Jessica and I dreamed of being parents ever since the day we got married. I have fond memories of all the merry preparations we newly-weds made to welcome the latest addition (additions, even better, were we as fortunate) to our warm, nuclear family of Chase’s.
I laid off my plans for the indoor, foosball parlor that I had wanted so badly- Jessica insisted that we reserve the room downstairs for the baby’s nursery. The soon-to-be Daddy in me happily complied. The soon-to-be-Mommy, meanwhile, spent her time mulling over the perfect wall shade for the said nursery. The two of us would stay up late, each concerning ourselves with some baby-related business or another. Jess would doze off first, usually; exhausted from all her extensive research on baby products. I used to smile as I returned home from work, gently draping the duvet over my lovely wife’s resting body. Her asleep face flashed a bright glow as I joined her on the bed, drifting off to my humming, lullaby-practicing voice.
Those few weeks of Jess’ pre-pregnancy, and the nine-months of wait that followed- it was utter, marital bliss. We were euphoric, the two of us- living on an otherworldly sense of hope and joy, that stemmed from the gleeful prospects of our upcoming parenthood. Our every conversation went like, Patrick’s gonna so love this, or, Vivien’s gonna be so glad that. We were beyond excited.
By the end of the seventh month, I had completed this cozy, king-sized, cherry-colored wooden crib, equipped with a whole assortment of toys, plushies, and a baby-monitor conveniently set-up at the cot’s upper edge. My wife giggled as she watched me struggle moving that giant cot into the nursery. Jess had ultimately settled on a soothing, lime-green shade for the walls, with golden crescents and stars decorating the foreground. Despite my prolonged insistence, my pregnant wife took the whole paint-job duty upon herself. “You’re too messy, Marcus,” she would tease, playfully flicking paint drops on my face. I sheepishly smiled, as I watched my better-half etch thousands of wondrous, celestial nuggets on the plywood walls.
We were happy, me and Jessica. The happiest we had been in the few years we had known each other.
I’d have savored that happiness more, if I had known the kind of remission it was fated to enter someday.
The first time was the only time I showed any semblance of ideal-spouse behavior. I was there by my Jess in the operation theatre, gently gripping her cold hands as Dr. Crawford delivered the heartbreaking blow.
“Marcus. Jessica. I am so sorry”
Neither of us paid considerable attention to the doc’s descriptions about our late, dear Vivien's neonatal demise. Jess was too busy bawling the living hell out of her eyes and lungs. I was there, drifting in and out between awareness as Dr. Crawford walked me out of the OT and explained that Jessica had developed an inherent hormonal imbalance problem that would make any future conceptions difficult.
It wasn’t an explanation, really- it was a warning. A warning, that any subsequent attempt towards parenthood could be fatal for my wife.
But processing Crawford’s warnings was the last thing on my mind. At the time, baby Vivien’s empty crib was the only thing that flashed before my teary eyes. Those myriads of stars and moons that Jessica had sketched, about some 50, 000 of them- they all aligned to spell something on the lime-green background of our nursery wall. Something that my mind, had it been sane, would’ve vehemently repulsed.
Your wife failed.
But I was soon losing hold on my sanity. I was trampling over my conscience that day, as I drove us back home from the hospital, ignoring the sympathetic gazes my wife flicked at me.
It was her fault. She wasn’t worthy of my sympathy.
We tried two more times, each attempt more taxing on Jess’ frail anatomy than the former. My wife didn’t know about her biological impediment, but she knew how passionate I was about being a father. She nearly succeeded in confiding the negative test-results from me the first time, but by this point, I had already become the paranoid husband who stalked each and every one of his wife’s actions. I still remember how she fell on her knees, begging me forgiveness as my angered avatar thrashed about the toys in my lost child’s crib.
We were more hopeful the second time- at least I was. A couple hours after we had finished, Jess rushed and threw up in the toilet. She stayed sick that entire fortnight, lying weak on the bed, her body burning up, while I tended to her oddly fluctuating bulimic and anorexic needs. Despite her condition, she kept smiling the whole time. I did too- with everything that was happening, it was impossible for me to not think what the doctor had gravely warned me not to think of.
Speaking of whom, Dr. Gareth started to pry when Jess didn’t show up to his spouse’s ‘nerdy’ book club meets, asking me if all was fine. I tried lying but he and his hubby Fred turned up at our house a few days later anyway. Just checking out your delicious house, Marcus. They were a staircase away from chewing my head off about how obtuse and potentially dangerous a husband I was when Jess rushed in to greet them, faking some story about returning from her mothers’. The Crawford’s left shortly after with convinced expressions on their faces.
She saved me back there. She had this shy, knowing smile on her face- one that seemed to tell me, I got this, Love.
I should’ve been thankful to her.
And I was, for the briefest moment of time. Until she broke down and broke me with the news of her second failure.
I didn’t thank her- let alone console her. Instead, I walked off to the kitchen and grabbed a drink, wordlessly watching my wife mourn.
This one drink would be the start of my blatantly-public rendezvous with my new-found mistress- booze.
To now think how comically it all started. I was chugging down a beer while watching this Family Guy clip where some guy joked about how alcohol made women look attractive. My amused mind instantly pictured a smiling Jess, painting the nursery, wearing that hideous, grey robe of hers. I took a long sip and sighed.
I had had such high hopes for our beautiful, Chase family heir. We’d have camped our weekends at some picturesque lake where I’d acquaint my child to all the marvels of nature. I could have been the Dad who lulled his child to sleep with cuddly bedtime stories. Oh, how much I wished to be able to come up with painfully dull dad-jokes for my dear kid?
Every sip of the ice-cold beer helped me cope better with the grief of my loss. And with every passing bit of grief, my contempt towards my wife grew. I’d take another sip, to cleanse me off the disgust I felt towards her. Another sip, to convince that I wasn’t a shitty spouse for loathing her. That’d make me feel better. Another sip.
That’s how I got myself into this vicious cycle.
Jessica wasn’t repulsed by my new-found drinking-problem; to her, I was just going through a tough-break. Full credit to her; she tried her best to get me back on track. I remember this one time when I was fumbling with Sabrina’s gym on Let’s Go, Eevee, when Jess walked up to my couch and proposed, “Marcus, I know things have been tense lately. I know how much fatherhood means to you, and you know I feel the same way.
But we’ve got to be realistic about the biological scenarios involved here. And I’m not sure if natural pregnancy is going to work anymore. So I thought it would be good if we explored some alternate parenting options. Now, here, if you will just take a break from what you’re doing, I have looked up this adoption agency in the town over, and… “
Deep down, I know there is a good husband figure within me, who’d have taken his vulnerable wife in a sweet embrace and assured her, It’s all gonna be fine, baby. The wife would then plant a loving kiss on his cheek, as they’d explore the myriad alternate parenting options available. Everything would’ve been jolly. Cozy. Intimate.
The way good marriages are supposed to be.
But in my inebriated state, my mind no longer had the capacity to focus on my paternal dreams- let alone the woman who’d help me realize them. The only thing going on in my head was if my level 35 Alolan Marowak could OHKO Sabrina’s Alakazam; and this droning woman-voice next to me, talking about some cross-town orphanage we should visit next week, was really putting me on edge. I grunted, paused my game, and asked Jess to get lost and leave me alone and miserable.
At least I think that’s what I said. Jess just stood there, silent, for the longest moment of time before she spoke: “I understand. I don’t deserve kids.”.
That’s how most of our conversations went.
Alcoholism is quite the slippery slope, don’t let those extravagant, indulgent, party-lifestyle TV shows and movies fool you. I speak from experience. It wasn’t long after our adoption discussion that I stopped turning up for work and lost my job. I wish I could pin the blame on my colleagues, my mostly-distant relatives, and, obviously, Jess; for not trying to drag me out of this ever-depressing quagmire.
But they tried- a lot of them counseled, signed me for AA, sobriety campaigns, and stuff. Jess did too- well, at least she tried coaxing me into seeking help, when she wasn’t working her new job or locking herself into the bedroom to cry about how awful she had made our lives. I’m guessing that’s what she cried about- I never made the effort to find out.
But I couldn’t break the habit. I had become cooped in the very glass-bottle of the booze I was consuming. No matter how much anyone tried to find me a way out of this bottle to the open-top, my hands always slipped at the alcohol-drizzled glass surface.
I am proud of this euphemism. It’s amusing; I think the alcohol unearthed some poet/ social-commentator hidden deep inside me (Not that this artist did anything worthwhile). Occasionally, in some limited spells of sobriety, when I wasn’t retching my guts out or being tortured by some head-splitting hangover; I’d theorize that maybe drinking more was my way out of this rut. Maybe I’d get plain bored of the taste someday. Maybe I’d feel bad about my Jess. Maybe the alcohol would tap some dormant, self-respecting part of my brain that’d get me to clean up my mess.
Sure, call me crazy now- but hey, at the time, it made sense. Metaphorically, at least- maybe adding more booze to the bottle would, eventually, float my body up to the surface.
A good theory, but it had its flaws. There was no taste, smell, or absorb- all my olfactory senses were good as gone. And there was no feeling involved- none for my wife, none for me, none for the child I had once dreamed of rocking in my big, Daddy arms. My drinking wasn’t about me trying to alleviate my sorrows or uplift my soul or have a good time. I had long lost the ability to feel any feelings. My life, by this point, was all but a routine of getting wasted on every dime my wife earned. Every moment I was conscious, I was getting wasted in some bar. The few moments I wasn’t, I kept thinking why I wasn’t getting wasted in some bar.
And as you might have guessed, thinking was no longer my strong suit. Acting was. So act I did- by driving myself over to the said bar(s), and getting wasted. Simple and easy.
I was drinking from the very well that was supposed to buoy me. And with every passing drink, I was sinking- deeper, and deeper, until I drowned to my doom.
It took a nosedive to the deepest point of my bottled-life when I finally came to senses.
I was in this bar on some far, isolated, outskirt part of my town. Most of the downtown bars I used to frequent had had enough of my drunken antics, I was banned from them. Thankfully, this bar hadn’t seen me at my worst, yet. Still, by the time I rose to leave, I was, unsurprisingly, pretty hammered. A special kind of hammered, where I was hammered enough to know that I probably shouldn’t have driven, but I had to, because- I mean, come on, I had to get my car home, right?
I knew for a fact that I wasn’t the only person who had made this decision in a similar dilemma.
The drunken-drive started as innocuously as any drunken-drive you’d imagine. A placebo, sobriety-inducing piece of bubblegum grinding in my mouth; radio tuned to some country station that was supposed to aid my coherent thinking, as such. Just your average drunk-driving precautions, you know, should you come across a patrol car or anything.
Halfway into the ride, it became clear that I wouldn’t be dealing with any police. I was on this remote, unknown area called the Hilly Hedgeson Road, with nothing but dark forest surrounding me on both sides. Normally this would’ve made for a pretty unsettling drive- particularly so at that untimely hour of the night. But in my semi-conscious, semi-ecstatic, booze-boosted state, none of that mattered. I was contently singing each word of John Denver’s Country Roads out loud; right foot revving hard on the accelerator, as I callously sped across the linear country-road that would take me home.
The drive became painfully long; half an hour into the ride, I lost all my vigor. My tipsy high was starting to wear off. I drove haphazardly, but there was zero traffic and no cops, so long as I didn’t crash into a tree, I couldn’t care less. Truthfully, I was too tired to care. My drunk, vocal exploits had drained all my energy and my ailing body demanded sleep. I blinked multiple times, hoping to shrug off the lethargy but it didn’t work. At some point, I muted the irritating stereo-music and put my whole foot down on the pedal. This was one ride I wanted to be over with ASAP.
Is it just me, or does pressing the whole foot plumb on the pedal fills everyone with this…overwhelming, comfy feeling? I don’t know what it was- maybe because I am short, and stretching my legs to full length inclined me at a comfortable position on the warm, leather seat. Maybe I was just tired, and felt comfortable decompressing, literally, on the race pedal.
I have no clue what it was. But at that moment, pressing my right foot full on the accelerator, watching the speedometer rapidly wave its spindly little arm- it felt so good. So relaxing.
Like I was back home, unwinding myself on the massage chair I had bought from the money off my lost child’s crib. Some chic hotter than my Jess plugged on my headphones, whispering in her siren, ASMR voice, Shh, shh, shh, you just sleep, honey. It’s mommy’s turn to babysit.
Ah, now that’s something you don’t want to be over soon.
My eyes were almost glued shut from my mini, make-belief, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response joyride; when they started to process a pubescent pedestrian charging across the road. But by the time I frantically shifted my foot to the brake, it was already late.
THUMP!
The sickening sound of the young body crashing on asphalt shot consciousness straight into my befuddled brain. My Chevy Spark came to a screeching halt as I looked, devastated, outside the shotgun window.
A boy, aged around twelve, his baseball-jersey wrinkled from the collision. Even in the dark, I could see his lifeless, brown eyes peering straight into my soul, accusing me of my crime. A giant pool of blood forming around his prostrate body; confirming what the ghastly pallor on his tanned skin already did.
He was dead.
I couldn’t get out of my car- my brain was way too loaded to perform even the most basic, mechanical tasks. It was hosting this busy, three-way, emotional traffic-jam at the T-point of my conscience. There was guilt on the left side, wildly honking the horn of her luxurious Civic. Criminal! Criminal! each beep screeched in my ears. Parked opposite to her was remorse, gloomily sitting in a beatdown Jetta. His horn urgently blared, 9-1-1, 9-1-1.
