Thrive

by Rebecca Sherwin

  “I said say hello.”

  He punched me in my gut and I doubled over as the pain shot through me. Pain I wasn’t allowed to feel in this house, or ever…

  “Say hello to Pamela, Curtis.”

  I waved hello to the lady on the bed when she looked at me. She looked tired. Her eyes were red and she looked like she’d been crying like me.

  “Hello, Pamela.”

  I smiled, but she didn’t smile back.

  “What do you want, Curtis?” Uncle Phil asked. I lifted my shoulders. “Tell Pamela. We take what we want, don’t we?”

  I nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

  “So tell her.”

  I looked at my feet and kicked the dirty carpet.

  “Can you take me to Mummy and Daddy?” I asked her.

  “Wrong!”

  Phil punched my tummy and I fell over…

  “Tell Pamela what you want, Curtis.”

  I knew the routine. I didn’t know what was coming next, but I took each step without thought. I climbed on the bed and knelt in front of Pamela. Her dull eyes stayed on mine; her hair smelled dirty; it was slick and matted to her head. As she smiled at me, the yellow film covering her teeth told me she’d been here for too long.

  I extended my hands towards her, watching the blood drip onto the bed clothes.

  “Fix it,” I growled. “Now.”

  The lady was ready to look after me. She picked me up off the floor and sat me on the bed in front of her. She had some tweezers in her hand and began pulling pieces of glass out of my hand with them.

  “Good girl,” Uncle Phil said, putting a cigarette in her mouth.

  Cigarettes were her reward. Seeing Mummy and Daddy was mine. I hadn’t been a good enough boy to be rewarded yet.

  I coughed when Pamela blew smoke in my face and she smacked my cheek.

  “Stop spluttering you little shit,” she spat. “And stop your snivelling.”

  Uncle Phil laughed like I used to when Mummy pushed me on the swing or Daddy spun me above his head. I wanted to laugh like that again. I stopped myself from crying. I wanted to be rewarded. I had to do as I was told…

  “Do you remember your reward, Curtis?” Phil asked as Pamela finished cleaning my hands and pulled my head into her chest.

  Another memory hit me; as well as cigarettes, her reward was me. She was allowed to hold me and I wasn’t allowed to fight it. She banded one arm around my neck and scraped her blackened nails over my scalp, down my cheek and over my back.

  “Yes,” I whispered as she kissed my head and breathed her smoky breath on my hair. “Mummy and Daddy.”

  “Do you know why you couldn’t have them?”

  “They were dead.”

  “Clever boy.” Phil clapped as he sat on a chair and reached behind him for something. My view was obstructed by Pamela’s arm, tinted with rotting shades of black and yellow. How long had she been here? “But that’s only half the story. Do you know what your mother’s last words to your father were?”

  I shook my head against Pamela’s chest. She clamped her arms tighter and continued to stroke me. My body shuddered and the bile rose to the back of my throat as the dread plunged into every nerve ending.

  “‘Promise me, Michael. Promise me Curtis knows we love him.’” Phil laughed. “Even in death, all she was worried about was love. She knew they were going to die as the Skoda filled with water. But still she was worried about you.” He gave me a disgusted once over. “You.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I killed them, of course.” He shrugged. “It was difficult, you see, running them off the bridge without leaving evidence, and then racing to the water to watch them die.”

  “You son of a bitch!” I shoved Pamela off me and shot off the bed. Phil stopped me still with a gun pressed to my sternum.

  “Pamela, go to your room.” I stayed still, refusing to look away from Phil as Pamela scrambled from the room and I heard her bare feet pad along the hallway. “I have a new reward for you, Curtis.” He smiled. “Be a good boy now, won't you?”

  Thirty

  “It just wasn’t possible,” Phil said, stabbing the gun into me and twisting so it dug into my ribs, “to let them live.”

  “What reward?” I asked. I couldn’t think about him murdering my parents. I just couldn’t.

  I wanted to lunge at him – to squeeze the life from him and laugh while I did it. That was the reward I wanted. Uncle Phil dead.

  Because of me.

  “All in good time.” Phil stood up and backed me to the wall. He grinned and rubbed his tongue along his bottom lip. He was getting off on this. “You see, your father thought there was something wrong with me.” He stabbed his finger to his temple and twisted, turning the gun at the same time. Then he laughed. “Something wrong with me!”

  “What reward?” I repeated.

  “He just wouldn’t listen. I tried to be his friend. I tried to be your mother’s friend. She would have been my Pamela were it not for Michael Mason.”

  “My father was a good man,” I said, refusing to let him tarnish the memory of my parents.

  “He was a weak man. Do you know what happens to weak men, Curtis?”

  I shook my head.

  “They die.” He shoved the gun in further. I was as worried about it impaling me as I was about him pulling the trigger. “You’re a weak man, just like him…weak men don’t see death coming. The most beautiful sound in the world is that of a man begging for his life.”

  “What reward?”

  “Are you going to be a good boy?” he asked, dragging the gun up my body, along my jaw to the side of my head. I nodded slowly. “Then I’ll show you your reward. The choice is yours.”

