She told the doctor about the nightmares but he insisted there was no real problem. She must be worrying about it too much and needed to think happy thoughts to break the pattern, he told her. She stared at him as he spoke, knowing her fear was real, knowing that when she clung to her mattress and covers, fearing to even so much as breathe, that she could really feel the presence of those strong, naked men just waiting to carry her off to damnation if she showed even the slightest sign of life.
Adelaide had started to tell her mother about the dreams when she had a more lucid moment but her father had stopped her, telling her it was nonsense, only a dream.
“There ain’t no such thing as demons Addy, stop that nonsense, you’re scaring your mother.”
Adelaide started to fight sleeping at night, only allowing her body a reprieve once the sun came up sometimes. She’d pace the floor at night, her broken ankle making the task difficult, but she’d insist on thumping around her bedroom when the urge to sleep was strongest. The lack of sleep didn’t help matters. Her body was exhausted and she could no longer fight the anger. The anger consumed her thoughts; it ruled her mouth and her actions. And with each throb of her aching brain, still painful two weeks after her accident, her anger grew. Her actions became more violent and finally it broke, a screaming fit as her mother tried to read the Bible to her once more, finally making the irritating words stop. And then she knew nothing because her world turned black as her brain seemed to become nothing but burning fiery pain.
Watching her daughter twitching on the floor, her clothes wet because her bladder had let go, Eva could do nothing but drop to her knees and pray. The doctor had left, there’d been no more fits, but now it was back again. Eva prayed out loud, screaming at the demons that tortured her daughter to get out of the house, to leave her daughter in the name of Jesus but the fit just went on.
Malachi came into the room and pushed Eva aside, rolling Adelaide onto her right side. He brushed her hair back from her face and saw the painful contortions of her body. He had no explanation for the fits either but knew it wasn’t what Eva suspected. This was some kind of biological problem, it wasn’t any demon. He brushed Adelaide’s hair back from her face, feeling how hot she was growing.
“Eva, stop that useless caterwauling and fetch a bowl of cold water and a rag woman. The Lord isn’t going to help her right now, we need to.” Malachi’s faith had slipped a little further down into non-existence as the days had passed. He had no patience for the wailing rebukes of his wife at the moment.
And just as suddenly as the fit had begun it was over. Adelaide’s body relaxed and she crawled to the bed, sleeping once more. Malachi sat beside her, wiping her face until she started to snore. He looked over at his wife and saw the hurt there. He was too exhausted just now to do anything about it. Too tired from chopping wood, too exhausted from taking his turns caring for their daughter, feeding the animals, fighting with his own pain to take her in his arms and apologize. So he walked out without saying anything and went to wait for the doctor to return. Something had to be done and the doctor was coming today. Malachi would wait for him.
“I’m not taking that.” Adelaide said that evening, looking at the pill Doctor Avery had left.
“You have to darling, you have to sleep. You don’t realize how anxious you’ve become, how haggard. You can’t see the dark circles under your eyes or how thin you’re growing. You need to sleep my dear.” Eva insisted, holding the pill out once more.
“I said I’m not taking it, you silly old cow!” Adelaide growled from between her clenched teeth. Her eyes blazed anger and her face was a portrait of hate.
Eva backed away, leaving the room in a rush of tears. The doctor had said they would help but Adelaide refused to take the pills. What were they going to do? And now Malachi was upset with her as well. Eva ran to their bedroom and closed the door quietly, trying to shut out all of the hurt so she could have some peace.
Malachi watched his wife flee their daughter’s room and lost his patience finally. He knew Adelaide had been through a lot, he knew she was suffering, but so were they and this nonsense, this meanness, had to stop. And if the doctor couldn’t make it stop he was sure going to. He wasn’t having this havoc anymore!
Malachi stepped into Adelaide’s room and saw the girl slouched in the floor, her hair straggling down her face in a dirty mess, her clothes stained and messy. Her thin face was sullen and she hid it behind her splinted arm.
“Go away, old man. I’m too tired to fight with you. I’m not taking that pill.”
