Tim Meyer - The Switch House

“She…”

“She what? What did you see?”

[“Stay out of this house,” the woman says again. Then, in a voice no one would consider feminine, nor masculine, but a strange amalgamation of both, she repeats, “Stay out of this house.” The throaty voice keeps changing, growing deeper, but the message remains the same: “Stay out of this house. Stay out of this house. STAY OUT OF THIS HOUSE.”]

“She…”

“Angela, talk to me.” He held his wife closely.

“What she did in our house…”

“She didn’t do anything in our house,” Terry said, shaking her, trying to snap her back to reality. “Angie, she didn’t do anything.”

[“Stay out of this house.”]

Terry leaned into her ear. “She’s getting an ice cream cone from the food court.”

[Stay out, Ma-me.]

Ma-me.

Angela opened her eyes and saw Rosalyn Jeffries accepting a cone from a young teenager manning the ice cream stand in the center of the mall. The old woman immediately started licking the frosty treat, catching the runny cream with her tongue before it reached her fingers.

“What?” Angela huffed, breathless.

“That’s it,” Terry said. “Calm down, honey. Everything’s all okay.” He rocked her back and forth, cradling her in his arms.

“What happened? She was… and now she’s…”

“I don’t know but it’s okay now. You’re okay.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“See what?”

Ma-Me.

“The woman. In our living room. Dancing?”

Terry looked down at her, his usual complexion escaping his face. “No, babe. I didn’t see anything. Are you okay? Are you feeling all right? I mean, Jesus, Angela, you pissed yourself.”

She’d forgotten about that. She looked down and saw her pajamas and the dark wet stain running from her crotch to her ankle. The sour smell permeated the air, biting her senses.

“Why don’t we get you off the floor?”

Her husband helped her to her feet.

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.”

She threw her arms around him and roped him in. In his ear, she whispered, “What the hell is happening to me?”

If Terry wondered the same thing, he didn’t say. “You’re okay. You’re fine. Let’s get you showered and we’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

She followed him past the table featuring the vase of flowers and headed upstairs. She looked back into the living room the moment before the 60-inch screen disappeared behind the hallway ceiling; she swore the picture obscured, warped in a frenzy of black and white pixels, and then she listened as the soft crunch of static buzzed between her ears.

“I’m going to change up your prescription,” Abbie said, scribbling on her notepad.

Angela sighed. “You think I’m nuts, don’t you?”

Without looking up, Abbie shook her head. “No, dear. I don’t. Sometimes stress gets to be too much and begins to manifest physically. Common problem amongst my patients.”

“So… I’m hallucinating?”

Abbie paused for a beat, and then glanced up. “Well, you don’t believe sea monsters exist inside of your bathroom wall, do you?”

“No… but…”

“No one else in America saw the old woman cut off a chicken’s head but you.”

“Yeah, but it seemed so real.”

“Honey, I was one of Switch’s fifteen million viewers and I can guarantee you they didn’t air a ritual sacrifice on cable television.”

Angela wanted to laugh or maybe cry; she wasn’t sure which. She kept replaying the nightmarish scenario over and over again; hoping the more she relived the horrible fantasy, the less it’d feel like reality. Didn’t work, though, in fact, the more she revisited last night, the more her brain revolted and the more her skull felt like it might split in half.

“I’m losing my mind,” she admitted.

“Well, it hasn’t been easy. What happened to you and Terry was awful, something no two parents should ever have to experience. You’ll never fully recover, but, over time, things will get better. Manageable.” She paused, placing the end of her pen on her lips. “You’ll deal.”

“Terry’s been nice to me lately. We haven’t fought for a whole week.”

“I’m glad to hear.”

Tears eminent, Angela sniffled. “I think he loves me again.”

“Of course he does. He never stopped.”

Angela fought back the sadness, the burning sensation seeping into her eyes.

Abbie leaned forward and gently placed a hand on Angela’s knee. “I want you to take these pills. They’ll help curb the hallucinations. But your usual pharmacy won’t carry it. It’s a… let’s call it an experimental drug.”

Angela looked at the script. “Is it safe?”

“Of course. It’s just not FDA approved. Yet. You can purchase it at Robinson’s over in Carver’s Grove, only about twenty minutes from here. In fact, I’ll call it in. It’ll be ready by the time you get there.”

“And it stops hallucinations?”

“Yes. And, if for whatever reason it doesn’t, call me immediately and we’ll get you on something else. However, I’m confident this will work. It’s worked on my other patients who have experienced similar symptoms.”

Angela took the script, folded it, and buried it inside her purse. “Thanks, Doc.”

“My pleasure.”

The drive to Robinson’s in Carver’s Grove took exactly twenty minutes. She listened to the classic rock station the entire way over, and they were playing Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet in its entirety, an album she had listened to countless times when she was about twelve. The music brought back some great memories of her rocking out in her bedroom, belting out the lyrics at the top of her lungs while jumping on her bed and strumming her air guitar, annoying her parents and siblings to no end.

She parked outside of Robinson’s, stepped out the car, and headed inside. Robinson’s wasn’t your ordinary pharmacy. Perusing the aisles, she found not a single brand name stocked on the shelves. Every remedy had been made with “natural” ingredients. A lot of the packaging looked thrown together by some amateur graphic designer who had just started to experiment with Photoshop.

She passed the book and magazine rack, noticing they stocked the same bestsellers as every other local pharmacy. She stopped and picked up the new Kim Harrison book, flipped through its pages, then set it back on the shelf figuring she could stop at the local library on the way home. She bypassed the row of colorful magazine covers and headed straight for the rear of the store, where the young lady behind the counter was bagging a few prescriptions for the only customer in line, a tall man with a fedora and circular-rimmed spectacles. After she finished, she wished the man a good day and asked Angela if there was anything she needed help with.

“Yes, actually,” Angela said timidly, approaching the counter. “Dr. Wilson called in a prescription for me?”

“Ah, yes.” Angela examined the girl’s name tag, which read, “Kandi.” Kandi turned to a small box teeming with prescriptions and began rifling through. “Shepard, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Very cool,” she said, and then read off the label to Angela. The name of the drug sounded like the technical name for a species of previously undiscovered sea creatures.

Angela shrugged. “I guess that’s right.”

“Here you go,” Kandi said, handing over the bag.

“How much do I owe?”

The girl shook her head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“All paid for.”

“What do you mean?”