Cleaving Souls

by Chauncey Rogers

  She flew into a panic, rattling the doorknob and then banging on the door.

  “Hey! Hey! Let me out! Hey!”

  Just as she was about to slam her fist against the door again, the knob rattled and the lock clicked. When the door swung back, Alex stood there, smiling warily.

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “And in a prison. What’s going on?”

  Alex let out a long, controlled breath, then said, “Are you feeling like yourself? How’s your head?”

  “Hurts.”

  “Do you remember hitting your head? The fire at the cabin?”

  She nodded. She remembered that and things much worse, too.

  “Well, the doctor said that your head is fine. Just a bump and a minor concussion. All you need is some rest.”

  “So you’re going to lock me in here?” It came out as an accusation, and Alex bristled, but then visibly relaxed, trying to keep his cool.

  “I’m not going to lock you in. I just wanted to make sure that you were alright. And, that if I wasn’t here when you woke up, that you wouldn’t get lost or something if you were still confused.”

  “I have a concussion, not dementia, Alex.”

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said. “I just didn’t want anyone to get hurt or anything.”

  “I’m not dangerous,” Kat said.

  “Tell that to Geegee.”

  Now it was Kat’s turn to bristle. “She attacked me, Alex. You weren’t there.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “So now what? You’re going to keep me locked up in here? Don’t want to spend the money on a proper asylum?”

  “The doctor said you needed rest, Kat. Rest and a surgery.”

  “Oh. A lobotomy, I take it? Something to calm me down?”

  “No. A surgery to get rid of your twin.”

  Kat paused, taken aback, then said, “My twin? What are you talking about.”

  “The doctors found it during the CAT scan. You have a twin—or, you were going to have one. You absorbed it in utero, so it didn’t develop how it should have. It’s been living inside you your whole life, in your left shoulder.”

  “My shoulder?” The question came out as a whisper, to which Alex nodded.

  “That’s right. That crazy witch lady—I guess she was on to something,” Alex said, shaking his head. “I’ve already scheduled the surgery, but the soonest we could get in for it was a week. After that, well,” he shrugged. “The doctor thought that your twin might be making it impossible for your body to balance itself hormonally, and that might be what’s been making things so different lately.”

  Kat backed up and sat down on the edge of the bed, shocked.

  “I hope that it’s okay that I scheduled the surgery without talking with you about it first. I just.... I thought that if you wanted it done, you’d want it done as soon as possible. I didn’t want to wait and then maybe not be able to schedule it until later.”

  “No, it’s... it’s fine,” Kat said. “Thank you.” She raised her face and looked at him. “There wasn’t anytime sooner that I could have gone in?”

  Alex shook his head.

  “Okay,” she said. “That’s.... Thank you. I’m glad we could figure that out.”

  He smiled again, and this time no wariness lurked behind it. “I’m really sorry about locking the door. I just,” the smile faded, and he looked down, “I just want to make sure that we’re going to be okay, and I thought.... I didn’t know what else to do, really. It just seemed like maybe something I should do.” He looked back up. “I emailed work and told them I needed the week off. I’ll be here with you until we can get the surgery done.”

  “Are we still going to see the shrink?”

  He gave a little nod. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Okay.” She shifted on the bed and said, “Could I get some food? I’m starving.”

  “Sure. I’ll go and get you some. Just, take it easy. The doctor said you need rest.”

  Kat nodded. “I’ll try.”

  Alex smiled, then pulled the door closed. Kat listened carefully as the lock slid back into place.

  2

  Kat lay on her back, staring up at the ceiling. The lights were off and the curtains drawn, leaving only a soft amount of red glow from the setting sun to seep into the room. She shut her eyes and focused on her own breathing, slowing it down as a relaxation technique. Her stomach rose and fell in an exaggerated movement as the minutes ticked by on the wall clock.