And then in the middle-lane, there was panic. Head bowed down in shame, as his Spark’s buzzer whispered a solitary word in a low, almost- inaudible voice.
Run.
And like a fool, I took the road not to be taken.
It was not easy. You think it’s just a matter of telling your head to fuck it, forget it, and, floor it, and, voila! – there’s your six-F-worded guide on How to pull-off a Hit and Run. But it does not happen that way. Not when the gullible face of your twelve-year-old victim constantly flashes before your teary eyes. Not when your head can’t stop picturing the distraught face of the father you had just killed. Not when there’s a culpable father lurking at some quiet corner of your own, dark heart. Not when you’ve crashed just about every ambition in your miserable life. Not when you’ve run from every responsibility you’ve ever had.
It isn’t not easy. It’s impossible.
I blame booze for what happened next. The general, directional-disarray that’s so typical of every drink-and-drive accident- yup, that’s gotta be it. Because there’s no way a coward like me would’ve wittingly done what Marcus Chase did that night- never in my right mind! I know, how ironic, given all my drunk-shenanigans up until this point- but I digress.
No, I don’t believe that I detoured on purpose. It was bad judgment- a mishap decision, that I attribute to my hurting conscience and languidness overlapping. Amidst all the ensuing panic and confusion, my brain couldn’t register how much I had veered to the right. Every bit of my energy was expended, so much so that I couldn’t lift my foot off the gas to the brake as my Spark speedily approached dangerously close to the tree line.
I like to think that I tried my best to get out of the crashing car, even though I failed. I need someone to tell me that what happened on Hilly Hedgeson Road that night was just your typical, drunk-drive car-accident.
Not some appalling, half-hearted, half-witted, unsuccessful attempt at ending my pathetic life.
Whatever it was, it should’ve been the end of my road. Glass shards were poking at all corners of my blood-stained body. My lower-jaw terribly dislocated from the collision’s impact. Both my lungs crushed, each struggling to respire their dying breaths.
And in those final moments of life, I sat there with my fatal injuries, plain, waiting. Waiting, for the tall, dark and imposing entity that I had envisioned Death to be. He’d arrive at the wreckage, a reproachful look on his face as he’d claim my pathetic soul. Shortly after, I’d be banished to some damnable, after-life realm, where I’d be tortured to atone for my sins.
That’d be my sweet, sufferable, sanguine release of Death.
It wasn’t long before my barely-functioning ears picked up the ominous sounds of footsteps. The passenger door clicked open. Slam! I tried turning my head to get a look, but the searing pain in my neck withheld me.
“I always thought men drove better than women, you know.”
There was something wrong about that voice. It sounded- too innocent, too naïve. It couldn’t belong to Death.
“You know, it’s rude not to look. Man, haven’t you learned anything?”
The life-ending pain that was my body was burning in- suddenly, it was gone. No longer could I feel those prickly little glass swords on my body. Because they had realigned to form my former vehicle’s windshield. My whole car, in fact, was resurrected.
And I could turn my neck now. Which I did. Only to be faced with pure horror.
“Peekaboo!”, merrily exclaimed the kid I’d crashed my car into a few moments back.
“You…”, I would’ve said, horrified, were it not for the cruel agony of my dislocated jaw.
“Oh, give it a rest, Marcus. You didn’t think of making a sound to the cops when you hit me with your car. And now, you wanna talk? Ha! Serves you correct.”
Fair enough. Marcus-0, ghost boy-1.
“Hey, no fair! The only reason I’m ghost boy is because some drunk jerk like you hit me with their car. Call- well, think me Tyler.”
How did he read my mind? What was going on here? Was I alive or dead? Why-
“Man, you guys are so weird! You can think of so many questions when your body has been cleansed of every drop of alcohol. What happens to your thoughts when you’re drunk, huh? The least you can do is call an ambulance. But do you do that? No. Why? Because your drunk mind has these ‘emotional traffic jams’? God, you’re awful!”
If I was somehow alive, I wasn’t gonna be trash-talked by some junior-school brat. I smacked Tyler on his face.
I didn’t hit. My palm just phased right through him.
“Hit. And miss.” Tyler chuckled.
This was crazy. I tried unlocking the now, seemingly-functioning door. It didn’t budge.
“Oh, no, wait. It’s hit and run, after all. Story of your life. Ain’t that correct, Marcus?”
Enough with the slander! What was this kid’s deal? Why wasn’t I rotting in some dark, hellish corner?
“Oh, believe me, Marcus. This is hell, if I want it to be.” As if on cue, the car’s heating instantly hit the roof. Tyler glared at me. “And you really wanna know my deal? After everything you’ve done, you’ve got the audacity to ask what’s my deal?”
Awkward silence. I didn’t know what to say. Tyler did.
“What difference does it make, really, hell or no-hell? This- “, he gestured around the car, “drunken mess of a life that you’ve been living. This isn’t the first time you’ve crashed, Marcus. And it certainly isn’t the first time you’ve run. And don’t you fool yourself- you and I, we both know that it won’t be your last.”
Silence again. My eyes started to well. Tyler pressed his cold palm on my arm.
“Hey, come now, buddy. I would’ve let Death do his thing if I knew you’d get emotional. Fun guy, you know- he’s got a thing or two for cars himself. Okay, seriously, stop it. “A seriousness in his voice. “Listen, Marcus. The reason I’ve come to you is- well, you’ve crashed your life! Literally. And at this point in life, that’s pretty much the only thing you’re good at. And I’ve a thing for crashers like you. Plus, you can drive. Well, legally, at least- let’s not get into the nitty-gritties for now. Anyway- I’ve got this job-proposal for you. I was thinking that- “
Oh? A customer. A hammered one? Ooh, goody. Well, looks like that’s all the writing I’m gonna be able to do for now. Trust me, I really don’t like to leave the story hanging. But hey- a man has got to do his job, right? I guess I’ll just have to type the rest later.
You know what’s funny? I’ve this gut-feeling that we’ll still complete this story here anyways.
***
“Wo-wo-would you mind turn-turning the rad-radio on, pl-please?”
The driver numbly obeys my slurred request. No nod, no grunt, no yes ma’am, no ma’am. Nothing.
I was kinda hoping to hear the sound of his voice. It has been a while.
“…lucky number for the day is 63. In other news, authorities are still investigating what they suspect to be the murder of local resident, Adelaide Smith. Adelaide’s body was found severely damaged from a collision with a tree at the forest bordering the Hilly Hedgeson Road. The area has been the center of a series of nasty, vehicular homicidal activities ever since the police discovered 12-year-old Tyler Paulson’s body in…”
Our cab speeds past the worn-down road-sign reading the forbidden road’s name. A casual smile pops on my face. I try looking at the front mirror to see the driver’s reaction.
That’s when I see it. Why he didn’t bother replying. The fault in his jaws.
I am in the right car.
“…the absence of any vehicle from the scene of crime, damaged, or otherwise, has further complicated the investigation process. Forensics have traced large amounts of alcohol in Adelaide’s body, leading authorities to suspect that her death is connected to the recent string of ‘drunk-runner’ murders in that area. Miss Smith happened to be the eighteenth victim since the police first…”
As good a time as any, I figure. I get the flask out of my purse. The mirror reflects a sharp gleam in the cabbie’s eyes.
“I hope you don’t m-mind. Feeling a bit under the wea-weather, that’s all.” I take a swig.
He shifts to the fourth gear. I rock my head back as our cab starts picking speed. The radio turns staticy.
“…the police haven’t… any cash… belongings. Further… the coroners … identify a star-shaped bloodied…deceased’s jugular. They suspect… stolen… in line with the other victims…”
Ah, yes. The star-crested necklace. Of all the gifts he has lately given, this is the most beautiful one. I keep it in my purse. Reminds me of the time we dated. We had this little game where we’d exchange gifts every week. Nothing expensive, really- none from my side, at least. But he always broke the bank on me, even though I begged him not to.
“…a gold watch…heeled shoes… a camera…”
Gifts that remind of the times he used to love me. That’s how I knew.
The Marcus I loved wasn’t dead.
Sure, I was the one who performed the burial on his brutally disfigured body after he ‘died’ from his accident. I was devastated, like any loving wife would be. I was planning on heading back to my hometown when the first gift showed up at my doorstep. A gold watch. Just like the one he’d gifted me on my twenty-second birthday.
Then I heard of the drunk-runner murders. That’s when it started to click.
The cabbie tinkers with the radio. The signal’s back. “… robbery seems to be a new-found motive. The authorities first ascertained that the perpetrators had been stealing possessions from the victims’ bodies when they found Monty Wilson. Mr. Wilson’s body was found at around the same spot as that of the victim who preceded him chronologically, Marcus Chase. Senior detective Daniel Fletcher believes…”
He mutes the radio and moves to the fifth gear. It’s not easy to hear someone call you dead when you aren’t actually dead. The police were fairly confident that it was a suicide attempt, but I refused to believe that. If he really did want to escape this world, his ghost wouldn’t have hung around to kill some drunk passengers and gift me their prized belongings. No, it’s like he was doing all with some new-found purpose. And I’ve known my alcohol-addicted husband long enough to know that he couldn’t have found this purpose all by himself. Someone must have helped him find it.
That’s when I figured Tyler was involved.
I have mixed feelings about that boy. I know he means- well, truthfully, I don’t have the slightest clue what he means! I guess I’m somewhat thankful to him for helping my dear Marcus redeem himself. I’ve found my loving husband back; a husband who doesn’t run from me, a husband who cares about the things I love. I know, there’s still much room for improvement, but for the time being- I’m just happy that my darling Marcus isn’t gone. And I am truly indebted to Tyler for that.
But then there’s all the lives he has taken. I’m not comfortable with that. Being dead, depressed, or estranged doesn’t give him, or anyone, for that matter, the right to wreck others’ lives. I don’t care whatever ‘redemption’ or ‘get-what-they-deserve’ crap he tries to feed me or Marcus. I won’t condone it. That boy is in urgent need of some manners, and I’m gonna ensure he gets them.
I’m not gonna have three homicidal adults in our alternate family.
Ah well. I can’t be too hard on him. Part of his behavior is a reflection on mine. I do still regret it, believe me. The one time I allowed myself alcohol, hoping it would get me over the trauma of my second failure. Yeah, right. I shouldn’t have been driving but I did, anyway, because- well, what do they expect me to do? Take the bus? Well, screw them. I had to get my car home.
And hence, on my drunken drive back, I ran into Tyler. Literally, ran into his bony, pre-teenage body. He could’ve been saved, probably- but, well, you know. I had this three-way, emotional jam in my head, and I chose panic.
Hmm. That wasn’t half bad. I really hope Marcus still has a thing for my lame, poetic expressions once this is all over with.
Speaking of whom, he stops the car. I haven’t been paying attention to the ride. We’re about 500 meters from some massive tree. I don’t think he normally stops before he- you know, does this whole crash thing.
But I’m special. I’m his wife, the woman he loves. I’ve the right to decline.
He faces me, silent. Jesus Christ, that broken jaw looks really gross from up this close. I wonder if I can get Tyler to change it sometime.
Names do have power. Just like that, Tyler’s here now, perched on the backseat. A frown on his face as he stares me from the rear-view mirror.
I realize something. This entire thing he has been doing, his after-life existence- he has been playing. Every drunk passenger that he asks Marcus to kill- they’re voodoo dolls. Mere puppets, supposed to vent the grudge he bears towards someone.
Someone who crashed him. Someone who abandoned him when they shouldn’t have had. Someone who had a responsibility towards him.
Someone, like his mommy.
Mommy is here now. And the first lesson she’s gonna teach her son- is that every mistake warrants a punishment. There’re other things I’ll teach him later- the value of life, common courtesy, growing from mistakes. But for now, this murderous madness has to end.
I look at Marcus, my lips curled in a smile that tells him, it’s okay, I get this, Love. My hands cup over his as we hold the gear. I cast one last, backward look at our family’s latest addition.
Tyler smiles. He approves.
We plunge the gear.
I turn the radio up. The least I am entitled to is a musical exit. The announcer’s voice trails off, “… mayor has appealed citizens not to venture in the Hilly Hedgeson Road until there’s more clarity on the situation. Until then, this is your host, Tricia Matthews, signing off the show with this awesome song. Stay tuned.
If I die young, bury me in satin,
Lay me down on a bed of roses,
Sink me in the river, at dawn,
Send me away with the words of a love song,
Uh, oh”
My darling husband crashes me to death.

Jessica and I dreamed of being parents ever since the day we got married. I have fond memories of all the merry preparations we newly-weds made to welcome the latest addition (additions, even better, were we as fortunate) to our warm, nuclear family of Chase’s.
I laid off my plans for the indoor, foosball parlor that I had wanted so badly- Jessica insisted that we reserve the room downstairs for the baby’s nursery. The soon-to-be Daddy in me happily complied. The soon-to-be-Mommy, meanwhile, spent her time mulling over the perfect wall shade for the said nursery. The two of us would stay up late, each concerning ourselves with some baby-related business or another. Jess would doze off first, usually; exhausted from all her extensive research on baby products. I used to smile as I returned home from work, gently draping the duvet over my lovely wife’s resting body. Her asleep face flashed a bright glow as I joined her on the bed, drifting off to my humming, lullaby-practicing voice.
