Blessed (9 page)

As her vision dimmed from the lack of oxygen being carried to her brain, she prepared herself for the painful end to the familiar scenario. A part of her knew she was about to wake up screaming and covered in sweat, but it didn’t make the experience any less terrifying or real.

Then something new happened.

She felt the tingle in her chest.

As it spread through her body, she could feel new life entering her. She started to vibrate all over again until she was sure her chattering teeth would cut through the black slime that was slowly choking her to death as it searched for whatever was inside of her that it was after.

Her chest seemed to open up and a green spotlight came tearing out of her sternum. From the palms of her hands and the pads of her feet, beacons of bright green light blasted through the darkness. Light even shone from her mouth and eyes. It was like someone had wrapped her skin around a case of green road flares and lit them all at once.

Whenever the light came in contact with one of the tentacles, it shrieked and hissed before vaporizing with a gentle pop and drifting away in the form of a dark haze, no longer a threat.

The intensity of the light never let up. It grew brighter and stronger the further away the black mass was pushed from her body.

After what seemed like hours of the searing hot light, no trace of the darkness was left. The light slowly dimmed and she gently landed on an invisible floor. As she peered through the eerie green haze, she saw the man she had been trying to save for weeks lying on the floor, eyes closed, sunken in and appearing almost mummified. It was as if the writhing dark mass had sucked every ounce of light right out of him.

She took a few steps toward him and her heart shattered when she realized why she had recognized the face. The stubble, bright blue eyes and golden blond hair was unmistakable.

The smell of heaven had been replaced by the smell of rotting flesh.

She woke to the sound of somebody screaming.

When she realized that it was her, she quickly clamped a hand over her mouth and took several deep breaths through her nose.

Her bed was soaked with sweat, the blankets were strewn all over the floor and her heart was pounding so hard she thought she might puke.

Her light flashed on and her father was standing in the doorway with a baseball bat looking like he had just run a marathon. His eyes showed a hint of panic as they searched her room for an intruder before they settled on her.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. The bat fell to a state of rest on his shoulder, but did not leave his hand.

“Sorry, daddy.” She managed to croak out after a few deep breaths. “I had a terrible dream. I’m okay. I promise.”

She wasn’t quite sure she was actually okay, but she felt bad about waking and, obviously, terrifying him. She took a few more deep breaths as he came to her bed.

He sat on the edge of her mattress and dropped the bat between his knees. He gathered her up in his arms and ran his hand over the top of her head, covering his under garments in her sweat as he did so.

“You scared the daylights out of me. Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked after he could feel that her heart wasn’t trying to escape from her chest anymore.

“Yeah. It was nothing more than a bad dream. I’m gonna grab me a glass of water and wash my face.”

As she walked out of the room, she heard him say, “Must’ve been a doozy.” As he stood up.

She filled the cup that she used to rinse her mouth out after brushing her teeth and downed it in one breath. She filled it again and took one more swallow before setting it down on the counter and splashing ice cold water from the faucet onto her face.

After patting her face dry, she realized that her hair was still soaked in sweat. She pulled the elastic from her pony and knelt down beside the tub. The cold water running through her hair felt amazing and helped to clear the image of the man’s mummified body from her head.

She rung out her hair and dried it before brushing it back into its bedtime pony tail. It was a habit she had picked up during her battle with acne and wasn’t something she was willing to give up if it meant an increased chance of breaking out again. The Chinese food she had eaten for dinner would be bad enough.

As she sat with her back against the side of the tub she chanted, “It was just a dream.” Like a mantra. She was shaken by the fact that the man had shown up twice now. Once in what she knew was a dream and once in something she was sure was
not
a dream at all.

She had the sudden urge to check her bottom drawer for the necklace and the lock of hair that she had brought back with her to make sure that it hadn’t been a dream after all. That would just add hallucination to this madness and she wasn’t sure she could handle that. She needed to know that her psychotic episode had been real and that she hadn’t only imagined the hair that she had been telling herself was in that box.

She rose from the floor onto her still-shaking legs and finished her water before heading back to her bedroom. Her parents’ door was closed and there was no light coming from underneath it, so she felt a little better knowing that her father had gone back to bed so easily.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that she wouldn’t be so lucky.

As she sank down to the floor in front of her dresser, she steeled herself as best she could. Her hand was shaking when she reached out to pull the bottom drawer open.

In the back of the drawer, right where she had left it, was the little black box. She mustered all of her resolve and forced her hand to stop shaking as she reached for the box.

When she picked it up, she heard the necklace shift inside of it and heaved a sigh of relief. At least she knew that part was real. Now to settle the rest of her worries. She flipped the lid open and, right where she had left it neatly bundled in one of her elastics, was the clump of hair she had separated from her imaginary model’s head.

She flipped the lid shut before she could talk herself into wearing the necklace again. With all the weirdness that had gone on since laying down for bed, she really didn’t need another trip down crazy lane. She tossed the box back in the drawer and slid it shut. Out of sight, out of mind.

