"There are children here," it says. Their mounded faces are framed in the dirt, bodies compacted underground. Godless, and obscene. It can't be true, that there are children here. "You can't avoid trampling them while crossing the molten Valley that separates the despondent from the depraved," it continues as its foot smashes a buried pubescent face. They yelp like wounded puppies, their tearless cries falling on uncaring ears. I am scared, but I don't have the empathy needed to care about them. "Because those children are here," it says, explaining to me how such a thing can be accounted for, "their parents are, too, and they lie on the depraved side of the Valley." It points a long, grey bony finger. I follow the direction of the finger, and see plumes of smoke and bright blue ash. Beyond the ash it is too dark to see anything. "On that side of the Valley the air is so black you can't see your hand in front of your face. But there are others close around you, packed in like bricks."
A tree appears in front of me. More like a stick in the ground with gangly branches stretched out in an empty hug, smoldering. The tree had been here the entire time, but I hadn't seen it until then. "The Tree of Knowledge resides on this side, its purpose and knowledge depleted long ago," the voice says, observing the tree with awe and amusement.
"I've been sitting behind the tree waiting for you. I don't mind. We have forever together. Ever wonder how long forever lasts?
"A saintly man did, a long time ago. He wrote about forever, and gave it much consideration, giving a basic scenario such as this: You are sitting at an ocean's edge with an eyedropper in hand. Take away one drop of water from that infinite pool, then another. Another. Another until you have depleted the ocean. Now move to the next ocean. After you have emptied that one, go to the next. Once you have finished with the earth's oceans, move on to the rivers, lakes, ponds and streams. How long would this process take? Forever? Not quite. This exercise completed over a hundred times will not be a fraction of eternity. I've been here since the beginning of time and still can't begin to comprehend it."
I lean over and heave because of the stench, coughing as I struggle to inhale; it is difficult to breathe in that heat. "The heat evaporates the body's moisture leaving no saliva," the voice says. "Eyes pop like firecrackers and they bulge from the socket, taking on their dry, grey slug appearance as the iris and pupils are replaced by a gaping hole. But you can see the horror. Noses wrinkle and collapse. Smell the tang. Lips thin and peel back revealing teeth clenched in pain. Skin crackles like crumbling paper and falls from arms, flapping in the dry breeze. It bursts into dust when it hits the ground. And you feel the embers singe. There. All done. Now you look like me."
And I do. I feel everything the voice describes. The voice takes on its form. Mr. Granger teeters before me on emaciated limbs.
"You see a monster, a nightmare, a thing never truly captured in a drawing or description." With no time to cower, my useless scream escapes. The scream erupts from me like fire, charring my throat from the inside out. I turn around, wanting to run, but Granger touches me and I feel a revulsion that razes my hot body. "Overpowering you is easy," Granger says. "I don't need assistance, though others eagerly wait their turn. You're mine."
Granger pulls my arms tight behind my back, breaking them, and pushes me to my knees. Granger's other hand holds a tureen filled with smoldering gold liquid. Granger pulls my head back with its other hand and I look up into Granger's face. "Crying only makes my job more pleasurable, so please continue. Listen--constant cries abound." It pries a fist into my mouth, probing with long fingers towards the sinuses, making a pocket for the hot lead about to be poured down my throat. "Once gagged out, I'll pour in another mouthful. This process will continue for a long time. I'm not easily bored."
Granger stops for a moment to watch another human enter the Valley. It is my mother. She cries out, "Where am I?" Granger yells, "This is Hell! Welcome to it."
92
Eva's woke me, her hand on my shoulder. "I had a nightmare," I said. "The worst one I've ever had." The heat, the thirst, the hopelessness. My breathing was almost as fast as my pulse. "Or was it another vision? Was I really in Hell?" I asked.
"This is Hell," she said. "Welcome to it."
