“I ask myself that question every single day...and...I just…don’t…know.”
Sensing the runaround, John decided to change both the subject and his line of questioning. “So why did you lock me in here?”
“I didn’t.”
“Why did you murder your family?”
“I didn’t.”
“You liar.”
“I didn’t,” Jeff Cahill repeated convincingly.
“LIES!”
“I didn’t, goddammit.”
John recoiled in desolate fear as he realized he might be catching a glimpse of the same Jeff Cahill that had brutally mistreated his son and quite possibly the same that had murdered his own entire family. The sight of this particular Jeff Cahill put a lingering doubt in the back of John’s mind, or rather a surreal question that had not occurred to him before. If Jeff Cahill had been able to do that to Raymond and the rest of the Cahill family, then what will he do to us, to John Parker and Eric Richardson (punk kids with bad attitudes that he doesn’t even know)?
“I could never have hurt them,” Jeff blabbed with a hint of regret muscling its way into his voice. “I could never have killed them.”
John could not care less now about the sincerity and/or regret he heard from Jeff. Bottom line, he did not believe Jeff for a second. John despised liars and refused to be a fool no matter the severity of the situation. “You’re lying,” he accused again. His accusations and allegations, which at first he’d hoped would serve as a means of provocation and had seemed to be doing just that momentarily, now only seemed to disappoint Jeff Cahill.
“If you don’t want to believe me, that’s fine. That’s your prerogative. But I have no intention of standing here and arguing with you.” He pauses as he casually took a step towards the back of the room where the other exiting door was located, wanting to leave but having something else to say. “I’ll leave you to your own devices, which judging by your surroundings haven’t aided you very well thus far. Besides, my life is not the one in jeopardy.”
With this said, Jeff Cahill pointed a finger to the collar of his blood-stained t-shirt as if clarifying that his life was not in jeopardy. And higher still, as John’s eyes rise up from the t-shirt to the face he’d been terrified to look at, blackness rolled over his eyes. He fainted.
Like a wave of a magic wand held by an amazing illusionist, everything changed. More importantly, Jeff Cahill changed. It was something similar to the scene in the living room, but different somehow, perhaps because it had come so unexpectedly.
As John eyes flitted upward, he noticed the blood no longer stained the t-shirt but soaked it. The blood appeared fresh and seemed to be running freely over Jeff’s shoulders. It flowed out down his chest and back. Little white speckles danced vividly in the blood. John, at first, thought it the shirt’s fabric that had yet to be touched by the blood but would soon realize it was fragments of teeth.
The blackness creeped in on John the second his eyes made it to Jeff’s neck, which was also covered in blood but hadn’t been before. His chin and goatee were matted - his sideburns as well. Little holes created by stray pellets of buckshot littered his face from the cheeks up.
The darkness continued to circle.
Jeff’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, only the bloodshot whites visible. His forehead was sunken in from the blast.
Jeff pivoted, exposing the backside of his head, and the darkness came in full force as John glimpsed the freshly bloomed flower that had become the back of Jeff’s skull. And John fainted.
John never saw the chips of skull plastered to the back of Jeff's t-shirt, and that was probably a good thing. Nor did he see the clusters of brain tissue hanging from the opening in the skull or on the shirt. And he did not see the ungodly smile stretch across Jeff’s lips, exposing a corset of rigid and ragged teeth chipped from the blast and holes where others had been blown completely out. Nor did he see the tongue sticking partially out exposing the horrible burn on the tip from lying on the barrel when the gun went off.
John saw only darkness, and it was definitely a good thing because it would have brought on a fit of rage beyond his years he would have not been able to control.
When John finally come back around, Jeff was back to normal (if his current state could be considered normal). He stood near the washer/dryer, and the second John’s eyes fluttered, Jeff turned his back and moved to the door on the back wall.