  He grabbed the back of my neck and dragged me through the top floor of the house. I wanted to shove him off, grab the gun and finish this, but I was imprisoned in limbo; I was both Cut Throat Curtis and seven-year-old Curtis…both of us were afraid and alone.

  Phil kicked a door and it opened out onto a room that smelled of Skye. I missed her already. I knew I’d never see her again, but I’d kept her safe. It was going to end for us, here, tonight, one way or another.

  Phil switched the light on and as my eyes adjusted, I saw three women kneeling on the floor on the other side of the room.

  “No!”

  ~Curtis~

  I was trapped in the tiny wooden shed in the middle of the field and there was no sign of Curtis. He’d disappeared through the forest, into the house that stole him from me.

  I sat back on the floor, reluctant to believe this was it, but unable to think of how I was going to get out. I curled up on the floor under the shelf and waited. We were in this together. Curtis would come for me. He had to.

  I sat for minutes – hours, maybe – I didn’t know. All I knew was that I was alone, in the dark, in a rotting shed, as the rain continued to fall. The sound of each rumble of thunder began to fade as the storm moved off into the next town. It told me we were near the end; my life had been too twisted to allow me to believe in coincidence. Even the weather was part of fate’s vendetta against us, and I knew the passing storm meant our time was running out.

  Curtis wasn’t coming back and I realised I was at the crossroads again. I could stay here and let Curtis sacrifice himself for me, or I could find a way out and fight for us.

  I stood up from the floor and held my arms out, searching for something to help me escape. Old plant pots were scattered over the floor and shelves, upturned and cracked, filled with the remains of what were once budding flowers. Drawers held old dried magazines and papers; they disintegrated as I swiped through them blindly. Paint cans lined the top shelf, just out of my reach, but as I climbed on the bottom shelf to reach for them, the splintered wood gave way and I fell onto the mound of dirt on the floor. I wiped my hair out of my face and sat back, frantically pulling open the cupboards on the other wall.

  My breaths began to shorten as the panic settled with the driving need to
be free. The shed was too small; things fell from the cupboards as I tore through them, settling at my feet and keeping me tangled in fuel-doused clothes, overalls and empty cardboard boxes.

  “Shit!” I cursed when something nicked my finger.

  I held it above my head and searched gently for what had cut me. I could use it to get me out. I found a small blade from a Stanley knife and screamed in frustration, grabbing my hair and allowing more tears to fall.

  There was nothing in this fucking shed that would help me save us.

  Thomas.

  I crawled over the obstructions on the floor to get to the blanket, pulling it out from under the fallen plant pots, and stood up. I laughed, a hysterical laugh of panic, fear and hope for triumph. I began pushing everything I could get my hands on under the window, climbing to the top of the mound when it was big enough and I wrapped the blanket around my hand like a boxing glove.

  Another muffled rumble of thunder signalled the ringing of the bell and I pulled by arm back, letting it spring free to hit the window. It thumped and creaked, but stayed in one piece. I had to be strong. I had the hope that I could do this. I just had to be strong.

  I continued to punch the window, again and again. I knew I could do it, but I was running out of time. The window pane was rotten, split, sopping with mildew, and I refused to give up. I sighed in relief when a crack appeared in the middle of the glass and spread with each subsequent hit until finally, it succumbed and shattered, sending a spray of glass out into the rain.

  I threw my arms in the air and tipped my head back to thank Thomas for the blanket. Then I gripped the bottom of the window, hissing as the shards of glass cut into my skin and body, and I pulled myself through the little gap, tumbling to the floor in a heap.

  I pushed to my feet, wiped my hands on the blanket and took off across the field, trying to remember the path Curtis had led us on.

  I tripped over rocks, caught the blanket on branches and ran into trees, but I made it back out onto the driveway, out of breath and exhausted.

  I pushed on.

  I was soaked; I knew I was covered in mud, blood and sweat. I could smell the kerosene on my clothes from the leaking can in the shed, and specks of glass caught my breath when my muscles flexed as I walked.

  I picked up the pace, running towards the house and up the steps to the front door that was left ajar.

  I took a breath as my head fuzzed and my lungs began to protest. There was no time to be unfit or tired. I had to feel the adrenaline and draw from it, only there was no flight option.

  I had to fight.

  I pushed the door with the tips of my fingers, unaware of what waited inside. The door creaked as it opened on the dark, silent house.

  The entrance of the house smelled like lemon and was set out exactly like Lois’ hallway. The same photos were in the same frames on the same sideboard; photos of Lois and Curtis, Curtis and his parents, and a family photo of all of them, including Phillip – Curtis was clutching the same turtle he brought into the house with him.

  I stood in shock and scanned the space around me; stairs to the right, a door leading to what I assumed was the kitchen at the end, and a closed door to the left.

  “No!”

  A guttural cry – Curtis’ terrorised scream – pierced the air as I took a step towards the kitchen. I tried to keep it together, and headed up the stairs towards where the sound came from, taking careful steps as Curtis’ house morphed into mine – the family home we had in the cul de sac. I could almost smell the blossom on the tree I had outside my window as I remembered sitting at my desk to study, watching Oliver play outside with the other kids while I inhaled the sweet spring scent.

