Ghosts of Eden (3 page)

Bored, and with nothing better to do, she knocked quietly on Bradley’s door before stepping into her brother’s room. Her brother was slouched in his beanbag chair, playing one of his games. He never took his eyes from the glowing flurry of movement on the television screen as she came up and awkwardly stood by his bed.

“How’s it going, Bradley?”

“Fine. I finally beat that boss I was telling you about. Had to shoot him in the neck until his head popped off.” He smiled. “The blood actually splattered the screen. It was great!”

Kayla shuffled her feet. “That’s cool.” She wandered over to Bradley’s desk where he sometimes did schoolwork, but was mostly piled with video game boxes and booklets.

“Our parents have been bad this weekend,” Bradley said. “I’ve just been trying to stay out of the way.”

“I know what you mean,” Kayla said.

“You wanna play?” Bradley asked her.

“Not really.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Bradley began to jab at one of the buttons on the controller with his thumb over and over. “Die! Die! Die!”

Kayla pulled the chair out from Bradley’s desk and took a seat. She watched her brother play his game.

After a while, she began to aimlessly flip through the things on her brother’s desk. She pushed aside a schoolbook on Pre-Algebra and brushed away several game pamphlets. She stared at Bradley’s notebook and the mathematical problems he’d been working across the open page. She tried to make sense of the numbers. She’d be doing this same stuff in a couple of years. It was nonsense to her. She flipped the page…

…running through the jungle and it was chasing me and the trees had faces and they were shrieking…

…was scribbled in the margins at the top of the page in a looping line. After that: more math problems, sane and symmetrical. Kayla read the line again. She looked up at Bradley, sitting in his beanbag, killing bad guys on the screen, his face lightly flushed. She turned another page.

…my dad with a knife and a red bowtie but he wasn’t my dad because he had no face…cutting myself and I couldn’t stop…thick blood filling my bedroom rising and rising…something with big round eyes glowing in the darkness…trapped alone in a tiny room at the top of the stairs with no food…animals all around with accusing eyes and sharp talons scratching to get in…someone was screaming and when I woke up I realized it was me…

Kayla held her breath as she read these scribbled lines. Her wide eyes scanned the page. Her heart was a heavy warm lump inside her chest. The room had fallen silent; she was aware of nothing but her brother’s notebook in front of her. She turned the page…

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Kayla jumped. Bradley was standing right over her shoulder, looking down at her. His face had a glazed look, but his grin had hardened. He looked ready to commit murder. He came at her.

Kayla lurched backwards and the chair gave way with a jaunting tilt beneath her. For a moment, she felt the weightlessness of falling, then she crashed to the floor.

Bradley stepped forward, his hands reaching for her. She struggled to crawl, but her legs were twisted up in the chair. She ripped at the carpet with her nails. She could feel Bradley right behind her.

She gained her feet and ran to the door and the safety of the hallway.

“Get out of here!” Bradley screamed. He threw the closest thing at hand, the game controller.

The controller struck the wall by the door—leaving a misshapen dent in the drywall—and ricocheted in a random direction.

Kayla ran down the hallway to her room.

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

THREE

In her bedroom, she dreamed of the cat outside her window, large and white, scratching to be let in, talking to her.

She’d spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding everyone, safely ensconced in her bedroom with the door shut tight. She’d paced and sat and paced some more. The room had seemed tiny, claustrophobic, the walls more closely packed than usual. She’d watched the storm from her window for a while as it continued to lash and wail outside. She’d tried to read her magazine, but the words were out of focus and distant. She’d been trapped in her room, it being the safest place. She wasn’t just restless, she’d realized, she was nervous. But why?

By four o’clock, the storm had subsided to a gentle drizzle. When she’d put the magazine down and held her breath, the house had been very quiet. Bradley must have turned the volume down on his game and her parents had probably been downstairs watching television. Outside, the light had faded quickly through the darkly bubbling clouds, as evening had struck Kayla’s window and quickly turned to night.

You know what’s going to happen, don’t you?
the cat said to her.

No. What’s going to happen?
Outside it was very dark. She could no longer see the houses across the street—or the street itself, for that matter.

The cat looked at her with round intelligent eyes.
You’re going to die.

No.

Oh, yes. Did you really think you could live forever?

I’m too young.

That matters, why?

I have important things to do.

Yes…
the cat said.
Maybe…

Then leave me alone.

It’s not up to me, little girl.
The cat licked its lips.
If only it were…

Outside, the night had changed; it had grown even darker and seemed to be filled with a sudden density of trees, crowding forward: a jungle, a twisting immensity of vines, and Kayla knew, if she were to open her window what would happen. The air would be stiflingly hot and humid. She would be in the jungle. And the cat would come toward her, slowly at first, creeping around the room—large and white and sleek—and then it would pounce, and its teeth would wrap around her throat.

You don’t have the strength for the trials. Without help, you’ll never make it.

I’m strong.

No. Not strong enough.

The sudden sound of shattering glass filled the room. Kayla looked and the jungle was groping through the window.

An uncoiling sound brought her head back around—a dull snick; a convulsion of thumps—and her eyes snapped to the two figures suspended over the floor by the ropes around their necks. They were already dead: faces swollen purple, white jelly running between their lips and eyes and ears.

