Shoot Me Down

Part 23

My fingernails bite into the palms of my hands and sick anger twists in my stomach. I come alive with rage. “You’re so vile,” I hiss through clenched teeth, and Caleb’s head jerks up. He looks around the room apprehensively.

            He heard me.

            I whisper again, creeping closer this time. “Murderer.”

            His eyes dart rapidly around the room, his entire body is tense and coiled, ready to spring up and flee. He doesn’t look at me once. He has no idea where the whispering is coming from. He ties up the top of the garbage bag with shaking hands and backs toward the door.

            “Gonna get rid of this crap once and for all…”

            I move closer, till my lips are beside his ear. He heard me. I’m so full of spiteful happiness I can barely contain it. “Murderer!”

            He jumps like he’s been shot and races out of the door and down the hallway, and I can hear him swearing breathlessly the whole way.

            Caleb takes the garbage bag to the river. He vanishes into the woods, and I watch him from the back porch. Part of me longs to trail after him. That way I’ll see Sam. Missing him is like a constant ache in my middle that never really goes away, and it’s only been two days since I’ve seen him. But I tell myself that I have to stay here for as long as it takes. Until Caleb breaks and it’s all over.

            I let him think that everything is alright for a few hours. That his latest solution has worked. That somehow by getting rid of my stuff he’s gotten rid of me. He has a few beers before he goes to bed, but he looks more at ease than he has in a few days now. He obviously thinks it worked. Idiot.

            Caleb leaves his door open at night, and I stand in the doorway for a few seconds, trying to figure out what to do next. I try to drum up all the horror movies I can think of. What do ghosts do? They stomp around and scream and moan and show up at inconvenient times and scare the crap out of you. I try to work up a convincing moan, starting low in my throat and drawing my voice out in a long “ooo” sound. My face goes red as I imagine how silly I must sound. But Caleb rolls over with a snort, and I think he must have heard me in his sleep, so I walk deeper into his bedroom and moan again, a soft, drawn out groan.

            The figure in the bed thrashes awake, sitting up suddenly, startling me into silence.

            Caleb mutters into the darkness, “What the hell was that?”

            Another moan. The sound comes from somewhere deep in my belly, something inside me curls and writhes like the black ropey coils of poisonous snakes.  I feed it all my anger and pain, and my voice comes out in guttural groans of pain.

            A whisper comes out of the darkness, shaky with terror, “Who’s that? Nakia? Is that you? That’s not funny!”

            Pictures are running past my eyes now, and I imagine blood on my sweater as the poison within me spreads. I can almost feel it now, hot and damp in the center of my stomach. Hatred consumes me, eating at me, tearing at my insides. I can’t help it, I clutch my stomach with shaking hands, remembering the fiery pain that tore through me. The confusion as I fell backwards. The feeling that the world was spinning out of control. The empty ringing shock. It hurts.