by Candis Vargo
He told himself that he would just keep it to himself. There wasn’t any point of telling anyone. It wasn’t like anyone would believe him knowing he had a wife with issues…he didn’t even know if he believed himself. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to say anything to Mia. She was going through enough. She didn’t need to worry about anything else.
Instead, he would just give himself some time to calm down, he didn’t need to have a damn heart attack. He'd spend some time later that day doing some type of research. Maybe he could just type in ‘dark blob thing’ in Google and it would give him his answers.
He wasn’t sure exactly what answers he was hoping to find. Maybe someone who could figure out what this thing was…maybe just a damn pill he could take. All he knew was that this shit needed to stop as fast as it had started.
Mike laid back down on the couch, this time leaving the light on. He couldn’t shut his brain off. His mind kept thinking about what he had seen and tried to come up with some type of rational explanation.
He closed his eyes several times, hoping that would help, but his mind just kept going. He had to be losing it—that was the only explanation he could come up with. It was near dawn before he fell back asleep.
“Mike, honey,” he woke to Mia’s voice. “Breakfast is ready.”
Mike nodded as he shoved the bottle of American Honey in between the couch cushions, hoping she hadn’t seen it. He was careful not to speak and to breathe through his nose knowing his breath would give him away. Stumbling slightly, he made his way over to the kitchen table.
This was the first morning in a while that they had bacon instead of sausage. How he loved the smell of bacon. For a quick moment he realized he must have been extremely drunk to not even wake up to the smell of bacon. Either that or he was up a lot longer than he had thought in the middle of the night.
He sat down and took a sip of his coffee that sat next to his plate, hoping to rid his breath of the alcohol. Cold.
Ah shit, he thought.
Apparently the coffee pot shit the bed. Yet another thing to add to the long list of things that needed to be replaced or repaired.
He set the cup down with a sigh and took a bite of his bacon, which also happened to be cold. Maybe it wasn’t the coffee pot that shit the bed, maybe it was him and his drunk ass last night.
Mia must have had one hell of a time waking him up. She had to have known he was drinking. He was screwed. She was sure to be pissed and was going to blow up on him at any moment.
Mike finished his cold breakfast without complaint, carrying on a simple conversation with Mia. Neither one acknowledged the party. Some things were best left unsaid. He screwed up and he knew it. It was foolish of him to think something could go smoothly.
It wasn’t until he was taking care of the dishes that he realized for the first time, she hadn’t asked him to help with getting Eli to eat his meal. Yet another thing that was better left unsaid. He smiled to himself, they were finally getting somewhere. A small flicker of hope lit up inside of him.
Figuring he should do a little sucking up and feeling good about things for the first time in a while, he'd offered to do dishes, which actually meant doing them by hand since they were out of tablets for the dishwasher. Of course, Mia agreed. What woman wouldn’t let a man do the dishes? Mia just said that she would be in Eli’s room, playing with his Hot Wheels with him. Mike just nodded and proceeded to fill the sink with soap and water.
Wishful thinking. The flame of hope was gone before it was even lit.
He stood in front of the sink washing the bacon pan, keeping his brief moment of hope and the horrors of the night before at bay; he just focused on the task at hand.
He was snapped out of his trance when he heard the sound of a child’s giggle.
He knew that giggle.
It was the sound of Eli’s giggle.
Mike stopped for a moment, staring at the empty wall in front of him. He shook his head as if he was able to shake the thought from his mind. He went back to washing the remnants of the bacon grease off of the pan.
Ha ha ha ha ha. The child’s laughter grew louder. Eli’s laughter grew louder.
Ha ha ha ha.
He was imagining it, he told himself. There was no way he could have heard that, shit was just getting to him.
Ha ha ha hahaha. Ha hahahaha.
The pitter-patter of a child’s footsteps joined in with the laughter, echoing down the hallway behind him.
He turned in one sudden movement and stared down the hall where the footsteps continued, but didn’t see anything.
There it was again, that cold shiver twisting up his spine until it stopped at his neck, standing his hairs at attention.
When the footsteps finally stopped, his gut turned. He knew exactly where they stopped at…right at the door to Eli’s room.
His body was numb, he felt like he was floating as he slowly made his way down the hall. The hallway became like a tunnel engulfing him.
Even though it seemed like eternity, it was only mere seconds for him to make it to the end of the narrow hallway.
He threw himself into the doorway, catching himself only by placing his hands on both sides of the door frame. He wasn’t sure if he had expected to see Eli or not.
As he looked in he saw Mia sitting on the bed, playing with cars where she said she would be with Eli.
Vroooom, she drove a car across the mattress to where her image of Eli sat.
There was another presence on the bed with her.
Only it wasn’t Eli.
Chapter 13
The darkness hovered above the mattress, directly across from Mia. The only movements it made were within itself like steam enclosed inside of a pot. This was the first time he really got a look at it.
It was black. Blacker than any blackness he had ever seen but yet it was transparent. Shapeless but yet ever changing. And this time…this time it didn’t make a sound.
