by Candis Vargo
“You!” Mike stretched his arm out and pointed his index finger at them as he stomped his way over to where they were seated. Father John stood up as Mike made his way over.
Mike paid no attention to the bystanders giving him dirty looks. “You did this. I don’t know what you did, but take it back. Take it back now!”
Kris held both of her hands up as to keep him a safe distance from her, “Mike…Mike, just calm down. You need to calm down.”
Mike pushed his way through the invisible barrier Kris had set up. “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down!”
Father John cut in before he could say anymore, “Now, son, listen to the young lady.” He placed his hand on Mike’s shoulder.
Mike threw his arm back, throwing Father John’s hand off of him. “You,” he snapped at Father John, “don’t tell me what to do! You two did this!”
Mike could have kept going, kept taking his anger out on the ones that caused everything, but the sound of the low growling drew his attention to the wall behind them.
Mike’s eyes widened as his hairs stood up on end.
The blood rushed out of his face as his hands and legs became numb.
He knew this thing was there and it was ready.
Ready to attack; Ready to kill…he wasn’t quite sure what it was ready to do...he just knew it was going to attack.
Mike wanted to run, but he glanced up towards the darkness in one instant sweep it flew to him, devouring him within its indefinable being.
He screamed as the darkness wrapped around him like a serpent tightening around its prey.
He struggled to breathe, to see…he tried to break free but he couldn’t.
There was no hope.
Chapter 25
He was lost into the darkness, struggling to find a way out. The more he fought, the tighter it became. He wouldn’t let it win, let it take him…he couldn’t.
It was as though his whole existence was being torn into a different dimension. He was only able to make out one voice and in that time of panic it was one voice he didn’t want to hear.
“It's okay Mike,” Kris said. “It’s okay, let go. Let it take you, see what it has to show you.”
No, he thought. He wasn’t going to let himself give in to this thing. They wouldn’t win, they couldn’t win. He let out a fierce scream, hoping that someone, somewhere, would help.
Was there any help? How could anyone help with such a situation?
He thought about Mia. If he was able to fight this darkness off of him, would it go after her? Maybe it already had her.
The more he thought about her the more he swore he could hear her voice. He tried to look around in the depth of the darkness. Maybe it had already taken her and she was there.
No, it had to be a warning.
Mike finally let himself go, let himself succumb to the darkness. He knew if he didn’t, it would take Mia away from him.
His body went limp and cold as the darkness took control. As his eyes closed, he was cast back into a memory. A memory which he had chosen to forget.
***
Through blurred vision, he watched himself as he stood there, waiting by those steel hospital doors. His nerves were running thin as he paced the hallway in front of the nurses’ desk, faux marble tiles laid in rows underneath the soles of his shoes. He looked up and the tears that burned behind his eyes were all but unrecognizable.
He kept pacing, not paying any attention to those that gathered around him. Every time those steel doors creaked open he would look up in a panic…waiting. The doctors and nurses all seemed to pass him by like he wasn’t even there. They all greeted others, sharing moments of joy.
Though antiseptics were ventilated through the building, the smell of blood and vomit still lingered. He wasn’t sure whose blood, but he was sure it was the stench of his own vomit that sat in the trashcan.
Several hands were placed upon his back and shoulders, only to be shrugged off. He was forced into the embrace of empty hugs, only to resume his pacing. It was quite vivid from the body language that he did not want to be bothered, let alone touched.
The rusty hinges on the steel doors sounded again, bringing his pacing to a halt. His head jerked up, watching the doctor that walked through those double doors. He was dressed in blue scrubs which covered the length of his body and a matching mask was pulled down from where it previously covered his mouth and nose.
Mike’s eyes matched those of a child that couldn’t find their parent. Lost and longing. Finally, his presence was acknowledged.
He was helpless as he watched the lies that he told himself unfold before him.
He didn’t need to hear the words that were spoken to know what had been said. He saw himself crumble to the floor and curl up into the fetal position. His body trembled as his uncontrollable weeping began.
He felt the pain, all over again or for the first time, he wasn’t sure. His heart seized for only a moment, but he wished it never started beating again. His chest heavy as though it had collapsed, he reached his arm out, stretching for what, he didn’t know.
He found it hard to breathe as the family members that surrounded him joined him in the tears. Cammie sat down on the cold floor beside him, cradling him in her arms, rocking him like a child. Though tears of her own fell, he saw how she fought back her pain so she could console him.
People passed by trying not to pay attention to the grown man that lay sobbing on the floor. The doctor placed his hand on Mike’s head before he turned and walked away, with tears of his own.
He didn’t know how long he lay there like that but slowly family members dispersed until only Cammie stayed right there with him, holding him in her arms the entire time. With time, he was unable to cry any more tears. He sat there like a lost soul, his body was there, but he wasn’t.
Cammie finally managed to get him to stand up and practically carried him out of the hospital.
