Catharsis

THIRTY TWO

I'm back in the basement. I wake to a dark room with cinder block, and Emma's screams. Crack! Crack! funnels through the vent. Each one releases a frantic screech out of her lungs. It echoes around me. The room is spinning. I try to keep my head above water but my eyes are rolling and I'm constantly being pulled back down into sleep.

"Did you really think you would get away with this?" Kaman shouts. Crack! "You should know better, Emma! I can't believe you would do this to me!"

Sleep keeps coming to me and I try to shake it by sitting up, but I'm groggy and my stomach is churning. Kaman barges in with a heavy duty electrical wire coiled up in his grasp, dripping with fresh blood. It's starting to become clear what is happening right now. I should have insisted that Emma go back into that damn gas station and call the police. She is probably half dead and it's because of my stupidity.

"What did you do to her?" I growl.

Kaman props up his glasses. "I did what needed to be done."

"That's not an answer!"

He grabs hold of my wrist."I was going to save this for later." I'm jolted to my feet and dragged off to the lab. We pass Emma's room and all of the crying that's seeping out under the door.

I pat at my pockets with my free hand; no change, no chips, no gun. Kaman throws back the plastic wall of the lab. Everything is in its rightful place; except for the laptop that's open on the countertop. He shoves me down on the gurney, its white sheets splotched with dark red blood.

All my strength rises to the surface as I flail on the padding. "Fuck off!" I scream.

Kaman's face is stone cold and emotionless. My arms are firmly pinned down and snaps them in the cuffs chained to each corner of the bed. I pull and tug with all my might until my chest tightens, nearly suffocating me.

"How could you do this to your own daughter? You prick!"

"Calm down," Kaman strokes the side of my head with his finger. I squeeze my eyes shut and pant through my teeth. He wheels the gurney parallel with the counter where his laptop is sitting open. A few clicks of the mouse and he pulls up a video. The screen is frozen on one image: I'm lying on her lap, eyes closed, face dead. Her hands are wrapped around my neck. He recorded it all.

My neck instantly twists from the screen but Kaman's hand plants firmly on the side of my face and he forces my eyes back to the computer.

"I want you to see this." He clicks "play" and stands behind me on the other side of the gurney, waiting in case I decide to look away.

Sammy removed her hands from my neck and stood up, scuffling backward until she hit the far wall.

"See? She didn't even try," Kaman says with a hearty laugh. "The stupid bitch didn't even try."

I lie helpless. Eyes wide and unblinking I watch as my motionless body laid there like a corpse. Slowly I came back to life. It happened within seconds as if I just glitched out. Jolting into a different form. Laid down a man, I stood up something else: a monster, with glaring red eyes, covered in sparse brown hair. A lashing tail whipped up the sawdust on the floor. A short muzzle with long teeth jutting out, lips that curled and drooled strands of saliva everywhere. At first, it twitched wildly with a second voice on its tongue. My voice, crying out behind the canine-like yelping. It collapsed and flailed until it found its footing and twisted itself onto its feet, gangly arms touched the floor as it hunched over and moved toward Sammy. It released a long, drawn-out howl.

I jolt in my confines, too shocked to look away from the nightmare. Gaze fixed on the screen, glued on her as she covered her eyes with her hands, sobbing intensely. I'm watching, but I'm begging my brain not to take it in. I know what's coming and I reflexively dart my gaze away from the screen but Kaman pushes my head into the gurney so that I can't move.