She's Lost Control Read online

  Her feet will become red and raw. Flesh will cease to hang on her bones. It will crawl higher and higher, revealing weakened muscle tissue and filmy veins. And yet, she shall dance.

  And dance.

  And dance.

  Until she cannot dance anymore.

  ***

  Jehan’s eyes dart open. Her breath is heavy. Her skin feels like leather. The jasmine circlet around her head and the anklets manacling her feet are long forgotten. But she cannot escape from the whispers of alraqs. She runs from her mother, shops at the bazaar and takes the hand of the silver-haired perie.

  “Yajab a’layk alraqs.”

  She cannot stop what will happen to her.

  BELOW THE DRIPSTONES

  L.L. Madrid

  I KNOW WHERE I am before I open my eyes. The sour rot scent and the distant drip-drip-drip of water give this place away. I lean back against the cave wall. I don’t cringe as the slime seeps through my shirt. It’s better than the alternative. You don’t want one of those things creeping up behind you.

  I look back and under the torchlight, I see my brother Vince across the cavern. He’s sitting on the ground, hugging his knees to his chest. Head buried, he waits for it to end. Shackled to an onyx altar is a small boy. He struggles and writhes against the chains. With a jerk, he turns his head and looks at me.

  “Help me! The monsters are coming!”

  He sees me? Before this, I’ve always been a ghost. The simmering panic at my core bubbles over. “Vince, he can see me!” I yell to my brother as he shakes his head against his knees.

  “Vince!”

  “Shut up shut up shut up . . . ” he mutters.

  “Please!” the boy cries. “I wanna go home. I want Momma.”

  I gulp a breath of the nasty air and move toward the boy. I open my mouth, but I can’t make the words come out. I tug at the chains, but there isn’t anything I can do. The boy’s skin is pallid, and his eyes are as black as the pits of a skull. I recognize him. “Luca? Can you hear me?”

  “Do something. They’re coming.”

  I pull at a manacle, trying to slip the boy’s hand out.

  BAM.

  My body slams down to the floor, troubling black soot into the already dark air.

  “Don’t.” Vince stands over me, blocking Luca from view. “Heidi. You can’t do anything. If they catch you . . . ” He helps me up and leads me back to the wall. I follow like a dumb puppy and let him pull me down to sit and wait. I’m slower here. Speaking and thinking are difficult, even moving is like wading through a sea of Vaseline.

  Luca screams, the tiny veins in his neck bulge.

  “He sees us,” I whisper.

  “I know.” The words crack as they come from Vince’s mouth. I’m about to say something else, but my teeth are chattering as the temperature plummets. That’s the first sign. It’s best not to make noise. We learned early on the dangers of calling attention to ourselves.

  The skittering of a thousand rat toenails scraping against stone as they flee is the second sign. Soon the inky pond beyond the altar ripples and bubbles. They’re on their way. The ritual is about to begin. Vince and I grip each other and bow our heads.

  “THE MONSTERS ARE COMING!”

  ***

  The glowing numbers on the alarm clock read 3:47 a.m. Frozen in bed, I can only move my eyes; the crushing weight on my chest hasn’t lifted. My doctor calls this part sleep paralysis, but I think it’s because my soul hasn’t fully returned. Josh snores beside me. I envy him as I wait for the seven on the clock to morph into an eight. The paralysis usually only lasts a minute, but it feels much longer.

  When the heaviness lifts and I can move, I do so quietly. I fumble for my glasses and phone on the nightstand. Josh stirs. I watch my husband, waiting until the snores resume.

  In the living room, I light the lamp and wrap an old flannel throw around my shoulders and settle onto the couch. It isn’t long before my cell’s Skype alert chimes.

  “Hey.” Vince is shirtless and bleary-eyed. Tonight he doesn’t try to hide his whiskey in a coffee mug. He swigs straight from the bottle.

  “Hey.” I used to judge his drinking. That was before I got pregnant and had to give up my antidepressants. Now I envy him for his booze. I’m only a few weeks into my second trimester and I don’t know how I’ll make it through. I swallow the thought and replace it with I’ll do everything I can to make this pregnancy stick.

  Vince rubs his eyes. He has this habit of waiting for the other person to start talking, even when he’s instigated the call. He’s more comfortable with silences than I am. “Luca Locicero,” I start. “That was the boy. I recognize him from the news. He vanished from his bedroom two nights ago. He can’t have more than what, three days left?”

  Vince looks over his shoulder for a long moment before turning back and shaking his head. His hands are fisted on his knees. “Don’t think about that. It’s just a dream.”

  I pull the blanket tighter around myself. “It’s not, though. I can’t pretend.”

  “Then you’ll go crazy.”

  He’s right. Since this started happening twenty-five years ago, I’ve learned to not dwell on the horror. This time that’s not possible. “The boy saw us. He spoke to us. We know who he is, we can do something.”

  “We can’t. Nothing’s changed.”

  “Luca—”

  “Don’t say his name.” Vince tips the bottle back. The post-mortem ritual began decades ago with the first joint dream. I was nine, and Vince was seven. We ran into our parents’ room at the same moment, screaming about the same things. Now we call each other. We never say much, but it’s better than being alone.

  “You got there first.” I study his face for a reaction, but he’s looking away from the screen. As bad as it is in that place, it’s much worse when you’re there by yourself. “Did anything happen before I came?”

  He takes another pull from the bottle. His eyes are already bloodshot. He wipes his lips with the back of his hand. “Yeah. The kid told me where we were. I couldn’t believe he was talking to me . . . ”

  I shake my phone. “He said . . . Where?”

  “Shit,” Vince mutters. “Forget it. I doubt he really knows. Even if he did, we can’t get him.”

