The Haunting Within

         Is that you?

         Rachel focused intensely on the pale hand as it slipped through the flowing white veil.

         There was silence. Her ears grew numb.

         She felt light, as if floating in space, but her feet were planted firmly on the ground.

         "Is that you?" she said again, feeling the words vibrate her tongue.

         The pale hand quickly snatched hers.

         Her eyes shot open, wide with terror.

         She was alone in a vast king-size bed. Her breathing labored. Her chin quivered. Her thin silk gown clung to her clammy goose-pimpled flesh.

         The room was dark. Soft moonlight glinted through a small window somewhere behind her, its soft glow caressing the lonely objects within the calm chilly space.

         It's been nearly five years since the accident, she thought. Five years since her husband and only daughter, Sarah, had left her.

         She could still see the reflection of her own face in her daughter's soft olive-green eyes. She had never before, or since, bonded with another human like she had with her daughter. And with only a mere eleven years together, she couldn't help but think about how things ought to have been; how things would have been had she only retained control.

         Sixteen, she thought. Sarah would be sixteen years old today. Sweet sixteen. Flowing frills on her billowing pink dress. Soft white flower-petals, drifting about the landscape as strings played a lovely rhythm of joy as the two of them danced. She could see herself. Dancing with her daughter. Their bodies close. Touching. The flowery fragrance of Sarah's perfume filling up her every breath, warming the core of her motherhood.

         There was a flash.

         Immense light washed out the entirety of her vision.

         A deafening squeal of tires.

         Crushing metal. Broken glass.

         The room was again thrust into darkness.

         Her heart raced like the cars in the Indianapolis 500. Oh, how Raymond loved that thrill. He followed those cars like she followed her soaps. Senseless crap, she'd tell herself. She would never tell him however, no, she wouldn't dare. She knew there wasn't much happiness left in him. Apart from her, Sarah, and possibly his calling at their church, those silly cars were all he had.

         He didn't work, he couldn't, not since he lost the use of his legs in the military back in the summer of his twenty-sixth year. Those damn Indy cars, racing around and around and around and around, seemingly on an infinite course to absolutely nowhere, gave him some sort of cheap thrill. A thrill she couldn't bring herself to steal away.

         Those cars took away his disability. His pain. His struggles. So long as they kept racing that endless circling loop, he was unaware of all of life's trials. He was also unaware of his family; Rachel knew that, even if Sarah didn't. But in her heart, she knew he was happy, and in the end that's all that truly mattered. Wasn't it?

         The stench of her own sweat curled her nose into a wrinkled ball. She wiped tears from her puffy eyes with the heels of her hands and propped herself up on the edge of the oversized bed.

         The sudden chill of the room sent an electrifying shudder down her spine and her back went ridged, like a washboard.

         She took in a deep breath and grabbed her pillow, planted her face in its base of feathers and pulled it close. Squeezing, she cried, "Why'd you leave me?" Her voice was faint. "Why did you take her away?"

         Tears pooled in the curvaceous crater her head made, soaking her cheeks and warming her face.

         Rachel. The voice was deep, Godlike, it seemed to encapsulate the room. But she knew it couldn't be God.

         She gazed up from the sodden pillow. Her eyes filled with apprehension. She smiled. Sarah's smile gazed back at her. But as swiftly as the joy flooded her, it evaporated. She rose from the bed and grabbed the picture from the dresser.

         She was so beautiful, she thought.

         "Why?" she hollered. Her voice raspy, sore from shouting and choking back tears. "Why? You son-of-a-bitch!"

         The room remained silent.

         Lifeless.

         Gray.

         She placed the picture back on the--

         Rachel. The voice pierced her from everywhere.

         --The picture slipped from her trembling fingers and shattered on the cold floor, inches from her feet.

         Bright light enveloped her, so pure, it filled her soul as much as it filled the room around her. It didn't hurt to look at. She didn't blink, nor squint. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. Yet oddly frightening.

         Is that you?

         Her eyes focused on the pale hand as it slipped through the flowing white veil.

         Silence. Her ears grew numb.

         She felt light, as if floating in space, but her feet were planted on the floor, which no longer felt cold.

         "Is that you?" she said again, feeling the words tickle her tongue.

         The pale hand took hold of hers and she immediately felt a gasp leave her trembling lips as a shiver shook her spine. Her eyes sprung open. Her daughter's smile caressed her soul.

         Returning the picture to the dresser, a frightening thought ransacked her timid soul. Oh God. I'm being haunted.

         She knew the voice speaking her name wasn't God, it was her husband. It was Raymond.

         The cold, she thought. It's so cold.

         "Why are you doing this?" Her throat was even more sore now; she could feel the dry hoarseness of it. "Leave me be, you bastard!"

         The room was silent.

         A sudden solemnness swept her face. "I know you had a rough life, Raymond." She grabbed a robe from the chair next to the bed and threw it over her shoulders. "You weren't alone."

         She reached for the lamp on the night-stand and turned the switch. The room remained dark. "Shit." She glanced at the clock, just now realizing that its digital face was as dark as the room. She gazed about, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. "Did you kill the goddamn power, too?"

         She grabbed the comforter from the bed and wrapped it around her. It didn't help. The cold was so deep. Her shivering became uncontrollable. If it was even possible, the room seemed to fall into an even deeper, more perpetual darkness. She watched the glass protecting her daughter's picture frost over, like a mirror in a steaming bathroom, then drip like blood seeping from a fresh wound. Her breath filled the room. A thick milky-gray vapor. It hurt. The cold raked at her lungs as she suddenly found herself struggling for air.

         A suffocating weight wrapped itself around her chest. She could feel it squeezing. "What the hell are you doing?" In a sudden, fearful flight, she sprinted across the room towards the door, reached for the knob ... it was gone.

