She wakes to the creak of the bassinet, which is no longer across the room as it had lately been when she went to sleep. It now sits only inches from her bed, its occupant bleating irritably, accusingly. With a sense of dread, she rises, her teeth grinding her thumbnail to a ragged edge as she looks down at her child. A cold sliver of moonlight from the window casts an ashen pallor over the form of her daughter who had died inside her womb three years earlier. She stares in horror at the mutilated body, a knot in her throat holding back a mournful cry.

With no legs to kick and no arms to push, what remains of her angelic little Eva rocks slowly back and forth in an effort of sheer will. The ragged stumps where her extremities should have been are glistening ribbons of flesh and muscle hanging from shards of bone. The sheet on which she rests used to be white with pink and yellow flowers; the pillows cushioning her misshapen head are monogrammed and gilded in delicate lacework; a mobile of pink hearts and farm animals had once rotated in lazy circles to a lullaby overhead. Now the ghastly wooden cage sitting before her bears no resemblance to the cradle she had lovingly adorned in those dreamlike weeks before the arrival of her firstborn. The sheets are now stained yellow, brown, and black with remnants of blood, bile, and pus that have long since soaked into the wood beneath the weathered mattress. The lacework of the pillow is frayed and torn, the letters unrecognizable. All that remains of the mobile is a headless pig dangling by a single black thread, twisting listlessly.

The bulk in the crib mewls like a kitten trapped in a snare, unable to produce more than a throaty moan because its lips are sewn shut. Sensing that someone is near, it moves its skull back and forth slowly with its nostrils flaring as it tests the air. Something approaching a scowl dawns on its ruined face and though all that remains of its eyes are decayed sockets, she is certain it recognizes her. She takes a step back, acid eating through the walls of her stomach. Needles of panic assault every pore of her skin in relentless waves and she cups both hands over her mouth to keep her screams from exploding through the bile pooled in the back of her throat, certain even the faintest sound will alert the defiled infant to her position. She tries to take another step back, but her legs have turned to marble. Despite her best effort to look away, her gaze remains transfixed.

Movement stirs in its chest, a bony protuberance like swollen knuckles snaking back and forth beneath the skin, pushing and receding, testing for weakness. It writhes past the collarbone and into the neck, perhaps having sampled a whisper of her scent from the outside. She watches as the scowl turns into as much of a smile as the threaded lips will allow. Its sockets are now unmistakably locked on her own terrified gaze, cheeks bulging outward in the shape of a fist. The stitches begin to tear and an ear-splitting wail fills the room. It is the sound of sorrow. Of rage. And of triumph. The scream that had been swelling inside her finally bursts from her lungs, but it is lost in the darkness that engulfs her.

***********************************

She has lost track of time, though she could not have been out for long. Her eyes sting from tears and her throat is raw from screaming. The crib is gone, but she suspects she’s dreaming. She thinks this because, try as she might, she can’t make out the words on the banner scrolling across the television screen below the news anchor. Previous experience in these matters has taught her that in her dreams, she cannot read. It is one of the only useful things she recalls from those days in the hospital.

She rolls over on her side to check the time and, as if to confirm her suspicion, the digital readout on the bedside alarm clock glows red with symbols rather than numbers. They are in a continual state of flux, five characters instead of four. She is not yet in full control and for now remains only an observer in this world. Unfortunately, another lesson from the hospital gnaws at her: awareness without the ability to act is usually not a good thing.

A tear in the duct tape sealing the curtain to the wall and window sill allows a sliver of light to steal in from the outside. It has an artificial quality to it, neither warm nor full of the promise of life, as though it had traveled only a few hundred feet from a thousand watt bulb rather than tens of millions of miles from the fiery heart of the solar system.

The rest of the room remains cloaked in a brooding gray and the air itself feels electric. Surveying the monochromatic landscape of the bedroom, she takes a quick inventory, looking for anything else out of place. Something improbable or even impossible that would be a definitive sign that this is indeed a dream. A crib, for instance, or the vengeful miscarriage within threatening to break through the wooden confines and swallow what remains of her sanity.

