Run Away: Chapter 10 (Patreon)

Runaway- Chapter 10

I’m paranoid.  I’m losing my mind.  It’s not even people right now, it’s my own memory.  My own senses completely fucking with me.  “Playing Tricks” is too nice a euphemism.  Friends play tricks on each other and right now my senses are no friends of mine.  Today at work, I took an unscheduled bathroom break.  

It was glorious.  When you’ve spent who knows how long, pooping in front of others and having the cleanliness of your underwear described whimsically in far too much detail, being able to sneak away and drop a deuce in private feels like a luxury.  Shit, is that why toddlers sneak away to poop behind the couch?

Probably.

But not for the first time in this rant that has become my life, I digress.  I went to the blessedly empty bathroom.  Did my business.  Cleaned up.  Flushed.  Pulled my pants up.  All like a big girl.  But when I stepped out of the stall, I swore I heard the slightest crinkle.  It was a sound I know well.  I heard it every time the Green Lady unfolded a fresh diaper to put on me.

There was nobody else in the bathroom though.  No mother.  No baby.  Not even a shopper with a random plastic bag.  All the other stalls were empty.  Nobody had come in or out.  That bathroom door is notoriously heavy and squeaky besides.  Nobody but me had come in or out.

The dinky little fold out changing table on the wall was down though.  And I’m positive-damn positive-that it was up when I’d come in.

I took the rest of the day off.  Came back home.  Logged on and started writing what you’re reading now.

My brain is melting.  My brain is melting.  My brain is melting.  That’s the only logical explanation.  The only thing that makes sense.  Fairies aren’t real.  I was never kidnapped.  And even as I’m writing this, I’m in a coma and my brain is just mixing around fact, fiction, and fantasy at random intervals as the last of my neurons fire into oblivion.  I’m dying and this is just what my brain thinks it needs to do...

And yet, here I go.

There was only one time that I can remember when I was with The Green Lady for any significant amount of time without Peter nearby or in the equivalent of “the next room”.  No, breastfeeding doesn’t count.  Neither does being put down for naps or diaper changes.  Peter was there for most of those anyways.

No, the time that sticks out in my head is the time that Mommy Dearest dropped Peter off at the daycare  (Faycare?) but kept me with her.

“Do you bring us charges to protect?”  the inky black Keeper started the ritual the same way they always did.

“Just the one.”  Mommy Dearest replied.  “I’m taking my Alice with me today.”

And then the ritual continued as it always had…with “them” and all other plurals being changed to “him” for Peter’s sake.

Yet it was the only time that I can remember The Green Lady breaking script.

The stroller was left behind, too.  Just like that first venture out into the Land Beyond the Real, I rode on Her hip out into the black starless void.

It’s weird being in the complete thrall and adoring attention of a god; even one you fear and despise.  “Mommy Dearest has a special treat for you,” she cooed at me.  I don’t know if my giggle was a babyish laugh or a neurotic reflex by this point.  Maybe both?  Probably.

Time is still all swiss cheese for me too in my memories.  I couldn’t tell you if it was my second time at daycare or my fiftieth, something in between or far beyond.  All I do know is that the ritual and routine had been broken by that point...meaning that ritual and routine had been noticeably established.

 It also probably meant that I was fully unpotty trained, used to (and addicted to) breastfeeding, and had well and truly forgotten what it was like to be a grown-up in all but theory.  With Peter’s help (help? Why that fuckin’ word?) grown-up me had sunken beneath the surface and Baby Alice was in full swing.

The black void of the Land was in front of us as I rode on Mommy’s hip, waiting for my “special treat”.  Of course, by special treat I thought she might mean a double dose of orgasm inducing Fairy milk.  

Full Admission: If I wasn’t afraid I might shit myself out of reflex, I might masturbate to some of those deeply buried memories.  Classical conditioning is a thing…

Fuck.

Moving on.

That wasn’t quite the treat that She had in mind for me, however.

Like I’ve written before, the Land works on dream logic.  It’s complete darkness and then sudden pop-ups of loose associations that come and go with each footsteps.  Step, step, step. On your left there is a giant laughing flower that is quoting the Declaration of Independence.  Step, step, step.  On your right there’s a man made entirely of snakes singing Age of Aquarius in breathy whispers, (cuz snakes). 

