Imaginations

by Tara Brown

  I turn back to see all their faces are stuck on the bloody handprint. It’s a few seconds of us all frozen in the image and fear it creates. The moms grab their kids. A woman with dark hair walks to the trail, shouting back at us all, “I’ll stay here, letting everyone know. You should get the cops. Cindy, you should go to the top of the street that way, so the kids over there don't even leave their neighborhood.”

  Joey waves for Julia, who runs back to us and hugs my sister. For ten they always seem grown up with their reactions. My mother is the only one acting insane. The other moms are organizing and shouting, and the entire block is becoming more of a militarized zone than a suburb. All the other moms but mine. Mine is lost in her own trauma, not even seeing my sister’s. I pull Joey back to the SUV. “Julia, if your mom isn’t home, call me. I’ll come and get you.”

  She nods. “Okay.”

  When we get back into the SUV, I slap the steering wheel. “Mom, home.”

  She puts the SUV into drive, heading home but staying in her trance. When we get to the house, Mom leaves the SUV running until the garage door lowers all the way. She turns it off and we all sit there, in silence. It’s almost as if we are exhausted from the frantic mess the morning has turned into.

  I look at the dried bloodstain as Joey reaches for her door. Her little face is still pale so I grab her, hugging her to me. "We can get out on my side, don’t touch the door where his handprint is." My words are cold and distant, but if he was sick, his blood will be contagious.

  Trembling and in shock, we crawl from the vehicle. Mom doesn’t move though. She sits, frozen like she has had a mental breakdown. I slap her window, making her jump, and she turns toward me slowly. Black tears leave her eyes, dragging makeup to her cheeks. Her lips quiver. I don’t understand why she's being so dramatic in front of Joey. Seeing Mom cry makes Joey cry. "Mommy! Mommy, get out of the car!"

  “She needs a minute.” I sigh, pulling my sister into the house, almost locking the garage door and leaving Mom in there with whatever is on the window. It’s a cruel thought but she’s acting insane. The whole thing was scary, but maybe not as scary as she’s making it seem.

  The first thing I do is check the locks, then get the phone. I am just about to dial 9-1-1 again when the phone rings. The number is blocked, making me wonder if it’s the school calling to cancel for the day.

  “Hello?” I answer as I lock the backdoor to the yard. The phone is fuzzy, answering the question of who it is before the voice does. The radiophones take a second to click in. “Dad! You there? Can you hear me yet?”

  "Lou? Jesus, I’ve been trying to reach you guys for half an hour. Why wasn’t your mom answering her phone?" My dad sounds funny.

  "Uhm, something happened—something really weird. And now Mom's lost it." My heart starts to pound as I realize what I'm about to say. “There was a man covered in blood at the school and a kid maybe, behind the dumpster—”

  “No!” He cuts me off. “Oh my God, it’s there? Did you see anyone biting—?” He pauses for a moment. "Put her on. Put your mother on now!"

  I open my mouth to tell him the story, but I hear something in his voice—an urgency and tone I rarely hear. I open the garage door to find Mom frantically bleaching the SUV. The fumes burn my eyes. “Uhhhh, she’s cleaning the blood—” I mutter, squinting through the smell of it.

  “NOW!”

  I jump, holding the phone out. "Mom, stop! It's Dad."

  She turns. The black tears are still streaming. "Did you see the child, Lou? D-d-did, did you see the feet by the dumpster? They twitched—did you see it? I think that bastard attacked her. I think he hurt her." Her sobbing is out of control. “That could have been Joey. I could have left her there.”

  Hesitantly, I hold the phone back up to my ear, wincing. "Dad, just a—"

  "PUT HER ON THE GODDAMNED PHONE, LOU!" he screams into my ear for the first time ever. It makes my stomach ache to hear him panic—he’s the rock.

  Closing my eyes, I hold the phone out for her. "YOU HAVE TO TAKE THIS!" My hand is trembling and my heart hurts a little. First the crazy man at the school and now my father is panicking. My father who has never yelled at me before—ever.

  I blink a single tear as Mom drops the rag she is scrubbing with into the trashcan and pours bleach onto our SUV. It’s like she doesn't hear me. She’s stuck on the man and the blood. The floor is flooded with bleach. She pours it on her hands and walks to the utility sink. There she scrubs like she is Lady Macbeth. Her eyes are wild with smeared makeup and something I have never seen before, maybe a loss of control. I can hear my father screaming from the phone I am holding out to her but she is in a trance. "MOM!"

  She turns, suddenly realizing what is happening. "Hold-hold it up to my ear."

  I can honestly say I have never met the woman in front of me. My ball-busting lawyer of a hateful mother is gone and in her place is a simpering, feeble, scared woman. She is weak and frightened. I hold the phone up to the side of her face. I can smell her perfume, but it mixes with the bleach and nauseates me.

  Her lips quiver. "Baby, there was a man and a child and the child was hurt badly, and the poor thing’s feet twitched and there was no one. No one was there. I almost let Joey go in—" She sobs, shaking. “I was on the phone and I didn't see. I didn't see. I should have seen.”

  I hear him bark and she stops nattering on. She nods, making noises I assume mean she understands what he is saying. She sniffles. "I need you now! I can’t do this. I need you. I can’t do this."

  He barks again. She shakes her head as fresh tears fill her eyes. I don’t know what to do to make her stop being crazy—to make her get control of herself. I hear something outside of the garage banging, and something else. I look back at the garage door as the noises get louder.

  Oh God, is it the man? Did he follow us home?

  Her eyes dart wild and crazed-like to the sounds, like she too thinks the man is on the other side. She backs away, bringing the phone and I follow. She shakes her head. "I can't, Steve. I can't do it. Your children need you." Her eyes are crazy and her mouth is a tight line. She gives me a look. "He wants to talk to you."

