Home Is Where the Horror Is

by C. V. Hunt

  18

  I showered until there was nothing left but cold water. Afterward I checked the refrigerator and found I only had two beers left and knew those wouldn’t be enough to numb my brain into unconsciousness. Even if I did have enough beer my stomach was knotted and hurt. I wasn’t sure if I had heartburn or a sour stomach but my intestinal issues were partially from being tortured by my conscience and I didn’t have anything in the medicine cabinet to treat my discomfort. I decided I had to go to the store regardless of how terrified I was to leave the sanctity of my home and take a chance Lloyd was lurking in the dark by my car with an axe.

  I had to build up the courage twice to walk down to the garage and swap the comforter from the washer to the dryer and retrieve it to put back on the bed. Amazingly, there wasn’t a trace of my nosebleed anywhere on it. Once the comforter was done I cautiously double checked out the windows and craned my head in the bathroom window to see Lloyd’s cabin. It appeared all of his lights were out and I thought it was probably the best time to leave. My stomach wasn’t feeling any better and I had the notion it wouldn’t until I took some antacids.

  It was close to one in the morning when I finally grabbed my wallet, phone, and keys and convinced myself to creep out of the cabin. My paranoia was wound tight and I almost jumped out of my skin at every small sound as I made my way to the car. Once I was inside the vehicle I quickly locked the doors, started it, and zipped out of the parking spot and down the drive and onto the road toward the twenty-four hour store.

  My muscles relaxed once I was a few miles away from home. I hadn’t realized how tense I was until then and how hard I was gripping the steering wheel. I preoccupied my mind with watching the tree line for any wandering night creatures as I drove to town. I couldn’t afford to fix my car if a deer or some other large animal decided to tango with it. Liability insurance only got you so far. And I needed my car.

  There were only a few stray cars in the parking lot of the store. I retrieved a cart and made my way to the pharmacy first. There were myriad stomach medications ranging in symptom relief and combos of discomfort. I decided on a bottle of chewable antacids, a box of pills good for a sour stomach and diarrhea, the latter of which I did not have but figured I’d better be safe than sorry, and a twenty-four hour heartburn reliever. I dropped a small bottle of melatonin into the cart for good measure before crossing the store to the grocery side. I added some beer and a bag of French fries to the cart—because Mom always fed us fries when we had an upset stomach and told us the starch would soothe it—before heading to the checkout.

  I grabbed a bottle of water from a cooler at the head of the checkout lane and placed all of my purchases on the belt. The young female clerk eyed me dubiously and asked to check my ID once she scanned the alcohol. The biggest wave of paranoia washed over me as she scrutinized my photo and birthday on my license. I felt as though this young girl, probably not much older than twenty-one, could see the taint of a newly minted sexual deviant radiating from me. Like there was a blinking light on my forehead or a spontaneous new class endorsement on my driver’s license indicating to the world I was a thirty-year-old creep who had sex with underage girls. Or maybe Tryphena told Lloyd and he called the police and there was a warrant out for my arrest. I imagined a police officer carrying a photo of me into every local store and telling the employees to keep an eye out for the pervert in the photo and to call them if I happened to show up in their store. But that was ludicrous. If Lloyd informed the police and they had a warrant out for me they also knew where I lived and I would’ve already been sitting in a jail cell. Unless the police were waiting to catch me in the act of trying to lure some other unsuspecting teen girl into having sex with me. Or more likely, in the age of reality television, they were jockeying to get their cameras into position and waiting for Chris Hansen to arrive. The stress of what if, what if, what if, was beginning to make my head throb again.

  The checkout girl finally handed back my ID and her brief glance at my face made me feel shameful and embarrassed as if I were caught doing something I knew better than to do and her silent assessment of me was a reprimand. She finished ringing up my items without a word. I paid and quickly exited the store.

