Little Emmett

by Abe Moss

  “But…”

  He couldn’t help remembering Olive and Bo, the Holmes’ dogs. Only for an instant. He felt weightless in his chair, like he was in a dream. The most awful, surreal dream…

  “What was it she told you, then?” Dr. Marks put the butt of her pen to her chin, intrigued. “They were just strangers she happened to know who… died in their sleep? Don’t you think that sounds a little weird?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know anything!”

  “Maybe you don’t.” She tapped the pen to her chin. “But you saw things that night in your grandparent’s basement, didn’t you?”

  Emmett folded his arms, determined to say nothing.

  “One thing is very curious, though. Something we haven’t been able to figure out. Your mother somehow managed to break the cement foundation in that basement with nothing more than a shovel, as far as anyone can tell. Which isn’t possible. What all did your mother bring that night? Can you remember any equipment?”

  Emmett muttered under his breath—partly embarrassed, partly stubborn to cooperate, and partly because he knew how it sounded and thought it would serve her right to be given an answer and have nothing to show for it.

  Even if it was the truth.

  “I’m sorry, what was that?”

  He repeated himself.

  “It was magic.”

  Dr. Marks gave a slow, heavy sigh. “You’re eight years old now, Emmett. Don’t you think you’re a little old for magic? Or are you just trying to waste both our time?”

  “You asked,” he said, and tightened the fold of his arms.

  “So, you believe in your mother’s delusions as well, then? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “It’s not a delusion,” he said. “It’s real.”

  “If that’s what you think, then it’s worse than I thought. This is unfortunate.” She leaned back in her chair, eyes shut, as though terribly saddened by his answer. “Emmett… there’s something you need to know. I had hoped to avoid telling you this… at least for today. But now I realize that wouldn’t be fair… even if it is your birthday.”

  More games, he thought. She believed she could manipulate him with her theatrics, when in reality they only bored him.

  She leaned forward, hands folded on her desk. Her mouth moved, but he didn’t hear the words coming out. Or at least he didn’t understand them. Like the words in his mother’s books, Dr. Marks’ words were alien. They held no meaning. He blanked for a moment, listening.

  “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” she asked.

  “What?”

  She watched him skeptically.

  “I said your mother passed away last night.”

  His arms loosened around himself. The air stilled.

  “I’m telling you this because, well, it’s your right to know, first of all. But you also need to know what these kinds of things lead to. These dangerous beliefs you shared with her…”

  “You’re lying,” he said.

  “I’m afraid not. She was found this morning. She took her own life. I learned only an hour ago.”

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you. Especially not about something like—”

  “All you do is lie!” he shouted. He sat up in his chair, feet on the ground. “You’re a bad person!”

  “Emmett…”

  “My mom isn’t dead, and she’s not a murderer!”

  Even as he professed this, he couldn’t keep the floodgates from opening. Why was he so sensitive? Why did his feelings always betray him?

  “You’re the murderer! You are!”

  “Emmett!” Dr. Marks exclaimed, hand to her heart.

  “You’re crazy!” he screamed, his cheeks flushed. His thoughts were a whirlpool, so many images caught in the middle. He thought of Tobie, and something he’d once heard him say sprang into his mouth, left his lips before he even knew what he was saying. “You fucking creep!”

  “That’s enough!” Dr. Marks jumped to her feet, hands flat on her desk. “It’s hard enough for me to tell you these things, Emmett, don’t make me send you to Detainment as well.”

  He remained at the edge of his seat, nostrils flared, staring into her scornful face. Eventually she took her seat again. She fidgeted with her glasses, though they sat neatly on her nose like always.

  “I really hoped this would have been easier…” She opened her drawer, and for the umpteenth time removed his mother’s pendant. He ached in his chest when he saw it. “I wanted to give this to you, long before this terrible news. Now I wish even more that I could. But I can’t. You and I made a deal, and you haven’t held up your end.”

  “I did the test! It’s not my fault the helmet doesn’t work!”

  “Lower your voice,” she said, her own voice quavering with frustration. “It wasn’t just the test. You promised me you would be on your best behavior. That was the deal.”

  “I didn’t promise anything,” he said. “That’s just what you said.”

  “Then it’s all the same, isn’t it? You didn’t do as I asked. You’ve been lying to me, not answering my questions, and these outbursts…”

  “I’m not lying…” he grumbled.

  “You’re lucky I’m kind. Or else I’d be sending you straight to Detainment for the things you said a moment ago.”

  “I don’t care,” he muttered under his breath.

  “What’s that?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care about Detainment.”

  She was quiet. She passed the pendant from one hand to the other.

  “Is that so?” She made a sound, a low breath. “I can’t tell you how disappointed I am about all this. You’ve really let me down, Emmett.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I thought you would have wanted this more than ever now. Something to remember her by…”

  “It’s just a necklace,” he said, and the words tore him up inside.

  His denial of his mother’s death wobbled, swaying so high on its wooden stilts. He remembered the previous night, his mother’s voice, and it made sense to him. Horrible, tragic sense.

