Page 44 of The Cult

Macy didn’t last long. Drugs and an abusive boyfriend drove her to an early death before she was even sixteen. I’ll never forget standing at her grave with that cheap marker that had grass already growing over it, making her and everything she was slowly disappear from this world.

My younger sister Jenny was left alone with my mother and all her demons, and even though she graduated high school and moved away, the last time I saw her I knew that time she’d spent as the only soul responsible for my mother had scarred her. She was the oldest nineteen year old I’d ever seen. Her eyes showed how much she’d endured. In them, the ugliness of her life shone through, even when she smiled.

I don’t want to think about any of this, but I can’t stop myself. It’s what the box does to you. That’s the true punishment. It isn’t being alone in the darkness. It’s being alone with the thoughts you’ve tried so hard to push down to that place you don’t want to ever think about so they never appear again that gets you.

That terrible brown and yellow geometric pattern from that hideous couch fills the space around me until it’s all I can see in the pitch black. I know it’s not real, but I slap the air in front of me to make it go away.

I’m surprised when it disappears, but then a low sound that reminds me of something metal scraping off another piece of metal begins to fill my ears. I try to decipher what it could be. I have no idea. There shouldn’t be any sounds in the box.

There isn’t. It’s all in my head. What is that sound? Where have I heard that before?

Those questions occupy me for a minute or two as the noise grows louder and louder until it’s all I can hear. I can’t make it go away like I did with the vision of that terrible couch of my mother’s. I shake my head and then cover my ears, but it keeps getting louder.

“Stop!” I silently scream, hoping that will make it disappear.

That only makes it get louder, if that’s even possible. I thrash my arms around me in a desperate hope I can make it stop. But it doesn’t.

I open my mouth to scream, but if anything comes out, I can’t hear it over the metallic noise all around me. It can’t just be in my head. That makes no sense. I thought it could, but it’s not possible.

Is Harker making that noise? He must be, but why? Did Micah instruct him to torture me with this sound? Is that why he only gave me two hours in the box?

Finally, I can actually scream, and I bellow as loudly as I can to drown out that horrible sound. It isn’t loud enough, so I redouble my effort, but I can’t scream loud enough because every time I try, the noise gets louder.

Over and over, I let out an agonizing sound until my throat gets hoarse. I can’t stop, though. If I do, the sound will drive me insane.

I don’t know how long before I fall to the floor and curl up in a ball, still screaming as I lay on a piss-stained floor. This is nothing like the other time I was in the box. This time, Micah is truly punishing me.

And all I can think is I must deserve it.

21

Nash

I openmy eyes to see two women standing over me sponging me down. One has dark hair and a round face, while the other is a blond with a gaunt look about her. Both are strangers to me, which seems odd since there aren’t that many people who live on the farm here.

The warm water slowly rolls over my skin, and I sigh heavily at how good it feels. I take a deep breath in, happy to not smell piss now. A blast of cool air hits my body, making goosebumps form, and I quickly glance down at my legs to see a white towel draped over my hips.

Looking around, I see I’m not in the box or my room. I don’t recognize this place, though. Where am I?

When I make a move to sit up, the round faced woman gently pushes me back onto the bed by my shoulders. She’s surprisingly strong for her small size, but she smiles at me when I lie back down.

“Micah insisted you relax, so please don’t make this difficult. We don’t want to upset our leader, do we?” she asks in an almost monotone voice, and I notice how her pupils take up nearly all of her eyes.

I don’t answer since I suspect she meant that as a rhetorical question. Instead, I ask her what I need to know.

“Where am I?”

She slowly rubs a sponge over my forearm while staring into my eyes the whole time. If she didn’t look like a zombie and if she wasn’t a female member of The Golden Light, this might be sexy. As it is, it’s awkward, but I don’t look away because I want her to answer my question.

After a few moments, she smiles and answers, “Micah’s. He had you brought back here after your time in the box. Are you feeling better now?”

Unsure what she’s talking about, I shrug. “No better or worse than I did in the box.”

That makes her stop caressing my arm, and she lifts her hand to cup my cheek. “It’s good that you’ve put it out of your mind. That’s better for you than remembering.”

“Remembering what?”

She doesn’t answer and returns to giving me a sponge bath on the top half of my body. The blond walks away after giving my right shin a final swipe with her damp sponge, and when I look around to see if anyone else is here to tell me what’s going on, I see it’s just the woman near my head and me.

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