I got that feeling again. The one like I’m in two places at the same time and everything seems all confusing and stuff. I’m still with a bunch of blurry people, but somehow I still feel so lonely. Almost like I don’t even realize they’re there or anything.
And it hurts, it really hurts, like every inch of my body has done been skinned up and bruised but much worse than I ever got from just fallin’ off my bike. At the same time, I’m glad that I’m there and also here all at the same time. Somehow, I know that if I wasn’t here in this little room then the pain would be so much worse, so bad that I probably wouldn’t even be able to cry ’cause I’d be afraid that the tears would hurt as they ran down my face.
And I wonder if that other me feels the same thing. If it can tell somethin’ isn’t really right too. Does it see me and this room over top what it’s lookin’ at? Does it see a ghost-like Mr. Carl layin’ there on the floor in all that blood? If it does, I bet it’s as happy that he’s dyin’ as I am.
See, I know that this is all his fault, too. He split me off into two parts somehow, maybe like one of those evil wizards in the stories Mommy used to tell me before bed. I wouldn’t put it past him to do somethin’ like that.
But the other me is kinda fading now and I can barely see the trees and bushes and that smoke in the distance that we all seem to be headin’ toward. The pain is going away too, but I can still feel that loneliness inside. Almost like it latched onto me with a hundred tiny little claws and can’t be shaken off no matter what. And I think the lady somehow knows. She’s lookin’ at me the same way people used to when I told ’em my Daddy died when I was just a little baby. Kinda like she feels sorry for me but doesn’t know what to do or say to make it all better.
What she doesn’t know is that she can’t make it all better. No one can. The only thing that’ll help is if Mr. Carl takes forever to die and I know that he’s been sufferin’ every stinkin’ minute. And even that won’t make it all go away. It’ll just make it easier somehow.
I remember, that day in the woods when he was cryin’ and Mommy was tryin’ to talk to him, he yelled out, “It was just a little girl, for Christ’s sake!”. And I heard Mommy say back to him that no it wasn’t, not anymore. I didn’t really know what she meant, but I really wasn’t payin’ too much attention to tell the truth.
I was still standin’ there when I heard ’em say those things, still watchin’ the bushes shakin’ and tryin’ my hardest not to start cryin’ and needing to pee so bad it almost hurt. Still waitin’ for the monster to jump out at me the moment I turned to run.
Only it wasn’t no monster after all. I musta been standin’ really still because while I stood there watchin’ I saw this little white tail through some of the branches. It was headin’ farther into the woods and it only took a second for me to see the rest of its body. It’s brown fur looked so soft that I just wanted to go up and pet it but the antlers looked like maybe they could be sharp. So I decided to keep watchin’ it but also to keep away from it a little bit.
I tried to step real soft like they do in movies when they are trackin’ somethin’; but every couple minutes I would step on a twig and it would snap. When that happened the deer would stop and his head would jerk up and he would kinda look around like Pepper used to before she’d go outside with the other cats.
So I would stand really still and ’ventually the deer would go back to eatin’ and walkin’. For the first time since Mommy and me ran away from the house, I wasn’t scared at all. I was pretendin’ that I was an explorer deep in the jungle and that the deer was magic and it would lead me to the Lost City if I was just able to follow it long enough.
And I did a good job, too. That deer just kept walkin’ and I just kept followin’. Until I tripped over that darn root.
When that happened, I kinda fell forward and into some bushes. The bushes had thorns all over ’em and they scratched my face and arms and I musta yelled ’cause when I stood up again the deer was way off in the distance, jumpin’ and runnin’ as fast as it could.
I turned around to ask Mommy if she had saw the deer, too. But the clearing where Mommy and Carl were wasn’t there no more. Around me all I could see was trees and bushes and I couldn’t hear Mommy talkin’ no more. I heard birds chirpin’ and this weird cluckin’ kind of noise I hadn’t noticed before but everything else was so quiet.
I wanted to cry again and I kinda spun around in circles, hopin’ that maybe I had just got confused and I would be able to see her and Mr. Carl in a different direction. But no matter how hard I looked, I couldn’t see nothin’ and I couldn’t help it, I just started cryin’ and my belly felt sick again.
I yelled for Mommy as loud as I could and these birds in the trees musta got scared ’cause they all took off flying at once. But I didn’t care, I just wanted to be back with Mommy and not all alone in the woods with the bears and snakes and wolves and things. So I kept hollerin’ for her over and over until my throat felt like it was burning.
And then I heard Mommy’s voice holler my name, but it sounded so far away away that I tried to yell louder even though I was sure I was screamin’ so loud now that my throat just had to be bleedin’.
Only Mommy didn’t answer me this time. Instead I heard Carl’s voice.
“Jason! Stop screaming! Don’t scream. Stay where you are. We’ll find you.”
I didn’t know how he thought they were gonna be able to find me if I stayed real quiet like he wanted me to, so I yelled some more.
