Dark Mater

The Afternoon sun peeked through a gap in the curtain, illuminating her face briefly before he got up and closed it.

The room returned to its gloomy and dark state. A table fan oscillated, providing temporary relief from the heat, but with the windows closed, it was stifling.

He sat down opposite her and gazed at her face greedily, taking in every feature, every crease, and every mole. The dress fit her perfectly. Her side braids were as crooked and messy as he remembered. Even her socks were mismatched. She was just like her, except her eyes. His penny had startling blue eyes, but the woman sitting opposite him had brown eyes.

‘It's okay as long as I don’t look at her eyes,’ he thought to himself. He knew he could buy blue lenses, but he never liked them. There was something so unnatural about them. It simply did not fit.

But as he kept looking at her, the differences between her and Penny were becoming more apparent. The woman’s head was slightly big. The nose was not sharp enough. Penny had a longer neck and had some freckles scattered all over her neck and collarbone; the woman had none.

His mouth twitched as the differences began to become obvious. No longer able to contain himself, he got up and slapped her hard across her face while screaming in anger.

Her lifeless body fell with a muted thud on the carpet. He looked down and started kicking her in frustration.

He stopped after a while, huffing and out of breath. He bent over his knee and took long breaths to steady himself. Once settled, he walked out of his room and called out to his son, “Jared, take care of her before I return, and don’t forget to mop the floors!”

He then took his key and jacket from the hook next to the door and walked to his bike. He needed a drink and needed to find himself another Penny.

Jared was reading in his room when he heard his father call out. He lifted his gaunt face towards the direction of his father's voice and got up. His waif-like body hardly made any noise as he slowly walked towards his father's room. As he walked in, he made a beeline for the bed. Most of the time, he found them strewn on his father's bed and sometimes under, so when he could not spot the body immediately, his brows wrinkled slightly and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the dark room. What had his father said… ‘mop the floor.’ He started looking down and finally spotted the body near his father's desk.

He walked up to it, bent down to examine the body—broken neck and not wacked on the head like last time! ‘Good,’ he thought. The area around the body was a mess, though; his father had been clumsy, unlike before. Jared’s brows creased again. Was his father high before he left? He pushed the thought aside, deciding to tackle it later.

He got up, sized the body’s arms, rotated it towards the door, and started dragging it. Dragging it was harder than expected, but again, that was good; Unbeknownst to him, his father had chosen well.

He dragged the body all the way towards the door that led to the basement below. He placed the body in front of the door, opened it, and knocked twice on the side wall. He looked down, straining to hear the faint rustle of fabric that her dress made whenever she came up the stairs. It was a minute before he heard the familiar rustle. Then she appeared, tall, gaunt like him, pursed lips, and her blue eyes glowing ever so slightly.

When she reached the landing, she placed a bony palm on his cheeks and smiled slightly. She then looked down, and her smile widened. She then looked up and said, “Thank you, my boy.”

Her voice sounded hollow and emotionless, but Jared did not care. He beamed at her and placed his hand over hers. She quickly withdrew her hand and bent down to pick up the body. He hid his disappointment.

She swiftly carried the body down. Jared closed the door behind her and went to the supply closet to get a mop and clean his father’s room.

Four days later

He was pacing up and down the front porch, anxiously waiting for his father to return.

In the past, his father had been out for a maximum of two-three days. He always got back to him.

But when he did not come back yesterday, Jared got worried and was alternating between pacing the front porch and walking all the way down the driveway, and looking out at the dirt road that led up to their front gate.

A low, wrathful groan rolled through the house. Jared’s breath caught as a shiver ran through him.

Hesitantly, he walked in, walked towards the basement, but paused before he opened the door. He knew she would be hungry and angry. He had faced her wrath before. It was not pleasant.

His hand automatically went towards his chest and stroked a long gash that trailed from the middle of his chest, all the way to his stomach.

He heard the groan again. He let out a long breath, opened the door, knocked twice on the side wall, and braced himself.

For a couple of minutes, he heard nothing but his shaky breathing. Then he heard her coming up, slowly, as if every step was laborious. As she reached up to the landing, he could see her face pulled tightly against her skull. Her blue eyes were dull and deeply sunken. Her hands were just bones now. The skin seemed to have started to fade.

“I..I.. don't know where…where father is”, he managed to stammer out, his body automatically leaning back, as if to avoid getting swiped by her again.

She did not say anything. But her mouth was grimacing in anger and her dull blue eyes, though lifeless, were starting to get a red hue.

“I..I..I can..can, I can.. walk to the town..town andddd check. There are only two..two bars and I can find out…” but before he could finish, she spoke, whisper-like, but in an icy tone, strained and grating, “find me a body. I don’t care about him. You know, otherwise I will fade and you will lose a mother all over again.”

Jared just stood staring at her. He did not know how to hunt! He was not strong enough. But he also did not want to lose her. He could not let her fade again.

He saw her hand reach out, just her forefinger out. He knew what was coming. He just physically backed away and hurriedly said, “Okay. I am going out now. I will get you a body.”

Her hand went back down to her side. Her eye narrowed, and she just said, “Hurry”, before turning back and going down the stairs towards the basement.

Jared hurriedly closed the door to the basement and stood there for a couple of minutes, head bowed, and both his knuckles pressing his eyes in.

He did not want to do the next part, but he had no option.

He then straightened up, resolute. He was almost 16, with the right weapon, he could do it. He would walk up to the town. He turned his head and saw the sun setting from the kitchen window. Perfect!

