Indwell (Chasing Natalie's Ghosts)

by Nicole Smith

  “I’m leaving mom. I can’t live with that jerk anymore. I hope someday you will say those words too.” He kissed her on the cheek and patted Luke on the head as he headed for the front door. He stopped in front of me.

  “I hope you’ll have the courage to leave this dysfunctional environment soon too,” he gave me a hug and walked out. I didn’t know where he was going, but I was jealous of how he must be feeling right now, completely free of it all. `Don’t worry John’, I thought to myself. I am leaving soon too. I’m just taking a different way out, I smiled to myself.

  My parents had started packing a few days after New Year’s. I didn’t have too much time left to come up with a plan. I spent hours going over different scenarios with Adam, but we couldn’t come up with anything that would work. I wasn’t a ghost. I needed sustenance and in order to get it I needed money. I couldn’t travel as quickly as he could either. That could pose problems in the future for us. The unfortunate thing about Adam’s ability to travel was the restrictions he had. He was incapable of leaving a certain radius surrounding his house. Which explained why he couldn’t visit me when I was at the hospital, it was too far away, which is the reason why he won’t be able to find me when I move. He won’t be able to go far enough. It was extremely frustrating. He had tried several times to find an exit but nothing seemed to work. I had to build up my courage to do what was appearing to be our only chance. I just prayed we would be together at the end of it all.

  I quickly rummaged through the bathroom medicine cabinet. The one good thing about having psychotic parents is that there was always a wide range of mind altering drugs around. I thought if I made myself an antidepressant cocktail mix then that might put me out, hopefully stopping my heart. I was not too familiar with the effects of medication on the body but I knew a little about overdoses. My fathers’ friend had died from a heroin overdose right in the middle of our kitchen floor many years ago.

  I can remember that night so clearly, it was the same night Cheveyo introduced himself to me. My father had come home early with some of his friends. I could tell by the volume of their voices that the festivities had begun hours before they arrived home. I grabbed a hold of Muffy, my big white husky and took her outside. I was trying to find the boy that had saved me in the field from being run over by a tractor but I couldn’t find him anywhere. When I walked back into the house, I noticed that there probably wouldn’t be any dinner that night either as my mother had joined in on the party. The music was loud. The table was covered with bottles, ashtrays, foil, spoons, lighters and odd glasses with tubes. I just shook my head and walked into the kitchen. I grabbed a large bowl of cold mashed potatoes from the fridge, covered it with ketchup, found three cans of cola, some spoons and went to find John and Luke upstairs. We sat on the floor quietly and ate dinner. They thanked me for the grub then went back to setting up the broken racetrack in John’s room. I walked up the remaining stairs to my room and shut the door.

  I didn’t want to see any of my father’s friends. They gave me a creepy feeling when I was near them. I slammed the door as I quietly cursed them all. I closed my eyes as I fell onto my bed. I looked up at the ceiling and rolled over. There, sitting on the floor was my hero. I looked back at my door to make sure it was shut then turned on the lamp. He jumped back into the shadows of my room.

  “Hi!” I said. I was not really sure why he was here but I was happy he was. He looked kind of sad, so I decided not to ask too many questions right away, I didn’t want him to leave me.

  “So, I wanted to say sorry for being mad when you pulled me out of the field, so I’m sorry,” I said cautiously.

  “You are forgiven,” he said smiling at me.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Cheveyo,” he replied.

  “Cheveyo. I like it. My name is Natalie,” he smiled up at me again. He already knew my name. I remembered him saying it in the field. Some loud banging sounds interrupted our conversation. It was coming from downstairs. It sounded like a chair possibly being thrown against the wall. I also heard some glass breaking, then came the swearing and crying.

  “Good times,” I said under my breath, frowning. A few minutes later Luke came running into my room, slamming and locking my old heavy wooden door. The lock on the door was a metal square that had a small metal tab on the top that slid back and forth, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t.

