Something Eternal

by Joel T. McGrath

  “I, uh, lost my room key.” Emma spoke quickly, too quickly. She nervously scratched her itchy scalp. Her fingernails dislodged pieces of sandy gunk from the catacombs.

  The attendant just watched her. “Who are you? What’s your name?” he asked in swift succession.

  “Oh, hah, sorry. My first name is Emma, last name Rose. I’m in room 504 with my mom.”

  He typed into the computer keyboard. “Um…yes. I see.” The front desk attendant short armed handing the room key to Emma. “Here you go. Will that be all, Miss Rose?” He cleared his throat again.

  Emma rubbed her lips together. “Yeah…I mean no. I don’t know. I just want to get up to my room.” She awkwardly smiled.

  “Miss…” The attendant clumsily volunteered. “Are you in…what I mean to say is, do you need any type of assistance?”

  “No, I’m fine, really.” Emma put her hand straight up in a stopping motion as she backed away from the desk. She lastly caught a glimpse of her own reflection in a glass sign to the side of the attendant. “Um…ah…I just had, ya know, a crazy night out is all.” Emma feigned an uneasy giggle. “You know, what happens in Paris stays in Paris, and all that sort of stuff.” The last words were muffled and rushed, as she blurted them without thought and while making her exit.

  She had spent too much time in the lobby and thus hurried up to her room. The attendant, and a few others present, curiously watched until she was out of their sight.

  Alone, she had rehearsed many excuses for her untidy appearance under her breath on the elevator ride up.

  The elevator bell chimed.

  Emma vacantly watched the flashing light inside the elevator. Then, she blinked several times, shook her head, and before the elevator fully closed on her, she sped out madly down the hallway.

  Once up on her floor, she scuttled briskly to her room, all the while, continuing a lowly mumble as she walked down the hallway like a crazed person.

  Despite everything that had happened that evening, Emma only worried about her mother, and the trouble she would find once she walked through the room’s door.

  She looked down at her sullied, ragged appearance. Her nice, new clothes were tattered and muddied. Her arms and legs were mixed with varying combinations of smeared blackish mud, scant drops of reddish blood, and large pieces of caked over, gray grime. Emma realized the awful truth. No made-up story could account for the real truth that evening, because truth was not even close to an option for her.

  And so, Emma reached out and held the doorknob to her room. She inanely stared at the door in a sort of frozen indecision.

  Emma gingerly turned the knob and slowly cracked open the door. She spoke before fully entering the room. “Mom?” her voice wavered. “Mom, I know this looks bad, but…Mom?” There came no answer. She rushed around the hotel room, looking for signs of her mother’s return.

  Back and forth, she roamed the room, before calmly stopping where she had started, the front door. “I can’t believe it,” she said aloud. “She’s not back yet. But I don’t remember leaving all these lights on.”

  Emma, stunned she had returned before her mother, dismissed all else and soon darted toward the bathroom. She was determined to clean and destroy all evidence of the catacombs. She was leaving for home in the morning, so everything would be okay now. Still, she rushed with a frantic haste many girls her age knew well, yet not for her insidious motives, which she reasoned a good cause to hide.

  All evidence of her terrible night needed to be destroyed before her mother walked through the door at any given moment.

  Finally, after a close look at her face in the bathroom mirror, Emma loathed her reflection. She frowned at her appearance, and had difficulty looking her own image in the eye.

  Her mascara had filtered down in multiple, narrow lines on the outer sides of her cheeks.

  She felt woozy.

  Her skin had a pale tinge under encrusted layers of brown, gray, and black sludgy dirt. Her hair, being a tangled mess, was clumped full of sewage fragments. Her pants and shirt were soaked. Her clothes permanently discolored from the brown, muddy water in the tunnels. Her favorite shirt, which earlier was bright, clean, and intact, was now saturated dark red.