  She’d done her bedtime ritual only half an hour ago, Alex escorting her into the bathroom to relieve herself, brush, and bathe. He’d tried to be very nice about it, but his politeness didn’t mask the situation. She was under house arrest, imposed by her well-meaning husband.

  Kat closed her eyes, shutting out what little light there was, and waited for sleep.

  “I’m coming, my love.”

  Kat jolted awake, her heart in a flighty panic. She looked to the clock on the wall, but it was dark now, the sun already set. Squinting, she searched around the room. She couldn’t see anyone, but she could feel someone: the fire man. He was there.

  Her skin crawled up and over her scalp, and she rolled over and curled into a ball, bunching her hands into tight fists and tucking them over her lips.

  Would he try to hurt her? She didn’t know.

  After a while, the feeling of dread subsided, and she rolled to her back again, shut her eyes, and drifted into sleep once more.

  “Let me hold you.”

  Kat’s eyes snapped back open. Her stomach was tightened into a solid rock, and there was a rapidly-fading pain in her shoulder. She sat up, and hair weighed down with sweat fell with a quiet slap against her shoulders and collarbone. Other than that and her own quick breathing, no sounds were in the room.

  But he was there, again. The fear percolated from her goosebump-taut skin down towards her heart. She arrested it before it got there.

  She’d had enough.

  She pushed herself out of bed and stepped across the room to the wall clock. Only two hours had passed since she’d tried going to bed. If he was going to keep waking her like this, trying to drive her insane, then there was no way she would hold out until the operation. She had to do something now.

  Kat went to the bedroom window, pushing back the curtains. A bright moon shone down overhead, mixing its light with those of the street lamps.

  She tried raising the window, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Leaning down and squinting, she saw why—Alex had sent screws through the window frame, fixing it closed. She’d need tools to get it out, and she didn’t have any of those.

  She ground her teeth in frustration. Sure, he was trying to protect her, but this....

  Well, it made him seem just as insane as she was.

  She looked up.

  He was there. The fire man, with his hands hanging down by his sides, and his black-rimmed eyes watching her from the yard.

  Kat blinked, and he was gone.

  She shook her head. He hadn’t hurt her yet. Perhaps he didn’t intend to.

  After a minute, she decided that she would try to rest once more, and then, if that didn’t work, she would figure out her next move.

  She lay down, finally drifting off to a sleep so deep that her body didn’t waken when the fire man came again.

  3

  Alex rubbed at his neck. The old couch was better than nothing, but it certainly didn’t compare with his own bed and pillow. Still, he could do a week of this. He could do a month of this, if he needed to. Hopefully, she could do the same.

  But maybe it hadn’t been the couch and pillow. He was stressed, and quite a bit more so than he could remember in a while. His dreams had been the awful kind where your teeth are falling out, and now he couldn’t help but rub his tongue over each of them, just in case. But they were there, each slick with that morning film that gave him such awful breath.

  He rubbed at his eyes as he went into the bathroom. After using the
toilet and brushing his teeth, he stopped outside the bedroom door where Kat was locked up, and listened.

  No sounds. Not yet, at least.

  He wasn’t surprised. Last night, it had seemed as if she’d been quite busy. Starting after midnight, and recurring again every half hour or so, were rather loud noises. Kat, calling out in her sleep, it sounded like.

  Alex shook his head as he grabbed a box of cold cereal off the top of the fridge. How would things go today? How would they go this week? And after that?

  He ate in silence, then went and tapped on the bedroom door.

  “Kat? Honey?”

  The bed springs spoke before Kat did, but then she said, “Good morning.”

  Alex unlocked the door and eased it back away from the jam—far enough that he could lean into the room and give Kat a close-lipped smile.

  “You get any sleep?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I did. I still feel tired and sore, and my head still hurts, but I got some sleep.”

  “Good. Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah. I was wondering....” She looked ashamed for a moment, then continued. “I was wondering if you could get me some Pop Tarts. They just sound really good today. Maybe I just want something different. I don’t know.”