  “Are you okay Luke?” I asked, not too surprised that he was scared.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, but can I sleep here, just for a little while?” he whispered.

  “Sure. Just watch out for Cheveyo.”

  “Who am I watching out for?” Luke asked looking around.

  “Cheveyo, my new friend, he’s sitting at the foot of the bed. Don’t kick him?” I said. Luke just looked at me and shrugged.

  “Okay, whatever, funny, sure,” he slurred as he drifted off to sleep. Cheveyo smiled and whispered, “Good Night Natalie” as he curled up into a ball at the end of my bed. I grabbed my housecoat and covered him.

  The next morning I was hesitant to go downstairs, so I took my time washing up and then I knocked on John’s door, to see if he had gone downstairs yet.

  “What?” he mumbled.

  “Are you awake?” I asked, about to turn back to my room.

  “No, but I’ll go downstairs with you,” he said glumly. We walked silently down to the dining room. The table was still covered in ashes. There was no one there, so we walked into the living room. Two of my father’s friends, one on the couch and one in the chair were sleeping soundly. There was a broken chair in the middle of the room and pieces of my mother’s large white table lamp scattered around it. We walked back towards the kitchen and there in the middle of the room was a man, lying on the cold linoleum floor. I wanted to scream but John already had his hand covering my mouth.

  “Shhh,” he whispered, as we backed up towards the stairs. Once we reached the top John sighed.

  “Just go back to bed. Mom will be up later,” he ordered.

  “Okay,” I whispered, silently closing my door. I realized Luke had already gone back to his room. I decided to check on him, just to make sure he wasn’t going to go downstairs either. He was sleeping in his own bed so I closed the door and went back to my room. Once I closed my door and stepped down into my room I noticed Cheveyo was there again but this time he wasn’t smiling.

  “Promise me you won’t go back downstairs till your mother comes up to get you?” he asked. He seemed so serious for such a little kid.

  “I won’t. I wasn’t planning on going back down there anyway. Why? Do you know something I don’t?” I asked, feeling a little unsure of what was going on.

  “That man down there on the kitchen floor will not be among the living for much longer,” he whispered, almost too quietly for me to catch. I just curled back up onto my bed and stared at him.

  “Can I go to your house today? I’d like to meet your family?” I tried to not show how eager I was to leave this place.

  “I’d like you to come to my home someday, but not today,” he simply stated.

  “Why not today?” I was trying to control my anger. I felt rejected. I wanted to go somewhere else.

  “It will all become so clear to you one day that you’ll wish you didn’t understand. You’ll wish you didn’t see so much,” I closed my eyes for just a few seconds and when I went to look at him again he was gone. I really wished he would have stayed with me that day.

  I grabbed the remaining amount of medications in the cabinet. There was also a bottle of pain killers at the back of the shelf, left over from my mothers’ last visit to the dentist. They may have been expired, but I had to try. I didn’t know if it would be enough so I also grabbed the remaining extra strength acetaminophen. I put my headphones on and sat down on the floor and leaned against the bathtub. I popped a few and took a sip of water. I was never very good at taking medication. I always felt nauseas when I swallowed them. I was no stranger to pre
scription medications though. There were numerous times as a young child I was hospitalized. I seemed to suffer from a lot of infections.

  When I was six we had moved from the mountains. We were living in another country house which we shared with a freak of a landlord who I think hated children. I was having stomach pain and my mother thought maybe I ate something bad. During the night my fever raged on and by the evening of the next day I was starting to hallucinate. She tried to cool me down by putting me in a tub filled with cold water and ice cubes. I screamed horribly as she held me in the water. Eventually I was too weak to continue screaming or to fight her.

  “Please let me out, it hurts mommy. It hurts,” I kept whispering over and over again. She finally lifted me out and laid me down on a sheet and covered me with another one. I was shaking uncontrollably.

  “Can I have a blanket, I’m really cold?” I asked, my teeth chattering.

