Page 23 of Phantasm
“Darian,” Mom’s soft voice invades my dreams. “You have to wake up, sweetheart.” Soft, trembling fingers shift my hair away from my face.
Removing the quilt, she helps me sit up before stroking my hair and cheeks as though she’s checking for injuries. “Remember your favorite game, hide-and-seek?”
“Huh?” I rub my eyes, confused.
A sudden crash from somewhere in the house causes her to jump and squeeze her eyes shut briefly.
She inhales a shaky breath and looks at me. “Do you remember?”
I’m tired, and Mom makes no sense. “I remember.”
“Good,” she replies with a weak smile as she palms my cheeks. “This will be just like that time.” Unclipping her heart-shaped necklace from around her throat, she fastens it around my neck. Tears gather on her lashes, so she quickly wipes them away before rising to her feet and pulling me to mine. We cross the room to the closet, and she guides me inside, crouching down. “No matter what you see or hear, you don’tcome out, understand? You don’t make a sound. No matter how frightened you are.”
“You’re scaring me, Mommy.” My heart hammers as my bottom lip begins to wobble. I’ve never seen her this pale before. Where’s Daddy?
She cups my cheeks, and her firm touch both soothes and frightens me.
“I know you’re scared, but you have to be a big boy for me. Can you do that? You need to be brave, okay? Hide in here and don’t make a single sound.”
“Mommy?”
“Promise me that you’ll hide in here.”
“I promise…”
Heavy footsteps thunder on the stairs as deep, scary voices filter through the walls. Mom slaps a hand over her mouth and whimpers, but then she seems to shake herself off.
She quickly pulls me in for a hug before closing the closet doors, and I shrink back into the shadows.
“Remember to stay quiet. Don’t let them hear you,” Mom whispers seconds before the bedroom door flings open.
Three men enter, dragging my broken and beaten father by his arms. I surge forward to peer through the slats.
“Oh, looky what we have here. Did you think you could hide from us?” one of the men says to my mom, cracking his knuckles while the others toss my groaning father to the floor. Mom backs away and picks up a pair of hair scissors on the dresser.
“What are you going to do with those, sweetheart?” Chuckling, the man tightens his grip on his gleaming knife.
“Stay away from me,” Mom bites out.
A fourth man enters the room, wearing a three-piece suit and shiny black shoes. Something about him makes my fearskyrocket. Shadows cling to him as if he’s Lucifer himself, and I can’t keep my teeth from chattering.
His cold, cruel eyes darken even further when he spots my mom.
Removing a pair of black latex gloves from his pockets, he snaps them on and says to the other men, “Make Mr. Delacroix watch, but don’t kill his wife. Not yet. She’s my offering for the night.”
“It’ll be my pleasure, Mr. van der Meer,” the man with the knife replies as he leers at Mom.
The bad men prop my dad up against the wall. He can barely keep his head upright. His right eye is swollen shut, and blood is trickling from his broken nose.
When the man comes for my mom, she lashes out with the scissors, but she’s no match for his strength. He drags her over to the bed and tears at her clothes.
The urge to run out there and tell him to leave her alone overwhelms me, but I stay hidden because I’m scared. Besides, I promised Mom I would hide and not make a noise.
When the screaming starts, I shrink back into the shadows and slide down against the wall with my hands over my ears.
I wake with a start, drenched in sweat, my heart hammering hard enough to make me briefly worry about an impending heart attack. These nightmares are happening nightly now. I can’t shake them.
Rubbing my eyes, I dig my fingers into my eyeballs. Not that it helps when the last remaining reason behind these recurrent nightmares is sleeping in the other wing.
