Released

Released

The hackles on the back of my neck rose a good two inches and I suddenly became aware that alone was a luxury I no longer had. I walked on down this long deserted stretch of road densely covered in a fog so thick it was almost like breathing smoke. I couldn’t stay focused, which was not something that I dealt with on a daily basis. Thoughts sneaked into my mind like a poltergeist moving chairs at your kitchen table. The past before me, the present without me, and the future nowhere near me, visions and flashes of things I had never seen or done before and involving other people. What is this madness? Where did these memories of other people’s lives come from? Did the wreck damage something I hadn’t noticed? Who are these people? A light flashed in front of me, bright and fleeting, and then the fog turned to swirling shades of black.
I remember leaving my house. The night was crystal clear. The air was crisp with a bit of a chill, but the leaves and grass were still green. Summer was just coming to close like the final curtain at the theatre. I had to get out. I had to run away, just to get my thoughts locked away. My mother was dead. According to the man who called, she hung herself with the sheet off of her prison bunk. I got into the car that had been my parents, but that was the only thing that survived their marriage. I just took off. Where didn’t matter as long as I stayed ahead of my demons, but no matter how fast I drove I had an eerie feeling they were catching up. Long, skeletal fingers of fog began to creep from the cryptesque ravines on either side of me. The chalk white hands soon enveloped me and I reduced my speed to accommodate their strangling grasp. There was no where to run and no way to get there. Fear held my hand as the fog suddenly let go of one tine speck of road that was occupied by her. The scream of my brakes matched the voice that came from my throat. Gravel bullets shattered the silence of the night as they began their assault on the innocent flora sheltered in the ditch. The car, a defiant teenager reincarnated, refused to obey my attempt at regaining control and threw us both headlong into and oak tree. Unfortunately, battered and bruised, I was the only survivor. I crawled out of the mangled frame and thought that I should find the girl that had been standing in the road just moments before.
I thought about how strange her appearance was as I walked. The long auburn hair and eyes the color of a lagoon pool seemed vaguely familiar to me and yet strangely foreign. I needed to find some help, but I had to fight myself so I wouldn’t run back and lock myself in my wrecked car. I picked up my pace and discovered an old, shabby, lived-in house on the side of the road. As I went to knock on the door, I heard someone screaming on the other side. I opened the door and crept down the hall, past a closet and into the doorway of the kitchen only to discover a woman on her knees begging a man not to kill her. The man was obviously drunk and in a murderous rage. His sweat soaked, booze drenched wife beater shirt already showed evidence of a previous fight. His right arm outstretched with the brawny fingers clutching a gun pointed right at the frantic woman’s head. The woman looked as though she should have been praying, not begging for her life. “You bitch; I should kill you and put you out of my misery. If your father hadn’t threatened to kill me I would never have married you. Besides, you only get what you deserve.” He drooled as he slurred.

“Please, I’m sorry I didn’t make the mashed potatoes. Please, not in front of her. Not in front of your daughter, she loves you.” The woman was babbling, trying to calm the man down.

“Shut up!” He roared as he hit her in the face with the pistol.

