by Tobias Wade
“Three times for what you will do,” said the voice which wasn’t a voice. My brother was waiting for me in my home, although every instinct within me screamed with the common recognition that it wasn’t my real brother.
“Oh but I can’t trick you, can I?” his mouth moved, but it was the silly cartoon Devil’s voice which came out. “You’re not scared of anything.”
I reached up to my face, but the headset wasn’t on anymore. I turned around and started walking upstairs as quickly as I could. My heart was pounding in my chest like a caged animal trying to escape. My brother-who-wasn’t-my-brother followed me up to my room.
“You think you’re so strong, don’t you? That you don’t need anybody. But you know what? There’s no-one else here, so you can tell me the truth.”
The singsong cartoon voice was grating on my nerves. Wherever I was, I wasn’t in control. There was no point in trying to outrun something in my own mind. I turned around to face him.
“I’m not afraid of you or your tricks. What do I have to do to get out of here?” I asked. My voice didn’t even shake. I balled my hands into fists, and they were firm and ready.
“Are you sure you want out?” he asked, but it was back in my brothers voice. “Your legs work in here, but they won’t out there.”
“I don’t care, I want out,” I said.
“Why? Unless you really are afraid.” He smiled, and it froze in a glitch. The face was so warped I could barely recognize him. I couldn’t stand to look – I wanted to wipe that smile off. If he wasn’t going to be reasoned with, then I would have to do things my own way.
“I’m not afraid!” I shouted. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt and punched him straight across the face. “You’re the one who is trapped in here with me!”
“Then what do you feel?” he asked.
The face felt solid and I could feel the bones of his jaw moving from the impact. The instant I hit him however, his face was replaced with Abdul-Baser. The old man started to pull a handgun from behind his back, but I punched him again, almost breaking my hand against his cheekbone. The face changed again, and this time I was looking into my own eyes. That was it – that was the way out. He was reeling from my blows, and I snatched the handgun from his limp grasp.
“That’s not going to do anything to me -”
“You’re right, it won’t,” I interrupted, my mind racing with the possibilities, “because you’re just pretending to be me. It will however, work on me.”
I put the gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger. He jumped at me faster – faster than humanly possible – and knocked my hand aside. The gun went off with a deafening ring, and he fell to the ground in a heap.
“My turn,” I said. I put the gun in my mouth, pleased to find that my hand still wasn’t shaking, and pulled the trigger.
“I can see you. Can you see you?”
I opened my eyes in the hospital. A doctor was leaning over me, shining a light in my mouth. My head hurt like Hell. I tried to nod, but a searing pain engulfed my awareness and I froze up – almost like a glitch.
My father was sitting beside my bed. He wouldn’t say a word until after the doctor left, but eventually he told me what happened. I had entered some kind of fit at the VR arcade and fell out of my chair, probably caused by the bullet shifting in my spine. My brother took me home and stayed with me to make sure I was okay, but I pulled a gun and tried to kill myself. He managed to stop me, but the gun went off and hit him. I shot myself after that, but the bullet went straight through my jaw and missed my brain.
I want to go back to my old life – Hell I want to go all the way back to day one and do it all again, but I’d settle for just a day.
I used to think I had nothing left to hope for. I used to think I wasn’t afraid of anything. Now I know I was wrong about both, and that they’re both the same thing:
The static sneer, half-contempt, half-agony, glitching across my father’s face.
The Angel Doll
“Run away, or you will die tonight.”
That’s what I heard from beside me at 2 AM.
“What did you say?” I asked my husband. He didn’t answer. Good, then it wasn’t important. I had to use the bathroom anyway, but nestled under a down-comforter with our tabby cat Meeps snuggled between us made me seriously consider my options. Wet the bed? Too sticky. Excavate myself from the pile of blankets and face the cold hard bathroom tiles? Please no. Hold it in and develop a weak bladder?
Eh, we were all going to get old and fall apart someday anyway. I had no intention of getting out of that bed for anything short of a nuclear strike. Just when I started flirting with the other side of consciousness though, I heard it again:
“Run away, or you will die tonight.”
“Wake up Jordan. I’m having a bad dream.” I sat up and shook my husband’s shoulder. He grunted and halfheartedly pushed my hand away. That should do the trick. But as long as I was up…
I uprooted Meeps and climbed out of bed. He gave me that “how dare you, peasant” expression that all cats have mastered without parallel. I was half-way to the bathroom, and wondering if I could teach myself to piss while sleepwalking when –
“Run away, or –“
I stopped and rubbed my eyes. That wasn’t my husband’s voice. It wasn’t coming from my bed at all. That was unmistakably from inside my closet. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a strong independent woman. I kill my own spiders and everything, but there’s no decent minded person anywhere who could hear that without screaming bloody murder.