“Wait,” John said as he tried rising warily to his feet. Even despite having fainted, his mind hadn’t faltered in the slightest bit, and he had so many things running through his mind, but he was not sure if he needed to speak his mind freely at this particular moment. This was rapidly becoming a fringe matter and needed delicate handling. No more provocation, accusations, or allegations. Right now, he needed to find a way out of this damn room, and to accomplish that, he needed to keep Jeff Cahill as mild-mannered as possible.
Jeff stopped but did not turn around.
“If you didn’t do it, then who did?” John asked. Even though it was merely a pawn in a much bigger plan, the words cut him like a knife. Conceding to the blatant lies (John’s factual based opinion) set forth by Jeff Cahill was an idea he had yet to grow fond of, but his survival—and Eric’s—could depend solely upon his own cooperation with Jeff. He knows this, and in a way, he accepted it. He had no other choice.
“I can’t tell you that.” Despite Jeff’s back being turned, John could tell the man’s head hung in shame. “I just can’t say, John.”
“Why? What do you have to be afraid of?”
“I fear no one, son.” There was no apology for the son this time. “My reasoning for being in here and telling you what I’m telling you—and withholding what I’m withholding—is for your and your friend’s benefit only.”
“What are you talking about?” John said, bewildered.
“I just wanted you to know that it wasn’t entirely his fault; that maybe I provoked him in a way. That is partly why I showed you that scene.”
John’s eyes grew wide with both fear and recognition. It was at this moment he began to believe Jeff Cahill a bit. He supposed—a saying based on his father’s opinion on all political candidates—if you listen to a person’s bullshit long enough, then eventually you have to start believing at least a fraction of it. But yet it was more to it than that. John knew who the he was that Jeff Cahill referred to (or at least he thought he knew) and the he committing those heinous crimes eight years ago was just as plausible, if not more, as Jeff himself committing them.
“I should have never done it,” Jeff rambled on. “I relive that goddamn day everyday, and it never fucking changes.” There it was again, that sense Jeff Cahill would burst into tears if he could returned. “Even if he wasn’t mine, that didn’t give me the right to treat him like that.”
“Raymond?” John whispered; it came out as more of a question than a deduction, and he had not intended on Jeff hearing it, but he did anyways.
“Don’t,” Jeff demanded. “Don’t say his name.”
John was shocked, but at the same time, he felt bemused and relieved because he had sort of known it was coming to this. “Why?” he said, intrigued more now than ever before. The question, simple enough, brought about a level of confusion John, himself, struggled to comprehend.
“It’s this house,” Jeff answered after a long bout of quietness, finally turning back around to face John. His face was no longer expressionless but rather filled with content, wonder, and excitement. “This house is unique, John. It has a way of really complicating matters. Speaking his name is the worst mistake you could possibly make right now. So please, for everyone’s sake, don’t make that same mistake again.”
John nodded.
“He hears it. Anytime you or I—or anyone else for that matter—speaks his name, he hears.”
“But how can—”
“I’m not really sure how. He is different from you and me. He is unique...much like this place. And if
he finds out that I’m here with you...helping you...it will spawn dire consequences and repercussions for the both of us. Understood?”
John nodded, expecting Jeff to say more, but the room fell quiet. He wanted to ask so many questions but had no clue which one (if any) might force more discomfort and disdain upon Jeff. Possessing this particular little tidbit of information would normally have ended the conversation and refrained most children from prying and asking any further questions, but unfortunately for Jeff Cahill, this was by far no ordinary circumstance and John Parker was not most children.
John decided—or perhaps just subconsciously blurted out—to start with, the deepest and most agonizing question in his repertoire (he led off with a home run cut, so to speak). “What do you mean, he isn’t yours?” John felt like a police officer from one of the movies he and his father liked to watch together; a police officer in the interrogation room playing the role of the bad cop, asking the tough questions, demanding answers with both his eyes and his actions, refusing to take “no” or silence for an answer.
