In Nightmares We're Alone Read online

  I ignore her. I hear her footsteps and Calvin’s chasing me and then I hear them come to a sudden stop and that should warn me, but it doesn’t.

  “What the fuck…?” I hear Calvin say.

  Laser focused on this single task, I toss the doll into the fireplace and turn to the starter switch when I’m hit by a mass of flesh and clothing and I go sprawling over the sewing table and land face down on the hardwood floor. Sissy is screaming and Calvin is cursing and I don’t know what’s happening.

  I turn over and Martin is above me, running at me with that knife he pulled on the jump rope girls and the older boy. I put an arm up in a futile effort to defend myself but just before he gets to me Calvin pounds into him and the two crash into the sewing table.

  I know what’s happening. I don’t need a good look at Martin’s eyes to be certain.

  Sissy’s screaming but she’s standing back and not doing much. Getting to my feet, I look over at the fight and I see Martin stick his knife into Calvin’s side at the base of his chest, all the way up to the handle. Calvin only gasps lightly but Sissy shrieks and cries.

  I want to help Calvin, but all I can imagine doing is running to the kitchen and coming back with a chair to plow into Martin with and that’s not going to do much good. My only hope is that maybe I can resolve things by getting to the core of the problem.

  I get up and run for the fireplace switch again.

  That’s when I hear breaking glass and barking and after a second I hear Sissy shout, “Buster! Get him! Help!”

  But I know better than Sissy. I know Buster’s not here to help.

  His paws hit me in the chest and his face presses toward mine. I put my arm up to block myself and his jaws clench around my forearm. We both go down in a blur of pain and terror.

  I can’t perceive anything that’s happening anymore. Buster’s on top of me barking and growling and biting. He’s mostly tearing up the flesh on my arm and then he gets hold of my shoulder at the base of my neck and starts pulling upward. I kick and punch at him but it does no good. He’s bigger and stronger.

  Somewhere in the distance Sissy is still screaming, maybe running around, maybe looking for a way to help. A few feet from my head, Martin’s and Calvin’s feet are dancing around and the sewing table is being pounded in every direction and the occasional drop of somebody’s blood drips down on my face.

  Sissy’s feet join the others near my face for a moment and then I hear her cry out and she goes flailing onto the floor at my side. Somebody punches somebody. Buster tears a chunk of skin and muscle from my neck. The sewing table gets pressed upward and then comes down hard. A pair of Mommy’s sewing scissors drops down and sticks in the floor an inch from my face.

  In thoughtless fear, I grab the scissors, pry them out of the wood, and jam them into Buster’s throat. He yelps and jumps back, but his eyes stay blue and green and I end up pulling the scissors out and sticking him a second time. He falls down on his side with his legs flailing around, spinning himself in a circle on the floor, crying and disoriented.

  I do my best to stand as fast as I can, grabbing the scissors out of his neck as I do. I turn to the boys fighting on the sewing table and Calvin has blood running down his whole body. He’s weakly trying to fight off the little boy on top of him who keeps stabbing him over and over with that three-inch pocket knife.

  The scissors in my hand, I cry and shake my head as I come up behind Martin. Somewhere out in infinity I think I hear Sissy shout “No,” but I’m not sure.

  And before I know what’s happened, Mommy’s scissors are buried an inch and a half deep in the back of a ten-year-old boy’s head, and Martin slumps over backwards and comes down hard on the scissors and pounds them into his brain deeper. He twitches a little when he lies there, but only at the same unconscious level that Buster has slowed to.

  Calvin stands up from the desk, hunching over his wounds. He pulls the knife out of the place in his stomach where it’s been left and coughs up blood on Martin’s pale face without meaning to. Sissy runs to him and puts her arms around him for support and he stumbles and the two of them go falling into the entertainment center. He puts an arm on one of the shelves and manages to steady himself. Sissy has her arms against him and she’s pressing her head to his chest and crying. He hands her the knife and puts his arm around her and cries into her shoulder.