Honestly, it’s the type of scenario where maybe it’s a good thing I was diapered at the time.

Instead, out of the darkness, the vast oblivion, I saw stars.  Beautiful gemlights. Celestial lamps.  They weren’t stars, though.  Stars didn’t twinkle violet.  But it was that same distinct feeling, of unreachable lights in the distance, guiding us like stars, that seemed to guide the Green Lady.  Violet, purple, lavender.  The color of grandma’s soap rang out from the darkness, and Mommy Dearest walked with me into the light.

The smell of flowers filled my nose, and blinding purple hues took my sight away for an instant.  Unlike usual, the world did not warp up in front of us, but rather gently faded into existence as the light dimmed.  

Still on Her hip, a bed with a railing materialized in front of me.  It wasn’t babyish. Not at all.  The sheets were white, and the rails were there for support, not confinement.  Even though I could not hear them, I could sense that the machines surrounding the bed were all beeping and booping around the unconscious body held in the bed.

A girl...a woman in a sick bed, maybe even a deathbed. Here eyes weren't open, but even if they did open, I had the feeling that she wouldn’t see us.  She and the room around her were translucent.  Not quite transparent. A hologram.  We were looking at a full scale hologram of a woman in a hospital.

The only thing in the room that wasn’t faded and eerie looking, was a vase of violet filled flowers.  In the faded dullness they shone like a beacon.  In a way, I guess they were.

“You’re little enough now,” Mommy Dearest cooed to me, “that you should get to know where babies come from.”  I was hanging on her every word.  Even terrified as I was, I didn’t have as much of a choice.

I already knew where babies came from.  But it didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out what she was referring to.  “What about Peter?” I asked, innocently enough.  I sucked on my thumb to seem both curious, cuddly, and a bit nervous.  It wasn’t that far from the truth.

Butterflies flew up from Her throat. “Peter already knows, darling.  I’ve had him much longer and told him much more than you.”  I nodded deferentially, and in fear.  As high as my dopamine levels tended to rise when She talked down to me, there was always something threatening in that condescension.

“Yooooou donot beloooooong here,” a third voice said.  I jumped.  Mommy didn’t.  Crawling out from under the bed was a spider-woman.  And no, not the comic book character.  A long hairy and albino thorax, with an equally pale and pink eyed woman where the spider’s head should be (should be?) crawled out from under the bed.   “Ineednotyour guidancccce  Greeeeeeen Lady.”

My captor bounced me on her hip; a Mother placating a fussy child.  She reverted back to Her flat monotone.  “If I cannot improve upon perfection, White Weaver, you need not be bothered by my presence.”

The Thing, crawled up the wall and onto the ceiling.  Its movements were jerky and non fluid. Just like Its speech, the Fay thing’s feet alternated between far too fast and incredibly slow.   “Iiiiiiii willtakenoadvicefrom yooooouuu Green Lady.”  It’s like the White Weaver was never quite in sync with time.  “Ioweyou noooooooothinnnnnng.”

“I come not to trade.  I come to educate my ward.”  The Green Lady said.

“Whyyyyyyyyy?”

She stopped bouncing me.  “Curious.  You take not my advice but you wish for me to make explanation an offering.  It is my way and that will do for you.”

“Iiiiit will.”

There was a pause.  A staredown.  Two monsters measuring each other up.  Finally, it was the Green Lady who spoke.  “Selecting this one?”

The White Weaver threw a pink eyed stare.  “I dooooooo notselect. Iiiii collect.  I dooooo not think.  I aaaaact.”

Mommy gestured to the glowing flowers.  “The flowers brought you?  Violet. Yes?”

“Theseventhcolor foooooor theseventh seeeeeal…”

“Please,” Mommy Dearest clucked.  “You’re just attracted to the color.  Rare enough to seem random.  I know you also come at the tinkling of shiny brass baubles and other trinkets.”

“Itdoesnot pleeeeease.  It is traditiiiion.”

“As it should be,”  the Green Lady conceded.  “You have checked to see if there is bread or milk beneath the bed.”  An accusation. A reminder stated as fact.

