Project Pallid (25 page)

Her
response was a silent one as she reached sideways and slapped me sharply in the
face. It brought tears to my eyes. Partially from its sting, but more from what
it represented. It was a side of her I’d never seen coming.

“Don’t
you
dare
speak about him that way! That man is a Saint, Damian. A Saint!
And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll understand that only
He
can save you. Only
He
can save you from The Whitening. I just hope
you’re able to see that before it’s too late, because I’d hate to have to leave
you behind. But I’ve been talking with him, and I’ve come to accept that it
might have to happen, Damian. But I’m still praying you’ll hear his message
before it’s too late!”

It
was the first I’d ever heard of The Whitening, and if it weren’t for the sting
in my cheek, driving my assault on the man instead of his illness, I might have
delved deeper into her word choice. “What!!?? Do you even hear yourself!!??” I
yelled.

The
wheel whipped left and we swerved a tight, back and forth before Mom was able
to stop the car in the breakdown lane. She put it in park and turned to me with
an authoritative conviction that was entirely new—one that brinked on
possession.

“You
listen to me, Damian, and you listen good.” Seatbelt off, her finger waved in
my face. “The next time you open your mouth … the next time you say anything
about Pastor Dave … you make sure you’ve thought it through, and you make sure
you’ve thought it through good and hard. Because the next time I hear you say
another negative thing about that man, I’m not going to lay a finger on you.
No, I’m not going to touch you at all …

“The
next time you say another bad thing about that man, Damian, I’m just going to
leave you. Hands off. That’s it. I’ll be entirely done with you, and I won’t be
there to help you when it happens. You’ll just have to suffer with the rest of
them, and that’s what you’ll deserve if you can’t open up and hear His word.”

I
was totally dumbfounded, but what could I possibly say? Something had taken
hold of my mom—some power that held her hostage beyond
rationalization—and I knew that nothing said would free her from it.

“Mom
… are you alright?” I asked, at a near whimper and pressed tight to the door.

“Of
course I’m okay, Damian. Why would you ask such a silly question? I’ve never
been better, in fact.”

I
cringed at the self-assured way in which she spoke; she couldn’t see herself
being totally brainwashed by the guy. Whatever lines he’d been feeding her,
they’d done their magic: my mom wasn’t my mom anymore. She was someone
different. Someone more pious than I’d ever seen her before. Self-righteous in
her own, self-basking glow, I admitted defeat to her then, for one of the first
times in my months of inquiries and investigations. Clearly, my battle wasn’t
going to be won with words alone, so I resolved to let it rest, and I promised
to do whatever I could, and on the down-low, to save her from the Laverdier
Lobotomy that was silently being performed on her.

“Maybe
I just need to start listening to him more,” I whispered and sunk into the
wedge of the seat and the door. I bought into the overwhelming insanity that
consumed the car and didn’t fight it any longer. If we were ever going to get
home, it wasn’t going to happen by waging a war with her, and being the only
rational one left of the two of us, I decided it best to bow out of the
argument.

Her
satisfied look was disarming. Like a coin flipped, her face relaxed, her body
eased into the seat, and she turned back to the wheel to look at the road
ahead. “That’s right, Damian,” she said. “Maybe it
is
time you started
listening more. You know, Mr. Laverdier says that’s one of the most important
steps in becoming a better person. Listening. Opening your eyes and ears to the
suffering around you. Hearing the cries of others. Understanding their pains.
Building connections at the core of humanity. It all starts with listening,
Damian. And you just made a first step,” she said proudly. Scarily. Like she’d
just enlisted a new member into an exclusive club.

I
didn’t want anything to do with it. I didn’t like him, I didn’t like how he’d
been treating Catee, and I didn’t like what he was doing to my mom. I barely
knew the person sitting beside me anymore, and I could hardly fathom how my dad
must’ve been feeling at the time.