I had to go. I didn’t know what to do, I don’t like to get involved, and it’s not my style to be confrontational. I decided right then that I would go find someone else to help and turned to walk out of the front door when I noticed a closet door that was closed when I walked in was now slightly ajar. I walked over to the door when it suddenly slammed shut right in front of me and I heard something click. Another scream ripped through the night air followed by the shattering of glass against a wall. In my most basic of self preservation instincts, I looked back toward the kitchen to ensure nothing was flying toward me. I looked back at the closet door and the strangest thing happened, I saw a chain around the door and a padlock materialized out of nowhere.
I said to whoever was in the closet, “Just hold on I’m on my way to go find someone to help. I’ll be back in a while.”
A voice on the other side cried, “No you won’t! You always leave. You’ve never helped me.”
I turned to walk out of the house and there before me was the girl I hit with my car! “Wait!” I shouted. I chased after her as she rounded a corner and was promptly given a heart attack by somebody’s damn dog raising all unholy hell in the yard to my right. With my attention diverted, it was easy for her to lose me and all I wanted to do was make sure she was okay. I was desperate to find someone to help so after making sure the dog from hell was secure and unable to reach me, I approached the house. I had just got up the stairs on the front porch when the door opened and yet no one was there. I took cautious steps into the door and there she was again, the girl I hit, but this time she was talking to someone just beyond the doorway at the end of the hall. I got within five feet of her and I said, “Are you okay?”
She gave me a sad look and then looked toward the kitchen. I peered around the doorway and there were the man and woman from the other house except this time the roles were reversed. The woman was pointing the gun at the man and cussing up a storm. She looked like a prisoner of war with one shot at escape. Her eyes wild, rage pulsed through her veins and the only thing on her mind was murder. He was on the floor, tears streaming down his face.
“How does it feel? You sorry bastard, what do you think now? You just thought I was gutless. Bet your ass you’re regretting every mistake you’ve ever made now aren’t ya?” She railed.
“Please, baby, I’m sorry. I’ll go to counseling, I’ll get help, I’ll do anything you want…all you gotta do is say the word. C’mon babe, put down the gun.” He bawled.
“Please, Mommy…..you said that hurting others was wrong, he said he was sorry, sorry makes it better, Mommy, remember?” The little girl in the middle of all of this was pleading with her not to kill him.
I couldn’t move, it was like watching a horror movie knowing the killer is just around the corner and yet there’s nothing you can do to save the victim. As the scene continued to play, the little girl tried to seek comfort by grabbing on to her mother’s leg. The action startled the woman and the only sound after that was the resounding boom of the gun going off. In slow motion the man crumpled to the floor, blood oozing everywhere. The woman, her face looking like that of a ghost, then moved to kneel beside him and began crying hysterically. I turned my head and caught a glimpse of the girl. She was running for the closet.
I had to get out of here. What the hell was going on in this place? What was the damn problem? I had taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque and ended up in Psychoville. I took off out the front door and was confronted by who I thought was the child in the kitchen.
“That should have been mine for what he did to me. But, no I got cheated out of that, too. It’s all your fault. I should have been allowed to have what was mine.”
I just stood there and blinked, not knowing what to say but knowing I had to get the hell out of there. I had to find someone that could help me, help all these people. I took off down the road again searching for a phone or somebody, anybody that could help. I had just turned right at the corner when I saw the girl who had caused this again. I gave chase, but as I came to the alley, I saw two girls. One was lying on the ground and it looked like she was having a seizure, the other was pacing back and forth beside the sick one as if she didn’t know what to do next. I went up to offer my assistance and everything stopped exactly where it was as if someone with had hit pause on the video. The sick girl was lying with her back arched and the breeze had stopped. Then the other girl turned to where I could see her face. Her face seemed to hold similarities to the other two girls I had seen that evening.
“Why didn’t you fix it? Why do you run? You could have saved her. You didn’t. Why?” The teenager railed at me.
I couldn’t think of anything else to do so I said, “Stay here, I’ll go find help.”
“When are you going to figure out that it’s too late? You always say you’ll find help, but then never come back! When are you going to stop running?”
As I took off running, I could hear the voice of a little girl almost crying and angry chanting, “Always running, running away from the skeletons.”
I ran so hard and so fast that everything around me was a blur lost in the returning fog. I had to get out of here, so I searched and searched and finally found a car somebody had left the keys in. I knew it was wrong to take it, but by this point I didn’t give a shit, I was getting the hell out of this weird ass town. I sped through the streets, like a mouse in a maze, looking for the cheese, the way out. I glanced away from the road for just a moment to check my speedometer and looked up to see a building right in front of me. I was going to get myself killed if I didn’t calm down! I slammed on the brakes and decided at that very moment that I needed to get out and walk around a bit to calm myself.
