by Mark Lumby
“Well…its over,” he muttered as if it was only meant for him. His forehead was cold and clammy. He patted it with the back of his hand and sighed, briefly losing his balance before disappearing through the wall.
The twins grinned at Daniel, relishing blood from their hands and fingers. They watched the body a little longer, listened to the blood bubbling from his wounds, before following Sam through the wall.
***
I checked my watched. I had only fifteen minutes remaining until the alarm shouted it’s warning. I heard something from the house about twenty minute ago. I don’t know what it was, but I wasn’t too concerned. I feel the sun getting warmer; I feel it on my face, but I feel cold inside and start to shiver as though flu is tip toeing into my immune system.
I glance at the house as I excavate dirt from around the tree. I stop and wipe sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. I have an urge to unite with my body. And although the feeling doesn’t abandoned me, I dig regardless around the tree, plotting a trench half a metre deep by one metre from the tree showing a shape that resembled a donut.
I step out of the hole and inspect the dirt for anything suspicious. I was assuming that the children’s bodies would be in shallow graves, just enough to cover their chests, but I had dug a little deeper just in case. There was nothing but stones and soil and tree roots.
I looked at my watch again, and for once there was no dread in returning to the house. I was tired and felt weak. I took a deep breath just to calm myself from the dizziness I was being overwhelmed with. Whats wrong with me? This shouldn’t happen…this had never happened. The house was moving further away.
There were no children in graves; they had lied to me. And I thought of Carl and what I had done to him, where I had sent him. Maybe this was why Mom showed sadness, why I was now resented. I was all alone, now. I had nothing. The truths had been lies, and I know what I must do. I sat on the edge of the trench, swallowing, and feeling the bitter taste of sick ripple up my throat.
I fell face down on the dirt.
Back in my bed I felt colder than previous. I couldn’t blink; hell, I couldn’t even open my eyes. Breathing was strained and sounds like something crackling from my chest. I try to lift my hand. Oh, god that hurts. I touch my throat, and my finger carefully examines an opening in my neck. I can’t help but slip my finger inside. I choke and cough, blood spluttering from my mouth. I don’t feel my tongue against my teeth; all I taste is the metallic flavour that comes from blood.
I feel nauseated, and my head doesn’t feel right. I touch my face and its swollen, and although it is mostly numb, I sense crimson trickle and pulse from wounds I cannot see. My vision is blurred when I attempt to open my eyelids. I wipe away blood from my eye with the tip of a shaky finger. My eye no longer drowns in its blood and I can see. Next, I try to see the rest of my body and spit out blood in the effort. I wrap a hand around the hole in my neck to stop the bleeding, but it pushing through my fingers.
I stare at my body; it doesn’t feel mine. The stab wounds. The sliced skin. My arm lays limp down my side; its held together only my exposed bone. My stomach is punctured and the t-shirt I wear is butchered with blood bubbling through the material.
I drop my head back onto the sodden pillow, cold and sticky. I gulp for air and swallow mouthfuls of blood. Still, I hear crackling from my chest as I take a laboured breath. I clean away blood from my other eye, but my finger fumbles upon the touch of broken bone and a split eyeball, like a sliced hard boiled egg. Blood leaking from sickly wounds and trapped air escaping from ruptured lungs reminded me of something popping, cracking, dripping…ticking. Tick…tock…tick…tock! The song from the kitchen clock carries through the hallway.
And then I sleep…
…When I awake, the room is shrouded by darkness. The pain is excruciating. I examine my head; the blood has dried and so have the cuts to my arm. My chest and stomach still feel moist, but the blood has stopped, and the puncture holes are still there. I feel cold and my body convulses, but the movement only causes more pain. And I can’t stop it. Whatever had done this to me, I felt as though the instrument was still inside, shredding away at my flesh, grinding across bone. Breathing hurt, but movement hurt even more, so I stayed still. My body spasmed involuntarily to the shivering cold, and the pain pushed through barriers I never thought existed.
