Chapter 1 #2
Holy Meet Your Idol Day. “I love you!” she blurted out in a gush of words, before she could stop herself.
“I’ve read all of the articles written about you over the years, and how you inherited a cosmetic company and turned it into one of the most successful multimillion-dollar lines in the business.
I’m such a fan! I especially love your night cream. It’s so delicious on my skin.”
But wait. Her idol was a werewolf? She did say she was a werewolf, right? Werewolves owned corporations?
“That’s so nice, Dom,” Nina growled. “That you get to meet your idol. I mean, your idol could be anyone, like Mother Teresa or Gandhi, but you chose a slinger of goop. Well done. Now could we get past the OMG, I-love-you-and-your-crappy-concealer part of this interview and get to the fucking point here?”
More rustling scratched in her ear before Marty obviously yanked the phone from Nina’s hand again.
“Pipe down, Dark Lord, and let me handle this! Now, Dom, we can talk about Bobbie-Sue later, though I’m flattered you know who I am.
We were getting to what’s happening and why you think you need our help—aside from the random shout-out to Thor. ”
Once more, she eyed the shiny instrument on her kitchen table, glistening under her hanging bamboo lamp.
“So, I went to a swap meet the other day. One of the patients at my grandfather’s memory care facility loves a good trip to a swap meet.
I volunteer there all the time, with events and road trips and so on.
Anyway, her name is Pippy, and I offered to wheel her around while the others from the facility were looking at things.
We were just strolling the aisles while I pushed her in her wheelchair, chatting, stopping here and there, when I saw… ”
Her legs trembled, forcing her to sit down at the table next to the object of her terror. She kept her fingers in a tight fist so as to avoid touching it.
“What, Dom?” Marty asked.
Pinching her temples with her fingers, Dom swallowed.
“I was looking at the things on a table. A bunch of rusty old tools and coins and stuff, and I was trying to figure out why Pippy was so interested in them. I mean, she usually likes silly tchotchkes, like those bubble hair ties and trinket boxes, shot glasses from around the world and…and Hummels, you know?”
It had been a brisk October day, and even though the sun was out, she’d been worried about Pippy catching cold. Lingering at this odd table that had caught her attention wasn’t a good idea.
“Anyway, I tried to distract her and move her toward another table, but Pippy clung to the edge of the table for dear life.”
“Okay, and then…?”
“Then…then I saw what she was so transfixed on. She ran her fingers over it as if she knew it personally.” Dom caught herself.
She sounded like a raving lunatic. “I mean, as though she’d seen it before or…
I don’t know what I mean. I’m just saying, she wouldn’t let go of the table and no amount of distraction, not even the lure of peanut brittle, could tear her away.
“Now, here’s the thing. I’ve learned a lot since my papa, er, grandfather, entered memory care, and one thing I’ve definitely learned?
Do not poke the bear. As in, sometimes in order not to agitate someone with a neurological deficit—Pippy has early dementia—you kinda have to go with the flow.
What I mean to say is, you pick and choose your battles. ”
“Right. Of course. So, when you were going with the flow with Pippy, what happened?”
Dom bit the inside of her cheek before replying.
“I did what I always do, I tried redirecting. I tried gently pulling her fingers from the table, but to no avail. Pip clung to that table like a piece of cling wrap. Then, out of the blue, she asked me if I heard it. Of course, I asked what she meant…”
Oh, remembering those moments when Dom thought surely she’d entered a glitch in the Matrix were some of the scariest of her life.
“What did Pippy say, Dom?”
“She said, do you hear that thing talking? Then she pointed to the beat-up, silver tool on the table. So of course, in the spirit of playing along and keeping her calm, I leaned down and listened…”
Dom paused then, because reliving it, saying it out loud, was almost as horrifying and preposterous as the actual event.
“Dom? What happened? I’m on the edge of my seat here, and don’t you fret about sounding like you’ve lost your mind. Believe me when I tell you, I don’t think there’s anything left that would surprise us.”
Swallowing hard, Dom looked at the dented silver tool, shiny and bright under the light of her kitchen chandelier, biting the inside of her cheek once more to keep from screaming.
“Well, go on then. Tell her what you heard, Dom,” a silky-smooth, almost reassuring voice said.
Goose bumps rose on her skin, racing along her spine, making her shiver with a violent shake.
“Who’s there with you, Dom?” Marty asked, a lilt of panic in her tone. “What’s happening? Are you okay? Are you safe?”