We
rode in complete silence the rest of the ride to Platsville, and we found Dad
knocked out on the couch when we walked into the living room: one arm tucked
under his head, the other outstretched over a partially eaten, Hungry Man
dinner.

“Darryl!”
Mom snapped. “Darryl! You get up, NOW.”

He
stirred to consciousness, pulled the remote from beneath him, and flicked off
the TV.

“Hey,
guys. You’re home.” He somehow found enthusiasm, in spite of his sad context.

“Darryl,
just look at the mess you’ve made!” Mom pointed to the remains of the “dinner”
that he’d left laid-out.

“Oh,
that? I was just taking care of that, Martha,” he answered and moved sluggishly
to his feet.

“Just
about to … Was going to … I’m about to …” Mom mocked. “Do you ever finish
anything
around here, Darryl? Do you even care about this house at all? Is your shop the
only thing important to you anymore?” she belittled.

I
couldn’t tell where any of it was coming from. I was a bystander, caught in the
crosshairs, who only knew the parts they revealed, or made up for me. Maybe
something
had
been going sour between my parents all along. Maybe I just
didn’t know about it. Or maybe, like my instinct screamed, Mom had totally lost
it.

“Martha,
I don’t know
what
you want from me anymore. One minute, it’s to be here,
at this hour; another minute, it’s to be there, at that time. Sometimes you
don’t want me around at all. Other times, I’m cleaning and taking care of
everything around this house while you’re away at god knows what. I - DON’T
– KNOW – WHAT – YOU – WANT - ANYMORE!!” My dad yelled
parceled words of frustration.

“I
can’t talk to you right now,” Mom answered calmly.

“What
do you mean, you can’t talk to
me
right now? I can’t talk to you
ever
,
anymore. That’s what you’ve become. That’s who you are now, Martha! A
stranger!” Dad’s words echoed the same sentiments I’d felt back in the car. “I
don’t know what you want me to do or who you want me to be anymore!” His volume
came without regulation or restraint.

“For
the sake of Damian,” Mom returned to her more self-righteous self, “this
conversation is done. Clean up your dinner, Darryl, and we’ll talk later.
Alone
.”
She punched her last word with an emphasis that told him it was final.

And
then, with an audible snarl, Dad retreated. He picked up his dinner and took it
to the kitchen without another word, resigning to finish his attack, later on.

Satisfied,
Mom removed her earrings and headed down the hall toward their bedroom.

It
was the last I saw of either of them that night, and I decided it best to go
straight to my room to avoid the shrapnel of whatever war was about to wage
between them. And as tempted as I was to listen-in, ear-to-floor, to decipher
their muffled yells later that night, I didn’t. I put my headphones on and
slipped away into one of the only remaining solaces I had left.

May 10
^th:
Day 9

Catee
and I pedaled home in complete silence from their place in Damariscotta, with
neither of us having anything insightful to add to the horrifying truths we’d
learned at the encampment. We’d each processed what we’d seen and heard. We’d
formulated our own conclusions by connecting the dots of what we’d long-seen
coming. And for once, neither of us had any new revelations to offer the other.
We didn’t need to when the reality of it all stared us so flagrantly in the
face.

And
as we stopped to rest in the semi-darkness of intermittent streetlights, I
asked a question that rang more appropriate for me than I ever imagined it
would: “What would you do if your dad were dead?”

It
wasn’t intended to be a threat, but it could’ve easily come across as one. I
asked it more out of concern for what would come of her if she were ever left
orphaned. With her mom gone, what if this wasn’t the figurative departure of
her dad, too? What would she do if they were both entirely gone from her life?
Who would she be left with? I asked it with more concern than it came out
sounding.

But
she answered. And without reservation. She announced to me that she was neither
her mother, nor her father—that no matter what ate at each of them, she
was her own person—and that their fates could never dictate her own. It
was a profound statement to hear from another fourteen-year-old. It was a
wisdom that drew me closer and closer to her. Catee, of all people, deserved
the worship that her dad so manipulatively strove for. She, of both of them,
represented the goodness of strength and moral solidarity. She, of both of
them, should be the one to survive this. Not him. Not even me
.

