Chrissy's Mom

Day One    

 Gina sits in her favorite chair, grateful to be home. Her wound pulls as she stretches out her legs, reclining fully because she can. She lays a hand against her lower stomach, where her body aches and throbs.

        She’d been split nearly in half. The pain had been excruciating. She’d screamed and screamed and screamed as the doctors had pulled things from inside of her before closing her up again. For a while, nobody thought she would make it, but she was a fighter. She’d pulled through, and now, here she was.

        The doctors had warned her to be careful for the next few weeks. No heavy lifting. No extreme activities. They didn’t want her stitches to come out. They didn’t want to see her again.

She lays her head against the headrest, closing her eyes.

        And then, the screaming begins.

        Days pass.

        Every few hours, the monster begins to scream. At first, her sister, Gennifer, was there with her, making sure she didn’t do anything she shouldn’t. But her sister never came when the monster attacked her, when it latched onto her and sucked out her energy. She would scream and cry, but nobody would save her. The monster would take its fill, and she would fall unconscious, her arm falling limp at her side, her wound screaming from the activity.

        Her sister would come, then.

        She’d check the wound.

        She’d call the doctors. She would spend an hour speaking with them in low voices from the other room.

       Gina would just sleep.

        Six months pass.

        Her stitches are long gone, though her wound still aches from time to time. A reminder of the time she’d lost her battle.

        When she hadn’t been enough.

        The doctors called sometimes to check on her, but she never answered. She just let them leave messages she never listened to. Her sister stopped by sometimes, too. Assured her she was doing a good job, asked her how things had been going. Gina would say she was going back to work soon. She’d say she didn’t need help with bills. She’d say things were getting better.

She never told her sister about the monster.

It was hers to find.

Hers to kill.

Nobody could help her.

        Nine months.

        The monster still calls for her, though not as frequently. Sometimes, she can ignore it. Go about her day as if things are fine. Sometimes, she is paralyzed with fear, standing still in whichever room she happens to be in, hoping it won’t find her as Gennifer dances around the living room, humming soothing melodies until the screaming stops.

Eleven months   

        Gina’s getting better at fighting. She’s taking boxing classes. She bought a hunting knife at the local department store. She spends hours standing in front of her mirror, checking her stances, raising her knife, slicing at the air in front of her until her arms are numb, her body covered in a fine layer of sweat.

      The monster never comes while she practices. It doesn’t make a sound.

                  Maybe it’s afraid.

It should be.

                                              She’s going to kill it.

The monster is screaming again.

Gina sits in the darkness of her closet, clenching and unclenching the hair closest to her ears. Two years. For two years, the monster has hunted her in the wee hours of morning and in the deepest hours of night. She wants to scream, too, but can't, lest the monster discover her hiding place. So she sits in the darkness, biting ulcers into the inside of her lip, covering and uncovering her ears, one foot tapping as the hours pass and restlessness creeps in like light through nearly-closed shutters.

Through the screaming, she hears shuffling and incoherent mumbles, things crashing a bedroom away. She’ll have to clean the mess up later, when the sun comes up and the monster leaves. She finds herself rocking back and forth but stops when the action makes her dress hangers rattle against the clothing rod.

The screaming stops.

She holds her breath.

The morning comes.

The monster leaves.

Two and a half years.

Gina decides it’s time to face the monster.

She waits until nightfall, hiding in her closet, clutching the handle of her knife. When the screaming begins, she takes a deep breath. She steadies herself, and steps out of the closet.

She knows her house. The antique table her grandmother left for her sits outside her bedroom door, situated against the wall to hide crayon markings from a year ago. A round table sits beside the couch, awkwardly in the walkway to hide a mushed carrot stain. The chair she’d sat in when she came home from the hospital two and a half years before, still slightly stained with milky white spots. The loose floorboard in the hall, where she keeps her hunting knife when she isn’t practicing in her mirror. She wanted it somewhere the monster couldn’t find it during its late-night prowls.

The monster knows the house, too. Has studied it extensively. Still, it wants her. Craves her. And so it’s easy to find.

It stands in the hallway outside the second bedroom, teetering on wobbly legs as if drunk. It makes a high, screeching sound, taking a shaky step toward her. She almost takes a step back.

 It’s a terrifying creature. Wild blonde hair stands on top of its head in thick, matted tangles. Its eyes glint in the darkness as the moonlight strikes them. Its hands are tipped in long claws, one hand holding the hair of a dirty doll, dragging the poor toy behind it. It’s wearing nothing but a pungent piece of plastic that maybe used to be white around its waist, and she finds it odd that it’s wearing anything at all.

It takes another step toward her, and this time, she goes to meet it.

There’s no more screaming.

                      The house feels empty without her there.

                                                                                            Chrissy’s cries have stopped.

The next time Gennifer comes, she screams and screams and screams, but Gina doesn’t know why.

             There’s nothing to fear here.

The monster is gone.