by Ray Garton
—Jason! Oh, God, Richard, what did you—
—Well, look at this, it went right through my goddamned shoe, the little—
“Daddy’s… hurt. Glass with… blood. He’s showing me… screaming because ... I hurt Daddy. I cut him.” Jason’s arm flew up in front of his face. “No, Daddy, no, nooo!”
The entire sofa jerked with each invisible blow as Jason screamed…
… then cried…
… then whimpered as thunder growled.
Jason tried to focus on his faint, dark surroundings, tried to look through the images projected over them, but something else directed his attention away from them. He felt something leave him, felt a pull, then a silent, internal fear, like a tooth being pulled slowly from its socket and—
—something moved beside the sofa between Jason and the doctor with a thick, liquidy slushing sound, making the tarpaulin on the floor crackle softly.
“It’s all right, Jason,” Dr. Krusadian whispered as lightning X-rayed the room. “It’s gone. You’ve let go of it. Gotten rid of it. It’s gone. Just close your eyes for a while and relax.”
He did, and for a few honey-thick moments, Jason slept…
The pyramid inside the cube began to turn and something inside glowed softly and Dani shook her head whispering, “No… I tried… I did try… “ The dark bedroom became a ghost and she was suddenly on the stairs hurrying down to the living room where Richard sat in his recliner, bottle between his thighs, the newspaper crumpled on his knees.
You hurt him, she hissed, goddamn you, Richard, you hurt him. He ignored her.
Dani rounded the chair and faced him, her eyes tearing with fury.
Did you hear me, Richard? You hurt his head! He’s just a baby, for Christ’s sake, you could’ve killed him! Did I?
But you could’ve—
I didn’t, did I?
I can’t believe you’re—
Just drop it. I had a shitty day and—
If you ever do that again, so help me God, I’ll—
Richard’s face caught fire and he exploded from the chair and swung the bottle. Wine rained over them and the bottle struck her neck. Dani went down and he began to kick her.
She clutched the edge of the dresser, feeling herself slipping from her chair. Dani knew she was still in her bedroom, could still see it, but—
—she was reliving the beating that had made her pray for death, that gave her such a clear vision of her family’s future. It was the first time Richard raised a hand to her and she decided as she bled that it would be the last, if she could help it.
Richard screamed at her as he kicked and slugged and jerked on her hair, but she heard none of it. There was a strange calm inside her as she smelled her own blood, a calm brought on, perhaps, by the inevitability of it. So many times, she’d caught a glimpse of Richard’s potential for violence—temper tantrums, broken dishes, a crack in the bedroom wall where he’d struck out with a fist one angry night—but she’d always turned away from it, ignored it.
She couldn’t ignore it that first horrible evening he’d beaten her until death seemed a good idea.
She couldn’t now, either.
Dani fell from the chair to her knees, still holding the dresser, eyes still gripped by the cube, now only faintly visible through the pictures it was showing her. She vaguely felt the floor come up and hit her in the back when she fell and her breath exploded from her lungs, but that wasn’t as important as the fact that—
—Richard’s fist was plummeting toward her face, a knuckled flesh-colored meteor that filled her vision and finally struck, bringing blackness and pain.
His knuckles chipped a bottom tooth and cut both her lips badly. He broke two of her ribs, the middle finger on her left hand, and cut the back of her head with his shoe, sending blood dribbling down her back.
But he wasn’t finished.
Don’t you ever… ever… talk to me like that again! he screamed. His face was the color of blood and his entire body quaked as he began kicking her some more. Ever! Ever! Ever! Dani vomited onto the living room carpet. You don’t know anything, hear me? he screamed, circling her with clenched fists. You don’t know what’s going on with me, at work, in my head. You don’t know shit!
The beating went on for an eternity; Dani passed in and out of consciousness, sometimes forgetting who was beating her. But even when confusion washed over her like fevered chills, a part of her brain remained detached from her situation and processed a series of orderly thoughts. They were thoughts about what she would do when Richard was finished and she was able to walk. She would go into Jason’s room, gather him up in some warm clothes, maybe get a few things of her own, and go—
—where? She had no idea, but she couldn’t stay with him. Could she? It would only happen again, maybe in a few days or weeks, maybe next year or the year after that, but it would happen again, she had no doubt. She might go to April’s. Or maybe her mother’s. Anywhere. And she would file for divorce immediately. And then she would—
—what? Get a job? Doing what, waitressing? Working in a 7-11? A Burger King? She had no skills. She hadn’t gone to college; in fact, she’d barely gotten through high school. She and Jason would have to live on mere scrapings. Richard had always supported her well. His business was not always good—in fact, it frequently became quite rocky, and that was usually the reason for his tantrums and shouting fits—but he was a very good provider and kept her comfortably surrounded by both necessities and luxuries.
So. Maybe they could see a counselor. Weren’t there shelters for battered women and children? Maybe they could go to some group therapy, or whatever people did when they had problems like this. Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe not.
As Dani writhed on the bedroom floor and Richard slept a few feet away, she felt something move inside her, twist and turn, as if trying to… come out. It was not unlike the sensation of giving birth, but without the pain. She couldn’t tell if it was something she was actually feeling, or if it was a part of the vivid, frightening vision she was having.
