“I can’t hear anything,” James says. “What is he saying?”
Richard sighs. He wipes away his tears as he registers that James cannot hear a single word he says. He has never felt so hopeless as a father. Dr Shaw puts a hand on his shoulder as Richard sinks back into his seat.
“Your father says he loves you and that he is sorry. He’s touching your hand right now. Can you feel that?”
Even as James is suspended hundreds of feet above the earth of a different dimension, he still imagines the disappointment etched into his father’s face. He cannot feel the warmth of his father’s hand, but the sadness burns deep.
“I can feel something. The air feels warmer.”
Richard suddenly sits up in his chair, and further strengthens his grip upon James’ hand.
“Your dad has told me some worrying things James, some very troubling things about your brother.”
“Hal? How did you find out about that?”
“Find out? What do you mean by that James?”
“It’s my fault the Shadow took him. But that’s why I’m here. I need to bring him back. I can’t come back until I rescue him.”
Dr Shaw shakes her head, detesting her next words before she eve speaks them. She knows she is about to smash his already shattered hopes into another thousand pieces.
“James,” she begins softly. “Hal is gone.”
“Yes, I know” comes James’ belated reply. “But I’m going to get him back. I’m going to save him.”
“No, you won’t James. You won’t get him back and you won’t save him. I know this is going to be difficult for you, but you need to hear it. Hal was never taken. He wasn’t taken because he is dead. He died three years ago.”
The clouds darken over James.
“What are you talking about? I saw him the night before I got hit by the car. I put him to bed after dad went out.”
“Hal is dead, James. It’s just you and your dad now. It’s been that way since you were 16.”
“Don’t say that! Why are you doing this?”
Lightning begins to strike as a storm gathers in the distance. The view of Von vanishes.
“I know you don’t believe me James. That is why I need to show you. Do you remember where Dale hit you with the car?”
“Cotswold Avenue.”
“Yes. I need you to close your eyes and go back there.”
“Why?”
“Just do it James. Do you want to know what happened to Hal?”
“Yes.”
“Then do what I say!”
“Okay.”
James takes a breath. The black clouds approach him. A set of spindly fingers reaches for him. They turn him over, blocking out all sounds and vision until finally he screams. It all goes quiet as he wakes up on a sidewalk. He looks around and sees a washed-out sky as the breeze moves the trees softly to and fro. In the distance, he can hear the steady hum of cars on a freeway.
“Are you there? Are you back at the site of the accident?” Dr Shaw asks.
“Yes. But what’s this got to do with Hal?”
“This is the same spot where Hal died. This is where your mum died. You don’t remember but you were there when it happened. I want you to watch and let the moment unfold as it did back then.”
Something seems strange. James knows this episode. It is the day that Dale hit him with the car. Everything is in slow motion but he can remember it all clearly. When he looked back towards the intersection for the last time, he saw a cross on the tree. Behind the tree was a driveway decorated in pink and purple chalk. He watched as a little boy rode his bike over the driveway and around the circular parking bay at the front of his house. The training wheels creaked along, dragging a colourful criss-crossing line beneath him as he weaved left and right. It all happened so quickly at the time. Slowed down like this, James starts to see, instead of simply looking. He takes a step further to get a better view of the child’s simple artwork. At closer glance, he sees the little boy has drawn hundreds of butterflies, each one indistinguishable from the next, but altogether beautiful. This extra footstep draws him a mere footstep further away from the direct path of Dales’ car. It was enough to save his life.
“Let the moment unfold,” Dr Shaw’s voice echoes.
“I can see the car coming now. Should I move?”
“Just let the moment unfold.”
Time speeds us. The car approaches and veers toward James. Once again, the collision sends him flying off the curb. His face kisses the ground and everything goes black. The difference this time is that James remains conscious. He pulls himself off the road to see the car is not Dale’s, but a white minivan wedged against the tree. The vehicle is mangled beyond recognition. No one could have survived such a crash. A fire crew uses the jaws-of-life to gain access to the driver side door. It takes a team of five men, but they finally manage to pry it open. A crowd gathers. It’s the ground zero effect. Cars are double parking just to catch a glimpse. Their faces express horror at the sight. But their beady eyes betray them. They sparkle with wonder in the glow of flashing police lights. They are drawn to the tragedy. As is James.