It was like everything around him had grown hazy and disappeared. He no longer heard Mia making car noises, was no longer able to see anything except for the darkness. And for the first time he felt deep within him, pure evil…complete hatred.
“Get out,” Mike screamed, causing Mia to jump up off of the bed and stand on the far side of beside a window. “Get out! Get the fuck out of my house!”
Absent-mindedly, he ran over to the bed and threw himself at the darkness. He didn’t know why but he knew he wouldn’t be able to get a hold of it. He just wanted it gone, out of his house and away from Mia.
The darkness flung itself up into a corner before Mike landed the bed. It hovered for a moment before disappeared into the depths of the corner like there was an unseen force sucking it in.
“Mike,” Mia spoke so soft and calm.
Mike looked at her as he stood up off of the bed. His heart nearly protruding out of his chest with every thud it made. His breaths deep but yet rapid.
Mia’s face was utterly emotionless. She wore no sign of fear, no sign of anger, not even any sign of confusion.
“What’s wrong, Mike?” The tone of her voice matched the lack of emotion on her face.
He narrowed his eyes and quickly shook his head once. “N…nothing babe. I just thought I saw something.”
She was either not disturbed at all by what had just happened or disturbed to the point of not being able to express it. Either way, he still didn’t plan on telling her anything. Lord, if she knew he was seeing it too then that might really cause her to lose it and the little bit of progress he’s made would have all been for nothing.
Maybe she was just too caught up in playing with ‘Eli’ to notice the real world. At this point he really didn’t care.
He had a battle in his own head to deal with.
Mike didn’t understand what the hell was going on. He tried over and over to tell himself that he didn’t see what he had thought he did. Throughout the day he kept telling himself it wasn’t real and he tried to carry things on as normal a
s he could. Even at work he tried not to toy with the thought too much.
Mia was the one that saw this thing, not him. If she didn’t see it, then it couldn’t have been real.
***
The next morning Mike filled his thermos with coffee and headed to work before dawn. The previous day they had finished laying up sheetrock and mudding with the materials Johnson brought, so his day was going to be filled with sanding down the creases where the spackle was.
When he arrived to work he put on what resembled a hospital mask and grabbed his sander as he started getting his job done, trying to focus on nothing but work. Halfway through the day of sanding, the vibration from the sander was taking a toll on the muscles in his arms; the several breaks he had taken only provided temporary relief.
Even with the mask covering his nose and mouth, the musky smell from the dust still made its way through. No doubt he would end up with white covering the inside of his nostrils.
Mike stood on a ladder tackling a rough spot of a poorly done mudding job. As he sanded he was still convincing himself that what had happened the day before, didn’t happen. He kept coming up with excuses. He was always a sensible man, and he was sure that there was a reasonable explanation. Lack of sleep, that’s what it was.
It seemed like as much as he tried not to think about it, it was all he could do.
A tapping on his leg jerked him from his thoughts and he jumped. He tried to hold on to the ladder to keep himself from falling, but lost the sander and his footing in the process, causing him to fall flat on his back and all of the air to depart from his lungs. It took him a moment to catch his breath and stand up, grateful that the ladder didn’t fall down on top of him, but he realized that when he dropped the sander it had fallen on Pat.
Pat stood, holding his head. “Damn it,” he complained.
Mike ripped off his mask and ran over to shut off the sander, “Shit, Pat. I’m sorry, man.”
“Ah, stop being a baby,” Anthony came over. “Let me see.”
Pat was bleeding from his head where the sander had scraped away several layers of skin.
“Rinse it off and you’ll be fine, unless you’d like me to go buy you some Dora the Explorer band-aids?”
Pat scowled. “Screw you, Anthony,”
“Awe, come on man! You know, if you wouldn’t shave your head you wouldn’t have this problem.”
“No, instead I’d have a single bald spot,” Pat laughed at the thought.
“Pat, I’m so sorry man,” Mike repeated.
“Nah, man. Don’t sweat it. I shouldn’t have come up on you like that. I should have waited until you were done. Shit, ever sit there and feel like you’ve tempted fate, like you just avoided something that could have been downright horrible?”
“Hell yeah, man,” Tommy spoke up. “About a month ago I was on the highway, headed to the Home Depot down by the mall…and some retard crossed into my lane, like he jerked the damn wheel and had a death wish. Smashed right into the guy in front of me. If I would have left the gas station two seconds sooner, that would have been my ass. And we all know my little ol’ Nova won’t hold up too well to being T-boned.
“After the paramedics and everyone showed up and I left, all I could do was think, ‘what if that was me?’ What if I was in that accident and didn’t make it out alive, that the world was playing a cruel trick on me, forcing me to go on with the life I could have had. But then I came back to this shit hole and realized, nah, I’m still alive.”
The boys laughed and Tommy turned to Mike, “Shit man, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“No, no. It’s all right. Really,” Mike reassured him.
Anthony set his tool belt down on the dust covered floor. “What do you boys say we call it an early day? We can blame it on baldy over there.”
Pat lifted his middle finger to Anthony as he walked away
Since they all got out of work early, Mike figured he would be the one to make dinner that night. Of course there wasn't any protest from Mia about Mike cooking, even if it was going to be chicken strips and fries, she enjoyed relaxing as he cooked.
