CHAPTER 13 #2
She was an incomprehensible light in his darkness.
“What are you doing in here!”
At the sound of the furious voice, my muscles jerk in fear, and I drop the photo.
Clattering against the wooden desk, it sends tiny shards of glass scattering over the shiny surface. My mother’s photo dislodges from the frame on impact.
Panic rises up into my throat, as I lift my gaze toward the man standing in the doorway. Perhaps there was a time when he was handsome, worthy of my mother even, but right now, he embodies the very essence of a monster.
Brows pinched to fury, eyes blazing with madness, he stares toward the mess I’ve made. “What have you done?” he growls through clenched teeth, just like a monster.
“He didn’t mean it, Father!” Caedmon pleads on my behalf, but I know it’s no use. “You startled him!”
In what feels like no more than a blink, he storms across the room toward me.
I should run, particularly when I feel Caedmon tugging on my arm, but my muscles are frozen in place, eyes fixed on my mother.
Caedmon lets out a cry as, in my periphery, the monster pushes him out of the way, sending him backward into the wall.
Something flashes at the corner of my eye, but before I can make out what it is, an intense pain strikes the side of my head. Jagged light flickers behind my eyelids. The room tilts. An unyielding force strikes the other side of my head.
Caedmon screams.
Everything turns black. Quiet.
So quiet, I can hear the thud of blood pulsing in my ears.
I blink my eyes open.
My father is standing over me, holding Caedmon by the arm, as my brother claws at his grip. “If it’s the dead that fascinates you, then you will sleep with them tonight.”
The darkness slinks back into its shadowy corners, the view opening to my surroundings. I glance around at all the jars. Ears and fingers, and other bits of meat I can’t identify, all suspended in fluid. The specimen closet, situated beside the corpse fridge.
“No! No, please!” Intense ringing blasts inside my ear, as pain strikes my skull again. Eyes clamped shut, I grind my teeth, clutching either side of my head.
The light shutters with the slamming of the door, and as I lurch for it, I hear the lock click from the other side.
“No! Please! Don’t leave me here!” Warmth trickles down my leg, the smell of piss burning my nose.
A cold sensation, like ice crystals crawling beneath my skin, slithers from my neck down to my fingertips, a thick numb throbbing in my hands, and when I lift my arm to wipe away tears, I can’t feel anything.
Not my skin, nor the closet’s rough floor beneath me.
Only an agonizing tingle lingers with the pressure. “Father! Please! Help me!”
Caedmon’s screams echo through the door, growing distant. Distant.
Until all is quiet.
“Hey. Hey! What the hell’s going on? You okay?” A familiar, but unfitting voice for my memory invaded my thoughts, yanking me back into the present.
I blinked out of the void and found myself on the gritty concrete floor where I must’ve collapsed. “Do you give a shit?” I asked, pushing to my feet. Dizziness hooked my brain, jostling my field of view for a moment, and I stumbled to the side. Fuck. I hated coming out of these dreams.
“Yeah, I give a shit. You’re my meal ticket. I’m guessing the only person that knows I’m down in this shithole.” He leaned back against the wall of his cell, watching me compose myself. “So … your father, he made you sleep with them corpses?”
“What?” Had I verbalized the memory? I’d only ever had them alone, so I wouldn’t have had any awareness.
“You were talking kind of spacey. Said your brother and you were playing where you shouldn’t’ve been. Your father hit you.”
Hit me was putting it mildly. It so happened, he’d struck a very specific part of my brain, consequently dislodging and activating a latent congenital prion disease.
Zigliomyositis was the technical term for it, or Voneric’s Disease, as it was more commonly known–a rare condition only seen in an exceptionally small fraction of the population.
Incurable and unstoppable in its destruction.
Rubbing my temples, I breathed through my nose, banishing the mist of confusion still clouding my head. “He was like you, Mr. Barletta. Terrified of anything that might challenge him. He was weak. Impatient. Utterly detestable.”
“Ain’t there a small part of you that cares about your old man, though? Even if he knocked you around, you still give a shit about him, right?”
I snapped my eyes open, the acerbic response sitting on the tip of my tongue and begging to be said.
Instead, I swallowed it back, mostly for the sake of my blood pressure.
“To answer your question, yes, he did make me sleep with the corpses. I spent the night hearing things. Whispers through the walls. Whether it was my father trying to scare the ever-loving fuck out of a twelve-year-old boy, or something else, I suppose I’ll never know. ”
Barletta stared off toward the center of his cell. “My old man was a hothead, too. Always flying off with his fist.” He tapped a finger against the side of his head. “Used to say my brain was made of stone, as many times as I got hit and got back up.”
“You and I have nothing in common.”
A pathetic shame darkened his eyes as he glanced at me and to the floor. “Yeah. I guess not.” He fidgeted for a moment, seemingly deep in thought. “My death … it’ll help someone?”
I shrugged. “Perhaps. If nothing else, it will give me a better understanding of the toxin, so I can save lives.”
His brows came together, and he didn’t bother to look at me when he asked, “Is it painful?”
“Yes,” I answered in a flat tone. “But no more painful than what you’ve inflicted upon others.”
He flinched and covered his face with his palms. Without the alcohol shielding him, I imagined his guilt was eating him alive faster than the worms hatching in his belly. “This is fucked, you know? The way I am … the way I feel. I could really turn shit around. Do better with my life.”
“Yes, I suppose in some alternate universe you could’ve. Unfortunately for you, I found you first.”