But everything seems to be in its place, as if she were awake. There is no crib, but two ashtrays brimming with butts faithfully adorn opposite sides of the dresser by the door. Stacks of clothing piled two feet high hug the walls, an artifact of her ritualistic compulsions and a telltale sign that her paranoia has been increasing. They are not clean, but at least they are folded. She does not recall folding them, but then again, she rarely does. The television banner now streams stock prices.

Oh, but wait. She can read the letters and numbers trailing across the bottom of the screen.

Perhaps this is not a dream… but since she’s also unfamiliar with the abbreviations, she can’t be sure. Her eyes turn back to the alarm clock, the real litmus test, but its face is now blank.

She crosses the room and stands in front of the dresser. One by one, she inspects the contents of the drawers but finds nothing unusual. Each is packed tight with discarded food containers. Cereal and Pop Tart boxes live in the left sock drawer while her underwear drawer is dedicated to the cardboard packages and sleeves of Lean Pockets with a heavy emphasis on barbeque chicken. Instead of pants and shirts, the two middle drawers are home to dozens of empty cartons of Hungry Man dinners, Lean Cuisine meals, and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese bound together in stacks of ten with packing twine. The bottom drawers contain a bizarre diorama of gleaming silver soup cans resting on a bed of Top Ramen wrappers.

She mentally relives the ritual, closing each drawer in reverse order, and feels a little calmer at the routine. But doubt nags, and for a moment she wonders if she actually read the labels or if her mind just filled that part in. She contemplates opening a drawer just to make sure. But that would mean starting the ritual all over.

Instead, she takes a shirt from the top of one of the piles of folded clothes and rubs it against her cheek. The fabric is cheap and scratchy, smelling faintly of sweat and soap. Just like a real shirt. She should feel relieved, but she doesn’t.

Something is still not right. The air has taken on a strange quality. Thick, still, and full of menace, it amplifies and echoes sounds as if the room were submerged underwater. She hears a sharp ticking, like teeth clicking together, which seems to be coming from inside her head. She can feel the beginnings of a migraine, like those pulsating and debilitating ones she had when she was pregnant – when she feared that her skull might actually collapse beneath the ring of fire that tightened around her skull. And she remembers the drugs her doctor had warned her not to take. The pain had been so intense and unrelenting, she recalls thinking that surely just a couple pills wouldn’t affect her child.

Her thoughts carry her back to those first days after she expelled her stillborn daughter from her body like some fleshy discharge, the days when sadness froze time, drained color from the world, and crushed her under the weight of her guilt. That lethargy refused to leave her body even with the help of a razor, and eventually the whispers in empty rooms were no longer content to merely converse with each other, but instead started taking notice of her, calling her by name.

The display on the clock now erratically pulses 47ʕqz like a silent warning. The red flashes transport her to that gleaming white hallway on the fourth floor of the hospital, pounding on a locked door, demanding to be released. Certain that everyone – doctors, nurses, patients, even visitors – were conspiring to kill her. The seclusion, the restraints, the powerful hands, the snap of latex gloves, the injections.

And the diagnosis.

She tries to shut out the images, pleading with them to go away, trying to force her mind to go blank, but each attempt to shut the door to her past is met with an even more forcible push back. Without being aware of it, she has begun her counting ritual again. Thumb and forefinger on the switch plate, she turns the light on and off in quick succession and in a series always divisible by three. The first series is nine: on-off-on, off-on-off, on-off-on. She repeats this process twice more for a total of 27, ending as always with the light switch in the “on” position. The memory of the hospital is not as vivid or loud, but it is still there. Next series: 81 – hold for nine seconds in the “on” position – the memory is still visible but seems to be moving away, like an abandoned boat in a lazy stream. 243 – hold for nine seconds. Then 729. Five minutes pass, then ten. The anxiety recedes with the memory as she finishes the series of 2187, no longer switching the light on and off as the bulb blew out at 1227 but counting compulsively and unerringly in her head. She keeps her thumb and forefinger on the switch for a final 27 seconds and opens her eyes.

The hospital room is gone and she finds herself once again in her bedroom. She ventures into the bathroom, choosing to believe if she looks underneath the sink she will find the empty containers of shampoo and spare newspaper she’s been using instead of toilet paper since running out nearly a month ago. She is not quite brave enough to look in the mirror just yet so she stares at the soap dish as she opens the medicine cabinet, where she finds the chaotic landscape of assorted toiletries carelessly stacked on three shelves. Among the lotions and deodorants and useless pain killers and first aid supplies are a half dozen amber pill bottles crowded in a corner like a hastily shot family portrait.

