Chapter 8 Cyrus
CYRUS
Imay be a ghost now, but my drunken old man is the real horror haunting my former home.
The small house appears almost peaceful during the day, standing solemnly in the clearing, sunlight reflecting off the thin layer of snow covering the roof.
Despite its serene appearance, he’s in there, crushing any hint of joy like a roach under his boot.
It would be more tranquil to take my chances with the thing in the woods than to continuously come back to torment him.
I can’t allow him to find any form of rest for too long.
Even a second of peace is more than he deserves after a lifetime of torturing those around him.
A circle of trees encloses the cleared space surrounding the house.
I linger in their shade, just beyond the reach of sunlight.
The monster following me around these woods hasn’t made its presence known this morning, but the feeling of it being near never completely dissipates.
Calling it a monster seems childish, but I don’t have a better word to describe it.
If I didn’t catch glimpses of it from time to time, I’d assume it was my guilty conscience manifesting itself to follow me around the afterlife.
I know it’s something more; the same creature my pop ranted and raved about for years before I knew of its existence.
When I finally saw it, the monster appeared like a nightmare crawling out from the depths of my mind and into the woods, the epitome of every scary story I heard as a child.
The thing is a hellish mass of bone, decaying plants and vines hanging from it.
It’s a walking heap of decomposition stalking behind every tree, waiting to snatch me.
The smell of rot pierces the air when it’s nearby, and eventually, it reveals itself—the only thing I’ve been able to smell since I died.
An elk skull rests atop its skeletal frame, amber eyes burning in the dark sockets.
Thick tendrils of shadow roll off it, reaching across the ground like sentient appendages.
The image, even in my thoughts, paralyzes me with fear.
Pop told stories of how the creature followed us up from Devil’s Nest eleven years ago, continuing to hover over us like a storm cloud we couldn’t escape.
If it hadn’t, if it had stayed down south, maybe I’d still be alive.
My last night with a beating heart still plays in a loop inside my mind, even two years later.
The memory is a skipping record, like listening to the same lyrics of my least favorite song on repeat.
It’s a wound that will never heal, never scab over, bleeding out and seeping through every moment of my eternity.
When I close my eyes, I’m back in our living room again.
Tiny puffs of stuffing push through the ripped seams of the dark green couch.
I pick at them mindlessly, rolling the synthetic fibers between my fingers before pushing it back into the tear.
The sound of television static fills the room.
I’ve been trying to convince my pop to get a satellite and retire the old rabbit-ears, maybe get some new furniture too.
The extra funds would cut into his liquor budget, though, so it’s not an option up for discussion.
I run a hand through my hair, thinking about how Jace was right.
She’s right about so many things, but especially this.
I shouldn’t have come back. Pop will never change, and the only person I’m hurting by being in this house is myself.
She begged me not to go, to just leave him to self-destruct so we can move on with our lives.
I had to see him just one last time, needing to confront him so I could close this door and never come back again.
She doesn’t have the same connection to our family’s dark history I do.
Her parents kept her mostly shielded, protecting her from everything except the persistent feeling something wasn’t quite right.
My mama tried to do the same until she died.
Even at fourteen, I knew there was nothing natural, nothing mysterious about the circumstances of her death.
Anyone close to my old man could tell you the same, but old Sheriff Danvers dismissed any evidence to the contrary.
Once she was gone, all my father’s rage turned to me.
Even knowing what I can never prove, I’m still here, sitting on this asshole’s busted couch.
Maybe this time, I’ll finally muster the courage to call him out.
Fuck, Jace was right. There’s still time for me to pack my bags and make it back to the city before morning. I could be beside her in bed when she opens her eyes.
As I move to stand, the front door bursts open behind me.
My pop’s whiskey-drenched scent enters the room before he does, making my nose wrinkle in disgust. He heaves a series of slurred words in my direction.
I’m ready to ignore him and head down the hall to my room before he picks another fight.
I’m twenty-eight years old, but he never hesitates to remind me of my place in the household hierarchy.
It doesn’t matter that I’m the one supporting us; he hasn’t been able to hold down a job in years.
In his eyes, I’m still a child, and he’s the man.
“I’m too old for this shit, old man,” I groan, leaning my head back and closing my eyes. I brace myself for his inevitable verbal assault.
“It’s you!” he roars, his words now crystal clear.
My eyes fly open, my hackles raising with the sudden shift.
“It’s fucking you it wants, I know it!” This isn’t the first time he’s babbled about the thing in the woods, certainly not the first time he’s yelled drunken nonsense at me, but something is off this time.
The air between us fills with static, uncertainty crackling through the room.
He quiets, and I stare at the TV blankly, pretending to watch the scrolling picture as the antenna struggles to maintain a signal.
I listen for him to move on, for his footsteps to fade.
If I leave now, I risk spinning him up further.
Better to wait it out, but he doesn’t turn to leave.
His presence intensifies as he moves in behind me.
A lump lodges in my throat. I try to swallow past it, but my mouth goes dry.
Before I can turn to confront him, his hands slam on the back of the couch.
His large, sweaty arms rest on either side of my head, nauseating me with his overwhelming body odor.
I jump forward reflexively, spinning to face him.
“What the fu…” I choke on my words as he clumsily leaps over the couch, arms sprawling wide towards me. His eyes are wild with a look I’ve never seen before. I stumble back, but he grabs hold of my leg and uses it to pull me to the ground.
The room spins, my ears ringing as I attempt to get out from underneath him.
Each of his heavy breaths against my cheek reeks of alcohol and the sour smell of poor hygiene.
“You,” he growls through clenched teeth, tightening his grip on my shirt.