He had to remind himself to make three plates, he could only imagine what would happen if he didn’t set one out for Eli. Mike sat down the two plates for Mia and Eli before returning for his own. Even though it was routine, Mike was starting to enjoy their dinners.
After eating, Mike started sorting through bills and Mia grabbed out two coloring books and crayons, setting them at the kitchen table in the same spots the plates were previously set. Mia colored in hers and every so often she glanced over at the empty seat that was beside her and smiled.
Mike wasn’t too bothered by her actions, instead he wondered why Mia had always insisted sitting in the middle of the table and having the ‘men’ of the family sitting at the ends.
As he sat down to rummage through the pile, he kept looking back and forth between the checkbook and the bills, trying to figure out what they would be able to pay, and what they had to pay before it was shut off.
Mia shrieked, startling Mike and his papers went flying.
“Eli!”
Mike thrust his head up to look at Mia and watched as she ran over to where her ‘Eli’ was supposed to be sitting. She grabbed nothing but air; even though he knew that in her head she had a hold of Eli, and ran in the opposite behind him.
Mike remained fixated on the seat across the table from him, not knowing what to do. He didn’t know if he should follow Mia and run or continuously blink in hopes to clear his vision. It didn’t really matter what he thought he should do, because he couldn’t move. His body was as heavy as stone as he sat there motionless. The darkness now hovered in the same spot where his son had once sat.
Chapter 14
“Mia, run,” Mike yelled as he regained his strength and jumped up, grabbing his end of the table, flipping it over on top of the darkness. Crayons flew throughout the room and the stack of bills danced in the air. Somewhere inside of him he had hoped that the table would get rid of it, hurt it…something. Only the table just went through it.
“Get out, Mia. Get out of the house!”
The darkness stayed where it was for a brief moment before it gradually made its way towards him. Rolling in and out of itself like an angry fire as it consumed a building.
Mike grabbed his chair since it was the closest thing to him, and threw it at the darkness. The chair crashed against the cabinets behind the mass, breaking into pieces.
“No,” Mia screamed. “Don’t let it get you! Mike! Get away from it. Run!”
Mike turned to glance at Mia who was curled in the hallway hunched over an empty space that was small enough for a child, he was pissed that she hadn’t listened to him. He jerked his head back to look at the mass, his arm tensed at his side, ready to swing his fist.
It was gone.
Mia’s muffled scream struck Mike to the core, sending a shiver down his spine. He turned back to look down the hallway, expecting to see her still clumped on the floor where she was, but instead her back was against the wall.
Mike ran down the hallway, dread consuming him, “Get off of her,” he yelled. “Get off! Leave her alone!”
He couldn’t see anything there holding her, the darkness wasn’t anywhere in sight, but something was physically restraining her on the wall. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling with all of his might, trying to break her free. Her feet dangled above the floor and she was struggling to breathe, her face starting to pale. Tears burned the back of his eyes as he struggled to break his wife free. He was supposed to be able to protect her from everything, but he wasn’t able to save her from this.
“Mia! Mia! Let her go damn it, let, her, go.”
He strained, tugging as hard as he could. He couldn’t lose her too, he just couldn’t. His body shook with both fear and anger, desperate to free her from this unseen force.
Abruptly, Mike was finally able to pull Mia from whatever was holding her down and they fe
ll against the wall behind them. As they tumbled on the floor a growling echoed within the house and the walls shook.
“Stop it, stop it,” Mia screamed.
Whispers echoed throughout Mike's head. Several different voices were muffled together in perfect harmony.
Too many voices.
He couldn’t make out a word they were saying but he didn’t care. The whispers grew louder like the source of the voices was closing in on him.
Grabbing his ears, Mike yelled, “Get out of my head. Get out. Leave me the hell alone!”
To their relief, the shaking and growling stopped at the same moment.
“Are you okay? Are you okay,” Mike was still holding her.
Mia sobbed in his arms. “It came through the wall, Mike. It felt like a hand came through the damn wall and grabbed me.”
“Shh, it’s all right. It’s okay.” He tried to console her, hoping somehow it would calm his fears too.
“No, no it’s not. What if—” her weeping stopped as her eyes grew wide with terror. “Eli.” She ran to his room and when Mike heard her thanking God and sobbing, Mike’s stomach started to turn.
Mia saw it too, he thought. Mia had seen it the same time as him. This was really happening. What the hell was he going to do now? How in the hell could he convince himself that it wasn’t real this time? How could he ignore it when they both saw the same damn thing.
It had touched her; it had tried to hurt her. He could handle shit being done to him, but when it came to her, just as it was with Eli when he was alive, that was a whole different matter. This damn thing was showing that it could take the life right out of his wife.
He sat down on the hallway floor, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his head with his hands. He didn’t know how to explain this…any of it. He didn’t know what to think about it or even how to feel. All he knew was that the past two times he has seen it, it was where Mia had said Eli was. Maybe Mia wasn’t completely crazy after all. Maybe she really did see something…it just wasn’t Eli.