I’m not alone, though. Someone is here with me. I look at the ceiling with my good eye, and without moving my head, I look around the room. I see know one, but they’re here. I attempt to speak, to call out, but I choke and swallow down the fluid that I wish would stop in my body.
It’s not the children; it’s you. I know it’s you, watching me die, leering over my body like a voyeur. It’s laughing. You’re laughing at me. I can’t hear you, but God, can I feel you!
The shadow stands over my bed like a Vulture awaiting my death, ready to feed off my remains. I can see it now, a different type of blackness shimmering through the darkness of the room like hot air. And I think it relishes on my suffering, and my slow healing, because it knows, as I know, that I cannot die in this house. Whoever mindlessly massacred my body did not share this knowledge, so I can only assume that it could only have been the children. I wanted to ask the shadow what it was, and because we had never been so close as we were now, this was the perfect moment to talk. Although, I was incapable of communicating; it hurt too much.
“You could call this Karma, don’t you think…” a voice said from the corner of the room. It wasn’t the shadow; I could sense that he hadn’t left, but the voice was from someone else. I recognised it. “…that you sent me to hell. And now this…it seems that you are suffering as I am suffering. Poetic justice after condemning an innocent man, don’t you think, boy?” Carl shuffled across the room. He wasn’t here. I had made sure of that.
“I told you what I was guilty of, Daniel. I was guilty of the things I did to your Mother. But you know this. Thats why I sent them away, told them to leave. So I deserved some punishment…but you were wrong to send me there. You were wrong!” He came to the bed and leaned over my torn body. “But I forgive you. Yes, I do, boy.” And he kissed my forehead. Blood was around his mouth, but this didn’t bother him. He stared questioningly, and frowned. “You are in a bad way, aren’t you? Poor thing.” He looked across the bed.
“My son,” said a female voice.
“Our son,” Carl laughed.
She came to my bedside. My Mother looked up at Carl, slapped his face, but the abuse amused him. The two of them together? She looked down on me and stroked my head, touching my wounds with her thumb as if this was her healing touch. But she pressed too hard, and blood trickled down my head. “We’re not really here, Daniel. Carl is in hell, and I am no ghost from heaven. This is your imagination, your minds way of healing itself. You’re sleeping…you have been for several days now, and no doubt when you awake, you will still hurt inside and out, but you will be better.”
“I hope you know what needs doing?” Carl reminded. “And I hope you’re going to do it his time!”
Then they were gone, disappearing into the darkness. They were never here, but the shadow remained, like hot shimmers hiding in the dark.
***
Light leaked through the curtains turning the room into a different shade of dark. It was as if hope had been awarded to me that morning. I checked my arms; it didn’t hurt so much, but it still felt like cats claws scratching on my insides. The wounds had healed, thick darkened scabs littering my skin. I examined my chest and stomach; it was layered with rough scabs, but I was healing. My skin was tender and it still swelled around deeper wounds. I could see from both eyes, I showed pain from neither breathing nor movement.
There was a mirror above the drawer to my right. I swung my legs from the bed and steadily edged my way over to the drawers. My face was stained red. My eyes were bruised black and there were still signs of swelling. My nose was crac
ked too; it hadn’t healed so good because I could see bone. I shuffled towards the door, opened it with a little caution, and went through. I embraced the stair rail to descend the stairs. I could hear the humming of the refrigerator from the kitchen, nothing else though. It was whining as if it was warning me away. The children were either gone, or hiding. I knew which; I just had to find them. I made for the basement. The door was open. I pulled the chord and the light pinged on; my eyes stung as the light illuminated the steps.
I went to the workbench and opened the cupboard, pulling out the old blanket in which I had used to cover the relic. I grabbed the mirror and briefly checked inside before taking it with me up the stairs. I laid the relic near the hardened wax, and returned to the basement to collect a sledge hammer.
