My Darkest Rose

Chapter Four

What Jack Remembers

When Jack made love to Rose, he felt like everything in the world made sense. His mother's death, his fear of the lake, the creature. It was all necessary, all part of the path he had to take to find this very moment, to experience it with such intensity and love.

"I feel weird," she says.

He stops, opening his eyes and looking down at her. The room is dark and spinning, but he can see well enough to see the fear on her face.

He rests his weight on his forearms, bringing their faces together. "I got you," he says, rolling his hips backward, almost pulling out of her. "It's just us."

She seems to calm a bit. Her eyes latch onto his, piercing, even in the darkness.

He kisses her, slow, forcing his hips to still. The acid he took earlier in the night is beginning to wear off and he feels a sort of lazy giddiness all through his body.

"You're safe," he whispers. "Do you want me to stop?"

"Jack?" she whispers.

"Yeah," he kisses the corner of her mouth and lowers his face to her neck, breathing her in.

"Do you hear that?" When he doesn't respond, "Jack?"

He kisses her, forgetting everything about the sounds outside, the cabin, the room, the bed. There is only Rose.

There seems to be no end to the joy he can find in making love to her. No problem too large that her closeness can't fix.

He thinks she is afraid because of how the drugs are making her feel and is not worried that anything might actually be happening.

She says, "Don't stop."

Afterward, they lay next to each other, warm night air on their bare skin, his arm under her neck.

"How do you feel?" he asks.

When she doesn't answer, his thoughts drift. He thinks about the moonlight filtering in through the window, flooding the room with a gray light that seems both thick and present, and he thinks about light having a presence and wonders if light is aware of itself.

"I don't know," she says. "Strange, I guess."

He turns toward her and traces his fingers down her chest and over her stomach. There's a remnant of dry paint along her hip that he picks at it with his fingernail. She closes her eyes as a tear slides from one corner of her eye into her hair.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

Her lips quiver as if she is holding in more tears. "I don't know. I'm so scared."

"Don't be," he says, turning her face to his. "You're safe." He doesn't know what to do if she is having a bad trip. Should he turn on the light? "Do you want to go outside and get some fresh air?"

She shakes her head no.

"Can I get you anything?"

She lifts her hand to his where it rests on her stomach. "Jack?"

It seems to Jack that she is looking through him, or that she is looking directly at him, but seeing something else. His pulse begins to quicken and for the first time that night he feels afraid. "What is it?"

"You really can't hear that?"

He listens but he can only hear the night sounds of the forest, the wind, the bugs, the frogs. He can hear her breathing.

"Will you go see what that is?" she asks.

"What?"

She puts her hands on his face. Her hands are cold on his skin. She really is crying, he realizes, though he can't quite get what he is seeing to connect with his thoughts or emotions. He thinks perhaps he is seeing the future.

"Please, Jack, go check."

Something must get through to him because he stands up from the bed and walks out of the bedroom. The house is lit up, every single light is on and he can't remember doing that. He stands there for a while, thinking about the lights and watching them change from buttery yellow to red and then back. He thinks this is the best trip he has ever had.

Sometime later, he goes back to the bedroom and climbs into bed. Rose is asleep or she is awake and crying, he isn't sure which Rose is happening now and which is happening before.

"Did you lock all the doors?"

He nods to now Rose. "Yes, I locked all the doors." He says this because it is what she wants him to say. He's not certain he checked the doors.

Later, he wakes to a scream. Rose is not in the bed with him.

The drug has mostly worn off and he is more alert. He has no doubt about what he heard or where it came from.

He opens the bedroom door and yells for Rose. The cabin is dark. Weren't the lights on before?

He stands in the hall, listening. The windows are open and outside there is a sort of rustling sound, like an animal moving around in the leaves. He walks through the living room toward the back door that leads to the deck.

He can hear another sound now, something human, like moaning.

"Rose?" he caslls, and the sound stops.

Then he hears something new, and it freezes his blood in his veins. It's coming from the shadows outside.

"Jjjjjaaaa" The sound is guttural and gagging. He looks out the window but he can't see into the shadows. He is making a sound too, a sort of whimpering sound.

Whatever is happening outside, it is Rose, and she is being killed, that's the only reason he can think of for her to make that sound.

He pushes open the back door and runs onto the deck. He looks down at the ground. There, about ten feet away, is Rose. Something is there with her, someone is on top of her.

"Get off her!" he shouts and the thing turns to look up at him.

There is no light at all, just shadows within shadows, and white, hollow eyes. The sound goes on, like Rose is being torn inside out.

He looks around for something to throw and settles on one of the white wrought iron chairs. He lifts it over his head. It's heavy but he manages to fling it over the side of the deck. It hits with a thud and the thing that has Rose howls in pain and rage. It is not a human sound- it's the sound of a monster.

"Rose!" he screams, running down the steps toward the ground. His movement triggers a security light on the side of the house.

"Rose?"

He can see where she has been but is no longer. There are gouges in the dirt.

"God, Rose," he says, as he notices the drag marks leading into the water.

He walks forward, one foot at a time, listening. The moaning has stopped.

He walks faster, picking up his pace as the land slopes downward toward the lake. When he hears a splash of water he surges forward, yelling and screaming, "Rose! Rose!"

At the water's edge he can finally see it. The creature stands knee deep in the dark water. At first he just notices its eyes, white and dead. Then its form as a whole. In the limited light its body looks made of shadows and it's mouth isn't a mouth at all, but a tear in the darkness. It hisses, revealing rotten and pointed teeth.

As he stares, frozen, It turns and moves away, dragging Rose's limp body into the water. He can see her white tshirt soaked in blood. She is naked from the waist down, her face in the water.

He tries to choke out her name, but the creature moves beyond the beam of light and into the lake before he can make another sound.