Home Sweet Hell

The view through the slanted windshield of the minivan changed abruptly. The sky had been blue and full of sunshine just moments before. As soon as the silent driver turned off the highway onto a country road, the view turned bleak. From out of nowhere the midday sky turned gray and was rapidly darkening. The thick clouds gathered together, rolling briskly across the ominous sky like a wave from an ocean in the middle of a hurricane. I could see the monster in the distance. It sat menacingly to the west of us, turning the gray sky black. Its deadly tongue licking the earth briefly, taunting those trapped beneath it. The closer we got, the more frantic I became; my brain recognizing something my thoughts had not caught onto yet. All of the sudden I was desperate to save what it threatened to destroy. 

I was confused as to how I ended up there, in the passenger seat of a van, watching as a tornado seemed to come out of nowhere, starting at the ghost of my Mother. Even the air seemed to be tense, it was thick with heat, with fear, and with terror. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed that I’d wake up in my bed. Safe, sane and alone. But, when I opened my eyes, I was still in the van, on what was beginning to feel like a road trip to hell, being driven by my once upon a time, mom.

As my panic intensified, so did my awareness. Across from where I sat in the passenger's seat, was the ghost of my dead mother, who sat quietly behind the wheel, seemingly unfazed by the threat that we faced. She said nothing and asked no questions as she drove us towards my deadly destination; offering no acknowledgement at the frantic demands that I shouted at her. In the terrifying moment of my distress, the thought crossed my mind that I hadn’t seen her face, or sat in her company, in more than two decades. But in that moment nothing mattered to me except whatever or whomever, it was that I was risking my life to get to. Not even the black figure that sat in my lap, laughing hysterically at my desperation and panic, could lessen my need to get there.

 At first, I couldn't make sense of what was going on. The woman seemed to appear out of nowhere. She had dark brown skin, white, wiry hair, and black holes where her eyes should have been. Each time I heard her sinister laugh, it went through my brain like tiny knives, leaving pain in its wake. As I cringed against it, against the feel of her repulsive touch as she laid across me; I watched my mother, waiting for her to do the same. But her focused stare remained on the road ahead, both of her decaying hands gripping the steering wheel as if they were glued to it. Yet, still I screamed at her to go faster. 

 A part of me wanted to reach over and hug her, to throw my arms around her and tell her how much I missed her; how angry I was that she’d left me. But I couldn’t, I was afraid to touch her. I knew that her ash white skin would be cold. I was frantic as I watched the starving tornado feast upon the earth. And as I watched, I realized where we were, and I knew exactly where my destination was, knew exactly who would be waiting there when I reached it. That part of me knew that my destination was home, that everyone I loved most in the world, waited for me there. All I could hope was that they would seek shelter from the raging killer that was knocking upon their door.

As we rounded a sharp and familiar curve, I watched as the tornado seemed to jump across the remaining distance between us, like it had sat patiently above everything I love just to taunt me as it waited for me to get there. It reached out a stick-sized finger just ahead of us, destroying everything it touched, obstructing our ability to see what was in front of us. But the dead woman who had once been my mother drove on. As the rain began to slow just enough for me to see, the woman in my lap started to change. Her hair shriveled and then disappeared, her wrinkled skin began to tighten before it fell from her bones in small pieces, like watching paper as it burned; revealing another layer that was shiny and black. I watched in horror as it slithered its slimy body across my legs, reaching its head back to face me. Its mouth opened to reveal thousands of sharp-edged fangs, its snake like tongue impatient to strike. 

“You're mine now,” it said with that same devilish laugh as the woman it had pretended to be.

I shot my Mother a panicked look and felt my heart drop when I realized she was smiling. She didn’t look at me, she just kept her eyes focused on the road, wearing a sinister grin that match the sweet baby blue in her eyes.

Before I could say a word or even react, we began to skid across the wet asphalt, the sound of the brakes as they struggled to do their job ripped through the van. I glanced at my mother, who for once looked troubled, and followed her gaze to see that we had came to stop in the middle of the road, and we were surrounded by downed power lines. I knew there was no hope for us then, even with death in my lap, and surrounding the place that I sat, all I could think of was getting home. I screamed at her to back up, but I could see the finality in her face when she finally looked at me. I saw, rather than heard, as she whispered to me,

“Welcome home.”

And then, everything went black.