Darkness engulfed his vision once again, only to be replaced by a gentle snowfall falling in the sky. Mike looked around, wondering where he was, what was happening now...As the vision cleared he made out a row of leafless trees hiding behind the soft snow. Slowly he started seeing rows of stone and staleness filled the air.
He saw himself standing in a trance. Wearing his Carhartt jacket and his best jeans, he stood in front of a rectangular hole dug several feet into the frozen ground. The dirt that had been dug up was poorly hidden underneath a bright green rug.
He stood there, hollow and numb, still unable to shed any more tears. Cammie gently grabbed Mikes arm and helped him walk forward. His hands were clasped together in front of his abdomen, holding two bright red roses. When he made his way up to the grave that held the casket he couldn’t find the strength or ambition to move. Cammie took the roses from him and gently tossed them over the golden casket that lay in its permanent place.
Mike looked up at the grey tombstone, barely able to register the words that were engraved into it.
Mother and child
Lay together forever
Mia Johnson 1982-2013
Eli Johnson 2011-2015
‘They’re gone, Mike. They’re gone,’ the whispers were finally clear in his head.
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘We did everything we could.’
‘If there is anything you need, Mike.’
‘Funeral arrangements.’
‘Casket for both.’
A blanket of darkness formed before several continuous scenes flashed before his eyes. He saw himself as he laid out breakfast every morning before going back into the bed only to wake up, talking to himself. He would sit at the table, eating all of his meals alone.
He witnessed every moment of his life after the accident where he had thought Mia was doing something, he realized it was him. The entire time, it was him. Cold coffee…cold meals…
He had dinner alone at Pizza Hut. When people were staring, they were staring at him. Talking to himself. Eating by himself, but needing enough for three
.
It flashed to the birthday party he had for Mia…there he was talking to thin air. He finally understood that it was him that had pushed everyone away. No one wanted to be around him because the whole time he had thought that Mia was still there. He watched as he ignored the words Steve was trying to tell him by using Mia seeing the darkness.
But there was no Mia.
He finally understood all her actions, her words, everything she did. She was nothing but everything he wanted her to be…needed her to be. Every excuse for behavior, every reasoning behind his very own actions…she only acted how he needed her to act.
He saw himself the night he lay in bed, feeling as though he was being restricted by the darkness. Only the darkness wasn’t there either. It was never there, just like her.
There he was, in the hallway of his house, grabbing thing air screaming for the darkness to let Mia go.
There wasn’t any darkness…
There wasn’t any Mia…
A laundry basket sat on the table with a few pieces of clothing folded next to it. He remembered Mia carrying on a conversation with him as she folded those clothes, but now he only saw himself talking to the air.
Brought to the moment outside of the coffee shop where he believed the darkness had somehow called him from Mia’s phone, he saw as his hand pushed a button on his cell phone causing it to vibrate. As he looked at the phone, where it once said ‘Mia’ across the screen, it was now black.
Back in the kitchen when the walls were shaking…it was his own anger shaking him to his core. He went on a rampage through the kitchen, throwing dishes and feeling a release with each one that shattered.
When Kris had returned from what he thought was their shopping trip, he saw Kris as she said ‘Bye’ to Mia, only she had said it into the thin of the air.
Every time the walls shook and he thought it was the darkness…it was simply within him.
Every time something fell or broke, he was the one that threw it.
The darkness was nothing more than his own worst fear…It was the truth he was hiding from. The reality he refused to face.
He was finally flashed to another moment he had no memory of. He saw his sister there, pleading with him to realize that Mia and Eli were both gone. Begging him to go get some help. “The truth will paralyze you one day,” her soft voice spoke.
How right she was.
Chapter 26
Three months later
Mike slammed the hammer down into the wooden peg one last time, securing the ‘sold’ sign in his front yard. The icy chill of the crisp autumn air gently blew, sending leaves scraping across the street. He looked back up at the house, taking a deep breath before he turned to carry the hammer to the U-Haul truck he had rented.
“You sure about this?” Cammie tucked her hands in the pocket of her hooded sweater.
“About what?” Mike placed the hammer in the back of the U-Haul before turning to look at her and Kris. “About leaving?”
“Yeah, I just…are you sure you’re ready?”
Mike lifted his shoulders as he put his hands in his jean pockets. “I need to do this. I can’t stay here.”
He didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t running from the memories the house held, but instead the emptiness that became louder than any noise he had ever heard. That house was once a home but now it was just a house. It held memories that he would never forget but he was ready to continue his life somewhere else and take the memories of his life with him.
He wasn’t moving on or starting over…just starting a new chapter in his life. He didn’t even know if one really moved on from losing people so dear to them…he just simply learned to live with the facts.
“You know what I don’t understand.” Mike stood in the driveway in between Cammie and Kris. “Why didn’t you just put me in a Psych Ward or something?”
