Incubus

Chapter 8

The sun had risen once more and the activity in the house went silent. Jude still rested in bed, his drunken snores echoed in the room. I sat there looking at him while he slept and I couldn't fathom how he could do it so carelessly.

He has no idea whatsoever of the danger he's in.

"Jude" —I called him, softly. "I'm gonna get you out of here, babe. I promise". How, though? Is the question roaming in my mind. How could I get him out?

The magnitude of his link to this house is too great to simply break, it almost blinds him to the reality of it all, to the evil that lives within this house. I sighed in defeat, "Why couldn't we just stay in our shitty apartment?". He snored, I rolled my eyes at him. "I mean, we were happy, Jude" —I continued talking to an unconscious Jude. "I never needed this big house to be happy, I had you and that was enough, Jude" —I said with pain in chest, "You and the future I planned with you was enough".

Ambition was one of Jude's strongest and deadliest traits. Unlike me who had everything except love and support, he had nothing except love and support. His family couldn't always afford big holiday festivities or family vacations, Jude had to work at the age of 12 so that he could enjoy of the things that kids his age were enjoying of but he would always come back home to a warm meal and the constant reminder that he's loved. To Jude's family failure were lessons and victories celebrations, they taught him that the only limit was the sky and that if he wanted to shoot for the stars he could reach them, and how he had purpose in this world just like everyone else. Given the family that raised him he thought it was unfair for them to live so poorly so he wanted to give them what they never had hence the birth of his ambition, which is what got him everything he has now life but there was always one problem, Jude never knew when to stop.

Shooting for the stars and actually reaching one was never enough for him so he would pursue a bigger and brighter star than the one before, never for himself always for his loved ones. He suffered from this Oprah Complex where he felt the need to just give. He covered me with precious treasures I never felt the need of because he had already given me what I most desired in life, love. The feeling, the warmth from hearing it the first time possessed me, or more like it exorcise the bad out me. I was free of every singles one of my shackles and Jude was my Eden.

I remember, I remember it all so vividly like rewatching an old movie all over again. I am transported back to that day on that bridge. It had been a year since our first encounter of that bridge when Jude asked me to step on it once more. It was lonely, and deserted even the sun had began to set giving the illusion that the world was just ours.

"Have you ever heard of the Love Padlock, lamb?" —Jude asked. "I don't think so" —I answered. "Well, there's this tradition where couples believed that by inscribing their names on padlock and affixing them to a bridge and throwing away the key will make their love unbreakable" —he explained. "That's cute" —I said trying to hide my skepticism. He turned to face me with a little box in his hands, I froze, wide eyed.

What is he doing?!

He opened the box, revealing a shiny silver padlock with ours names written on it. "If it wasn't clear before," —he smiled repeating the same words he has used before. "Then I'm going to say it now". He looked deeply into my eyes and offered me a gentle smile, every muscle in my body loosened. "I am, to the point of no return, in love with you" —he announced almost screaming in relief. "And I've known that I love you for long time now and this" —he took the padlock in his hands, "This is me making an unbreakable promise to you". He took a chain out of his pocket and wrapped it around the bridge's ledge and closed the lock of it. "I love you and I will continue to love you for the rest of my life," —he promised, taking something out of his other pocket. He stretched out his hand to me offering me a key, "As long as you're in it" —he finished. "I'm giving you the opportunity to choose either if you want to open this lock back again and break the unbreakable bound or to throw away this key and walk next to me for the rest of our lives" —he said nervously.

I took the key in my hands and looked at it then back at Jude, who was clearly scared, and smiled throwing the key out of the bridge. I took his face between my hands and pressed my lips against his. That was my answer.

I don't think I told him I loved him enough, maybe it I had expressed more he wouldn't have felt the need to give me such unnecessary things. I looked at him while he peacefully slept, "I love you, Jude. I'm sorry I didn't say it enough" —I pleaded, "You don't deserve to die here like I did. I need to get you out of here but I don't know how".

"The answers you seek are within the house itself" —and like thunder came an ownerless godlike voice. "What? Who's this?" —I looked everywhere but there was no one there. "We were what you were and are, what your husband is and will be" —the voice simply answered. "And that is?" —I hate riddles, why can't it/they just answer normally?

"Human souls, child. Human souls with blood pumping bodies and a beating heart but no more" —they answered. "You're the other victims of this house" —I concluded. They presented themselves to me as one, their face shifting from one to another like Koh the Face Stealer.

"Salvage the innocent, avenge the victims, and burn the filth" —they said, their face changing from to the other like blinking eyes. "How?" —I asked, frustrated. "The truth sets us all free" —was all they said, " The truth?" —Oh and oddly I understood.

I went running to one of the extra rooms we had for when he had kids. Given that this house is old it was filled with little secret door and drawers and I had happened to come across one in this room. But I never thought that the day would where I felt the need of using this secret drawer.

From a point on since the day we move here I knew that there was something wrong with me. I could feel my body acting like it wasn't mine anymore and there were so many factors to blame for that but came the day where I knew which one was responsible for it and I knew I had to tell Jude.

I cooked dinner to set the mood for the news, Jude came out of shower and sat on the dinning putting his feet on the table. I became nervous as I saw him and I started to feel discomfort in my stomach. I touched my pocket feeling inside the news waiting to get out, how do I begin to tell him?

"What's taking so long, puppet?" —his tone very different. "Just a moment, Jude. I'm almost done" —I answered back at him feeling uncertain. I was setting the plates of his favorite on the table, shrimp alfredo pasta, he just stared at it not saying anything.

I sat across the table from him and started, "Jude," —I struggled to get the words out, "there's something that we need to talk about". He didn't look up from his plate, he wasn't even touching the food. "Something very important" —I insisted. But he didn't look up, I could say it almost looked like he was glaring at the food with disgust. "I don't even know where to start, I've never been so nervous in my entire life" —I chuckled, "You see Jude, what I wanted to talk about—".

Crash, came a plate of food flying close to me crashing against the wall behind me.

I gasped in shocked and looked at Jude who was looking straight at me with an unrecognizable face. "What the fuck, Jude?!" —I yelled at him. He just stood up without saying a word and left the room, I sat there in disbelief for his actions.

That's when I came here, to this room to bury this very important something I needed to share with Jude. It stood here inside this walls waiting for the day that I took it out but the day never came and it might never. Jude might never know of the might living inside this wall.

But little did I know that this very important something might actually be Jude's only hope to survive in this house. This little piece of truth.