  “Pop Tarts? Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. It’s weird, but, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Pregnancy cravings, I guess. And I don’t want them toasted—just cold.”

  “Kat, I don’t think we have any Pop Tarts.”

  “We might,” she said. “If we have any, they’d be in the back-left corner of the top pantry shelf. Could you check?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Alex closed and locked the door, then went to the pantry and felt around on the top shelf. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d seen a Pop Tart in the house, since neither of them really liked them. But, she was pregnant, after all. And, if he intended on keeping her safe in their bedroom, he could still at least do some things to make her comfortable.

  He went back to the bedroom door and opened it.

  “Sorry, no Pop Tarts.”

  “I don’t suppose you could get me some? I’ve had them on my mind since last night. I know that they stock some of them at the corner store. The brown-sugar and cinnamon ones, if they’re there.”

  He hesitated only a second, then nodded. “Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

  4

  Kat waited by the doorway, wondering what was taking Alex so long as she listened for the sound of the front door to close.

  Finally, she heard it. Unfortunately, the next thing she heard was Alex talking with a friend in the front room.

  She clenched a fist. He wasn’t going to leave her home alone after all. Frustrated, she went back to the bed, sat on it, and adjusted her plans while she waited.

  A couple of minutes passed before Alex came to the door. He knocked, but didn’t open it.

  “Hey Kat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m heading out now. Zac is gonna be here in case you need anything. I’m going to pick up some other groceries, but I shouldn’t be gone too long. Just try and rest, and I’ll be back soon.”

  “Okay. Bye, then.”

  “I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  His footsteps passed over the squeaky floorboards, and she heard the front door open and close.

  She took a deep breath. Even with him getting some extra groceries, she didn’t have very long.

  She got up from the bed and went to her dresser, picking out pants and a T-shirt. She pulled them on and then put on her tennis shoes. Glancing between the door and the window for a moment, she took a deep breath and then moved back to the dresser and quietly pulled one of the drawers completely out, then carried it behind the bed and dumped out its contents. Finally, she pulled the sheets back on the bed and climbed in, tucking herself in tightly with the blankets up beneath her chin.

  She wasn’t sure what Alex had told Zac, but she doubted he would have left Zac behind as guard without some warnings. She waited a few minutes, trying to make sure that Alex would be well away from the house, and then coughed a few times before calling out.

  “Zac? Zac?”

  Zac’s footsteps—heavier than Alex’s—approached the door and stopped. “What is it? Do you need something?”

  “Yes, actually. It’s really quiet in here. I was wondering if you could bring me the radio? There’s one in the kitchen. I just want some background noise to fall asleep to.”

  “In the kitchen?”

  “Yeah, it’s by the window, above the sink.”

  “Okay, hold on. I’ll be right back.”

  She smiled, settling back into the pillow. As Zac walked back to the door, Kat lost the smile and tried to look tired.

  “Okay, I got the radio. I’m going to open the door, alright?”

  “Okay.”

  The lock clicked, and then the door opened. Zac didn’t poke his head in at all. Just his arm appeared, holding the little CD player and radio by its handle, and setting it on the ground.

  “Thanks,” Kat said, forcing extra weakness into her voice.

  “No problem.”

  He pulled the door closed, then locked it. Once his footsteps had gone back down the hall, Kat rolled out of bed and went to the closet. After a half-minute search, she found what she was looking for: an undecorated CD with the words, “Friar Tuck and the Holy Smokes” scrawled across it in green sharpie. She rolled her eyes at the name, even now.

  Garage bands.

  She picked the CD player up off the floor and set it on the dresser, then plugged it in and inserted the CD, turning the volume all the way down before navigating to the fourth track on the album. She paused it, then cranked the volume all the way up to maximum.