Hesitantly, she picks up the fattest bottle, a 90-day supply of antidepressants that she has not taken in over a month. Her eyes close as she raises the bottle in front of her and with a slow, wavering exhale, opens her eyes. Relief courses through her as she stares at the label. The generic name of the medication escapes her but it is certainly not the gibberish printed on the side of the bottle. As if tempting fate, she furrows her brow and squints but still cannot make out what is written. It is printed in a foreign tongue, drawn from an alphabet of indecipherable alien symbols. She repeats the process with several other items and gets the same results. Even the trademark pink of one container, which should have clearly read “Pepto Bismol,” bears a random alphanumeric sequence that resembles a high security password. She closes the door and smiles. The mirror does not show a reflection of her face or even of the bathroom itself, but that is okay. She is in a dream.

From somewhere in the house, her dead daughter howls at this revelation.

“Fuck you,” she hisses, though she can’t help but laugh. Now fully lucid, she feels the type of power she could not ever realize in her waking life. Regret and shame over her miscarriage had created this monster that continues to visit her when she sleeps. On most nights, she’s merely been an observer, paralyzed by its eyeless stare and forced to watch as her seed grows into an atrocity that liquefies and sucks her in through a gaping hole in its face. She smiles as she thinks about setting fire to the creature, crib and all, until the flames consume them both and she wakes up in a cold sweat.

She catches the slightest movement behind her, a dark figure blending into the shadows in the hallway. She stares in the mirror, afraid if she turns around, it will disappear. Peering into the darkness, she makes out the shape of a man. A familiar scent rummages through her memory like a mole. Something stale and sour weaving through a faint floral bouquet. Heavy sorrow steals her breath, toxic flowers bloom in her throat.

The figure, tall and gaunt, glides soundlessly forward into the light and she stifles her screams with a fist pressed against her mouth.

Standing less than three feet away is her father, almost unrecognizable except for the beige suit in which he had been laid to rest twenty years earlier. The coffin had not offered much protection from the elements. Worms, insects, rodents, and the slow crushing weight of earth have ravaged his body. His tattered flesh hangs from him like a moth-eaten sheet, perforated by the slow steady assault of a thousand teeth, claws, and pinchers. One ear is gone entirely and the other dangles grotesquely from his skull, hanging almost to his exposed collar bone. Like the thing in the crib, the eyes are mere hollows. That thin strand poking out of the left orbit is just as likely an optic nerve as a sapling root. And though all that remains of his once warm and reassuring smile is a rictus-like grin, the expression she reads is one of profound sadness.

“Oh, Jennifer. Sweet girl,” it croaks through locked jaws. “Look again.”

She dares not move a muscle as she gazes at his decrepit form. Even for a dream, this vision is uncharacteristically vivid. The head makes a low grinding noise as it moves back and forth.

“Look.” He nods toward her hand, which is still gripping the pill bottle.

Her relief dissolves as the words on the bottle come into sharp focus. She can make out every letter, every number, every contraindication, the dire warning to avoid use with alcohol. She returns to the medicine cabinet and rifles through its contents, grasping one item after another. The labels are printed in plain English. Every last one. A tube of Chapstick, a blister-pack of Sudafed, a tin of throat lozenges, a vial of melatonin. She throws them all and distantly hears them clattering across the tile.

She rushes to the living room desperate to escape, but even in her panicked state she can’t risk leaving the house yet. Outside they lay in wait for her, sitting patiently behind the tinted windows of a black Monte Carlo parked across the street. She had once thought the car had belonged to the neighbor, but she had rarely seen anyone go in or out of the house – let alone the car – for weeks. It wasn’t long before she figured it out. They had followed her home, and now they watched her every day.

She stands to the side of the window and with the heavy burgundy drapes clasped between her thumb and forefinger, slowly moves her arm an inch to the right. The tape securing the curtain to the sill offers a weak scratchy protest as it reluctantly releases its grip. Daylight fills the gap, illuminating dust motes suspended in the stubborn cigarette haze.

