It isn't him. It's impossible! I've gotta be losing my mind because I'm well aware that Diego is dead. Gone, his body in the deep freeze miles away. I watched them put him in the bag and tag his tiny toe before zipping him up. I saw them put him in the van and drive away, yet here he is, or a crazy eyed diabolical version of him.
This has to be my imagination at play, the stress spilling out of my brain and creating this shit. The creature standing before me now isn't human and I can't help but think, it never has been. Glazed eyes surrounded by busted veins and floating capillaries stand out against his pale gray flesh. His tiny body is still donning the clothes he wore hours before, but no longer are they straight and pristine, but blood soaked and tattered. But Diego didn't die bloody. This imagery was created to stun me, like paralyzing spider venom in the body of a fly. He stinks like a week-old corpse, and he smirks at me, flashing his glistening rotting teeth. The creature hiding in Diego's small body is not human. It's disgusting. A poor representation of anything living, and especially a child of sweet innocence.
He's mocking the virtuous by stuffing his evilness inside the shimmering purity only a child has.
"He's coming," the boy hisses, His voice raspy and wet sounding, as if he is forced to push sound through congestion and inflammation.
I don't know why I respond to a figment of my imagination. It's lunacy that I feel obligated to say something to it. My reasoning comes down to me being scared shitless, and I don't want to piss him off.
"W-who?"
My speech is a mere whisper as the fear chokes me. My question draws forth a huff from the evil Diego and he dips his pointy chin towards his chest, watching me through his lashes like a predator eyes its prey.
"The Master," he says. Such a simple answer, laced with the belief that I know who his master is.
He sees me tremble, tilting his head, watching my frightened reaction with an expressionless interest. I'm not unlike a helpless subject in a cage, and he is the scientist, taking notes on how I react to devastation. I hate the weakness I'm projecting. And although he isn't real, he is still seeing me at my worst. Fear grips me, tossing my guts about in my body, angling to push me as far as he can.
God, this is worse than the night I dropped acid at the cemetery with my high school best friend Stacia Derringer. That bitch had a blast while I saw 'Night of the Living Dead' play out all around me.
"What's the matter, Cobalt? Do you not like what I am wearing? I picked it out just for you," he purrs, his voice older, eviler, then what could come out of any child's mouth. My lips part to answer this terrifying ridiculousness.
But the thing interrupts with a low, animalistic growl, the sound rendering me speechless.
"Fine, you ungrateful thing. Shall I change then? Into something more familiar to you?"
What in the hell was it talking about? Change into what? A fucking frog? The air grows thicker with cold and rankness, making it difficult to think. My eyes are burning, and I shake my head, too afraid to blink lest that millisecond I take my gaze off him, he will attack. But I can't help it. I squeeze my lids together, hoping to relieve them from their drying pain. When I open them again, bile makes its way up my throat. The boy has changed…shifting into something unimaginable with as much ease as it takes to swap skirts.
That thing has changed into my daughter, who now stands there, smiling at me in a way my baby never did,
Nor would ever do.
She wears the pink lace dress my ex-mother-in-law bought for her to be buried in, and the black dress shoes, but the material is frayed, as if representing the years she's been underground. Gone are patches of her long curls, her coffee brown skin pallid in places, completely gone in others. Her eyes, which were once shiny and golden-brown, are now coated milky white. Her disgusting and shocking appearance makes me long to wail, fall to my knees and lose myself in that dark place I am very aware of, because my ass almost died there.
But instead, I stand frozen, every muscle in my body glued together and unable to bend. I know I'm shaking because I can hear my teeth rattling. As if sensing the damage this vision is doing to me the creature representing my daughter laughs, a low, rumbling sound, not matching the child persona in the least. Her shoulders are quivering from the absolute mirth, but I still can't speak, scream, move…nothing!
"You'll see. Spare yourself and leave this alone, Cobalt," the child says. Then, quickly, the smile fades, and her expression becomes twisted into a cruel grimace.
"You cannot displease the masters, or you will suffer. Better to be invisible to them than to anger them. Consider yourself warned!"
Like sepsis infecting the veins, the putrid air in the room seems to fold in around me, swaddling me, smothering and infecting me. I gasp, seeking a deep breath not stained in poison, but the stench only seems to grow thick though. I can feel the taint enter my mouth, swelling as it reaches my throat. I clutch at my neck, my mouth opening and closing as I seek relief, eyeing the creature who watches me suffer with obvious fucking pleasure.
The burning in my lungs takes hold, and the room gets hazy. I'm suffocating…I'm falling…
Help me!
But I can't scream those words. Nobody can hear me. I'm alone…
And much to my horror, the light switches off. I stumble backwards, my legs feeling wobbly as my body seems too heavy to hold upright any longer. I slide down the wall, my short, ragged breaths echoing throughout the small room as I struggle to inhale fresh air into my lungs but keep getting the taint. It's like big hands are wrapping around my throat, tightening slowly.
It's at this point, as I sit here, shrouded in pollution and the night I recognize that I'm wrong. The lights didn't turn off, casting me in shadow. I'm passing out! Fading from aware to oblivion as the child whispers in a low, demonic voice.
"Mortals need to learn their place."
Through the blackness behind my eyes, I observe images flashing, breaking up the dark. Shaded forms of a black snake, and a woman with desperate eyes appear in my mind, then become painted in darkness…
Then, a sudden knock radiates through my consciousness, and I gasp, stiffening back to reality, the room cast in amber. I glance up at the light and listen to the soft humming of the fan. The room is still, with no sign that anything took place. No dead children. No snakes. No flickering lights, and the only stink is the flower air freshener from the can on the back of the toilet.
"Hey, Lindsey," my partner calls out from behind the door. "You've been in there ten minutes. Hurry! The chief wants to talk to us."
Only ten minutes? Fuck, it seems like I've been in here for days. I eye the door, too afraid to move, and a bit hopeful he might arbitrarily kick in the door and get me the hell out of here. But why would he? He has no idea what I just endured, and even though it all came from the realms of my mind, it felt real. And even if it did really happen, my shit is mine and I'm not his responsibility,
When I don't answer, he knocks again, the loud sound making me jump.
"Lindsey! Let's vamos."
"I fucking heard you! I'm coming."
My tone has a bite, but I'm grateful he's out there, I decide, as I push up from the floor. My rubbery legs take a second to relearn the art of movement, taking me forward, towards that beautiful door that will lead to freedom. Moments ago, I believed myself a goner, but I'm alive, my mental faculties back in order, and I promise myself that I will never use this bathroom ever again. I don't care what floor I will have to traverse to use the toilet, I'm more than willing to do it.
Shit, construction workers across the street have a port-a-potty. I got no qualms about using that instead of this bathroom. I'm desperate here, needing my world to stop spinning now and return to the nothingness I enjoyed before today.
My body still trembles, but I'm able to rush to the door, swinging it open to find Jimenez standing there, his form leaning against the door frame, the florescent lights above reflecting in his neatly combed black hair. His wide mouth is tight, his brown skin glowing with blessed life. After the gruesomeness I experienced, I pause to stare at him, taking him in…because he resembles a goddamned angel, towering above me like some ethereal worrier, sent from Heaven…and I need his calm beauty to wash the ugliness away. He has no idea how good it is to see him. He has no idea how much I desire him. And he has no idea that his partner is losing her sanity minute by minute. He looks annoyed, but I don't care. I'm just happy it's his face I see and not whatever those things were my mind conjured.