Even though she’s my daughter, and I’m very biased, she really is one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen. At 23, she has her whole life ahead of her, and I admire that. I watched her as she jogged up the stairs, her ponytail swishing back and forth, and I secretly hoped she would stay forever. With the noises I had heard last night still fresh in my mind, I didn’t want to be alone in this big, old house anymore. Especially now, since the sounds have become a sort of macabre soundtrack, like eerie backdrop music, for daily life in this aged Victorian farmhouse.
Nadia stopped in the middle of the staircase and turned to look at me, a questioning expression on her face. Fear washed over my body like a prickly shower. Oh God, did she hear them, too? What do I say to her? The scraping noises coming from the attic moved to the forefront of my consciousness. Since all of these strange sounds had become normal background noise I no longer really heard, like when the furnace kicks on or when the refrigerator hums. I panicked, remembering how scared I was when I first heard them, and felt for my little girl now that she might experience them as well.
“What honey? Did you hear that too?” I asked quickly, almost too abruptly, and I knew my eyes were as wide saucers.
With her expression turning even more enigmatic, Nadia wrinkled up her face and answered, “No, I didn’t hear anything Mom.” She smiled at me and shook her head. “I was just going to say that J.P. is coming over for a while, after he gets off work. We’re just gonna watch a movie and order some pizza, his treat, you can join us if you like...or…I could tell him some other time if you don’t feel up for having anyone over. It’s your house. “
She shrugged and looked down with her lips in a pout, as if in defeat. My daughter always did know how to work me. Pulling on my heartstrings, she could play me like a fine-tuned violin.
Sighing long and bittersweet I answered her, “Sure sweetie that sounds good, I could use the company. Just because you live with Mom again doesn’t mean you can’t have a life.”
I guess I’d have to get used to her not being a child anymore, though, I didn’t have to like it.
“Thanks Mom, I love you.”
She turned and ran the rest of the way up the steps to her room. As she disappeared around the corner, I got a glimpse of a dark shape going the opposite direction. Must be her shadow I told myself, but I had a feeling that wasn’t it. Forgetting all about my stupid hangnail, I went into the parlor to regroup for a minute. I literally hadn’t slept in days, and I was beginning to feel the repercussions. I had been telling myself the noises I was hearing, and now the shadows I was seeing, were the end result from lack of sleep. But I was still unconvinced. With unsteady legs I sat down on the overstuffed ottoman to try and rationalize what was happening to me.
Was I going crazy? I know I heard those noises. I’ve been hearing them all week. Now, I’m seeing things? Obviously Nadia didn’t hear or see anything, but what does that mean? It’s more than just this old house settling. It’s more than just a lack of sleep. I wouldn’t have thought so before, but after last night, I know something’s going on.
Looking at my arm, I saw that the scratches were still there, fresh, red, and swollen. Little dots of blood had hardened sporadically along the cut-marks. It resembled a Marquis de Sade connect-the-dots game. Shivering, I tried to clear my mind of the bad feeling I was suddenly getting. Maybe with Nadia here, things would be different, things would hopefully settle down.
Shutting my eyes to the world around me I took a long, measured, deep breath until I thought my lungs would burst. I exhaled and felt a little of the stress and tension leaving my body. I rolled my head on my neck and shrugged my shoulders. I could really use a vacation. I decided to try the ohm technique I had learned when I took that meditation and yoga class at the Y. At the time, I thought it silly and pointless. But now, I was willing to try anything. Clearing my head and relaxing all my muscles, I began.
“Ooooohhhhhhmmmmmmmmm.” “Ooooooohhhhhhhmmmmmmmm.”
“Oooooooohhhhhmmmm.”
Low, slow and even, I continued with the universal buzz. I let my hands rest, palm up, on my thighs and kept going. Ridiculous as it may seem, it appeared to be working. Boy, those Yogis really know their stuff.
I was getting lost in the practice when I felt Nadia’s tender touch on my shoulders. She began massaging them, and I sighed. Having her here with me made the future seem brighter. She rubbed gently along the top of my shoulders and up to my lower neck. I felt her thumbs working circles at my occipital base and let my head tilt back into the pressure she was exerting. I’m really gonna like having her around.