  —we’ll be together again soon—

  And everything came crashing down.

  “It’s too late for that,” Dr. Marks said to his tears. “You’ve made your point. You don’t care about anything.” She put the pendant back into her drawer. “The worst part about all of this, I think, is I’m sure your mother believed she’d taught you better than this.”

  “You’re the meanest person I ever met!” he screamed, his voice a volley of emotion. “I hate you…”

  Dr. Marks crossed the room toward the office door. As she went, Emmett quieted, confused about where she was going. She opened the door and signaled the guard inside.

  “Detainment,” she told him. “Immediately.”

  “No!” Emmett cried.

  The guard advanced, face void of feeling. Just part of the job. Emmett shrank into his chair, wishing there was someone, anyone, who he could call upon for help. But they were all the same. He couldn’t have been more alone in a place like this. He was broken like all the others, they thought. All the others they managed to break…

  “Come on,” the guard said. “I can carry you if you make me.”

  He would have to carry him, Emmett decided.

  The guard scooped him up without a fuss. On their way to the door Emmett exchanged looks with Dr. Marks, and to his boiling terror saw she was smiling.

  “He’s to remain in Detainment until tomorrow morning. No meals.”

  The guard carried him into the corridor, out of her evil’s reach toward another altogether.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The carpet was soft enough against his face as his twisting body forced him against it, mouth open in a silent scream. They’d given him a higher dose this time. He was in the throes of the fifth or sixth wave, the relief between them hardly enough to recover, and he
felt no hint at them stopping any time soon.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  During one wave—there was no counting them anymore—he vomited. He was on his back when it happened, arched like an infant in a fit of unrest. Unable to move, to even so much as turn his head or cough, he could do nothing but choke and pray the wave would subside. The stench sickened him so that he gagged, and yet still he could do nothing…

  He rolled his helpless eyes to the door, where not a soul had stirred for hours. He was choking to death with nary a peep and, of course, if he died it would be no loss to them.

  Did he taste blood?

  The corners of his vision turned black. Like staring through two straws. His lungs throbbed painfully—they would either burst or inhale his sickness and drown him.

  Then, all in an instant, his muscles released him into a heap of numb limbs and he rolled against his side and coughed the sickness onto the carpet. He gasped for air. Ragged breaths. It hurt to breathe. He spat.

  Indeed, there was blood.. As he’d expected.

  The cramps were finally beginning to space themselves. More than a few minutes between them, at least. He crawled to the side of the room farthest from the place he’d vomited and collapsed. It wasn’t over yet. He felt more waves approaching, however far away they might be, creeping through him like a virus.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  —we’ll be together again soon—

  He understood what she meant now. She was dead, like Dr. Marks said, and soon he would be, too. And then, as she promised…

  He was too exhausted to cry anymore, as he lay in the corner of the tiny cell, so he mourned silently for them both.

  What did Dr. Marks have to gain from her cruelty, he wondered? Hadn’t she wanted to study him at the very least? Wasn’t she intrigued? Perhaps she’d lost interest. He didn’t comply, and the mystery lost its draw. She had any number of other broken children to choose from.

  He held his breath as another wave arrived with open arms.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Lying still and silent, on what he imagined was the threshold between life and death, he opened his eyes as a warm breeze entered the windowless room.

  A warm, musical breeze.

  He winced, sitting up. Those haunting tunes grew steadily louder, moving through the Detainment hall outside his door, until they pulsed and caressed just on the other side. Emmett crawled toward it.

  “Emmett.”

  He leaned back as a pink light bloomed through the cracks around the door, becoming brighter at the sound of his mother’s voice. It faded softly as her voice did the same.

  “Mom?”

  “It’s me.”

  The pink glow intensified, softened, and intensified again with each word. He imagined her on the other side, just as he remembered her last. Young and beautiful and kind and also… sad. Always a little sad.

  “Is it true?” he said, heart pounding. “Are you dead?”

  The music surrounded him like warm arms, beautiful and unnerving.

  “I am.”

  This was it, what he feared, and yet there was an underlying hope, too. Perhaps it would be a relief, he thought. Dead, but together—like she said. Could it be?

  He sniffled. “I’m scared…”

  “Don’t be scared.” The pink light strobed. He imagined how bright it must be on the outside. “There’s nothing to be scared of…”

  “I don’t know if I want to die,” he said.

  “Die?”

  The music was in his ears now, but it did nothing to smother his mother’s voice. If anything, she was louder. Her voice was music, too.

  “You’re not dying, sweetie.”

  He gulped. “I’m not?”

  “No,” she said, and even in the spectral swell of her voice there was amusement. “Far from it.”

  The pink light beamed through the gaps around the door until Emmett, seated before it, saw nothing but the door, surrounding by the light’s arresting rays. In its warm, brilliant glory, there came the sound of a beep and a click, and he watched as the door glided open to reveal the whole of the light behind it—blinding and hot as a campfire. He covered his eyes from it.