I
snap back to look down at my dad, still crumpled at the bottom of the stairs,
and to face the gravity of the here and now. I can’t look at him. I can’t even
think of him. I can’t stand to think about any of it, but I’ve got to do
something because I can’t leave him to rot away down here—pallid or not.

I
decide on one of the only remaining options after failing to get him up the
stairs, and I inch him along to the furthest corner of the room.

With
hands, pot lids, and an hour’s time, I manage to dig up a foot of gravel that’s
almost six feet long, and I drag his body into it. His shoulders barely sink
below its surface, and when I cover him with the extracted dirt, it creates a
mound that’s all too reminiscent of those clichéd, horror movie graves. I shake
my head to clear my thoughts and to refocus on the reality of things around me.
I’m living one of those movies.

After
the last bits of gravel are scooped to the top of the mound, I say some final
words. They come unplanned and unexpected, but they seize me as essential,
given the moment.

“Dad,” I start out. “Dad, I want you to
know that you were the best dad I could’ve ever asked for. You helped me to
become a man, and I promise to bring Mom back. I’ll make her see what it’s done
to everybody—what he’s done to all of us. She’ll see, Dad. I promise. And
things will be just like before. And Nicole will come home. And we’ll make
family dinner. It’ll be just like it was. I promise,” I say, and collapse onto
the mounded pile.

“I
promise. I’ll KILL him, Dad. I will. For you … I’LL KILL HIM!!!”

It’s
hard to pull away, but everything inside me screams that I’ve got no other
choice. I can’t dwell on what I can’t change, and as hard as it might be to
walk away and put it from my mind, I do.

My
dad’s belt, stretched taut across the door handle, is a reminder of what’s been
lost since the sun last set: a reminder of what’s irreversible. But I still
have my mom, Nicole, and Catee to think about, and there’s hope in that. Or, I
think there is. There’s got to be, because I can’t do this alone and there
isn’t much else left.

When
the sickness escaped the hospital and found its way into homes, there was no
stopping it. Cases sprung up all across Madison to crisscross the city in a
fabric of infection. Families, who’d been desperately caring for their own,
suddenly found themselves attacked by the subjects of their affections. Parents
mauled children. Children mauled parents. And as soon as the infection began
transmitting through attacks, there was no turning back. It all happened so
fast from there.

One
woman, two doors down from Catee’s place and who’d been bedridden for days,
suddenly found the strength to greet her three kids at the door, after school.
The pale but revitalized mother pounced from the kitchen to tear away each of
their throats with her own teeth. Police took her down in the front yard.

At
another house, just around the corner from there, some seven-year-old, who’d
been laid-out sick in the living room, suddenly sprang back to life and gnawed
away half his mother’s face by the time his father stabbed him through the
heart.

Similar
stories occurred concurrently, all across Madison, and they spread quickly to
neighboring towns. Even Platsville made it to the news by the second day. We
were all sitting ducks as it unfolded around us, and we were powerless to do
anything to stop it.

I’d
seen enough.

I’d
learned enough.

And
I’d lived out eight months of suspicious inquiry to know the face behind it. I
even had a pretty good idea of what it might be … even more than experts, who
scrambled for a cure.

And
I’ve got an even better understanding of The Whitening now that I’ve seen its
face and its unrelenting thirst to wipe out everything in its path—fueling
itself before it fades to nothing.

And
though we were only teenagers, deemed too young and too immature to understand
or be of any use, Catee and I vowed to end it—whatever that meant at the
time. We’d tried calling the hospital. We’d tried pretending we were from
Crosspoint, too, but nothing landed. Nothing we’d done had changed a thing or
altered Mr. Laverdier’s course in any way. We were knee-deep in the rising
muck, and we were losing mobility fast when I suggested that we report her dad
to the police.