Get Back Where You Belong (213 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryLabels: Untruth
Rating: 2 on 2 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Snark << snarkk.at.gmail.com (View user info) at 2005-07-24 21:32:23 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
That's the crux of it isn't it?
That's the end of us all when you think of it; That blurry grey place that almost gives us an answer but only becomes crystal clear well after the fact.
It's that nagging little voice at the center of your mind that you can't hear clearly until after the deed is done.
I'm looking at Juniper but I don't want to.
Juniper Beech: My wife, my lover, the beast on the bed.
Her face is contorted and her muscles are stringy and she's straining against the taught cords that fasten her to the solid oak frame. She's screaming and her voices are perfectly in tune with my nerve endings, because the Beast within her knows every thing she does, and so it knows me.
I cannot stand it but I will.
I cannot endure it for a minute longer but I will find a way regardless.
There's shit on the sheets and piss on the wall. The room is spattered with every bit of putrification the human body can produce. Her portrait hangs above the bed and the paint is running, transforming her face into the likeness of a skull. The room is rank with the smell of decay and burnt flesh. There's a steady stream of blasphemy where my wife used to be and a strange man standing over her. He is old and thin and waving a bible in the air with righteous determination. He's yelling scripture in a cracked voice, and she's yelling back, her throat host to a choir from hell.
Her typically green eyes are black and her mouth is open wide. Full lips that I used to crave are cracked, swollen, and saying things that nothing with a soul should ever mutter.
Blasphemies pour out of her like roaches from a disturbed corpse and circle the room looking for a victim but I don't care. They mean nothing to me because they are not her and I am not here.
I'm a week and a half ago and I'm putting the pieces together in my head.
I'm opening the door to the bathroom to see who she is talking to but she is the only one there, she smiles at me and her grin stretches unnaturally wide.
I'm waking her up from a bad dream for the tenth night in a row and her skin is hot and her voice strange, and an hour later she still can't stop crying.
I watch her walk into the bathroom, stiff and dazed, as if she's daydreaming and then she's behind me faster than possible and kissing my neck.
All the strange occurrences that I wrote off, all the unexplainable things that I left unexplained, present themselves to my shocked mind, and I wonder how I could have been such a fool.
"Fuck me!"
The Demon's voices drag me back to the horror of the here-and-now and I glance towards the Priest.
The book in his hand is closed and he has his rosary clutched tightly in his fist. His grey hair is wet and matted to his forehead and the veins in his neck seem ready to burst. He's got his eyes tightly shut and he's mumbling something in Latin, and I don't know if he's praying for her or praying for himself.
"Fuck me now!"
The antique lamp on the dresser suddenly flares to life; it bathes the room in white-hot light then bursts with a loud pop. The priest cries out for his God again and then frantically flips pages in the book. He opens his mouth to speak but the Demon beats him to it.
"I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns and the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication"
It spits the words out fast and hard and the priest flinches as if each one is physical blow. The thing inside my wife is making her body writhe. It thrusts her pelvis in the air and her nightgown slides down to reveal the desecrated opening between her legs.
"And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration!"
The Priest lets a sound escape his lips that reeks of madness then shuts the book and turns towards me, we lock eyes, and I can tell he is done. The psychiatrist had the same look yesterday, before he ran from the house to call the church.
"Please."
My plea is weak but it is the best I can do. I open my mouth to beg him to try again, to explain to him that we are good people, to make him see that all I want is things back the way they were, and the Demon in my wife sent back to Hell, where it belongs.
"Please Father."
His eyes drop to the floor and his hand loosens around his rosary. His bony shoulders are slumped and when he meets my eyes again, his haggard face speaks volumes.
It tells me there is nothing he can do. It tells me he has never seen anything like this, outside of a movie theater.
"I will consult with the Bishop. Perhaps they can send someone more qualified."
"Coward!" screams the Beast "If you were half a man you would fuck me instead of going back to the Bishop's greasy cock!"
The Priest puts a hand on my shoulder but it is shaking and I can tell that it is taking everything in him to keep from running out of the room.
"God help you my son."
I wipe the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand then turn my back on him as he makes his exit.
"Juniper is screaming in Hell Brian! Juniper is being fucked in Hell!"