From the back of my throat I coughed up a thick oyster and spat it in Eva's face. She didn't blink. Her tongue, long and slim, slithered up her face. With one long sweep, she dragged the hocker into her mouth and swallowed.
I thought she'd kill me, strangle me with that tongue. But she kept it in her mouth, stepped back, and was gone. I swear, I don't remember if she turned her back and walked out the door, or if she vanished in a puff of smoke. Eva was gone.
Yet I wasn't alone. Her face was burnt in my retinas as if she was still there. I saw bile green eyes and pink sores pock marked over her white skin. A long nose pointed down to a cartoonishly wide mouth. Tight lips stretched ear to ear, hiding canines better suited for a jackal.
My crotch felt warm. The wet stain moved down my trouser thighs in tune with the swish of blood rushing through my head. No matter.
How could I have ever thought she was beautiful? How could I have left Caroline for her? Everything intentional and everything for a reason, Eva had once said.
It was Samiel's life I had seen in my visions, but was it his voice inside my head? I adjusted the hammer in my pocket.
I took the staircase, intent on tracking her down.
Bump, bump. Bump, bump. That beat. It got louder and louder as the walls closed in. The beating came from within them and I perceived the house as a living entity with lungs and a heart. My medallion chest ached, sending pain down my left arm.
"Jeffrey," she called from inside the hole in the wall. "I'm closing the other side," she said. "I don't want anyone else coming through."
"I bumped into one of those pipes on the way through," I said.
"I felt it," she said.
"They're not pipes, are they?"
She didn't answer.
"Veins," I said. "That heartbeat is yours. Even the voice in my head is yours."
Eva tilted her head, raising that eyebrow.
"It's not Samiel," I said. "It sounds too much like you."
"Granger," she said with a snarl. "These are its holes," she said, waving a hand--as in goodbye--over the other wall that opened into Caroline's room and the one that opened into the her hospital room. Both holes vacuumed shut and solidified, as if they'd never been opened. "Granger is a nuisance," she said, stepping out of the wall.
"You lied about my father," I said. "He's dead. And his eye was missing. Edward is also dead. His eyes are missing. No more bullshit, Eva."
"Eyes are powerful muti," she said.
"For healing, right? I've read all about muti. You put Caroline's eyes in that shit Guert gave me to drink. What the fuck? You killed Caroline," I said.
"Granger killed Caroline," Eva said.
"You said you'd cure her."
Eva shrugged.
Then I shrugged back, and whipped the hammer out of my pocket. Wincing through the pain the medallion created in my chest, putting all my weight into my arm, I drove the hammerhead into the hole in the wall, sinking it deep.
Thwacking a pipe, it burst open, blasting me in the face with warm liquid. Eyes closed, hands to my face, I slipped backwards as if the stairs were iced and tumbled down, the hammer lost inside the wall.
Eva sat at the top, legs spread, clasping her large belly, chest torn open. Her dress was covered in red and she heaved her knees up into her black-red chest. With her heartbeat, a spurt of blood pumped from both the wall and her chest. The top of the baby's head was visible from between her legs.
"Now," said the voice. A slimy hand around mine pressed a vial into my palm.
I struggled to climb the stairs to reach the top, soles unable to gain traction on the slippery steps. The smell of iron was overwhelming and I could taste the blood through my nose.
Hands on my back helped push me forwards and I was at the top, standing over her. The lid was off
, the liquid bubbling inside. My hand was being moved over the baby's head. "Just one drop," Edward said. He was the one holding my hand, grinning with greed.
Edward released my hand and waited.
"There," Edward cried. "The baby. Now, Jeffrey!"
The baby. My baby.
As the baby slid out head first from between her legs, "Edward" rubbed his hands together. But I had seen Edward in the freezer, dead. I was stricken with an instantaneous thought, and said, "You want me to kill the baby so you can take Eva's place."
"You will take her place," the thing disguised as Edward said. "The anti-Christ is supposed to be a man, not a woman. You will live out the prophesized role."
