by The Awethors
* * *
Abbey was tired, tired of being the only adult in the relationship with her mother. She wanted to play and dance and do normal things that normal twelve year olds were supposed to do, not wait around like a worried parent wondering where her mother was all the time. She was also angry. Angry at the yelling and sirens that always woke her up in the middle of the night. Angry at her mother for leaving yet again. She hated this neighborhood and she hated her mother for abandoning her to it. Abbey tried to stay in touch with her stepdad. Every time she and her mom moved, she would leave him a message with their new address, but he would never pick up the phone and he had never written.
After her little excursion to the Vaughn Building four months ago things had gotten a little better between her and her mom for a while. Jennifer had gotten a part time job at a deli down the street and had promised to enroll Abbey in school. Abbey tried to believe her mom’s promises that things would change, but she knew better. As always, her mom’s pattern of bad habits had surfaced again. Abbey felt completely alone and empty as she sat in the dark apartment and waited for her mother to come home.
A sound she couldn’t immediately identify woke Abbey. As she struggled to get her bearings, she realized she had fallen asleep. She heard keys scratching at the door as her mother fumbled with the lock.
Abbey jumped up, rushing to the door. She pulled it open and began admonishing the intoxicated woman. “I’ve been alone for three days! Mom you promised,” she then looked her mother over with the aid of the hallway lights, assessing whatever injuries she may have sustained during her absence. “And, where are your shoes?”
“Shh, don’t exaggerate. I’ve only been gone a couple of hours.” Jennifer Thorne moved passed her daughter, leaning on one side of the small hallway for support. A grocery bag was tucked beneath her arm. Abbey looked at it with a sigh, hoping the bag contained food but knowing that it most likely held alcohol.
“No, it has been three days! Just like last time! You’ve been with him again, haven’t you?”
“Let him taste the sugar and you get the candy for free,” her mother said, with an evil laugh and a swift, graceless shake of her butt.
The bag full of cheap vodka crashed to the ground as Jennifer lost her balance.
Anger swelled inside Abbey. “Pimping yourself out to a drug dealer to support your stupid habits? Stepdaddy would be so proud!”
A smack on the face usually came next, but not this time. Abbey watched like she was having an out of body experience as her mother raised her hand to strike. Time seemed to slow as she easily moved out of the way. Not just once, but twice, and on the third swing Abbey stood steadfast, grabbed her stunned mother’s wrist, and pushed her away.
Abbey looked down at her hands. How did I do that? It’s like I knew where mom would strike before she did it.
Jennifer stumbled back against the kitchen counter. Her eyes were wide as she stared at her daughter almost as if she were afraid of the twelve year old. “It’s your fault he’s gone - Shit!”
Whatever cruelty Jennifer was about to assault her daughter with was interrupted by a shard of glass that had sliced her foot. Stumbling towards their kitchenette she managed to step on a few more pieces.
Abbey moved to her mother’s side to help her walk. “Stop. Just stop, you’re stepping on more. OMG, even drunk you’re so-” she frantically waved her free hand trying to think of how to describe how disappointed she was in her mother’s behavior. “You’re so typical! Drunk or sober you sound like every other horrible mother in this stupid building, blaming their kid instead of taking responsibility for-” Abbey refused to let her tears fall. Instead, she pulled a handkerchief from inside her hoodie and tried to wipe away the blood from her mother’s foot.
Jennifer pushed Abbey’s hand away. “Get off me. It’s not that bad.”
Abbey felt like a stranger looking in at her life. A scene from a sad movie was merely playing out before her as she unthinkingly folded the sullied handkerchief and placed it on the kitchen counter. She even refrained from asking her mother the same questions that plagued her every time they argued. Why did you even have me? And, why do you keep dragging me around everywhere? The answers didn’t seem to matter anymore. Abbey was numb to her surroundings as she looked around the barren apartment. She could almost predict everything that would follow. Her mom was already limping to the couch, lighting a cigarette. Her foot was still bleeding as she propped it on the milk crate they called their coffee table.