“Of coooourse.  Thisis Eeeeengland, though.  Old waaaaays havebeenforgotten.”

“Mommy?”  I said.  

“Shush, dearheart.”  She put her finger to my lips and I swear that my voice leapt out of my throat and into that finger.  “Just watch.”

I stayed perfectly still, as in jerky stop-motion movement, the Fay Spider Thing, The White Weaver Mommy called It, dangled itself down from the ceiling.  It made a kind of clicking, chittering noise as Its mouth started snipping at the woman’s form.

Hairy legs crawled all over the woman’s form. Mandibles jutting out of a humanoid face nipped at the edges of the scene.  And with every click, there was a little tear, and a little more light peaking around the edges.  Reality itself was getting a trim. Just like cutting a paper doll out of a story book, thin, albino fingers peeled the image away and brought it here.

A flat picture laid on the dark floor and the hospital room faded away, with only the tiny sparkle from the violet remaining.  I don’t know what it looked like in that hospital room in England.  Maybe she died (maybe I’m dead).  Maybe she disappeared.  Maybe people forgot there was a sick woman laying in a hospital bed altogether.   I just know that as the scene faded away into nothingness, the paper cutout of a person became more solid and began to inflate like a party balloon; popping and squeaking, the whooofing of air being pushed out as something filled the vacuum and entered into the Land Beyond the Real.

She was still sleeping.  Like a hornet, the  White Weaver’s thorax jutted out a stinger and pierced her flesh, keeping her that way.  I was stuck watching as the Fay tore this stranger’s clothes off, ripping them to ribbons, and eating them.

My mouth went dry as a perfectly created and somehow disposable diaper was spun into existence and placed around the woman’s pelvis.  Things finally fell into place as more silk poured out of the Fay’s backside and cocooned...swaddled the unconscious lady.

She looked like a newborn baby.  Or a babydoll.  It all depended on if some god or monster selected her.

But that doesn’t matter. I’m dying and this is my brain just firing on all cylinders before impending burnout.

It’s the only logical explanation; the only reason why looking back on old memories I somehow remember hitting a kid with my car.  He was a kid who wasn’t a kid; just like I am now...and he was begging me to help him find his shadow.  

“Get my shadow,” he whispered.  No.  “Whispered” is a bad word for it.  It implies he was making a conscious choice to speak in nothing but breaths.  I’d broken his ribs.  I’d all but killed him.  “Get my shadow,” he gasped.  Poor thing was delirious.  

That’s what I thought then.  What do you say to a dying boy?  I wasn’t sure, but I just went on instinct.  “Sure, kid.  Sure.”  I said.  I wasn’t going to tell him he wasn’t making any sense.  There’s some shit you just don’t do.

“Don’t…” he gasped again.  His voice was starting to come out in rattles now.  Death rattle?  Isn’t that what they call it?  I had to lean in to hear what he said next.  “Notta kid.  Notta kid.”

“Sure.  You’re not a kid.”  I promised.  “You’re a big boy and you’re gonna grow up to-”

“Shut your...shut your whore mou..!” he couldn’t get out the last part.  He grimaced in pain; only stopping long enough to remind me. “Find my shad..”  I blanched.  Something about a kid THAT young swearing like that knocked me for a loop.

“Shut your whore mouth” wasn’t something Kindergarteners typically said.  Maybe the D-word or the F-word; something they’d heard on T.V. or from their parents; but “Shut your whore mouth!” was oddly articulate swearing.

“Get...please…” he started begging.  I wasn’t hearing him as much as reading the kid’s lips.

I looked around, and made a show of it.  How did you find a silhouette created by the absence of light?  You didn’t!  Duh!  The kid was just losing blood and hallucinating.  Babbling.  Why wasn’t there any blood?  Oh yeah.  Internal bleeding was a thing.

 He stopped talking and just reached past me.  Reached is another bad word.  More like flopped his little arm to the side.  I looked to where his arm was going and saw what he was looking at.  A tiny little piece of gossamer thin cloth.