“Oh yes you are. And I don’t care how tired you are, or how ill you are, you get up off of that floor, go apologize to your mother, come back in here, take that pill, and take your sorry hind-end to bed. Or else.”
She didn’t ask the expected “or else what”, she just rolled her eyes. At which point Malachi grabbed her good arm and marched her into the room Eva was hiding in.
“Tell her.” He insisted, shaking Adelaide’s arm.
She only gave a sigh before turning away. Malachi refused to let her go and turned her around.
“Tell her!” He said once more, more insistently.
She sighed again but this time she hung her head.
“I’m sorry Momma.” Her words were sullen and forced but she said them. That’s all that mattered to Eva.
“I thank you darling.” Eva said, turning from her spot in the bed to face Malachi and Adelaide, her white hair in a braid that fell over the edge of the bed.
Eva wiped the tears from her eyes and gave a weak smile before sitting up. She was in the old robe Malachi had brought home from his time at war, patched in places now and not as bright blue as it once was, but still one of her prized possessions. He could see her worn nightgown beneath the robe. The robe was tighter than it had been then as well but he could still see his beautiful young bride through the years.
“I’ll make you a cup of your tea, Eva, you just stay there. Adelaide is going to take her medicine and we’re all going to get some rest. I think we all need it. And tomorrow Adelaide is going to get up and eat breakfast with us. She’s lost far too much weight.”
Malachi marched his daughter back into her room and gently pushed her to her bed.
“I know you’re having nightmares, Adelaide. Believe me; I’ve had a time with that myself. But if you let this consume you it will only get worse. You have to fight it and not give in. You’re a strong girl. Don’t let this beat you!” Malachi urged, handing her the pill and watching as she swallowed it with a glass of water.
He went so far as to check her mouth to make sure she swallowed the sedative and then went into the kitchen to make Eva’s tea. He saw firewood stacked in the metal box they used for storing it in and was glad the doctor had arranged for a young man to come and help them. Doc said he’d had a grant to help pay for help for his patients, if they needed anything other than medical care but Malachi wasn’t sure about that. He didn’t know much about grants and such but he knew he’d pay the doctor back for his kindness somehow. The doctor had even brought groceries up on his run today and his wife was coming tomorrow to help Eva get the washing done.
Some of their old friends were sending up their children and grandchildren to help them out as well. Malachi had been worried about getting everything done before the winter set in but now most of the work was done. The days were already starting to grow shorter and Malachi knew it wouldn’t be long. But the wood was chopped and stacked, food was stored away, and all that could be done was getting done. Now it was just the daily chores that needed doing and if they could get Addy sorted out things would be alright.
Malachi gave his own sigh as he prepared the tea for Eva, an herbal mixture she’d started to drink every night, and made himself one too. It tasted awful but Eva swore by it. He hadn’t been kidding Addy about the nightmares. He’d had a few himself lately and was hoping the tea would sort that out.
His nightmares weren’t about white men chasing him, however,
they were about walking skeletons, so starved that giving them food killed them when they ate too much. He went back to those horrible days in his dreams, to the smells of the camps, the devastation and utter despair. And for some, the total break with reality that followed such treatment.
He tried to shake off the memories as he headed in with two cups of tea and settled into bed with his wife. He just wanted a restful, peaceful night for them all so they could start to function normally and maybe start to really address what was wrong with Addy without the fog of exhaustion and superstition to muddy their view. They needed to sort this out and stop it now.
Malachi drank the tea and held his wife until she fell asleep, a gentle snore so like the one her daughter made, coming from her side of the bed. Malachi had loved Eva from the moment he saw her. His stint in the army had been the only time they were ever truly apart. He hadn’t wanted to leave her then but the reality had been that if he hadn’t gone in and signed up he’d have been drafted anyway and put wherever the military decided. By going in on his own he at least got to pick which branch he was sent to. If Malachi had been 46 at the time instead of 42 he would have been too old for the draft but as it happened he fell within the age limits and off he’d had to go.