  “Stand with me, Emmett,” his mother instructed. “It’s time.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  BLOOD IN THE CRADLE

  As the light dimmed, he saw nothing there to replace it. Just the empty hall outside. But the music persisted. He climbed to his feet, sore from head to toe. Cautiously, he stepped out into the hall. The door at the other end stood open. The room beyond that, where they administered the drug they called discipline, was also empty. He tiptoed into the middle of the room. The door to the corridor was wide open. The music drifted farther and farther ahead.

  “What if someone sees me?”

  “Everything will be fine,” his mother’s voice sang, and a tiny star of pink light flashed to the rhythm of her voice, suspended in the doorway. “Come now.”

  “Where are we going?”

  The music echoed back to him, pressing into the room, its volume climbing. When she spoke, her pink light lit upon his cheeks.

  “We’re leaving this place.”

  He hardly needed more direction than that. Just at the suggestion of it, his body forgot its aches and pains for the time being and he followed the melody into the corridor, where the facility was empty and asleep.

  “Mom?” he asked. “Where is everyone?”

  “It’s after dark,” she told him. “Everyone’s in bed, and security is scarce.”

  He felt the hour now. Alert as he was, his eyes sat in his skull like balls of lead. His eyelids scratched when he blinked. He wondered if he was dreaming. Or hallucinating.

  “Follow me.”

  He padded along the quiet, desolate corridors, and for a fair stretch saw not a soul. It wasn’t until they were nearing their next destination that they saw someone. A guard. Emmett turned the corner and froze. Officer Hollings. His back was turned, leisurely patrolling in the opposite direction. Emmett fell back, eyeing around the corner as he shrank with distance, and eventually disappeared down a different corridor.

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Stay with me, Emmett, and you’ll be fine.”

  They came to the door which read ‘Analysis C’. Emmett knew the room well enough. He gasped as the pink light reappeared, sparking out of thin air and expanding so that he covered his eyes again.

  The door clicked and opened and the light withdrew to its hiding place of nowhere once more. Looking both ways, ensuring no one watched, Emmett slipped into Dr. Marks’ office and shut the door behind himself. It felt funny, being in a dark room for a change. He hadn’t seen darkness like this outside his bed for quite some time.

  “Here,” his mother urged, and her voice’s light revealed Dr. Marks’ desk across the room.

  Emmett moved slowly, hands out to keep from bumping into it.

  “Say something,” he said.

  “Here.”

  The desk glowed to life. He circled it. He opened the drawer.

  “Here I am.”

  The drawer lit up, the light now emanating from the small stone in the center of the black pendant, which lay between an assortment of pens and paperclips and other mundane office supplies. The last he’d seen its light, it was bright and pearly white. Now it contained his mother’s light—a soft, delicate, rosy pink. Pretty.

  “I have you,” he said, and scraped the necklace from the bottom of the drawer. He stepped away from the desk, the pendant cupped in both his hands. “Is this you? Are you inside?”

  “Together at last,” his mother said, and her dead voice couldn’t have been more full of life. “Are you ready to leave this place?”

  He was ready. He’d been ready the moment he arrived. Only, as she mentioned it, something clawed at the back of his mind. A nagging guilt.

  “What about my friends?” he said. “I can’t leave them here.”

  His hands were dark as his mother though
t it over.

  “If we don’t leave soon, we may miss our chance…”

  It pained him, knowing what he asked. His mother had come all this way to free him, and now he would chance it all for his friends?

  “Perhaps if we’re quick about it…”

  “Really?”

  “I’m weak, but my power should last… We just need to move quickly…”

  “Weak?”

  “It’s all right. This is important to you. Let’s hurry while we still have time.”

  Energized by the hope he might free his friends as well, he moved with haste, and followed his mother’s every direction. He left Dr. Marks’ office, tiptoeing the empty corridors toward the cafeteria.

  The cafeteria was darker than he’d ever seen it. Half the lights were off, leaving it dim, the corners of the room washed out in shadow.

  “Both Tobie and Clark are in Ward A,” his mother said.

  “How do you know that?”

  There were footsteps. Emmett crouched low, leaned against the bench of one of the cafeteria tables. He watched as a pair of legs moved through the room, leaving Ward B and coming toward them.

  “Around the table,” his mother instructed. “Fast.”

  Like a raccoon in the night, he waddled on his crouched legs along the table, swishing noisily with each step. He slipped around the end of the table and paused there. The guard moved slowly—what urgency could there be in the middle of the night?—and eventually left into Ward C from where they’d come.

  “They’ll find you missing from Detainment,” his mother said. “Let’s hurry.”

  Emmett crept through the cafeteria and entered the first corridor of Ward A. He realized he’d never been to either Tobie’s or Clark’s rooms.

  “Now where?”

  The stone strobed faintly in his hand.

  “Clark’s is closest. Down the next corridor on the left.”

  He picked up the pace, a noiseless jog. His heart chugged with the speed of his breath. With nowhere immediate to conceal himself, he feared a guard coming around the corner at any moment, spotting him in the open under the bright corridor lights where nothing could hide.