Kris smiled as she looked at the house. The lawn was finally trimmed and the dense vegetation that once covered the edges were now tamed. “You were holding on to them. By holding on to Mia the way you were…by seeing her…and how she held on to Eli. That was your way of not letting them go. I couldn’t imagine going through that. I don’t believe that locking people away makes them any better. People have told me that they would lie their asses off just to get out of there. I had faith in you. I knew you’d come out of this alive.”
“Well, I guess I better apologize to Father John on my way out, huh.” Mike turned towards his sister and embraced her in a hug. “Thank you.”
Cammie’s face warmed as tears built up in her eyes. “See, you weren’t completely abandoned.”
A twinge of guilt hit him as he thought about what Cammie had done for him. If it wasn’t for her he didn’t know where he’d be right now. He would never be able to express his gratitude to his sister, but he would always be able to show her how much he loved her.
He pulled back from the hug and his eyes expressed the smile on his face. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”
Turning to Kris, he held his arms out and cocked a half smile at her. She accepted his offering of a hug and he thanked her after apologizing to her for thinking she had spawned a demon from hell to hurt him. He realized how ridiculous that sounded and how it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Kris was more like an angel that guided him to the truth. He thought about what Father John had said when he ran out of the church… “This demon is yours, and yours alone.”
The words Father John spoke were the truth; the darkness that had haunted him was real in a sense. It was his own demon…the demon of the truth he didn’t want to face. It was his reality haunting him, paralyzing him. All those times he thought he saw it…he realized it was just the memories he had forgotten as he slowly came to terms with reality.
Kris had explained to him how having him acknowledge Mia’s vision of Eli was set to help his subconscious realize that things truly weren’t normal. The more his mind played the role of helping Mia the more it opened up to the truth.
“So where are you headed?” Kris patted Mike on the back before pulling back from the hug.
“I don’t know. Guess I’ll find out when I get there.” For the first time in nearly a year, Mike finally felt at peace. His heart beat freely and his chest no longer felt restricted.
Cammie raised an eyebrow. “You’re a strange individual.”
“Never said I wasn’t,” Mike tossed the U-Haul keys to her with a smile on his face. “Take that to storage for me, will you?”
Cammie caught the keys in both hands and shook her head. “If you say so.” Her playful smile told Mike that even though it was something she wouldn’t do, she was glad he was happy. “Hey, just out of curiosity, did your neighbors ever figure out what happened to their car?
Mike smirked but felt a twinge of shame. “Not that I know of but I guess their insurance covered it all. I guess they suspected someone they had pissed off with their road rage a few days before it happened. Never could prove it though…” he let his words hang in the air.
“Huh. That’s a shame.”
“Well, I’m out of here,” he slid in the driver’s seat of his car which was packed with only the necessities and Eli’s stuffed dog tucked snugly in the center of the back seat. Suitcases were filled with clothes and hygiene supplies, knowing he could buy whatever else he needed along the way with the money from selling both the house and motorcycle.
With his window rolled down, he started to drive. He stuck his hand out and waved behind him as he looked in the rear view mirror and saw Kris and Cammie still standing in the driveway watching him.
Glancing at the house one last time, he thought he saw Mia and Eli, but with the blink of his eyes they were gone. He knew what he had to do.
Before he left town, he stopped by the cemetery one last time. Leaves rolled across the path before him as he walked between rows of headstones. When he arrived to the stone that stood above where his wife and son forever lay, he knelt down and placed o
ne hand on top of it.
He laid two white roses on the ground where they lay whispering, “I will always love you.”
Finally at peace with himself, he did what Mia had always wanted to do before they had Eli. With no destination in mind, he just drove. He wasn’t going to use a map because getting lost was the point of this trip.
He would just drive to wherever the road would take him. He would eventually come back and buy a new house, but it wouldn’t be until he had felt complete again…and he had no idea how long that would be.
He would always think of Mia and Eli, they would never leave his heart. It seemed that in doing that trip he was honoring them in some way…honoring their memory.
As he turned down an old dirt road he pictured Mia with him, sitting in the passenger seat with her arm hanging out of the window as her hand danced in the wind. He imagined Eli in the back seat giggling as he watched his mommy make faces at him in the side mirror. He sent a silent prayer to God, thanking him for the memories he had.
He drove for three hours until the sun had long set, succeeding in his goal of getting lost. Driving down a long stretch of an old highway, the familiar glow of a vacancy sign light up the road ahead. He pulled into the stone drive of a backwoods Motel and got a room for the night. He carried in his necessities and Eli’s teddy bear. Having that bear near him now brought peace and happiness opposed to the grief it used to.
He set the bear on the chair next to the bed and turned on the television as he lied down. As he laid his head on the pillow and closed his eyes, he smiled. He was finally at peace and if felt so damn good.
***
Letting his dream take over, he once again stood outside of his house. He saw Kris and Cammie standing in the driveway, waving. As he looked to the road he realized they were waving to him as he drove off to start his journey. When he looked back to Kris and Cammie, a twisted smile played on their faces as his car drove out of sight. The girls looked at each other before looking towards the house.
