1
1
Nightmare
Roselyn
There’s a whoosh in my ears as my heart thrashes violently inside my chest. The room is cold and mixes in an unpleasant way with my clammy skin.
This can’t be happening.
When the coroner pulls the sheet down, I know this is real. It’s happening whether I want it to or not.
My mom’s smiling face flashes in my memories. Just two days ago, she was laughing at me, her long red hair and freckled face.
“You don’t want to go to Anchorage that bad?” She teased me. It’s not that I don’t love my dad, but it’s nothing but cloudy and rainy there.
Kevin is a good dad. Well, he tries to be, but I even hated going there as a kid. It’s awkward and boring.
I’ve been saving up for college. A few days ago, I graduated, and I’m not sure I’ll have enough to start in the fall.
Dad called me, claiming he could get me a job near the house since I haven’t had any luck in Jacksonville. Our trailer isn’t close to much, and there was also the matter of not having a car.
I told Dad I’d think about it, but it was Mom I told the truth to. I’d rather put college on hold if I had to.
Leaving Mom also wasn’t ideal. We did everything together. I told her not to go out walking at night without me, and she waited for me to go to sleep.
Now, she’s lying on a table with her eyes closed. Her pale skin has a purple hue, and her hollowed-out cheeks make her look rail thin. It almost doesn’t look like her at all. I have to look closely to see it’s really her.
“Can I have a moment?” I ask the man with glasses, trying not to break down yet. He gives a subtle nod and leaves.
“Oh, Momma,” I whisper as my heart shreds into a thousand unbearable pieces. The hole in my chest burns around the edges.
Smoothing her hair away from her face, my tears fall onto her cheeks. “What am I going to do without you?” I wail, and as I continue to brush her hair away from her face, something catches my eye.
They’re so tearful, I’m not sure how I see it. White and glossy, it’s a bite mark on her neck. Oddly, as I move my head to get a closer look, the fluorescents hit it in a way that makes it sparkle.
I gasp, running my fingers over the cold mark. Fragments of the man with the glowing red eyes in the trees scatter across my thoughts.
There was something not right about him—something awful. I told Momma, and she laughed. “Oh, come on, Roselyn. You need to put down the horror books and monster romances.” Another chortle left her as she taunted me. She mocked the glowing red eyes with a roll of her own and threw a pillow at me playfully before leaving my room.
I clung to it, knowing what I saw. Then Anne went missing, and that’s when I knew something had happened to her.
My mom always came home for dinner, regardless of her whims. She begged me to consider culinary school. I joked that she only thought that because anything tasted better than what she would come up with.
It was her combinations that were the problem. I don’t watch much TV, but we’d watch F.R.I.E.N.D.S. together occasionally. Her cooking was like when Rachel made the English truffle that turned into a shepherd’s pie.
Except Rachel’s was an accident. The coroner rushes back into the room and grabs the sheet, placing it back over my mother’s face.
I straighten out, slightly alarmed. When I got a call to identify the body, I felt like I was living a nightmare. That at some point, I would wake up.
Here I am in a morgue, still living it. “Her neck...” I start, but he cuts me off. “I take it by the tears you know her.” I scowl at his callousness.
“She’s my mother.” I clip, and then I was asked to leave. Everything happened so fast, and not long after identifying my mom, the funeral home called to tell me my mother’s ashes were ready to be picked up.
I don’t think things happen this fast. They’re not supposed to, but everyone I tried to talk to about the bite got weird when I mentioned it. They shut me down and acted aloof.
It’s almost like they wanted to hush it up. Whatever the case, I collected my mom’s ashes and began to pack my bags.
Today I’m leaving whether I want to or not. Jacksonville will be behind me in a few hours, and the thought of leaving makes me nauseous. It isn’t that I love it here; it’s where I grew up and where all my memories with my mother are.
I get a sensation that I’m being watched. I shake it off and glance up at the window to make sure there’s no one there.
It’s at least daylight. I’m relieved to see nothing but Mr. Lawson’s trailer with pink windmills in his yard twirling as the wind blows. It isn’t until I’m at the airport that everything sinks in. Tears cloud my eyes, and I know if Mom were here, seeing me with no other choice but Anchorage, she’d guffaw at me.
