A Monster Named Whiskey

CW: Substance abuse, Physical violence, gore or abuse

I woke up on the floor, my head pounding, dried tears and sweat crusting my face and clothes. The stink of vomit choked the air around me; I hazily remembered throwing up in the sink all over the dirty dishes before tripping over the rug and deciding to stay on the ground. Sleep had claimed me and a part of me had wondered, as I drifted off, if it would finally be the last time my eyes closed. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone died like that in this house, but the pain behind my still-closed eyes disappointed me. I’d take death over a hangover.

My eyes fluttered slowly, expecting the hissing sting of daylight, but only the flickering single bulb over the kitchen table illuminated the sparse space. It was just enough to make out the customized poker chip lying face down a few feet in front of me, the one I could see in my mind’s eye even in my hazy state. The one that had a simple “6 Months” embossed on one side. I closed my eyes again, this night felt haunted- maybe I could go back to sleep and awaken when the sun rose. Everything looked better in the daylight.

Before I could, a delicate clinking sound came from the table behind me, and when I rolled over to look, I saw him sitting in a chair, feet on the table, pouring himself a glass from my cheap bourbon, smoke from a glowing cigarette creating a halo around his head.

“Oh, my sleeping beauty,” he crooned, his voice like honey to match the amber eyes raking over me. Of course he would be here right now. Months gone and now he shows up to drink my liquor and taunt me with a face that looks like angels chiseled it out of marble. I want to tell him to get out, but I can barely groan with how dry my mouth is. He chuckles. He knows exactly how I’m feeling, and there is a glint in his eyes that is all too familiar as he takes a long draw of the bourbon before filling the glass again.

“It’s as if I never left,” he drawls, “and maybe that’s how it should be.”

I drag myself into a sitting position, pressing my hand into my forehead to try and relieve the pain, but even as my stomach roils and another cold sweat breaks out on my face, I feel the shame more than anything.

“What are you doing here,” I croak, crawling to lean against the nearest wall.

“I heard you calling, my sweet, must have been a great party,” he chuckled, “how could I resist calling right back to you.”

“I don’t want you here.” The smirk vanished, a glimpse of a fang peeked out from his lips, and he smoothly pulled his feet from the tabletop and stood. He rounded it, grabbed the bottle and another glass appeared in his hand, which he promptly filled. He knelt in front of me, spindly finger capturing my chin, a sharpened nail digging into the soft flesh of my throat when he pushed me to meet his eyes. The amber had a red glow about them in the single light.

“If you didn’t want me here, sweetling, I wouldn’t be here.” He pushed the glass into my hand and stood back to his full height, his shadow seeming to grow behind him. I stared at the liquid in the glass, it looked just like his eyes. He may have only poured half the glass full, but it may as well have been an ocean for how strong the currents of the liquid pulled me under. The small ripples on the bourbon’s surface made by his steps were waves that crashed into me, and though I knew my stomach cramps and pounding head were the fault of this poison, I pulled it towards me and inhaled the scent of that acid sea.

“I don’t want this,” a vodka tear slid down my face, burning as it went. I could see my reflection on the surface of the drink. I could see the hastily patched up cracks splintering in the face staring back at me. She was broken. She was poisoned. Pathetic.

“But you want this?” my unwanted companion sneered. I looked up, his skin had taken on a waxy tinge, sallow and sunken. His lips were blackening and his limbs extending. In one hand he held the poker chip, pinched between two fingers and held away from him like it was offensive. His breaths were becoming more ragged, and his previously perfect hair was falling into his face, stringy and greasy. The glass in my hand began to shake, I didn’t just want what the chip offered, I longed for it.

“I do.”

The whisper was a plea, a quiet beseechment to whatever power governed this world to save me from the siren call I felt deep in my chest. I desperately wished for wax in my ears to block out the song that would drown me and serve up my bloodied body as a feast, like tequila on the rocks, to the monster staring back at me. I knew now the clean breaths that came with clarity. I had lived 6 months with the pleasure of easy mornings unblemished by illness. I felt the sun on my face without hissing away from its burn against my bloodshot eyes. I had gotten a taste of what life could be like, and it was hard without haze to cover pain, but it was better than this. A wheezing came from the figure across the room, and what was once a beautiful, powerful presence, had dropped its glamour.