  I can barely stand. I’m numb but somehow my shoulder is still in a kind of brutal pain I’ve never felt before. My whole body is shaking uncontrollably.

  You did the right thing.

  No. I can’t stop now. I have to finish this.

  I force myself to move. I put a hand on the wall and half-walk-half-fall against the fireplace. I’m about to reach for the switch when I hear the gurgled screams, the thumping of one body pounding against another.

  I turn.

  Calvin has fallen on one knee. Sissy has one hand clutching his hair and with the other she is driving the knife over and over into his chest and neck.

  “Sissy, no!” I try to scream, but it comes out barely a whisper.

  She pulls back his head and slowly, almost lovingly, presses the tip of the blade to the underside of his chin and slides it as far up into his head as it will go. The muscles in his face go limp and peaceful and when she takes the knife out he lies down on the floor with Buster and Martin and it’s just us girls again. Like Mommy wanted. Like both Mommies wanted.

  It’s better this way, Macie.

  I’m too paralyzed to reach for the switch. I stand and watch my sister and she watches me back with Beth’s eyes. I beg her not to do this. I beg her to fight, to go against the doll’s will. I beg her with my eyes because the rest of me won’t work.

  But Sissy stands and looks at me from across the room with no emotion of any kind on her face. She raises the knife to one side of her own neck, presses down hard, and pulls it across to the other side.

  Just us, sweetheart. Just us.

  I scream. With tears streaming down my face I pound my fist on the light switch and the flames in the fireplace come to life a few moments too late to matter. I don’t bother watching.

  I kneel over Sissy and I ask her not to die. I tell her I’m sorry I was bad and that I didn’t burn the doll sooner, or sometime when she wasn’t home. I promise her I’ll never do anything to hurt her again if she lives.

  And when the blue and the green fade out of her eyes and they go to a glazed-over look like a newborn baby who can’t see a foot in front of its face, all Sissy says is “Macie? What happened?” and then her body jolts and spasms and maybe some old memory comes back and makes her say “Don’t tell Mom.”

  Then all of a sudden my sister is dead. My sister, and her boyfriend, and the boy who might have been my first kiss, and even my dog.

  I want to cry. I want to go into my room and bury my face in the pillow and scream and sob until my throat is hoarse and my eyes are dry and there’s no energy left for me to do anything but lie there for the rest of my life. But I can’t let the sadness take over. There’s still too much anger. Anger at the laughter that’s filling my mind—the soft, grandmotherly laughter.

  You really did it this time, Macie. I hope you’re happy.

  I turn to the fireplace. I stand there and watch until there’s nothing left but a ball of ashes and a charred porcelain head. Then I get the fireplace poker and spread the ashes and smash in the head and let it burn some more. Then the voices stop and I can cry.

  I go to the phone and dial.

  “Mommy,” I say when she picks up her cell, tears streaming down my face. “You need to come home right now. Something really bad happened.”

  Epilogue

  Mommy holds me. Sits in her rocking chair and holds me.

  Every day now. It’s all she likes to do anymore.

  She tells me what a perfect daughter I am, what a beautiful little girl. She tells me how she loves me.

  “How are things at school?” she asks. “You’d tell me if anything
was wrong, right? You know I’d already know.”

  Of course when Mommy came home from her date her eyes were Beth’s eyes and her voice was Beth’s voice. And she never judged me for the pile of death in the living room. She only asked that I help her load them into the car at night. That I help her bury them in the woods.

  I sit comatose in Mommy’s lap in the rocking chair each night and she tells me how everything is going to be okay, how we’ll be together forever, how every little girl needs a mommy to love her and nothing I could do would ever make her stop loving me.

  And when the new dolly arrives, the last new dolly, Mommy tells me I should open it for old time’s sake.

  I hold my breath when I pull open the box and it’s just what I envisioned. Pretty little dolly with auburn hair and almond eyes. Deep, familiar, human almond eyes.

  Old Mommy’s eyes.

