Page 15 of Cry for Help

Soon, the doors shut, and the house was quiet. Though my head was anything but.

I was used to the cacophony of prison. The rattle of iron bars and the screams and sobs of the prisoners in the dark.

I still remembered my first night in prison. The moment the bars shunted closed with a heavy clang. The lights all turned off at once. I hadn’t slept that night or the next. I’d made a lot of mistakes as a frightened eighteen-year-old reeling from a triple murder charge. For murders I hadn’t committed.

The night felt too quiet. The bed was too soft. I knotted my fingers over my stomach and stared at the ceiling, wondering if I’d made the right choice coming to the Red City.

Either way, it was too late to change it now.

I slipped into unconsciousness, though my mind had reeled and fought for hours.

I hadn’t dreamt in years, at least not that I could remember on waking.

Somehow, my first night in the Red City was different. Maybe my exhaustion knocked something loose in my head.

I remembered my old house in Portland, though certain things had faded with time. The scent of my mother’s candles or the cat scratches on the couch. Everything looked the same, but somehow completely different, like watching a movie adaptation of my life.

I knew the scene well, though I’d never seen it from my perspective.

I opened my mouth, but my voice was gone, just like in my waking hours.

I wanted to warn baby-Maddie about the monster. I knew she would walk through the door any moment, but I could do nothing to save her.

I didn’t need to look in the kitchen to know the source of the sounds. The crying whimpers as death came for my mother. Eaten alive.

I woke up, a scream locked in my throat. The same scream that came whenever death haunted me, and theSídhe-Eatercrossed my thoughts.

I’d never seen its face. I hadn’t needed to see Mom’s body to know she was dead.

I woke up to an empty house.

I knew because I’d crept down the hall and peeked into every room for signs of my demonic masters.

I tested the front door, finding it unlocked. There weresome crackers in the cupboard with a post-it that read‘Property of Malphas.’

I ate them and washed them down with a glass of tap water.

I sat in the living room, unable to summon a single idea of what to do.

Maybe it was a test?

Maybe they wanted me to run.

Maybe they liked the chase.

With new disturbing thoughts, I searched the single-story home for anything creepy. Serial killer-esque. I knew what to look for; I’d been shoulder-to-shoulder with the crazies for ten years.

No heads in the fridge or lampshades made of nipples. Not even a basement with an industrial-sized freezer.

The television only had five channels, and three of them were news.

I ran a bath. I used all the expensive products until the bathroom was filled with bubbles, and the steam made me dizzy.

And it wasn’t even ten am yet.

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I couldn’t get comfortable.

I was used to having a schedule. In prison, every moment was accounted for and planned, down to when I took a shit.

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