He went to the kitchen and took a stake knife, went to his father's closet and took a baseball bat, and set out towards the town.

It had been 3 years since he travelled to the town. He had hardly stepped out of the house since he started caring for his mother.

He remembered the way; it was easy. The dirt road from his house led to a quiet highway bordered by thick woods that passed through the town. As the sun set, shadows clung to the tree line, making it easy for Jared to walk along the tree line unnoticed and hidden from the gaze of any driver who might pass.

The night came on suddenly, and darkness settled in quickly. Jared shivered in the cold. In his haste, he had forgotten to carry a torch, and the moon was covered in thick clouds. He pushed forward, urgency clawing at him, but the darkness was thick and alive, and the jagged earth was slowing him with every step. He contemplated walking more on the highway, but even as he was thinking about it, his foot caught in a root, he tripped and fell, his head hard on a small but sharp jutting rock.

He lost his consciousness.

When he came to, cold water was dripping onto his face. Wetness clung to his clothes. The sensation jolted him fully awake, and with it came a rush of terror and panic. He scrambled to rise, but the moment he was halfway up, a sharp pain in his head and ankle sent him crashing back down.

He lay there, gasping. Rain had begun to fall in earnest. It took several long minutes before the fog in his mind began to lift, before he could piece together where he was—and what had happened.

He did not remember how long he sat there, but eventually, he stood up, careful to put weight on his non-injured leg. As he was soaking in the rain, he decided the best course of action would be to try to get back home somehow and hunt in the morning.

He was smart enough and, in enough pain, to know that any other option would be a foolish one.

He started hobbling back, taking support from the trees here and there. He kept an eye out for a long piece of wood or something similar to help him hobble, but alas, the dark and wet night did not help him here.

Slowly, he hobbled, crawled, and made his way up to the house. Thankfully, he had not walked a long way out.

He walked in and dragged himself onto the couch in the living room. He knew he had dragged mud all over the house and on this couch, and his father would skin him alive if he were to walk in right now, but he did not care. He was catching his breath, and if he was lucky, he could clean this up tomorrow morning, before he (hopefully) returns.

As his breathing steadied, the dull throb in his leg and the sharp sting in his head rose to the surface. He touched his forehead, and his finger touched something sticky. The rock had cut his forehead. No wonder it was paining like hell.

He switched on a table lamp next to the couch. It cast a dull yellow glow in the room. In the dull light, he examined his body. He had cuts and scrapes all over his legs and hands.

He then got up to go to the bathroom to wash up and get some first aid. On the way to the bathroom, he passed the basement door. He paused.

It was quiet. Come to think of it, since he came back, he had not heard any groan or sounds. It was odd, unsettling, and concerning.

He dragged himself to the door and pressed his ears against the door. He was met with silence.

Concerned, he opened the door and knocked on the side wall twice.

He waited for what seemed like an eternity. He strained his ears to hear any movement, but all he could hear was the sound of rain falling. He leaned in from the doorway and strained his eyes to see something in the darkness.

“Mama”, he whispered slowly and then a little bit loudly when he could not hear anything.

His leg gave another throb, but he set aside the pain. He had never been down in the last 3 years. He had been forbidden by her. But not hearing anything worried him. His heart began to beat faster, and panic, a different kind of panic, set in him.

He decided to go down and check. The basement staircase had bulbs along the way down, the ones that had a thread that one could pull to switch them on, but he knew she did not like any light. So, switching on the bulb was out of the question. But he still needed some way to get down to the dark basement, and having just gotten injured, he did not want to risk going down the stairs in the dark. So he hobbled to the kitchen and got a candle from one of the kitchen drawers and lit it, and slowly made his way to the basement.

The candle gave him enough light. His heart was beating out of his chest, and every two steps in, he kept calling his mama.

Eventually, he made it all the way down, and as soon as he stepped down from the last step, a tiny gust of wind blew the candle out.

Jared just stood there, still as a statue. One hand still clutching the banister tightly on which he had leaned while slowly hobbling down the stairs.

Suddenly, fear gripped him. The hand holding the candle fell limply next to him. His hand lost grip, and the candle fell on the floor. Surprisingly, it did not make any sound. It seemed to get lost in the darkness.

Then a faint sound broke the silence. It sounded like someone breathing. But that could not be right, his mama did not breathe!

He got some of his senses back and decided that going back up was the best option here. As he turned to go back and somehow make his way back up the stairs, a flicker of movement caught his eye.

He turned and peered into the darkness. “Mama”, he called in a whisper. He saw darkness darken in the middle of the basement and glide slowly towards him. He saw the darkness open its eyes.

“Mama?” he almost whispered to himself. The eyes were red, not the blue that his mother had. Then coldness and fear gripped his heart. Slowly, all the cuts that he had on his body began to bleed. His mind wanted him to run, but his body would not move.

Then suddenly he felt himself being grabbed and pulled toward the eyes. As he got closer, the darkness formed a mouth, got close to his ears, and said, “Come to mama, my boy”.

As the darkness whispered this in his ears, he felt a hand grab his heart and squeeze it, making his wounds bleed faster. He started to scream, but another hand grabbed his throat from inside. His mouth was open in a silent scream. He saw a dark tongue lick the blood that had trickled down from his forehead onto his cheeks. The tongue eventually bore a hole in his cheek, and the darkness seemed to go inside him. The hand loosened its grip on his throat, and his scream filled the dark, wet night.

Before his last breath left him, he saw the red eyes turn into the familiar blue eyes.