“You heard him…er, that!?” she squealed. If Marty heard the voice, then maybe she wasn’t losing her mind after all.
But then she remembered, Nina had asked if she had fangs or horns. Who asked those kinds of questions?
Maybe they were all losing their minds. Maybe they were having a shared delusion.
Like that Shazaam movie phenomenon, where everyone swore the comedian Sinbad had been in a movie called Shazaam.
People had actually recalled scenes from it and everything, yet no one could actually find the existence of the movie.
The phenomenon was called the Mandela Effect, which is essentially the sharing of a false memory.
Or maybe this was all one long waking nightmare.
Maybe…
“Dom! Please answer me! Who is that? Are you safe?” Marty repeated, her voice rising in clear panic.
She held up a hand even though she knew Marty couldn’t see it. “I’m okay, and I’m safe.”
But was she really okay? Safe?
“You goose. Of course you’re safe, kaerr. I’d never hurt you.”
“Who is that, Dominique?” Marty pressed, her voice rising higher than it had a moment ago. “I thought you said you didn’t have a partner? What is happening?”
How did she explain this?
Rehearsing it in her mind, Dom went over the facts in a nutshell.
It had been a lovely fall day. The leaves were bright, orange and brown wisps of colorful paper gracing all the trees at the park.
The weather was just crisp enough to wear one of her cute sweaters with pearls and capris pants, but warm enough to feel the sun’s caress on your face. It had been cloudless and blue.
Dom rolled her eyes. Wasn’t that the start of every horror story ever written?
It was a beautifully perfect day…
Anyway, she’d gone to a swap meet with some of her grandfather’s fellow patients in memory care. She volunteered to chaperone the seniors almost every weekend on one event or another. The idea being to keep them engaged and living the last bits of their lives to the best of their abilities.
The folks at Remember Me Memory Care were like family to her.
Pippy, Jonah, Annie-Mae, Harold, Roland, Sheffrey, Verlean, all had become very dear to her since her grandfather, Stavros, had joined them two years ago.
They were all she had left, and she surrounded herself with them every chance she had.
Anyway, she and Pippy happened upon a table with a bunch of old, rusty tools some guy was trying to hawk for far too much money.
One of the tools had enraptured Pippy. So much so, she’d struck up a conversation with it. One where they shared anecdotes and pleasantries.
And Dom had heard every word. All of it. But it wasn’t just Pippy talking to some hallucination—the tool had spoken back, as though Pippy were a dear, long lost friend.
Thinking she and her mind were parting ways, she’d finally managed to pry Pippy’s fingers from the table and hurried her back to the bus with her heart in her throat.
She’d mistakenly thought that was the end of the delusion. She’d taken Pippy back to the bus, got her back to her room, tucked her in, gave her grandfather a kiss and some of his favorite butterscotch pudding, and gone home.
But when she arrived, the tool was sitting on her kitchen table.
Or rather, the hammer was sitting on her kitchen table.
Talking to her.
In a very appealing voice that reminded her of a combination of James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman. Articulate, gentle, deep and satisfying.
At first, she’d ignored it. Dom made up a bunch of explanations for why she thought she could hear the hammer speak. Until it literally carried on a full-blown conversation while she’d gone about her daily chores.
She had zero explanation as for how it had shown up on her kitchen table, but she made wide circles around it to avoid contact anyway.
None of her reasoning stuck, other than the idea maybe she’d eaten something that had given her hallucinations. That daggone cotton candy at the swap meet was always her undoing.
Then, she’d stopped trying to figure it out altogether and spent the next day continuing to ignore it.
But she couldn’t overlook her outburst at the CVS, when she cried the name Thor, nor could she stop the word from shooting out of her mouth.
By nightfall a couple days later? At first, Dom had cowered in the corner for a while, like a sniveling wimp, convinced she’d need phyciatric help. Only when she’d retrieved her wits and some of her dignity did she begin to Google paranormal happenings, and then she came across the OOPS website.
She’d dialed with trembling fingers and her heart in her throat.
So for the love of Swedish meatballs, how could she possibly explain this hammer had not only followed her home and talked, but it also insisted that it belonged to her.
This hammer, this tool with the sultry voice, this intelligent but inanimate object, claimed it was her destiny.
Only she could have a destiny that involved a beat-up old hammer instead of a handsome white knight on his trusty steed.