Only five days after the Christmas party, Lindsey sat on the couch and waited for him to arrive - through the ice and the storm, she didn't care. Big clots of stuffing belched from just about everywhere - really it was surprising anyone could see that the couch was red. Just like Lindsey's hair, fanned out on the couch where her head rested. On her stomach a round mirror lay. The second object of Darrel's affection - though he'd claim the red and black car to his grave over what she offered on the mirror.
She was smiling, almost. The corners of her mouth quirked up slightly, most men found her 'almost' smile seductive. Darrel smiled back, showing a mouthful of unkempt teeth, his hygiene had taken the same route as his football career. "You made it, baby. I knew you could," she said in an amused yet distracted way. "I could feel you coming. Fast and hard. I love that about you."
"You know I love you, Lindsey," Darrel said as he lifted his head from the surface on her midriff.
In one fluid motion she stood and placed the mirror on the table, she had her back to him with her hand outstretched behind her. Darrel was simply amazed, after all, his mind was moving on par with a ferret afflicted with ADHD. Not even in the ballpark of graceful, he took her hand, eager to be led where ever she meant to take him. He loved her with everything, all of it. Every microgram of him yearned for her presence.
In just a few strides they were at a doorway, set below the stairs going up to the bedrooms. A tickling started somewhere deep in Darrel's brain. She could see the hesitation in his jerky body language.
"It's okay, honey," she touched his face. Everything was okay for Darrel at that moment.
"You're right," he stared deep into her eyes. "I love you."
Soon, they descended the steep stairway into the basement. This time she had to grip his hand a little tighter. He heard the creak of the boards. Flashes went off, not just a tickling but flashes. Deep underneath everything else in his poor mind (everything consisting of: Lindsey, the dope, and a distant third, his car). As bright as those flashes were he never show them. Never felt the tickling.
Lindsey led him across the ancient black basement. She paused for a moment and a click illuminated the space - to the extent a naked bulb can in the center of an underground (ancient) room. The corners, just out of reach. And the doorways.
The doorway.
The memory was there. The way she leaned against the two-foot thick rock doorway, just out of the yellow light, yet he could see her. Shadows mostly, but he could see that funny smile of hers, the hair falling over her shoulders, hiding her ears. He could see the elbow propped against the doorway and her crossed ankles. To Darrel the memory hadn't made it to the surface and he was enthralled. Where was she taking him? Why didn't the dirt puff up at all when they stepped?
With the hand not holding his she grabbed a handful of his hair on the back of his head. She stared straight into his. Her eyes, never the same - blue, green, brown (red, ha), acted, for Darrel, like a time machine, taking him back. That night, the creaking stairs, the dirt floor, the awful single light. The shadowed doorway.
"Did I ever tell you about the time I was down here when I was fifteen?" she asked and went on as though she knew the answer. "Something happened to me then. I think it was night. You can see it's dark down here all the time."
Their minds were both running on high octane. She continued, "I don't want to talk about it or anything like that. I try not to think about it, but I know you love me and I have to share this with you cuz if you're the one I think you are, I feel you are, you need to know everything about me."
"E-ehhm, mmh," she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. "Darrel I had a baby four years ago. It was a complicated pregnancy and some things didn't work out very well."
Amazingly, he was able to break in, as mesmerized as he was, "What, wha, what's this place?" jerky movements gave life to each syllable. "What happened?" His eyes were open, wide, he saw her face. The way that half-smile buried itself as fast as it appeared.
"I wanted to show you this."
The eye lock she had on him, it all came back. He could almost see the memories floating from her eyes into his. This time she held his hand and almost dance like spun him around so he was in the room. She stood in the doorway, the room was illuminated by shadows. Lindsey stood facing him, holding - no gripping - his hand, and looked at him and the memories came flooding back.
Despite the memories, the total recall. Darrel wasn't prepared for this. Shock coursed through him. Every part of him. The hairs on his arm stood up, straight up when he turned around.
"I wanted you to see Adam, again," she said behind him. He thought maybe she was really smiling, now.
As his mind reeled in horror and tried to forget every millisecond, his eyes recorded. Some part of that overloaded circuit in Darrel's brain wondered where the pale, almost nonexistent, glow came from.
A monstrosity stood before him. A blackened humanoid thing that stood erect and shuffled to his/it's feet. Chains jingled and the shackles that blended in with the skin, though the cuffs around the things right ankle and wrist were smooth, the skin surrounding was wrinkled and darker.
"Yesterday he asked about you," she said behind him. Her voice seeming to come from inside his head, or a hidden surround sound. "He asked where his daddy was."
artwork by: H.R. Giger
And now Darrel was in a sickly yellow landscape with dark thunderheads on the horizon. He was there, not the basement, he was in this wasteland. A sign stood next to him, 'Cerebrus' the sign denoted. It was shaped like an arrow and pointed off into a distance that never changed. Before him stood his query. More than that, his master. As much as Darrel loved Lindsey, the object - the absolute #1 object, person. Adam - of his total devotion stood before him.
Blackened and withered, Adam looked up at Darrel. Instead of meeting a face like Lindsey's with eyes to fall into, he looked into holes. Holes that went all the way down, and Darrel feared that if he looked far enough into Adam's eyes, he'd see the hell that had been riding with him for the last few months.
Adam managed a smile much like his mother's. A half-smile, an almost smile, really just a quirk of the corners of his mouth. Darrel's face turned into a question mark the way a parents face does when they have no idea why their child is so distraught.
The small quirk of a smile grew wider. Pieces of his cheek fell off and floated on the yellow air like ashes. Broken teeth now showed through the widening smile - smile? part tearing, perhaps. Those familiar with the sound of a brick wall tumbling down, or a high speed car crash. The sound of 'unfortunate' turned to full volume and came out of Adam's mouth. Past the tongue dried and shrunken, past the broken teeth and flaking skin, came the sound of death, and desire.
I'm not complete without you, Daddy. Somehow Darrel's rattled mind heard words in the symphony of chaos. I need help, Daddy. I can't see. Mommy's looked for me, but none seem work out.
Adam gestured behind him and Darrel saw the bodies. They were standing - and swaying slightly - but they looked nowhere. They stood in no particular order, they just bunched around Adam. Darrel thought he recognized some of them. Old Miss Thompson, she died a few months ago. He'd seen pictures of Jack's dad and thought maybe that one over there was Jack's dad. It was hard to tell.
They stood in various states of decomposition. They all stood looking nowhere. They all stood with black sockets where eyes once where.
Darrel looked back at Adam. That odd white ash glow filled and shadowed his grotesque features. Adam's mouth twitched in that odd way - so much like his mother - again. Darrel's priorities shifted drastically. Enough so that he fell back into Lindsey's, mommy's, arms; his eyes never leaving the black - blacker than the skin, if that was possible - gaze of Adam's empty sockets.
"Da-dee," Adam managed and Darrel felt Lindsey's chest rise against his slumped body.
After football went out the window Darrel kind of floated, not knowing or caring, where he went or how he got there (as long as he was having a good time). Lindsey became more important than football ever was. If he ever stopped to wonder why - which he didn't - he knew now. Everything happens for a reason, Darrel knew his reason now.
His boy needed eyes. That's it, just the right pair of eyes and his new son would be complete.
"Da-dee," and Adam extended his left hand. Darrel took it and folded himself around the blackened, shackled... eyeless four year old. He wept on his son's shoulder as he felt flakes, ashes maybe, fall on the back of his bare neck.
Adam smiled from ear to ear.
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