Only A Room Away

It was night, the time where the cats came out and began to yowl on some poor man’s fence. The thing, maybe a soft golden color with stripes, perhaps a bright orange with splotches of brown, would yowl, and keep yowling until the man got out of bed in a nightshirt holding nothing but a brown, leather boot. As in many cartoons, he would fling the boot at the tabby, in anticipation of knocking it off the fence and making it quiet for the morning sun to rise.

Sometimes, the man would realize after flinging the boot, that it was time to rouse his daughter or son, and get them ready for school. The mother was nowhere to be found, as she was buried six feet under a bunch of roses that had withered away, or perhaps with some other man, running from the prospect of having children. However, the man was fine with that. He couldn’t imagine having a wife, a mother of his kids, anyway.

In this case, Daniel Carver only had one child: a daughter named Melissa. She was about eight years old, went to third grade, and had the pretties stark black hair anybody had ever seen. Her eyes were round like flying saucers, which flew around the room at night or spun when her father told a dirty joke. Melissa was old enough to understand most naughty things her father said. Of course, he told them for her. The girl always loved to hear him tell a story, either that he made up on the spot, or one he’d been writing deep inside his office, or on the couch with his laptop. She always found him in either of those places after school. It was so usual there wasn’t any place for an un-usual. However, Daniel was mostly an editor, and he got paid well for it just as long as the writers wrote and the editor, him, edited. But, Melissa constantly told him she wished he’d stop editing and start writing. That was her dream for him because she knew that was what he’d rather do.

They were always scary stories for adults, but she grew up on them. In fact, she was so habituated to these stories that they no longer scared her, instead making her laugh. They weren’t about werewolves, vampires, zombies, or any of the typical suspects, either. These stories were more twisted than the simplistic pleasures of a teenage mind. Daniel was so twisted and he made his daughter that way. The two of them saw nothing wrong with it was they watched The Gardener’s Garden and Adopt-A-Pet before she went to bed. The two of them never even guessed what was about to happen, so, when it did, Daniel didn’t believe it.

He’d made his daughter brush her teeth at the usual seven PM, right after dinner. He brushed his teeth at the usual eleven PM, right after he put her to bed a little too late. He went to bed, bringing a thick manuscript in with him after the usual glass of water after his teeth were brushed, the minty flavor still lingering from an hour before. He climbed into his usual bed, turned off the usual light after getting unusually tired, and fell into a deep dream state.

“When you wake up the world will be in ruin.”

The voice sounded like two different voices: one was whispering; the other sounded like an old man, voice cracking at certain intervals.

Daniel shifted, rolling onto his back. He did not acknowledge the voices except for a soft smile on his face, as if he was being told the same bedtime stories he told Melissa.

“When you wake up, Daniel, your world will be in ruin.”

This time he heard it. His eyebrows were brought together, yet he was still unconscious, still in a thick dream state. He had to climb through the Amazon Rainforest, avoid the bright green frogs with bright red eyes, and, finally, end up in his room.

“Did you hear me, Daniel?”

Who was that? What kind of dream is this?

“Did you hear me? Your world will be in ruin.”

He didn’t understand. What kind of dream…?

There was a shuffling of feet on the wooden floor beside him, which sounded like the feet were being dragged rather than making actual footsteps. As the presence came closer, Daniel began to feel a sense of suspicion… that maybe this was not a dream. But, he knew it was. In the back of his mind he always knew what kind of dreams he had. This one was probably a product of the movie’s he’d watched, or maybe of the manuscript he’d been reading, or of one he’d been writing and hiding from his daughter.

He knew he had to keep his eyes closed. If he opened them he might lose this idea for a story, because this certainly wasn’t anything he’d ever heard of before, at least not from his perspective. So, he kept his eyes closed. In fact, he almost squeezed them shut from anticipation of a new idea. If this was something fresh, something better than what he’d been writing, he could write it and finally make his daughter proud of him. Daniel wanted to see her smile from pride, and glow from anticipation of sitting down and having him read it to her.

“Daniel… Daniel, I know you’re awake.” The voice glided over him like ice skates on a hockey rink.

He could write this… this was good.

Again, the voice spoke to him, but this time with a condescending air. “Daniel… I know you’re awake. Don’t hide from me, Daniel. Daniel, it won’t change the outcome of what is to come.”

This father, writer, ex-husband, editor, and dream realized the dream, his idea wouldn’t continue if he lay there with his eyes shut. So, he opened them a crack. He allowed the light from the moon to slide into his eyes like a snake, and then prop them up with a shotgun like some guy’s trunk from a television show he watched with his daughter, each a different short story, called Thistle, and… what was that smell? Was something burning?

Daniel propped himself up in bed, his eyes still adjusting. When he could finally see, the crusts in the corners of his eyes nearly gluing his eyes shut, he was unknowing. What was happening? He was unknowing on how he should take the monstrosity beside him. At first he shrunk away, but realizing this was only a dream, he began straightening up.

