Chapter 6

Before grabbing for my cell phone, I stared into Jennifer’s eyes.  Her glorious blue eyes had remained dead gray.  She seemed alright, but something was off.  There was no doubt about it.  The sun that used to add sparkles in the light blueness of her eyes now reflected from her dull, dead eyes in search of some sort of excitement. 

“Jenny bug, how are you feeling?  Everything running like normal?  You look different, less vibrant than usual,” I said. 

She chuckled, brushed her mangled hair from her forehead and turned to grab her bottle of water that she always carried with her.  As she turned, just the slightest rotation, the side of her neck grabbed my attention like a hot guy slowly climbing out of a swimming pool.  My jaw literally sitting on the floor was all she needed to see to cause her to run to the mirror and take a gander for herself. 

She said, “Are you fucking shitting me?  Wait, wait, wait, wait.” 

Her hands frantically clawed at the x shaped scars that flanked both sides of her young, smooth neck.  As a matter of fact, she was so frantic that she had not even noticed the loss of pigmentation in her eyes.  Before I had the opportunity to drop that bombshell on her head,

Jackson came wobbling in with a goofy look on his face. 

I said, “Little Jax, how are you feeling bud?  You look drunk, have you been drinking some special water down there?” 

He looked up at me and there it was.  A twelve-inch scar from ear to ear on his neck and the same gray eyes that Jennifer had.  Using derivative logic, I assumed the next time I saw my mother or father, they too would have gray eyes and some sort of horrible scar under their hairlines from what appeared to be execution style shots to the back of the head. 

“Jennifer, do you see what I see?  Like, seriously,” I said. 

Prying herself from the mirror, Jennifer approached Jackson with a look of mortification painted across her face.  Little Jackson did not flinch a bit.  He giggled at what he thought was Jennifer’s silliness and proceeded to wrap his arms around her neck. 

“I really love how blue your eyes are, it’s so cool.  I don’t know anyone else with blue eyes like you,” he said. 

Jennifer shook her head; she did not see what I was seeing.  What was the meaning of this?  How could I see all the damage the little devil ghost had done but no one else could see it unless they

looked in a mirror, I assumed.  Trying not to traumatize Jackson, he was not forced to face the mirror of truth and acknowledge the bubbling, crudely sutured wound on his neck, nor face his gray eyes.  That would scare the living daylights out of him for certain. 

“Hey bud, you have something on your tongue, let me take a look and see what it is,” I said. 

Jackson came over with the quickness of a little kid and flailed his tongue about.  It had clearly been reattached in a barbaric way.  Hell, it was not even lined up with the part that remained after it was severed off before my very eyes.   

Snatching my cell phone from the floor, I quickly dialed Mrs. Tannell and waited.  The ringing seemed to last an eternity plus some.  Finally, after waiting so patiently, Mrs. Tannell’s voice breathed through the earpiece. 

She said, “Tannell speaking.  What can I do for you?” 

For a moment all she heard was heavy, accelerated breathing and whimpers of fear.  I was not as prepared as I thought I was to reach out for help.  It took four times of her yelling ‘hello’ into the phone to snap me from my panic paralyzing state. 

“I need you...I need you...please Mrs. Tannell.  Please, please, please,” I said. 

She said, “Oh dear, that didn’t take long.  Are you safe?  What has happened?” 

I looked around my room, the only one that could still see the splattered blood covering my walls, a literal inkblot test of human blood everywhere you looked.   

I said, “It’s an emergency and no, no I don’t think I am safe.  We have a major problem and I need you now.” 

The rattling of keys sprang through the earpiece as did the sound of Mrs. Tannell hustling to gather whatever she needed to get out the door and over here as quickly as possible.  Her front door slammed, and the sound of her car unlocked trotted to my ears. 

She said, “You are still at the same house you used to register at the school?” 

“I am.  Please hurry,” I said. 

Terror had become my new best friend.  Nothing could shake it from my side.  My eyes told the story to my brain and that resulted in intolerable fear eating my body from the inside out.  Jennifer and Jackson sat and played in the middle of the room, unknowingly splashing puddles of fresh blood all over themselves.  They were almost one hundred percent oblivious to what was happening.   

Fear had finally broken me as I slid my way in the far corner of my room and watched the two marionettes dance together as if nothing had happened to them.  As if a ghost had not dismembered them and caused damage so salacious that it would forever be burned on the forefront of my brain. 

I clutched the letter opener with both hands so hard that it dug into my palms.  The blood swelled and eventually spotted all over my favorite pair of jeans.  Drip after drip, I did not react, I refused to participate with any of this.  The ghost boy could be sitting right next to me and I would not know it.  I could have a letter opener fly like a dart through paper run right through my neck.   

The room shadowed itself in darkness, my eyes grew heavy.  Shaking like a leaf with my back pressed against the corner, the room went completely dark.  I felt nothing, I saw nothing, I was in a new place, a quiet place.  Okay, I was so scared that I lost consciousness.  No need to sugar coat it for you folks. 

While in the darkness, something was emitting light in the far distance.  Squinting my eyes and drawing closer to the dancing orange light, it was a fire, a large fire.  Turns out, I was standing at the end of my street looking directly at my house.  The smoke bellowed from all the creases and openings.  I could hear spine tingling screams slithering from the house.  My family and Jennifer were pressed against the windows, fighting frantically to break the glass and escape the flames. 

One by one, they were consumed by the flames.  My father went first as my mother watched on with a horrified stare that froze as my father turned to an ash statue with its mouth gaping, something you would see in a horror movie.  Her face was contorted like a Picasso painting.   

All around me was darkness.  A feeling of despair ran through my heart like an arrow from Cupid only the exact opposite.  The faster I ran towards the house the more distant it became.  That did not keep me from seeing my entire family burn and crumble to piles of pure, unbridled death.  Jackson, he was running back and forth trying to escape the agony of the flames.  Lick by lick, the fire chased him down until he was nothing more than a black pile of sand on the floor of the kitchen.

Something, someone was on the roof.  It was hard to make out, his little body was blurry and nondescript.  His face had an enormous smile plastered across it, that was obvious even through the shield of blur.  Was this my ghost?  Could it be?  

It said, “Naomi, you like what you see kiddo?  This is nothing compared to what is going to happen if you do not save me because you willll be in this lovely burning hell with them, only you will be left alive until the very end.  That is my promise to you.”

This thing, this entity, it was truly just a little boy.  Judging from his stature, he was around Jackson’s age.  How could something so small and innocent morph into the definition of evil? 

What had happened that would cause such a litany of hate and disdain?  I have got to wake up and get out of this false reality before my mind became trapped and forever damaged.

As the tears streamed down my face, the sound of screeching Goodyears woke me from that horrid nightmare.  My eyes opened, Jennifer and Jackson were gone and I was alone in my room covered in my own blood, still clutching the letter opener.  The stinging of the wounds shocked my system and I rose to my feet quickly.  Hopefully this would be Mrs. Tannell coming to my rescue.   

“Pick a master and serve. Serve them well and die.” 

― Azaaa Davis, Hiss, Rattle and Bite