He knows what is coming. He knows it is going to sadden him. Yet he can’t look away. Then he sees them. He sees his mother’s lifeless eyes. She is tightly strapped into the driver seat, her head resting against its leather back. A small trickle of blood flows from her left ear, black under the moonless night. Her arms are twisted across her chest as her hands are loosely clasped together. James notices her eyes are staring up. There is a hole in the roof where a branch has gouged its way through. She is looking at the stars. Too little. Too late. She is gone. She always was. Her pupils widen. Her blood runs cold. Her mouth hangs open. Her heart flickers out. This is not a movie. This is not some story on the news. This is death and this is real. It is the ugly, sinister side of the charade known as life. There is nothing James can do for her. He sees that so clearly now. It doesn’t make the moment any easier.
Would you like to know how it felt for James to watch his mother die? Honestly? The answer is a great big nothing. The shock is so unbelievably overwhelming that he feels nothing at all. It is his body’s natural defence. It simply does not allow him to process the magnitude of such a moment. James could stare at her stiff body for hours and the feeling might never return. Even though she is dead, her body remains. It looks like she is sleeping, like at any time she could open her eyes and smile at him. Sometimes the mind can play such nasty tricks.
It changes in an instant when they take her away. Out of sight and physically gone. Then the pain of her death finally hits James. He wants to be sad, but that would mean he’d have to start processing the grief. At times like these, it is almost forgivable for someone to believe they will wake up and discover that it was all a bad dream. James imagines her nagging voice waking him up because he slept in on his first day back at school. He would love to have her obsessively tidying and rearranging the furniture in his room to maximise the space and take advantage of the house’s natural light. He would love to eat her overcooked Italian on a Sunday afternoon. He would love to have her around at all. But she won’t be around, because she has been wiped from existence. They flatten out her stiff body and load her on the gurney. They cover her up from the gawking stares. That is the last James sees of her. Unfortunately, it is only one-third of the tragic show James has paid full admission to see.
He makes his way to the right side of the vehicle. The sliding door has been ripped from the vehicle and tossed onto the road. The trail of wreckage extends some fifty feet up the tree-lined avenue, concluding with a red SUV. It is the cause of all the carnage. It looks as though the minivan was heading north, and was T-boned by the westbound SUV. He was drunk. He fell asleep at the wheel, and sped straight through the intersection. James’ mother never stood a chance at the speed he was travelling. The driver of the SUV is fine. Shocked and disorientated yes, but physically he is okay.
James looks to the oppos
ite side of the street. The driveway he saw earlier, the one with the butterflies and the little boy, now has two police cruisers parked in it. In the back seat of the closest car, James can see the drunk driver. His head slumps to the side, and his breathing is visibly forced. The window fogs up, almost obstructing his face entirely from the outside of the vehicle. Soon, his forlorn face returns through gaps created by his tears.
James knows his eyes have still not seen the worst. He looks inside the minivan. The back-passenger seat is fully exposed. There is no body, just a splintered booster seat. Between the car wreck and ripped off sliding door, lies a dark trail of blood. At the edge of the road a blanket covers up a tiny lump. It is small enough that it could be a speedbump or a knocked over parking cone. James wishes it was either. A police officer walks over. He lifts the blanket, revealing the body of a male toddler. Despite the sick feeling in his gut telling him not to look, he forces himself to do so. When he does, he sees Hal. He sees his face; his flawless little face. His chest is hollow. His legs and arms are bent the wrong way. Every bone in his delicate body is fractured. The back of his head is crushed, creating a red pool around his body. How can so much blood escape a body so tiny? James tries not to focus on anything but his face. His face will forever be this young. He locks it up, and turns away.
