She Page 7

  She had taken her.

  9. Traumas

  When Michael woke up, his arms and legs were stiffened straight and everything seemed to ache. With his body perfectly vertical, as if he were about to try a pencil dive, he kept his eyes closed, refusing to open them until everything came back to him. Why was he laying on something hard? Where was his warm bed? Why... And then it all came back to him.

  The woman.

  The slick stones.

  Lilly.

  Immediately, he opened his eyes, but closed them just as fast when a light stabbed into his pupils. Throwing his hands in front of his face, he sat up, instantly regretting it. Everything seemed to shake, like an earthquake rolled through, except that the quake was inside of his head, and the rumbling was something only he could hear.

  He tried to say something, but it came out as groans and coughs. Only then did he notice the raw feeling in his throat, and the horrid pain in his head, both throbbing like a drum and sharp as a knife. While his vision began to clear, he pulled at his hair, the pain increasing, and felt something gooey and half-hardened. Blood had soaked from the top of his head, into his hair and onto his forehead.

  Underneath, a stretcher was prepared to be rolled away, near to an ambulance. There were people surrounding him, talking much too loudly and with soaking hair hanging over their eyes as the rain continued to beat down. Everything was foggy and mushed together, as if he was seeing the world through entirely smeared glasses.

  Recognizing his mom standing next to him, he asked, “Did you get her?” Without responding, fresh tears began to leak from her eyes full of worry, anguish, and confusion. Those were emotions all too familiar for both of them.

  “Son, you have a major head trauma; we’re taking you back to the hosp-”

  “No!” he shouted, head flopping around madly as he steadied one leg, the other bent on the table. “No! I’m gonna... I’ll get her.” He continued trying to stand up, leaning heavily against the one leg still curled on the medical stretcher.

  “Listen to me, you need to go-”

  “No!” he repeated, so loudly he feared his lungs might begin to bleed. How much blood could one person lose? “I need her; get her back. Now.”

  Everything began to go foggy when he took the other leg off, but he lunged for the wooden support beam nearby, peering out at the road as it stood like a soldier on the porch. Now he recognized the rest of his home all around him; there was the grass of his front lawn, there was the street light, and there she had been.

  “There!” he pointed to it. “She was... there.”

  A few professional-looking people grabbed him and tried to put him back on the table. They were very determined, apparently, but he did not care. Hospitals would not help his sister; only he could do that.

  “Let me go!” he yelled, unintentionally spitting in their faces. When they hesitated for a moment, he took off sprinting, falling in the wet grass and feeling rain come down on him.

  Stumbling to his feet and falling again, he went in the direction of the road. “Get her. Fast!” Mud slopped up his sides and down his shirt, but he did not care; mud was nothing compared to this inhumane kidnapping.

  Detective Daniel Smith saw him and ran over, holding him up, trying to comfort. Everything about Michael’s face looked wild; lips quivering, hair plastered in all directions on his head, salty tears streaming from his eyes, mixed with the rain. He was soaked to the bone, bloodied and hardly conscious, but he kept going. For his sister; for Lilly.

  The man whispered to him in a soothing voice, “Hold on; listen for a sec. I’m gonna help you, but you gotta go to the hospital. I’ll help you find her.”

  Michael raised his face and asked, “What? How-”

  “This is the second one tonight; something’s definitely going on. Go with the paramedics, but come down to the station when you’re out.”

  Station? Paramedics? Out of where? Instead of voicing his thoughts, he just blinked, injured brain not comprehending what this man was saying. Surely, it would all make sense later, but for now it was like a foreign language.

  Everything passed in a blur after that while he struggled to understand or even speak words. They were carrying him on something, like a floating table, but held up by them. Who was “them” anyways? That man had said... para... para-something. Was that them? Now he could see the sky, up above. It looked angry. There was the moon, weary-looking and old. Somehow it managed to walk the same path every night without fail; walk the same path, walk down the road. Just like his sister.

  Lilly.

  He broke out in spasms, trying to free himself from the stretcher, but the para-somethings held him down. They were strong. When he got particularly frantic, they put some kind of tight straps over him, keeping him from rolling around.

  “Settle down there, son,” one of them said. “No need to be rowdy.”

  Rowdy... that reminded him of somebody, something they had said. “I want to get rowdy, I want to get rowdy,” yes, somebody had said that. Who was it? Rowdy... rowdy…

  Brandon! Where was he now? What had happened to them? This lady had stalked him first after all. This lady that had become much more than stalker. She was a kidnapper. She was a thief. She had taken her.

  Lilly.

  The last thing he saw through closing doors of the ambulance, while his ears filled with that increasingly irritating buzzing sound coming from somewhere unseen, was his mother, collapsed on her knees in the grass, rain falling down like blessings from above. It looked like she was praying to God, holding on to what she believed when the darkness was worst.

  But she did not believe in God; she was not praying; these were not blessings falling. They were curses. Her life was a curse.

  She did not believe in God; right now, she did not believe in anything other than utter, miserable emptiness.

  Lilly…

  “Brandon, I think I left Dolley outside.”