Standing beside him was a tall figure wearing an oversized plastic baby head. Blue eyes painted innocently, they looked as if they were crying, and did not look forward, rather up diagonally toward the ceiling. It was impossible for the thing to move these eyes, because, as Daniel had already acknowledged, they were painted on. However, some of the paint rubbing off, or had been smeared. Its mouth was a small crevice where the lips pouted, mere darkness protruding and shadows enveloping the bed. The head was twice as wide as the body, placed cockeyed upon drooping shoulders. This figure was dressed in a burlap sack, and untied tennis shoes shoved onto feet that pointed toward each other rather than out. All limbs were short, chubby, and hairless.

Daniel didn’t know what to do. He wondered where he could go with this, and knew this thing beside his bed couldn’t murder people. And yet, he decided to play along. If he could get the baby-thing to do what he wanted it to do, or what it wanted to do, then he would perhaps have an amazing story. Jumping out of bed, a scream caught in his throat. He almost grinned. He’d never had a dream like this one before.

As Daniel neared the door of the room, the giant baby began to convulse. Its arms tightened, as did its legs, and the pigeon-toes twitched. Nearly falling to its knees, the baby began to cry, or, at least, that’s what it sounded like. However, it was also choking.

Daniel stood, staring at it, questioning whether he could use this for a story at all. He shifted his weight, and almost ran to the thing to help it up. Rather, he stayed at the doorway, which was set farther back than the wall it was connected to. Watching as the thing retched, he realized he saw something in its mouth, deep within its throat.

A dull shine, yet pointy, dagger slid from the baby’s throat. It landed on the floor between them. The baby, quicker than Daniel could have ever anticipated, snatched it. In a moment the dagger was in Daniel’s side, except, it wasn’t even really a moment at all. Daniel began to choke on blood, which dribbled his front and onto the wooden floor, which became hot. He got to his tiptoes, then to his knees, then onto his hands as he vomited up blood. Knife laying on the floor beside him, it was clean. He didn’t know what any of it meant, but he knew he was in searing pain, so much pain that he could no longer think of the baby, much less a story.

The last thing he saw was the bed flaring up in a ball of fire.

When he awoke on the floor, blood stains gone from his shirt, his fingers, the wood, he began to laugh at himself. The laughter was throaty at first, and then spread down to his gut and his toes, which shook with glee. He was alive. He was alive! He couldn’t wait to tell his daughter about the ridiculous dream. He knew his daughter would be making fun of him for weeks to come.

But then he saw something. Or, at least, he thought he did, out the window. His bed wasn’t charcoal, the walls weren’t burned, but he saw something out the panes of glass between him and the outside. Quiet, as if hunting for a treasure and unable to allow the others to follow him for they would steal it, he got off the floor, wiped his hands off on his shirt, and crossed to the window. Peeling open the blinds, he peered through at the apartment building next door. 

Shit! All that fire! All those people! Daniel felt urgency in his hands and feet. He needed to help them. Running to the door, and nearly slipping on some sort of puddle, he lay a hand on the doorknob. Immediately his hand shrank back. It was hot to the touch. Daniel was confused. He didn’t understand what was going on. He put his hand inside his shirt, eyes merely grazing over the material, before pulling open the door and walking out into a scorching hallway.

The rooms were ablaze. The couch, the television, the chair, the dining room table, the walls, the floor… everything was ablaze. And then he realized. But, he had no time to think about it. With his hand still inside his shirt, he pulled open Melissa’s door, saw her rolling around on the floor, also ablaze. Daniel grabbed a blanket, threw it on her. She stopped. With her eight-year-old frame still tucked within the dark blue and black starry-night quilt, Daniel picked her up and ran with her through the apartment, through the hallways, down the stairs into the bitter, dark morning. 

The sun still hadn’t risen beyond the hills.

He was tired, exhausted even. He gagged on the frosty air, watching emergency medics fill up their ambulances. Daniel couldn’t go with Melissa in there. There weren’t enough ambulances. There wasn’t enough room. He’d have to take her in his truck. He didn’t understand how a dream could become so real. He’d run down the steps with her in his arms, her charcoaled skin blackened by fire.

As Daniel tucked her in the backseat of his car, he didn’t bother to put a seatbelt on her, knowing she’d be safe to lay down without one. She looked so tired. Or, at least, he thought she did. He couldn’t tell through the burns.

An EMT knocked on Daniel’s window after he climbed in. Daniel rolled down the glass, and watched the EMT talk to him, but he couldn’t fully hear anything but his own response, “No, I’ll take her to the hospital. You take care of the people here. I want to be with my daughter.”

The EMT shook his head. “I don’t advise that, sir.”

But Daniel wasn’t listening. He’d already turned on the truck. He’d already looked back at his daughter. He’d already had the thoughts of the baby’s plastic head and its painted-on eyes in the back of his head. He didn’t understand. When he pulled out of the driveway he looked up at his apartment, and then across the way where he’d seen the burning building, but there was no apartment building there. Daniel was lost. He drove through the streets with a goal: getting to the hospital. When he got there he knew there was nothing they could do.

His daughter was already dead.

Blaming his dream, his imagination, he wondered why he had it then. Why did he have it now? Why didn’t he have it last night? Or the night before that? Or the night before that? He never found out what happened to the apartment building. Nobody talked about it. All he did hear, though, was from the news, that it was arson. Detectives questioned him, and he got angry, but they never got anywhere. Melissa was gone, gone since she’d caught on fire. All Daniel could do was sit down and write a book about what happened, so that’s exactly what he did.