I walked across the street into the little wooded park thinking maybe a little fresh air would ease my fears and clear my mind. I heard moans and sick, twisted laughter coming from the other side of the trees. Just like the cat that’s always curious, I went, peeked, and came into a scene I wish I hadn’t. A girl was being raped by several men. They had her arms trapped beneath her, hands clamped hard over her mouth and her legs were being held apart as each of them took a turn. I just stood there, I don’t get involved, I am not strong enough to do anything, but I duck behind a tree and wait for the men to leave. As soon as the last one is out of sight, I rush to the girl’s side to offer my assistance. Her hair is covering her face and her head is bowed in defeat. I lead her to the passenger side of the car and get her tucked inside the car. I pull away from the curb and turn right onto the only road that looks like a highway.
It was only after I had reached the speed limit that the girl started to speak. “Once again you could have stopped it, but you didn’t. Don’t you get it? Don’t you realize I’m the reason you are here? This is all your fault. You are the reason for all of this.”
That was it. I was completely enraged. I started screaming. “I don’t get involved. Getting involved makes the situation worse! You don’t understand. I can’t help anyone. I don’t even know if I can help myself!”
The tears were falling now and I couldn’t help but look toward my passenger. She moved the hair out of her face, turned to me and gave me an evil little smile. I screamed and turned my attention back to the road only to see the girl standing in the middle of the road. I must have knocked her a good fifteen feet before putting the car into the ditch. I got out of the car and looked to see if my passenger was still there. Of course, she wasn’t, so I looked for the girl in the woods where I could swear I saw her body fly. It was too dark for me to see, so I yelled, “I’ll be back. I’m going to find help.”
I took off down the road again and the fog moves in so thick I can’t see the hand in front of my face. I stop running and walk to the side of the road. I sit down for a few minutes and decide that I’m going back to find that girl and then I’m going back to help the others too. I can’t find anyone else and it’s a waste of time to look anymore. I’m going to have to get involved. I start heading back down the road toward the car when suddenly the fog clears and there in the road is my passenger. Only this time, the passenger is a little older, and as I look into her face again, I am no longer afraid to face myself.
“So you finally decided to grow a backbone, huh?” She smirks.
“Yeah, but why this, why now?” I ask.
“You’ll see. By the time we’re done, this will look like a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces in the right places.” She started. “It was vital for your very survival that we step in and help you help yourself.”
“Yeah, but what do I do now?” I ask.
“Well, first we have to find the girl you hit.” She snaps her fingers and the girl materializes right beside her. “Then we have to find the teenager who witnessed the death of her friend. And finally…”
“I have to face the little version of me, the one that watched Daddy die.” I interrupted.
“Yes, Alyssa, you have to go back to where we began and right it from there.” She replied.
“Okay, let’s go.” I said, and with that we began to move backwards through the town stopping to right every wrong I had made. First was the teenager.
“You actually came back!” She was surprised. “But you never come back…What’s going on here?”
“I’m sorry it took so long.” I said. “It’s time to fix the problems. I’m not running anymore.” “Well, I hate to tell you, but it’s too late.” She replied. “Emily is dead and there’s nothing we can do to help her.”
“Emily was dead before I got here, and I’m here to help you.” I reached out and wrapped both arms around her. “You needed comfort and support, not for me to run. I realize that now.”
The girl grinned. “You figured it out. Does this mean…..?”
The rape victim gave her a look. “It’s not over yet, but it does look promising.”
The teenager joins our party and we continue moving and get to the house with the domestic violence issues. We go into the house and walk over to the closet. The chain and padlock still in place, I call out.
“Are you still in there? I’m here to help you. I know where I went wrong.”
No answer. I didn’t know what else to do so I turned and asked the others if they had any ideas.
The oldest held out a ring of keys. “Go unlock the closet.” She held out her hand and taking a deep breath I took hold of it. I took the keys from her other hand and looked at the padlock, noticed the shape of the keyhole, and then with a smile, I fit the correct key in the lock, undid the chain, and opened the door, expecting to see little me.
The light was a bright, sterile, blinding white. I blinked a few times to help my eyes adjust and when my focus returned I was sitting in a hospital bed, staring at white everything. I looked to my left and there in white was someone who looked like a doctor. I read his tag, Dr. Jameson was his name and in small print underneath, trauma psychologist.
“How are you feeling today, Alyssa?” He asked as if he didn’t expect to be answered.
With a voice that felt like it hadn’t been used in years I smiled, “Released.”
“Well, that’s great…” he stammered “Hold on a sec….” He stepped into the all and alerted the staff to my awakening.
I looked away from the doctor and standing in the corner of the room were all three versions of myself including the one whose “death” had made me face them all. Their bruises were healed, the pain had left and they were all smiling. I smiled back and for the first time in years, I felt complete. Completely released.