“You are, I know it. You were here on this street before, and Momma used you. Got in your head and made you come to get me.”
She said this and stared into the bath, which had a small, muddy pond inside. The liquid had turned black with ash and soot, but the bath was now empty of bodies. Still, she stared as if she could see someone.
I looked closer at her skin, which was full of tiny holes, most of them up her arms. As terrible a life as I had described, this was worse. I should not have resisted urges to hold back as I wrote. A lesson learned. I may have failed you.
Her hands started to rummage in the shoe box, and she held a syringe in her fist. Like a Hara-Kiri suicide, she pounded the needle into her heart, right through her sternum. It hit with a thud. If she gasped or if I gasped for her I could not tell, but I watched as she pulled the chamber on the syringe and sucked out parts of her own insides into the needle.
“You are here for me, my momma told me so, I’ll be inside you. Take me away.”
She had all the tenderness of a nurse when she grabbed my arm and turned it to its underside. Her fingers were still warm on mine, when I had expected cold, from this girl who I was pretty sure was dead or in some similar state.
When the needle went into my own vein, I thought of all the ways I had described this sensation, and wondered if I got it right. The pain of the needle itself was a sensual shock. It was a direct current to my spine, and quickly spread warmth to my whole body, starting in my back, shooting through my nerves, and finally into the tiniest capillaries of my brain. Tiny synapses soaked them in.
“Go.”
I took a snapshot image in my head of this deadless girl, living in the ashes of this house, ashes of her family, ashes of this city. Her face was a mix of contentment and somber resignation.
I walked past the Red-Man who was pacing in the front room and slicing his neck with the steak knife every few steps. I realized I was leaving the tomb of both of them, and this house would have their presence here forever. I got into my car just a regular suburban drug addict, visiting the inner city and then driving home with the high of the drug inside of me, leaving the city dwellers behind.
I drove away with a hand on the wheel and an eye on the blue vein that extended from my wrist to my elbow. The vein was no longer blue but had become the shade of Lilly’s black armor skin. My body burned with the buzz of her life and all that was in it. I indeed felt the rage and power of her dad, felt the sage of the grandmother, and the hopes and dreams of Lilly that could never be realized on this street.
And the love of her mother, Latrice. I felt that too.
But the feeling of Latrice was nothing new, and I understood what Lilly had been trying to tell me. The spirit of Latrice had been inside me for years. Ever since the day I visited the street for the in-home therapy session twelve years ago. Latrice had been nearby, buried in the ground, and she came into me at that moment when I had opened myself up to be spoken to. If only I had known what that burning inside of me was, the feeling I had confused for social worker empathy, that went from caring for the people on this street and turned into the urge to write this story.
Latrice was the puppet master who got inside heads, and I was the puppet.
And now I had Lilly inside me, Lilly’s point of view, all of it burning through my veins, pumping through my heart, and part of me forever. I was taking her away from here, which is what Latrice wanted all along. I was the giant peach, and I needed to write about it, to catalogue it all best I could with meager skills but an eager heart. Obsessed I became at times to get this story down. Latrice commanded it so, and Lilly let me see through her eyes. To write her in the first person point of view.
So I did. We did. All of us. And that is the story that you have just finished reading. And now that it is done, there is this urge inside me to do the things that Lilly could not. An urge that comes from Lilly herself.
Joey from next door. I would watch over him as I could. I would do that, to be the peach that rescued him. As long as I believed in this kind of magic, I was sure to find it.
But not just that, there’s more. I feel driven, obsessed even, to go to the house across the street. Lilly wants to me to visit the house were Oscar lived, the place he died in the smoke from her own dad's fire. She says she knows how to save him. She says she can bring him back.
I drive there on a Tuesday night and park my car on the street, which has now become familiar. With the claw of a hammer I pull back on the boards at 617 Brentwood. The wood plank resists at first, but soon starts to give, and the scent of the smoky air is released. I'm back inside…
Acknowledgments
I’ve had this story in my veins and spent many hours letting it bleed out. Being the spouse of one who has such an obsession is not always pleasant, so I owe a huge thanks to my wife and family. Thanks to Kealan Patrick Burke for making the cover shine and Richard Thomas for making the insides glisten. Both were a joy to work with. So many authors have given me support along the way, to name a few; John F.D. Taff, Julie Hutchins, Joe Hart, Peter Rosch, Shana Festa, Michele Miller, and Jan Kozlowski. Thanks to the beta-readers who helped shape this story including Author Gary Cecelia and Charlene, Deborah, and Chris from Goodreads. Thanks to the millions who had a hand in my own sobriety, most who are unaware of how they helped. I will continue to drink in their milk-blood, and offer my own in time of need.
About the Author
Mark Matthews has worked in addiction and mental health treatment for nearly 20 years, and writing for just as long. His books are all based on true settings, including the horror novel, On the Lips of Children which he wrote after a predawn run on a dark San Diego trail. Like MILK-BLOOD, his novels STRAY and The Jade Rabbit are also set in Detroit. He is an avid runner, and has completed over a dozen marathons. He is a graduate of the University of Michigan, a licensed professional counselor, and lives near Detroit with his wife and 2 daughters. Reach him at [email protected]
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ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
ON THE LIPS OF CHILDREN
“One of the scariest novels I’ve read all year.” ~The Horror News Network
"Top Horror Read of 2013" ~A Readers Review Blog
"A dark, bloody book, at its bleak heart about the love a mother has for her children and the lengths she will go to for them to survive. You'll never look at jogging, the homeless, or even vampires the same way again. And, no, this book isn't about and doesn't feature vampires at all. What's featured here is infinitely worse." ~John F.D. Taff, author of Little Deaths and The Bell Witch
STRAY
"I loved this book! It was very believable & wonderfully written. Be ready for an intense read that will change your views on addiction." ~Kandes Starlin, Book Reviews by Kandes
"Stray is about addiction, yes. But mostly it is about relationships and the bonds that keep us all from going astray. Whether it's your wife or a hardscrabble mutt on the side of the highway, it's the connections to other creatures in the world that give us our forever homes. The writing here is clean, vivid, and wildly empathic to all the beasties who take shelter in communal spaces. Stray sings." ~Sacha Scoblic, author of Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety
"The characters are colorful and believable, and I was especially impressed by the author's realistic balance between the tragic despair and the very real hope of recovery that come with addiction. I recommend this book for anyone interested in an honest, unvarnished peek into addiction and recovery." ~Ron S., The Spirit of Recovery
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