Her loving hands slid back down, skimming my collarbone, as she began working out the kinks in my upper arms. I allowed myself to be lost in the moment. I felt myself drifting. I was moving further and further away from all my present troubles and enjoying the thought of time spent with my little girl. I let her rub my worries away, and I was so relaxed when she stopped that I could have fallen asleep right then and there. Who knows, I may have.
“Thanks, sweetie,” I said as I turned to look at her. But she was gone. Just like that – gone. Almost as soon as I realized how quickly she could disappear, I heard her upstairs giggling, apparently on the phone. Cold prickles of fear washed over me. How could she have been down here, massaging me, and then made it back upstairs so quickly? And made a phone call. Or did the phone ring and she answered it? Did I fall asleep sitting up? It is possible; I have never felt so tired in all my life. And I was so relaxed…
I could hear the distant approach of the garbage collection truck. The birds were singing outside. Nadia was upstairs in her bedroom, talking on the phone and all seemed so … normal. But I knew better. Something was going on. I found it really hard to believe everything that had been occurring was from lack of sleep. Either I was losing my mind or … I couldn’t yet face the other possibilities.
I tried, once again, to relax and found some consolation in focusing on the more pleasant sounds of life around me.
A low, slow scratching sound began to come from the dining room, shattering my moment’s peace and silence from the clamor my house had become. It’s never left the attic before. Every hair on my body rose to attention as I stood, hesitantly, to go investigate. I had to do this, if only for my own sanity.
As I walked down the hallway, I tried to convince myself it was just the cat playing around in the paint trays left from today’s latest project. Knowing the week’s events, I had a sinking feeling it was more than that. The floor boards creaked, and I almost laughed. I remembered when I was a child and that used to be the most frightening sound to me as I lay awake in my bed at night.
Things certainly change when you’re an adult. The things that scare you when you’re supposedly grown up are more sinister and … real.
I approached the room with trepidation, my stomach began to feel nauseated, and a shiver ran down my rigid spine. Cold sweat broke out all over my body, seemingly drenching my clothes, as I held the wall to steady myself. A smell of rotten, putrid, decaying flesh permeated the area, knocking me to the floor. My head felt dizzy, and I put my hand over my mouth to quell the sudden urge to heave my guts up.
I felt a heavy hand, a man’s hand, on my shoulder. Paralyzed with fear, this hand slowly slid down my arm and came to rest on my thigh. I felt the fingers caress my skin and saw goose bumps form where the invisible touch passed. Shivering violently, I began to wonder how long it took to suffocate as I realized I had stopped breathing.
With now measured, but heavy breaths, I watched the events unfold. My skirt began to slide up my leg, exposing more flesh, and I could see finger rakes appearing where the unseen hand had just been. As this indiscernible “thing” moved further up my thigh, I felt my heart pounding, threatening to release itself from my chest. I grabbed at my skirt and yanked it back down. The scraping noises grew louder.
I could still feel whatever it was sliding eerily up and over my hips, to my waist, on its way to my stomac
h. The scraping sounds became faster, more persistent. My invisible molester had reached my chest and as the buttons to my blouse came undone, the scream I had been stifling burst out of my clenched mouth. The scratching reached a crescendo and then the pocket doors to the dining room slid shut with such force - it made my heart feel like it was going to explode out of my heaving chest. All went silent.
“Mom, are you okay, what happened?” Nadia asked as she ran down the hallway to my side with concern in her eyes. I hadn’t even heard her coming. And the house, it seemed so … silent.
“Yes, I, uh…” I looked around. The smell was gone, the scratching had stopped, and everything seemed, well, normal. “Yes, I’m okay, I’m just so tired.”
I tried to sound convincing, but I wasn’t sure that Nadia believed me. From the look on her face, she seemed not only worried, but seriously afraid. I smoothed my skirt down and straightened my sweaty hair. Then, as I gazed into my daughter’s eyes, I saw her fear.