Poor thing wanted his blankie.  I’d just hit a baby with my car, and the only thing he wanted was his blankie.  I reached for it and draped it over him.  It was the least I could do.  Maybe the jury would go easier on me or his parents would hate me a little less if they know I did that much for him.

What was a baby doing out in the middle of the road anyway?  Where were his parents?  It’s crazy what a person thinks of when they’re sharing space with a soon to be dead body.  More so when it’s practically a newborn.

I closed my eyes in an attempt to staunch the tears.  It wouldn’t be long now.  Wouldn’t be long at all.

A weird sound, like popcorn popping and gristle being ground and hair being pumped into an old tire. It’s only in hindsight that I realize it was bones popping back into place and mending, and air refilling lungs.  When I opened my eyes, the baby was standing above me and looking down.  

I looked at the spot on the ground where he’d been laying and found only his shadow, posing heroically; kind of like Superman.  When I looked up to the kid, he must have switched poses or something, because his posture didn’t match what his shadow had been.

How could a baby have reflexes that fast? I just stared up at him in a kind of quiet awe.

Up to the kid?  Up to the kid?!  Jesus!  Is this what it’s like when other people look at me these days?!  It must be!  Holy fuck.  I don’t know whether I should have more empathy for the people who keep trying to hold my hand and call me “sweetie”, or whether I should just be extra embarrassed and disgusted with myself.  

I really was that deluded.  Fay magic is THAT strong.

Fuck.

“Don’t look at the ears,” he told me.  “Look at my eyes.”

I did.  I did and I saw a grown ass man.  Okay, maybe not GROWN grown.  Dude had a serious case of baby face, but he wasn’t a baby.  Puberty had still happened. His voice was enough to confirm that much.

“Thanks,” he said.

“W-w-welcome?”  Not my most articulate moment.  “Who are you?”

Half of his face curled up in a smile.  His eyes still looked sad.  “You can call me Peter.”  A curious choice of phrasing, one that I’m only understanding just now as I type this nonsense.

“I’m-” He held up his hand.  “Don’t tell me,” he said. He sniffed the air, a hound gaining the scent of his prey.  No. Check that. He was a stag catching the scent of the hounds. “She’s close.”

“Who is?”

“Mommy.”  

It sounded like someone invoking the name of a god; and not a benevolent one.  He moved to go, turning his back to me and walking away.  Except it wasn’t quite walking. Waddling? What was sticking out of the back of his pants?  “Wait!” I called out.

“Can’t,” he said without looking back.  “This is the farthest I’ve made it so far.  I get caught again, and I won’t be able to walk.”  There was no fear in his voice. Just a grim kind of acceptance.  Pretty damn blase considering he was talking about somebody crippling him.

“Don’t go!”

I’ve been reading this again and again and again since I wrote it.  Why the fuck did I say that?  What possessed me to call out to that stupid man-boy who wasn’t a baby that I hit with my car?  Why didn’t I just blink and go back to my car and continue on my workday like usual?  I don’t know.

He turned around again and looked me in the eye.  There was something strange in his eyes...an addict weary for a fix.  Then a glint of something.  Guilt maybe.  Definitely hesitation.  Was that temptation in Peter’s face when he mulled over the possibility of talking to me again..

“Fuck it.” he told me. “I’m going to get caught. I’ve lost too much time.”

“Caught by who?”

“Mommy.”

“Your mother is chas-?”

He cut me off. “No, Mommy is.”  At the time, I didn’t know the difference.  Ignorance is bliss.  “If you want to see me again, go to a flower shop; a nice one.  Go get flowers.  Violets, preferably.   Leave them by your bed. Shiny knick knacks too.  The cheaper the better.”

“Um...okay…”

“Do NOT, under any circumstance, leave bread or milk under your bed.”

“Why would I-?”

“Just don’t.  Okay?”

I nodded.  He started walking away and what I thought would be out of my life.  “Okay.”

“Cool.  See you soon enough.” He stopped one last time.  “Oh...and one more thing.”  

“What?”

“I’m sorry.”

Fuck me.  Fuck my life.  Why the fuck did I do that?  Why did I get those gods damn flowers?!  Maybe because the strange man boy seemed to speak with purpose and move like he had a plan.

Peter always had a plan.

Now if only I could remember what it was.