The Eleventh Word

CW: Mentions of substance abuse and graphic violence.

It is exactly four am, according to the glowing alarm clock on her side table. She is restless, and intrusive thoughts dart in and out of her mind like bullets. I can’t sleep, she thinks, sitting up and heading for the door. No point in trying.

Then she sees it.

She breathes deeply, in, out. Her knuckles are white from clutching the cold steel cross, the chain taut against her neck. She slowly backs into the corner of her room.

She stares into its ghoulish milky eyes, its scraggly, brown hair, and the streaks of dark maroon marking its face. Its limbs are cracked and held at odd angles. She lets go of the cold cross, now dripping with phantom blood that isn’t hers. Now there is bright crimson all over her hands. One of those hands reaches for the light switch to her right, leaving crimson streaks along the wall. “Please don’t hurt me,” she whispers, trying to keep her eyes off the massive gash splitting open its maggot-filled skull. She mutters the prayers her husband taught her- before he left. “I’m sorry.”

But the ghost doesn’t move. Instead, it stands there with rotted, glaring eyes. This is all your fault, it seems to say.

It’s been three years. He shouldn’t be here, she thinks. Terror stabs through her stomach as she lunges for the light switch.

“I’m sorry,” she repeats. Then she squeezes her eyes shut. “He’s not real. He’s not real. There is no one else in this room. He’s not real.” Her fingers slither to the switch and snap it open.

She opens her eyes.

The room is illuminated by the single flickering bulb above her bed on the opposing wall. Sickly yellow light washes over the room, lighting up the spot where it was standing just seconds ago.

She sighs in relief, the weight in her chest lightening. She looks down at the cross and her hands, now devoid of bloodstains. She creeps out into her kitchen silently, so as not to wake her son, and opens the fridge. A bottle of red wine is sitting next to a glass of milk in the empty fridge. She hesitates before picking up the alcohol, then timidly settles on the table.

There is a thick book sitting in front of her, bearing her grandmother’s name. Something deep within her guides her to open it. Sneezing as dust billows from the untouched pages, she finds a dog-eared page, more worn out than the others.

Her eyes skim over eleven highlighted words again and again. “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,” she whispers. She closes her eyes, trying to let the words lift her like they used to. She repeats the verse, silently begging for some kind of divine intervention. But her heart climbs into her throat. Her eyes fill with tears.

She pops the cork and puts her lips to the neck; drinks like she hasn’t for three years.

She gasps when she’s done, and tries to find a place to put the half-empty bottle. But there is no space on her table. She moves the book to the edge to make space for the wine, but the book is heavy and starts to fall off. She grabs it before it can and decides to just put the cold bottle in her lap.

She is tipsy and unbalanced, so it is not long before the bottle leans over. She reaches out to grab it- too late. The bottle shatters against the floor. The sound rings in her ears.

She jumps to her feet without thinking, landing on a shard of glass that punches right through her skin.

Red-hot pain shoots up her leg, and she clutches her foot by the ankle. She can barely breathe through the thick cloak of blinding pain. The bite of the cold glass stings and screams rip their way from her throat, ebbing to restrained whimpers as she realizes she needs an ambulance.

Where is my phone? Panic flashes in her mind when she remembers it’s dead.

Dead.

She tries to block the flurry of memories. But it is too late.

It was three years ago, in the small hours of the morning. She was on the phone again, sweaty fingers clamping the device tightly over her ear.

“Hey, it’s David. Leave a message at the tone.”

She hung up and threw the phone on the empty seat beside her. She picked up the bottle of alcohol on the dashboard, slippery with condensation, tipped back her head, and drank until she couldn’t breathe. She glanced into the mirror above her. Mascara streaked down her flushed cheeks, hair sticking up like a bird’s nest, pupils blown wide from the abuse of alcohol- no wonder he left her.

She growled in frustration.

Her foot slammed down on the pedal. Outside the car, the moon shone like a flashlight into her eyes. Wind whipped across her face through the open window. She swerved into her street and picked up her phone again.

“Hey, it’s David. Leave a message at the tone.”

She screamed and threw the phone out of the window, forgetting to look straight.

She couldn’t have stopped even if she saw him.

THUMP.

A scream.

She wasn’t sure whose it was.

She hit the brakes and jumped out, scanning the abandoned road behind her.

A body.

His body.

Lying across the road, limbs splayed out like a broken doll’s.

His scraggly, brown hair matted with blood.

A giant gash in his head.

She clutches her head, trying to drown out the memories that mix with the throbbing travelling up her leg.

Then she hears a voice. Her eyes snap open.

Her blurry gaze falls to the door on the other side of the room, where a scraggly-haired figure stands camouflaged in shadow.

Screams rip their way from her throat. “No! No! Stay away from me!” She tries to retreat, dragging her injured foot behind her, leaving a long smear of blood in her wake. “I didn’t mean it, I swear! I won’t touch a bottle again-” she chokes.

The silhouette’s face flickers from a man’s to a little child’s.

“Bobby?”

The small child’s face is flushed with pure terror.

“Mommy?” His voice echoes in the silence, alternating between the low, guttural voice of a man’s and the thin tone of a child.

All the blood leaches from her face. “Honey, go back to your room,” his mother pants, anxiously wiping the blood from her hands, crawling over the red splotch on the floor to conceal it from his view.

Her child’s cheeks turn red and his chin trembles.

Her eyes widen; she leaps forward, all thoughts of injuries and ghosts and blood vanishing as she cradles the child to her chest as he sobs.

“It’s okay, honey,” she says, fending off the panic. “It’s alright. Let’s go to bed. Mommy’s okay.” She lifts her son into his bed and holds him, stroking his brown hair, until his snuffles fade to light snores. The pain in her foot has faded. But her arms still ache from where she held her boy.

She gently removes her arms from around her baby’s body and tiptoes back into the kitchen. She collapses on her seat, dragging in breath after breath, her eyelids pressed together.

Then, slowly, she opens her eyes.

The book is closed. The clock reads four am exactly. There is a ringing in her ears- echoes of Mommy and Hey, it’s David and THUMP THUMP THUMP.

An invisible choir chants around her, singing from within her walls.

“Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”

“That is debauchery. Be filled with the Spirit.”

“Debauchery. The Spirit.”

Her eyes flutter to the table.

The bottle is full again. Her eyes flash down to the floor- the clean floor. And then her gaze falls to her foot, completely uninjured.

She squeezes her eyes shut again, trying to blink herself awake. The walls seem to breathe in time with her pulse. Whimpers escape from her mouth as she stumbles out of her chair, heart pounding. She gropes her way to her bedroom, turning all the lights on before she enters. She crawls under the covers, hand clutching the cross on her necklace, repeating tired prayers, desperately trying to escape, waiting with bated breath for the glow of sunrise to lighten her room, before a single, terrible thought seizes her.

I can’t sleep.