“I’m going to give it what it fucking wants so I can be done with this. ”
I wedge my arms between us, pushing him over. He rolls away, crashing into the TV trays and tipping them, and everything on top, onto the floor. I find my footing, scrambling to my feet before heading towards the front door. “You’ve fucking lost it, Pops. There’s nothin’ out there.”
Exhaustion weighs on me from putting up with his bullshit my entire life.
I came back here trying to close this chapter of my life, not start a whole fucking new one.
I shouldn’t be here, in this house, already tarnishing my fresh start with Jace.
She pleaded with me not to leave, telling me some doors shut without us having to close them.
I can still hear the way her voice cracked in desperation before I stormed out of our apartment.
I’d give anything to be back there now, far away from this.
I look at my pop; my regret and guilt stare back at me.
He’s a mirror, showing me everything that’s slowly rotting away inside me too.
“When Ezra died,” my father mumbles, a mixture of fear and disgust in his voice, “that’s what spoiled it. We couldn’t give it what it wanted no more. Not without him, but maybe I’ve been tryin’ the wrong thing.”
His words are incoherent, puzzle missing pieces that slowly fill in as I recall our time in Devil’s Nest. Ezra and Elias Gibson were running a cult, unspoken but not a secret.
Almost every man in town was part of it, in one way or another—even Jace’s dad.
Our mamas kept us shielded as much as they could, but then, my mama was gone.
I tried not to take notice of what my pop and uncle were up to, spending as much time as I could far from them and with Jace instead.
Rumors spread like wildfire around town, sure, and there were too many strange coincidences.
People, mostly women and children, went missing, and I’d wonder why the faces on the flyers looked so familiar.
Sometimes, I still see their eyes in my nightmares before a tide of red carries them away.
Remaining ignorant was easier, but the guilt from turning a blind eye to it haunts me still.
“It’s gotta be you or Ezra’s little bitch,” he snarls, rocking to his knees and attempting to stand.
He sways on his feet, his body threatening to fall right back to the floor.
What he says makes no sense. As kids, they kept me and Mattie apart, except on a few strange occasions.
I’m not sure where he’s going with this, because if there’s a connection between us, aside from being cousins, it’s lost on me.
If she was important to him somehow, he still abandoned her all the same when we moved here.
Pop’s eyes narrow into slits, like he’s searching to find some kind of proof for his theory.
I wait for him to elaborate on what my cousin or I could mean to some mysterious monster out in the woods, but he continues to stare at me in silence.
The only noise in the room is his heavy, raspy breathing as he wheezes between each gasp of air.
Unease about where this outburst is leading creeps over me.
Goosebumps prickle my skin as if there’s a draft in the stuffy room.
I scan the room, evaluating my options for escape.
The front door is closer, a wiser choice than retreating to my room.
It’s freezing outside, but I would rather chance it out there than remain here.
Jace’s parent’s house isn’t far, and I’m sure they’d let me stay for a night.
I doubt I’d have time to start the car before he tries to climb in, but I can come back for it in the morning.
“I’ll be back when you’re sober, old man,” I shout over my shoulder, sprinting towards the door.
My hand grips the doorknob, the cool metal slipping beneath my slick palm before giving way.
The door inches open, creaking loudly. Winter air rushes in, chilling my flushed skin.
As I step over the threshold, I hear the click of his revolver.
I’ve never truly feared him before, but the sound freezes me with terror. “Don’t do this.”
“Funny,” he chuckles, “your ma said the exact same thing.” There’s no time to react before my ears ring, and pain radiates through me.
I know my body is collapsing to the floor, but something snaps inside me, leaving me disconnected from it.
There must have been a gunshot, but I didn’t hear it.
In fact, I can’t hear anything. My father stands over me, a single tear rolling down his rage-filled face.
He’s mouthing something, but there’s no sound.
There’s only silence as my pain fades into nothingness.
My eyes refocus, the world solidifying around me.
I look around, half-expecting to still be on the living room floor.
I shake my head, ridding myself of the images from that night.
The bastard actually shot me. I shouldn’t be surprised, but the scene still cuts me to my core now as much as it did when it happened.
The shadow of a figure moves past the front window, shifting my attention away from thoughts of my demise back to the person who caused it.
After watching him these past couple of years, I should have known better.
The signs were all there. Bitterness still festers inside me like poison, watching him live out his life after cutting mine short.
I can’t undo it, can’t go back in time and stay safe at home with Jace instead, so I’ve made it my sole mission in this afterlife to torment him until he joins me.
My old man’s face appears in the window, drained of any expression except exhaustion. His washed out face is further emphasized by the dark circles under his eyes. The longer I stare, the angrier I become. If it weren’t for him, I’d still be with Jace.
Jace. Jace is back.
She’s just on the other side of these woods, and I’m still wasting my time here.
She pulls on an invisible thread attached to my heart, in death just as she did in life, forever tied together.
I never thought I’d get the chance to see her again, her name living on my lips as only the whisper of a memory.
Our imaginary reunion comes to the forefront of my mind as I picture the way relief washes over her when she sees me again.
Her face, wet with tears, hollows as she bites her cheeks.
Her lip quivers as she processes her emotions, sniffling and holding back the sobs aching for release inside her chest. A fuzziness, as close as I can get to warmth, spreads through my spectral form as I recall her lying there, spread out across the bed, waiting for me.
It’s morning now, the rising sun painting the blue sky with light yellow and rays of orange.
I wonder if she’s awake yet, or if she’s still a pool of beautiful melancholy between her sheets.
Before I overthink it, I head toward the Landry property.
I need to see her again, to know she’s made it through the night—and maybe, she needs to see me too.