  “No honey, you have to cool down, you’re too hot,” she had said. Later that evening she took my temperature again. She looked at it and started to pace the room.

  “Oh No, Oh No,” she kept saying. I was starting to fade. The room was turning black. I tried to find my mother. She was talking to someone on the phone. When she came back into view she had my clothes in her hands.

  “I have to get you dressed,” she said as she pulled the sheet off me and started to put on my fleece pants and sweater. I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t lift my arms or legs no matter how hard I tried. My skin hurt every time she touched me. She had my coat, mitts and a hat on me within minutes. I think she had forgotten my boots though. I was still in my slippers as she carried me out to our landlords’ car. He said he would drive us to the hospital tonight but he expected gas money in the morning.

  When we arrived at the hospital I remember the nurses quickly rushing me in. We didn’t even have to wait, I was surprised by that. I think the fact that my mother was crying and I was delusional and limp in her arms helped. I was in and out of consciousness. I can remember waking once to them stripping me down. I awoke again and they had me in another cold tub. This tub was quite large. I had thought I might drown. There was so much water in it. It didn’t seem to hurt as much this time. I faded out again. When I awoke later I was in a hospital bed. I had tubes coming out of my hand and a monitor hooked to my chest. I was told I had been sleeping for eighteen hours.

  “I guess I was tired,” I said. The nurse laughed.

  “Let me go get your mum for you. She’ll be happy to see you alert,” she said as she left the room.

  I had to hurry. Adam would be looking for me soon. I told him I was going to go grocery shopping with my mother so he left. I faked illness and stayed home. I was through the first bottle, about ten pills, now the second, it had eight. I continued until all the bottles where emptied. I was still nervous it wouldn’t be enough. I mixed the last two bottles together and swallowed them quickly.

  “Down the hatch,” I said aloud. `Maybe I’ll wash it all down with some of daddy’s moonshine,’ I thought smiling. As I stood up I wondered how long it would take. I disposed of the bottles, finished my water and went to lie down in my room. I must have dozed off because when I woke up Adam was back. He was looking down at me, with a strange look on his face. I tried to sit up but I felt the room start to spin when I moved.

  “What did you do?” Adam asked, angrily.

  “I’m sorry Adam. I just want to be with you. I can’t live without you,” I moaned.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this was what you had in mind? If it doesn’t kill you, it can make you sick for the rest of your life,” he said, trying to remain calm.

  “How long has it been since you did this?” he asked.

  “It was around noon I think. Why? What time is it?” I asked starting to feel like the words coming out of my mouth didn’t belong to me anymore.

  “It’s been more than three hours. I have to get you an ambulance,” he left the room. I tried to get up. As I stood the room went sideways and I fell. I laid there trying not to cry.

  `Please let this work’, I prayed.

  I must have blacked out because the next thing I remember was lying in a hospital emergency room. I was surrounded by doctors and nurses. One of them began to place a tube down my nose passing the back of my throat. Someone else was holding my head as I tried to squirm free. They poured thick black syrup through the tube. I started to gag. It seemed to last forever. Finally they emptied the last bottle and removed the tubes. I blacked out again.

  My head was spinning as I lay on the hospital bed. It began to feel like the room was rumbling below me. I opened my eyes to the bright burning sun above me. I felt the cold dirt beneath me. I was lying in a field. It was the field I met Cheveyo in. I had yelled to my mother that I was going out as I slammed the door. I was headed for the corn field on the other side of the house that hadn’t been harvested yet. I wanted to be in a secret place, hidden from everyone. I was completely lost in a daydream when I started to notice the corn stalks were shaking.

  “Awesome, a storm is coming!” I shouted. I was determined to stay, to wait for the rain and the thunder, but it wasn’t coming. Just the shaking, even the ground was starting to shake. Maybe it’s an earthquake and it will take my house down into the ground and cover it up. How sweet that would be. I smiled at the thought of it. I waited for it. I shuddered as a familiar warm breeze swirled around me. Before I had time to think of who could be coming for me, someone had grabbed hold of me. No one was supposed to know where I was.

