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22

DELILAH

T he first day without Asher was tense, but I’ve managed to survive another three without giving into the tricks my mind plays on me by doing the creative therapy Asher mentioned. I feel more like myself with the faint scent of oil paint clinging to my hair and the tips of my fingers being slightly sore from the hours I’ve spent at the piano. Having a job is a task for another day, and I’ll go back to the activity day in six months when they’ll need volunteers again.

The freak kept showing up in the tree line wearing a different mask than the usual balaclava since I’ve been alone. But I know that it isn’t real, it’s just all of my thoughts about the hospital manifesting within the psychosis and trying to make it all tie together when the only time I’ve seen a plague doctor mask was while watching an old horror movie. At the time, they freaked me out and I had to search why anyone would want to have a huge beak to put me at ease.

But it’s not real.

None of it is real.

I pace, waiting for Asher to call. He’ll end up worrying if I call him first, like he has in the last few days. Today is a new day for me to prove to myself that I’m independent. One where I’ve decided to become a new version of Delilah who doesn’t freak out over imaginary shit, and I even researched my diagnosis to understand it better.

My phone vibrates in my hand, and I answer before it can reach the second ring. His exhausted voice comes through straight away and I lay back against our bed.

“Hey, Lilo. How you doing, baby?”

There’s no joy on the other end of the line and I temper mine, so he doesn’t hear how much my days revolve around him.

“Have you been sleeping?” I ask, checking the time.

It’s 11 pm in Wainscott, and he woke up at 4 am to go to the hospital. I know his mom is still in a coma from the small amount of information he’ll give me, so he can’t be getting any sleep at the hospital. His dismissal comes almost instantly, like it does every time I’ve asked anything about him.

“I’m fine, it’s just late.”

I turn the ceiling lights off and dim the bedside lamps as I shuffle back and get under the covers. Plugging as much light into my voice as possible, I whisper, “Why don’t we go to sleep together?”

It’s too early for me but I need to feel useful instead of just taking from him. The imbalance of my brain is physically represented in our relationship, but he refuses to put himself first.

“Do you need me to read you a bedtime story, you little baby?” he teases while hiding his laugh.

It’s deeper from his lack of sleep and we’re too old for me to be giddy about falling asleep on the phone to my own husband.

“It depends,” I say slowly. “What type of story are we talking about?”

The sheets rustle on the other end of the phone and he groans but there’s no desire in it. “Don’t put images in my head or I’ll have to go back to taking cold showers until I get home.”

Turning on my side to face the wall so my psychotic imagination can’t make up images, I rest the phone on my ear as Asher begins his storytelling.

“Close your eyes, baby. I’m going to tell you the tale of two faces.”

His voice is soothing, and I smile at a memory being confirmed. It was some secretive bullshit he always mentioned when we were younger, and he’d never tell me what it was. He’d just say the tale of two faces as though it was an answer to every question in the universe.

“There was a powerful family who had sons for five generations, but the last generation had three sons who all died of mysterious circumstances while their wives were pregnant.”

The hairs on the back of my nape stand up and a chill covers my body.

“All three of their wives gave birth within two months of each other to healthy daughters. For the first time in five generations, all three families had daughters only and no living sons. So, people thought they had a spell put on them.”

The chill intensifies and I pull the sheets tighter around me.

“But they didn’t know that one powerful family had two faces.”

“Like Jekyll and Hyde,” I interrupt.

His voice lowers as he repeats, “Like Jekyll and Hyde.”

I settle slightly at the gentleness in his voice, and he continues in the same tone, which removes the creepy quality of the story.

“The townspeople saw one version of the family, the lonely widows grieving and raising their daughters on their own, but deep underground, the second face was allowed to come out.”

My eyelids droop and my body becomes weighted as he switches stories to something less cryptic and based on fact.

“I’m staying in my old room and everywhere I look, I see something that reminds me of you.”

My smile is dopey, and it makes me slur, “Oh, yeah? Miss me?”

“I’ve always missed you. I remember when you used to stay over, and I’d hear you laugh. Fuck, just hearing you laugh used to make me smile.”

Sleep pulls at me when I have no desire to end our conversation, it doesn’t allow me to speak, but I remember the memories of having sleepovers with Kane when we were seven. Asher would always find a way to invade them and take over. He’d stand in the doorway assessing how we were playing, and sometimes he would even give us some of his toys to play with.

“There were times I wanted to record those laughs,” he whispers, “but they weren’t for me.” His voice lowers even further. “They were never for me.”

A sharp screech blasts in my ear, making me jump. My phone screen is hot, burning a path across my cheek as it slides off my face and forcing me to cup my ear from the pressure of it digging into my skin as I turn to get the alert to stop screaming at me.

I must have fallen asleep and the dim bedside lamps are the only light in the room. They cast everything in a warm glow, and I finally find my phone nestled between the pillows. The screen shows it’s 3 am and it blinks before turning black and dying on me. Stretching over the side of the bed closer to the windows, I slap around for the wire when my nape prickles as though I’m being watched.

It’s not sinister or fear inducing, just the warmth of a stare.

Slowly turning my head, I half expect there to be someone standing behind me, but there’s no one there. It’s just another way my mind is playing tricks on me, so I ignore it and lay on Asher’s side of the bed as I find the wire.

My phone doesn’t turn on straight away so I can’t even talk to him. The only option I have is staring at the window and watching the reflection of the room. The low lights allow some of the scenery to mix with the reflection, the trees in the distance blending into the image of me laid on the bed and I just blink, waiting for sleep to take me again.

