Suzanne watched as Sardis removed the sleeve from her mouth. Her bloody face had all but washed away and what she saw was a scared and helpless little girl. A rope-like bulge pulsed on the side of Sardis’ neck. Her head fell back and the sharp teeth showed out in terrifying detail as an almighty scream squalled out at her own descent into mayhem. Her head came down and she looked at Alex, her dad. A helpless groan rolled out and her tears sobbed into the rain. The purity of hurt in her daughter’s eyes was painful to behold.
“Da, Da, Dad is dead, he’s dead. I-I couldn’t save him. The horn was screaming in my head and I couldn’t save him.” Sardis paused for reflection and slowly turned to Suzanne, her voice cracking. “Mum, Mum, help me, what is making me behave this way? I wanted to eat my daddy.” Hearing the servility in her own voice sent a wrath of emotion over her saturated skin that chilled her to the bone. “Who has made me like this? What have you been feeding me? I want them out; I want them all out of me. What am I?”
Sardis put both thumbs into her mouth and grabbed hold of her serrated teeth. She pulled and pushed her head back and forth with the futile fury of a mad woman attempting to pull her teeth out.
Suzanne got to her feet, lifted Sardis up from her knees and prised her fingers away from her mouth. Coagulated saliva slobbered from her lips as her fingers came away. Suzanne held her chin so that they looked each other in the eye. She stroked Sardis’ cheek with the back of her fingers. “Oh, honey, what have I done to you? It’s not your fault, Sardis, none of this is your fault. I will help you, honey, of course I will. We’ll get through this together, I promise we will.”
With their tears they held each other in tight embrace.
Just like that the rain stopped. Not a drop, not a splitter nor a splash.
Over Suzanne’s shoulder Sardis stared at the dead body of her dad, Alex, and the meal she might have had.
46:
“What a dental fellow.”
The cause of Alex’s death was due to a massive rupture of an aortic aneurysm within the gut which spilled into the lungs and caused rapid hypovolemic shock. The funeral was a sad and painful affair for both of them, standing side-by-side with some family and a few friends, dressed in black as the coffin lowered into the ground.
They never spoke about the events of that day in the driveway. There was no need, nothing to gain; they knew how each other felt: Distraught. It brought them closer. The sudden loss of a husband and a father could do that. The mother-daughter relationship had forever changed. In Suzanne’s eyes, Sardis had grown up; gone was the evasive one word responses to Suzanne’s intrusive questions and irritating requests. The retreats to her bedroom when she didn’t get her way had stopped too, because the petty spats between them had lost all flavour. It felt like a great bond had formed between them, one that was reliant, resilient, and protective. They had each other and that was precious.
Things were happening that Sardis couldn’t control, that she didn’t understand. The speckled lime green ribbon hidden away in the drawer periodically entered her mind and confused her thoughts. She refused to believe the night terrors were real but it was a struggle—doubt was a fucker.
She wanted rid of them. She no longer wanted to see the expressions of horror on all those faces or hear their belly-screams to know how they felt inside. She didn’t want to see her host in the mirrors and other artificially-altered surfaces as the Jester, or dressed in the face of a goblin, ghoul, or elf, or whatever that one was. She didn’t want to see his cross-dressing antics as the Banshee Fairy Woman with blue cat’s eyes and silvered long hair when he—it—wailed in the face of another helpless victim about to die. She didn’t want to see the vibrant auras reach out into the atmosphere and morph into hands and fingers to swipe and grasp at the face of her host in an attempt to escape, and then crumple back and wither like autumn leaves into darker shades when their souls gave up for dead. They knew when they were about to die, and so too did Sardis. Their auras showed her all of that.
Most of all she didn’t want the tingle in her stomach that crawled up her chest. A feeling she had refused to believe was associated with a hush-hush hope her host would continue to surprise and do something more macabre so that her stomach could fill once again with the warmth of a hot water bottle. No. She didn’t want to feel any more of that.
One might argue they were night terrors, only dreams, and therefore the venal feelings she experienced for immoral things to happen to innocent people were inconsequential to reality, but deep down Sardis knew better. The loss of Alex, her beloved dad, hit her like a boulder rolling down a hill. Having felt the distress of losing a loved one first-hand, it made her sick to her stomach that in those night terrors, part of her had wanted to see what her host would do next. It was naïve to think there were no consequences for the happenings and for those loved ones left behind (that creeping fucking doubt again), to ponder their loss with disbelief and depression. It sickened her to think that she had a willingness to be privy to the sadistic behaviour of her host, dream or not. And to have the audacity to think that if she reached out in an attempt to exert a measure of soothing, share a portion of her aura, a puff of smoke, meant to calm the unimaginable misery and torment and distress of the tormented, that the very action, that pathetic gesture, would absolve her of that hush-hush hope. It was indeed a despicable act, a fraudulent way to feel better.