  Propped back on his elbows, Brandon looked over at Grace and asked, “What’d you do that for?”

  They were sitting in the living room, on the floor, watching the movie flicker on the television. It had been a tiring day, but all the same here they were, enjoying the beginning of summer by watching a movie.

  “I didn’t mean to, but she’ll get wet. It’s starting to rain.”

  “Can you go get her? I gotta make some popcorn,” he asked.

  “But it’s dark outside; I’m scared.”

  He gave it some thought first, but answered, “All the monsters come out later, Grace. Don’t worry; I’ll watch you from the window.”

  “When do they come out?” she asked, curious as to the whereabouts of monsters. If she could learn when they came out, it would make the whole life ahead much easier. Avoiding them was very important.

  10:30, he thought to himself with a frown. That’s when they come out. Smiling to assure her, Brandon shrugged, “I don’t know, but it’s not until much later.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said as if that made perfect sense. After all, when your big brother tells you things, those things are always true. “And you don’t have to watch me,” she added, standing up and heading towards the front door. “The monsters aren’t out yet.”

  “Okay, okay; just hurry up,” Brandon said with a smile. If Mom or Dad saw her outside by herself this late at evening, and in the rain, it would not go well for anybody, least of all him.

  Heading into the kitchen, he heard Grace pull back the front door and exit, leaving it open in her wake. He spent the next few minutes by the microwave, listening to the sporadic kernels bursting while the bag inflated like an oddly-shaped balloon. Humming a little tune to himself, he grabbed two bowls and walked away.

  Just before turning into the living room, he twirled around and went for the salt. Popcorn was never good without salt; lots of it. Some people said it would eventually kill you, but those doctors were all older people who blamed everything on some kind of food. Truth was, they were getting older, and
saying the word “salt” ten times a minute was not going to change that. It did not kill you, but it would not make you younger either.

  Walking back into the living room, he was surprised to find Grace not sitting there. Where could she be? Perhaps she had just taken longer finding it. On a normal day, he would not be worried at all, but events as of late had put him on edge, especially concerning that street outside.

  Monsters don’t come out ‘till later, he assured himself. It was a childish thing, not helpful at all, and yet he repeated it. If he said it enough, maybe it would become true. Monsters don’t come out ‘till later; monsters don’t come out ‘till later. When was later, though? Later could be now; later could have been half an hour ago. Later could have been when Grace walked out the front door.

  He now walked towards this same front door, which was closed, a screen door visible outside by way of the window. Why had he not heard the door close? The popcorn? Yes, it must have been very noisy popcorn.

  “Monsters don’t come out ‘till later,” he whispered. Everything felt wrong as he pulled the door open. Nothing looked strange; there was the quickly-dying garden, and the slower-dying grass. A slight breeze, maybe, and lots of rain pouring down, but nothing odd. Where is Grace? “Monsters don’t come out ‘till later.”

  Opening the screen door and running out into the front lawn, he saw no Grace. Here was the doll at his feet, smiling wickedly, saying it knew something he did not. Picking the soaking cotton (or was it even cotton?) off of the ground, his hair began to drip and the water ran into his eyes. Everything seemed confused and out of place, like someone had picked up the world, flipped it upside down, shaken it, and then flipped it right-side up. Grace had gone flying away in all the commotion of the world.

  The world shaken and stirred. The people shaken and stirred. Grace gone.

  Turning the doll in his hands, something clicked inside of him, and, looking off into the distance, he swore there was a lady standing far off. No, not standing; she was walking away, up the slippery sidewalk and out of the center of Hardy. That direction led to Country Road, over where Michael lived, but people never went to there. Especially not monsters.

  “Monsters don’t come out ‘till later,” he whispered one last time, wishing Grace would come bursting outside and holler his name with love and joy, like she had earlier that day. Just to see her adorable smile and those twirled braids she did each morning so carefully, so methodically; that was Grace.

  He loved Grace.

  Where was Grace?

  A little voice in his head seemed to mock, Monsters don’t come out ‘till now.

  The woman stopped. Turned. Smiled. The boy could not see her, but she could see the boy. Her little friend, Grace, could see the boy. She waved to her brother, who was rushing back inside to his parent’s room. Two missing person’s reports and a few frantic, sleepless hours later for the families, She and Grace and Lilly would be gone, holding hands and walking off into the forest, back to her home where they could sleep.

  Monsters did not come out later; monsters come out when you see them.

  And, sometimes, even when you don’t.

  10. Defects

  White; there was so much white in the hospital. White walls, white sheets, white curtains, white floors, white bandages; it was like Heaven, if Heaven was full of dying people and sick people and a boy who had just lost his sister and yet was being confined to a hospital bed. A white hospital bed.

  People came in and out of Michael’s room with regular ease, some carrying pills for him to swallow, some with bandages (his head was bleeding, or so they said), and even the occasional visitor with presents for him. Even though it was going to be a quick hospital stay, only a night or two, people insisted on bringing small presents, most of which were chocolate and other candy.

  Not that he would eat any of it; not now and not ever.