  The fabric above her right shoulder had been ripped nearly off, yet was torn into frayed, unbroken strands. Grimacing, she gingerly peeled back the drying layer of cloth from her tender wound. She winced and clenched her teeth hard, while groaning. Tears flowed as the fabric, already adhered like a new part of her skin, loosened, opening her deeply macerated cuts, pulling both new and old skin off, leaving fibers of cloth imbedded deep inside her freshly bleeding, dirt filled wound.

  Letting out a gasp, Emma jerked her head upward as she slowly pulled the cloth out of her deep gash.

  The laceration on top her right shoulder, which had scabbed, now started to flow a stream, a river of bright red rushed half down her chest, while also pouring down her back. The blood gushed as she pulled quickly the last pieces of fabric from her skin, and with a final, uncontrollable scream, she cupped a hand over her mouth, now connecting affixed eyes with her sobbing reflection.

  She once more moaned silently at the sting of her wretched appearance. Emma gripped the sink. She inspected her eight-inch skin tears, which arched over her shoulder from just above her collarbone to her scapula. What she believed to be a single injury, were in fact several equally long clawed wounds, and though the marks initially appeared deep, they seemed to only scrape the outermost cosmetic layers of her skin. And while her shoulder ached and burned, it seemed neither muscles, tendons, nor bone were damaged from the attack, yet curiously, pus began to foam around the site.

  Emma dabbed a bit of toilet paper around the wound, while she poured rubbing alcohol over the site. She sucked in her stomach and held her breath. Her eyes slammed shut, squeezing even more tears out. Her teeth locked. Her cheeks tensed up and away from steady discomfort, to an instant, punishing sting.

  Emma stripped all her clothes off and, along with a pile of mashed up bloody tissues, she threw all evidence of the catacombs into a large plastic bag, tying it firmly afterward.

  She then ran, jumping into the shower, while yanking the curtain behind her. She turned the water as hot as her delicate skin could stand.

  While in the shower, steam filled the room like a sauna. The water had a cathartic appeal. She slid down the edge of the bath with a thud. Her head arched forward and bounced as she started weeping. She huddled her knees close to her chest. With her arms around her legs, she pulled her body near and buried her head between her arms.

  The hot shower invigorated her soul, helping her to forget the Dwellers. The warm droplets bounced off her skin like summer rain in the gardens back home.

  She wiped her face, lathered up her hair, and stood, showering off the remaining muck.

  The night flashed back upon her in spurts.

  Emma watched the red, brown, and black rolling specks of dirt and coagulated blood form a thin, rolling canal. Down the middle of the tub, the night’s particles fled toward the drain, along with most of her anxiety.

  She stared without blinking at the stream of muddy bits and blood until it filtered down the drain.

  Her eyes dazed half-open in sequence with timed puffs of thoughtful breath.

  The hot, clean water and warm steam was the best thing Emma remembered feeling in some time. It felt so good that it felt entirely new to her. In a self-induced stupor, her eyes glimmered again, if only for a second. She then remembered that her mother could be back at any moment. Breaking the dead trance in her state of mixed grief, she finished her intimate shower before she wanted.

  Refreshed, Emma skipped out of the tub. Now clean and almost dried, she brushed her hair. She stroked it blankly with both hands. The muscles used to smile sagged despite her best attempts to invent happiness.

  Her eyes fel
l into a vacancy as she looked upon her troubled mirror image.

  Emma grabbed two white, thin panty liners from off the sink, unrolled them, and placed the absorbent cushion over her wound, covering the gashes, while adhering the top sticky parts up under her nightgown. She tapped down the edges near her swollen, bleeding skin, wincing with every touch as she did. Shuddering, she patted over the clawed marks across her shoulder, firmly pressuring down on the pad in order to halt the reemerging, oozing blood from at the top.

  Emma heard the doorknob jiggle. She flung her head in the direction of the room’s entrance. Her hair, still wet in parts, whipped in chorus. She slapped at the wall, flipping out the bathroom light as she ran, diving head first for her bed.

  Slipping between the covers, and while resting under their disguise, she suddenly realized what had been forgotten, a large, dirty bag of wet, soiled, bloody clothes in the bathroom.