We never wanted you. We never loved you. It’s better this way.

Don’t do this to me!
Kayla screamed.
I hate you!

The cat was behind her parents now, creeping toward her.

It’s better this way.

A vine snaked across the wall like a tentacle, curled about her dresser, disappeared beneath her bed.

I hate you! I’ve always hated you!

It’s alright, dear. Feelings mutual. We hate you too.

The cat looked her in the face from between the shriveled hanging legs of her parents.
Enough of this.
The cat leapt in the air, its claws extended, pointy teeth bared in a snarl.

The sounds of her own screams woke her.

* * *

It was very dark in her room. She gasped, sitting up. The sheets beneath her were wet with sweat and cold and stuck to her skin as she stood and got out of bed. She groped for the light switch on the wall, a shiver running through her. Outside her window, she could see only the tree by the curb, washed out and dead-looking under the dim, orange street lighting.

Her bladder felt swollen in her guts. She staggered to her desk and flicked the lamp on. She pushed her ear up against the door, but could hear nothing. She unlocked and turned the doorknob and pushed the door open enough so she could peek her head into the hallway and look around. It was shadowy and silent; the carpet was frayed and seemed to wriggle like a bed of worms if she stared at it for too long. The bathroom was at the end of the hall.

After she’d relieved herself, she hesitated before leaving the bathroom. It was chilly but humid with the door closed. The shower curtain was pulled closed across the bathtub. The fluorescent light over the mirror above the sink hummed and buzzed. Someone flickered by her and she turned and looked at herself in the mirror. She was very pale; she looked scared. Her brother’s journal had really given her the creeps, had given her the most vivid nightmare of her life. She could feel herself shaking.

She turned back to the bathtub, and, on intuition, ripped the shower curtain aside. She didn’t know what she expected to see. Probably nothing. Someone in the tub? No. There couldn’t be anyone in the tub. Her mother would have said something, cleared her throat, told her to get out. But the bathtub was filled with water, murky with scum from its un-scrubbed rim, no longer steaming and warm but tepid and stale. It was as if someone had drawn a bath many hours ago and forgotten about it. But there was something in the water, floating and bloated at its surface. She bent and poked at it with one trembling index finger and it bobbed and reared. As the object drifted slowly around, she was able to read words on its grainy surface, bulging out at her: “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.”

Kayla straightened and turned away. Her book was ruined; there was no point in trying to save it now. She wanted to be angry with Bradley for destroying her favorite possession, but she didn’t feel that way right now; all she felt was tired, worn down. At the moment all she wanted was to return to her room and for everyone to leave her alone.

Halfway down the hall, she stopped. She thought she’d heard something. She was standing in front of the closed door to Bradley’s room. Someone was crying. She leaned and put her ear against the door. She could hear whispering, someone saying things very quickly, in gasps.

She tapped lightly on the door with her knuckles. “Bradley?”

In answer, the whispers intensified for a moment, but she still could not make them out. Someone let out a sob. She hesitated by the door. Should she push it open? Bradley’s door was never closed—even when he slept he kept the door only partially shut.

“Bradley?” she said again, but her voice caught in her throat.

When there was no answer, she reached her hand down, grasped the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn. The door was locked.

She took a step back. She waited for a minute or two, but even the whispers seemed to have fallen silent. She hurried quickly down the hall to the safe glow of her room.

Something had been scratching, inches from her, at the other side of the door.

* * *

An hour later, the house came suddenly to life. It was as if a great deal of people had awoken all at once—from a drunken slumber—and now staggered up the stairs. Kayla listened to the raucous voices of her mother and father.

“That’s a very good idea,” she heard her mother say.

“Just to get a few things, then we’ll be right back,” her father said.

“What about Bradley? We promised him something for his birthday next week.”

“You’re right! Let’s get it now.”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

They sounded like excited children.

Their voices grew louder as they entered the hallway. Kayla heard her father pounding on Bradley’s door. “Son. Wake up. Come pick out a new game at the store.”

Kayla pressed herself against her door, listening carefully. She was surprised to hear Bradley’s voice, sounding remarkably normal.

“Yeah, okay,” she heard her brother say.

“Alright. Let’s go,” her father said.

“But Wrigley said—”

“Hush, woman!”

Kayla stood in the open doorway of her bedroom; she’d pushed the door open and was watching her parents standing over her brother. When they noticed her they turned, all three in unison, to stare at her. Her parent’s faces sagged in the dim lighting, eyes dry and red like glass. Her brother’s eyes were also red, but watery and scared.

Kayla’s mother took a step forward. “We’re going to the store for a bit, dear.” Her mother never called her ‘dear.’

“Alcohol,” Kayla said simply.

Her mother looked wounded. “Yes, and other things.”

“Yeah, yeah,” her father said. “Let’s go. Let’s go.”

Kayla watched her parents turn and begin down the stairs. Bradley followed, taking one last look over his shoulder at Kayla before his head bobbed down and out of sight. He looked desperate, his eyes pleaded with her. She listened to their mingled footsteps as they tromped through the house, the sound of the car as they drove away.

The first thing Kayla did, when she was sure her parents and her brother were gone, was to go through the house flipping the lights on until the house was bright and she could neither see the darkness of the night, nor the storm it concealed, that had begun again, wailing against the eaves of the house.