Standing like a pillar against the wall, she scans the street, rising up on her tiptoes to take in as much as she can. No sign of the car. For a fleeting moment, she feels a faint stirring of hope and allows herself to imagine her escape. She briefly envisions throwing open the door and running from the house, the smack-thump of her heels on the smooth wooden planks as she dashes across the porch, the cool rush of October wind on her skin as it floods her terrycloth robe, the dewy kiss of grass under her bare feet as she sprints across the lawn. Running blindly, guided by the primitive instinct to simply survive.

She has so rarely left the house since releasing from the hospital that she has difficulty imagining where she would go, but at this moment, it isn’t important. Away is all that matters. It won’t be long before they tire of waiting and decide to take her torment to a physical level. She lets go of the drapes, crosses to the other side of the window, and scans the other end of the block.

She almost dares to move to the door, but then she sees it. Her heart pounds uncontrollably and her rapid breaths make her lightheaded. It is not the Monte Carlo. Today it is a white Chevy pickup truck. She notes their meager attempt to make the vehicle look inconspicuous by piling it high with landscaping equipment, but she sees through the ruse. The two lawnmowers are in near pristine condition and the rakes are lined up a little too perfectly.

There is no one visible from her vantage point, but she knows they are there. Laying out across the front seat or crouching in the bed of the pickup. They are there. Watching her. At this point, she is not even surprised to hear their voices, two men and a woman.

Man #1: “Yeah, she’s in there.”

Man #2: “What’s she doing?”

Man #1: “She’s just looking out the window right now.”

Man #2: “Think she spotted us?”

Man #1: “Maybe. Doesn’t matter. She can’t stay in there forever. Sooner or later she’ll have to come out.”

Woman: “And then we’ll have her.”

Man #1: “Shouldn’t be hard. There’s only one of her.”

Man #2: “And how many are we?”

Nothing follows but low, humorless laughter from all three of them.

Tears burn down her cheeks as the nausea sets in. Rational thought swims in an unintelligible soup as a million networks of panicked neurons fire randomly. She hungers for air but her nose is plugged with mucus and the huge gulps she forces into her lungs only make her dizzier. As if watching from above, she sees herself move toward the living room and fall limply into the overstuffed recliner, a marionette with its strings suddenly cut.

Cuticles torn and bleeding from the nervous energy of her teeth, she rocks back and forth in attempt to sooth herself. At first, it sounds like she’s singing. But listen closely; what she utters are only two words repeated end over end in time to her rocking. “No,” soft and pleading on the upswing, followed by the more desperate and demanding “please!” as she rocks forward. Hands now clasped as if in prayer, knuckles pressed hard against her lips, her movements become more deliberate and slow, the words drawn out on tears.

Her breaths, halting and wet, give way to a low moan and eventually to a long, sorrowful wail filled with desperation and hopelessness. And inevitability. She grasps the arms of the chair and holds tight as if to brace herself, certain they are coming for her, but unsure from where. What form would they take? Would a million insect-like creatures spill from the air vents as they had before? Would they spread over the walls like ivy, their antennae picking up the pheromone trail of her fear? Would they pulse forward in waves over the carpet and engulf her in a suffocating, fiery embrace before seeking out and penetrating every hole in her body?

Or would they instead lie in wait until she fell into a fitful sleep, exhausted from an all-night vigil? Would they wake her from one nightmare only to welcome her into the next, relishing the terror in her fevered eyes as she realized she had been sleeping on a bed made of them all along? Or would they claw their way up her throat, after having been asleep themselves within the crevices of a dinner roll and finding themselves rudely awakened by the acid in her stomach? Would she have to gargle and swallow bleach to ensure she had flushed them from the depths of her bowels and the cracks in her teeth? Would she be forced to make herself vomit until her throat ruptured and bled?

And of course it always comes to this. The cutting, the biting, the tearing. Clamping her hands over her ears, screaming at us to leave her alone.

Desperately begging us to get out of her head.

To stop commenting on everything she says, does, and thinks.

Oh Jenny, Jenny, Jenny. What are we going to do with you? Go ahead, run to your little chemical friends. They may take you away for a while, but you’ll come back. You always do. And we’ll be waiting.

Clawing at her flesh

fighting with an enemy

no one else can see