Chapter 6

VI

The sun slowly crept over the horizon creating peculiar patterns on the bedroom wall. Amy stared at the unfamiliar shapes projected by the sun and curtains. She couldn't get back to sleep after the nightmare. She held the blankets to her chin like a child, afraid of what may lie beyond her impervious cotton sanctuary. The alarm went off and Calvin slapped at it blindly. “Of course he slept like a baby,” she thought as he rolled over toward her.

“How did you sleep?”

“Not too bad. It's so hard to get comfortable with this bowling ball protruding form my stomach,” Amy said as she gave him the best smile she could muster at 7:00 o'clock in the morning.

She didn't want to tell him the truth. That she couldn't sleep at all. That if she closed her eyes every horrible thing imaginable converged on her. Gnawing, tearing away what little sanity that she felt she had left. She walked into the kitchen and Calvin was at the stove cooking eggs. He wasn't much of a cook, but he could cook a damn good breakfast when he wanted to. Amy sat at the table and Calvin brought over a plate of eggs and sausage.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Calvin said as he leaned down to give Amy a kiss. “I know you didn't get much sleep last night, so I thought I would make you breakfast.”

“Thank you honey. You're so sweet.” Amy smiled as she began to smother her eggs with ketchup. Normally she would add hot sauce on top of that, but with the pregnancy the heartburn wasn't worth it.

Calvin went upstairs to shower and dress for work and Amy went into the living room to lay on the couch. She placed her feet up on the arm of the couch and put a pillow under her head. She closed her eyes for what seemed like only a few seconds, but when she awoke she found a note lying on her chest. It was from Calvin. He just wrote to tell her that since she had so little sleep the previous night that he didn't want to wake her when left for work. She smiled a little as she read the note, though it made her feel so much worse for not telling him everything that has been going on. What could she tell him really? “Honey, I'm seeing ghosts? I think I'm slowly going insane.”

Amy willed herself up off the couch. She started to make her way to the kitchen to make some tea, but a noise stopped her. She saw the door leading to the kitchen slowly open. As the door pushed forward to its full extent Amy uttered a piercing scream which she instantly tried to stifle by placing her hand over her mouth.

In the doorway was the girl they picked up on the side of the road. Blood caked to her white dress and pooling onto the hardwood floor. Amy watched as the girl slowly faded into a bluish-gray fog until there was nothing left but the door frame and an empty hallway. The low light of the morning sun speckled the hall with a dull yellow glow. An overwhelming urge to sit down overcame Amy as though her spinal column was removed and filled with cement, heavy and cold. Her mind reeled trying to come to grips with what she just saw. “Am I still dreaming? What the f**k is going on?” She said to herself. “Am I really going insane? Is it just lack of sleep?” This unexpected weight crashes into Amy. The thoughts of her son and the strange goings on in this new house pressing down on every inch of her. She leans against the dining room table too afraid to walk into the kitchen, too afraid of what might be in there. The walls begin to wheeze as they push in toward her. She wanted to leave the house. To escape the madness, the nightmare that has become her home. “But how far could I get,” she thought, “with no car and a belly that protrudes further than my tits?” It will be hours until Calvin gets home, but Amy can't stand the idea of spending one second more in the house.

She walks toward the front door, but before her extended hand could touch the knob the door begins to move and contort, like an old man chewing a mouthful of tobacco. Amy pulls back her hand and watches as the window shrinks, collapsing in on itself until it is just a solid wooden door. She stumbles and falls back against the couch. The windows begin to shrink and collapse, first in the foyer and dining room then the living room and kitchen. She holds her hands to her stomach as the sunlight slowly fades from the house and the darkness creeps in.

Amy can see the sunlight disappear upstairs as though someone was walking in the rooms shutting the light off. She can hear the cabinet doors in the kitchen opening and banging against each other. Glasses flying and shattering onto the floor as though someone released a hellish gremlin to have some fun. Silverware propelled into the walls, a Las Vegas water show in the sink. The floor littered with broken glass. Pots and pans flying and crashing and...silence. The house is as bright as a newborn's smile again. Another dream that has slipped into her reality, or reality slipping into her dreams.