She knew she was different. She wasn’t stupid. She believed that her look had something to do with the outings. Bad vibes from people who did not know her, fearful of her appearance when they suddenly noticed her teeth, her nails, half expecting her to lunge at them and bite and rip on their necks. All these bad vibes accumulated to produce these night terrors, if they could indeed be called night terrors anymore. She believed if she could disassociate from the peculiar similarities of her host (her teeth in particular), change her style, lose the sinister black, become more normal-looking, then maybe, just maybe, her dreams would lose interest in her. She didn’t want to fly again. No more outings. She’d had enough of the perturbed excitement, the perverse pleasure of warmth she got from seeing bad things happen to good people. That wasn’t who she was, who she wanted to be, not really—not at all?
Sardis’ hair was back to her natural blond, the first step in her transformation to rid herself of the demons that possessed her, that, and the absence of black in her attire. Next, was a long overdue appointment with a dental surgeon, arranged by Brad Mullins, the family doctor who checked on Sardis over the years for as long as she could remember, who had discussed the possibility of having her teeth removed under a series of surgical procedures and replace them with a set of porcelain teeth by screwing into the bone. This man was the best in the business. Brad had said she would be in safe hands.
The day of the dental appointment arrived almost two months to the day after Alex’s passing. Two months since the craving in her tummy told her to reject restraint and go with compulsion to devour daddy. She wanted them out.
Sardis looked around the waiting room and wondered what the others were there for. No one looked to be in any real discomfort. One young mother sat watching her daughter standing over a small table and lifting a single page of a magazine that had seen better days with a full fist.
“Carmel, put that down. Put it down,” her mother said softly. The child looked back as the page ripped and the magazine folded back to the table. Half the page remained in the child’s hand. The mother pressed her lips together and made a disapproving gesture. The little girl giggled and the mother concealed a giggle of her own; the clue was in her spontaneous smile. She darted a look in the direction of those she could see without turning her head to tell if others had spotted her momentary lack of motherly discipline. “Carmel, come back here,” she said, leaning forward, and coaxed her daughter from the table by her wrist. With the minimum of fuss she wrestled the half page from the child’s unwilling grasp. T
he child started to cry, embarrassing the young mum further.
Sardis looked at the other faces. An elderly man sat smiling in amusement at the little girl, idly twirling his glasses by his knee with the stem between his fingers. A younger lad of similar age to her sat outstretched with his legs crossed and his arms folded, staring in the direction of the table looking oblivious to the young mother’s embarrassment. An attractive girl was leaning into him, whispering something in his ear. He nodded slowly without altering his stare. Sardis assumed they were a couple by the way she held onto his thigh. If they were, he was punching well above his weight and thought he should be making more of an effort to acknowledge her loving gesture and respond more affirmatively to whatever she was saying.
Prick, she thought.
“Sardis?” The nurse called her name from the corner of the waiting room and looked among the four women of the waiting seven.
“You’ll be fine,” Suzanne said and gave Sardis’ hand a light squeeze before letting go.
As she walked toward the nurse she wondered would the lad move his legs for her and let her pass without obstruction. He made no attempt but only glanced up without moving his head, his legs flat out. Sardis bared her teeth. The lad scuttled his feet and bolted upright in the chair to the surprise of his girlfriend. By the time she looked to the source of her boyfriend’s scare Sardis had passed.
“Prick.”
The nurse greeted Sardis with a reassurance that did little to reassure her and if she did notice Sardis’ toothy grin at the self-centred lad, she remained professional without comment. Sardis didn’t think she had.
Although today was only a check-up to assess the expected procedure, she was still nervous. Following the nurse down the short corridor, she passed a large man in blue overalls with a mask strung around his neck. His broad back took up most of the door frame. She could hear him giving instructions to the receptionist about some medicine, but made no sense of it, and noticed the receptionist’s overt smile. The abrasive sound of a drill emanated behind a second door, whirling in a high-low pitch, screeching against enamel, and she imagined the dentist standing over the patient with the drill gripped in both hands, pressing down into the tooth like a roadside worker hammering into a rotten hole. The thought made her shudder and she wondered if it would be worse for her. She expected it would be, judging by what Brad Mullins had said, a whole lot worse by the sounds of it. No needles, she couldn’t bear that.
“Sardis, what a lovely name; I haven’t come across that name before. Where does it come from? My name is Fiona.”
“Hi, Fiona, I don’t know. I think my Mum made it up herself. I Googled it once and there was an ancient city in Turkey of the same name but I don’t think she knew that.”
“It’s very nice. Now, just in here. You can pop yourself in the chair; he won’t be long.”
The same man she had seen in the doorway to the reception came in moments later and closed the door behind. He looked at a form in his hand, the one she’d completed out in the waiting room. He was an attractive, middle-aged man, well-groomed and had an air of confidence around him. It was no surprise that the receptionist should smile the way she did, probably held a fancy for him.
“Everything is in order?” he asked as he pulled up a stool next to her.
“Yes, Doctor,” Fiona said.
Sardis was sitting up in the chair when he addressed her. “So, Sardis, nice to finally meet you. I have spoken with Dr Mullins in great detail about your predicament and understand you’re not comfortable with the form of your teeth, though they are structurally sound. I’m sure we’ll be able to give you the best advice.”