“Damn it, Jason, shut up! We will find you just shut the Hell up!”
And that was when I figured it out. He didn’t want me to scream because he really didn’t want them to find me. He wanted me to stay lost in the woods like those two little kids in the fairy tale. If some mean ’ole witch came along and gobbled me up, he wouldn’t even care cause then he would have my Mommy all to himself.
One time Mommy said she was goin’ out with Mr. Patterson from the butcher’s shop. But when she picked me up at Miss Donna’s that night she told me she wouldn’t be goin’ out with him ever again. She said that he wanted just her but we were a package deal and if he didn’t love me then we didn’t have no place in our lives for him. So I knew that there were people out there who wanted to take her away from me. And now I knew that Mr. Carl was one of those people, too.
But the only thing in the world that I wanted was my Mommy… even more than I wanted Pepper and Mr. Boots. So I kept yellin’ no matter how many times Carl yelled back at me not to.
I had just stopped to take a really big breath so I could yell the loudest I possibly could when I heard the bushes behind me rattle. If you’ve never been lost then you don’t really know what it’s like to be found again. How your heart feels kinda fluttery inside and how you can feel happy from the tips of your toes all the way up to your hair.
I spun ’round and was getting’ ready to run to Mommy so I could give her a big hug… but then I saw that it wasn’t her comin’ out of the bushes and it wasn’t Mr. Carl neither.
The monsters looked like marshmallows do when you’ve held them in the fire too long and the outside gets all burnt and bubbly. And all three of ’em were like that, but I could see bits of clothes in places and the little one had tennis shoes on but the bottoms kinda looked like they had started to melt. I’m not sure how I knew, but as I looked at ’em I could tell that it was a whole monster family: a Mommy, a Daddy, and a little kid.
I remembered the monsters from the house and how they had chased us, so I screamed and took off running as fast as I could. I didn’t know if I was running toward Mommy and Mr. Carl or if I was runnin’ away from where they were but I didn’t really care right then.
All I could think about were the monsters behind me as I jumped over fallen logs and ran through the woods. I could hear them back there, crashin’ through the brush and could almost picture those arms reachin’ out to grab me.
My heart was beatin’ in my chest so hard I felt like it was gonna pop and I started getting’ this pain in the side of my belly that made it hurt to run. I was cryin’ and the trees and everything looked blurry and I was still screaming but I can’t really remember what I was sayin’.
At one point, I looked back over my shoulder and saw they were so close that I could see a little Hello Kitty on a piece of the clothes that was stuck to the kid monster.
They’re gonna get me, they’re gonna get me, they’re gonna get me …
I just kept thinking that over and over and it seemed like every time I would look back they would be just a little bit closer.
Next thing I know, I was falling cause I had tripped over a root or rock or somethin’. I landed on my knees and fell forward but was only on the ground for just a second. I was racin’ to get to my feet as quick as I could when I felt something on my tee shirt, a kind of tuggin’ or pullin’.
I screamed and started runnin’ again and heard a ripping sound. Next thing I know half my shirt is gone and briars were scratchin’ my chest as I ran by.
I knew what had happened, that one of them had almost had me, and wondered if it was still holding my shirt as it chased me. But I didn’t want to look back again, didn’t want to know how close they were now or take the chance that I would trip again.
I had started scramblin’ up the side of a hill when I saw a little cave up ahead. It was a lot smaller than the one Mommy and me had slept in but I thought it was big enough for me to get into but not enough for them to follow.
As soon as I got to the cave, I kinda dove into the entrance like a baseball player slidin’ in to home base headfirst. It was so small that I had to kinda wiggle ’cause the rocks were scrapin’ my sides and my back but I just kept crawlin’ forward.
If I coulda, I would’ve crawled right down to the very center of the earth. But, instead, I felt this hand grab my ankle and it was colder than any hand I had ever felt before, so cold that I could feel it all the way through my sock.
And then it was pulling me backward, back toward the entrance and I knew the moment my leg was outside it would all be over so I grabbed onto this rock with all my might and tried to pull myself farther back into the cave.
The monster was really strong and my fingertips began feelin’ like they were about to snap right off and I suddenly felt a warmth in my pants and smelled pee. But even that smell wasn’t as strong as the dumpster-like stink of the monster behind me.
My arms began shakin’ real bad and I kept holdin’ on to that rock and tryin’ to pull myself in the other direction.
Then I felt another hand pullin’ at the bottom of my pants leg and I knew that maybe I would be able to keep holding on if just one of them was pullin’ on me. But I didn’t know how long I would be able to stay in the cave once all three of ’em began pulling.
“Leave me alone!” I yelled at ’em. “Go away!”
But my yells only seemed to make ’em tug harder and next thing I know my fingers slipped from the rock and I felt myself being pulled backward, back toward the entrance of the cave and the three monsters waitin’ outside.