Those few weeks of Jess’ pre-pregnancy, and the nine-months of wait that followed- it was utter, marital bliss. We were euphoric, the two of us- living on an otherworldly sense of hope and joy, that stemmed from the gleeful prospects of our upcoming parenthood. Our every conversation went like, Patrick’s gonna so love this, or, Vivien’s gonna be so glad that. We were beyond excited.
By the end of the seventh month, I had completed this cozy, king-sized, cherry-colored wooden crib, equipped with a whole assortment of toys, plushies, and a baby-monitor conveniently set-up at the cot’s upper edge. My wife giggled as she watched me struggle moving that giant cot into the nursery. Jess had ultimately settled on a soothing, lime-green shade for the walls, with golden crescents and stars decorating the foreground. Despite my prolonged insistence, my pregnant wife took the whole paint-job duty upon herself. “You’re too messy, Marcus,” she would tease, playfully flicking paint drops on my face. I sheepishly smiled, as I watched my better-half etch thousands of wondrous, celestial nuggets on the plywood walls.
We were happy, me and Jessica. The happiest we had been in the few years we had known each other.
I’d have savored that happiness more, if I had known the kind of remission it was fated to enter someday.
The first time was the only time I showed any semblance of ideal-spouse behavior. I was there by my Jess in the operation theatre, gently gripping her cold hands as Dr. Crawford delivered the heartbreaking blow.
“Marcus. Jessica. I am so sorry”
Neither of us paid considerable attention to the doc’s descriptions about our late, dear Vivien's neonatal demise. Jess was too busy bawling the living hell out of her eyes and lungs. I was there, drifting in and out between awareness as Dr. Crawford walked me out of the OT and explained that Jessica had developed an inherent hormonal imbalance problem that would make any future conceptions difficult.
It wasn’t an explanation, really- it was a warning. A warning, that any subsequent attempt towards parenthood could be fatal for my wife.
But processing Crawford’s warnings was the last thing on my mind. At the time, baby Vivien’s empty crib was the only thing that flashed before my teary eyes. Those myriads of stars and moons that Jessica had sketched, about some 50, 000 of them- they all aligned to spell something on the lime-green background of our nursery wall. Something that my mind, had it been sane, would’ve vehemently repulsed.
Your wife failed.
But I was soon losing hold on my sanity. I was trampling over my conscience that day, as I drove us back home from the hospital, ignoring the sympathetic gazes my wife flicked at me.
It was her fault. She wasn’t worthy of my sympathy.
We tried two more times, each attempt more taxing on Jess’ frail anatomy than the former. My wife didn’t know about her biological impediment, but she knew how passionate I was about being a father. She nearly succeeded in confiding the negative test-results from me the first time, but by this point, I had already become the paranoid husband who stalked each and every one of his wife’s actions. I still remember how she fell on her knees, begging me forgiveness as my angered avatar thrashed about the toys in my lost child’s crib.
We were more hopeful the second time- at least I was. A couple hours after we had finished, Jess rushed and threw up in the toilet. She stayed sick that entire fortnight, lying weak on the bed, her body burning up, while I tended to her oddly fluctuating bulimic and anorexic needs. Despite her condition, she kept smiling the whole time. I did too- with everything that was happening, it was impossible for me to not think what the doctor had gravely warned me not to think of.
Speaking of whom, Dr. Gareth started to pry when Jess didn’t show up to his spouse’s ‘nerdy’ book club meets, asking me if all was fine. I tried lying but he and his hubby Fred turned up at our house a few days later anyway. Just checking out your delicious house, Marcus. They were a staircase away from chewing my head off about how obtuse and potentially dangerous a husband I was when Jess rushed in to greet them, faking some story about returning from her mothers’. The Crawford’s left shortly after with convinced expressions on their faces.
She saved me back there. She had this shy, knowing smile on her face- one that seemed to tell me, I got this, Love.
I should’ve been thankful to her.
And I was, for the briefest moment of time. Until she broke down and broke me with the news of her second failure.
I didn’t thank her- let alone console her. Instead, I walked off to the kitchen and grabbed a drink, wordlessly watching my wife mourn.
This one drink would be the start of my blatantly-public rendezvous with my new-found mistress- booze.
To now think how comically it all started. I was chugging down a beer while watching this Family Guy clip where some guy joked about how alcohol made women look attractive. My amused mind instantly pictured a smiling Jess, painting the nursery, wearing that hideous, grey robe of hers. I took a long sip and sighed.
I had had such high hopes for our beautiful, Chase family heir. We’d have camped our weekends at some picturesque lake where I’d acquaint my child to all the marvels of nature. I could have been the Dad who lulled his child to sleep with cuddly bedtime stories. Oh, how much I wished to be able to come up with painfully dull dad-jokes for my dear kid?
Every sip of the ice-cold beer helped me cope better with the grief of my loss. And with every passing bit of grief, my contempt towards my wife grew. I’d take another sip, to cleanse me off the disgust I felt towards her. Another sip, to convince that I wasn’t a shitty spouse for loathing her. That’d make me feel better. Another sip.
That’s how I got myself into this vicious cycle.
Jessica wasn’t repulsed by my new-found drinking-problem; to her, I was just going through a tough-break. Full credit to her; she tried her best to get me back on track. I remember this one time when I was fumbling with Sabrina’s gym on Let’s Go, Eevee, when Jess walked up to my couch and proposed, “Marcus, I know things have been tense lately. I know how much fatherhood means to you, and you know I feel the same way.
But we’ve got to be realistic about the biological scenarios involved here. And I’m not sure if natural pregnancy is going to work anymore. So I thought it would be good if we explored some alternate parenting options. Now, here, if you will just take a break from what you’re doing, I have looked up this adoption agency in the town over, and… “
Deep down, I know there is a good husband figure within me, who’d have taken his vulnerable wife in a sweet embrace and assured her, It’s all gonna be fine, baby. The wife would then plant a loving kiss on his cheek, as they’d explore the myriad alternate parenting options available. Everything would’ve been jolly. Cozy. Intimate.
The way good marriages are supposed to be.
But in my inebriated state, my mind no longer had the capacity to focus on my paternal dreams- let alone the woman who’d help me realize them. The only thing going on in my head was if my level 35 Alolan Marowak could OHKO Sabrina’s Alakazam; and this droning woman-voice next to me, talking about some cross-town orphanage we should visit next week, was really putting me on edge. I grunted, paused my game, and asked Jess to get lost and leave me alone and miserable.
At least I think that’s what I said. Jess just stood there, silent, for the longest moment of time before she spoke: “I understand. I don’t deserve kids.”.
That’s how most of our conversations went.
Alcoholism is quite the slippery slope, don’t let those extravagant, indulgent, party-lifestyle TV shows and movies fool you. I speak from experience. It wasn’t long after our adoption discussion that I stopped turning up for work and lost my job. I wish I could pin the blame on my colleagues, my mostly-distant relatives, and, obviously, Jess; for not trying to drag me out of this ever-depressing quagmire.
But they tried- a lot of them counseled, signed me for AA, sobriety campaigns, and stuff. Jess did too- well, at least she tried coaxing me into seeking help, when she wasn’t working her new job or locking herself into the bedroom to cry about how awful she had made our lives. I’m guessing that’s what she cried about- I never made the effort to find out.
But I couldn’t break the habit. I had become cooped in the very glass-bottle of the booze I was consuming. No matter how much anyone tried to find me a way out of this bottle to the open-top, my hands always slipped at the alcohol-drizzled glass surface.
I am proud of this euphemism. It’s amusing; I think the alcohol unearthed some poet/ social-commentator hidden deep inside me (Not that this artist did anything worthwhile). Occasionally, in some limited spells of sobriety, when I wasn’t retching my guts out or being tortured by some head-splitting hangover; I’d theorize that maybe drinking more was my way out of this rut. Maybe I’d get plain bored of the taste someday. Maybe I’d feel bad about my Jess. Maybe the alcohol would tap some dormant, self-respecting part of my brain that’d get me to clean up my mess.
Sure, call me crazy now- but hey, at the time, it made sense. Metaphorically, at least- maybe adding more booze to the bottle would, eventually, float my body up to the surface.
A good theory, but it had its flaws. There was no taste, smell, or absorb- all my olfactory senses were good as gone. And there was no feeling involved- none for my wife, none for me, none for the child I had once dreamed of rocking in my big, Daddy arms. My drinking wasn’t about me trying to alleviate my sorrows or uplift my soul or have a good time. I had long lost the ability to feel any feelings. My life, by this point, was all but a routine of getting wasted on every dime my wife earned. Every moment I was conscious, I was getting wasted in some bar. The few moments I wasn’t, I kept thinking why I wasn’t getting wasted in some bar.
And as you might have guessed, thinking was no longer my strong suit. Acting was. So act I did- by driving myself over to the said bar(s), and getting wasted. Simple and easy.
I was drinking from the very well that was supposed to buoy me. And with every passing drink, I was sinking- deeper, and deeper, until I drowned to my doom.
It took a nosedive to the deepest point of my bottled-life when I finally came to senses.
I was in this bar on some far, isolated, outskirt part of my town. Most of the downtown bars I used to frequent had had enough of my drunken antics, I was banned from them. Thankfully, this bar hadn’t seen me at my worst, yet. Still, by the time I rose to leave, I was, unsurprisingly, pretty hammered. A special kind of hammered, where I was hammered enough to know that I probably shouldn’t have driven, but I had to, because- I mean, come on, I had to get my car home, right?
I knew for a fact that I wasn’t the only person who had made this decision in a similar dilemma.
The drunken-drive started as innocuously as any drunken-drive you’d imagine. A placebo, sobriety-inducing piece of bubblegum grinding in my mouth; radio tuned to some country station that was supposed to aid my coherent thinking, as such. Just your average drunk-driving precautions, you know, should you come across a patrol car or anything.
Halfway into the ride, it became clear that I wouldn’t be dealing with any police. I was on this remote, unknown area called the Hilly Hedgeson Road, with nothing but dark forest surrounding me on both sides. Normally this would’ve made for a pretty unsettling drive- particularly so at that untimely hour of the night. But in my semi-conscious, semi-ecstatic, booze-boosted state, none of that mattered. I was contently singing each word of John Denver’s Country Roads out loud; right foot revving hard on the accelerator, as I callously sped across the linear country-road that would take me home.
The drive became painfully long; half an hour into the ride, I lost all my vigor. My tipsy high was starting to wear off. I drove haphazardly, but there was zero traffic and no cops, so long as I didn’t crash into a tree, I couldn’t care less. Truthfully, I was too tired to care. My drunk, vocal exploits had drained all my energy and my ailing body demanded sleep. I blinked multiple times, hoping to shrug off the lethargy but it didn’t work. At some point, I muted the irritating stereo-music and put my whole foot down on the pedal. This was one ride I wanted to be over with ASAP.
Is it just me, or does pressing the whole foot plumb on the pedal fills everyone with this…overwhelming, comfy feeling? I don’t know what it was- maybe because I am short, and stretching my legs to full length inclined me at a comfortable position on the warm, leather seat. Maybe I was just tired, and felt comfortable decompressing, literally, on the race pedal.
I have no clue what it was. But at that moment, pressing my right foot full on the accelerator, watching the speedometer rapidly wave its spindly little arm- it felt so good. So relaxing.
Like I was back home, unwinding myself on the massage chair I had bought from the money off my lost child’s crib. Some chic hotter than my Jess plugged on my headphones, whispering in her siren, ASMR voice, Shh, shh, shh, you just sleep, honey. It’s mommy’s turn to babysit.
Ah, now that’s something you don’t want to be over soon.
My eyes were almost glued shut from my mini, make-belief, Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response joyride; when they started to process a pubescent pedestrian charging across the road. But by the time I frantically shifted my foot to the brake, it was already late.
THUMP!
The sickening sound of the young body crashing on asphalt shot consciousness straight into my befuddled brain. My Chevy Spark came to a screeching halt as I looked, devastated, outside the shotgun window.
A boy, aged around twelve, his baseball-jersey wrinkled from the collision. Even in the dark, I could see his lifeless, brown eyes peering straight into my soul, accusing me of my crime. A giant pool of blood forming around his prostrate body; confirming what the ghastly pallor on his tanned skin already did.
He was dead.
I couldn’t get out of my car- my brain was way too loaded to perform even the most basic, mechanical tasks. It was hosting this busy, three-way, emotional traffic-jam at the T-point of my conscience. There was guilt on the left side, wildly honking the horn of her luxurious Civic. Criminal! Criminal! each beep screeched in my ears. Parked opposite to her was remorse, gloomily sitting in a beatdown Jetta. His horn urgently blared, 9-1-1, 9-1-1.
And then in the middle-lane, there was panic. Head bowed down in shame, as his Spark’s buzzer whispered a solitary word in a low, almost- inaudible voice.
Run.
And like a fool, I took the road not to be taken.
It was not easy. You think it’s just a matter of telling your head to fuck it, forget it, and*, floor it*, and, voila! – there’s your six-F-worded guide on How to pull-off a Hit and Run. But it does not happen that way. Not when the gullible face of your twelve-year-old victim constantly flashes before your teary eyes. Not when your head can’t stop picturing the distraught face of the father you had just killed. Not when there’s a culpable father lurking at some quiet corner of your own, dark heart. Not when you’ve crashed just about every ambition in your miserable life. Not when you’ve run from every responsibility you’ve ever had.