“What is it, Nadia?” I had maybe a little too much aggravation in my voice as I said this, but I was teetering on the brink.
“I’m just worried about you. I thought I heard you scream, and then you slammed those old doors so loud it made me jump. I thought something happened. You’ve been working so hard on fixing up the house that you haven’t really been taking care of yourself. I mean, for Pete’s sake, you tore down an entire wall by yourself. Not to mention, I know you, you probably haven’t slept in days.”
“Seriously, it’s okay, I’m okay. I’m just so tired from all this remodeling, and I couldn’t sleep last night so I kept working. You’re right though; I’ve been pushing myself too hard, but without your father around…” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
I was still so angry at Jake for leaving. And he had the nerve to leave before we had finished the restorations. Now, if there were any chance of my selling this money pit, I had to go it alone. Nadia looked at me with pity in her eyes. She was just as angry at her father, but I think she understood the divorce had been long coming.
“Why don’t you go watch TV and wait for, what’s his name, J.P.? I’m gonna wash the dishes from last night and then go to bed. Tell J.P. that I said thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to take a rain check. I really am so tired.”
I smiled the best I could muster under the circumstances and patted her hand.
Nadia helped me up, gave me a hug and looked at me with curious eyes.
“I just don’t feel like you’re telling me the whole truth,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. “I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”
“I’m fine, just very, very tired,” I replied. She seemed somewhat more convinced as I forced a smile. Nadia sighed, appearing to accept my answer and then smiled back.
I hugged her again, assuring her I was okay.
She went to the living room while I, somewhat shakily, made my way to the kitchen. I stood at the sink, lost in my thoughts and wondered if I should call a shrink. He could at least give me some valium or something to calm my nerves. Screw the shrink, I should call a priest. I know what I heard. And that smell, I have never smelled anything so awful. It smelled worse than the time, at our former house, when our dog Briar had dug up Nadia’s dead cat, about two weeks after it died.
I have got to get a grip on myself. I looked once again at the scratches on my arm then I felt an odd burning sensation on my stomach. Lifting up my shirt to find the source, I was instantly sick. The contents of my stomach emptied into the sink.
My head swam with possibilities. Was I somehow doing this to myself? I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked again. Four bloody scratches traveled across my stomach and then up, diagonally, disappearing under my bra. They burned, like a cat scratch, and cold fear raced through my veins as I tried to imagine who, or more aptly, what had made them.
It must have happened when I slid down the wall, I must have scratched myself on the exposed brick. I was pretty faint. I told myself these things, though somehow, I knew I was lying to appease my troubled mind.
I had felt a hand caressing me, touching me, like my husband used to do. I know what I felt, I know what I saw, I know what I heard, and I know what I smelled. A sudden realization came to me that I didn’t quite want to face. I had a dream last night. I dreamt of my husband, again, and we were in love, like when we were young.
He made love to me with such rough passion I had woken with a start. Was it really a dream? Is that how the scratches on my arm got there? With my breathing coming in short gasps, I needed to calm down or I was going to have a massive coronary. I reached for the bottle of prescription sleeping pills my friend Dana had given me and then thought against it. As much as I’d like to, I couldn’t go doping myself up when all of this is going on. I needed my head as clear as it could be, under the circumstances.
I decided to lose myself in last night’s dinner mess while trying to think of my options. Rinsing out my vomit and then filling the sink with hot soapy water, I began some serious reasoning.
A: I was experiencing something paranormal, something otherworldly, and it was not a nice entity.
B: I was imagining things (I quickly checked the scratches, nope, still there, I was not imagining things.)
Or C: I was just plain losing my mind.
Option C was the most logical thought. If it were option A, option C would soon follow anyway, so let’s just skip the middleman.
As Nadia sat on the couch waiting for J.P. to get here, I semi-watched her through the archway and from across two rooms from my vantage point washing dishes. Opening up the floor plan really made this place feel better, at first. Nadia thought so, too. It was good to have her back. It was a nice distraction from my current emotional train wreck, and we could spend time together.