  Emma threw the covers off and bounced to her feet. She bolted toward the bathtub as the door to the hotel room opened. She steadily clutched the bag, and with one motion, she flung it under her bed, and hopped back in before wrapping the blankets over her face.

  All of the lights in the hotel room were off.

  Only the moon’s soft, haunting glow illuminated pastel bands, which parted the darkness, yet cast evil shapes in the recessed shadows of the room.

  The outside door creaked open when pushed. Emma peeped a single eye out from under her covers, while pretending to sleep. The bright hallway lights formed a silhouette in the doorway entrance before it slammed shut. Any hallway light, along with the silhouette, now melded seamlessly with all other dark amid the room.

  Footsteps marched her way, slightly louder as they approached.

  All sound briefly ceased.

  Then, her bed’s mattress sprung down as a weighted body sat next to Emma, ever so slightly rolling her toward the heavier figure now on the bed with her.

  A soft, wonderfully familiar voice asked, “Honey, are you asleep?”

  “Ma…Mom, is that really you?” Emma hesitated, her head still under the covers.

  “Why of course it is, silly.” Her mother chuckled. “Who else would it be?”

  “Um…nobody, I guess.” Emma unpeeled her blankets and sat up as her mother gently stroked her hair in the milky beams of moonlight. One hand covered by her coat, the other ran through Emma’s hair. “I must have just had a nightmare, I guess.”

  “Why is your hair wet?” her mother’s tone hearkened for more.

  “Oh, um, well, I wanted to take my shower tonight before, ya know, we leave for home tomorrow.” Emma’s voice fizzled in and out. “I know how you always like to hog the bathroom in the morning.” She forced the corners of her lips upward into a smile, accompanying them with a tiny, worried little laugh.

  Her mother got up and twirled as if she were still at a party, while moving toward the bathroom. “I’m sorry I was so late.” She had a giddy tone. “Ralyo took me out to this great restaurant. We danced the night away, and the time just flew by.” Her mother talked as she walked away. “I tell you what.” Her voice carried. “Since I was out late, and you stayed in like you were supposed to, you can buy anything you want before we leave tomorrow. In fact, why don’t you wear your favorite shirt with all those different colors, and we’ll go shopping one last time.”

  “Oh, um, well, that’s cool. I don’t really want anything. But it sounds like you had a great time tonight.” Emma drew a long breath, for she knew that this was actually her mother. “Oh, and, Mom…”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “I just wanted to say…I love you.”

  “I know you do.”

  “And I’m sorry for everything I put you through.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not…”

  Her mother stopped her with a quick, yet dismissive reply. “You worry too much. Now don’t tell me you don’t get that from your father.”

  Her mother walked into the bathroom and out of sight as they continued to make small talk, mostly about her mother’s night out.

  Her mother dropped her coat and flipped on the bathroom light. She glanced wistfully at herself, tilting her neck, eyeing the mirror, and feeling her soft skin up and down. Her attention diverted, she then admired her long fingernails on her right hand, and gawked intently at her beautiful image. “Ralyo showed me something amazing after supper.” Her enthusiasm faded monotone. “On second thought, why don’t you get up and get dressed now. I have something to show you.”

  Emma sat up in bed. “What?” Her nose crinkled.

  A small portion of the bathroom light framed a shadowy outline of her mother. While standing at the bathroom doorway, her mother propped herself left sided against the doorframe. Her left hand hid behind the bathroom wall. At first, her hand dangled, but then it ever so leisurely crept upward like a vine, slowly encasing around, while lightly tapping the bathroom light switch.

  A sickle-shaped, black talon hooked over the top of the switch as a hanger would a hanging rod. With the light behind her, and still on, her mother glanced back at her arm. She watched as healthy, pink new skin grew, covering from elbow down, and filling in and around a once crushed forearm.

  Unseen by Emma, her mother flexed the damaged hand as a thick layer of human flesh formed over a rotting coat of jaundiced tissue.

