Night

 

    “Chris . . . . Chris?” I know the voice, the person it comes from, I know not the way it is spoken. A woeful silence hangs down the phone line as I ask my question; “Marie, Marie, what is it what’s wrong?” A knot tightens in my chest and the playful excitement of a few seconds before flees from my conscious. “Marie talk to me, what’s happening are you ok?” 

    “ . . . . What . . . What are you doing?” Her voice quivers with confusion and horror.   The tone in her voice and the question aimed not at me but at some unknown entity hits the alarm button in my body and suddenly I’m scared, and then I hear it. Behind her voice comes a sound of carnage, the crashing of a forced entry and the deep wrenching roar of mechanical destruction. 

    “MARIE?!”  Exasperation explodes from my mouth. 

    “. . Chris??! . . . . . …. ”

The terror in her questioning voice shreds its way down the phone line and stings my ear with a desperate impact. 

“. . . . No . . . STOP! . . .  CHRIS!!”

The first words a command the second a plea. I cant believe what I am hearing. Is this real? My wife. Her terror only draws a thicker darkness over my thoughts and my imagination burns horrifying images onto my minds eye. The sounds, writhing their sickening way towards me, yank my stomach up to my throat and my lungs suffocate my heart. Crashing, crunching, broken ornaments, grinding and banging and the doeful cries of unyeilding lament pour through the phones speaker.  

    “MARIE HOLD ON, I’LL BE THERE, HOLD ON MARIE I’M COMING” I’m torn, in two minds, the instinctive thought to hang up the receiver and get over there as fast as I can burns bright but dies. Instead my despairing curiosity sticks the phone to my ear. Shock and panic roots me to the spot. I think, I hope, I pray.  I hear another timid sound from down the phone line. 

    “No. .” The tearful plea almost inaudible but loud enough to work its way to me. With this, a word never spoken in such form by the other part of my heart, crushes me worst of all. A plea to an attacker. A plea for her life. And then it happens . . . 

    ”aaaAaAAAAAAGHhhhhhh . .CRAACCCCCCSHRUUUKUUUNNK” A loud thud and deafening crunch, the sound of impacting metal and broken bones and torn flesh rings down the receiver in a duet with the horrible cry. The high pitch shrieking sound shocks me like a jolt of lightening burning 10,000 volts of desperation and fear through my torso. Oh god, Marie, whats happening to you, whats happening, no baby, please, please be ok baby

    “I’m  comin, Marie, FUCK, oh god” Panic has its bloody claws around my heart tearing at the flesh like fingernails on a chalkboard. Shit, Marie, please be ok please, oh god I’m about to hang the phone up when a voice I hoped not to hear perforates the silence . . . . 

     “Daddy?” 

    “Charlie?” “Oh god Charlie no, please no. .” A picture of his confused unrefined soft and innocent face flashes before my eyes.  “Charlie listen to me, Run, get out, get away RUN CHARLIE YOU HEAR ME, RUN!” My desperate cries seem to fall on deaf helpless ears as the word comes once again . . .

    “Daddy” His tears run through his vocal chords like the gargle of a slit throat. 

    “CHARLIE RUN . . RUUN!!!” His soft voice breaks through the dam of my resilient heart and the dread and despair drags my thoughts down and with it my fight- and my fears and my fury rise and shudder through me exploding tears out my eyes and profanity out of my mouth

    “FUCKING RUN CHARLIE, GET OUT!” . . . . .

 The silence returns, the other end of the line dead, still off the hook, but silent to the situation. Till one final sound seeps out and tears my heart soul and my world in two. 

    “Daaa. . . uh . h h” His little voice choked off, withdrawn, the sound cupped in wrathful hands and blanked out of existence. His life and my hope suffocated. The phone drops from my hand, the line still active. My memory blanks, my vision blurs, my heart yearns, my soul dies, my world cries for me, the future laughs at me. Daley tries to comfort me. His apartment becomes my wrecking ball. Desperation, anger and despair all help to litter the surroundings with my turmoil.  My world crushed in 1 minute, in one phone call, my bloody raged fists grab the keys, we get in the car and with the last remaining withering hopes, high tail it to my house in fear, in fury, in malevolence and despair. 

Slowly, quietly at first but rising to a great crescendo, a sickening sound pierces the hanging phones’ silence and follows us as we exit. The laugh of a hyena as it’s enjoying its prey. . .  

    “heheh hehe. . . hehahahehah .. . hahehhehheHE HA . . . HAAHHAHAHHAHHEEHAHHAHHEHA”