I took both items to the kitchen, pulled out a chair, and waited. They were hiding, they had to be. In the walls, the ceiling, the attic, in the ground of the basement; they were somewhere.
“I’ll make this easy for you,” I spoke softly as though they were in the same room. I slid the relic on to the table, opened the cloth, revealing the mirror. I rummaged through the drawers, pulling out a knife. In my search, I noticed two other knives covered in dried blood buried underneath a towel. “Is this what you used to kill me?” I examined them and the image of what they had been used for invited my body to shiver. I covered them up, as if hiding a memory I’d wish to forget, closed the drawer, and returned to the table. I positioned the knife beside the mirror. “Well…I’m here, so I’m guessing you failed. But, hey, I want to forget about all that and start over…you owe me that!” I watched the walls waiting for one of them to appear. I listened for the sound they made when they moved…rats scurrying, scratching. “I found two knives…” I shouted, “…so which two of you did it?”
Sobbing was the first sound I heard. It was emitting from the hallway. I touched the walls, feeling for a vibration. I tapped with my fingers as though detecting for a hollowness within the wall. But it made no difference, because they didn’t need a hollow space to hide. I stopped where the crying came from, and knocked on the wall. The crying ceased. “I hear you.” I whispered. “Which one of you is it, then? Sam? Isabelle? You never told me the other children’s names…the girl…the twins.” I waited for a moment, waited for a reply. The sobbing started, so I tapped the wall again. “You can come out…or I can come in. It’s entirely your choice.” I waited a few minutes. “I see…” I went to the kitchen for the sledge hammer. “If this is how it is…” I stood back, and swung the hammer, shattering plaster and splintering wood. I grimaced as a wound in my stomach was ripped open. But I lifted the hammer regardless, and continued to strike until the hole was large enough to fit my head. There was know one inside. “I will break down these wall…rip them apart until you have no place left to hide. I will find you, one way or another…I will find you!” I touch the blood that was leaking through my t-shirt, and shook my head.
I held the hammer high, and swung into the same wall. Eventually I could see the light from the basement. I followed the sound of scurrying rats, followed them up the stairs and swung the hammer into the hallway wall, again and again until the wall was bare. Something moved, so I dropped the hammer, quickly reached inside, and pulled out one of the children through the hole I had created. It was the young girl, tears creating tracks down her dusty cheeks. Her skin was torn by shredded wood from inside the wall. I dragged her down the stairs, trailing her legs, not caring if her bones broke.
“You’re hurting me,” she squirmed.
“Pain? You have no idea of the word.” And I yanked at her arm hard until it snapped. She screamed and clawed at my face with her other hand. I struck out at her, knocking her to the steps. I then grabbed her hair and pulled her down the stairs, taking her to the kitchen table.
“Please…don’t hurt me anymore…it wasn’t me! Please…” She was crying.
I yanked at her arm as if I wanted to pull it clean out of its socket. “Did you see it?”
“No! I wasn’t there. I was in the attic. Sam and Isabelle were there, though, but it was the twins that did it!”
“The twins?”
“Yes…it wasn’t me,” she pleaded.
“I see.” I let go of her arm. “And are you going to tell me where the others are?”
She stared at me, and then looked through me before dropping her chin to her chest. “I can’t.”
I picked up the knife, made a grab for her hand and sliced right through her palm. It was so deep that the blade nearly cut off her thumb. Blood speckled my face.
She cried out and tried to pull away. “I don’t want to go home!” she cried. “Please…”
“You want compassion?” I yelled at her.
“I want you to think about what you’re doing.” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She was sobbing and was finding the words difficult to say. “Please…I’m scared. I don’t want to go.”
“I’ve thought about it…oh, believe me. I’ve thought about it a lot…like when I’ve been rotting away it that bed upstairs, choking in my own blood. I thought about it then, and I know what I’m doing.” I threw her hand on the dark mirror. “You won’t be alone for long, though; your family will follow.” I watched it take her to the same place I had imprisoned Carl.