Abbey scoffed at her next prediction. In fifteen seconds mom’s chest will start to heave, then she’ll begin to cry. This is where she apologizes and I become a blithering, snotty mess. Then it’ll all start over again.
Abbey took a deep breath and started before her mom could begin to cry. “Mom, I love you. You’re the only family I have, but I need more. I want to go back to school and I want to stop stealing your stash of vodka. All of this moving is just not healthy for us. My friend Maggie said I could stay with her for a while,” she lied. She would clear it with Maggie when she showed up at her house. Abbey looked down at her feet as Jennifer began to cry. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Several minutes of Jennifer’s sobbing turned into sniffles. “Baby girl I-” Jennifer paused and sat up. “Wait. What did you do with my vodka?”
Abbey shook her head in defeat and walked to their front door without looking back. “I’ll be at Maggie’s,” she said, and slammed the door.
Worlds Colliding
He gave her that look. Abbey hated the sympathetic look people always gave her when she went searching for her missing mother. This time the look was coming from her mother’s boss. He hadn’t seen or heard from her in seven days. Neither had Abbey. Yesterday, the look had come from Maggie when Abbey lied and said her mom and stepdad were back from their impromptu second honeymoon. It was obvious that Maggie hadn’t believed her. The sad looks were always followed by too many questions that Abbey was ashamed to answer. She couldn’t stay with Maggie any longer, the sad looks made it impossible.
After Abbey left the love and warmth of Maggie’s house to return to an empty apartment and an eviction notice, she knew something was wrong. A week had passed and the blood and broken glass were still covering their kitchen floor and her mother’s remaining alcohol stash remained untouched.
From behind his glass counter her mother’s boss was rolling up several deli sandwiches making Abbey’s mouth water. “If she comes in early tomorrow, I’ll give her another chance, but this is the last time.”
“Thanks,” was all Abbey could manage as she walked out of the man’s store.
“Hey, kid!”
Abbey turned. The man tossed her a sandwich, still warm and fragrant in its waxy wrapper.
“Good luck out there, huh?” he said, giving her another sympathetic look.
Abbey barely nodded her head as she left the deli. She tucked the sandwich into her hoodie’s kangaroo pocket for later as her stomach growled in protest. Yes, she was hungry and had been walking around for hours, but she wasn’t starving. Yet.
She headed for the last place on her mental list of where her mom could be. It was also the last place she wanted to find her mother.
Please don’t be pee, please don’t be pee, Abbey thought as she walked down the abandoned building’s ratty hallway, avoiding the wet debris. As she made her way to the apartment and drug den she knew lurked within Abbey gathered her strength. It was the same apartment building her mother swore she would stop coming to. Abbey hadn’t believed her, not after seeing first-hand how many drugs were being passed so freely. But this time the building was quiet. There was no loud music blaring, no thick haze of smoke clinging to the air, and no coughing or wheezing coming from the countless addicts Abbey had passed during her first encounter. The building seemed empty now. When she reached the last door at the end of the hallway she took a deep breath and swung it open without stepping inside. Abbey gasped and put her hands
to her mouth.
Jennifer Thorne was sitting alone on the floor propped against a wall staring into nothingness. The apartment was bare, abandoned but for a few pieces of ruined furniture, and her mother had been left to rot. She looked like a rag doll that had lost all of its filling, weak, frail, and so limp her muscles looked like they had atrophied. The drying vomit surrounding her on the floor had started to attract flies.
Abbey jumped as Jennifer took an unexpected shallow ragged breath, but still her mother didn’t blink and she actually looked… happy.
Abbey’s shock was replaced by anger as she stepped through the threshold. “Well, you really did it this time didn’t you!”