It isn’t not easy. It’s impossible.
I blame booze for what happened next. The general, directional-disarray that’s so typical of every drink-and-drive accident- yup, that’s gotta be it. Because there’s no way a coward like me would’ve wittingly done what Marcus Chase did that night- never in my right mind! I know, how ironic, given all my drunk-shenanigans up until this point- but I digress.
No, I don’t believe that I detoured on purpose. It was bad judgment- a mishap decision, that I attribute to my hurting conscience and languidness overlapping. Amidst all the ensuing panic and confusion, my brain couldn’t register how much I had veered to the right. Every bit of my energy was expended, so much so that I couldn’t lift my foot off the gas to the brake as my Spark speedily approached dangerously close to the tree line.
I like to think that I tried my best to get out of the crashing car, even though I failed. I need someone to tell me that what happened on Hilly Hedgeson Road that night was just your typical, drunk-drive car-accident.
Not some appalling, half-hearted, half-witted, unsuccessful attempt at ending my pathetic life.
Whatever it was, it should’ve been the end of my road. Glass shards were poking at all corners of my blood-stained body. My lower-jaw terribly dislocated from the collision’s impact. Both my lungs crushed, each struggling to respire their dying breaths.
And in those final moments of life, I sat there with my fatal injuries, plain, waiting. Waiting, for the tall, dark and imposing entity that I had envisioned Death to be. He’d arrive at the wreckage, a reproachful look on his face as he’d claim my pathetic soul. Shortly after, I’d be banished to some damnable, after-life realm, where I’d be tortured to atone for my sins.
That’d be my sweet, sufferable, sanguine release of Death.
It wasn’t long before my barely-functioning ears picked up the ominous sounds of footsteps. The passenger door clicked open. Slam! I tried turning my head to get a look, but the searing pain in my neck withheld me.
“I always thought men drove better than women, you know.”
There was something wrong about that voice. It sounded- too innocent, too naïve. It couldn’t belong to Death.
“You know, it’s rude not to look. Man, haven’t you learned anything?”
The life-ending pain that was my body was burning in- suddenly, it was gone. No longer could I feel those prickly little glass swords on my body. Because they had realigned to form my former vehicle’s windshield. My whole car, in fact, was resurrected.
And I could turn my neck now. Which I did. Only to be faced with pure horror.
“Peekaboo!”, merrily exclaimed the kid I’d crashed my car into a few moments back.
“You…”, I would’ve said, horrified, were it not for the cruel agony of my dislocated jaw.
“Oh, give it a rest, Marcus. You didn’t think of making a sound to the cops when you hit me with your car. And now, you wanna talk? Ha! Serves you correct.”
Fair enough. Marcus-0, ghost boy-1.
“Hey, no fair! The only reason I’m ghost boy is because some drunk jerk like you hit me with their car. Call- well, think me Tyler.”
How did he read my mind? What was going on here? Was I alive or dead? Why-
“Man, you guys are so weird! You can think of so many questions when your body has been cleansed of every drop of alcohol. What happens to your thoughts when you’re drunk, huh? The least you can do is call an ambulance. But do you do that? No. Why? Because your drunk mind has these ‘emotional traffic jams’? God, you’re awful!”
If I was somehow alive, I wasn’t gonna be trash-talked by some junior-school brat. I smacked Tyler on his face.
I didn’t hit. My palm just phased right through him.
“Hit. And miss.” Tyler chuckled.
This was crazy. I tried unlocking the now, seemingly-functioning door. It didn’t budge.
“Oh, no, wait. It’s hit and run, after all. Story of your life. Ain’t that correct, Marcus?”
Enough with the slander! What was this kid’s deal? Why wasn’t I rotting in some dark, hellish corner?
“Oh, believe me, Marcus. This is hell, if I want it to be.” As if on cue, the car’s heating instantly hit the roof. Tyler glared at me. “And you really wanna know my deal? After everything you’ve done, you’ve got the audacity to ask what’s my deal?”
Awkward silence. I didn’t know what to say. Tyler did.
“What difference does it make, really, hell or no-hell? This- “, he gestured around the car, “drunken mess of a life that you’ve been living. This isn’t the first time you’ve crashed, Marcus. And it certainly isn’t the first time you’ve run. And don’t you fool yourself- you and I, we both know that it won’t be your last.”
Silence again. My eyes started to well. Tyler pressed his cold palm on my arm.
“Hey, come now, buddy. I would’ve let Death do his thing if I knew you’d get emotional. Fun guy, you know- he’s got a thing or two for cars himself. Okay, seriously, stop it. “A seriousness in his voice. “Listen, Marcus. The reason I’ve come to you is- well, you’ve crashed your life! Literally. And at this point in life, that’s pretty much the only thing you’re good at. And I’ve a thing for crashers like you. Plus, you can drive. Well, legally, at least- let’s not get into the nitty-gritties for now. Anyway- I’ve got this job-proposal for you. I was thinking that- “
Oh? A customer. A hammered one? Ooh, goody. Well, looks like that’s all the writing I’m gonna be able to do for now. Trust me, I really don’t like to leave the story hanging. But hey- a man has got to do his job, right? I guess I’ll just have to type the rest later.
You know what’s funny? I’ve this gut-feeling that we’ll still complete this story here anyways.
***
“Wo-wo-would you mind turn-turning the rad-radio on, pl-please?”
The driver numbly obeys my slurred request. No nod, no grunt, no yes ma’am, no ma’am. Nothing.
I was kinda hoping to hear the sound of his voice. It has been a while.
“…lucky number for the day is 63. In other news, authorities are still investigating what they suspect to be the murder of local resident, Adelaide Smith. Adelaide’s body was found severely damaged from a collision with a tree at the forest bordering the Hilly Hedgeson Road. The area has been the center of a series of nasty, vehicular homicidal activities ever since the police discovered 12-year-old Tyler Paulson’s body in…”
Our cab speeds past the worn-down road-sign reading the forbidden road’s name. A casual smile pops on my face. I try looking at the front mirror to see the driver’s reaction.
That’s when I see it. Why he didn’t bother replying. The fault in his jaws.
I am in the right car.
“…the absence of any vehicle from the scene of crime, damaged, or otherwise, has further complicated the investigation process. Forensics have traced large amounts of alcohol in Adelaide’s body, leading authorities to suspect that her death is connected to the recent string of ‘drunk-runner’ murders in that area. Miss Smith happened to be the eighteenth victim since the police first…”
As good a time as any, I figure. I get the flask out of my purse. The mirror reflects a sharp gleam in the cabbie’s eyes.
“I hope you don’t m-mind. Feeling a bit under the wea-weather, that’s all.” I take a swig.
He shifts to the fourth gear. I rock my head back as our cab starts picking speed. The radio turns staticy.
“…the police haven’t… any cash… belongings. Further… the coroners … identify a star-shaped bloodied…deceased’s jugular. They suspect… stolen… in line with the other victims…”
Ah, yes. The star-crested necklace. Of all the gifts he has lately given, this is the most beautiful one. I keep it in my purse. Reminds me of the time we dated. We had this little game where we’d exchange gifts every week. Nothing expensive, really- none from my side, at least. But he always broke the bank on me, even though I begged him not to.
“…a gold watch…heeled shoes… a camera…”
Gifts that remind of the times he used to love me. That’s how I knew.
The Marcus I loved wasn’t dead.
Sure, I was the one who performed the burial on his brutally disfigured body after he ‘died’ from his accident. I was devastated, like any loving wife would be. I was planning on heading back to my hometown when the first gift showed up at my doorstep. A gold watch. Just like the one he’d gifted me on my twenty-second birthday.
Then I heard of the drunk-runner murders. That’s when it started to click.
The cabbie tinkers with the radio. The signal’s back. “… robbery seems to be a new-found motive. The authorities first ascertained that the perpetrators had been stealing possessions from the victims’ bodies when they found Monty Wilson. Mr. Wilson’s body was found at around the same spot as that of the victim who preceded him chronologically, Marcus Chase. Senior detective Daniel Fletcher believes…”
He mutes the radio and moves to the fifth gear. It’s not easy to hear someone call you dead when you aren’t actually dead. The police were fairly confident that it was a suicide attempt, but I refused to believe that. If he really did want to escape this world, his ghost wouldn’t have hung around to kill some drunk passengers and gift me their prized belongings. No, it’s like he was doing all with some new-found purpose. And I’ve known my alcohol-addicted husband long enough to know that he couldn’t have found this purpose all by himself. Someone must have helped him find it.
That’s when I figured Tyler was involved.
I have mixed feelings about that boy. I know he means- well, truthfully, I don’t have the slightest clue what he means! I guess I’m somewhat thankful to him for helping my dear Marcus redeem himself. I’ve found my loving husband back; a husband who doesn’t run from me, a husband who cares about the things I love. I know, there’s still much room for improvement, but for the time being- I’m just happy that my darling Marcus isn’t gone. And I am truly indebted to Tyler for that.
But then there’s all the lives he has taken. I’m not comfortable with that. Being dead, depressed, or estranged doesn’t give him, or anyone, for that matter, the right to wreck others’ lives. I don’t care whatever ‘redemption’ or ‘get-what-they-deserve’ crap he tries to feed me or Marcus. I won’t condone it. That boy is in urgent need of some manners, and I’m gonna ensure he gets them.
I’m not gonna have three homicidal adults in our alternate family.
Ah well. I can’t be too hard on him. Part of his behavior is a reflection on mine. I do still regret it, believe me. The one time I allowed myself alcohol, hoping it would get me over the trauma of my second failure. Yeah, right. I shouldn’t have been driving but I did, anyway, because- well, what do they expect me to do? Take the bus? Well, screw them. I had to get my car home.
And hence, on my drunken drive back, I ran into Tyler. Literally, ran into his bony, pre-teenage body. He could’ve been saved, probably- but, well, you know. I had this three-way, emotional jam in my head, and I chose panic.
Hmm. That wasn’t half bad. I really hope Marcus still has a thing for my lame, poetic expressions once this is all over with.
Speaking of whom, he stops the car. I haven’t been paying attention to the ride. We’re about 500 meters from some massive tree. I don’t think he normally stops before he- you know, does this whole crash thing.
But I’m special. I’m his wife, the woman he loves. I’ve the right to decline.
He faces me, silent. Jesus Christ, that broken jaw looks really gross from up this close. I wonder if I can get Tyler to change it sometime.
Names do have power. Just like that, Tyler’s here now, perched on the backseat. A frown on his face as he stares me from the rear-view mirror.
I realize something. This entire thing he has been doing, his after-life existence- he has been playing. Every drunk passenger that he asks Marcus to kill- they’re voodoo dolls. Mere puppets, supposed to vent the grudge he bears towards someone.
Someone who crashed him. Someone who abandoned him when they shouldn’t have had. Someone who had a responsibility towards him.
Someone, like his mommy.
Mommy is here now. And the first lesson she’s gonna teach her son- is that every mistake warrants a punishment. There’re other things I’ll teach him later- the value of life, common courtesy, growing from mistakes. But for now, this murderous madness has to end.
I look at Marcus, my lips curled in a smile that tells him, it’s okay, I get this, Love. My hands cup over his as we hold the gear. I cast one last, backward look at our family’s latest addition.
Tyler smiles. He approves.
We plunge the gear.
I turn the radio up. The least I am entitled to is a musical exit. The announcer’s voice trails off, “… mayor has appealed citizens not to venture in the Hilly Hedgeson Road until there’s more clarity on the situation. Until then, this is your host, Tricia Matthews, signing off the show with this awesome song. Stay tuned.
If I die young, bury me in satin,
Lay me down on a bed of roses,
Sink me in the river, at dawn,
Send me away with the words of a love song,
Uh, oh”
My darling husband crashes me to death.

My public confessions of the secret ugly truth of womanhood......
Several years ago after having three children, my OBGYN gave me no option but to have a hysterectomy. Several weeks ago, when I had to pee one day, I experienced the strange sensation of wiping my own bladder with toilet paper. I had no idea what the hell was really going on, but I knew enough to know I was wiping something I wasn’t suppose to. So I sat naked on the bathroom floor with a 5X magnified makeup mirror, and screamed out loud when I saw my bladder....and then, after having my bladder tacked to my esophagus with mesh and a sling this past Tuesday....I was hit...no......I was mind slaughtered, with a profound mental list of all the “never did I ever think I would experience or do this.....”. The more I laid in bed to recover, the more I pondered this list. The longer the list grew, the funnier it became. I’m going to absolutely destroy myself for one reason only...We women need to stick together at earlier time frames in our lives together. These little young things running around just like we did, and damn it was fun, need to know the sobering truth about aging as a woman. I am at the age where I value my girlfriends more than....well, we shan’t go there shan’t we? Point is...we need to warn them.
I was SUPER excited about getting a dose of Versed for my surgery on Tuesday. I legit wasn’t even remotely embarrassed when I clapped as the anesthesiologist introduced himself and stated what he was going to give me. It’s the best sleep you’ll ever have. And thank God they gave it to me. Bc I had no idea the knitty gritty details of this procedure until after I woke up and realized that I had been hoisted up with my ass in the air, head down, and my legs pulled apart in stirrups, in a 180 position. In laymen’s terms, that’s called a split. A SPLIT. Not even a side split. Full one. I now know what the hardcore SM porn stars feel like after a hard days work. They should get paid more.