I make the mistake of looking too far to the side at the walkway and as soon as I do, I can’t look away. The gas mask is back. It’s not a plague doctor mask anymore. There’s a clear figure attached to it this time instead of hiding within the trees lining the side of the building. The mask hasn’t been cleaned, and the lenses are darker than the translucent material they should be. They’re nearly black. He doesn’t come close to the glass, he just stands there, staring at me while I stare back. Does it know that it’s not real and that I made it up?

My heart rate picks up as we watch each other and something about the mask feels familiar, like the same way it pulled my attention when I first saw it in the disused building. It’s not a normal gas mask that only has a respirator at the front. There’s a flexible, ribbed hose like a vacuum cleaner attached to the respirator and I tilt my head to follow the rubber down to the bottom of the freak’s hoodie where it’s tucked in.

I can’t see his hair, but he’s tall and broad, his biceps flexing as he pushes his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. It tugs the hose attached to his mask. I like him watching me, even though he’s not real, but it’s warm and feels like he’s some dark guardian sent to protect me. Or it’s what I’m telling myself to feel comfortable with my delusions . The familiarity doesn’t stop with the mask as he slowly tilts his head to the side like he’s examining me.

But I lift my hand and raise my middle finger while I talk to my insanity.

“Fuck off, you weird freak.”

I keep my middle finger in the air as I turn and stare at the wall. It’s not real and I keep repeating that fact as the back of my head heats. It wasn’t real the first time, and it isn’t now. My mind is just playing tricks on me, the same as it has since Asher went to help his parents. I remind myself of how I checked the cameras while watching him through the window and only I could see him, but he didn’t show up on any of the screens. That’s tangible proof that I can use to stop my mind, so I block it out and pull the sheets up like it can protect me when I can feel the stare.

“It’s not real,” I mumble, pushing further into the bed.

Tap.

My entire body tenses.

Tap.

My blood runs cold.

That’s real. I can hear the two rhythmic taps.

Like knocking.

Turning my head, I look directly at the walkway, but the freak isn’t there.

“For fuck’s sake, it’s not fucking real, you crazy bitch.”

I lay on my back and morbid curiosity, or some need to prove to myself that I’m not some frightened little girl, forces me to look at the same spot. The mask isn’t there anymore, or any figure. It should comfort me, but I want it to come back to watch over me so I can feel protected again. I can’t see him, but the soft tapping comes again, and I remind myself of the research I’ve done.

Auditory hallucinations. They feel real to me but no one else hears them. The pills can sometimes make them worse when there’s a change in dosage. I don’t know how long I stopped taking my medication for, or anything it seems, when the last ten years of my entire life is just one big question mark.

But the tapping is there. The repetitions speed up the longer I ignore them, and I pull the pillow over my head to dull the small thuds until they get louder, angrier.

The small taps change to pounding against the glass, still in the same pattern of two, and I slowly loosen my hold on the pillow as I turn. There’s no figure on the walkway near the trees this time. He’s closer, standing directly on the other side of the floor-to-ceiling window that opens to grant access to the room from the walkway he haunts. His gloved fist is raised, and he knocks on the window twice without moving his arm.

Knock.

Knock.

It gets faster as he rolls his wrist. Each repetition seems to force my heart to beat at the same rhythm as though he has direct control of the organ.

Knock.

Knock.

I’m frozen to the bed, watching it—him—continue to knock. They turn more frantic and the sound echoes through the room.

Knock.

Knock.

I can’t move.

Knock.

Knock.

I don’t want to move.

Knock.

Knock.

“It’s not real,” I plead with myself.

Knock.

Knock.

The bed vibrates and light shines up from beside my shoulder, splitting my attention from the devious apparition, and I watch my phone screen light up.

Knock. Knock.

There’s barely a pause between each knock and my head snaps up to see the freak cock his head to the side before he dramatically slows each thud.

Knock.

The black gloves are pulled taut over his knuckles.

Knock.

I speak to the crazy again and whisper, “Who’s there?”

He slowly turns his head so it’s straight and gets larger, his shoulders broader, and fear isn’t the only emotion working through me. Excitement is too because I’ve managed to surprise my own mental defect, that’s got to prove that I’m not crazy.

Until I don’t.

Until he’s real.

And the handle to the window creaks.

I look down and watch the brushed metal knob twist, the light playing off each groove, and the hinges creak from infrequent use as the locking mechanisms click before cold air fills the room. The metal edge is slowly peeled away from the frame as the floor-to-ceiling window opens and I grab my phone as I kick the sheets off, ready to run. My ankles get trapped in them, causing me to trip, and my knee takes the brunt of the force against the edge of the bed frame, but I push myself forward, ignoring the pain. The cold intensifies and the sound of the leaves rustling on the trees lining the property aren’t muted by the glass because it’s real. Hallucinations can’t open windows; they can’t disturb the air or exist anywhere other than my mind.

I frantically tap against my phone as I try to run again, and my muscles seize at the deep raspy voice behind me.

“Koukla mou,” he croons, extending the unknown syllables.

I’ve never heard them before, and I’ve refused to search for a translation because this isn’t real.

Goosebumps erupt on every inch of my body and my t-shirt does nothing to stop the chill from settling into my bones. My muscles burn from how tightly they’re coiled, and I don’t move anything other than my eyes as I plot my escape.

I’m five paces from the door, but I don’t run because this isn’t real. My thumb hits my phone screen, and a soft trill comes from it as Asher’s name glares up at me. He’ll be able to convince my mind of what’s real. All he has to do is answer then I’ll be okay. I’ll be safe, but the trilling distorts.