The shadow figure stood tall from the kitchen doorway. It said nothing about what I had done. I don’t think it could. But it stood there as if it tried to stop me from finding the others, from protecting them. I would have to go through it if I was to pursue them. I reached out my hand to touch it. My fingers disappeared into the shadow, but the further I pushed, I could see my hand appearing from the other side. I rapidly withdrew and stood close to the tall figure. I leaned towards it and whispered, “I don’t know who you are, but you don’t scare me…you hear me? You’re nothing but a shadow, so move aside.”
The shadow stayed put. It raised its claw and traced an intimidation line down my cheek with its long nail; it went through my face like I was a ghost.
“Move,” I warned it. It was not moving, so I reached through its body and held on to the door frame, pulling myself through. When I looked behind, the shadow had dispersed like smoke in the air. And that is what I was reminded of, a sense of burning filling my lungs as I passed through the manifestation. I could taste hot ash. My insides felt as if they were on fire.
I ran up the stairs coughing and spluttering, and spat out a large volume of charcoal phlegm over the carpet.
I picked up the hammer and began dismantling the walls. I heard the little girl downstairs shout out a final agonising shriek as the mirror absorbed her, and all I could think about was that I had just killed a child. I had been the executioner. It was the second time I had done this, but this was different because it was a child. And I had four more to go. I cried a little in between strikes, plaster of dust exploding over my head. Surely, it could only get easier.
I worked through the night, stripping and tearing down the walls, widening rooms, dismantling the chimney breasts, ripping up floor boards and taking down ceilings. I had found the twins inside the chimney clinging onto each other. I beat them both in the face, prizing them apart; I felt their jaw break. I threw them down the hallway and into the kitchen like a bag of laundry. I cut their hands and pressed them hard on the mirror, and they were absorbed, too. I showed no remorse for the twins, just as they showed nothing towards my death. In fact, I wanted to hurt them more; I wanted to do to them what they had done to me.
Sam was hiding in the ceiling above the bedroom. I had dragged him down, throwing him to the floor. I had already stripped parts of the boards away so I could see the hallway on the ground floor. I pushed him through the gap. There was a thud as he plummeted to the ground creating a cloud of dust around his body. He clutched his torso, spluttering out blood and crying out through clenched teeth. I took the stairs, and as I approached him, I expected him to flinch. He stopped making a sound and was grinning at me through the pain, so I planted my bo
ot to the side of his head.
I did to him what I had done to the others. I grabbed a towel from the side and cleaned away the blood from the surface of the mirror.
Isabelle was the last, and after I had stripped away everything in the house and had failed to find her, I took to the attic. She was there, although not hiding within the walls; I found her on the floor in one of the alcoves curled up in the foetus position. She was sobbing just as the little girl had sobbed.
“Please, Daniel…please,” she pleaded. “I never touched you…I never even watched. I told Sam to stop them, but he wouldn’t.”
“You could have stopped them.”
“How…” She raised her head to me. “…how could I?”
“You could have found a way. You could have at least tried.”
“Tried? But I’m me.”
“What difference does that make? I don’t understand.”
“Daniel…I’m not them; I’m not like them in any way.”
“Then, who are you?”
She paused to think, and pushed herself up. “I’m Isabelle…you know who I am.”
I shook my head. “No…I’m not sure I do. You see, if it wasn’t for you, they would not have ripped me apart like they did.”
“I…I don’t understand you, Daniel. You’re making no sense.”
“Our little secret?” I questioned her and then reverted to a tone that sounded rational. “Although I have myself to blame, really. What did I expect of you but run and tell your brother?”
“Tell him what? I said nothing to him.”
“You told him I was looking for the bodies. You said I was in the garden.”
“No…No I didn’t. You never said what you was doing.”
“You knew what I was doing. You knew…”
She sat up. “I told you; I’m not like them. I told them nothing.”
“Why would you tell them nothing? Eh…Isabelle! Why?”