  I take the phone back, uncertain of what he wants me to do, beyond maybe call the police. "We never called the cops yet—we couldn't get through. It was busy and then there was just a recorded message."

  "Listen to me, Lou. I have minutes—seconds even.” He’s calm again. He sounds like himself. “The whole thing is going to be widespread in hours. You have about thirty minutes before this goes televised and then the world will be in a panic. Right now they have been jamming signals, in hopes of stopping the panic. But it’s a Band-Aid situation. Get to the store. Get as much as you can. Be smart—water, batteries, canned food, and dried food. Forget fresh and forget things that need a ton of work. Drag the camping barbecue inside. Fill the tubs with water and the sinks. Get hand sanitizer and bleach. I'm texting all of this to you right now. When you get back from the store, stay in the house, and board up the windows. There is plywood in the backyard. I bought a ton when I was home, for the shed. I want you to get my hammer and my nails and board up the windows. Do the main floor and the windows near the garage. The back of the house isn’t that big of a deal. Touch no one and stay away from people. Bring Furgus inside—don't let him outside at all. Let him go to the bathroom in the garage if he gets desperate."

  My mouth is dry so when I speak, it sounds funny. "Dad, Dad, I don’t—I don’t know what you mean. Why would Gus use the garage as the bathroom?"

  "We don’t know for sure what it is, but hear my voice—I am coming for you. Talk to no one and touch no one. Right now the guess is that it’s viral."

  My heartbeat is so high I feel like I might pass out. My mom has stripped naked, leaving her clothes on the floor. She walks into the house, leaving me in the garage.

  "Lou?"

  I blink, realizing he is still talking. "Where are you, Dad?"

  "Russia but I'm coming home tonight. I
'll call you in a bit. Do the things I texted you. I am coming for you."

  I nod. "Okay."

  "Don’t talk to anyone. No one. Anyone could have this thing, Lou. Anyone."

  "Okay." I don’t know what I'm agreeing to or what I'm saying or what he's saying. I just nod, I can’t think. My brain is so full of blood it feels like it might burst.

  "I love you, Lou. Give Joey a kiss for me and tell her to be strong. Keep your mom in line, kid." Keep Mom in line? He always tells me to cut her slack. “We both know you’re the strong one. You have to be strong, okay? Be the girl I know you are until I can get there.”

  I swallow hard as the phone disconnects, leaving me to feel more alone than I ever have. I walk inside, noticing that the stinging in my eyes starts to dissipate when I get into the kitchen, where Mom is washing her hands again. Joey walks to me, holding the remote. “The channels aren’t working.”

  I press the other button and turn on Apple TV so she can watch Netflix. The moment her show about the Australian mermaids starts, our house looks normal, except of course for the fact that my mom is still naked.

  "I have to go to the store, for Dad."

  She spins around. "NO!" Her face is the most frightening thing I have ever seen, apart from the bloody man.

  "I have to."

  She looks like she might freak out—worse than she already is. I'm scared I might. I give her my best attempt at a smile. "He said we need to get some things and I won’t go anywhere that's heavily populated. It’s just the store out here."

  She gives me a look like she might argue, but I nod toward Joey. My sister is oblivious to my mother's nakedness, sobbing, and cleaning. Joey’s lost in her show. Mom's eyes dart between the two of us and finally she nods. "Hurry."

  "I will. I can use the Visa you gave me."

  She shakes her head. "I have cash upstairs."

  I hurry up the stairs, going up before her so I don’t have to follow her naked body up. "What did Dad tell you?"

  “That maybe the man at the school could be one of what the CDC is calling the infected. They think they have a form of mad cow disease, but for humans. The people are violent and sick, beyond the help of doctors.” She shakes her head. "Something about it being a virus, they aren’t positive though. Not that it matters—people are getting really sick, whatever it is. He said until they have answers, to stay inside. It's bad in the big cities. The blood is infectious so you can’t touch it or let them touch you.” She pauses, staring at herself. Her next sentence is softer, almost as if she doesn't believe what she’s saying. “He said they bite. The sick people bite the other people."

  A shiver trickles through me, tugging at every nerve. I don't know what she means by they bite. I understand the sentence—it’s fairly simple, and yet my head can’t seem to wrap around it. They bite?

  She pulls on some yoga pants and a tee shirt, staring at her reflection in the large mirror in the corner. "I swear, I can feel his blood on me."

  My blood is ice, I’m certain of it. I nod, still trying to be brave but inside I’m rocking the way Joey does. "I'll just go to the store out here." Her dark hair is still in a fancy bun and her dark-blue eyes look almost brown with the black makeup everywhere. She’s a mess. I point at the mirror. "You should wash up before Joey sees you like that."

  She lifts her gaze to her face, wincing and snapping out of the weird confusion she seems to be stuck in. "Oh God." She hands me a wad of cash and heads for the bathroom. "Be fast."

  I’m almost excited to see her back to being closed off and bossy. I turn and run down the stairs, locking the door to the house when I get into the garage. I start the SUV exactly the opposite of how my dad taught me to drive, opening the huge garage door after the vehicle is started. As I press the button, I have visions of every horror movie I have ever seen, but as the door opens, there is nothing beyond my neighbor’s garden. I back up, closing the door and looking around the neighborhood, seeing people getting into their cars. People are still leaving for work? Hopefully someone has barricaded the school.

  I leave my street and pull onto the main road. The traffic seems thick but it's going the wrong way. I am driving against it. Everyone is going toward the city.

  Did no one call the police about the man and the child behind the dumpster?

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