Page 159 of Shrapnel

The walls were dropping. He could see it happening. All the things he had done to create distance between himself and the things he couldn’t face was shrinking. Falling like he was, he couldn’t escape. The icy fingers of his memories clutched him and the sweat on his skin turned to frost.

“No,” he whimpered to no one.

Curling into a ball he tried to put his hands over his ears. But the noise was coming from inside his mind.

He’s too skinny.

Jamie shook his head. He opened his eyes and saw her staring at him. Perched in the corner of the room, she was ghastly looking. Her hair had shriveled up against her skull. Blackened skin cracked and flaked as she breathed, chest heaving in great rasping whines. Dark holes stared back at him, gaping caverns that seemed to grow in size until they were big enough to envelop him whole.

He slammed his eyes shut, fingers digging into his scalp.

They were still closed when he realized he was back in the duplex. The air was thick with marijuana and cigarettes. He could see it heavy in the atmosphere, like smog over a city. The carpet beneath him crawled with bugs he didn’t notice. Fresh burns on his arms wept but he didn’t feel the pain. Dominic had given him drugs. More and more. Ever since he caught him trying to escape.

Renard laughed about something, his cruel eyes landing on Jamie.

“He’s too skinny,” he slurred. “Need to make him a man.”

I’m not a man,he wanted to protest.I’m a punching bag.

But he didn’t say that. His father didn’t like it when he spoke. Or smiled. Or breathed.

Renard kicked Jamie’s mother. She sat up with unfocused eyes.

Jamie screamed and slapped himself in the face. The room was dusty. He was back. Pushing himself up he looked to see she was still kneeling there. In the corner of the room, with her lips burnt off and teeth leering at him.

“Please don’t,” he begged again, tears clouding his eyes. He knew it wouldn’t help.

She began to move. Her joints articulating strangely, jerking like they weren’t attached to her bones. Thickened burned skin cracked and bled as her stilted walk ripped open fresh lesions. The smell was unbearable.

Her teeth parted. “C’mere baby.”

Jamie shuffled back until his back hit the bed. It screamed in pain that he could barely feel through the haze of drugs.

Memories of the duplex and the dusty room began to flicker. He didn’t know which one was real. He thought he escaped but maybe he was back in that hell. It had all been a dream. Or was this a dream?

Jamie held himself as she came closer. His mother’s gaze was a thousand miles away. He could see himself reflected in her dilated pupils. Her hand closed around his ankle, and he jerked away, sluggishly trying to pull away.

Renard laughed.

Dominic was there. Staring down at him, he knelt.

“Please help me,” Jamie begged, reaching for him.

Dominic’s fingers left bruises as they dug into his wrists. He pinned Jamie to the ground, ignoring his cries. A cold hand grabbed his shirt.

“Shh, baby, it’s ok.” His mother slid her hands under his shirt.

“Momma! Momma please! Stop! It’s me!”

His mother’s dark hair tickled his face as she leaned over him. Her smile was vacant, wide, and insincere. “Don’t worry,” her words were robotic. “Momma is gonna make your first time real good.”

Jamie screamed. He cried. He begged. Dominic leered over him; almond eyes bright with something Jamie didn’t understand then. Jamie met them and tried to find a trace of humanity in their depths.

He found none.

Great, gasping breaths tore from his throat the moment her calloused blackened hand touched his skin. Back in the dusty room, Jamie could move. The fingers bruising his wrists were his own. She was staring at him expectantly, baring dried teeth.

“You can’t forget what you did.” Her voice was a dried husk, words forced out of shriveled lungs. Sprigs of hair poked from the burnt skin on her head, curling up pointlessly.