Malachi reminded himself to put those memories away. He’d had no idea how the memories would haunt him, PTSD hadn’t been recognized yet, and he didn’t understand depression but he knew if he let himself sink into the mire he’d have a hard time pulling himself back out. So he pushed the memories away, made his breathing even out, and closed his eyes.
Soon the house was quiet but for the nasally breathing and snores of the occupants. Even Adelaide was asleep, though she wasn’t as still and quiet as the others for long. As the night wore on Adelaide’s limbs began to move and she started to mutter in her sleep. The screams of terror she tried to release in her dreams came out only as pitiful sobs both in the dream and in reality. She thrashed around, even her injured limbs moving in her slumber.
Adelaide, her normal self in her dreams, tried to scream out for her mother and father, wanting their protection, but could not scream. Only a dry whisper of sound would come out and as much as she tried to wake herself up she just couldn’t. Before long she even started to wonder if this was in fact reality because no matter how she tried in that odd reality of knowing you’re dreaming she could not make herself wake up. Tears streamed down from her eyes as she hid behind a bolder in her dream, her knees huddled up to her chest as she tried to hide from the monsters hunting her. A tear slipped from between her eyes in reality as her body curled up to make herself as small as possible.
Adelaide hid, locked into the nightmare that would not end. She could hear their footsteps in the dark woods, only thin slivers of moonlight shining through. Their bare feet slithered through fallen leaves and cracked over tiny twigs that had fallen to the forest floor. She lifted her head to see how close they were and could see one, not far away but moving in the opposite direction. Even from behind, the glow of the man’s pink eyes was visible and Adelaide quickly ducked her head once more.
Maybe if she just stayed quiet they’d wander away. She sat for hours, her body growing stiff as the cold night air creeped into her skin and bones through the cotton nightgown she wore. Her knees began to ache and even though her arm and ankle were fine in the dream they too began to ache more than the rest of her body.
Adelaide heard the snapping of a twig underfoot close by and her eyes flew open once more. There was one here, slithering towards her over the rock. She looked up just in time to see a pale white hand coming down to curl in her hair, pulling her head up. A scream formed in the back of her throat, trapped once again in her chest, as her body pulled up and her mind suddenly went blank.
Her last thought as the seizure took hold was at least it was over, the nightmare was finally over. As Adelaide’s body tensed and pulsed, her body first bowing in and then out, her breath forced from her lungs by a crushing spasm that pulled her body in on itself, muscles pulled and her body started to overheat. Her body shivered, shaking until an observer might think the spasms would kill her. A person’s body just couldn’t take that kind of harsh treatment. As her body flexed back out once more, the spasms going the other way, one could be forgiven for thinking her body was levitating as space appeared between her back and the bed. The light from the window could be seen from that space, a pale moonlight, and her arms were flung out beside her. And in that light was a shape, the shape of a man’s hand, or the shape of the curtain, one couldn’t be certain.
Chapter Six
“Eva, we can’t leave her in her room like that. Surely the doctor can do something with her?” Malachi spoke quietly from his seat at the table, staring into his cup of coffee forlornly.
“He said he can send her to an institution but I don’t want to do that.” Eva’s words were equally without hope, and quiet.
It had been two weeks now. The pills were making Adelaide sleep but something inside of her had snapped. She’d started to retreat into herself and when she was awake she’d huddle in a corner, muttering to herself. Eva often sat beside of her, trying to understand the words her daughter spoke but she couldn’t. They didn’t sound like English, much less real words. The words came quickly and quietly, utterances that no normal human being could have understood.
“Perhaps the pills aren’t a good idea after all?” Malachi said, his soul burdened with guilt for forcing them on his daughter. She hadn’t spoken a word to them since that first night. She just sat against the wall, shredding her own skin with her nails or picking at her healing wounds.
Eva would have to bathe her with a bucket and a rag because Adelaide wouldn’t leave her room at all. She’d also stopped using the toilet or the chamber pot they’d brought her. She’d just squat and do her business. Eva was at a breaking point with her daughter and Malachi was already broken.
