The Taste of Redemption

When his alarm rang, Mineha knew something was wrong. It was not that he had a sixth sense that was tingling, but rather a much more concrete reason.

He hadn’t set an alarm.

Raising himself off his bed, he faced his still beeping alarm. It lay by his bedside, amidst a rubble of pills and tablets. His vision was slightly blurry, but he couldn’t be mistaken. The time read: 2:15 a.m.

He felt around him until he found the shape of the light switch and pulled. A dim sickly light filled the room. It suddenly flickered. Mineha watched yellow streaks flash across the bed, the walls. And then darkness.

Damn it. I should have changed the bulb yesterday.

The cold air slithered across his bare hands as he stretched out to switch off the alarm, curling around his wrists, sending tiny goosepimples racing across his arms.

Why is the window open? Did I leave it like that when I went to bed? I couldn’t have, not with the temperature so low. I must be dreaming.

Taking a yellow container from under his pillow, he removed two pearly orbs that distinguished themselves as aspirins, and placed them in his mouth. Almost savouring the bitter taste, he let them lay on his tongue, before swallowing them whole.

He closed his eyes and lay down. Drawing the covers over him, he noted that it had suddenly become much colder. He yawned and noticed with a mild detachment steeped in sleep, that his breath clouded in the air.

I really need to get the alarm checked tomorrow, and change the bulb. I think Jose’s is open on Sundays…

Beep, beep, beep.

Why won’t it stop?

Mineha opened his eyes. The alarm on his bedside table was ringing. He rubbed his eyes. Something about this felt familiar.

He looked around. His room seemed normal; his clothes lay in a pile in the corner next to a towering steel cupboard, sports goods in another, the painting of his parents, the only decoration, hung in front of him.

He stretched out his hand to stop the alarm, but his hand only met air, and losing his balance, he felt the sheets slipping and with a cry, he met the cold floor.

Blood dripped down from his elbow. He had cut it against something.

Glass on the floor? Where the hell did that come from?

He felt goose pimples raise along the length of his arms. Scrambling up, he looked around. The alarm had stopped, but the window was open. Big gusts of wind whipped the white drapes into a frenzy. For a second he thought they were grinning at him.

Are they alive? That’s stupid. What did you go to uni for, to learn that curtains are alive. Get a grip on yourself, and close the damn curtains and get back to sleep.

He advanced towards the window. The wind was howling; the dancing curtains seemed to mock him.

What kind of a man are you! Scared of the wind and the dark. What would your father have thought!

He would have been disappointed. Like he always was.

He realised that his hands had clenched into fists, his fingernails digging deep into the palm. He felt short of breath.

With a sudden spring, he leaped at the window and closed it. He stood there, staring into the dark night covered with snow and frost, and let loose a breathy laugh of relief.

As he walked back to the bed, he noticed that the picture frame of his parents was crooked. He straightened it out. The cold eyes of his father stared out at him. Judging, calculating, as if deciding how much his son was worth. His mother’s eyes were almost pleading. Memories rushed into his head. The fear, the pain, her screams.

He could almost feel the blood that dribbled from his shoulder. It felt tangy. The taste of redemption as his father called it.

I’m over this. They’re dead. He is dead. I have to move on. Go back to bed.

Even as he wrapped himself in his sheets he could feel it, an evil, unsettling feeling that enveloped him like slime, oozing into his sheets. No matter how far he ran, he couldn’t hide. He fell into an uneasy sleep. Only later he realised that the feeling was his father.

He felt cold, too cold.

I closed the windows, didn’t I?

He opened his eyes. His eyelids felt heavy, weighed down. His teeth were chattering.

Where the hell are my blankets?

His upper body was exposed to the elements. A mist hung in the air. Trembling he looked around, but his blankets had all but vanished. He looked at the alarm, kept near him. A feeling of deja vu coursed through him, lighting every cell of his body.

The alarm can’t be wrong, it served me faithfully in the past, and besides, I changed the batteries two days ago.

The time read: 2:15 a.m.

He massaged his temples. This had to be a dream. A bad dream that he would wake up from the next morning and laugh about. Just a bad dream. All he needed to do was to go back to sleep, and all would be good.

He curled up on his bare bed in an attempt to ward off the freezing cold.

The clock ticked fitfully. The pills rattled on his bedside table. The steel cupboard in the corner creaked.

There is something in the cupboard.

Where the thought had come from, he didn’t know. But the thought consumed him, it whispered to him, it implanted itself in his mind like a leech that crawled about through him.

It’s my father. Come back to find me.

He tasted blood and realised that he had bit his tongue. Tears blossomed in his eyes. The cupboard creaked again. He thought he heard a voice call out to him.

This isn’t happening. This isn’t real.

BANG, BANG, BANG.

The cupboard shook. Mineha’s eyes shot open. The cupboard, a plain steel structure seemed to morph in front of his eyes. The handles became bulging eyes, the legs talons. And it was staring at him, with a cold, ice-cold gaze.

He wanted to scream but the sound seemed to have gotten stuck somewhere in his throat. His lips were frozen, tinged blue with cold. His mouth wide open, like a grotesque fish.

Saliva dribbled down the side of his mouth.

The cupboard was smiling at him, its black lips were twisted up, eyes bulging, and red. With a sound like a thousand nails grinding against a board, it stepped towards him.

Thoughts rushed through his mind, piercing him like bullets. The axe. If only he could find it. In the shed. The locked shed. It’s too late.

Patterns of cracks threaded through the glass, like veins. With a shriek, the window panes shattered. The window thrust back and forth, letting forth scream after scream, as the wooden frame fractured against the wall.

The drapes were alive now, they pranced about with glee, to the horrific rhythm of the night.

The cupboard wobbled towards him, and with a crash, the lock that bound the double doors together split. Fragments of metal pierced his body, sending rivulets of blood down his skin.

He moaned as he tossed and turned. Pleading. Begging. But the creature inside was indifferent. And he could feel the whip come down. It cut through the sides of his neck, leaving deep scars.

Leave me alone. Please.

He was crying, salty tears that joined the blood coursing down the front of his body. He could taste it. A tangy taste that filled his mouth, that enveloped his taste buds. He wanted to vomit, to clear himself of the vile thing. But it was only inside him. The leach was pounding through his brain. It was the taste of redemption.

..

“Mr.Walker… Mineha…?”

The room came into focus. A bright room. The LED fluorescent lights burned into his eyes. His tongue felt dry.

“Oh, thank god you are awake. Another minute and I would have called the medics, what happened?”

The question came from a short stout man dressed all in white, with a notepad in front of him. A pencil lay next to it. It was blunt.

“I don’t know.”

His eyes were still trying to focus. Everything was blurry. He slowly raised a hand and placed it on the side of his neck. It felt smooth. His hand slowly moved down, across his orange jumpsuit. It found the other hand in his lap, and rested there.

“All I did was ask you a question, and then whoosh, you zoned out, almost like you were in a trance. I put it down to lack of sleep, or the medications but…”

The man’s smile was big, but fake. His eyes drifted all over. A badge was pinned to his shirt, near the breast pocket. THERAPIST, BROADMOOR CORRECTIONAL FACILITY.

Mineha’s head throbbed. His throat felt dry. Too dry.

“What was… What was the question?”

The man looked up from his study of the wall. After shaping his features into an appropriate look of consternation and concern, he leaned forward.

“I asked you why you killed your father.”