It wasn’t really a scream – more of a “what the thunder-flicking-fuck was that?” – but it was loud enough to get Jordan on his feet in a second. It was so cute how protective he was of me. My father never approved of him because Jordan had a cocaine trouble as a teenager, but to me he had always been the perfect man.
“What’s going on? Are you alright?” Jordan asked.
“There’s someone here,” I replied with the same wide-eyed sincerity a four year old might muster regarding the monster under her bed.
“Honey come back to bed. There isn’t anyone-”
“Run away, or you will die tonight.”
“There!” I said. “It’s coming from the closet.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
“Check it for me? Please? Pleeeeease?” I gave him my best impersonation of a desperate puppy. He sighed and headed for the door.
“Don’t! I changed my mind!” I said. “There’s a murderer inside!”
“I wouldn’t worry,” he replied. “It’s probably just my laptop randomly un-pausing a video or something. Besides, if it was a murderer, he’d just kill us in our sleep.”
“Real reassuring. Thanks.”
Jordan opened the door, but his body was blocking my view. I hopped around on my toes to peer over his shoulder.
My Doll – my Angel Doll, the one I’d had since I was a baby – was lying on the ground. I rushed to pick her up, reverently cradling her and completely forgetting about the monster for a moment. She wasn’t really an Angel, just a Raggedy-Ann Doll with little cloth wings sewn onto her back. But she was mine, in the same way as my hair was brown or my skin was fair; she was part of me.
“Well there’s nothing in here, so I’m going back to bed,” Jordan said, slumping off across the floor.
“What do you think knocked her off the shelf though?” I asked. “And look! Her stomach is all ripped open.”
“I’ll call a doctor in the morning. Goodnight.” He was already consumed by the indistinguishable blanket blob.
I sat there on the floor holding my Doll. We were inseparable when I was a kid. This doll had endured everything, including a part time gig as a bulldog’s chew-toy, and the lead investigator of a vacuum’s inside. She had been ripped, stained, shredded, and impaled a dozen odd times, and Dad had always been able to fix her for me before. Of course, now that he was gone I would have to learn to fi
x it myself, but that was okay. When I have a kid of my own, they’ll probably need me to fix it for them too.
I gently poked the leaking fluff back into the Doll’s chest cavity and –
“Shit snacks”. Something stung my finger, prompting its quick passage to my mouth. Was something in there? I opened the Doll a little further, careful not to lose any of the precious stuffing, and pulled out a tightly folded sheet of paper. I recognized the handwriting immediately.
Dear Amelie
It was the same handwriting with the same loopy “D” I had seen every year on my birthday card. Every year except this one anyway. I sat cross-legged on the floor and Meeps wiggled her way into my lap while I read my father’s secret letter.
Dear Amelie
The telling of an adventure becomes an adventure in itself. Fantasies will unburden your spirit from the constraints of reality, and horror is as thrilling for the author as it is for the reader.
But my story is not so easily told. Every time I try to bleed my memories free, I am frozen with helpless shame and guilt. The events of my youth have haunted me throughout my life, and I fear I will not go quietly into death until I have found peace in their recounting.
I hope you will forgive me for inscribing my story in verse. It is the only way I know how to distance myself from the pain and turn the tragedy of my life into something beautiful. I hope before the end of your days you too will find a way to burn your darkness with such brilliant fire as to illuminate the way for others.
Forever yours,
-Dad
It should be said, right at the start,
all happy families are the same.
For joys are shared in equal parts,
though misery is unique in blame.
It comes in many varied forms,
but you will know it when it’s seen.
When the perfect mask is torn,
and sundered at the seams.
So it was when I was young,
a son first and child after.
Playing with father was endless fun;
and every shared moment laughter.
I learned how to view the world
from astride my father’s knee.
And when the night left me curled,
his stories would bring sleep.
But life is heavier for some than others,
and it pressed hard upon this man.
A war waged between him and my mother –
he stopped trying and simply ran.
I was left to wondering,
where my father went at night.
Then home late with blundering,
too much drink had made him fight.
One night the drink brought a rage
that I had never seen before.
The beatings could not be assuaged,
so out I fled through kitchen door.
I wandered the streets very late,
hiding from that awful noise,
not knowing it was my fate,
to find salvation in a toy.
Tossed upon garbage and refuse,
the broken Doll of an Angel lay.
It was worn-deep from over use,
but I still took her home to play.
When the violence was lit by booze,
I held it to keep my fears at bay.
Then finally when came a truce,
I would thank her when I prayed.
The quiet never lasted, nor the peace,
and I kept the doll close beside.
Once I was too bruised to sleep,
and waited instead to finally die.
Instead the Doll began to speak,
telling me that I was safe.
That even when the world was bleak,
I must trust the Doll with faith.