I threw the contents of the vial in "Edward's" face. Some of the mixture landed on Eva and her body blackened and shriveled like paper tossed in a fire. "Edward" morphed into an alien-like beast and the squirming demon blackened. I watched as the demon, Mr. Granger, melted into a smoking puddle that sank into the floorboards and disappeared underneath.
93
"Mr. Jeffrey?"
There, at the bottom of the steps in the open door, stood a woman with a purple headdress, plastic bag in one hand, a leashed book in the other. Tatwaba.
The scarf. She wore my mother's scarf around her neck. Everything intentional and everything for a reason. "Come in," I said. "Help me."
"uSathane?" Tatwaba asked.
"Eva is dead," I answered, waving her inside.
The baby lay on the steps, flailing in a pile of ash. Eva was gone, not a trace of her blood left on the steps. No blood on the walls. No Mr. Granger. No Phred. I was a sweaty mess, but without a drop of gore. The vial had also disappeared.
I lifted the tiny premature baby and snuggled her in my arms. I pressed her against my chest, and realized that the medallion's scar had subsided. I saw Caroline in my arms, in my daughter cradled into my palms. I couldn't kill her. This is her, I thought; this is us.
Flecks of ash drifted down the hall into the gust that had run up the stairs. There was nothing left of Eva; it was as if she had never existed. But there she lay in my arms, as my daughter. She would depend on me. I was free to love her, and surely she would respond. Love could change her, mold her. She was human, after all.
Tatwaba stood beside me, wrapping the scarf around the baby.
"What should I name her?" I asked.
"Caroline," she said.
"Caroline?" It would be a fine way to honour Eva's sister. But this child, I decided, would remain unnamed.
The baby, unresponsive until now, gave a fierce cry. I turned to Tatwaba, expectantly and said, "I think she's hungry."
Tatwaba took the purple bundle from my arms. "Let us see what is in the kitchen."
94
I wanted to relay my story here, even though I know what people will think after reading this: how could you be so stupid as to ignore the obvious? I don't think I'm stupid, and I don't think what I had experienced was obvious. I may have lived in denial whilst going through it, but now that I can look back, I see that adrenalin and the will to survive overcame shock. Eva was a murderess and her cohorts were enablers. "No good," as Tatwaba would say.
With relief I can tell you that the voice inside my head has quieted. The ringing is also gone. I went through rehab and do not take any more pills. My TMJ has subsided, and my teeth are fine. I hallucinated, said Dr. Rhymes, about losing my teeth. Many people dream about losing teeth. Such dreams symbolize loss. I have lost a lot, but gained a hundred times as much.
My practice is thriving. I have not heard from my uncle or from Lindsey, and don't care to. The house is large and quiet. My house in East Finchley never sold, and I decided to keep it. I don't need the money anymore.
Tatwaba cleaned out the freezer, and she assured me the paintings in the attic are nothing more than art, and that they might look nice on the wall going down the staircase.
She has reminded me that I was not forced to move into Eva's house and raise our daughter. I was not forced to abandon Caroline. I made my choices, and there were consequences. I will live with that and do my best to make things right for those of us living in the house. I haven't chosen to accept Eva's religion, and neither will my daughter. I don't associate with her friends. None of her employees work for me. There will be no tattoos on anybody.
My daughter is beautiful. According to Dr. Rhymes, the baby does carry the XP gene, but it is recessive. Eva had asked me to name our daughter. It was her request, one I will not fulfill. She can choose her own when she is old enough. My child will not be a recluse. She will associate with the greatest minds and I will send her to the best schools. She is mine. No one will come between us.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Jordan is a native of Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, and graduate of Pennsylvania State University. She left the world of sales and finance to be a mother living in Harrisburg with her husband and five children. Her short story titled, The Green Eyed Monster, was also published with Sunbury Press in 2012. When not writing or reading, she can be found daydreaming about her next story.
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