The long pause and eerie silence that followed the inquiry brought a chill over John, forcing gooseflesh to sprout up all over his arms and on the back of his neck. He had obviously pressed the wrong button, took his home run cut only to receive strike one for his effort. However, John took the silence in stride, using this time to revamp his line of questioning, but before he could take another swing at it, Jeff Cahill spoke up.
“He’s not mine,” Jeff said in a plain and simple tone that reeked of contempt and disgust. “I’ve never told another soul that,” he cleared his throat, hung his head, and added in a much quieter but still perfectly clear and audible tone, “living or dead.”
Jeff’s perception of human emotion and his ability to comprehend it had doubled (maybe tripled) since the...the...accident; so therefore he could determine what John felt, and quite easily. While he imagined John knew what he was, Jeff wasn’t sure, and he didn’t like to assume anything. He gave John ample time to dwell on it and possibly comprehend it, if he didn’t already understand, before continuing on.
“I tried to love him,” Jeff said. “I really did. Some days were easier than others. I gave him my undying attention to fulfill his every need in life, but...it was never enough to change my own mind. It could never change the fact that he wasn’t mine.”
John was speechless. He felt bad for having asked and forcing Jeff Cahill to relive his shame, but what could he do now? What’s done is done, as the old saying goes.
“I guess I was just mad at my wife, you know? After eight years of marriage—after three kids—how could she do that?” There was a noticeable strain in his voice. “How could she cheat on me without so much as giving it a second thought?” The strain disappeared and replaced with something much more sinister. “How could she violate the sanctity of our marriage?” It was anger, more suitably, rage. “Break our sacred vows?” One could not deny the tension or fear, but John could not do anything to stop it. “How could she?” he shouted, forcing John to jolt backwards hard into the door.
Jeff made no advances towards John or made any implications that he was about to turn psycho evil, and John relaxed some.
John shrugged his shoulders as if to say “I dunno” to all of the questions. It was the most appropriate response. How could he know? He was only a thirteen-year-old boy with one prior girlfriend; well, actually he wasn’t exactly sure as to whether or not what he and Mary Beth Lincoln had would even suggest she was his girlfriend. It had been a simple and mutual agreement between two childhood friends of the opposite sex to spend time together holding each other’s hand on the elementary playground at recess. So never a girlfriend (but if you asked, he would always say he had one) let along a wife. He had never been to second base (or felt up) with a girl, let along had a child. He was completely in the dark on how Jeff Cahill felt, but on some subconscious level, he thought he understood to an extent and actually sympathized for Jeff.
“I never forgave her,” Jeff continued. By now, it was more rambling than anything. “Well...I never fully forgave her. I told her I forgave her—that I had forgotten all about it—and I suppose I had...in a way. I found that after he got up a little older, it was much easier to blame him for her indiscretions. Crazy, huh?” he asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer. “I found it much easier to forgive her and blame him, the bastard child of her supposed one night stand. Every time I looked at him, I got sick to my stomach. Ev-er-y time...I could picture her climbing atop another man and...and...” he needed to think of a PG-13 term rather than the obscenity that floated through his mind, and finally, he did, “...going at it.”
John clearly saw the rage mounted on Jeff’s face, and although it had not returned to his tone as well, John was scared. The fury of the eight year old, built-up aggression masking Jeff Cahill’s eyes would have been enough to frighten anyone.
“And I would just snap,” Jeff spit out through clinched teeth.
The fear rose even more as John thought this would be one of those times when Jeff decided to snap, that the Jeff Cahill in the faded basketball shorts and number three Chris Paul jersey was about to rear his ugly head, but he didn’t. Jeff somehow maintained control and stability.
“I couldn’t control myself, you know? It’s like...like…well, I felt like I was someone else. No matter how hard I fought that other man—that other Jeff Cahill—he always got the best of me. He was like a goddamn disease.”
John sympathized even more with Jeff now. He had grown to believe every word of it, and so he listened on.