The Doll offered more than reality,
and proved my great escape.
It would sing tales of fantasy:
of villains, heroes and their capes.
Beasts and monsters with their fangs,
of highway men and roaming gangs,
who were locked up tight with a clang,
prevailing justice when she sang.
Since then we never parted ways,
where I went, the Doll followed after.
She sat beside me when I played,
or sheltered me in the attic rafters.
The doll peaked from my bag at school,
(the other children laughed, I know).
But I didn’t mind the jeering fools
who didn’t know how to take a blow.
I wish my mother had a Doll
to take away her pain –
to free her back against the wall,
and cease the falling of the cane.
I offered the Angel Doll to her,
but she insisted that I keep.
Saying it was too late to deter,
the wounds which cut too deep.
One night her screaming wouldn’t end,
and I offered up a solemn plea:
That even this hurt would mend,
I begged the Angel answer me.
No comfort now like in the past,
the Doll offered this foresight:
“Run away,” she said at last.
“Or you will die tonight.”
I stopped reading. I was so tired, I had completely forgotten about what made me get out of bed in the first place. I stared at the coarse face with its black sewn on buttons and flame of red hair. It was just a Doll – the same Doll it had always been.
“Jordan?” My voice was timid. I shouldn’t wake him up again. It was stupid to think –
“Yeah?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course, honey. What are you still doing up?”
“I want to get out of the house, now.”
The pile of blankets slouched aside and he sat up to stare at me. He looked at the letter in my hands, then nodded. He put on his robe and handed me mine, and we walked out the front door in silence.
“Where are we going?”
“Away,” I said. “Can you drive?”
It was like he could sense when something was important to me. He smiled and nodded. We didn’t need words. I hopped into the passenger seat and flipped on the reading light to finish the letter while he drove.
“Run away,” she said at last.
“Or you will die tonight.”
I grew angry and yelled louder,
but no other sound came out her.
I flung her from my window seat,
out of the house, into the street.
Telling her she was no good,
if the Angel no longer could
speak and tell me calming tales
drowning out the fighting wails.
Mother was in pain, a bestial yelp –
through the thin walled home.
I couldn’t face my fear and help –
I couldn’t bear the sound alone.
I ran until I was out of breath,
far away from here.
I didn’t care if I met my death,
I willed to disappear.
Snow and bitter winds cut in
probing through my jacket thin.
I leaned against a tree to rest,
yet dared not chance to sleep in less
I would waken to find myself
alone in the world with no one else,
or waken not, stiff frozen skin
a tribute to what might have been.
I wish I hadn’t thrown the Doll away
when I needed her the most.
It wasn’t her fault she had to say
that death was flying close.
The morning found my mother dead,
as the Doll that I once found.
Forsaken and thrown on garbage bed;
a trash heap burial mound.
For many years, a lost Raggedy-Ann,
my Doll must have searched the Ear
th.
Until she found not a boy, but a man,
and his lady who was giving birth.
I had run so far from life,
that I had found a life anew.
The Doll gazed upon my beautiful wife,
and the child who now grew.
The Angel Doll lay down softly,
knowing her part had been played.
The boy was gone, and though missed awfully,
time’s direction could not be swayed.
I found her there, against hospital door,
still and quiet as the dead.
I scooped her up and to her swore
to fix her tattered threads.
By my word, she was cured
of the ills this world had shown.
My baby girl brought in the world
was gifted with a Doll newly sewn.
I will never make the mistakes
that drove my mother to her grave.
And the Doll will never lie awake
to take away your pain.
I was in tears by the time I finished. Dad would have been 58 on the first of May. Jordan kept giving me these nervous glances, but he was respectful and didn’t pry.
“How much further, you think?” is all he asked. “There’s a motel up ahead. Want to spend the night there?”
These weren’t pretty tears. They were big, snotty, sloppy globs. I was too choked up to answer, but he pulled into the parking lot anyway. He understood me so well, it was like he was made for me.
I held the Doll while I fell asleep in the motel. I knew I owed Jordan big for this. I felt so stupid for dragging us out here, but the letter and my cry had been cathartic and I was so tired that I felt oddly at peace. It was the best I’d felt since the funeral. And who knows, maybe some freak tornado will hit the house and I’ll know some part of Dad really is still out there watching over –
“Run away, or you will die tonight.”
It came from the Doll: a small voice like a child who was afraid of being caught.
“I already did run away.” I felt too guilty to wake Jordan up again after all this, so I whispered the reply.
“Not far enough. He’s still with you,”she replied. I couldn’t see the Doll’s mouth moving or anything, but there was nothing else which could have been talking to me. I looked over at Jordan’s harmless, sleeping body. Was I really going to trust a phantom voice over my husband who I’ve known and loved for years?