Max Booth III - We Need to Do Something

I burst out crying and back up against the door, then slide down to my butt, holding my legs like, somehow, they’ll protect me from his words. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…”

Mom stares at Dad, too shocked to even say anything for a moment. “Speak like that to my daughter again and I’ll slit your throat.”

He grins. “I look forward to the day.”

Something catches my eye on the floor next to the bottom of the sink counter. Almost hidden by shadows cast by the cabinet doors. I pick up the bottle and stare through tears at the NyQuil label. It’s maybe three-fourths full. Amy would have had a field day with something like this.

Nighttime Relief the label promises, only I read it as Nightmare Relief instead, and that sounds pretty good right about now.

“What are you doing?” Mom asks.

“Sleeping,” I whisper, unscrewing the white cap and raising it to my lips.

“Be careful with that,” she tells me. “Only a little swig.”

“Okay, Mom,” I reply, and start chugging.

By the time she wrestles the bottle from my grasp there’s nothing left inside it.

Five minutes later I can’t keep my head up.

Mom’s slapping me awake and I’m laughing because I can’t feel her hand and I can’t feel my cheek and I don’t know why she’s even bothering. I try telling her she’d have better luck slapping Bobby awake but I can’t move my face, so how is it I’m laughing? Except it isn’t my mother slapping me. It’s Dad, and he’s not slapping, he’s punching, and his hand’s drenched in my blood and it wasn’t me laughing either, it was Dad the whole time, cackling and howling and screaming with laughter. I bite my tongue off and swallow it before he can steal it from me.

Someone’s tickling my feet and my legs but when I look down there is nobody there and I try to scratch it but the sensation isn’t external, it’s deep inside my flesh and there’s no escape, and I wish I wish I wish I didn’t have legs and I wish I wish I wish I didn’t have flesh and I wish I wish I wish I could invert my flesh inside out and rub my nerves against the floor like a dog satisfying a deep itch like a dog like a dog like a dog like Spot Spot Spot who’s back Spot from the dead Spot from the grave Spot who is not a dog Spot who is not a man Spot who is a thing a thing a thing with no tongue I have your tongue Spot I have your tongue and I would eat it again if I could for I am the hunter of tongues and you are nothing Spot you aren’t even Spot not really but I know who you are you cannot deceive me you motherfucker I know exactly who you are do you hear me?

“Do you hear me?” Mom’s asking, somewhere far from here, somewhere impossible. “Mel, do you hear me?” But I can’t respond. I have no tongue. I have no teeth. My lips are absent from my face and my face is absent from my skull and I am bones and I am ash and I am everything and I am nothing.

Bones creaking like twigs snapping in the night. Mom’s above me and behind her are shadows and I can’t understand why her skin is so bright, like it’s glowing, like she’s an insect caught in the galaxy, in the void of nothingness, and her bones are creak-creak-creaking, every time she moves her knees or elbows or neck, and she isn’t alone, she’s holding Bobby tight against her chest, chest against chest, and she’s side-stepping around the bathroom, moving with such grace it’s almost like they’re floating, and they’re dancing, dancing, dancing, but there’s no music playing there’s nothing the only sound is the creaking of bones, the creaking of bones, the creaking of bones, and Bobby’s dead and decomposing and half a skeleton and his head keeps flopping every time our mother moves. Maggots fling out of his mouth and ears and eyes and vanish in the shadows. They’re dancing just like they used to when he was alive, but now he’s dead and nothing has changed, nothing ever changes. Somewhere in the darkness behind them, out of sight, Dad is screaming for me to let him use the flashlight on my phone, but it’s too late, he’s already lost it.

Together we’re united in the circle of salt, wide enough to inhabit both our bodies, Amy and I, face to face, stripped of all clothing, maintaining eye contact like it’s the last time we’ll ever see each other. She slips a bronzed ring over her finger and it’s so big it nearly slides back off. The insignia on the ring is beautiful and fascinating. Two winged creatures with exposed breasts levitating above a fountain, also looking each other in the eyes, much like Amy and I are doing, will never stop doing, staring like they love each other more than anything else the universe could possibly offer them, like they would do anything humanly possible and beyond to offer protection and prove their devout affection. I ask Amy about the ring and she tells me it’s the seventh talisman from the Black Pullet. I ask where she got it from and she shakes her head, tells me some secrets aren’t meant to be revealed and, before I can say anything else, she leans forward and kisses me for the last time and I tell her I love her. She retrieves a knife from outside the circle and punctures my flesh before I can protest. “Now me,” she says. “Make me bleed.” I press the blade against her arm and trace over an old scar. Blood drips down our flesh. We scoot closer so our limbs are locked around each other, forming a perfect Gordian knot in the center of the circle and, in my ear, Amy’s whispering an incantation that makes me feel instantly at peace. Please god don’t let this moment ever end. Please god please god please god.

VII. Has the power to destroy everything; to cause the fall of hail, thunderbolts, and stars of heaven; to occasion earthquakes, storms, and so forth. At the same time, it preserves the friends of the possessor from accidents. The figure of the talisman should be embroidered in silver upon poppy-red satin. The magic words are: (1) DITAU, HURANDOS, for works of destruction; (2) RIDAS, TALIMOL, to command the elements; (3) ATROSIS, NARPIDA, for the fall of hail, &c.; (4) UUSUR, ITAR, for earthquake; (5) HISPEN, TROMADOR, for hurricanes and storms; (6) PARANTHES, HISTANOS, for the preservation of friends.

Back in the bathroom, Amy’s smiling at me from inside the cracked mirror. Her naked flesh pulsates like it’s independent from her body. Throbbing. A bomb counting down to its inevitability. “I used to cut myself,” her reflection says, mimicking the first sentence she ever spoke to me back in in-school suspension—and before I can respond, every scar on her body bursts in simultaneous celebration. Blood sprays through the mirror and splatters against my face. Small black tentacles peek out from the ruptured scars. Alien tree branches ascertaining whether the coast is clear before shedding its previous host and seeking shelter elsewhere. I try to scream and the tentacles bury themselves into my mouth before I’m able to make a sound.

Our phones won’t stop screaming, each slightly out of sync with the other, making the noises jarring and insane.

We form a line and pile into the bathroom—Dad first, clutching an empty thermos; I’m behind him, every step forward painful, my legs itch so bad I can’t stop it but I’m afraid to bend down and scratch them because what if my legs aren’t there? what if legs are a lie and I believed it all this time?; behind me, Bobby staggers in, pupils missing from his eyes but that’s okay, he’s never had pupils anyway, and his breath reeks of something rancid, but he’s always been bad about brushing his teeth, he’s just a kid, kids suck at brushing their teeth, and in his hands he’s holding Spot, Spot who hasn’t stopped yelping since the storm began, Spot who’s terrified of thunder, and he’s so filthy, his fur’s stained with wet mud and something red but I can’t look at that, I can’t; and last, behind Bobby and Spot, there’s Mom, holding a pile of blankets against her chest as she shuts the door behind us, and inside the blanket something rattles, something almost like a snake, but what kind of mom would bring a rattlesnake into the bathroom with her family, what kind of sense would that even make? It’s probably not a snake. It’s probably just the wind.