The Terror #wattys2017 #TNTHorrorContest

Sinking

As I held my poor beautiful girl in my arms something started happening in my head, no more than that, there was a shift in my thinking or perhaps my reality, a paradigm shift.  My whole life had been spent in relative innocents, things were easy for me, nothing to tragic really, just your normal teenage stuff.  I became acutely aware of the emptiness left behind by the passing of Heather and the horror of what it must have been like for her, the suffering agony of broken bones and burned flesh as they wire brushed and peeled away the wasted ruins of what had been the only thing she clung to for her security, her very identity...Her beauty

It was beyond my comprehension before this moment as Michelle wept in my arms more deeply than I ever experienced a person crying before. She knew, oh too well, the pains a young woman must go through in this society when you don't meet the standards.  It never occurred to me before that She and Heather must have shared a certain mysterious knowledge unknown to men. We have our struggles of course but it is rare for a man to count on his beauty to work his way through life, and when you are a woman like Heather who had little else to lean on for stability but her exceptional good looks, to have lost it must have been a horror even beyond the physical suffering of her wounds.

Perhaps it was that alone that caused her to not want to face the future. It may be possible that even if she were not fully conscious of it herself, that her drive toward survival was lacking because that future seemed too bleak to confront.  

These are the strange ideas that past through my mind as we stood in the hallway of the hospital and cried together.  There were no words I was going to say to make this space, that once contained this delightful, alluring, enchanting intellect, feel any less gone.  It was an emptiness I had not been associated with, we were not prepared for this outcome. Never again would we see her smiling face greet us when we came into the apartment. The void was astounding, how could something that does not exist cause such pain and sorrow?

I was devoid of feeling yet the tears ran down my face, something inside me was malfunctioning, a short circuit, a break in the wires that make everything make sense.  We stood in each other's arms until it seemed as if the motion was the only thing left to do. I looked into Michelle's eyes, red with swelling and full of depletion and kissed her salty tears away. She had a tissue in her hand and dabbed at my face then embraced me again.

"Guess we better go huh?" She said

I nodded and took her hand,

'Let's go then," I said

We slowly made our way to the elevator and stood with strangers who could only guess why we were so sad.  Hospitals it seems are better places to leave than to arrive, at least if your breathing.  I was glad we had each other, she and I, I hoped this great loss would not tear us apart but bring us even closer. Ding, ground floor, we all stepped out and as I walked away through the lobby I felt like a traitor, like I was just walking away like nothing had happened. Why didn't I try harder to see her? Maybe if I had been here sooner I could have helped her pull through, I knew I could and I should have been there when she was feeling bad about her looks and any other situation.  I didn't dare say these things aloud, poor Michelle was probably battling her own demons in that regard.

Just as the automatic doors swung open to the outside and the heat from the afternoon impinged on us like a Santa Ana wind, I saw Danny sitting on a bench smoking a cigarette.  He looked up from behind his shades and stood to greet us. First, he hugged Michelle saying how sorry he was,

"I know you two were close little sister, if you need anything you call
me OK"

She just nodded her head while dabbing her cheek with a tissue.

Then he asked her, "Can I steal your man for a minute?"

Again she nodded and sat down on the bench, I kissed her on the forehead.

'I'll just be a minute sweetie, I love you"

He and I went around the corner only a few steps away from the bench. Danny hugged me with a sincerity that brought another tear to my eye.

"I'm really sorry about your friend buddy." He said, and I believed him.

"I saw her Danny, as real as you standing here right now."

He removed his shades and looked me in the eye.

"I'm not surprised with all this other shit that's been going on. Jimmy was really concerned about you, he knew something was up. Here," He gave me what looked like a brown paper lunch bag with the top rolled shut," He said to take a pinch of this and put it in a glass of orange juice, it should make the visions stop."

"Visions?" I said, "So we're calling them visions now? I guess that as good a thing as any. I don't know if I can do this much longer Danny, I'm just a fucking kid you know, I wasn't really prepared for all this. You should have seen her dude, she was so beautiful and happy and then, then she was something from a freakshow or a horror movie. The terror I felt was beyond my ability to comprehend and I'm just waiting any minute for Dale or some other horror to show up around the next corner and Michelle, poor little Michelle is in no way able to deal with this shit."

"Calm down homeboy, take a deep breath, you're freaking yourself out."

He took me by the shoulders,

"Look at me son, look at me," he was focused like a laser beam...."Now breath for a minute, that's right, just breath nice and slow and chill the fuck out. You aren't going to do her any good like that now are you? One step at a time now, we are going to figure this thing out OK? You're tougher than you think Merrill, you have got to think of Michelle first; right?"

I began to feel calmer as he counseled me, I had to think of Michelle, had to stay calm, be brave and calm. This was all going to work out somehow with Jimmy the Miner.

"OK Dan, so what's next?

"First thing, you gotta get some of that stuff in the bag in ya, so on the way home get some orange juice and do like Jimmy said. Then I gotta call Jimmy and tell him what's going on so we can set up another date to do this thing we gotta do."

As he was talking everything began to get surreal again, his voice took on an echoing quality and the ground started releasing quicksilver, it made everything shiver and sparkle. Pink Floyd was echoing low in the background and across the parking lot was Dale's Mercury, Heather on the hood in painted on jeans, spiked heels and a shorty top posing like a pin-up model, Dale leaning on the fender next to her in his leather cut-off and engineer boots and Steve sitting in the passenger seat, all waving at me like I was suppose to come join them.  I stepped off the curb toward the car, forgetting all about Danny or Michelle or anything else for that matter, all I wanted was to be with them......

HOOOONNNNK!

A car horn and Danny grabbing me from behind snapped me back to reality and there was that look again like I had an arrow in my head and he slapped me hard across the face.  

"WAKE THE FUCK UP MUTHERFUCKER!"