“I relive that damn day every day, and it never changes,” Jeff repeated once more.
Through this final repetition of the mantra, John started to realize something that had been there all along. He realizes that that day he witnessed through Jeff Cahill’s eyes (or however it went) must have been the day it all took place; the day the Cahill’s took the plunge. It had to be. For all he knew, those could’ve been the events that led up to the family’s demise. That could have been what finally made Ra—him (John didn’t dare even think the boy’s name now)—snap.
“I wish I could change it,” Jeff said calmly, breaking the translucent silence and inevitably shattering John’s train of thought. “But I—”
“Look,” John interrupted, “no offense...but I really have to go. I have to find Eric.”
Jeff nodded as if he approved of John’s decision, but his words said otherwise. “Leave him.”
The words cut through John like the butcher knife through the Cahills. While he had left the house, he had never actually planned to leave Eric. It had been a bluff and obviously a bad one. But now that the idea was out there—again—it just pissed him off more than anything that Jeff even had the nerve to suggest it. He hopes Jeff had indeed been telling the truth and Eric was indeed upstairs, safe, but part of him refused to believe this much.
“I can’t leave him,” John said. “He’s my best friend and the only reason I’m here. I can’t...no...I refuse to leave him.”
“You must, John. The front door is right there. You can leave right now and never look back. Your safety depends solely on your next decision. Therefore, you might want to ponder your next move very carefully. I’ll do what I can to make sure Eric gets out too, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Fuck my safety. I have to find him. Now where is he?”
“Upstairs. Third floor. But please—”
“Thank you,” John said this with the utmost sincerity and truly meant it.
It was words that Jeff Cahill had not heard (and truly missed hearing) in a long time, and it forced a strange feeling upon him; strange, but in a good way. “You’re welcome,” he uttered with the gentlest of smiles. “But please, hear me out.
“I must warn you that if you go after your friend, I fear that you will undoubtedly suffer the same fate as I.” He ran his now seemingly transparent arm through the wall just beyond the washer/dryer.
Jo
hn shuddered. He knew exactly what fate Jeff referred to without the arm-through-the-wall trick, but by this time, he no longer cared. “I’ll take my chances. Now, can you get me out of here?”
Jeff nodded in despair as he walked towards the door at the back of the room where he had been moving towards before, and as he begun disappearing through it, spoke softly, “It’s unlocked.”
CHAPTER 17
Eric sat down atop a blue plastic storage container; a small homemade label consisting of a single piece of freezer tape stretched partway across the lid. In dull, red letters, all capitalized, it read: CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS. The lid caved in slightly before it popped open.
It will hold me, he thought, at least for a little bit.
Isabella drug a much smaller orange container into the center of the room. The same type of homemade label stretched across this lid. In green letters were the words HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS. She sat down atop it. The lid makes no bearing to her weight whatsoever.
Three candles rested in the center of the floor, one in between each of their feet and the other in between these two. They gave off just enough light for each one of them to see the other’s expressions (although Eric assumed Isabella would not have much of a problem reading his expression even in the darkest of places). Eric felt as if he was about to partake in a séance, and although the feeling was laughable, its plausibility was not. He couldn’t rule it out at this point.
Eric waited patiently for her to speak. When she didn’t, he took it upon himself to break the awkward silence. “Why are you here?”
She smiled wanly. “Here in general, with you,” she said spryly, “or here at this house.”
He remained quiet for a moment, concentrating hard on how to proceed, before softly replying, “Both.”
She nodded, knowing he would answer that way. After all, she was still just a child in some aspects, and when a child needed answers, one or two would never suffice. They needed all the answers they could possibly get. Her eyes went blank and expressionless yet again and the smile faded as she spoke. “You know what happened to me, don’t you, Eric?” Her tone was now harsh and cold. “You know the story, don’t you? Then you should know why I am at this house.”
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