  Eating was the last thing on his mind and the last feeling in his stomach; instead, it was replaced by a sorrow too deep for words, like a dull throb where his heart should have been. As for his stomach, it felt like the bile rose higher every minute, until he thought for sure he would throw up. And yet, he never did. It would have made him feel better, to be honest. Pain, just pure, familiar, and terrible, would be a comfort. But, instead, he felt emptiness and loss, like he was missing a part of him that should never have been lost. Lilly was gone; She had taken her.

  That thought and memory had penetrated deeper every minute he lay here in this comfortable bed, driven inwards by emotions he longed to be rid of. He would give anything to switch places with her right now, and that was the truth. His mom, the one person who stayed all night and now most of the day with him in the room, had never looked so despaired. It would have been more comforting to see her crying, or praying, anything that showed emotion. Instead, she sat there, staring off into space. When he tried to reach out and talk to her, she did not respond. A part of him believed she could not even hear, and another thought she did not want to. Was it possible for thoughts to be so loud and overwhelming that they literally blocked out everything else?

  Now Michael was sunk into the mattress with his head against the pillow, eyes closed and content. A smile tugged at his cheeks every so often, while the dream played on inside his head. All reality was obliviated, at least for the time being. His mother sat, studying the ground between her toes, mind wandering into dreadful places that it would be better off straying from.

  “Bubby,” Lilly’s voice said inside his head. “Bubby, Bubby.”

  He looked up reluctantly from the bench where he was sitting, glancing towards the swing set with a Gameboy in hand. He had just bought it the day before, but this Donkey Kong game was quite addicting. “Huh?”

  Lilly, legs trying desperately to propel herself forward, complained, “I can’t swing; it won’t go.”

  Michael chuckled quietly and asked, “What do you want me to do about that?”

  She stared at him with an irritated expression, which only made her look more adorable. “Will you push me?”

  “Push you off the swing?” he said with a mock-gasp. “That’d be quite rude.”

  Lilly snickered, covering her mouth with a hand to hide it unsuccessfully, and responded, “No, silly. Push the swing.”

  Michael stood up with a sigh and dragged himself over, pushing the Gameboy into the pocket of his jeans. Standing behind the swing to Lilly’s left, an empty one, he began to rock it back and forth with his foot.

  “Rock-a-bye baby, in the treetops,” he sang at an agonizingly slow pace.

  “No, no,” Lilly said with an exasperated sigh. “Push my swing.”

  “But you’re on it? I can’t push it.”

  “You’re supposed to swing me!” she exclaimed.

  Michael shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well, ya shoulda told me that,” before walking over behind her and pushing by the small of her back. She rocked her legs out, then back and forth at random times. She squealed with such joy that he could not help but smile as he continued to help her swing.

  “Yay! Look at me, Bubby.”

  “I see ya; I see ya.”

  Anyone at Pine Tree Park could have heard her, and seen her, but that did not matter at all to a kindergartener, although after this summer she would be a first-grader. Most kids seemed excited about the transition, but Lilly not so much.

  “This is fun! I can see Indy from here!”

  Michael shook his head as the swing began to fall back. It really was not very high at all. “Can you see Crystal’s dad working there?”

  “Who’s Crystal?” she yelled down between bursts of howling.

  “Nobody,” he answered. Not to you, anyways.

  A few minutes later, the swing was going higher than he felt comfortable with, so he hollered up to Lilly that it was time to slow down. Struggling to twist her head and see him, she shouted, “What?”

  About to repeat himself, Michael dashed forward when he saw one of her hands lose its grip
and her small body start to fall backwards. Her screams, full of terror, filled the air while he leapt forward and extended his arms. It was not a high fall, but seemed like a thousand feet to Lilly.

  With a heave, Michael gathered her from the air in his solid arms and held her there. She had her eyes closed and hair laying over her face, but otherwise was unharmed.

  “I almost... Bubby…”

  Seeing her eyes well up and her lip begin to tremble, he calmed her and said, “It’s alright. You’re safe now.”

  On the walk back home, her tiny hand clasped in his as she walked along beside him, Michael heard her say quietly, “Thank you.” Her delicate voice was muffled by tears.

  Michael swung her hand back and forth while they walked down the sidewalk. “I won’t let you get hurt, so don’t worry about that. What you need to worry about is what kind of ice cream you want.”

  She giggled as he kept talking. “I heard they have a new flavor. It’s called …”

  White; now everything was white again.

  He shot upright in bed, the smile from his memories fading. He found himself panting, as if he had just finished a race. Sweat was already formed in beads on his forehead, which throbbed. A bandage was wrapped around, suffocating his mind and adding to the pressure of blood drumming through his brain.

  I won’t let you get hurt, so don’t worry about that. What a comforting, hopeful lie.

  He had let her get hurt; he let her get taken. In any sense or explanation of that night, last night, it was his fault everything happened. He had known the lady would come for them, and that week of peace was the momentary eye of the storm. Somewhere, deep inside, he had been certain of it, but had not acted. Now, Lilly was gone, and there was nobody else to blame. Except for the lady; she was to blame.