes of turquoise and spring green, the posters of cute boys who had not yet reached puberty, the tall dresser painted to match the walls, the two windows looking out into the backyard where the old oak creaked and swayed, the white nightstand sitting between the two twin beds and holding a lamp designed to look like a vintage oil lantern, the blue throw-rug in the shape of a huge footprint.
All of it was exact. Perfect.
Cherie moved through the room to the wall with the bookshelves their father had made and installed himself. Her fingers traveled across the cool glass of a jar full of marbles. The hard plastic of a portable record player. The broken spines of half a dozen Nancy Drew hardbacks.
It all seemed so real. She knew it couldn’t be. Of course not. But still . . .
Glancing out the window, she saw that night had fallen. Hadn’t it just been day out there?
The room was dark now and when she looked down she saw she was in a long white nightgown, patterned with powder blue flowers. She was small again. Around nine years old and Nikki was asleep in her bed, gently snoring.
Cherie could hear her father rummaging around downstairs, opening and closing cabinets in the kitchen. She knew it was her father because her mother worked nights. Had throughout their entire childhoods.
“Nicole!” he roared, making Cherie flinch. The only thing she could think to do was jump into her bed and pull the covers up to her chin. She suddenly knew what was coming.
The work boots pounded the stairs two at a time and a moment later the bedroom door slammed open. Cherie feigned sleep as she always had, but only until she knew her father was standing over her sister’s bed. Then she peeked.
And remembered.
17
The girls had been used to their father’s temper and abuse long before their mother had taken the night job at a security company in the city, but once that happened, things got exponentially worse.
He drank more, for one thing, and though he was a jolly enough drunk when things were fine and his children were out of sight and not being a bother, the moment something annoyed him, he would explode. Simple things like a spilled drink or a nap interrupted would tip him over the edge.
And that was only the beginning.
The responsibility of caring for his children on his own wore on John Drew’s nerves the way a constant high-pitched sound will eventually drive an animal insane. He began leaving them alone and spending time with the next door neighbors. A nice newly married couple with no children of their own yet. It was peaceful there. Gordy was a nice guy and Cindy was cheerful and cute as hell. Younger than John’s wife by nearly a decade. She, like so many women before her, was enamored by John’s smile and teasing nature. It wasn’t long before she began sneaking out of her own house at night to visit him at his place after the girls had been sent to bed.
They were seldom asleep though. John had a tendency to put them to bed long before other children their own ages. Just to get them out of his hair. Even during summer vacation, they were confined to their beds while the sun was still high above the horizon, the sounds of the neighborhood kids playing and squealing, splashing around in pools.
As the eldest, this bothered Nikki more than it bothered Cherie. It would enrage her, the unfairness of it, and her anger would make sleeping an impossibility. Instead, she would toss and turn, muttering and keeping Cherie awake.
In time it was more than just the sounds of children at play that kept the girls awake. It was moaning and other noises that mystified Cherie. What Nikki told her were “sex sounds.”
“Dad is fucking Cindy,” she would tell Cherie as they lay in their beds staring at the ceiling. “We should tell Mom.”
Cherie didn’t know if that would be a good idea though. Especially when Nikki suggested it would mean their parents’ divorce.
“He deserves it,” Nikki said when Cherie protested in a worried whisper.
But then there were other women. Cherie never knew where they came from or even who they really were. The sisters seldom learned the names of John’s many mistresses, seldom ever even saw their faces. The house they all shared began to feel thick with secrets and unreleased rage. One day their mother wasn’t there when they rose in the morning and none of them spoke about it until Cherie received a particularly bad beating from John for playing a record too loud and waking him. He’d tossed her onto the bed and straddled her, pummeling the arms she threw up to protect her face. She could remember screaming that it had been Nikki. Nikki turned up the volume, not her. Nikki was to blame and please, daddy, please stop. It was Nikki. Nikki told mommy about the lady next door. Nikki was the one who’d ruined their lives. It was always Nikki. Nikki told and she wanted to hurt you, Daddy. She wanted to get you in trouble for being so mean.
It was Nikki all along.
But it hadn’t been. Cherie didn’t know who told their mother about the affairs, or even if anyone had told her at all. Maybe she just knew on her own.
It didn’t matter though. John Drew went to his grave believing his eldest daughter had betrayed his secrets to his wife and shortly after Cherie’s crying, lying confession, he’d come into their bedroom, bottle in hand, a swaying silhouette in the doorway for several seconds until he crossed the threshold and moved to Nikki’s bed, placing the bottle on the nightstand.
Cherie had watched his shadow as he pulled back the covers from her sister and climbed on top of her. Nikki had whimpered but, Cherie supposed, knew better than to fight. John had clamped a hand down tight over her mouth and then the rhythmic motions had begun. Cherie didn’t dare move throughout, every muscle in her body tense and aching with the strain of trying to stay perfectly still, pretend to be asleep, do not dare breathe.