  New Mommy puts the new dolly up on the shelf where Beth used to sit. And some days I go into the doll room late at night and stand there and watch her.

  I say, “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

  I say, “I was only trying to help.”

  Once in a while I hear a voice in my head.

  Macie, is that you?

  I can’t move.

  Help me.

  I sit with New Mommy. She brushes my hair and kisses my forehead. She rocks with me as I get older and grow, and she never changes.

  “Macie.”

  “Pretty girl.”

  “My beautiful baby girl.”

  “Aren’t you happy we’ll always have each other?”

  “Most people don’t have anyone.”

  “We’ll always be happy.”

  “We’ll always be together.

  “Forever.”

  I wish I knew how to help you, Old Mommy. I wish I knew how to make you come home.

  ACT II

  Growth

  Friday, September 24th

  At first I keep telling myself it’s gout. I don’t even know what gout is but it must be that. That or athlete’s foot. These are just words to me, but I don’t think you have to go to a doctor for them. As far as I know they’re just painful and uncomfortable for a while and then they get better. Better yet, I bet it’s an ingrown nail. Or a sliver. If I ignore it, it will go away.

  There are no STDs that start in your toe, are there? There can’t be, right? How would that make sense?

  I pull off Danielle’s panties and shove my face into her.

  I know I’m not careful about this stuff. I’ll calm down one day soon, I promise I will. It’s just a phase I’m going through. If I get it out of my system, everything will be okay.

  Of all the people who should’ve learned by now, though. Of all the people who ought to know to bag it.

  I undo my belt and pull my fly down.

  Seventeen years old with a son. How do you make that mistake? How do you screw up being six-three and toned and naturally tan and hairless in all the right places with a penis a little more than eight inches long? How do you screw up being an extrovert with a movie star smile and blonde hair and blue eyes and ‘cute’ dimples all the babes want to ride bareback? How do you turn that into nine years with barely ten orgasms that aren’t self-induced, pretty much all of them on your birthdays?

  Danielle gives me a look that says she can’t wait another second, so I insert myself.

  Exactly like this. That’s how you screw it up. Except you’re ten years younger and you’re in the weight room at your high school after football practice with one of the cheerleaders and you want to know, just once, what it feels like when you don’t pull out. Then bam! Sixteen years old and she’s got a swelling belly infected with a parasitic monster and both sets of parents are telling you that you ought to be married before the thing comes tearing out of her and shits all over your plans and goals.

  You want to talk about STDs. I love the kid, but fuck.

  And ten years later, what have we learned? What have we learned, Casey?

  I thrust down hard, whispering filth in her ear. Skin on skin lubricated only by natural human secretions.

  Not a thing. Not a goddamn thing is what I’ve learned. That and a thousand empty incantations from self-help books with titles like ‘I Am Still Me: Getting Over a Traumatic Experience’ and ‘Unleash Your Inner Power.’

  I am a unique child of this universe.

  The will of the cosmos flows through me.

  I have the strength to achieve what I set my mind to.

  I wrap a hand around Danielle’s neck and bite her ear while I fuck her.

  I was a good husband. Never hit her. Never cheated. Raised my voice few enough times in eight years to count on my fingers—or my fingers and toes together at the most, leaving off the big swollen one that feels ready to fall off. I remembered birthdays, holidays, worked my ass off, and the worst I ever did was get tired. A little stress here and there, so shoot me. So every goddamn once in a while I needed an hour to just sit down and watch TV and be left alone. Was that too much to ask? Did that really have to mean I didn’t love her?

  I was practically an angel. If I’d been milked a few times a week I probably would’ve been.

  And fatherhood, forget about it. I did everything for Martin, and not just out of responsibility either. Nine days out of ten I loved being a dad, and no one ever says it out loud, but I swear that ratio must be as good as anybody’s.

  I roll Danielle over and go at her from the back. Or is this one Rory? No. The tramp stamp. Definitely Danielle.