         The Sun was blinding. Hot. Muggy. No cloud cover for miles. Nothing to provide a break from the Sun's scorching rays. Sarah was dressed in the one-piece pink and white denim short-suit Raymond had bought her on her fifth birthday. She ran to and fro along the glimmering sand of the vast, almost endless beach. Her arms stretched high over her head. A large parachute style kite soared above.

         "Rachel?" His voice was bold, yet warm.

         She glanced over her shoulder. Raymond laid comfortably on a beach chair, his feet propped slightly so the blood didn't clot in his paralyzed legs. The sound of the waves beating against the shoreline brought on a nauseating sensation of déjà vu, as did the reek of sea water and Banana Boat sunscreen.

         Something was wrong, but she felt compelled to smile nonetheless, and did. "Aren't you--" She was afraid to complete the thought. Afraid of sounding stupid, "--Hot?" she finally said. There was no way she was about to ask if he was dead. He obviously wasn't. She suddenly felt she might be going crazy.

         "Please," he said, "pass the sunscreen."

         "Of course." Her mind drifted. What is this place?

         "Dear?" He was rubbing his legs, pain now glaring in his face. She grabbed the sunscreen from a mound of sand and mindlessly passed it to him.

         "Thank you," he said.

         But she didn't hear. Her eyes focused on Sarah, who looked much older now, she looked the way she did the day... What's going on? she thought. Sarah was drifting away. Running. The oversized kite shrinking swiftly into the sun-washed horizon.

         She jumped to her feet. The book she had been reading fell to the sand. "Sarah!" she hollered. But there was no response; she just kept drifting off into that searing Sun. She gazed at Raymond, who smiled, waving at Sarah.

         With eyes that screamed, what the hell's wrong with you? she said, "Aren't you going to do something?"

         He didn't laugh, but she could sense his laughter dying to lash out at any moment; it was the one thing that always set her off. "She's just playing," he said. Then he motioned toward his legs. "Besides, what the hell do you expect me to do, fly?"

         Her eyes shot back toward the setting Sun, toward Sarah, nearly too difficult to see now through the intense yellow glow. "We have to stop her." A tear rolled down her cheek. "We can't just..." Her gaze was drawn toward the book lying in the sand. Her eyes grew wide. Her heart stopped. Her stomach wrenched. Her tears struck the cover and rolled off into the sand. Her face reeled in a painful sob that heaved its way up from her soul as her eyes focused on the Sun-soaked image.

         A child. Playing. Walking in the water. Is it an ocean? The image faded into nothingness--a pale rusty tonality that reminded her of blood. Something stood, raised tall from the water, mere feet from where the child playfully wandered, kicking her feet, walking toward the thing which peered out from the void beyond.

         It looked like ancient ruins, row upon row of towering Roman columns, extending off as far as the scene allowed eyes to follow. Menacing. Dangerous. Why is that child alone? she thought. Why isn't someone trying to stop her? The child in the image was little more than a dark silhouette; but to her, it was Sarah. "Sarah," she spoke softly.

         AFTER THE DEATH OF A CHILD, was the title. The cover was wrinkled slightly, perhaps by her tears as they joined the ripples and waves of a still ocean, held captive in a frame of one's haunted memory.

         She stared back into the sun. Sarah was gone. She returned her teary eyes toward Raymond. He was gazing at a map. It was dark. A reading lamp lit the road atlas in her husband's hands.

         "MOM!" a small voice screamed from behind.

         Rachel jerked her head toward the road. A bright light attacked her tired eyes. She spun the wheel hard to the left. The tires squealed. The smell of burnt rubber filled the car. Sobs ramped up from behind; a sudden cry of terror and sadness. The Mustang--top down and full of everything she ever cared about in the world--swerved out of control. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a guardrail. Nothing on the other side. A cliff. A mountain. A tree. A guardrail. A cliff. A mountain. A tree. A--

         In a blinding streak, the headlights--followed by a massive 18-wheeler tractor trailer truck--stormed by, a billowing cloud of dust, dirt, and smoke following in its wake. The Mustang skidded to a halt on the opposite side of the road. The dust and smoke hovered a moment, then quickly sucked away in a sudden and swift mountainous breeze.

         Silence.

         She peered out over the guardrail, just feet in front of her. Nothing, for as far as she could see. Her fingers hurt. She plucked them from the wheel as if they had been glued. Her knuckles popped as they came loose. Looking painfully at her crooked fingers, she realized the car was all too quiet. She caught her breath and looked to her side. Raymond was gone. She looked behind her. Sarah too.

         She was alone. She placed her head in her hands and cried.

         "Go Mom." The voice was Sarah's, though there was something strange about it. It seemed older. Mature. "Don't keep doing this Mom. Go... Go now!"

         Rachel lifted her head to see her daughter's face.

         The bedroom was dark. Cold. Her body numb. Trapped. She sat at the center of the bed, legs crossed, facing a small group of people. Strangers. Six of them. Women. Holding hands. One stood, while the others knelt. The one standing seemed to gaze right at her. Right into her eyes. She spoke.

         "Go ... leave this place." It was that voice again. Sarah's, only older. "Mother. The time has come for you to move on. I can feel your spirit. I can feel you with us now. You can hear me, can't you?" The young woman started to cry. "Leave this place. Go. Father and I forgave you long ago. We know you didn't mean to... I know you didn't mean to hurt us. We love you. I love you. That's why I've gathered the six of us. We're here to release your hold on this place. Set you free.

         "Dad's waiting. He's waited fifteen years for this day, the day when he would pass through the veil and see you again. Go on mom! Dad's all alone. Abandoned. Please, don't break his heart a second time. This is your chance to redeem yourself. I know God will forgive you for what you did. You were not well. You would have never killed yourself if you were."