His brother is dead. His mother is dead. But the worst news is still to come. Despite the scale of wreckage, there is one survivor after all. He is a sixteen-year-old male. The paramedics are working on him now, with the first on scene detailing his injuries to his superior. He has a few broken ribs, and suffers a heavy concussion. But he will survive. In their own words, a miracle. James walks back toward the hedge row. He sees his body on a stretcher. He watches as they load him into the back of an ambulance. He watches as they carry away his mother and his little brother.
Then the scene fast forwards. The passers-by get back into their cars. As soon as the ambulance leaves with the injured and the dead, they rapidly disperse from the scene. the prying eyes and their appetite for tragedy is quenched. For now. Little do they know, they will never un-see this fateful moment. Death’ stare burns a scar deep within the sockets of all who witness it. They should have just kept on driving.
The flashing lights dance off into the black reaches of the night. New orders crackle through the police cruiser’s radio. Their sirens howl as they seek out the next crime scene. Once their synthetic glow dissipates, James can finally look up and see the stars as they sparkle. He tries to pick out the brightest pin prick of light amongst the millions of constellations that blanket the sky. He hopes it is the same one his mother picked. He takes comfort in knowing that his mother got to witness such a majestic sight before she left this world.
The scene fast forwards once more. The stars disappear with the rising of a new sun. A thousand cars pass by, driving over the exact spot in which Hal died. The stars shine, then disappear once more. His dad returns to the scene. He nails a cross to a tree. He falls to his knees. He weeps. The sun rises. The sun falls. Night and day. Again and again. Sometimes he comes in the morning. Sometimes late at night. But whatever time it is, he returns. Each time he weeps a little less. His look of dejection turns to blankness. His father’s eyes are hollow, betraying the barren space inside his chest. He stares at the dark spot on the road for hours upon hours. Time moves at breakneck speed around him, but he is glued to a fixed point in time. The sun keeps rising. But his eyes grow darker. Eventually, the stares and visits grow shorter and less frequent. Then one day he does not show at all. Hundreds more days and nights goes by and the dark spot on the road slowly fades. The cross starts to weather. James’ father never comes back. James is alone, with a million cars and dogs and joggers passing him by.
“What do you see James?” Dr Shaw softly asks.
“I remember now.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that again. But it needed to happen. You do understand that, don’t you James?”
The skies open up and soon the road is flooded. James looks at the cross on the tree. The colour from its wooden front begins to bleed down to the patch of dirt below. It trickles onto the road, pools around the roots of the ancient tree, and makes its way towards the drain. Like all things good and bad, the moment eventually ends.
“I’m so sorry dad. I…I should have saved them. I should’ve saved Hal.”
“James, it’s okay. Your father doesn’t blame you. There’s nothing you could have done. None of this is your fault.”
“I have to go now.”
“James, wait!”
“I have to go Dr Shaw.”
“James, can you hear me? James!”
Dr Shaw’s words echo from a mountain top and James plunges into a deep turquoise pool.
CHAPTER 25: The Tape Recorder
“Is he going to be okay?” Richard asks.
“At least he knows now,” replies Dr Shaw. “That’s a good thing.”
“He was really lucid. He seemed to understand you completely like he was awake.”
“What can I say? I certainly underestimated his spirit. He seems to see things in a whole different way to you and I.”
“Now speaking about seeing things…”
Dr Shaw knows where Richard is steering the conversation. Before her customary cut-off, he speaks again.
“You said you’d talk to me about the hypnosis.”
Dr Shaw clasps to her handbag tightly, safeguarding the tape recorder inside it.
“I did, yes,” she concedes. “But honestly I don’t know what I saw.”
Richard can see already see the unease start to cripple her as she speaks. It is the first time he has any vulnerability seep through her thick, lovely skin of Dr Shaw.
“Can you at least try to explain?” he probes.
“How do I explain something that simply is not rational?”
“Dr Shaw, please. What did you see?”
She breathes deeply, looking at a blank spot on the ceiling as she prepares her answer.
“I saw what James saw.”
