The Lovely Shadow (8 page)

“Johnny,” she said, “do you know what happens
to little boys who look at smut?” The beast wiggled all four of the
Playboys it was holding. “They end up poisoned and dirty, just like
their worthless fathers, and then they have to go live in the
dark,” the beast continued.

When the beast said “dark”, the two Snoopies
quit pumping their fists and instead held their paws out in front
of themselves, slightly apart. Between their paws, the air looked
as if it was beginning to swirl and darken, and condense. The
darkness condensed more and more until there was what appeared to
be a solid ball of dark, the size of an eight-ball, hovering in mid
air, and spinning lazily between each of their paws.

All three beasts began chanting again, but
this time their chant was “DARK, DARK, DARK.”

They all took one more step towards me and
were now only about two feet from me. I shrank back from them as
far as I could, into the stone wall.

The two Snoopy’s raised their paws above
their heads, the levitating balls of dark travelling with them, and
then thrust them forward, releasing the balls of dark to slam on
each side of me against the stone wall I was trying to melt
into.

The balls of dark made a muffled thump as
they shattered against the wall, and darkness began to run down the
wall as if it was made of fluid. The darkness began to spread out
across the wall, growing bigger every second, absorbing the light
around it like a black hole, and I knew intuitively that if I
touched that darkness, I’d be drawn into it and trapped in it
forever.

I started to scramble away from the wall, but
the mother-beast slithered forward and swung all four Playboy
wielding tentacles down on me, striking me with the magazines in
four places at once, and knocking me backwards into the dark.

I half expected to hit the wall, but was not
really surprised when I felt no resistance where the wall should
have been, and instead felt as if I were tumbling into a pit. The
inky darkness began to pour over me with a physical weight like
water as I tumbled downwards. I was screaming as I fell, but over
the sounds of my own screaming I could hear three voices
chanting;

“POISON, POISON, POISON” echoed through the
darkness from somewhere above me.

When the darkness finally engulfed me fully
and no more light could be seen in any direction, I quit screaming.
When I quit screaming, the dream ended and I slept through the rest
of the night without dreaming.

I woke up the following morning sometime
after sunrise. Grey light was filtering down to my bed area from
the bright golden stripe at the bottom of the door above my head. I
needed to pee again, but decided to empty the washing machine
first. For one, I wasn’t sure how many more washings in a row the
towels that were in it could handle before disintegrating, and for
two, I was still mostly naked.

The dryer was empty, which was nice, since it
made quick work of unloading the washer. With the clothes moved, I
hopped up on my stool and did my business. I decided not to start
the washer for just one little pee session, but decided instead
that I would wait for bedtime to do. That way I could fall asleep
to the noise of the washer rather than the imagined noises of the
monsters in the shadows.

I closed the lid and hopped down. When I
landed on the floor I winced. My body was still pretty sore from
where my mother had beat on me, and even more sore where I’d beat
myself falling on the stairs. The fingers that had been dislocated
on my right handed were still swollen and sore, but they were
immeasurably better than they had been prior to resetting them.

I surveyed the parts of my little prison that
I could see in the gloom and tried to figure out what to do. I
figured I’d try the door on the off chance that my mother had
unlocked it during the night.

I made my way carefully up the steps and
tried the door…locked. I had suspected it would be. I tried
knocking a few times, but there was no response. In frustration I
kicked the bottom of the door and stubbed my toe.

“Damn it, ouch!” I hollered out loud, while
silently thinking ‘well, that was brilliant, you dummy, wanna try
it again?’

I briefly considered hollering out for my
mother to see if I could play on her sympathies enough to let me
out, but the thought of actually asking her to help me left a
metallic taste in my mouth and set my emotional dial to ‘pissed
off’.

I sighed deeply and made my way back down the
stairs. I plopped down on my back on my mattress and crossed my
hands upon my breast and stared up at the cobwebs in the rafters. I
knew I had to think about my relationship with my mother, in light
of the fact that I now understood that she was crazy, but I didn’t
want to. I knew that things would never be the same between us, and
I wasn’t sure I ready to face that.

I decided to think of other things. I tried
to visualize Joe’s face and remember all the times he’d tickled me
to tears, or ruffled my hair while saying “What’s up, Squirt?” But
those memories just made me sadder and lonelier than I’d ever felt
in my life.

I lay there mourning my brother for a while,
shuddering with the force of my tears, but making sure to cry
silently. I could not bear the idea of my mother hearing me cry,
giving her the impression that she’d somehow defeated me.

The conscious knowledge that I didn’t want
her to hear me, and the reason why, forced the issue of my mother
back into the front of my mind, so I quickly pushed it away again
by thinking about Katelyn, my mother’s only friend before I was
born.

I had never actually met Katelyn. According
to Joe, the morning after I was conceived my mother called Katelyn
and let her have it with both barrels. She blamed her for leaving
her at the bar unattended. She accused her of setting up the whole
encounter with my father. She called her every filthy name she
could remember, and made up a few new ones, just for good
measure.

She made sure Katelyn was well aware that she
was no longer considered a friend, and threatened her with bodily
harm if they were ever to cross paths again. I marveled that if my
mother was that upset the morning after the encounter with my
father, she must have really gone nuts when she discovered she was
pregnant.

That line of thinking, of course, dragged my
mother back into the light of my conscious thinking and I decided
that I must finally surrender my mind to the ugliness that had come
between my mother and me.

I considered my mother’s illness first. She
was insane. She couldn’t help that. I should be forgiving, but as I
lay locked, nearly naked, in the darkness of the basement with a
bruised body, sore ear, and swollen fingers, I found forgiveness to
be beyond my reach.