The grungy, barren apartment instantly morphed into a familiar house. Her stepdad waved at her from the kitchen as he pulled a turkey out of the oven. Her mom swatted him with a towel while he basted the bird. He pulled her into a kiss and smiled as he grabbed the towel and swatted her back. The sights and smells were intoxicating and Abbey swore she could live in the perfect memory forever.
Memory? Abbey thought as her stomach growled. A flash of soiled couches assaulted her vision. She shook her head trying to remember something, but her mind felt hazy. “Abigail Renee Thorne,” her mother’s voice whispered in her head as the couple before her remained locked in an embrace. The welcoming smells of Thanksgiving dinner began to sour, morphing into odors of rancid human waste.
“Abigail Renee Thorne!” her mother said holding her stepdad’s hands and looking into his eyes.
Abbey shook her head again, closing her eyes for a moment. She looked across the room at her frail mother as the apartment kept shifting from a festive holiday home into a dingy graffiti tagged drug den.
“Mom! What’s going on? Mom?” Abbey ran across the room, fell to her knees, and shook her mother. Jennifer was lifeless, staring blissfully into nothingness. Abbey followed her mother’s gaze up to the ceiling and noticed an out of place shadow hovering in the darkest hollow of the room.
The shadow looked like a canopy of mist draped in the corner of the ceiling, almost tangible, like a physical three dimensional thing sculpted from onyx.
Jennifer gasped for air as Abbey was pulled back into the Thanksgiving vision.
Her mother smiled at her husband as he carved the turkey. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. For everything.”
The man stopped carving and lifted his head towards Abbey. Only smooth pale flesh stared back at her, no mouth, no nose or eyes, only emptiness. Her stepdad had no face. He began carving again, but this time the bird was gone and he used the blade on himself. As he cut parts of his own flesh from his arm, the skin and sinew fell to the floor. They disappeared, one after another as Abbey’s reality threatened to slip away. For a moment she feared her spine was melting as she strained to avert her eyes from the horrific and jumbled images.
From above her the shadow appeared and rattled like a snake’s tail. It was as though her two realities were morphing together. The shadow shimmered from the darkest black to the bleakest of grays, as if it were reacting to Abbey’s awareness of it.
“No time. Hood up, like I taught you!” Jennifer said cupping her stepdad’s cheek as he kept cutting.
Abbey complied without question as the shadow rattled louder and louder.
“Now run and don’t look back! I’m so sorry, baby girl. Always remember that I love you.”
Abbey looked at the shadow again as it began to slither off the ceiling and morph into...Oh my god!
A sharp pain ran up Abbey’s leg. It felt as though something had pierced her thigh. The dregs of her happiest memory faded as her awareness completely returned to the filthy room. She looked down once more. Jennifer had grabbed her leg and was now looking directly at her.
“Run.” Jennifer mustered a shaky warning as she took one last breath.
Instincts Abbey didn’t know she possessed kicked in as she jumped up and ran from the apartment, slamming the door shut behind her. Running down the hall with her head down and hood up she heard a loud roar and a thud against the apartment door that vibrated through the floor beneath her feet. Her mind was still hazy, the illusion of her stepfather on Thanksgiving had been so real. Please tell me I’m hallucinating that creature, too!
“Hey!” an arm reached out and grabbed her.
Ouch! What the hell was that?
The policeman let go and recoiled as a jolt of electricity surged through Abbey’s body.
He must have felt it too! Abbey thought, taking advantage of the cop’s stunned reaction. Pulling her hood further down to cover her face, she ran down the stairs and didn’t look back.
“Hey, Kid! Stop!” but the cop didn’t follow.
Fighting back tears, Abbey heard another splintering thud against the apartment door that demanded the officer’s attention. The shadow creature sounded like a caged beast, feral, and wild. Her mind was hazy as if waking from a dream. She wondered if the shadow had done something to her. Fearing the creature had been real and that her mother was truly dead she ran blindly down the city street trying to make sense of what had just happened.
