End of Innocence Ch. 08

Chapter VIII, Evil Reaches Out - The Second Death

Our mother was completely horrified, terrified, and sickened by the revelations of her twisted mind. She had utterly vanished into whatever connection that functioned as her actuality. Her entire being lost into a chemically-altered awareness. From our room, Ashley and I heard the thrashing of uncontrollable rage, the shattering of fragile objects, and the senseless symphony of destruction. The crash of broken glass rained upon the floor and profanity-laced expletives pounded from behind the sealed door created sounds that conquered and defied reason. An incomprehensible drama was overtaking the remnants of our family. Without rest, absent of respite, my angel was subjected to a litany of insults and verbal mangling of her guiltless soul.

"How could you, you damn dirty cunt, how dare you!?" was screamed with such ferocity and forcefulness from the woman that had carried us both into life itself. "Damned filthy rotten excuse for a daughter, I hope you die in your own vomit of reeking disgust!" "I hate the both of you," said with a much more controlled tone that made the impact exceedingly bone-chilling. "My husband, the man I gave my life to and that slut of a daughter ..." the sound of our mother's expression trailed off into nothingness but an upwelling of sobs and opening of drawers. Ashley exploded into an unrelenting cascade of heart-wrenching tears.

"My God, my God, my God, what the hell is happening?" were the only thoughts that I could think with any clear rationality. To be perfectly honest, I had surmised that the known universe had just developed a giant fissure and we had fallen directly through into another dimension. This, whatever this was, cannot be connected to anything that remotely resembled a coherent continuum. We were being drawn into a passageway where cause and effect no longer applied. The unmitigated shock that was sweeping over my entire body was suddenly snapped with a crack and I was thrust back into the here and now when I became aware of my little sister's retching of anguish originating from deep within her. As she lay naked next to me within the sheets of our bed, in unresolved levels of excruciating emotional turmoil, she was pushed so deep by her personal agony that conscious thought was curtained away in the deepest recesses of her being. I reached for my angel, both of us in a state of total unbelief, and wrapped around her with as much exposed flesh that could be joined from the surface of our bodies, hoping beyond hope that the physical contact between the two of us would break this evil spell and ground her within our embrace. "Ashley, my deepest love," I whispered into her ear, "This is NOT about YOU" I tried to convince her, although my words were still quivering from the shockwave of what had just transpired only a few minutes before. Ashley grabbed my hair and buried her face into my chest trying to suppress the waves of unadulterated anxiety lapping against her sanity.

We glided out of bed, not knowing precisely what to do, and reached for our robes while attempting to determine our next course of action. Nothing that we had experienced in our lives, read in books, or even seen in the theater could remotely give us a path to follow. We were lost without a compass or rudder to set course by, no, this was to be an ad lib endeavor, made up as we went along, and trusted that we would not disintegrate completely in the process. My angel stared intently into my eyes, hoping, wondering, and relying on her older brother to formulate an escape from this madness that had surrounded us all. I gazed back at my younger sister with an expression of lost confusion.

We slowly crept to my mother's bedroom door and knocked slightly. "Mom," I spoke in uneven tones, "It's your son and daughter. May we speak?"

"Go away and tell that bastard of a father he can go to hell with his sick excuse of a daughter!"

"Mom, father is dead, don't you remember? It was just Ashley and I," I tried to reason with her. "Your sweet little girl would never do anything to hurt you, you must know that."

What sounded like a whisper or a snarl, both seemed to be present in the words that followed, "My husband is dead?" I felt the cold hand of perspiration slither down my back. I reached for Ashley's hand and gently tried to lead her away from the door of that room. Some sixth sense cried out to me, I felt sick, my stomach in knots, something demanded my attention to turn away, to forcefully remove my angel from this environment, to run out into the night's air, to act and not contemplate, to give relief to this claustrophobic feeling that suffocated me near that entrance. What sort of irrationality gripped me, I did not care; I had to get Ashley away from whatever thing had maliciously exhibited itself behind the closed door. The thoughts of monsters from my little sister's childhood opened up in my mind.

Our mother called, "Son, Ashley, I am so sorry, do come in." Too late. Ashley moved towards the door and before I could get between her and it, the entry swung opened revealing a shiny metallic object with a black opened maw. The woman that held it, I no longer recognized. Our mother's face was distorted into a vicious frenzy and revulsion so unfathomable in its abysmal depths that the sheer possibility of its existence by any standard of sane reasoning would have never entered the minds of those that knew her. What satanic indwelling had come over her? A detonation ripped through the fabric of time and space revealing a flash of lightening ten feet away. The bullet ripped through the door to the right of both Ashley and me splintering the edge of the frame lancing my sweet sister's flawless face. I reacted, not thinking, just movement soaked in purpose and the panicked realization that my baby was in grave peril. I shoved her to the floor and dropped over her in time to hear another thunderclap in flight over my head. I felt the sensation of something damp and before I could make sense of it, Ashley screamed. I had been struck covering my baby's body with my own.

I reached to my shoulder and saw the rubicund color of my own blood. I do not know exactly if I acted out of instinct, love, fear or perhaps, a set of complex emotions that resisted description, but I had propelled myself towards my mother's hand with an intent focus on that harbinger of death. Where the fuck had that gun come from? At that very moment, the revolver went to our mother's own head, "Mom DON'T!"

My baby collapsed into unconsciousness. Evil had unceremoniously reached out and claimed the second death.