I knew in my heart that I should be
empathetic, but I also figured it wasn’t going to happen, so I
figured I should try to understand exactly how I was responding. I
didn’t have to think long before I understood that I was angry. Not
simply angry, but really, really pissed.

I had never done anything to her to deserve
the treatment I received from her—never. I had loved her
unconditionally, accepted her tortures, and forgiven her countless
times as I tried to win her affection. I decided that I was not
going to do that anymore. I was done being the victim.

I chewed on my anger for a bit and tried to
imagine a way to get even with my mother, but quickly realized that
I didn’t want to get even, I just wanted to get away. I had no
intention of letting her torture me anymore and would do whatever I
had to do to stop her in the future, but I didn’t want her to
suffer, I didn’t want her to be paid back misery for misery.

That line of thinking led me to wonder about
my feelings for my mother; whether or not I still loved her. I
guessed that I did still love her, but I was never going to trust
her again. I no longer wanted her to love me; I only wanted her to
leave me.

I figured that she would let me out of the
basement soon enough, and when she did I would leave. I had no idea
where I would go, but I figured anywhere would be better than her
home had been of late.

As I came to peace with the fact that I still
loved my mother, but didn’t like her, and didn’t want her, my anger
faded and I was able to find some semblance of forgiveness. I could
forgive, for the Sickness took her against her will. I could even
feel a certain level of sadness for her—for what she had lost—but I
would never forget.

Forgiveness settled onto me like a warm
blanket, fresh from the drier, and warmed me from the inside out,
bringing a certain level of peace into my heart that I hadn’t had
in a long time. I smiled contentedly in the gloom.

As I was still lying there, basking in my own
magnanimity, the drier buzzed, making me jump nearly out of my
skin, and causing an instant flash of pain throughout my broken
body. I got up and dug my clothes out of the dryer, leaving the
towels behind, and dressed myself.

After dressing, I decided to occupy my time
for a bit by picking my mattress up and setting up my chair in its
place. That chair was damn comfy, and the process of setting it up
gave me something to do besides sitting and staring at the darkness
at the back of the basement, wondering what evil horrors might be
hiding back there.

I glanced involuntarily towards the darkness
and remembered staring into the darkness in my dream, looking for
the shimmering beast. I shuddered, and quickly diverted my
attentions to tearing down my night-time accommodations in favor of
my day time ones.

I pulled the mattress out of the way, and
leaned it up against the side of the stairs. I found my chair and
set it up. With my chore done, I decided it was time for some
breakfast.

I moved over to the rack and searched out a
box of cereal. It turned out to be my favorite; Lucky Charms. I
carried it back over to my chair, where I sat and ate it dry,
sucking on the marshmallows until they dissolved. When I’d eaten my
fill, I realized from the pressure in my guts that I was going to
have another biological receptacle problem soon.

I had no problem peeing in the washer, but I
wasn’t about to hang my butt over the opening and crap in there.
That was my source of drinking water for crying out loud! I looked
towards the dark side of the basement in dismay. I knew I had to go
find a bucket back there; a prospect made even more terrifying
after my dream from the previous night.

‘How much can one kid take?’ I thought
forlornly to myself.

I just stood there beside my chair trying to
summon up enough courage to enter the darkness. My belly burbled.
That was all the motivation I needed to get moving. I had just got
clean pants back on and had no desire to soil them again so
soon.

I took a deep breath and cautiously shuffled
out of my circle of dim illumination and into the inky blackness.
The dark side of the basement was like a whole other world,
separate from the one in the light, but somehow connected to it by
an unseen force that held the two worlds together and kept them
from bursting apart and spinning uncontrollably out into the far
reaches of the universe in opposite directions.

I had remembered seeing in the past, a couple
old five gallon buckets near the place that I had grabbed the
mattress the previous night, so I headed to that area, got on my
hands and knees, and felt around blindly near the floor until my
hand hit a bucket.

I grabbed it as quickly as I could and
started crawling backwards towards the light, dragging the bucket
along. I was feeling rather proud of myself for having braved the
darkness and not let my imagination get too carried away.

Just before entering the light, while still
figuratively patting myself on the back for my bravery, something
leapt up from within the bucket and clawed my hand as it scrabbled
for purchase. I screamed a crystal shattering scream and flung my
hand away from my body violently, throwing my bucket back into the
blackness in the process.

I was backpedaling towards the light as
quickly as I could, shrieking like a banshee the whole way.
Whatever had clawed my hand was now in my pant leg, near my left
calf, scratching me as it scrambled around. I kept screaming and
crawling as fast as I could. There was no way in Hell I was going
to mess with whatever evil beast was in my pants until I was safely
in the light.

I reached the light in a matter of seconds
and immediately started beating at my leg with both hands. It hurt
my right hand something fierce, but in my terror I didn’t care, I
just kept slapping myself.

I beat myself silly for about five seconds or
so before I saw a small grey mouse flee out of my pants leg and
scurry across the floor, back into the darkness. I was still
screaming and slapping myself, even though I now knew what it was
that had tormented me. Eventually my screams turned into a kind of
sobbing laugh, and though I was still slapping my leg, there was no
real force left in the blows.

It was a tiny little mouse that had scared me
half to death. The idea struck me funny for some reason, and that
was what turned my screams into laughter. I think the fear and
shock was what caused me to cry while I was laughing.

Once I had settled down a bit, but before I
could stop and think about what it could have been that scratched
my hand and ran up my pants, I crawled back into the darkness as
quickly as I dared and felt around until I found my bucket
again.

I dragged the bucket over by the washing
machine, just to the limit of dim visibility, and tried to hurry up
and get my pants undone. My bowels were threatening mutiny against
me at this point and the need to hurry was pressing, to say the
least.