  Kat stood in the room and took a deep breath, bouncing up onto her toes and shaking her hands at her sides, trying to relieve some of her nerves. Then she grabbed her pillow, stuffed in into the emptied-out drawer, and clutched it in her left hand.

  “Okay,” she whispered, “here we go.”

  She took a final breath, then pressed play on the CD player.

  Alex’s voice blared out painfully loudly:

  “OH BABY YOU BREAK MY HEART AND YOU BREAK MY SOUL

  “DON’T END IT NOW WHILE WE’RE ON A ROLL

  “I NEED YOU NOW LIKE I DID BEFORE.

  “SO DON’T BREAK, BREAK, BREAK MY HEART

  “OR YOU’LL BREAK, BREAK, BREAK MY SOUL!”

  She gripped the drawer with both hands, waiting for the “break, break, break my heart.” Alex’s band had made the artistic decision to include the sound of things breaking, and now Kat was going to put their poor judgment to use.

  As he belted out the first “break,” Kat hurled the drawer against the window, hoping that between the pillow and the music, the sound of the window shattering might be covered enough to go unnoticed.

  The drawer hit, and the window shattered out, blasting fragments of glass over the yard. Kat immediately reached back and spun the volume knob back down, just in time to hear Zac reach the bedroom door.

  “Sorry!” she squeaked.

  “Are you okay?” Zac asked through the door.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I just didn’t notice I’d left the volume up. Sorry if I scared you.”

  “That’s alright,” Zac said. “So long as you’re okay.”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Thank you.”

  A pause followed, then Zac walked back into the front room, probably to sit on the couch. Kat breathed a sigh of relief, did a final adjustment on the CD player’s volume, then turned to examine the shattered window.

  She’d done a good job. It had burst almost completely out of the frame, leaving only a few jagged pieces around the edges.

  She turned to the bed, worked the blankets quietly off, then threw them through the window to cover the glass in the yard. Then she grabbed some of the loose clothes lying on the floor and wrapped them around her hands
several times, making makeshift gloves. Then, slowly, she climbed up into the window, very careful not to slice her palm open through the cloth gloves.

  Before she left the room, she looked back in, listening for Zac.

  He hadn’t heard her. But, she noticed, the CD player had stopped playing Alex’s music. Somehow, it had switched over to a talk radio station.

  But no, that wasn’t talk radio. It was the fire man.

  “Kat, where are you going? Where are you going, Kat? Don’t ignore me. You can’t take her from me again.”

  Kat pressed her lips together and lowered herself carefully down from the window, leaving the voice of the fire man behind.

  5

  Zac had told him to take as long as he needed—he was a good friend like that. Alex felt a little twinge of guilt, wondering if perhaps he had taken advantage of Zac’s generosity. Still, it felt good to be out stretching his legs.

  Or, at least, it had felt good. Now he was mostly feeling the way that the plastic grocery bags bit into his hands and cut off the circulation to his fingers. It was his own fault. He should’ve just taken the car—he would’ve been back already.

  But the walk had given him some time to think. Time to be away from Kat, out of the house, and really think about what was going on and what he was doing. And all that thinking had helped him realize something: he couldn’t keep Kat locked up in her room for the next week. It was psychotic, and it was wrong. That was what crazy people did. Crazy husbands with huge control issues whose marriages fell apart. Whatever Kat had done to Geegee, whatever she might try to do to him, it was still wrong to keep her locked up in a room. If she really did need to be kept somewhere for the safety of everyone, then there were facilities for that.

  And besides, it didn’t have to be permanent. It wasn’t as though, once placed in an asylum, you could never leave. Alex couldn’t recall anyone that he knew personally who had been institutionalized, but after thinking it through for a while, he decided that the likely reason for that was simply that people didn’t broadcast that they’d been locked up. After all, if he’d been locked up for a while and then bumped into a friend after his release, he doubted he’d out and say, “Oh, I’ve been better. Just got out of the loony bin for being completely off my rocker. How’ve you been?”