Anyway.....back to the growing list of “never did I ever think I would ever do this before I married and had children”.....
Never ever did I think I would ever....Clean urine and pubes off toilet seats every single day of my life, and google better ways to scrub urine out of the grout around the toilet. It’s a huge open gaping beckoning hole right there in front of you. Why can’t they hit it? I even walked outside one day, in a fit of fury, in the privacy of my own back yard, and LITERALLY AND PHYSICALLY, “hooked it”, solely in a frustrated effort to privately prove to myself that I could pee standing up and hit a target right in front of me. I did. I hit it. Nailed it. Flawlessly. On the first try. Didn’t need no red or purple Skittles (cause the orange, yellow and green ones don’t work), no Cheerios, no Playboy magazines or an open window of Pornhub on the cell phone...not even a pat on ye ‘ol back. Somebody out there please make me a merit badge with gold rick rack on it.
Never did I ever think I would get to a point in my life where I had to accept the line I CLEARLY did not cross into a weird disgusting comfort zone where farts and sharts (yeah I said it, sharts) are no longer embarrassing for anyone else living in my home. There are no more excuse me’s. No more closing the doors when it’s quite obvious that our neighbors can hear it happening, no more efforts to fold a dirty pair of underwear to strategically try and hide a skid mark- nope, those truth telling brown lines stare proudly at the ceiling until I pick them up and clean them.
Never ever did I think I would get to the point where I would use SUPER EXTRA STRENGTH HULK tampons for the whole period....to be fair, it doesn’t happen to all women, but in my case......my periods became increasingly heavier to point that I questioned if I had passed a mouse in the toilet one morning. And then suddenly, as if a switch turned off, I was back in the game. No lead up, no trail off. Just BOOM YOU MIGHT HEMORRHAGE THIS TIME SO KEEP DILIGENT WATCH. It’s extremely disconcerting when you go from being able to use those tiny purple ones in the 3 size box, to owning and perfecting the ability to upkeep your smile and outward confidence as you experience the feeling of the largest tampon ever created in the the history of mankind seemlessly and effortlessly shoot out of you.
Oh- and never did I ever know that one day I would be aware that my labia would grow largelonger and change colors in unison with each passing year either. But guess what girls? Y’all out there taking crotch selfies....go with ya bad self- I’m not judging!! Hell, take them now, because when you get old, it all turns darker, flaps and claps, winds and knots itself uncomfortably around your g string (you’ll Ditch those too)....I do still layout naked at my pool bc my back yard is in the woods....but....all I’m saying is....if a strong gale of wind were to come through at the right time.....I could have a chance at flying. And no one ever told me that. Why not? Why in the hell not?
And while we are on the topic of naked selfies...go ahead and get some of your butthole and boobs too. Don’t use filters. I’ll be dead and gone, but one day you can visit my grave and leave a rock or a penny.....bc one day you’ll want to thank me. Why?
Never did I ever know ANYTHING. About post-pregnancy. I have given birth once naturally, and twice by c-section. During the last two births, I was on a very high risk list. For both pregnancies I was given a cerclage. A WHAT you ask? Oh dear sweet budding princess with the mid drift tank and high waisted jeans (that btw I BOSSED back in the 80’s....for real....SLASH, was on my wall...and he was my “go to guy...that makes me super tough and cool enough to write this, regardless if you have to google who he is), a cerclage is where they stick a huge needle, while you’re pregnant, directly into your spine to numb your body, but you’re awake the entire time....you watch and hear yourself get hoisted by the feet in the air like a hog, tied u in stirrups, and the use of a speculum to completely open up your longtime bestie VAGEENA, and then a surgeon uses a 5,600 inch needle and surgical thread to sew your cervix shut.....so you won’t go into labor. Again...to be fair.....this is rare so it probably will never happen to you. But other things will....
Like hearing yourself NASTY FART (the kind that in any other situation besides birth would make you want to take up another identity and immediately move to another state)in your doctors face, literally being able to watch his/her hair blow back from their face, and being able to smell it, but unable to stop it, curb it, or even say I’m sorry bc you’re in the middle of pushing out, or getting cut open like a deer being field dressed on a hill, a baby who is waaaaaaay bigger than that big silicone human fist you and your girlfriends laughed about in that dildo store that day.
Never in my entire life, did I ever hear about, learn, understand, or ponder the word HEMORRHOIDS. No one ever told me. Not one woman sat me down and tried to prepare me for them... for the intense life altering pain and suffering.....for what they look like.....it’s a for real nightmare worse than any horror movie. In fact, I may even be so bold as to say that I’d be willing to bet ALL the women who don’t get scared AT ALL during scary horror movies, are dealing with hemorrhoids. I’m also, because I’m feeling particularly saucy tonight, gonna throw another big girl word at you that flies out of freaking NOWHERE. Sound it out with me E-P-I-S-I-O-T-O-M-Y......great job!....that’s when the doctor takes a scalpel during labor, and cuts you, from vagina to butthole (sometimes....sometimes it’s just a small cut) if they think the baby is going to RIP your taint open in a jagged fashion. Either way, the healed results can sometimes, dare I say, vary? Back to the hemorrhoids. Never did I ever think, in my wildest dreams, after I gave birth to my beautiful baby, that my trusty butthole, Ol’ Faithful, would look like that hippie overpriced organic purple cauliflower that no one ever buys in the supermarket. And you know what? My solid faith in you as a young inexperienced precious young lady assures me that you’ve finally gotten to the point in this post where your are rolling your eyes and laughing and saying, this old lady is crazy and spinning a damn tale......dear sweet youthful female fox...I implore you to keep reading bc I’m not finished and I’m not exaggerating. There’s more. And the reason I’m telling you is bc YOU shop where the purple cauliflower pops up, but you’ve never bought it....bc eewwwww gross. You buy into all of what is cool, just like I did....
Moving along.
Never did I ever think I would one day be literally unable to bend forward enough to see my own butthole or vagina. Never ever did I think I would ever reach down with an anxiety filled heart into the hell pits of my own soul to summon the ability and sheer will JUST to be able to ignore the pain long enough to carefully and blindly probe my own butthole like I was Stevie Wonder reading Braille. And then, to make matters worse, the anesthesia from surgery, coupled with pain meds always create an incredible and noteworthy parting gift that settles in your lower colon, and it’s the size and density of a softball. And you cannot pass it. Depending on your age and movie knowledge, you may hear out of nowhere Gandalf whispering YOU SHALL NOT PASS. And, trust me, it won’t....until you drink the SECRET FORMULA that ALSO no one tells you about until you have to drink it. And then.......when it works, you have to invite a buddy to attend your coming out party. Choose your partner wisely my prideful sister. Because then.....
Never did I ever think I would ever lean on my best girlfriends, through blinding tears, to take pics of my butthole with their cell phones so i could actually see the state of things. And if this happens to you......when that flash lights up, and you must come to terms with the situation, and face the monstrosity of your new gatekeeper, your pride overrides everything and you finally break down and call the doctor who not only birthed your baby, but also whom you farted and pooped on during the whole process. That will pop into your mind several times throughout your life....for absolutely no reason. Anyway...huge point here....surround yourself with either good trustworthy women who will take ALL your skeletons to the grave. Women who have proven themselves time after time over decades that they are your ride or die. Women who get more angry than you do when someone angers you. BUT....and I say this with the utmost carefulness and quiet respect for the secret behind the scene strategies of all the female servants throughout history who have served the queens of successful countries....or, especially if really believe you ARE the queen.....if you don’t have that trusted girlfriend circle luxury, and you’re in a pinch, make sure it’s someone you know something really bad about. I know...I know...that’s so damn tacky. And horrid...I personally would never do that....but, every situation different, and sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures....so, because someone will have pics of your VAGEENA, whom you haven’t thought of at all until you finally see her dilapidated state in the pic, it’s smart to be wise and cautious. Vageena will be completely unrecognizable. Forgotten. Extremely hairy that defies any resemblance of growth patterns. Probably with gross evidence of cotton fuzz stuck in it from the elephant sized made in China maxi pads they give you in the hospital that will not stick to those androgynous marriage killing mesh underwear, or just plain old toilet paper dingle berries. VAGEENA will not resemble any crotch shot you’ve ever taken. There will be NO filter that can help you, unless it’s a vintage 70s throwback to Marilyn Chambers. She’ll just be sitting there, unapologetically open, covered in hair you never knew you had in you to grow, looking back at you in the mirror like a long forgotten disgusted fair weather friend who is now just a memory you really can’t afford to waste time on at the moment....BECAUSE.....
Never did I ever hear a damn thing about any of this.....but especially and specifically, I’d like to move on to something more important and worse......it’s about Lidocaine Anal Rockets.
I shit you not. LIDOCAINE ANAL ROCKET. In the WORD of Lizzo, this is not an “accessorary”. As fruitful as I am with my use of sarcasm, I did not make that name up. When the PA and attending nurse first used the term over the phone, I heard “anal rocket” and, after thoroughly and honestly analyzing it, I was probably just energized by hearing it....rocket just made me think, FINALÉ, like the light at the end of the tunnel...fireworks means freedom and I just, I guess, associated freedom with THIS is gonna fix my butthole and I will NO LONGER (I probably put up praise hands) feel like I am scooting like a dog with worms across a bed of hot ashes. Ok. I’ll give you a moment. But just so you know....that really was an understatement. It can be so much worse than that.
Never ever did I think I’d have to do this: I had to pick the anal rockets up at a specialty pharmacy 45 min away. They hand them over to you, packed for travel, frozen in a styrofoam cooler like you’re picking up some steamed shrimp packed for travel. And really, the only fun thing was, actually opening them and looking at them for the first time. I laughed. Out loud. By myself. BECAUSE. Never was I ever, throughout this entire ordeal, bequeathed with the knowledge, that these carefully crafted items of promised relief, were molded in the shape of butt plugs. They aren’t small either. These are seasoned porn star size. I’ve ALWAYS said NEVER to that door in my Narnia coat closet. I even had someone try to use Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb in an effort to persuade me. I quickly used a coy light reference of that meat grinder scene and nothing else had to be said. Also, I’m not judging you if you’ve partaken/to each his/her own.....but those memories quickly morphed from creepy to romantically reflective, when I found myself stuck in a painful situation where I was no longer afforded to right to decline or refuse to use it FOR ANYTHING. Pure lidocaine. Mixed, Poured and frozen In a butt plug mold the size of an orange street cone.....not really, but you know when you see a really big hill when you’re young and innocent, and then when you’re old and wise you see the same hill one day and you can step over it with ease? Yes.....I had to through this twice. And I’d like to add the most critically important statement right now.......I’d do it again and again. Let this post give you the strength and knowledge to be able to enjoy AND understand your womanhood and the joys of bringing life into this world. Our miraculous abilities and super human strength and resilience all come with great cost, that by all ethical and justifiable rights, should come with a full fledged in depth class that should end with at least a masters degree. Just my humble opinion.
Never have I ever, did I EVER think, I would go 8 weeks without feeling my entire ass. The whole ass. Messes you up. There were days were I would internally BEG and YEARN to feel PHANTOM ASS, like unfortunate victims who suffer from the loss/amputation of limbs and sometimes actually sometimes physically/psychologically feel what they have had removed. (I’m using this example in a very compassionate way, this is the ONLY way to describe this). Then I would feel guilty and count my blessings, basically and only bc I still at that time still really had an ass. (I eventually lost my ass, and unwillingly joined the global club of white women who have long ass but don’t know it, because no one has ever told them, and they insist on wearing a thong bathing suit on the beach....or the ones who do actually know it and sit their asses down in a crab chair only to get the WORST tan lines and hangovers......to be honest I’m friends with both parties, love them both.. but a white woman long ass is what it is. ANYHOO, while using the rockets, as I begin to accept my new body and life (it’s the gross bloated cocoon stage of what will become a dragonfly) I had to repeatedly check the clock, on a strict poop schedule, to see if it was time for me to sit and stare at my bathtub from my toilet until something happened. Sometimes it did. Sometimes it didn’t. But I’ll tell you one damn thing. I flat REFUSED to wash my panties when something sinister took place. Not one woman in my life ever told me these things might happen. Nevertheless, make it be publicly known, Never did I ever join the skid mark club. Nope. When that ship sailed, it was immediate pantie retirement, sealed in a plastic bag, double bagged, and buried deep outside in the trash can. I will though, out of the goodness in my heart, and the achingly desperate desire to arm young women with the power of knowledge, will NOW gift you a priceless super secret golden nugget of truth that not one single person in your entire life will ever give you.....it’s like the Holy Grail of self preservation, the celestial key to keeping and protecting your sanity (commit this to memory.....are you ready to receive?): Hemorrhoids have two sides. 2. Not one. I’m sparing you from truly believing you are pooping in your pants without feeling it. I’m saving you from the woeful shame of finding that in your panties knowing damn well you wiped the hell out of yourself. Ladies, if you still aren’t catching what I’m throwing, then I’ll sum it up. Wiping from front to back ain’t gonna cut it anymore. You gotta go the other way too....because Satan is behind thee, AND in front of thee. IF my husband knew what I spent on panties before I finally found the dark side of the moon....wait....what am I doing??? I’m old and wise now!!! I should have bossed up with my worth! I should have told him the truth and taken advantage of the opportunity to make him feel like he was “part of the solution”, so I could wear more expensive panties. See? He would have bought me expensive ones that were actually comfortable and made me feel prettier and sexier than I did.......instead of the Dollar Gentral 10 Pair In A Bag Come All The Way Up To The Arpits Barney Fife Lita Ford High Thigh Cut Make You Look Like You Have 3 Vaginas And Patterned/Fit For A Solid Zero Understandable Length Of Ass Crack panties I was throwing away. Are you beginning to catch what I’m throwing? Newly engaged married women need to know the power they possess!! It’s critical and crucial. Hear me. You may not stumble along my exact path......but you will stumble on something with no guidance.