  “Let go of me!” I yelled over the rumble that was getting closer.

  “NO! Not now. Not like this Natalie!” the unknown voice behind me yelled back. I jumped not knowing who the voice belonged to.

  A young boy appeared from the stalks and grabbed my hand again. I weakly said “I don’t want to go back,” as he dragged me from the field. He didn’t let me go until we reached the lawn. I could hear my mother shouting something and running towards me.

  “What?” I said, still mad about the intrusion in the field. When she reached me, she grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the house.

  “Do you have any idea how close you were to getting hit by that tractor?” she yelled at me.

  “What tractor?” I asked, surprised. She spun me around and pointed.

  “That one!” she stated.

  “Wow, that’s huge. I just thought a storm was coming,” I tried to defend myself, feeling nervous now.

  “That is huge! It’s a combine,” she yelled. The driver was running over to us.

  “Great,” I moaned.

  “I’m so sorry Ma’am. I had no idea she was in there. You should never play in a field during harvest season, missy,” he said, staring at me.

  “Again, I’m sorry Ma’am,” he told my mother. He glanced back at me.

  “Take care little darlin’ and stay out of the fields.”

  “Sorry sir,” I replied. He nodded his head and jogged back to his tractor. As we began to walk back to the house, I asked her who was over visiting.

  “No one is visiting,” she said abruptly. I knew she was angry with me.

  “There was a kid here a few minutes ago, the one that dragged me out of the field,” I explained to her.

  “What kid? I didn’t see anyone but you and that tractor,” she insisted.

  “You were standing here watching me come out of the field weren’t you? You had to have seen him?” I said, wondering where he went.

  “You staggered out of the field on your own. I should stop letting you watch scary movies. There are no children living in the corn. Now get inside and wash up,” she ordered.

  I guess the combine was coming to get me now. I just laid there and began to hum a lullaby I had learned from Adam, when he would sing me to sleep. I closed my eyes and realized I was being lifted up. Adam was carrying me out of the field. He put me down on the lawn and walked away. I tried to get up. I tried to call him, but I couldn’t move. Cheveyo appeared and laid a beaut
iful bouquet of wildflowers on my chest. I tried to smile at him, but I couldn’t and he walked away. I closed my eyes again and when I opened them I realized someone else was with me. I couldn’t see his face. He was in the shadows but I knew he was watching me. The sun began to set quickly behind the trees. This man dressed in black emerged from the trees and picked me up. He kissed my eyelids then my lips gently. I began to move my hands and was able to smile again. I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck as he carried me to his car. He was taking me away from this place.

  “Thank you Hayden,” I said as we drove away.

  I awoke a few days later in the ICU. The first thing I saw was a priest and my mother standing at the door and then my eyes closed again. I woke again when I heard the doctor discussing the risk of `hepatic toxicity with an acetaminophen overdose’. I was in a deep coma for days, unable to respond to anyone or anything, including pain. I was placed on ventilation. After continued treatment I was eventually able to regain my gag reflexes. I started to respond to pain. I eventually began to move and was able to answer to my name and move my eyes. I was moved to the inpatient psychiatric ward. When the doctors were finally able to mentally evaluate me, they believed I needed continued therapy since they thought that I was still suicidal.

  8. BROKEN

  The psychiatrist didn’t like my answers to his questions. I was careful to not be too truthful. I just wanted him to know that I didn’t really want to die. I just wanted to live eternally with my angel, Adam. I missed him so much. I had to get out of here. I have to try and find him. My parents moved while I’ve been in here. I don’t even know where our new house is. My father was very upset with me. He hasn’t shown up to visit me at all, but that was fine with me. I could deal with that, but not knowing where Adam was, that I could not handle. Justin came in to visit me once I was allowed visitors.