The Places Alec Forgot

Chapter Five

It begins to rain once again as Mother replaces the mirrors in the house. Following our previous storm, she had not bought new ones. I chalked it up to a lack of motivation, the same lack of motivation that drove her to leave the front door ugly and purple. 

The rain isn't strong. It starts to drizzle outside.

"Are you busy today, Alec?" asks Mother. She peers over to me as I enter the hall. Standing in the bathroom, she can see all the way to the side door, giving her a decent view of just what exactly is going on in her house. She holds a hammer in one hand and nails in the other, their sharp ends jutting out from between her fingers like some DIY Wolverine.

"Yes," I say. I am not busy, however; something uneasy has settled over me, and I want to go for a walk.

"Where are you going?" Having not heard of my plans to leave, I'm sure Mother is now curious. Her brows furrow, casting her eyes in a strange darkness. I feel like she's mad, like I should stay behind and do whatever it is she intends to ask me to do.

I don't.

"I'm going to go to Michael's house," I answer, and it is yet another lie. I never lie to Mother.

"Come to say good-bye." Mother steps down from a small step ladder she was standing on. She's too short to properly reach over the bathroom sink to hang the mirror. As she steps into the bathroom doorway, I can see her legs pass by in the reflection of the mirror as it leans against the counter. It's half her height. Something about the reflection is distorted, but I can't figure out what it is in time.

I step forward, walking down the hall to meet her. Mother pulls me into a hug, suffocating me with her thick, lavender perfume and her surprisingly strong arms.

"Make sure you're home before dark, sweetie," she reminds me. I cannot pull back until she does; when she does, she cups my face with her cold fingers. She's like ice when she touches me. "I love you, Alec."

"I love you, too, Mama," I reply. Today, the words taste bitter. "I'll be home before dark. Don't worry."

She takes her time letting go of me, slipping away from my face as Rose might have in the Titanic. I flash her a gentle smile before disappearing into my room for a moment longer. It's cold, so I have to find my jacket.

Unlike other walks, I don't bother listening to music during this one. My destination is unknown, but I think it's better to keep it that way.

Soft rain beats down gently on the hood of my jacket. It takes me back, back to something that I hardly remember. 

There is a man. Faceless and cold is he, and no name comes to mind. Fleeting trust guides me to follow him; there is no road before or after us, and yet from the endless dark all around, more of the street comes to fill the space beneath our feet. The air is chilly. It bites at my skin, bare. Though the weather calls for a jacket, I am wearing a t-shirt.

"Where are we going?" My voice echoes into the deep caverns of memory. Stars twinkle around my eyes. When silence answers, I echo my inquiry.

"Don't ask questions," says the man. He looks forward, watching the black as it comes closer, recedes, and comes closer again. It's a pattern, one that scares and comforts me respectively with each change.

I look up at him, as his distant figure right beside me. His name taughts my lips, pulls on the end of my tongue, and it dares me to speak it aloud, but I cannot do it. Whatever his name is, it's a curse where I'm from.

He, in turn, looks down at me. No longer faceless, his head is a grotesque mutation of a person. There are black spots all over his pale skin, a constellation of pocked flesh and bloody boils. The eyes with which he watches me have been eaten away by bugs; there are millions of little holes cutting into the rotten yellow flesh. The stench of decay wafts over me, twisting my gut and making me gag.