  “You made your bed, you lie in it.” That’s what Mom used to say. Her excuse for not running out on that asshole she called sweetheart. I always told myself if you make your bed so badly you can’t sleep, there’s no reason not to get out, tear it up, and make it again from scratch. But I did what Mom did. Selfless sacrifice for the good of the family. Anyway, once its been shat, your bed can only be made so well.

  I am a hero to those around me.

  And then goddamn Daphne comes along. Daphne with her seductive glances and her short skirts, always trying to pretend she doesn’t know I can see up them when she sits on my couch. With her increasingly explicit text messages that turn to increasingly explicit pictures as I tell her over and over that she’s beautiful but I’m married and it needs to stop. And maybe if I’d just told Rose, if I’d forgotten how bad we needed the money from these sessions and just told Rose about the advances…

  “Oh yeah,” Danielle moans. “Mmm, fuck me.”

  Yeah, I’ll fuck you. I’ll fuck you like no one fucked me for a decade because my wife stopped loving me. I’ll fuck you like I fucked Daphne in my dreams every night until that last picture did to my world what this infection is probably doing to my toe. I’ll fuck you like I fucked my life.

  One pussy pic at a bad time. One pussy pic I would have deleted if I’d seen it anyway, but because I left my phone on the coffee table while I went out to mow the lawn, it meant three months of sleeping on the couch, cast out of love over an act of infidelity that never even happened, straining myself not to go out and anger-fuck Daphne out of spite. Three months, and then still, “I can’t forgive you. I think we should divorce.”

  So fine, I say. Go. Rob me of my sexual prime and tend to your pastures till they’re greener than I can get them. Just leave me my son. And even though behind closed doors she says sure, the boy says he’s going with her anyway. So long, Dad. The two of us don’t need you.

  All that work. All that fighting. All those years of working myself half-dead so the three of us could have everything we needed and they don’t need me.

  Now you fuck me, Danielle. Fuck me like I’ve got nothing to show for eight years of marriage save for a thousand photographs to trigger regret and a lack of sexual experience. Fuck me like I’m worth something.

  I lie on my back and pull her on top of me. She grabs my knees and bounces her ass up and down on me. The phone rings. Probably Trish. She’s clingy. Maybe Rory or Keisha. Nikki’s in New York and Bibi never c
alls anymore. Viv and Michelle never did; I have to call them myself. At this point Daphne would just show up and ring the bell.

  You made your bed, you lie in it. But if the bed up and leaves, make as many beds as you can before you’re old and ugly. Never get bedridden. Rampant, hedonistic bed-making is the only real benefit of not having to be a husband and a father all the time.

  I am happy in my own skin.

  Yeah, and the skin of others. As many and as often as possible.

  Danielle squeals and lets loose. It’s always messy with her. Not as bad as with Trish, but close. I shove her back down and get on top again and it’s hard and fast and mean, on my knees with one foot elevated so I don’t disturb my toe.

  That big, red, swelling spot just under the nail. What is that? Three days now. Worse each morning when I wake up. And if it’s worse again tomorrow maybe I’ll go to a doctor. But I said that about today too, said it yesterday.

  Danielle says not inside, so I pull out and collapse on top of her and glue us together.

  In a few minutes she’ll dress and go home and I’ll check my missed call. I hope it’s Trish. If it is I’ll take a shower and call her back. Danielle and Trish in the same night would be one for the ages.

  I am where I want to be.

  Say it. The idea with a mantra is, if you keep saying it, eventually it’s supposed to be true.

  * * * * *

  The key to talking to the dead is to understand that the dead don’t talk and can say anything you want them to. To be an effective medium, one must master the art of talking without speaking.

  ‘There is somebody here who wants to talk to you,’ you’ll tell them. ‘I’m sensing the smell of smoke, maybe? And the ocean, or some body of water. I’m getting a letter G, or it could be an O? And I’m seeing people who are playing some sort of game? They’re running… and…?’

  ‘Soccer?’ they’ll chime in. ‘I had a grandfather named Oscar who liked to watch soccer.’