I could still recognize the face, but the skin was stretched and sagging, the teeth were so razor sharp they cut into his own mouth, black tar flowed freely from his lips and dripped onto the white shirt his skeletal limbs outgrew. There were chains shackled to his wrists, weighing down his form so it was hunched and disfigured. His elongated fingers were tipped by long, blade-like claws that dragged at his side with the chains, cutting jagged scars into the wood floors as he lurched forward.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN LIVE WITHOUT ME?!” it spit acid from the gashes it cut into each time those horrid teeth met his lips, it screeched as it clawed towards me and I screamed, trying to scramble away, even as the nausea threatened to spill over.

“YOU THINK YOU CAN BE FREE OF ME?!” The chains shot out and wrapped around my arms, and I screamed again as they dragged me back, my fingernails scrambling on the floor, ripping and splintering- now my blood would stain the wood red as his was staining it black. I was lifted from the floor, slammed onto the table, and the metal snaked around my torso to contain my thrashing.

“YOU LIE TO YOURSELF!” he placed an unnaturally long hand on my chest and pressed down, it began to swell and rot before my eyes, putrid, viscous liquid oozed from splitting flesh.

“YOU WANT A CLEAR HEAD, BUT YOU CAN’T EVEN LIVE INSIDE IT WITHOUT HATING YOURSELF!” a new bottle appeared in his hand and he used his fangs to bite off the top, glass shards fell to my face and I felt the sting of open cuts.

“YOU WANT A NEW LIFE WITHOUT ME, BUT I WAS THE ONE WHO SAVED YOU FROM YOURSELF!” he leaned forward until his face was inches from mine, his black tongue snaking out to lave the fresh blood from my cheeks, his own splashing into my open wounds. His roar dropped to a whisper as he licked into my ear,

“You, my sweet, want me gone, but you don’t even have a name without me.” He lifted the bottle,

“Please, stop!” I cried, tears streaming down my face to mix with blood and bile.

“Your father sold you to me in exchange for his first bottle,” he tipped the one in his claws over, prying my mouth open and letting it pour down my throat. Even as I gasped and tried to spit it out I felt the sweet burn of it, begging me to surrender. I couldn’t breathe, and panic rose to meet my fear. Still, the creature above me spoke,

“The day you came into this world I was by his side. I was the god he worshipped, the ritual he sacrificed everything to. I am your god, now. He damned you the way he damned himself. He gave you to me- sanctified your sacrifice in the blood of your mother and signed our contract when he signed your birth certificate. What is your name?”

“I don’t… I can’t,” I sobbed and he poured more liquid fire into my mouth.

“Say it, acolyte, what is your name?” I shook my head, he emptied the bottle and I thought I would drown when it splashed into my nose, my eyes, and my hair. He shook me and roared,

“SAY YOUR NAME!”

“WHISKEY!” I screamed back, coughing and sputtering as a smile curved unnaturally long on his flayed face, “My name is Whiskey Marie Tulley.”

We stared at each other, his amber eyes the only beauty that remained in the visage of this monster. The chains receded, the restraining hand on my chest became a caress, and his cruel smile softened.

“Do you see, sweetling?” his voice went back to its smoother, seductive pitch, I closed my eyes and my body sank into the wood beneath me, “Oblivion suits you.”

He dropped the poker chip onto the table beside me, and chuckled again, singing to himself, 12 steps forward, but all it takes is one step back. In my memory, I heard that same tune, hummed by my father on my fifteenth birthday, throwing a poker chip just like mine into the very same fireplace the creature was now standing in front of. I only got one present that year: a whiskey bottle that my father said was just for me because it had my name on it.

My poker chip has my blood on it now, but since it was gifted to me it has been stained with my tears acting like a shield and sword against the ache of temptation. I had earned it. I could earn it again.

