“Please,” he said again. “Just until I fall asleep.”
I couldn’t argue with him. I was tired myself, and ready to get out of the wet clothes, but there was no use in fighting. He was shivering, even under the comforter, and I realized it wasn’t because he was cold. He was back there, back in the cave again, and there was nothing more frightening to him than the idea of being alone. So I leaned against the side of the low bed and watched him, waiting for his eyes to close. My hand was resting across the bedrail, and I laid my head against it, refusing to let my own eyes close until I got out of those damn stinking clothes. A minute later, I felt his hand sneak out of the covers, across the sheet, coming to rest under my own. I gave it a gentle squeeze, and I waited. A few minutes later, I heard his breathing slow, and I raised my head up. He was out, and for the first time in several days, he looked at ease. I crept out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind me as I left.
I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet with the lid down. I listened to the familiar drip of the leaky faucet – one of Dad’s to-dos that never quite got done. The sound was almost reassuring somehow. It had been dripping for years, and it was as much a part of this place as the rattling air vent in my room or the chorus of cracks and pops when you walked down the hallway. With a slow hand, I stripped out of the wet clothes and dropped them in a pile on the floor. It was, quite possibly, the most wonderful shower I had ever taken, even if I kept glancing at the frosted window in the center of the wall, certain that I heard something just outside.
I got out, slipped into an old, too-small robe Dad had bought a few years before, and sat down on the toilet once again. I turned the hair dryer on the lowest setting, letting it warm up the room as I brushed the tangles from my hair. My mind was swirling with everything that had happened that day, but my sleepiness was beginning to overtake me minute by minute. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, and the familiar sound of rain on the roof was too soothing, too wonderful to even consider staying awake. I barely had the forethought to flip the hair dryer off before it slid from my hands, and I let my head drift back onto the wall, so very comfortable in that moment.
I knew the instant the dream began, but I could never be sure of when it ended. I opened my eyes and stared into the gleaming bathroom mirror, confused and surprised that the normally beige wall behind me had gone slick, inky black. The wall pulsed, moved, shivered as I stared at it, and I realized with utter horror that my head was touching it, resting against that awful, slimy surface. It wasn’t blackness; it was something deeper, something that ate the light itself, and though I tried to move, my body was locked up, each joint refusing to bend.
I’m in here, he said, the surface of the wall shimmering as he spoke. I’m in you.
The smell of smoke filled my nostrils, a pungent odor of burned flesh that entered into every pore on my body.
I was weak. That body was nearly spent. I thought your brother would be a fine fit, but then… He paused, and I could hear the anticipation in his voice. But then… you.
I tried to move, tried to wake myself, tried to scream. But I became more and more aware that this wasn’t a dream. It was the same as before, only that time I had been lying in my bed, staring at the shadow that shambled toward me.
I’m coming for you now. You can’t stop me. Your brother can’t stop me either. I’ll hurt him before it’s over. He’s half mine already.
My ankle was burning once more, and I had to glance down to be sure there wasn’t a hand gripping my leg.
Oh, you think I’m mistaken. I can see it all over you. You think he’ll come to save you. That you’ll be able to change him back.
A mouth rose in the liquid layer of darkness, a pair of lips close enough to kiss my ear, and a simmering, hateful laugh split the lips.
What is it? Love? You think that’s enough to save you? I was called into this world by children just as foolish as you. I knew the rules, knew what would happen when that body died. I come from a place where there is no love, no light, no hope, and I’m never going back. I broke the rules. I’ve been doing it for longer than you can possibly imagine, and I’ll do it until the sun dies and all of you cattle are nothing more than dust.
I tried to speak, tried to wake myself, but I no longer held any illusions that I was the one in control.
Struggle, little one. It will only make the end that much more delicious.
I awoke with a choked breath in my throat, something that might have been a scream at the end of any other dream. My hair was dry now, matted and tangled on my forehead. I couldn’t stand, not yet anyway. My ankle was still burning where the Thief had touched me, and I wondered what that touch had done, what it truly meant for both me and Andy. I had only a glancing sense of it, but I could feel something inside of me. The black thing, that darkness that whispered in my dreams – it wasn’t just talking to me, and I was more convinced than ever that it wasn’t my overburdened imagination. It was inside me. It had been injected there, shot into my skin by those deformed hands. I could only imagine what Andy was feeling at that very second.
I leaned forward, resting my face in my hands, breathing deep, realizing that parts of the dream hadn’t left me just yet. I could still smell the scent of burned flesh in the air, still imagine that something was breathing just over my shoulder. I opened my eyes, stared into the mirror, and watched the boring, beige wall behind me. I reached back without ever turning around, felt the drywall under my skin, tapped it, made certain it was real. All of it was real. This wasn’t a dream, not any longer. This was my house.
The toilet seat still creaked underneath me.
The fan still droned overhead.
And the familiar drip of the leaky faucet…
I sat up a bit, tilting my head to one side. I listened. Second after second, moment after agonizing moment, I heard nothing but my own heart pounding, my own breath coming in and out in sharp, wheezing spurts.
No.
Not my breath.
I closed my mouth to be sure, wanting to scream when the ragged sound continued from somewhere close. Behind the curtain. Something was there. Something that kept the water from dripping into the drain. I stood up, quietly reached for the handle of the door when it spoke.
“P-please…”
Every muscle in my body froze, and my stomach rolled over itself, tumbling like a gymnast. The days of pissing myself felt like sweet, lovely memories, and I was quite certain that shit would run down my leg any second. The voice was weak, ragged, and pathetic, and I instantly felt an unexpected pang of sympathy when I heard it. I began to turn the knob slowly, and again he spoke.
“I-I know you’re there. P-please…”
I turned back, staring at the shower curtain, my bowels like fire in my belly. Then I saw it. A hand, red and black, with specks of bone poking through the skin here and there. The curtain drew back slowly, and I saw him, curled into the corner of the tub, the leaking faucet dripping onto his shoulder. I wanted to scream, wanted to run away, but I felt almost instantly that there was no need to. He was nearly dead. I could see it in his eyes, the pink edges curled with black-singed fur. His mouth was open, his lips dark and dead. His body was a ruin, and the simple act of living seemed like an almost unbearable trial. I tried to imagine the horrible fury that had driven him this far, only to fall limp just as he reached his goal.
Behind him, the frosted window was still cracked open a bit, and I could see that the night had fallen quietly, the rain no longer pouring. He could have killed me by now, could have choked me while I slept. But he seemed to know what was coming, seemed to know what the near future held, and I could only imagine that realization had drained the fight out of him. Revenge didn’t mean much when you would be dead yourself before the deed was even done. I looked back into the pitiful pink eyes, and against my better judgment, I sat back down on the toilet.