ANNIVERSARY GIFT

ANNIVERSARY GIFT

By: Sajdah Touré

Horns honked hastily at Sandra as she sat still at the green light. The sound of the 2028 Dodge Charger behind her prompted her brain to jump back into her body; as it had been dissecting the possibility of last night’s events being real. She drove past the light and up Mulholland Dr. escaping back into her mind.

Did she really see what she thought she saw? Was it all a dream? Was she still dreaming?

All she knew for sure was that when she fell asleep Greg was her husband, and in this present moment, Greg was gone.

Greg had arrived at home for dinner last night at 7:30PM; still reeking from the lab. He’d been looking forward to reaching his 7-year anniversary with the USGS (United States Geological Surveys) next week, but tonight, it was all about him and Sandra as they brought in their 3-year wedding anniversary. Greg had been studying the gene pool of a new-found species appearing on Earth. In the last year and a half, he had progressed from “research assistant” to “principal biologist” on this case. He and Sandra moved into a new home in Windsor Hills, CA and Sandra had begun freelancing as an entertainment lawyer as they prepared to bear their first child.

“Welcome home, baby”, Sandra cooed from the kitchen as Greg walked through the door.

“Hey babe”, Greg replied as he embraced his pregnant wife.

Sandra was dressed in her black lace set from Agent Provocateur and the Saint Laurent heels Greg had gifted her for her birthday. Black and red balloons were arranged around the dinner table which was decorated with his favorite foods.

“Black and Red… our wedding colors”, Greg grinned as he reminisced on their wedding night. “We debated those colors for weeks!” he laughed.

“And now, they’re my favorite” Sandra replied with a smile.

An hour into dinner and the couple was all laughs. They looked back on their past dates, mistakes and explored each other deeper that night. They managed to conquer two bottles of cabernet as the evening shifted into night and the couple crawled into bed to express their love further.

However, at 3:00AM Sandra was shocked out of her sleep by a green beam of light that penetrated through her closed eyelids, followed by an earth-shaking sound that resembled thunder.

2 men dressed in black suits stood at the edge of the bed. Staring down at the couple. The men’s bodies were mostly covered in clothing, and they wore dark glasses and black brim hats; they looked like twins. Their skin was pale, almost translucent.

Sandra’s entire body felt as if it had been magnified to the bedsprings, but she fought to shift her head towards Greg’s side of the mattress. She hadn’t heard him make a sound since she awoke. However, as her neck creaked to the left, what she saw instead of her beloved husband was an unrecognizable body. It was mostly skeleton, drenched in dark blood as if it had been lying beside her for hours. He looked like his skin had been torn from his body and smelt like rotting meat and feces.

Sandra’s brain immediately told her to scream but her mouth wouldn’t open to make any sound. It felt like she was paralyzed in a moment of sleep paralysis. This couldn’t be reality.

Tears poured from her eyes uncontrollably as an eerie feeling continued to encompass the room. The suited men stood still next to Greg’s corpse, silently with their hands crossed. As Sandra attempted to force her torso off the mattress, she suddenly felt an extreme pressure upon her chest, constraining her back into sleeping position, but the men still hadn’t moved. She felt internally drained, as if life was being sucked out of her. She wondered if she was next to die; and suddenly everything went dark.

It was 8:00AM when Sandra rose from the bed drenched in sweat; her heart felt like it was pounding at 300 beats per minute. She began scanning the room afraid, and soon realized that Greg nor his body, or any remnants of it, were anywhere to be found. The awful smell was gone and there were no blood stains in their white sheets. She ran through the house yelling his name, hoping he’d appear and validate that what she experienced last night was merely a nightmare.

Greg never appeared.

She called his cell, his friends, and his office to no avail. The red and black balloons swayed slowly at the dinner table as she tried to piece together what could be taking place. With her head in her palms and tears rushing down her face, Sandra recalled her conversation with Greg during their anniversary meal. Somewhere between their laughs and gentle kisses, he spoke briefly about his newest findings at work. He had told Sandra that he was worried the recognition he had been receiving wasn’t worth the truth being revealed. He shared with her his worries of knowing too many of Earth’s secrets and hinted at moving away before the government would label him as a threat to society. Although these words were soaked in sarcasm and accompanied by snickers and sweet smiles in between, Sandra couldn’t help but notice Greg’s eyes. He looked worried; but he quickly distracted Sandra away from the conversation with her anniversary gift.