I'm lost and exhausted and I think I know what I have to do. I think it is here for the sole purpose of destroying us, because what we had was pure and beautiful and the Devil hates purity. I am going to give it what it wants. I am going to end this in the only way I can.
I'm going to send the Motherfucker back to where it belongs.
There is a picture on the nightstand beside me. Juniper is on the beach. Her hair is short, black, and wavy and the crystal-clear water behind her pales in comparison to the joy in her eyes. Her bikini is pink and her skin bronzed. She has a conch shell in her hand and she is blowing a kiss to the camera, to me.
I brush my hand against it and for a second I think I can hear the waves and the chatter of seagulls and then I am standing beside the thing on my bed.
It's laughing and spitting and its tongue shoots out and leaves a trail of slime around one exposed nipple.
"I am the Whore Brian! Fuck me!"
"I'm sorry."
Its eyes widen in recognition of what I am going to do as I sit astride it. It knows my intention because murder knows murder and the bed begins to vibrate beneath us.
The skin of her throat is hot beneath my hands and we both scream as I begin to squeeze the air out of it.
The glass on the picture beside me shatters and the portrait falls from the wall to land with a thud behind the headboard. The candles on the nightstand burst into flame as the bed begins to lift us both towards the ceiling.
The bedroom door flies open and then slams shut repeatedly and I can hear the other doors in the house follow suit.
I shut my eyes to her face and my ears to her gurgling and tell myself that there is nothing else I could have done.
All at once the candles flare up and the bed stops its ascent, then plunges back to the floor.
The doors stop slamming, the candles go out, and the neck I'm squeezing is suddenly soft.
The room is cool and quiet, save my own ragged breath.
I open my eyes and I'm staring into Juniper's. They are green, clear, and empty, and the realization of what I have just done rips through me like a wildfire.
"Oh my god."
The horror of my crime is eating me alive and I want to run from the house and never look back, but I am not alone.
There is a presence in the room. Something I cannot see but I know it is there and it is watching me and waiting for me to release my grip.
"No! You can't have her!"
I scream my defiance and tighten my hands around my dead wife's throat and I can hear the Demon growl, and scrabble frustrated from wall to roof and back again.
The bed shakes as the beast comes up behind me and its fetid breath is hot on my neck. Its tongue runs along my cheek and into my ear and then, just like that, it screams in pain and I hear it sink through the floor, squealing and powerless as something unseen drags it back to the pit.
This time the silence is pure. The room is empty of the demon's malignant presence and I am frantically pinching my wife's nose and pushing my mouth against hers.
There is resistance when I try to force the air from my lungs into hers at first and I'm guessing her throat is swollen.
Her lips are blue and her eyes are still open and empty. I cannot hear a heartbeat when I place my head against her sweat-cooled chest, and there is no pulse under my thumb when I press it against her bruised neck.
"Please God."
I move off her and place my palms over her heart then push rhythmically.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
This time I am able to fill her lungs and I give her four seconds between breaths - just like I was trained - then switch back to CPR.
Five more pumps and I check for a pulse but there is nothing...
...nothing but me, my murdered wife, and the shattered remnants of our life together.
"C'mon June, come back to me!"
I fill her lungs again, then again, and there is still nothing so I switch back to her chest.
I raise my head to the ceiling and curse my creator for his silence.
The cradle for the phone is on the nightstand next to the shattered picture. I reach for it to call 911 but the phone itself is not there. It has been lost somehow in the struggle and the tears clouding my eyes make it hard to find it in the mess of the room.
It's hopeless.
I lie on the bed beside her and close my eyes. I hold her, cry, and wonder how hot hell is going to be when I arrive.
Somewhere far away, the sound of a siren pierces the night and I wonder what I'm going to say when the police arrive, then decide I don't care.
I won't be here when they bust into the room. I'll be on the beach with Juniper. We'll run in the surf together and look for shells. We'll lie together on the beach and I'll rub sunscreen into her back, and then when the sun fades from red to nothing, we'll make love under the stars.
The world can have her corpse and my body, but they can never take me from the place inside my head that I am going too.
There is more than one way to get back where you belong.
User Reviews
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2006-11-20 12:02:17 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
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Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-10-27 10:36:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Horray for the elite 8!
(At least I lost to the eventual winner.)