  Her guard down, Emma smiled easily at her mother, yet despite the recent face tightening procedure, and unlike earlier in the day, this time, her mother could easily smile back.

  Emma held a single breath. Her pulse jumped and pupils dilated.

  Something was wrong.

  Emma’s face, now absent of all expression, stared at her mother’s silhouette. A booming click by the flipping down of the bathroom light switch caused instant panic. Her heart thumped as darkness again found and entombed her soul. “Yawp!” Emma screamed, but a cold hand gripped her face, muffling all sound. Another beastly strong hand wrapped around her neck with sharp, piercing claws, grasping at her throat.

  Just a faint whimper, tears, and a scant amount of warm, red fluid leaked from puncture marks around claws jammed into Emma’s neck. Her body trembled, but the piercing talons held her neck in place. The sickled claws stabbed through her soft skin, pinching off her airway with a quick squeeze, followed by a detained, relaxed grip.

  It was all clear now, but it did not matter anymore. Emma shivered. The wait of silence overwhelmed her paralyzed body. Wrapped firmly from mouth to neck, one hand had the warmth of her mother’s, yet the other was evil, merciless, and cold.

  The fight was over.

  Emma sensed these hands were able to snap her in half as if a fragile twig. She was trapped more now than when in the catacombs.

  There were things Emma desperately needed to say, yet her speech remained muzzled. She wanted to live, and had many things left to do in life, but instead, was only reminded of the grim, harsh, two-sided token left by the catacombs. “No one ever escapes, ever escapes,” a raspy voice quietly hissed out her mother’s mouth, “the Dwellersssssssssssss.”

  During a peaceful sunset, on a hillside in a mountainous region of Greece, the populous in a valley below scurried about daily life in the early evening hours of a busy city.

  The high peaks around the valley protected, yet stole nature’s beauty, shading the city from the last kindly hints of the day’s sunlight, leaving just the mountaintops to enjoy their last splendor.

  Twinkling stars birthed one by one in the sky, and from an eruption, they blinked in the heavens, while thousands of homes sprang artificial, stellar luminosities at dusk.

  From present day ruins of a once great city—where long ago, a civilization worshiped many ancient gods faded into myth—sightseers now flocked with cameras, snapping pictures of a forgone empire turned tourist trap.

  New and old collided.

&nb
sp; An ancient world shrunk as a modern world grew. Where once mighty gods stood, mortals carelessly trampled along footpaths in rows with signs and guiderails.

  A man, dressed in a solid white tunic, sat atop a near vertical set of stone slabs in front of a crumpling, ancient temple. The stone slabs—the makeshift steps leading upward to the temple—were well worn. Their edges smoothed, almost polished by time and traffic, with pieces of grass springing forth between the slabs’ rocky and fractured cracks.

  His white tunic, knee high in length, separated with a cloth mantle, was swathed wide over his left shoulder and thinly tied under his right arm. His plain, brown leather sandals hooked at his ankles. The man had a thick head of pepper hair, with wisps of salty specks intermingled atop his head, revealing a certain age to his wisdom. His strong, wiry, athletic frame was obvious, even in his sitting position. His nose was long and straight, with a slight slope at the end. His jaw strong, his eyes intense, he watched the sun slowly dip under the distant, modern-day city as he remembered a time when these same ruins teemed with other life.

  Like a part of the ruins itself, the man was politely ignored by the vacationers. Though he appeared a historical actor, set there for the tourists’ pleasure, he, like the ruins behind him, was a mere portrait out of its proper, chronological time.

  His intense eyes jetted at the sightseers.

  He examined them up and down as each person walked back to their tour buses.

  Letting go a brief sigh, the man remembered how the modern, distant city before him, was just an unpopulated countryside field, filled with nothing more than quietly grazing sheep the last time he was here.

  Leaning back, he supported his hands on a large slab of ancient, cut stone. He watched until the last of the crowds thinned out, while the imminent nature of sundown approached.

  Many of the tourists walked right past him, but no one took note, or even glanced his way, for they were too busy looking at their phones and other electronic devices to take notice of him.