Brian Freeman - Dark Screams - Volume Six

“It’s what you wanted.” Josh lifted the covers tighter to his neck, practically burrowing his head into the pillow. “I’m happy your father’s here to get us through this rough patch.” He knew Lydia’s crying phase wouldn’t last; once their daughter learned to sleep through the night, they’d revisit the old man’s visiting privileges.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” Cheryl said, “but I can’t stop thinking about it. Dad’s cancer is worse. It’s spreading.”

Josh pushed his elbows against the mattress and sat up. “Oh, honey. I’m so sorry.” He put an arm around his wife and hugged her close.

A malicious thought occurred to him, explaining how his father-in-law could maintain the saintly behavior. Lewis knew he only had to keep the act going for a limited time.

The old man seemed especially frail the next day. His sleeves looked like they didn’t have arms in them, and his legs were almost as thin as broomsticks. Josh wondered why he hadn’t noticed the change.

“Cheryl told me.” He put a gentle hand on Lewis’s shoulder. Oddly positioned knots of bone seemed to shift beneath the fabric.

Lewis raised the device to his neck. “I’m [at] peace,” he droned. “Ready to go [when] my time comes.”

“That’s a good way to look at it,” Josh said.

Another night, Lydia’s cries again woke them. Josh endured his familiar pattern of panic, followed by relief that Lewis would calm her, drifting back to sleep, head pressed hard against the pillow, blanket pulled up over his head, the fabric fisted into a knot and pressed against his ear—because she’s still crying, an end-of-the-world wail, a primal expression of fear and abandonment. Josh brought his knees closer to his stomach, buried his head between blanket and pillow to block the sound.

Cheryl shook him. Gently at first, then more urgent, her voice drifting from the end of a long tunnel: “Honey. Something’s wrong.”

He rolled out of bed, stumbled toward the beacon of their daughter’s cries. His wife followed behind.

They’d woken in the middle of an air raid. A fire alarm blared a deadly warning.

They reached the guest room to the right, across the hall. A closed door partly muffled Lydia’s wail.

Josh was afraid to open it. The sounds would be even louder on the other side. They would hit him like an explosion.

Cheryl shouted through the door: “Dad? You okay?”

Josh put his hand on the knob. He hesitated.

Because an awful image flashed into his mind. Lewis Hampton, that frail old man, wasn’t in his bed. He’d somehow found fresh strength and agility, and had leaped over the bars of the baby’s crib and climbed inside. He crouched over Lydia, his stick legs bent like an insect’s. An awful curve distorted his spine, ridged bumps appearing along his naked back. Dark bristles sprouted from his thin arms, and the pincers at the end snapped menacingly over their baby’s head. A black ichor dripped out of the opening in the old man’s throat and plashed in curdled drops onto Lydia’s cheeks. The child took a breath, opened wide to scream anew, and a gurgle as thick as chewed tobacco fell from the hovering throat hole and into her mouth.

Josh threw open the door.

He immediately put his hands over his ears, then waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark.

Their daughter lay on her back in the crib, eyes open, arms and legs flailing as she cried out.

Lewis was sprawled across the guest bed. One arm dangled off the edge. The other reached to his throat, an index finger hooked inside the wound as if trying to clear a clogged drain.

Cheryl flipped the light switch, then ran to her father’s bedside. She shook him, waved a hand over his unblinking eyes. She tugged at the finger he’d stuck into his throat wound, but it wouldn’t budge: His frail body lifted slightly from the bed, then dropped.

Josh took their daughter from the crib, tried bouncing her, sang “ Hush Little Baby,” kissed his finger and touched it to her mouth. His wife dialed 911.

Lewis looked tiny in the bed. As if, even now, he was shrinking into insignificance.

The baby continued to shriek.

Josh’s family was his own again.

Lydia cried nonstop at the funeral. She was too young to understand grief, but everyone in attendance agreed the child expressed genuine loss.

His wife explained the baby’s behavior with a phrase that became all too common in the weeks that followed: “She misses her grandfather.”

Cheryl returned to work after her extended maternity leave and the bereavement days for her father. The daycare center beside her school quickly decided Lydia was too much for them. She “upset the other children.”

Josh offered the babysitter earplugs. “It’s okay to wear these, as long as you can see her.” He then pointed to their Bose stereo system. “Music sometimes helps. It helps you, I mean. Not the baby.”

They worried that the fits were getting worse and more frequent. The next doctor visit, they both took off work to attend: Two adults could present a united front. There is something wrong. Isn’t there some test you haven’t done? This can’t be normal.

Josh was actually grateful their daughter slipped into one of her fits during the visit. Good. He can hear this, too. Now he’ll have to believe.

Lydia wriggled on the examination table. “My,” the pediatrician said. “Oh, my.” He shone a penlight into the baby’s eyes, prodded her stomach, felt the pulse along her wrists and ankles. “She’s got a powerful set of lungs on her.” He tried to disguise a wince as he removed the sound-amplifying stethoscope. “Maybe she’ll turn out to be an opera singer.”

More like the victim in a horror movie, Josh considered responding.

“I don’t see the point in ordering further tests. Her behavior is within the normal range.” The doctor had to shout to be heard, which undercut the intended calm of his diagnosis. “This pattern will stop eventually.”

“When?” Cheryl asked. “At four months? Five? Next year? And are you sure there isn’t something wrong with her? Something terribly wrong?”

The doctor offered a measured response, ending with a quick, shouted summary: “She’ll be fine.” As they compared notes afterward, Cheryl recalled him saying, “I predict she’ll be better in no time.” The way Josh heard it was: “I can’t predict. These things take time.”

Nights continued to exhaust them. They had moved Lydia’s crib back to their own bedroom to monitor her better. When it was “Josh’s night,” he’d scoop her up, with the blanket bundle and a rattle toy, and would take her downstairs to a rocking chair he’d moved to a corner of the kitchen.

He’d tested that spot as the farthest from their bedroom, hoping the sound would diminish over distance. He’d be a zombie at work tomorrow, but at least Cheryl might get some sleep that night.

He had the pacifier, too, but Lydia turned her head if he attempted to push the rubber tip into her mouth. He took a bottle of her formula from the refrigerator, then tried to feed her, but again no effect.

As often happened, Josh blamed himself. He wasn’t inventive enough, or he lacked simple fatherly skills that came so naturally to others.

He realized he didn’t often describe his daughter with love: compliment the shape of her nose, the way her cheeks puffed up when she smiled. The wispy golden silk of her hair, now just beginning to curl. That kind of praise, expressed with a father’s genuine pride, might be what was needed.

“You’re so pretty.” He gently poked at her stomach, made a tickle sound. “You’re my pretty girl.”