Sandra was obsessed with crystals; rose quartz, azurite, turquoise, all the above. She kept a collection in their study which they planned to transform into a nursery soon. One day, after returning from work Greg added to the collection a crystal that Sandra hadn’t recognized. It was his very first week as assistant on his current case and as he scanned the San Vincente Mountains for trails of this mysterious species, the sparkle of a beautiful foreign crystal caught his eye. Although he was familiar with protocol, after examining it in the lab he decided to bring it home to his wife. It resembled a moonstone but with the design of a quartz, something he’d never seen before. Sandra and Greg were mesmerized by that crystal for weeks; and on their anniversary Greg had pieces of that very crystal combined and compressed into a diamond for Sandra to wear as a necklace.

Sandra touched her neck now to feel her missing husbands’ spirit, but the necklace was gone too. Sandra almost jumped out of her skin as her cellphone rang.

“Greg”, she whimpered.

The call was coming in from a foreign number with 14 digits most of them being zeros. She looked puzzled, but quickly answered.

“Hello?”

On the other end of the phone, she heard static before a low, raspy, and disgruntled voice began to speak. It seemed to be coming from a man. She wondered if it was one of the two mysterious men from last night. The men who killed the love of her life. Her heart began racing again.

“We…will not stop…we need… the rest… of our stone.”, the voice sounded like he was literally speaking while under water.

“Return the stone…man is revived.” The phone clicked.

Sandra sat in shock for a couple seconds before her phone began buzzing as if an amber alert was coming through. Instead, she read coordinates on her screen along with the time 20:00. Her eyes shot at the stove clock; it was currently 10:00AM. She dashed to the study where the foreign crystal was kept on the desk. Except today, it wasn’t placed on the desk. Sandra began to panic.

“Greg must’ve hidden it” she thought out loud.

“Damn!” She almost began to cry again before straightening herself into survival mode. She began to tear the study and every other room in the house into pieces and couldn’t find the crystal anywhere. It was small, so she knew it’d be hard to find, but not impossible. Suddenly, it clicked like a light switch.

The couple had purchased furniture and décor for their nursery early last month. In fear of his wife attacking the room alone while he was away at work, he kept all their new purchases locked in their storage unit. That’s where it had to be.

By this time, it was 3:00PM.

Sandra didn’t even bother to get fully dressed, she threw on a long cream jacket over her negligee, slipped on her shoes and ran through the door.

Heads turned as her Jeep tires screeched into the parking lot of Public Storage. It’s funny, at this point Sandra didn’t even feel like a member of society anymore. Other customers studied her as she jumped out of her car and onto the pavement. They couldn’t even imagine the hellish experience she’d been living through for the past 12 hours, and pregnant, nonetheless. As she pulled up the door to their unit, the first thing she saw was the baby mobile they’d purchased, sitting upon a boxed basinet in the corner.

It was decorated with planets, stars, and the moon. Though, as she picked it up, she noticed a new piece dangling from it. Her eyes twinkled brightly as she snagged the crystal from the strings. A gush of relief swarmed her body and again she began to cry uncontrollably. Yet, she never stopped moving.

Before leaving their home Sandra searched the coordinates given to her and the directions led her towards the San Vincente Mountains, up Mulholland.

She hopped back into her Jeep and prayed silently that whatever was about to happen, would reunite her with her husband and awaken her from this nightmare.

Sandra almost didn’t recognize the sound of car horns blasting hastily as she sat still and numb at the green light. It was approximately 5:55PM as she drove through the light worried.

Her mind began to pull questions from her intuition.

Was this a trap? Are these “men” planning to kill her? Could Greg really be revived?!

She almost turned around and headed to the police; but the love and faith she had in her husband, and in her family carried her up the mountain. She continued to drive for an hour.

“You have arrived.” Siri prompted as Sandra pulled up to a vastly desolate area at the peak of the mountains.

She halted at a dead end, where the sky looked painted. The clouds seemed to smear into the remaining sun, creating dark orange, pink, yellow and blue hues. She found irony in its beauty; as it had been the darkest day of her life.