She hit the power button on her remote control and picked her bedding up off the floor before settling in for some late night TV. It was times like this that she wished she had homework to do so that she could have a good reason for not sleeping all night long. She knew she was going to regret the decision in the morning, but going to school a zombie was a lot more appealing than falling asleep again at that moment.

Six hours of reruns, two potty breaks, four glasses of water and two apples later; the sky outside of her window had begun to lighten. She could tell that it would be a clear day by how light the eastern sky was so early in the morning.

Thanks to the unique climate and location of the Salt Lake Valley, clear skies could mean one of two things: Either you were one of the poor saps who had to walk or rely on public transit and the white-blue sky was a curse, or you owned a car and the roads were bound to be covered in sheets of black ice.

While the winter months in Utah were extremely beautiful, they were also extremely dangerous—especially for someone as prone to accidents as she tended to be.

She peeked through her window to see if it had snowed at some point during the night to get some kind of indication of how terrifying her commute to school was going to be. When she saw the footprints in the yard still imprinted in the last storm’s deposit, she threw a silent thank you out into the Universe, happy that her chances of making it to her first class in one piece had just risen exponentially.

She heard her dad’s alarm go off and his bed groan as he rolled over to smash the snooze button on top of it.

She gave it another five minutes before she stretched and rose from her bed to go make some breakfast and fill the carafe with orange juice. She knew from years of experience that the snooze shut his alarm up for exactly nine minutes and he only ever hit it once.

Sure enough, three minutes after setting the orange juice on the table and sitting down with her banana and frosted flakes, his alarm started screaming again. She heard him walk across his bedroom into the master bath, heard the toilet flush, and a few moments later he appeared at the bottom of the stairs in his bathrobe.

It was moments like this that she understood the mental process of a girl marrying a man exactly like her father. As he paused at the bottom of the stairs to wipe the sleep from his eyes, she smiled and thought she could see herself marrying a man like him someday. His blond hair was all askew, his deep blue eyes were bleary from a full night’s sleep, and he had a day’s growth of facial hair. Her mother must find herself staring and thinking about just how lucky she really was to have such an amazing husband.

“Morning daddy.” She mumbled around a mouthful of cereal.

“Morning.” He managed to get out through a yawn.

Not being the type to eat one bowl of cereal, he grabbed a banana, the whole box of cereal, a gallon of milk, a bowl and a spoon before sitting across from her at the table.

He poured his cereal, managing to get most of it into his bowl. Then he peeled his banana and cut it into slices on top of the flakes with his spoon. For the coup-de-grace, he poured his milk, miraculously not getting any of it on the table to join his fallen banana peel and stray flakes.

Like a man ravished by hunger for weeks, he dug in.

She smiled to herself, noting how focused a man like her father could be on such a simple task like chewing his food and swallowing, yet he could barely manage to get the food into the bowl. She could very easily see him simply dropping a whole banana in the box and adding milk.

After pouring his second bowl, her being only halfway through her first, he downed a glass of juice and spoke his first sentence.

“Doesn’t toast sound amazing right now?”

Ardra actually laughed out loud at his completely random statement as he stuffed another mouthful of cereal into his mouth and chomped on it as he walked over to the toaster. He popped in four slices, pushed the handle down harder than he needed to, grabbed the butter off the center island and set it next to the toaster.

He headed back to the table and managed to consume three massive bites before the toast popped up. He munched his way back to the toaster, threw the bread on a plate, buttered it up and dropped it in the center of the table.

“I’m Super Dad! I made you toast!” he announced to her proudly.

“My hero!” she swooned dramatically as she took her two slices and bit into one.

That had been their morning ritual since she was a little girl. It had changed slightly over the years, but it was essentially the same. One of the more notable differences being: There was only one bowl surrounded by fallen flakes now instead of two.

After finishing his third bowl of cereal and second glass of juice, he kissed her on top of her head before rinsing his bowl and leaving the cereal on the counter for her mother. The milk went back in the fridge and he cored and sliced an apple for his wife. As he was walking up the stairs, Ardra heard her mother get out of bed and walk to the bathroom.

She smiled to herself as she pushed her last bite of toast into her mouth and rose to rinse her own bowl. It was another one of the dances that they had fallen into over the years. It was no wonder they were still so in love with each other.

Ardra took a moment to appreciate the fact that she wasn’t one of those people that ever had to wonder if she was the reason her parents were so defeated. They lived their lives to the fullest and made sure to remind her often that she was a blessing in their eyes.

After cleaning the scattered flakes and banana peel off of the table, she headed up the stairs to shower and get ready for school.

The professors all chose to come out of vacation mode that day. Classes were torture, homework was heavy and Ardra’s brain was goo by the end of the day.

Piper seemed to be unaffected by her best friend’s obvious lack of sleep and chattered on and on about the mountains of homework they had been assigned for the weekend.