“If you’re not willing to admit what’s really happening here there’s nothing I can offer you to help, Malachi.” Eva sighed, standing up to clear the dishes away.
“There’s no such thing as demons, Eva. I’ve told you that over and over again. We’ll stop giving her the pills and see if that helps.” Malachi blew air out from between his pursed lips and stood up. “I’m going to feed the animals, then I’ll come help you get her up.”
Eva shook her head in silent acknowledgement and went about her own business, cleaning the breakfast dishes up. She went in to check on Adelaide and saw her daughter was still asleep. Her left arm was moving oddly, making strange patterns as her hand clenched and unclenched. Eva watched the movements and saw there was a pattern to the movements, as though Adelaide were making signals.
Eva wondered if this was some new kind of fit and sat down to watch Adelaide. Adelaide didn’t move in the bed but in her dream she was in the village, the Moon-eyed people’s village. Locked in a cage she begged for water, holding her hand out to each person that passed by her in the village in the dark night-time forest. She was thirsty, so thirsty. She flipped her hand up once more as a woman passed by, her glowing pink eyes burning into Adelaide’s.
The woman laughed and kicked at Adelaide’s hand. The frightened girl pushed herself quickly to the back of the cage, huddling in the only safety she could find. There was no threat of attack from the back because the cage was pushed up against a hut made from the same kind of sticks and sinew that the cage was made from. The sinew had dried around the joints of the cage and could not be torn apart, no matter how Adelaide picked at them.
The cage looked simple enough, as though it wouldn’t stand up to a good well-placed kick but nothing Adelaide did would bring the cage down. Every night she went back into the cage and every day she spent huddled, trying not to catch anyone’s attention. Even in her own reality she saw the people, saw the village, and could not escape her captors. She’d become like an animal now, huddling away from pain, and trying to escape notice.
Eva watched her daughter, the way she
skittered across the bed, and wondered what kind of things the girl saw in her dreams. What had driven her into this mute world she now inhabited? Was it the pills? Were they making her worse? Or was it something she and Malachi could not see?
Eva was a Christian but she wasn’t much of a church-goer. She didn’t go in for traveling revival pastors and the hypocrisy that came from many of the parishioners. She believed the things her mother had taught her, though she hadn’t realized that the religion her mother taught her was a mixture of Native American beliefs, German superstition, and the unique version of Christianity that America developed over the centuries. She knew what she knew and that’s all she knew.
To her it looked like Adelaide was being possessed. Perhaps not by a specific spirit or demon but by a race of people that had far more power than their human counterparts realized. Her daughter was being drugged into a world that wasn’t her own. Eva’s mother had taught her how to make hexes to keep the spirits away but they were obviously failing. Eva had been trying to remember the ritual for breaking the spell of the spirits but could not recall it at all.
She watched helplessly as Adelaide’s eyes popped open and the girl let out a long scream. Eva tried to soothe the girl, tried to help her to see reality but Adelaide’s glazed eyes saw nothing of reality, they only saw the illusion of the village. Her mother was an old village woman, with the glowing eyes of her tormentors, her father the same when he came rushing into the room. Or the cage as Adelaide saw it.
The cage was large, large enough to stand in and move around in but she could not escape it. The evil ones would come in to clean up the cage, to poke at her, and to examine her hair and body before leaving. Adelaide knew that they’d come in at night and do things to her as well. She didn’t know what because she’d always lose consciousness but they’d come and she’d finally get some peace from all of them.
The first few times she’d tried to run, tried to escape them but soon she learned there was no escape and the oblivion that came with their presence became her drug of choice. That moment of no awareness, no feeling or thought, no sensation, just a black void of peace was a temptation she stopped running from. Adelaide now longed for that void, wished for it, urged it to come to her, but in a language she didn’t know she knew. She’d learned the words that brought the oblivion and spoke them over and over during the awake times, trying to bring it back. But it only came in the night, when they came for her.
Thriller: Horror: Conceived (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story) Page 26