My eyes snapped open, finding that the creature had left the broken whiskey bottle on the floor beside the table. I gripped the poker chip, and stood on shaky limbs, stooping for the bottle. I fought the nausea in my stomach and the spinning in my head that nearly made me fall again, and limped towards the monster who claimed he was my god. He eyed me without an ounce of concern, only pride at my inebriation.

“You are so beautiful like this, unsteady and craving more.”

I said nothing, only continued my wavering way towards him, and when his stench was close enough to poison me, I held out the bottle.

“You want more, darling?” he purred, conjuring another bottle in his clawed clutches. I took it from him, grasping the neck with all my strength. His smile sickened me, but steeled my resolve. I lifted the bottle above my head and swung it so hard it shattered against his skull. It overbalanced me, and I fell, but not before I raked both broken bottles down his chest and stomach. He screeched an animalistic cry, black blood spurting from the wounds and he toppled over. I regained my shaky stance, and flung myself atop his hideous form, bringing the bottle he’d poured down my throat down into his own over and over again. Bile spewed from his open mouth, blood splattered every surface, and my screams of rage shattered the silence of the night around us.

“I am not your acolyte! I am not your servant! I will not give you my life or my heart or my soul!” I kept slashing, feeling his feeble attempts to fend me off, but he was growing smaller. Each time the sharp edges of the broken glass met his flesh, his shadow grew larger, but his body lost mass. He faded beneath me, eventually his body was gone, leaving only a writhing shade in its place, unable to speak, unable to fight, unable to drink.

Finally, my movements stilled. I looked at the carnage my monster had wrought: blood, both red and black, covered the floors, counters, and furniture; glass and bottles were strewn about, some dripping and some broken; the stench of death, vomit, blood, and fear permeated everything. The house I’d lived in since birth was destroyed, though it had been contaminated long ago. My mind was still fuzzy, and in the haze of drunkenness I saw only one solution. I dragged myself up and gathered the full and half-empty bottles, pouring them in every room. By the time I was finished, the only thing I could smell was alcohol, and though I could still feel its call singing in my blood, it was not a song of seduction, it was a mourning hymn.

I opened the front door, then looked back. I never had a chance in hell of avoiding my father’s sickness, the monster had been right about that, but I did have one right now. One chance and one final bottle of whiskey in my hand. It seemed poetic for a bottle with my name on it to put an end to this cycle, but, for a moment, I hesitated. I watched Saturday morning cartoons on that rug, learned to make peanut butter sandwiches standing on my tiptoes at that counter, warmed my hands in front of that fire while listening to Christmas songs on the old radio still sitting in the corner. The small memories flashed in my mind’s eye, and tears began to choke my resolve. How could I destroy the last vestiges of the only life I’d ever known?

But then I remembered having to watch cartoons on the rug because the couch was rancid with vomit and liquor stains, needing to keep the volume down so the sleeping giant in the back room didn’t wake. I remember scraping mold off bread slices for those peanut butter sandwiches because the adult in the house hadn’t been home in a week. I remember taking my first sip of my namesake at 12 in front of that fire because my father said it would warm me when he couldn’t pay the heating bill. He’d spent the money at the bar. Every good memory I’d ever had in this house was tainted by the monster whose blood was on my hands. I was looking at the remnants of a life wasted.

I clenched my jaw, lifted my shoulders, and threw the bottle into the fire. I didn’t wait to watch it burn, just turned and ran into the night, silent as a graveyard save the crackling behind me. With each step I took, I clutched the poker chip harder and set my sights on freedom. As I ran, the fire’s growing glow cast my shadow onto the street ahead, and when the light flickered, it distorted. Then, for the briefest moment, before my eyes blinked, I swore it resembled the shape of the monster named Whiskey.

I still see it sometimes, that shadow, creeping along walls and cast onto the floor of my new apartment. I still hear his voice on the darkest nights, singing that tune, 12 steps forward, but all it takes is one step back. Every once in a while, I will catch the scent of him on the wind or see his eyes in my reflection. But he no longer belongs to me. I no longer belong to him. My name is no longer my monster; it’s clear eyes and a clearer mind, blue sky mornings and sunshine. I am a promise named Whiskey.