Advice? I want them out, Sardis thought.
He looked at her strangely. “You look vaguely familiar. Are you sure this is your first visit with us?”
Sardis nodded. “You’d remember.”
“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Hmmm, not to worry, it’ll come to me. Okay, I’m going to put the chair back and take a look, nothing to worry about.”
Fiona handed Sardis a pair of goggles and put a bib across her chest. She put the goggles on and the chair reclined.
“Open wide for me.”
Sardis opened her mouth, showing her teeth to the dentist for the first time. She noticed Fiona’s body move back a few inches and then move slowly in for a second look.
The dentist didn’t flinch and his head, if anything, moved closer.
She saw what looked like electric blue bubbles form on both shoulders and down along the arms, and across his chest. Small at first, like marbles but getting bigger, some grew to the size of tennis balls, fragile and oily with a rainbow of colour slithering on the surface through tiny currents, similar to bubbles in a bath. They began to pop and burst but never separated or broke free, settling like raindrops on a pond, creating a ripple of film down his arms and across his chest like a second skin, and then bubbled up again.
“Amazing,” he said. “Never seen the like, extraordinary, beautiful, really beautiful.”
Fiona looked across at him probably to see if he was serious.
That was the first time anyone had referred to her teeth as beautiful; not even Alex or Suzanne had ever described them as that. But somehow it didn’t feel like a compliment.
His excitement appeared to grow. Tiny flashes crept into the mix, pings about the electric blue bubbles, a cosmic blueprint that denoted the will of a God or something worse, a presence of power, of mastery, or attainment, a perversion or a wilful misuse of something he wished for himself. His breath came heavy across her face in short bursts. It almost sounded like panting, like an excited puppy dog. She was afraid to look him in his face, sure of his excitement, that he might just snap her teeth out with a pliers.
(Fiona, please hand me those. Now Fiona, probably best you turn away, you might not like this next part. It could get messy. Make sure the door is closed to blot out the screams.)
She wanted not to be there anymore, willing for the examination to be over. She would have lifted herself out of the chair and run for the door had the auras darkened any more than they already had. Her feet dithered on the end of the rest as she reminded herself that this was his bag, why wouldn’t he get excited? Wasn’t it the same for archaeologists when uncovering the skeleton of a dinosaur for the first time? Thanks, Discovery Channel. It was probably the first time he had come across anything like these. She noticed Fiona looking at her nails when her head unconsciously wavered to show her disbelief. The dentist hadn’t noticed them yet, too preoccupied with her teeth to consider anything else.
With the examination finally over and two x-rays later, Suzanne was called from the waiting room to join them in the surgery. The dentist introduced himself as Eamon, and offered her a seat in front of the computer with two images of an x-ray. The name sounded familiar. Sardis smiled nervously as she sat between them.
“As I mentioned to Sardis earlier, I find her teeth extraordinary. It is a big decision to have them removed. So, I would like to run through the options with you both. How badly does she want them out, I mean, is it purely for cosmetic reasons?”
“Well, it’s probably for the best,” Suzanne answered on Sardis’ behalf. “They cut her mouth every so often. Sometimes when she eats she can bite her gum and has bitten the tip of her tongue countless times.”
“The reason I ask, if you look here—I know Doctor Mullins has been through much of this.”
He brought his right arm up to the screen. Sardis followed it, the aura was barely visible, a faint shimmer at best. The novelty had worn off and she felt more relaxed with her mum in the room.
“The tooth and the bone are as one, it means, and I don’t want to scare you”—Eamon did, he didn’t want them removed—“the operation is not going to
be without discomfort. The surgery itself is possible, but it’s the after I’m concerned about. Because technically we will be breaking bone as well as teeth, quite a lot with all teeth considered, but we aren’t actually removing a tooth in the traditional way, just part of it as it reaches far below the gum line. Do you follow me so far?”
Suzanne was in visible discomfort. She remembered how Sardis screamed when she severed the tip of her fingernail, and wondered did Sardis really need to hear this. She glanced at the nurse, who was busy preparing for the next patient and thought she might be thinking the same thing because she looked at Sardis every so often.
Suzanne took Sardis’ hand in her lap and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
Eamon nodded at the gesture and at Sardis’ obvious discomfort. “It is important that Sardis hear this; she needs to know what to expect should she decide to go ahead. There is one further complication: There are nociceptors in the bone of Sardis’ teeth. It is a receptor of sensory neurons or nerve cells that respond to potentially damaging stimuli. By breaking into the bone it sends a signal to the spinal cord and brain, which causes further pain. Once the anaesthetic loses its grip there will be considerable discomfort and the strongest painkillers we are allowed to prescribe will at best only take the edge off. Like any bone fracture it can take up to six weeks, possibly longer, until the bone repairs itself, and only then can we fit the new ones. She’ll be without teeth for some time. ”
The Ice Scream Man Page 35