  I stepped onto the landing and listened for Curtis; he had been ready to storm in and take control of the situation, but I heard nothing. Nothing beyond the scream I knew belonged to him. There were no signs of a struggle, no evidence of a fight, and no sound of a conversation of any kind. Only silence.

  All of the doors were closed, but I knew where they’d lead. The family bathroom was to the right of the landing; Beth, Oliver and I would stand together at the sink and time how long we brushed our teeth. Mum and Phillip’s bedroom was next to it, Oliver’s next to theirs and mine was across the hall next to the stairs that led up to Beth’s. The silence and haunting memories began to suffocate me until I backed up to the bathroom door and tried to plan my next move.

  A loud thump made me jump and I covered my mouth with my hand to silence the scream.

  Someone was in my room.

  I tiptoed across the landing and down the hall, setting my hand on the handle.

  “Ah, Skye,” came a familiar voice that brought every bit of pain Curtis had told me to focus on. “Come on in, Sunshine.”

  My skin prickled at the sound of my father’s voice and a retch moved through me as the fear of what was inside overcame me, rooting me to the spot. I took a deep breath and opened the door…

  Phillip was sitting at my desk with the chair facing the door when I stepped in. One ankle was placed casually on his knee, one hand propped his head up on the armrest and the other arm extended languidly towards the floor. A silver gun was clutched in his hand.

  “Nice of you to join us.” He looked at his watch and sighed, as if I’d kept him waiting. Sitting up straight, he smiled at me. I took a step back. “Come in and close the door. We were waiting for you so Curtis could make his choice.”

  “What choice?” I asked.

  My throat was dry and I struggled to breathe as I stepped into the room and closed the door. The room descended into darkness, until I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. As I listened to the sound of my own choked breaths and waited for instruction from Phillip, I laughed; it was unexpected and tight – a quiet laugh of fear and anxiety. I’d never been so terrified; never in all my life had I entertained the idea of my father being as fucked up as I now knew he was.

  Multiple wives and families. Multiple homes, multiple jobs. Multiple personalities. And still he sat just a few metres from me, on the desk chair Grandpa gave me when I was a kid, and smiled like we were estranged without choice, reunited in happiness…like none of the last thirty years had happened.

  I still couldn’t see him, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and I could vaguely make out the edges of his silhouette as a tiny stream of silver light filtered through a crack in the window.

  Phillip’s voice was calm and casual. He wasn’t threatened by my presence. He wasn’t angry or aggressive, violent or outwardly psychopathic. But I knew he was enjoying this. We’d stepped into the ring where Phillip, and only Phillip, was calling the shots.

  I looked at the dark shadow of my father’s face, hoping I was meeting his eyes. I wasn’t going to let him know I was afraid. I was going to meet him with an insanity of my own.

  “What choice?” I repeated.

  “Always so impatient,” he mused. “Turn on the light.”

  I reached out and hit the switch, not needing to search for it, refusing to search for it and risk taking my eyes off where Phillip sat.

  I closed my eyes as the room lit up beyond my eyelids; he was ruining the last remaining memories of my life before it fell to shit, and I had no choice but to let him.

  I fought to remain indifferent as I slowly opened my eyes, focusing on my surroundings; the little girl inside wanted to throw me to my knees and make me beg for a death that would have been more merciful than what I was forced to witness.

  Thirty One

  I had already lost the battle. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, the goosebumps on my skin rose and burned like thousands of searing needles; I closed my eyes and enjoyed the pain, just for a second, as the physical collided with the mental.

  I couldn’t let him break me. When Phil crossed the room and sat down, temporarily distracted, I doubled over and focused on the pain. All of it.

  The nights I went to bed without my mother’s story. The days I spent curled in the corner o
f the room because I wanted my mother and father. I wanted to feel them, to hear them, to smell them; I wanted them to make me feel safe. I thought about the times I’d gone to school in shoes with holes in them, or clothes that didn’t fit, because Uncle Phil wouldn’t let Lois buy me new ones until I’d been bullied enough in the old ones. I thought about my craving for love and acceptance, why it had been so easy to give in to Charlie and her demands for me to prove myself. I thought about Skye – how I hurt her, why I hurt her; and the man who gave me the ability to hurt the ones I loved by behaving like a machine, with no respect for the people around me.

  Uncle Phil.

  “Look at them, Curtis,” Phil instructed and, like the pet I was, I looked into each of the three pairs of eyes. “Look at them and know you failed them all.”

  The defeat washed over me and took my life with it, tearing from my lungs as the final breath of a fighter. I bowed my head and willingly stepped into Phil’s trap. I gave up Cut Throat Curtis and succumbed to the frightened seven-year-old boy Phil controlled.

  ~Curtis~

  Phillip sat on his throne that was my desk chair, in the centre of my replicated childhood bedroom, accompanied by his three pets in the form of Tiffany, Lois…and my mother.

  All three of them were kneeling on the floor, dressed in white nightgowns. All three of them had their hair pulled back in tight ponytails.

  And all three of them had their eyes fixed on me. The empty desperation, the subconscious cry for help broke my heart.