Never did I ever even contemplate preparation for this one.....bc never did I ever even know what buttholes became after hemorrhoids, what they looked like “after the storm has settled” and everything slowly retreats with the ebb and flow of your hormones and sphincter, and time. Truth is, they all look and turn out different. Some are just gone, while some are not. The really MESSED UP THING NOBODY tells you, is that most women who get to experience the anticipation and relief/joy of the TOTAL disappearance of hemorrhoids over time, and then they get to shamelessly rejoice in the celebratory ritual of using their magnified mirror and husbands barbershop clippers to finally RE-MEET AND GREET Vageena....they are never prepared for the future. Part 2. The sequel. None of us really are prepared, except those of us whose hemorrodic friends never leave. But for the ones who enjoyed a renewed confidence ....I want to take my pointer finger right here and now and use it to dramatically press very hard on one of the off note black keys on a piano, and slowly move my head to make intense smoldering eye contact with you. Hear me now. Loud and clear. They’re not gone. It might be the morning after a wine and CHEESE party, it maybe the morning after a long road trip where you sat in the passenger seat for 8 hours, it might be the morning after you had passionate sex with someone who just a few hours ago saw EEEEERTHANG and is now wanting to see it up close again in the daylight...but you will be awakened with that familiar pain, and go silent for a minute to get your bearings. Your face will look like a Tarsier. Go ahead, google the image of a Tarsier. You will yet again try to channel the abilities of someone who is blind, and try to read your butthole like Braille....but you will fail, bc the fear and trauma will numb you at this point. You will psychologically feel that lidocaine butt plug...You will now have PTSD, and it will go one or two ways. You will either frantically look at it in the 5X magnified mirror and be attacked by the deceiving enlarged reflection showing you have a Polska sausage hanging down from your entire ass, or you will calmly use the other side of the mirror and become immediately aware that if you HAD TO PHONE A FRIEND, all you could say is that your butthole has grown its own clitoris, complete with what looks like maybe a pulled back hood. It’s a skin tag hemorrhoid that has hidden inside the picked skin folds....until now. And it hurts like hell. And then.....you’re going to start googling. No you don’t have ass cancer. No, genital warts don’t pop up overnight. No, Preparation H or essentials oils or Witch Hazel will not make that thing go away quickly. So you’ll google some more and quickly stumble on home remedy removals. You will then nervously stare at the dental floss in your bathroom. You will also look at the needle and thread in your craft section, and try to decide between wax or cotton......and then? After reading the horrors of having them surgically removed.......you will break down in a fit of embarrassing but angered frame of mind, and speed dial/call that girlfriend who still has those pics of your cauliflower on her iCloud...but this time, you have no shame and neither does she. And then any resemblance or pride and privacy in your most personal being will evaporate when you fall through that tunnel like Super Mario into the underground world in order to save your princess.
Never did I ever think about having a stomach virus after giving birth, for the first 3 days upon arrival at home. All I’m gonna say about this is.....whether you find yourself ill or not....DO NOT TRUST THAT PAD when you fart. Don’t believe me? Fine. You’ll see for yourself, but I’ve given you fair warning. You know that old saying “when the shit hits the.....”.....I’m taking the liberty to use it in a different way. Because it’s the only way to describe it with dignity and a slight sense of humor what will happen, and what you alone will have to clean up while your baby is hungry and crying at 3am.
Never did I ever think I would ever be able to smuggle a midget, or a brick of black tar heroin across the border....simply by using my c-section scar. It may not be politically correct to say this, but I’m pretty confident by now you probably understand I don’t give a crap. I really do call it my midget smuggler. No matter how much weight I lose, I’m traumatized by the fact that the only way I can lose this flap of skin that looks like an overbite above VAGEENA, is either join the ranks of woman who try to jump over cars and stacks of pallets in order to land in front of a dump truck tire so they can pick it up an run and yell like a Viking......or sign up for a tummy tuck. Nothing wrong with either one. Just not for me. That comes with a price though...NO MO cheap ass bathing suits from Walmart or Target.....oh no baby, you in the big league now. What? What was that you just said in your head? That you’ll always be skinny and that will never happen to you? Girl I said the same thing, for years!!! In my worse moments, when I’m feeling particularly sorry for myself, I admit I’ve drank a bottle of wine and worn my black spanx to bed, just so I can reap the fleeting but powerful benefits of lying to myself as I lay on my side and run my hand across my flat belly....it helps with the confident dreams. And I awake as thankful and peaceful and renewed as I imagine I would be if I woke up to a clean house.
Never did I ever think I would ever be able to say, that after 5,673 years of unbelievably wonderful memories of breast feeding, that I could probably make a crane with my titty from the instructions in an Origami book my son received for Christmas this year. Or the bound paper airplane tutorial on his floor in his bedroom, where all things exist. And, LOL, I’m feeling a tingle of naughtiness slip up here all the sudden so I’m going to ride it like a magic carpet......big facts.....it happens to women who don’t breast feed too!! Why did I stoop low just then? To be quite frank, I’m bitter about losing my boobs. I mean, I lost my ass too....but the boobs hit me hard. I’m tired of seeing those TABOO episodes and the weird crap on the internet where people are willingly dangling, suspended and hanging from hooks through their nipples, because it automatically spurs some weird terrible competitive mood in me.....I’m all like, ooooh okay....lemme put down this glass of wine bc I cannot outdo you in a heartbe........and then at some point I remind myself that I need to sit my ass down. And I do. But......I never ever thought in a million years that after a lifetime of youthful stand up D cups, I would be flipping through the B CUP section while my kindergartener who has recently learned how to read screams across the store, “Mommaaaaaaaaa! Do you like THONG? (Not plural. It just read thong).
I promise. I’m winding down. Life is fun. It’s Sad. It’s exciting it’s crazy. But that doesn’t mean we have to be unprepared for it. Now....I know, I’ve said a lot of things right now. I’m saving the worst for last. I ain’t even gonna lie. This is the pits that NO ONE prepares you for.
Never ever did I ever think, in my whole entire lifetime, that I would one day, in my 40s, be able to grow a full BLACK GOATEE AND ADJOING MUSTACHE. I have light brown very thin hair. Ok. Yeah. I’ve had a cpl I had to pluck over the years....Martha, Gertrude, Blanche........but they were lazy and inconsistent with their growth rate/patterns, and I could usually feel them before I could see them. Something bad happens to some women sometimes. It happened to me. It may not happen to you. I am the bearded lady you would pay to see. I’m the definition of the completely UNAWARE AUNTIE nobody cares enough about to demand she pluck that crap before she visits and tries to kiss all the children who are consciously making the private decision between kissing her and hiding in the neighbors dog house where they KNOW FOR SURE the dog will maul them. Anything to escape those whiskers. I am the Amish woman you confidently haggled with over the price of a bucket of strawberries....you couldn’t understand a word she said, but your ass paid her what she asked for as soon as you watched her slowly and methodically stroke/pull her beard from the roots to the end like every actor who has EVER played the character of Abraham Lincoln. And. You promptly turned your ass around and climbed back on that tour buggy when she didn’t hand you any change. I am the woman who went to an Asian owned nail salon to get a chin wax, only to be told by the owner after three completely unsuccessful wax strips, and she spoke in a VERY STRONG Vietnamese accent, “Aaaaahhhhh! Yo chin hair roooot took strong! I pluck!” I remember batting her away as she came in strong with those tweezers. I am the woman who got juuuuuust** a little too comfortable with shaving with a 5 blade razor in the steamy shower......so much that one day I shattered something deep within my husband when he opened the shower door to ask me where truck keys were. I was completely immersed in my upstroke ZEN, shaving against the growth bc I had important stuff to do that day and I could not have stubble. I could only open my right eye bc of the soap and lather all over my face.... but I saw enough. It was too much for him. He’s been through A LOT with me....bad periods, surgery, peeing myself, anxiety/panic attacks, stomach virus.......but this broke something in him. The only thing he could manage to say right before he slowly closed the door was, “How long have you been doing this?” His tone and demeanor would have been the same if he had walked in and caught me cheating on him red handed. Wouldn’t have been any difference. Then. for some unknown sadistic must be rooted in a sulphuric rock in the worst part of hell....it got worse. I was asked to “grow it out some” before I went in to the doctors for a complete hormone panel. Now mind you, I shave twice a day in order to keep it in the closet. I locked myself inside my home and grew it out for two solid days. When I tell you that I didn’t even NEED a damn SnapChat filter to make me look like was in FULL TRANSITION to be a male, I need you to believe me- not bc I’m telling this is absolutely going to happen to you-but bc I need the pity. I sat in my truck, turned it on as I sighed at my reflection, and began the 45 min journey to my doctors office. I was listening to Welcome to the Jungle by Guns and Roses and going 55 in a 50 zone. And out of nowhere, I saw blue lights behind me. Not even trying to be funny and kid right now......the very young patrolman stood up from his vehicle.....methodically HOISTED his pants up, way up, just like in a movie, more than they should be. Like honestly, I forgot I was legit being pulled over and allowed my imagination to run wild as he slowly approached my window with a very stern face. I asked him if I had a tail light out or something wrong with my vehicle and he replied with a know it all very assured voice, “Mam? Where are you going in such a hurry this morning?” I said, “uhmmmm, well, I’m going to a dr appointment but I checked my speed. 55 is not speeding!” He leaned closer to my window to get a really good look in (btw I love and support law enforcement but this was too theatrical to keep to myself) so I rolled the damn thing all the way down, stuck my chin out at him and said, “I’m going to get my hormones checked. I have more chin hair than you do!” I think the morning dew and sunlight made it glisten; saw the look on his face. It was the same as my husband’s had been when he caught me using his Barbasol and BIC 5 Fkexin’ it up in the steamy shower that day. It’s a comical but extremely potent mixture of horror....disgust...denial...loss of faith in humanity....stop drop roll run erase the board control alt delete empty history sing a Rick Astley song or Amazing Grace over and over again to make your brain forget the image. My facial hair is so bad, it got me out of a ticket. Never ever did anyone tell me HOW MANY WOMEN HAVE TO DEAL WITH ON THE DAILY, just like me. I need y’all to step UP TO THE DAMN plate. You very well may have had the honor of being trusted enough to take a butthole pic of your friend, a pic that is powerful enough to bring down a small country if used in evil ways. But that was a one time job!!! When your girl is pumping gas and you see the wind move one of her chin hairs, or you’re impatiently waiting/watching her try to blend that makeup on her neckline, and you witness a rogue secret agent pop up from underneath her chin and decide to lay down in the light......you dont just urgently tell her, you make a scene by almost breaking her rearview or makeup mirror when you move it so she can see the hair! Then you pluck it out yourself. Make a scene. Drive it home. No man forgotten. None left behind. Do whatever you have to do make a big deal about it so she will be aware and proactive.....don’t let her go down like that. And then. for the rest of your natural born life, as long as you don’t have dementia- it is YOUR SACRED HONOR AND DUTY to make sure those hairs are taken care of.
So much more I can say, like, never did I ever think I’d have to draw my eyebrows on, or wear a baseball cap after giving birth bc the hair loss was so bad around my temples that I looked like I was suffering through chemo. Never was I ever told that I would grow really long hairs around my nipples that made me feel like a witch...I probably would have been torched in Salem.
Be a good...no....GREAT...NO BULLSHIT...honest...diligent and empowering girlfriend. Tell the young, the middle, the old. Be compassionate in your advice and wisdom! Threaten to beat someone’s ass for hurting her, even when you both know you won’t! We are the bringers and nurturers of life. We must help each other more than we do. ~ Ryan Welch Anderson

Part 1 is HERE, and Part 2 is HERE.
I promise, I'll only post one more of these before I call it quits. Real talk: I wanted to include my big grand finale in this post, but it got a little too long.
Thanks to everyone who's followed along so far! I appreciate all of the comments!
The Case (2026)
Setting: New York, 1948
Just as the events of The Vampire are unfolding in Moscow in 1948, another story transpires on the other side of the Atlantic.
Three years after the end of World War II, as thousands of battle-scarred American veterans adjust to peacetime, we meet a New York private detective named Hank. Not too long ago, Hank was a crack operator in the American OSS, and ran numerous daring missions against the Nazi war machine. As he attempts to put his military service behind him, he now runs a small-time private investigation firm out of a cramped office in Brooklyn, where he spends his days solving problems for desperate New Yorkers too afraid to turn to the police. When not pounding the pavement in search of clues, he enjoys the occasional romantic liaison with Mary—a pretty young reporter from a local tabloid newspaper, who occasionally hits him up for story leads.