The sensation stopped.
The beating stopped.
She sensed Richard standing over her, heard him… groaning. It was the same wretched groan that had come from him after he’d kicked Jason down the stairs… the same groan that had come from him as he stood on the landing doing that horrible thing…
She remained on the living room floor, pain dancing over her body like some vile fanged elf, as Richard went downstairs, his miserable groan fading down the hall, finally silenced by the slam of the bedroom door.
Except she wasn’t in the living room.
She was on the bedroom floor hugging her knees.
Dani lifted her head and looked for the blood she’d been shedding, but it wasn’t there.
The room was dark and Richard was snoring.
Dani hugged herself and lay still on the floor, awaiting the return of the numbness she’d worked so long and hard to perfect, the numbness that enabled her to go on. But without alcohol, it had abandoned her.
In the stillness of the dark bedroom, Dani listened to her nerves scream.
The foggy half-sleep that fell over Jason reminded him, vaguely, of the lead blanket the chubby man in the hospital had spread over him before taking X-ray pictures of his arm. It was heavy and cool but felt protective and safe. He managed to lift his eyelids a fraction of an inch during his odd rest; along with the room’s darkness, his vision was smeared with a murky film that made the room seem filled with smoke. Even the lighting, which was actually becoming brighter and more frequent as the weather grew fierce, was dimmed to a mere flickering of pale light from outside.
Through cotton-stuffed ears, Jason heard sounds: a wet, snotty sucking, like Jell-O being scooped from a bucket; heavy plastic crackling with movement; Dr. Krusadian’s puffs of exertion; the hush of something being dragged over the carpet. With a great heaving effort, Jason opened his eyes and lifted his head an inch from the sofa. Through the clouds in hi
s eyes, he saw Dr. Krusadian pulling on the rope he’d threaded through the tarpaulin’s brass rings. The dark plastic was gathered around something squat and bulbous and heavy that slid with each pull of the doctor’s big arms.
And within the plastic, something moved.
“Rest, Jason,” Dr. Krusadian whispered. “Just close your eyes and rest.”
Jason was far too weary to ask the question that wriggled just behind his lips. He let his head fall back on the cushion and felt himself disappear into the air like a rising cloud of vapor.
17.
When Jason opened his eyes again, he was aware that some time had passed, but had no idea how much.
The room was still dark. Dr. Krusadian was at his side once again, hands joined between his knees, elbows resting on his thighs. His teeth gleamed within the broad frame of his smile and he asked, “How do you feel, Jason?”
“Fine. I guess.” He wasn’t sure. Of anything. He scanned his memory for something—he wasn’t sure what—but came up with only fleeting blurred images and the vaguest of sounds. When he saw the globe, though, something fell into place, dowsing his apprehension.
Dr. Krusadian put his hand on the globe and whispered, “Ready?”
He nodded, even though he couldn’t quite remember what he was ready for.
The music began.
Haziness overcame him.
And the pictures returned.
Dani moved her arm first, sliding it over the carpet to push herself up, and her hand slipped through a thin coating of cool slimy wetness.
Did I throw up? she wondered, rising to her knees and brushing her palm over the carpet again. The glow from the daisy nightlight above the dresser wasn’t enough for her to see what was on the floor, so she reached up and flipped a switch on the wall. The light in the walk-in closet before her came on; the louvered door was open a crack and light striped the carpet.
Dani squinted down at the glistening strip of moisture and reached for it again to touch it, smell it, but something moved within the closet and she jerked her hand back and slapped it to her chest, staring open-mouthed through the two inch opening.
The doorjamb was wet; a drop of clear gelatinous fluid dribbled down to the carpet.
Dani leaned closer to the closet and peered inside, her eyes wandering below the hanging clothes to the dark places where tennis racquets and shoe boxes and rolls of decorous wrapping paper leaned in the shadows.
And something else.
Something wet and puffy, the color of drying semen.
It moved with the sound of phlegm being sucked through a straw, sloshing out of the shadows toward her and Dani threw herself forward, slamming the door and holding it shut with her weight as she screamed.
“Where are you now, Jason?”
“My bedroom.”
“What are you doing?”
“Hiding. Daddy’s screaming again.”
“Why is he screaming?”
“I don’t know”‘
“Where is he?”
“Downstairs. He’s… no, wait, he’s… “ Jason’s voice became a trembling whisper as he listened to his father’s bitter, drunken shouting growing louder. Closer. “… he’s coming up stairs! Up here!”
The bedroom door slammed open and Jason saw his father standing in the doorway holding a G.I. Joe action figure in one hand and a toy Jeep in the other.
You know where I found these? he bellowed. On the living room floor, that’s where. You know how I found them? I nearly broke my goddamned ankle, that’s how!
He stormed across the room toward Jason, dropping the toys, and Mom appeared in the doorway behind him. She leaned heavily against the doorjamb, her head falling to one side like a rag doll’s.