  Once I was to my car I opened the medicines for the stomach issues and took the recommended dosage for each one. I chewed the chalky tablets last. The bottle claimed they were fruit flavored but they actually tasted like unflavored Kool-Aid powder. I drank all the water, swishing each large swallow to remove the gritty antacids stuck in the crevices of my molars.

  The medicine went to work almost immediately. The pain in my stomach dulled some but there was a residual ache telling me the situation wasn’t completely over and the pain could come raging back any moment.

  A police car pulled into the parking lot and I decided it was time to leave. I cautiously drove to the exit, using the assigned aisles and not crossing the parking spaces, constantly checking my rearview mirrors to see if the cop was following me. The police car parked in a spot near the door and shut its lights off. At the last second I decided to turn in the opposite direction of home and head into town. I didn’t know what driving into town would accomplish if the cop had chosen to follow me other than to make me look more like a creep for stalking around a town I didn’t live in in the middle of the night.

  I took the turns necessary to pass the post office. Farther down the same road I passed a plain block church with a wooden sign out front with lopsided hand-painted service hours. Normally I would turn onto the road in front of the church to head back home after I was done at the post office but I decided to continue on. I had never explored much of the town beyond the basic relevant to me: store, post office, library, hardware store, eating establishments. I drove past rows of tiny houses with adequate yards. The majority of them had darkened windows and the streets were abandoned and dotted with street lights positioned too far apart to do much good. A few of the houses’ windows flickered and flashed in accordance to the televisions playing within them. I barely made out the silhouette of a looming and bowlegged figure standing statuesque in the front yard of one darkened home with an overgrown yard. A small dog jumped and barked furiously at me a few feet in front of the figure and as my car approached the boorish figure yanked on what I assumed was a leash. The dog yelped in pain and the figure scolded the creature before lumbering back toward their house, dragging the dog with them.

  After a few blocks of houses I spotted a cemetery on the right side of the road and a large ornate church built on a small incline was located across from it. The beautiful stained glass windows were lit and a lone car sat in the parking lot. I pulled into the lot to turn around and head home but spotted the church’s marquee sign. It read St. John’s Catholic Church with the message ‘open any time’ spelled out with flimsy plastic letters along with the time their masses were held. I decided to park my car and get out.

  I wasn’t raised Catholic. In fact, Mom never took Phillip and me to any church. I couldn’t remember a time God was mentioned in our house growing up other than to swear. I didn’t blame her for choosing not to force an outdated set of rules and morals on my brother and I. Whether it was because of her lack of faith, or loss of it, I didn’t know. And I didn’t fault my absence of religion for anything that had happened or could happen to me. Everything that was happening to me, or had occurred throughout my life, was established by my own choice or by chance. Because if I was forced to believe there was a higher and all powerful entity pulling the strings then I firmly believed that higher being was a fucking evil and malicious asshole.

  I approached the main entrance of the church. A light shone brightly above the two massive wooden doors. There was a painting of Christ above the door with an eagle perched on his shoulder as if the artist’s interpretation of the holy man was confused with a pirate. I checked one of the doors and, like the sign out front stated, it was open. I slipped inside quietly and found a few candles flickering inside the entrance along with
a font holding holy water. The ceiling was massive and ran close to three or four stories tall. I didn’t spot anyone else and I approached the holy water. I dipped my fingers in it and was shocked to realize it didn’t feel any different than tap water left out on the counter until it reached room temperature. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected. For it to be hot? Cold? To act as an acid and melt my heretic fingers down to the bone? I cupped my hand and gathered a small amount of the water in my palm before stooping over the bowl to drink it. I waited to be struck by lightning or to spontaneously combust or for anything to tell me there was someone out there who gave a shit and there was a way to right everything that had gone so very wrong.

  Nothing.