To most casual observers, Hank is your typical square-jawed, street-smart private eye—but when people get to know him, they gradually notice a few odd details about him. He refuses to speak about his experiences in the war, but occasionally makes vague references to "The London Assignment", a dangerous OSS mission that went wrong. He regularly meets with an old contact from his OSS days, who supplies him with unlabeled bottles of pills, which he takes on a regular basis. Most strangely, there isn't a single mirror in his apartment, and he habitually avoids reflective surfaces, as if he's afraid of his own reflection.
As our story begins, the tabloid rags of New York are abuzz with stories about a new public menace: "The Gemini Killer", a malevolent serial murderer who maims his victims by gruesomely removing half of their faces. While the NYPD launches a manhunt for the elusive killer, Hank takes to the streets to launch his own investigation, convinced that he can find him before the police do. While he's ordinarily content to stay out of law enforcement's way, this case is distinctly personal for Hank, since the Gemini Killer's latest victim was his partner, a man named Gabe. Though he does his best to maintain a stoic facade, Hank can't help but feel a twinge of survivor's guilt, as he knows that he easily could have fallen prey to the killer instead.
In the first scene, Hank turns up at the scene of the Gemini Killer's latest murder, where the police are scouring the scene for clues. Detective Enfield, the cop in charge of the NYPD's manhunt, attempts to shoo him away from the crime scene, but he sticks around long enough to pick up one crucial clue: the newest murder victim was found with a distinctive tattoo along his arm, which Hank instantly recognizes as the work of a well-known Brooklyn tattoo artist with a devoted clientele.
Armed with that useful nugget of information, Hank heads to the tattoo shop to interview the tattoo artist about his client, and he learns that the murder victim—a man named "Poole"—had a reputation for paranoia, and he was convinced that someone near his home in the Bowery was stalking him. Too late, the tattoo artist realizes that Poole's suspicions were true. Determined to help Hank avenge him, he gives him as much information as he can about Poole's personal life, hoping that Hank might be able to find his killer by retracing the steps in his daily routine.
As Hank searches the Bowery for further clues, his search window narrows considerably when he tracks down a craftsman who makes specialty knives, and the craftsman lets it slip—after an intense round of questioning—that he sold a vast collection of surgical blades to a mysterious man with a frightening appearance. As his search continues, Hank finally manages to track down a secluded apartment building in a crime-ridden neighborhood that the police avoid, and he realizes that he's struck gold when the landlord admits that he has a reclusive tenant in Apartment 86 who he's never seen in person.
Under cover of darkness, Hank scales the building's fire escape and stealthily sneaks through the window of Apartment 86, finding it empty. As he lights a lamp to investigate, he recoils in horror at what he sees inside:
The room is filled with a vast collection of plaster casts of human heads, and each one is covered with grotesque "masks" stitched together from human skin. Each one is perfectly split down the middle and stitched together from two different human specimens—and Hank soon realizes that they're crafted from the severed faces of the Gemini Killer's victims!
As he creeps through the apartment, Hank is unable to find any information that might allow him to identify the Gemini Killer, but he discovers—much to his surprise—that the mirror in the apartment's bathroom has been removed from the wall. Sufficiently shaken, he slips out of the apartment before anyone can catch him snooping, and he returns to his office as quickly as he can.
Back at his office, Hank has a chance encounter with Mary, who's looking for a few juicy quotes about the search for the Gemini Killer. He declines to tell her anything about the case, but he invites her inside for a steamy night of lovemaking. As Hank closes his office door and locks it behind him, the camera closes on the door's glass panel, and—for the first time—we see the inscription written on the door.
Clear as day, it reads "Henry Jekyll, Licensed Private Investigator".
SURPRISE!
Our story was actually an adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde all along. "Hank" is Henry Jekyll, his partner "Gabe" was Gabriel Utterson, and his lover "Mary" is Mary Reilly. And now that you know that, you can probably guess the identity of the sinister Gemini Killer.
Hours later, Hank suddenly finds himself in a dark alleyway with his hands covered in blood. As he realizes what's happening, he realizes—much to his shock—that Mary is lying at his feet, stone dead. In his pocket, Hank finds a razor-sharp surgical knife, still soaked with Mary's fresh blood. Worse still: when he reaches down to close her eyelids, he finds that half of her face has been removed.
Finally piecing together the many strange details about the case, Hank realizes that he was the Gemini Killer all along—but for some reason, he can't seem to recall any of the many murders that he committed. It's as if someone else has been living inside his mind, leaving lengthy blank spaces in his memory whenever they take over.
Shaken to the core, Hank flees to a nearby dive bar, where he locks himself in the nearest bathroom. As he attempts to collect himself, he looks into the mirror above the sink, and sees his reflection staring back with a wicked grin on its face. From the depths of the mirror, the Gemini Killer—whose calls himself "Eddie Hyde"—mockingly congratulates Hank on finally solving the case of a lifetime.
Moments later, Enfield kicks in the front door, and a squad of armed NYPD officers storm the bar with guns drawn. It seems that the police have found Mary's corpse, and eyewitness reports have led them to the bar. Hank sees that his clothes are soaked with blood, and he realizes that Enfield will arrest him as soon as he sees him. As he begins to panic, Hyde takes the opportunity to seize control of Hank's body again—and as he exits the bathroom to face the police, he reveals his trusty blades.
In a gruesome battle scene, Hyde mercilessly slaughters the police one by one, and finally kills Enfield with a well-placed headshot from a stolen service revolver. Too late, Hank regains control of his body and flees into the streets, leaving the blood-soaked bar behind him.
As the police flood the streets of New York looking for him, Hank narrowly manages to track down his old contact in the OSS, hoping that he might have some answers. Against his better judgment, his old contact ("The Major") agrees to provide what little help he can. Though the Major is initially reluctant to help a wanted fugitive, Hank insists that he's innocent.
The Major confirms that the fallout from "The London Assignment" affected Hank in strange ways, and he has never truly recovered from the events that transpired that day. The mysterious pills, which the Major still gives Hank without complaint, were intended to suppress his "condition". While they once worked perfectly, they're beginning to lose their effectiveness as the murderous Eddie Hyde becomes stronger. But try as he might, Hank still can't remember what happened in London.
The Major agrees to give Hank the dossier containing all known files on the London Assignment, which he secretly took from OSS headquarters after the agency was disbanded after the war. Inside the file, the Major tells Hank that he'll find everything that he needs to know about the mission—including the address of the building in London where everything went wrong. Determined to finally solve the mystery of his past, Hank leaves with the file, planning to book a flight to London with the help of a bootlegger pilot who owes him a favor.
Before he leaves, the Major gives Hank a final word of advice:
"Watch yourself, son. If those cops find me, I'll insist you were never here. But if they find you, you're on your own."
After stealing a car and making his way upstate, Hank manages to make it to the bootlegger's secret airstrip, where his plane is primed and ready for takeoff. After some tense negotiations, he agrees to fly Hank to London—but he insists that it's a one-way trip. Before they leave, he assures Hank that a wanted fugitive isn't the most dangerous cargo that he's ever smuggled. As they take off, Hank requests—to the bootlegger's befuddlement—that he handcuff him to his seat's armrest until they land.
As the plane rises into the air and soars over the Atlantic, Hank closes his eyes and drifts off to sleep. As he does, he finally remembers what happened in London...
At the height of the war, the OSS assigned Hank to track down and capture the infamous Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Niemann, who was rumored to be the mind behind the Third Reich's deadliest military projects. For years, Hank stalked the mad doctor across Europe as the war raged on—but Niemann was always one step ahead of him, and he never found him. But he did stumble upon evidence that the doctor was involved with a shady organization known as "Prodigium". As the OSS investigated Prodigium for clues about Niemann's whereabouts, they eventually discovered that the group had a base of operations in the heart of London itself, and they managed to uncover a plot to smuggle a mysterious chemical formula across the English Channel. Suspecting that the group was trafficking chemical weapons, the OSS deployed Hank to London to track down the formula and steal it.
Working fast, Hank managed to assassinate the Prodigium operative who was entrusted with carrying the formula, and he managed to escape with the leather briefcase containing the chemical vials. But his luck ran out when he tried to drive to the airport to rendezvous with his handlers, and discovered—just moments too late—that Prodigium had planted a bomb in his car. Hank bailed out of the car as the engine exploded, and he narrowly managed to survive the blast with minor burns and a concussion—but the case was destroyed in the explosion, and Hank was doused with chemicals as the glass vials shattered.
As he stumbled to his feet—half-blind, disoriented, and struggling to speak—he felt the chemicals seeping through his skin, transforming him in ways that he couldn't explain. Without warning, he found himself seized by the dark urge to kill, maim, and torture, and he felt a malevolent presence clawing its way into his heart. Worst of all, he found that he couldn't remember his own name! But as his vision cleared, he found himself staring right at the iron sign for Hyde Park. In that moment, Eddie Hyde was born.
Hank wakes as the plane touches down in a remote airfield on the outskirts of London. With his gun loaded and ready, he sets out in search of the address listed in the Major's files, which is allegedly the location of Prodigium's London headquarters. After a long walk across the bombed-out face of London, he finds a stately Victorian mansion at the address, and a well-dressed butler arrives at the door and invites him inside—as if he was expecting him.
Hank walks through the door of the mansion, where he's greeted by a room full of well-dressed men and women wearing masquerade masks, who gather around a circle of candles surrounding a mirror. In a scene eerily mirroring Victor Frankenstein's first encounter with Prodigium at Ingolstadt University over a century earlier, the assembled members of the cult begin chanting an obscene prayer to "The Dark One". As Hank contemplates his reflection in the mirror, he sees the Dark One place a hand on his shoulder, causing half of his face to rot and wither away.
As Hank shrinks back in fear, a pair of armed guards force him to his feet and confiscate his gun, and an elderly man steps forward to greet him. In his gnarled hands, he carries an ornate silver dish with a golden chalice balanced atop it. The chalice is filled to the brim with green liquid—which Hank recognizes as the mysterious chemical agent from the London Assignment.
The elderly man introduces himself as the new leader of Prodigium, and—at long last—he explains the full story behind the mysterious formula.
For years, Prodigium's scholars and alchemists have believed that it might be possible to unlock the repressed dark side of the human psyche through chemistry, allowing ordinary people to unlock the darkness within their souls. Ever since his incident in London accidentally exposed him to the formula, the dark side of Hank's personality has been fighting for complete control of his soul, manifesting as his alter ego Hyde. But if he were to voluntarily ingest a full dose of the formula, Prodigium believes that his soul would be entirely consumed by darkness, allowing him to serve as the Dark One's living emissary on Earth.
The leader of Prodigium offers Hank a choice: he can willingly drink from the golden chalice, allowing Hyde to take full control of his mind, in exchange for his life; if he refuses to drink the potion, Prodigium will kill him—but he'll die with his free will fully intact.
Torn between two impossible choices, Hank tries to push the chalice away, but Hyde seizes control of his body just in time to stop him. Although Hank tries his best to regain control, Hyde grabs the chalice and eagerly gulps the potion down, and the assembled members of Prodigium applaud as his eyes glaze over. Moments later, Hank smiles maliciously—and it's instantly clear that he has become Hyde permanently.
Then all hell breaks loose.
As the elderly leader of Prodigium congratulates Hyde and welcomes him into the fold, Hyde grabs him by the throat and breaks his neck with his bare hands, then pulls a hidden blade from his boot and brutally murders three Prodigium members by slashing their jugulars. The guards draw their guns and try to shoot him, but Hyde manages to steal a guard's pistol, and a massive shootout ensues as he fires back at them. Once again, Hyde tears through the helpless crowd with ease, killing everyone he sees. As dozens of Prodigium members fall to the ground bleeding out, he throws his head back and cackles maliciously.
"I'M NOBODY'S SLAVE!" he screams. "NO ONE CONTROLS EDDIE HYDE—GOD OR MORTAL!"
The shootout rages on, and the assembled guards try to surround Hyde—but he mows down everyone that dares to take a shot at him. Finally, as reinforcements arrive from another room, the guards manage to force Hyde into the basement of the mansion. As bullets fly, Hyde forces his way into the boiler room, where he takes a shot at the antique brass boiler. As the boiler explodes, half of the mansion suddenly erupts in flames, and most of the surviving Prodigium members burn to death as they're consumed in the blaze. The few remaining members futilely try to make a run for it; some of them pass out from smoke inhalation, and others are crushed by falling debris as the roof begins to collapse.
As the fire spreads through the mansion, Hyde defiantly shoots everyone he sees. When he finally runs out of bullets, he realizes that every last member of Prodigium is dead. The Dark One's cult failed in their mission, but Eddie Hyde got exactly what he wanted: Hank Jekyll lost the battle for his soul, and Hyde won.
...Or did he?
As an exhausted Hyde drops his empty pistol and slumps against the wall, he looks into a nearby mirror. But it's not Hank that stares back from the mirror—it's Hyde.
Against all odds, Hank has managed to summon the strength to fight Hyde, giving him control of his body for a few precious minutes. And for those few minutes, Hank chooses to stay in the basement as the mansion collapses around him.
Staring out at him from the depths of the mirror, Hyde finally loses his cocky composure as he begs Hank to run to safety, warning him that he'll die if he doesn't.