“What? You mean you saw her. You saw Shavoni?”
“No, I did not see Shavoni! Shavoni is not real!” she snaps back.
Richard retreats to the safety of his padded chair, taking his time to salvage the discussion.
“I’m sorry, I got a little excited there. So, what did you see?”
“Right before his accident he began seeing more and more of these faces. They were like monsters to him. But one was the most frightening of all. He genuinely thought this one could get to him, that it would eventually kill him. It was a physical embodiment of The Shadow. During the session you are referring to, this Shadow attacked him.”
“And then…?”
“And when he woke up he had something in his hand.”
“What was it?”
“Hair. He was holding hair. Hair that was not in his hand before we started our session. But it somehow was by the end.”
“Hair?”
“Yes Richard. Human hair.”
“What? Wait. How can you explain that?”
“I can’t explain it Richard. It does not make any sense.”
“Is that it?”
“No. When I played back the audio the next day, this is what I heard.”
Dr Shaw pulls the tape recorder from her bag and holds it in front of her. The transcript of the session plays out.
Dr Shaw: “Not yet, James. What do you mean? Her name is the key to what?”
James: “Shavoni! Shavoni!”
Dr Shaw pauses the recording.
“After this he woke up and I asked him if he was okay. But if I rewind back to a second after he stops screaming, you can hear something. Listen very closely.”
Richard pulls in close to Dr Shaw until only the tape recorder separates their faces. It is then that he hears it, only slightly at first. It is a low-pitched howl like a wolf in the soundtrack of a movie. And then a shallow raspy breath. A desperate wheeze that starts out
low. It grows louder, then steadies. It’s not James. It’s not Dr Shaw. Then he hears the voice. A whisper through the static.
“James.”
Richard rears back and looks at Dr Shaw. An unnerving silence is filled as she places the tape recorder on the table. Richard swallows hard against the fear inside his throat. He stares at the tape recorder, hoping that it will explain that the voice was some sort of interference. That it was a TV. That it wasn’t the voice of a monster from the depths of a nightmare. But it tells him nothing.
“Let me guess. You can’t explain that either?”
“I cannot explain that which defies reasonable logic.”
“Holy shit. James is in trouble, isn’t he?”
“I fear so, yes.”
CHAPTER 26: Dale Part III
Dale Foster never does a lot with his time. He listens to a select few genres of music. On occasion, he likes to sketch. He is not quite talented enough to be a painter, and he hasn’t the patience to learn guitar. He thinks way too much about death. He hates being young, but he fears getting old. He is too concerned with looking good, and not enough with getting better. He has a limited but cynical view concerning American politics and the state of Western society at large. He has heard of the Tea Party, but does not know or care for whatever their agenda is. Or if they have one at all. He hates Twitter. He hates CNN. He trolls Facebook constantly, but rarely uploads pictures or updates his own status. At least not when sober. His news source is The Onion.
Like all angry young men, Dale hates his father. And like all angry young men, he can’t quite figure out why. He loves his dead mum. Not because she is dead of course. He loves her because she is still a huge part of his life. In fact, she’s more present in death, than his dad is in life. That is from Dale’s perspective however. Dale has the grave inability to see things from anyone else’s point of view. It will become his fatal flaw.
Dale is good at talking to girls. But most of the time he doesn’t need to. Girls approach him. He possesses the rare gift of good looks and humility. It takes a good long while to see the latter. Despite his best evasive efforts, Dale is a good person. He could date the prettiest girls in college. He could make friends with the coolest kids. But he chooses to do neither. That is not to say he has never hooked up with girls. He lost his virginity when he was 16 and has kissed many girls before and since. He has only ever had one serious girlfriend. Her name was Jennifer. He likes to have sex, but he hates being touched. He likes to keep people at a distance, because distance is comfortable. He knows if he gets too close to anyone he has to explain his scars, as well as his intimacy issues. People notice, but they look away or change the subject. No one has gotten close enough for long enough to ever force the issue.
James in the Real World Page 18