  I left the church disappointed and drove toward home. I made it out of town and was halfway home when I noticed a presence in the car. I checked my rearview mirror and saw my father’s face, illuminated by the dash lights, sitting in the back seat. I started from the shock and almost drove off the road. A part of me wanted to scream and freak out but something silent in my brain informed me I knew this was a part of the overall picture. I pulled the car to the shoulder of the road and stopped. I stared at my father’s reflection, the man who had taken his own life at the very same age I was now, as he assessed me in the mirror. My breath was coming and going in giant swallows and exhalations.

  “Are you really shocked to see me?” he said.

  “I don’t know,” I huffed.

  He shook his head. “It’s going to end soon.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again, wondering if there was something in the holy water or if I was experiencing hallucinations brought on by stress or lack of sleep or both. I turned in my seat to find my father still sitting in the back seat. I fumbled on the dash until I found the switch for the dome light and flipped it on. I turned back to my father and he was every bit as solid as any other human being on earth. I also noticed he had a grayish pallor and there was a purple and yellow bruise encircling his neck. I could make out the features of his face here and there he’d passed onto Phillip but there was an unsettling in my stomach as I realized in another time or place my father and I could’ve passed as twins. There were a few things differentiating us from one another. His brow was a little thicker. His chin was slightly wider. This similarity wasn’t a complete shock though. I vaguely remembered my father from my childhood and my mother kept a few small photos of him on display while we were growing up but it had been a while since I’d seen any of the photos and I hadn’t compared myself to him then. Now I was seeing him and I as equals in age. And seeing someone who resembled me so closely in such a ghastly light made the skin on the back of my neck pull straight on end hard enough to make my back teeth hurt and feel loose.

  “How?” I managed to spit out.

  He smiled wearily and shrugged.

  “Why?” I said.

  “I don’t know. This is about you.”

  “Are you a ghost?”

  Again, he shrugged.

  I turned around in my seat to face forward. I said, “Why did you do it?” I looked up into the rearview mirror and the back seat was empty. I turned quickly to search the back seat and he was gone. I did a couple of confused double takes and found myself in the car alone.

  I rubbed my sweaty face, trying to piece together what had happened. I spotted the plastic sack of heartburn and sour stomach medicine I’d purchased. I snagged up the bag, dug through it in a frenzy, and quickly read each of the drug’s side effects. There were no indicators the medication had provoked what had taken place or if mixing them or taking too many would cause hallucinations. I threw the bag back on the passenger seat, turned the dome light off, and continued home to drink a few beers and try to sleep before Rachel arrived. And I was beginning to wonder if an extensive doctor bill wasn’t a bad idea.

  19

  I didn’t sleep well even with the assistance of a couple of beers. When I did sleep it wasn’t for long and I had terrible nightmares. I continually rehashed my worries while lying awake in the dark. I couldn’t stop thinking about how either Lloyd was going to kill me or I was going to end up in a padded room. I kept thinking about the vision of my father and whether he was a stress-induced figment of my imagination or a ghost and knew a psychological examination was a good idea. But I didn’t have any money or health insurance and I didn’t believe in the supernatural. I tried to force my brain to classify my experience as an otherworldly phenomenon because it was the cheapest treatment. You could choose to ignore it or contact an exorcist to take care of it. Convincing myself it was supernatural left me to question everything I believed in and cemented my fear that I was on the brink of madness. And if I wasn’t fretting over what I’d seen I was terrified for my life or of going to jail because of what had happened with Tryphena. I knew ignoring her wouldn’t solve anything. The thing that bothered me the most was all my worries eating all my thoughts and keeping me from feeling the normal nervousness and sleeplessness of potentially spending an afternoon with Rachel. I would’ve gladly taken the stress and worries that accompany hanging out with a girl I really liked.