Jason was relieved to see her, certain she would intercede, hoping she would be able to somehow dampen his father’s anger. But the sadness and utter helplessness in her face told him otherwise. She looked at Jason with a pain in her eyes he’d never seen before but would see many times after that, a pain that made him ache; then she turned her gaze to her husband and Jason saw surrender.
She disappeared down the hall and his father’s fists began their work.
Jason began to scream pleas for mercy as his body jolted on the sofa, bouncing on the cushions as if receiving electrical shocks. He felt no actual pain, but seeing his father’s fists falling on him again and again filled him with such terror that he screamed and writhed as if in agony.
Through his father’s roared epithets and battering fists, through his own ragged cries, Jason heard two things: the messy slurping sound he’d heard earlier and his mother screaming from far away, “Let me out! Let me out of here, please! Plee-heeeze!”
They were screaming in the Campbell house again…
When the music stopped and the brutal vision faded, Jason opened his sleepy eyes to see Dr. Krusadian once again dragging the bulky tarpaulin out of the living room.
“You just relax, Jason,” the doctor said as the thing in the tarpaulin squirmed wetly. “You relax and… back in… few minutes… we’ll… “
His voice faded as Jason slept. But even in his sleep, he could hear his mother screaming.
18.
“Jesus Christ, Dani, what’re you screaming about?” Richard rose clumsily from the bed as Dani slammed a chair against the closet door. “What the hell is—”
“There’s something in the closet.”
“What?”
“Something’s in the closet, I saw it, it moved!”
“Oh, Christ, Dani, you’re drunk.” He started for the closet, reaching for the chair.
“No! Please, Richard, don’t open it!” She stepped in front of him and put her hands on his chest, closing them over his shirt desperately. “Please.”
He rolled his eyes and pushed her aside.
Dani gripped his arm and pulled hard, snapping, “No!”
With the speed of the lightning that brightened the windows, Richard spun and slapped her face hard, knocking her onto the bed as—
—something clattered in the closet, rattling the door against the chair and—
—with a brief metallic clicking, the bedroom door opened and Dr. Krusadian glared at them in an electric flash of lightning and the thunder that followed could have been his voice.
“What is it?” Dani screamed at him. “What have you done? What the hell is it?”
“Leave the room,” he said, his voice level but deadly. “Now. No questions.”
Dani ignored his words and shouted again, “What is it? What have you—”
Dr. Krusadian’s lips pulled back over his teeth and his voice hit the walls of the room like a wrecking ball.
“Leave! This! Roooom!”
The thing in the closet threw itself against the door and the wooden chair crackled weakly, preparing to give way.
Dani stopped breathing and wrung her hands at her chest as she looked at Richard. His face was blank.
Dr. Krusadian gave them room to pass and Richard left the room first with Dani behind him, not wanting to be separated. A tightly rolled length of barbed wire was unrolling itself in her stomach slicing her insides to shreds.
In the hall, she could still hear the closet door being rammed from the inside and she wanted to run screaming from the house.
Krusadian stopped outside the bathroom between Jason’s room and theirs. He opened the door and gestured for them to enter.
They did so without question.
Krusadian closed the door and locked them in without comment.
Richard sat on the edge of the bathtub, loudly grinding his teeth; anger was alive in his face now, like maggots beneath the decaying skin of a corpse’s face.
“What the fuck did you do?” he growled.
“I-I-I didn’t d-do anything, Richard! I… didn’t do… anything.”
He looked into her eyes and for a moment she thought he was going to hit her. Then he turned away, stood, and began to pace in the small space.
�
�Richard?” she whispered.
He said nothing.
“Richard?”
Impatiently: “What?”
Dani leaned over the toilet and threw up.
The bathroom seemed to grow much smaller as Dani and Richard waited for Dr. Krusadian to return.
Richard said nothing and, although she wanted to speak, just to break the funereal silence and cover the endless steady dripping of the sink’s faucet, she said nothing either.
With no clock in the bathroom, their stay was timeless and Dani feared, after a while, that Krusadian might leave them there for the night.
Maybe he’s left the house, she thought, realizing there were no sounds in the hall or from downstairs. Then the worst thought of all: Maybe he’s taken Jason with him.
Richard sat on the tub’s edge with his face in his hands, occasionally murmuring into his palms, but only to himself.
Sitting on the toilet, Dani watched him, willing him to look at her. She needed to be touched, held, reassured, but knew better than to expect those things from Richard in a time of crisis, or any other time. She could not remember what the touch of Richard’s hands felt like; she was now only familiar with the pain of their blows.
There was a sound from their bedroom, muffled through the wall, and Dani lifted her head to listen. She recognized the rattle of the closet’s louvered door being opened. Objects clattered, something thumped the wall.
“What’s he doing?” she breathed, knowing she would be ignored. She stood, listened.
He left the bedroom and moved into the hall. Slowly.
Dani went to the door and cocked her head.
Dr. Krusadian was dragging something past the bathroom.
Unable to resist, she asked, “What are you doing?”
“With you in a moment,” he replied, dragging… dragging…
Until he was gone.
A few moments later, she returned to the toilet and waited, only to stand again when she heard the door being unlocked from the other side. It opened and Dr. Krusadian grinned at them.
He said, “Let’s take a break.”
