The Grey, Green Dream

The Green

The green not only stuck to her lungs like velvety tar, it was also affecting her brain. She couldn’t remember how or when she was separated from her baby, sweet Leona, and her sister Marne. She entertained some horrific thoughts as she raced down the hall looking for the stairs. Shouldn’t there be a sign somewhere, she wondered. The sign guys forgot this floor, perhaps. Then she heard the dragging. Mary ducked into the washing room and tiptoed behind a row of dryers. One jiggled on the far end; the cycle was ending. The sound must have peaked the creature’s curiosity or it’s murderous instinct.

     That sound of the weighty, spiked club was the last thing she heard before she heard her husband’s final cries. The scaly creatures clubbed him over and over. His body jumped and twitched under the weight. Finally, the biggest of the group brought a final blow down, landing a spike directly into his eye, his beautiful, sparkling hazel eye. Mary felt a smoldering hate for these creatures. Fear and a need to be with her baby was the only thing that kept her from lunging in the direction of the dragging sound. She saw herself flinging her body weight into the creature sticking her thumbs deep into the large sockets where the nasty, filmy eyes were. She wanted vengeance for her husband.

     She didn’t even get to tell him goodbye, had no opportunity to kneel beside his body, stroke his sweating forehead one last time. She couldn’t wait with Leona. Watching them beat him to death took long enough. Now he was a sunken, wet corpse like the rest of them, fluids sinking into the carpet and padding of their hotel room. Everything was happening too fast for her to wrap her mind around. She couldn’t mourn her dead; she had to find her living.

     The throaty, wet breathing of the creature grew louder. It was in the room. She could feel the air change around her. The creature was sucking in her air, grunting, exhaling something  that was foreign to her lungs. She had to cough, get the thick air out of her throat. Instead, she covered her mouth and slowed her breathing. Mary scooted further behind a line of dryers, and held her breath. How long could she hold out? Could the thing sense that she was here?

     Its breathing reminded her of the sound an engine makes when it won’t turn over. She thought about her dad then; the reason they were in the hotel together was because of him.

    

     “Scary Mary,” he addressed her underneath his ’72 Ford pick-up truck. His oil-stained boot scratched at the other leg. “Is that you?”

     “Mom home?” Mary let her hand graze the smooth body of the truck as she walked closer to her parent’s home. The truck was recently painted a shiny root beer color, Marne’s choice.

     “Fingerprints, Mary.” He always knew. It was like the truck grew from him, was an extension of him.

     She removed her hand, wiping it on her pant leg. Her mother was home, he said, likely in the laundry room. It was that time of day, and her mother was a slave to her routines.

     “Oh, wait Scary,” he said sliding out from under the truck. He sat up on the red creeper, moving hair out of his eyes with a blackened hand. “Did you listen to the radio this morning?”

     “No. What channel?”

     “That rock station. They had some contest. Mom called in.”

     “Oh?” Mary wasn’t that interested. She wanted to get inside to talk to her mother. Her husband made supper plans and they needed a sitter for little Leona. She wanted to ask Marne, but her Lumina wasn’t in the driveway.

     “So, your ma was on the radio. Won tickets.”

     “That’s great dad.” Tickets. “What did she win tickets for?”

     “The race.”

     “Specifically?”

     “The Indianapolis 500.”

     Mary turned her attention from the screen door of the house to her father. He smiled up at her.

     “Want them? It’s the same weekend that we are flying out to see your Aunt Barb.”

     “Mom wouldn’t cancel?”

     “Would you believe it?”

     They laughed together.

     Thinking of him was the only thing that kept her quiet, kept her leaning firmly against the cold metal of the dryer. Being in the memory kept Mary from leaping out of the tiny space. If it wasn’t for the chance of seeing her smooth-skinned infant again, she would have leapt out, bludgeoning the thing with her fist until she or it was dead. The dripping head would crush like a ripe watermelon under her boot.

     They would all be dead in days anyway.

     The creature grunted, breathed, dragged it’s primitive weapon around the room and stopped in front of the dryer as it was pushing out its final spins. The air whooshed and Mary heard the loud crunch. A few more blows assured the creature that the white box was dead, and it moved to the door. Mary gasped. She reached out, tried to pull the sound and air back into her mouth.

     “Uhnnnnn, uhn uhn uhn.” The engine sound again.

     Mary’s heart was as scared as she was. It pumped hard, the sound deafening in her ears. Could he hear it? He? It… It must have heard her, was coming her way, surely. It was time. Do or die. Whatever courage she had, could muster with the panic and fear enveloping her like a bath of acid, she pulled to her forefront. She stood, ready to face it, ready to die. Marne would hold her baby until her last breath. She prayed quickly willing God to keep Marne alive longer than Leona, so she wouldn’t have to cry alone, die alone.

     She was alone in the room. The creature had gone. Was it a dream? The smashed dryer suggested otherwise. Mary sank back to her safe spot, and for a minute allowed herself to become a blubbering fool. After wiping the heavy snot from her nose, she peaked out of the laundry room, and walked back into the hallway.

     Every cell in her body vibrated with fear. She had to stop to catch her breath every ten steps—still no sign of the stairs. Didn’t she start on the other end of the hallway? A fog hung thick over her thoughts preventing her from working through where she had been. She sat to cry again, but rose quickly; there was little time and the crying took more breaths than she was willing to use up. She saw a cellophane wrapper under her feet and laughed. She quit smoking so she wouldn’t die of cancer, and now her breath would be taken from her anyway.