  I forwent trying to get any more sleep once the sun rose and the clock on my cellphone read nine in the morning. I decided the best thing to do was to get up and keep my mind occupied with a daily routine. I ate, showered, shaved, dressed, and paced the cabin. Thoughts of Rachel kept me antsy. I racked my brain for a way to deal with Tryphena and decided the best thing I could do was to never tell another soul about it. I wasn’t one for secrets. It’s not that I couldn’t keep a secret. I could. It was just I’d never held anything back from anyone I was in a relationship with. I wasn’t sure what was happening between me and Rachel but if we did become a thing, and God knows I wanted it to, I didn’t know how I felt about holding something like this back.

  There was a knock on the door a few minutes before noon and my nervousness peaked. My palms were sweating like mad and I wiped them on my jeans before opening the door. Rachel stood on the deck, all smiles. Her hair was pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore a thin white T-shirt and I could see the shadow of her black bra through the material. She also wore a pair of cutoff denim shorts and a pair of tennis shoes. I held the screen door for her to enter.

  “Are you ready?” she said.

  “I think so.”

  She thumbed over shoulder. “I got us a couple of bottles of water.”

  “That’s probably a good idea.”

  The cat was asleep on his pillow. I scooped him up and took him to the back door. He looked up at me sleepily and indignantly when I set him on the deck. I shut the door and locked it before grabbing my keys and wallet.

  “Ready,” I said.

  She nodded and led the way. I couldn’t take my eyes from the lithe muscles of her legs as they flexed with each step and tried desperately to think of anything other than sex. My nervous energy quickly transformed into a thick sexual tension . . . at least on my part. I had no idea what Rachel’s intentions were. I only knew what I wanted them to be and how I was interpreting our exchange and time together with the absence of the guise of partners working as a photographer and model.

  My heart was hammering by the time we reached the top of the stairs. I dreaded the thought of seeing Tryphena standing on the porch smoking and her observing me leaving with Rachel and how Tryphena would process Rachel and I together and whether or not she would choose the moment to cause a mortifying scene. But there was no one outside Lloyd’s and my panic subsided some.

  Rachel headed toward her car.

  “I can drive if you want,” I said.

  “That’s okay. I’ve passed the place a couple of times and know where it is.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah,” she said and opened the driver’s door of her car. “It looked busy when I passed it on the way here. The parking lot was full and people were parking along the side of the road.”

  I proceeded around the back of her car and adjusted my erection. I w
as going to have to deal with this again. Being around Rachel made me feel like an oversexed teenager. I situated myself in the passenger seat to keep my pants from pinching my hard on and plucked the bottom of my T-shirt to cover my embarrassing erection.

  We didn’t talk much on the way to our destination and the place wasn’t far from my cabin. She was right. The warm summer day lured a lot of people to the trailhead and there were signs pointing people toward the waterfall and another set of signs directing people to a large cave. We were forced to park on the side of the road. Rachel handed me a bottle of water from a bag in the back seat before exiting the car. She said she wanted to see the waterfall first.

  We walked around the overflowing parking lot and took a short trail toward a set of wide stairs constructed out of fallen timber and packed earth. We passed people in groups climbing the stairs and I was amazed at how many of the women wore flimsy sandals that didn’t appear to be a good option for climbing stairs constructed out of compressed mud. The stairs descended a couple hundred feet and stopped alongside a shallow and slow moving stream. We stopped to catch our breath and moved out of the way so other people could pass. I took a couple of gulps of water before we proceeded to a bridge that passed over the stream and led us toward the waterfall. While crossing the bridge I spotted several people wading in the water and stacking rocks. There were piles of rocks everywhere in the stream and it appeared to be a type of tradition or game that had been ongoing for a long time. We could see the waterfall from a short distance and came to a packed clearing by the pool of the fall. People were everywhere. Children were running around and playing in the water. There was a plaque mounted on a giant stone carved to look like a podium. Rachel approached it and I followed her. It was a brief history of the park and the waterfall and a request for visitors to refrain from entering the water to keep from disturbing the fragile ecosystem. I refrained from making a snide comment about how the rules apparently didn’t apply to about fifty percent of the people here. I didn’t want Rachel to see my snarky side yet.