We have a chance now to become the kind of friends that mothers and daughters usually are. We’ll get out tomorrow, go shopping and have lunch. I smiled to myself and went to get some S.O.S pads out of the pantry.
As I searched the cabinet door, once again the icy fingers of fear gripped me. The S.O.S pads weren’t where I put them. I always set them on the third shelf with the rest of the cleaning supplies. I know I put them there, I just purchased them this morning, and they were right there.
As I rummaged around, I felt that familiar panic of possible dementia set in as I searched frantically to find them. Suddenly, there they were, practically right in front of my eyes. I laughed to myself. Here I am, becoming irrationally upset over misplaced S.O.S. pads; I really gotta get some sleep.
As I went to reach for them, I felt something wet and hot, sliding down my neck. With a loud SLAP, I smacked my hand on my neck like I was swatting a mosquito the size of Texas. There was nothing there. I checked my hand, just in case. Nothing. Then I felt it again. This time it was slow and deliberate, it and traveled across my collarbone.
I ripped open my shirt to find the nasty little culprit. I saw nothing but a glistening trail that whatever it was left in its wake. I am losing my mind. I wiped the snail-like goo from my body and looked at it on my shaking hand. Slowly, it began to dissipate until there was nothing left but the horrible feeling of being violated yet again, as well as the feeling of insanity setting in. I took a deep breath, forgetting about the S.O.S. pads. My only thoughts were that I needed to get out of there as fast as I could.
Suddenly, the hot, wet feeling was on my ankle. Looking down, of course I saw nothing, which made me laugh. Going insane can make you find humor in the strangest things. It began to move up my calf, little by little, until it came to rest on the back of my knee. Then, I recognized the feeling. It was the same as when my husband used to run his tongue along my ear.
I shuddered. The movement began again. I was paralyzed with fear and perhaps, maybe this time, a little curious. It ran up my thigh and then jumped to my neck. It paused, as did my breathing, and I know I felt breath. Hot, heavy breath on the pulse of my jugular. Then the tongue began to move again, up to
my earlobe.
THUMP!
I nearly jumped out of my skin as I threw myself against the pantry wall. The sweat that had beaded on my brow and upper lip trickled down and hit my blouse leaving dark, tiny little circles where it soaked into the fabric. I looked down and saw the S.O.S. pads lying on the floor next to the clothes soap. Then I glanced up to the shelf where they had just been.
Fester, our calico, was peeking his head out from behind an extra large box of dryer sheets to peer at me with his green oval eyes. Damn cat! He must have knocked them to the ground. Then an ill, sickening feeling washed through me. Was it the cat that was licking me? No, couldn’t be, that doesn’t make sense. Did I enjoy it? NO! Definitely NOT! I really am losing my mind.
Pulling them from behind the box of laundry soap, I shook my head, rubbed my tired eyes and took them back to the sink with me. It must be because I’m so tired, coupled with the stress of rehabbing this house ... and my divorce. I’m lonely. And miss the companionship of my husband; Lord knows I don’t miss his constant arguing, though. And when was the last time I got laid? Yeah, that must be it. I’m just so freakin’ tired I’m having waking sexual dreams. Who says paint fumes can’t get you high?
I laughed at myself, to myself, for a second time. I shook my head as if the action would rid me of terrible thoughts. Out of the corner of my eye, once again, I saw a dark shape or form cross into the dining room. Not wanting another episode so soon, I let this event go. I had to. It was probably the cat again, plus, I didn’t think my heart could handle another run in with whatever was disturbing the peace here.
My mind is playing tricks on me because of all that’s happened tonight. Lack of sleep can do strange things to a person. A loud meow from the cat snapped me back to reality, even though it caused me to jump yet again.
I reached to shut the water off. How long had I been standing there? The bubbles were almost to the point of overflowing, and it seemed to me that only a mere second ago, I had begun filling the sink. I’ve got to get a grip. I grabbed a pan from the water and set to work, determined to pull it together.
Journalstone's 2010 Warped Words for Twisted Minds Page 7