Forsaking the Light

Death is in the dark. That's what they had said before all the schools closed down. They warned us not to go outside at night. Momma had said there were monsters out there who'd hurt all the people in town. My best friend, Isaac, said his dad was possessed by a demon. Others had said it was ghosts. I wished Isaac was here. 

I wondered if there were any monsters out there now, as I peered through the crack in the curtain of this house. Momma and I had started moving to a new house every few days since my father had gotten sick. Sometimes there were dead people in the houses but she had always covered my eyes as we passed them over. I had asked why we stayed in houses where people had been hurt and Momma had said that's how we could know the monsters had already come and gone. But now that I was all alone, there was no one to shield me from it. 

The moonlight shined in, casting long shadows across the dusty carpet of Isaac's room. The action figures we used to play with still scattered about. The one I held now was my favorite, a cowboy. The leaky faucet in the adjacent bathroom dripped water that Momma had said was no longer safe to drink. I couldn't help it, though. I had just one sip to soothe my dry and sore throat. As I fought weariness and cramping in my stomach, I heard footsteps on the broken glass inside the front door. Was it him again? Why did he keep following me?

With ninja stealth, I dove under the bed and curled into the corner. I squeezed my eyes at the grind of the door being pushed wide and felt the pressure of the air shift. It took all the strength my eight-year-old body could muster to lie there motionless while keeping my breathing as steady as I could. I prayed as Momma had taught me. Prayed for protection. It hadn't saved Momma, though.

When all this had begun, whatever this was, my father had circled our house that night before coming inside. I sometimes tried to stay up until he got home so we could have snacks behind Momma's back. He had stood outside the window listening and staring as he was now. I thought it so odd that he was missing one shoe. He used to scold me for that sort of thing. 

When he had finally raged inside, I ignorantly ran up to him but all he could say was something about a footprint by the back gate. He screamed he was going to kill “him” and shook me in the air. Whoever he thought it was that had left the print, I guess. He ragged me around like a dog with a toy, demanding answers. “I don't know” was an unacceptable response to his obscure demands no matter how many times I repeated. Momma had pounded her fists against him and tried to tear me from his grasp. “I've been a good boy”, I sobbed convulsively. Then, as abruptly as it had started, he dropped me to the floor in a bruised heap. He looked down at his trembling hands with wild and blood-reddened eyes, then darted out. 

When morning had come, Momma cleaned up my scrapes and said we had to go. She said we could only come out in the light of day. She made me promise it. Being that we lived in a small town and had no car, there weren't many houses to choose from and the only gas station had been burnt to the ground. First, we went to people's houses we knew but Momma said she didn't want me to see them that way. Then we just went to strange houses. Most were empty. Momma had made a little game of scavenging food and things we could drink. I always won. 

On my last night with her, just before dark, we found the stench of safety and a can of hot beer to share in a small, orange mobile home. It was Momma's turn to keep watch while I tried to sleep. Her black waves of hair flowed down toward me as I looked up from her lap. Her summer-blue eyes were sad, though she smiled still. With a crystalline voice, she softly sang me the same song she always did, called Golden Locket. I hold you in this locket. I hold you in this heart. Dear sweet baby, I've loved you from the start. Those are the only words I could remember. 

Later that night, I had awakened to her screaming as my father dragged her out onto the wooden porch by a handful of her hair. Father moved in such a weird way. It had seemed his only graceful movements were to hit or slam something. Momma tried fending him off but he kept at her. She yelled for me to run and hide. I did. As I fled, a scream-cut-short was the last I heard of that crystalline voice. I can't remember where all I went or how long it took until I found myself at Isaac's house, hoping to find someone to be with. 

So here I lay this night in Isaac's room, curled into a ball, pulling in shaky, dry breaths. My heart thundered so loudly I thought it would betray me. I could almost feel Father's presence as it loomed around the room. It felt like being in a swimming pool with a drowning wasp in the water, flailing its legs and stinger. You splash it away but every time you turn around, it drifts back near you in the ripples, and your body jerks away instinctively. Only I couldn't jerk away this time. Not even a little bit. My fingernails dug into the cowboy but I didn't falter. Father knocked something over and I felt warmth spread between my legs. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Finally, I heard the crunching glass again in the front room as he continued his search elsewhere, grunting inaudibly. 

After some time, I crawled out from under the bed, pulled off my soaked pajama pants, and went into the kitchen pantry. I tipped back the last empty canned good, peas, that I had already drunk the juice out of two days passed. Not a drop. I knew I shouldn't have but I was so thirsty I filled a sip of water into the can. I tried reminding myself that it was bad. The water was so cool on my cracked lips. One more sip. I had scavenged every house at this point and knew there was nothing else to drink anywhere. 

More cramping but this time it was my whole body. Why did it hurt so bad? I wanted to sing Momma's song because it always made me feel better but most of the words seemed just out of reach. Everything was foggy for a few moments. Hours? I felt confused. Then all I could think about was that I had let him kill her. How could I have ran? I couldn't take it anymore. I hated being scared. I hated him. With the empty can in one hand and the cowboy in the other, I followed the direction he had gone. I stood there for a time on the threshold of the front door, peering out into the darkness. A chill ran up my bare legs and damp underwear. Then I stepped out into the night. A promise broken. 

Looking down the shadowed row of houses, I wondered briefly if there was another child like me somewhere in the world, crouching in some soggy corner. Stupid children. Which way did he go? As I started off toward the sound of a barking dog, I tried to remember the song. Something about holding a baby... and a golden heart. At least I still had the melody and began to hum it in my mind. I had to find Father. I would not be chased nor would I hide ever again. Damn him for hurting her! I began to run, looking in this window and that one. My stomach hurt so bad and my eyes began to burn. The melody became harder and harder to hold onto. Momma. 

I had to find Father out in this darkness that the other children had warned me against. But I knew what they hadn't. There are no ghosts or demons or fanged beasts that were impossible to kill. No, people are the only monsters and people can die. Father should be the one dead. I pressed my unkempt head against the door of the only place I hadn't gone again. The orange trailer. I tried not to look at her lying there on the porch as I had approached. It only made me angrier. Father must die! I couldn't seem to open the door with both hands full. I banged on it with the can and the cowboy. 

Fiery tears blurred my vision. I needed to get inside to kill him! I wailed the words to Momma's song, GOLDEN BABY! HEART! But only an acrid taste of rot gurgled up my throat and down my chin. I wasn't thirsty anymore. Kill! I banged harder and harder. The cramping in my body and burning in my eyes faded away. Kill! Everything faded except my fury. The melody dissolved.