"That's the idea, Eddie old pal," Hank says smirking. "Don't worry about me. My soul's in order, and I don't have any regrets. If this is what I've gotta do to bring you down, I consider it an honest trade. As for you... You've only got a few minutes left. Don't waste them in anger."
Hyde screams at Hank as the fire envelops the basement. But as the mirror melts, and Hyde's face vanishes, his voice is finally silent. With that, the screen fades to black.
A few hours later, three figures approach the ruins of the mansion as the London police pick their way through the ashes and rubble. As the camera swings around, we see their faces: it's Eve, Lester Talbot, and Jacob Van Helsing.
Ten years after their first meeting in Paris, the trio are now an inseparable team, and a decade of adventure has turned them into close friends. But as they survey Prodigium's ruined headquarters, they can only stare at the site of the massacre in befuddlement.
"What the hell happened here?" Eve wonders aloud.
"Perhaps divine justice," Jacob says. "Or perhaps something else."
"We'll probably never know," Lester says. "And for once, I think I'm alright with that..."
The Creature (2027)
Setting: The Pacific, 1958
Our story begins with a flashback.
Sometime in the 19th century, a few promising young students gather in a cramped classroom at Ingolstadt University to hear a lecture from the eccentric old oceanographer Professor Pierre Arronax, who tells them an unlikely story about a perilous undersea voyage that he took with a mad sea captain called "Nemo". The students—including a few familiar faces like Victor Frankenstein, Igor Waldman, Jack Griffin, and a young Abraham Van Helsing—listen with bated breath as Arronax tells them about all of the strange things that he saw in the dark depths of the ocean. He tells them about his battles with giant squids, his brief sojourn to the ruins of Atlantis, and his time in the icy waters of the North Pole. But they're truly enraptured when he tells them about his strangest adventure of all: an encounter with a bizarre race of human-fish hybrids who dwell in the deepest depths of the oceans.
Though some of the students initially doubt Arronax's story about the bizarre "ichthyoids", they change their tune when the Professor shows them a faded daguerrotype photo that he snapped of the creatures from the porthole of Nemo's submarine. As they stare at the grainy photo in awe, Arronax fondly reminisces about his adventure in the deep ocean, but he sadly admits that he's never been able to convince his scientific colleagues that the ichthyoids are real. But if another scientist managed to prove the creatures' existence by capturing an ichthyoid specimen and bringing it to the surface, that scientist's name would be enshrined forever in the annals of history. For in the depths of the ocean, he tells them, there are always mysteries waiting to be discovered...
The scenes fades out, and we return to the present day, where we see a familiar figure reading an antique leather diary packed with old photographs. As we zoom in on the diary, we see that it's the personal journal of Abraham Van Helsing—and one of the pictures is Arronax's photograph of the ichthyoids. And the figure reading the journal is none other than Dr. Hans Niemann.
The year is 1958, and it's been 10 years since Niemann fled Russia and defected to the United States. Ever since that day, he has been hard at work designing weapons of war for the US military, and his handlers in the CIA have been all too happy to conceal his Nazi past. In years past, he played a key role in developing the hydrogen bomb for the Army; more recently, he designed the nuclear submarine USS Nautilus (named after Nemo's legendary submarine) for the US Navy, and helped plan Project Mercury for the fledgling space agency NASA. In time, his inventions may even put men on the Moon!
But after a decade of loyally working for the US government, Niemann now has a more personal project in mind: with the US Navy's blessing, he wants to lead an experimental submarine voyage to the uncharted depths of the Pacific Ocean, hoping to finally prove the existence of the mysterious ichthyoids. To do it, he has his sights set on one location: the shadowy Marianas Trench.
On a pristine Summer day, Niemann leaves the coast of San Francisco and sets off on a long ocean voyage to a remote naval base off the coast of Japan, where the US Navy has recently completed work on his experimental deep-ocean submersible USS Ammonite. As he boards the Ammonite and prepares to dive, he recruits a motley crew of "assistants" to aid him in the journey. Hawaiian fisherman Keoni Kamaka, a decorated Navy veteran who saw action at Pearl Harbor, signs on as navigator; bookish young Japanese scientist Ishiro Nakamura, who devoted his life to science after losing his parents in the bombing of Hiroshima, agrees to be Niemann's research assistant; grizzled Australian sailor John Allerdyce ("Johnny Dice" to his friends) enlists as First Mate; and Jamaican-born engineer Oliver "Twisty" O'Rear" joins the crew as a radio operator.
Although they all sign on to crew the Ammonite, Niemann chooses not to tell them the true purpose of the mission—believing that they wouldn't have agreed to help him if they knew what he was really after. As far as they know, they're only crewing the vessel on its experimental test run.
As the Ammonite dives, tension soon erupts among the crew as Niemann admits that they'll be at sea for much longer than he led them to believe. Niemann knows that the Navy likely won't give him another chance to research the ichthyoids, so he refuses to return to port until he's found what he's looking for. Later, tensions escalate when the crew presses him on the true purpose of his mission, and Niemann admits that he's looking for a deep-ocean life-form that's never been proven to exist. Seeing Niemann as a delusional madman, Twisty and Kamaka tell him that his mission is a fool's errand, and they encourage him to call off the mission before he gets them all killed—though Ishiro is intrigued by the possibility of researching the ichthyoids.
On the second day of the voyage, another argument erupts among the crew when Johnny Dice questions Niemann about his past. Knowing of the doctor's German heritage, he comes to suspect (rightly) that he's one of the Nazi researchers who defected to the Allies to save himself after World War II. Still remembering his time spent fighting in the Pacific, he's repulsed by the idea of working for a Nazi. But Niemann, who has always worked hard to keep his past a secret, becomes enraged by Johnny's unrelenting questions—and he ultimately loses his temper and strikes him. As a fight ensues, Twisty is forced to intercede and separate the two, and they agree to keep their distance for the remainder of the voyage. But that night, tragedy strikes...
As he attempts to sleep, Niemann is plagued by a series of disturbing dreams about scaly figures lurking in the shadows of the Pacific. Before he wakes—shaking and drenched in sweat—he sees powerful tentacles reaching out to grab him. When he turns on his lamp, Niemann sees Johnny Dice standing over his bed with a knife in his hand, his eyes blank and glazed over. In a trance, Johnny lunges at Niemann and tries to stab him, and Niemann fights back. As a fight ensues, Johnny and Niemann struggle over the knife, and Johnny begins murmuring two words over and over again:
"Go back... Go back... Go back..."
As Niemann tries to wrestle the knife from Johnny's hand, he accidentally stabs him in the chest with it, and calls the rest of the crew to help him stop the bleeding. When the others arrive, they become even more suspicious of Niemann when they see him standing over Johnny with a knife lodged in his chest. Remembering Niemann's violent argument with Johnny earlier in the day, they're reluctant to believe Niemann when he insists that Johnny attacked him. Try as they might, they're unable to stop the bleeding, and Johnny soon bleeds to death.
Rattled by Johnny's sudden death, the crew becomes even more terrified when the Ammonite suddenly stops moving, and they realize that the propeller has inexplicably become jammed. As they convene to discuss repairs, Ishiro suddenly recoils in fear when he sees a grotesque scaly face staring at him through the porthole; when he ties to get a closer look at it, the face vanishes into the darkness.
As the crew tries to convince Niemann to return to the surface, Kamaka agrees to don a diving suit and exit the airlock to repair the propeller from outside. In a tense scene, he feels his way along the exterior of the Ammonite while using a flashlight to light his way. When he finally reaches the propeller, he realizes that it isn't jammed, but it's somehow been dismantled with great care and precision. Working fast, he manages to reassemble the propeller—but as soon as he does, he's grabbed by powerful webbed hands, which drag him from the sub and pull him into the darkness. As the rest of the crew attempt to stay in touch with him via radio, they hear Kamaka's terrified screams as he dies.
Despite their suspicions of Niemann, Twisty and Ishiro agree to cooperate with him until they can return to the surface—and with Kamaka's death, they suddenly realize that the ichthyoids are very real. Still, Niemann convinces them to remain below the surface for one more day, if only to ensure that Johnny and Kamaka didn't die in vain. Hours later, though, tragedy strikes again.
When Niemann pays a visit to Ishiro's bunk to go over some research with him, he discovers that Ishiro has committed suicide by slashing his throat with a knife—and before dying, he daubed the words "GO BACK" on the bulkhead in his own blood. When Twisty finds him, he finally begins to believe Niemann's story about Johnny's mysterious trance. Something in the depths seems to be manipulating the crew's minds, driving them into madness in an effort to stop their voyage from uncovering too much. As they discuss recent events, Niemann tells Twisty about his bizarre dreams, theorizing that he had psychic images projected into his mind while he slept. His suspicions are confirmed when Twisty admits that he has also been having bizarre nightmares since the voyage began—and he also saw an image of a massive tentacled creature in his dreams.
At first, Twisty theorizes that the ichthyoids are responsible for the crew's madness, but Niemann persuades him that there's a more powerful force at work. After all, it would take an incredibly powerful brain to project such strong images directly into another creature's mind, and the ichthyoids are too small to possess such power. But since the ichthyoids always appear to act in perfect synchronicity with one another, perhaps they're also being psychically controlled. Perhaps they're just drones, and a more powerful creature is acting as their Queen.
In a desperate effort to avenge the other crew-members, Twisty agrees to help Niemann find the mysterious being that drove them to their deaths, knowing that he won't be able to live with himself if he passes up a chance to kill it. Pushing the Ammonite's sonar array to its limits, he soon detects a massive structure on a nearby underwater plateau, and decides to check it out.
In the climax, Niemann and Twisty both don diving suits and venture onto the plateau, where—to their shock and horror—they discover a massive metallic structure perched atop the oceanic ridge, guarded by a massive swarm of ichthyoids. As Niemann approaches the metal structure, he realizes that it's actually a spaceship, and he finds his mind swimming with bizarre voices and images whenever he moves closer to it.
At long last, Niemann realizes the truth about the ichthyoids: they're aquatic aliens who've been hiding in Earth's ocean ever since their spacecraft crashed in the Pacific. Judging by the amount of coral covering the drowned spacecraft, Niemann realizes that the ship must have crashed more than two centuries ago, long before any humans would have been able to find it.
Armed with knives, harpoons and explosives, Twisty and Niemann drive off the ichthyoids in a massive underwater battle, and Niemann narrowly manages to force his way into the heart of the ruined spaceship—where a massive tentacled beast is waiting at the center of a glass enclosure. The Creature's body resembles a massive swollen brain, explaining how its psychic abilities were so powerful. But despite the long reach of its tentacles, its body is far too massive to move; instead, it uses its psychic abilities to force enslaved ichthyoids to do its bidding, and they loyally bring it food and safeguard its larval offspring. In the glass enclosure where the Creature sits, the walls are lined with countess rows of transparent jars filled with murky amniotic fluid; inside each one, we can clearly see a miniature embryo with a brain-like body and slender tentacles.
In a climactic showdown, the Creature bombards Niemann with psychic energy and swipes at him with its massive tentacles. Niemann nearly passes out as the beast invades his mind, but he manages to land a good shot with a harpoon gun tipped with explosives, and he successfully wounds the Creature's massive brain. As it dies, the ichthyoids fall into disarray, and Niemann finally relaxes as the Creature's psychic attacks stop. With that, he and Twisty return to the Ammonite and make their way back to the surface, where they go their separate ways—agreeing never to tell anyone what they saw in the depths of the Pacific.
In the final scene, Niemann returns to his old lab in a remote military base on the California coast, where he resumes his old research. But when his handlers are out of earshot, he opens a locked cabinet and retrieves a small glass object. It's one of the Creature's embryos, which he secretly took from the Creature's drowned spaceship. As he lays the cylindrical glass jar on his table and strokes the glass fondly, the embryo's small tentacles begin to twitch.
"Come, little one..." he says. "Together, I think you and I are going to accomplish wonders..."
Just outside the base, where the Pacific Ocean laps at the stony shore, a scaly green head pokes out of the water. Moments later, an ichthyoid crawls out of the ocean and walks onto the beach, with six more behind it. Inside the lab, Niemann waves his hand—and in an instant, the scaly creatures are still.
Niemann smiles, and the screen fades to black...
The Case: In 1940s New York, a private detective named Hank sets out to bring a demented serial killer called "The Gemini Killer" to justice. In a twist, it's revealed that Hank's full name is "Henry Jekyll", and the Gemini Killer is actually his murderous alter ego Edward Hyde. As Hank desperately tries to solve the mystery of how Hyde invaded his psyche, he follows a trail of clues to Prodigium's secret lair in London, where Hyde burns Prodigium to the ground in a massive showdown.
The Creature: Ten years after fleeing Russia and defecting to the United States, ex-Nazi scientist Dr. Hans Niemann leads an experimental submarine voyage to the Marianas Trench, hoping to find evidence of a legendary race of ocean-dwelling humanoid creatures. As he and his crew battle the creatures in the deep ocean, he ultimately discovers that they're aquatic extraterrestrials whose spaceship crashed in the Pacific Ocean centuries ago, and they're slaves of a bizarre tentacled monster who controls them with psychic powers. In the final scene, he infiltrates the creatures' drowned spaceship to kill the monster, and manages to steal one of the monster's embryonic offspring—allowing him to harness its psychic power as a weapon.