  “Tell me where,” I start, but he holds his hand up.

  “I was exaggerating. That’s all. I gotta go. I’ll see you at Mom’s birthday thing.”

  “Vince!” The screen goes blank. I call him back. It rings straight through to voicemail. He’s shut off his phone. I sink further into the couch. My brother has never been much of a talker or sharer, which makes him a shitty nightmare partner. I check the clock. I don’t have time to drive across town to Vince’s apartment before Josh wakes up. Even if I did, I know my brother. He’ll pass out before I’d get there. I call and text a few more times, but it’s useless.

  A clunking from the hall has me pulling the blanket up to my eyes. I know it’s the AC kicking on, but fear still clings to me. Not wanting to be alone, I make kissy sounds, calling for Wobs, our three-legged cat. Despite her missing front limb, she jumps next to me with ease, bumping her head against my cheek in greeting. After nightmares, she gets extra attention. I don’t want to be alone, and Wobs is good company. She cocks her head at my phone.

  On nights like this, I watch Bob Ross videos on YouTube. I don’t paint, but his soft voice and commentary about happy trees and shy little shadows help take my mind off whatever horrors I’ve witnessed. Tonight, I don’t want to let the terror blend with titanium white or morph into a distant mountain range. I’m desperate to do something, anything, to help that boy. I wish I had a better place to start, but I don’t, so I google Luca Locicero.

  Luca’s family lives about two hours away in Phoenix. Close enough that they’ve put up a few billboards with his sweet face around town. They’re doing everything you’re supposed to when a child goes missing: Keeping his face on the news, pleading for his return, and repeating his name to hu
manize him to the kidnappers.

  That’s what I remember the police liaison officer telling my parents when Crysta went missing. It didn’t do us any good. I can barely remember my big sister outside of the pictures that hang over my mother’s mantel.

  I shake Crysta from my mind and focus on Luca. I read all the news stories. I watch the pleas from his parents, and I scroll through comments that blame them. I recognize the Locicero family’s confusion, their disbelief that any of this is real. My parents stumbled around the same way. They were accused of the same unspeakable things.

  There’s a tiny flutter in my stomach.

  I startle and press my palm against the slight swell. A kick? I know if I told one of my coworkers they’d say it’s too soon and probably only gas. Despite everything, I smile. A kick. The yearning to savor this moment is fierce, but the dark brown eyes that peer out from my phone screen compel me to keep investigating.

  Focusing back on Luca, I search for underground sights near his home address. It isn’t long before my eyes go bleary. Arizona is pocked with pits, bunkers, caverns, mines, and miles of flood tunnels. How the hell do you pinpoint the location of a dream?

  ***

  Noting my lack of sleep, Josh makes breakfast. It’s a nice gesture and gives me the space to bombard Vince with voicemails and texts, but the scent of the maple sausages churns my stomach. I spend the rest of the morning hunched over the toilet. Morning sickness didn’t magically end after the first trimester, as HR rep Beth and mother-of-four assured me it would. Still, I manage to get dressed and heap on under-eye concealer. It doesn’t help much but at least Vince—if he shows—will look equally awful.

  We bring a casserole, cake, and a bouquet to my mother’s condo. She doesn’t like us to “make a fuss” about her birthdays and refuses to go out. She invites only Aunt Didi and us. Mom and her sister are gossiping when we arrive—no Vince.

  “Did he say he’s going to be late?” I ask. “You should call him. See what’s up?”

  Mom rolls her eyes. “He’ll get here when he gets here.”

  Josh squeezes my knee, his code for relax already. I can’t follow the conversation around me. All I can think of is Luca down in that pit with those things.

  Vince arrives forty minutes late with a box of Russell Stover chocolates under his arm, the same gift he’s given Mom every year since he was twelve. I’m desperate to get him alone, but he knows this and fastens himself to Aunt Didi. I send him a text from the bathroom. He pretends his phone is off.

  After lunch, we settle in the living room for cake and coffee. Vince won’t make eye contact with me. Instead, he gazes at the door. He plans to leave without me cornering him. Josh wraps his arm around my waist. My husband is a nice guy. So nice he’s almost bland, but that’s what I like about him. He wouldn’t understand the dreams, so I don’t tell him. If I did, he’d only be concerned for my mental health. It’s simpler to let him think that I’m an insomniac. I give him a peck on the cheek.

  He clinks his spoon against his mug and rises. I blink. I forgot we planned this. “Heidi and I have an announcement. Ma, I know you’re desperate for a grandbaby, and in a few months we’ll have a belated birthday present for you.”

  The room is stunned quiet, no doubt the others are thinking of our first two miscarriages. Only Josh and I know about the third. “I’m almost eighteen weeks along,” I say. Before anyone else speaks there’s a POP, and the lights go out.

  Josh heads outside to check the fuse box, and Mom tells Vince to inspect an outlet in the kitchen. I dash after him.

  “Jesus,” he mutters, crouching by a snake den of wires. Mom’s got the refrigerator and about ten other appliances plugged into a single power strip. The lights flicker back on around us but the strip is dead, and Mom’s fridge doesn’t whir. He unplugs everything and coils the cords before pushing the refrigerator plug into the wall outlet. It hums back to life.

  “We need to talk,” I say.

  “Congratulations,” Vince answers. There’s no light behind his eyes. He’s studying a homemade magnet that spells out “Crysta” in painted macaroni noodles. He grasps my hand. “Don’t try to find that kid.”

  “What?”

  “Just don’t. You’re going to be a momma. You have to keep safe for her.”

  “Her?”

  “I got a feeling.”

  Tears prick at my eyes. “We can’t leave him there.”

  “We don’t know where there is.”

  “You said—”

  “I was wasted. The kid told me he was in a cave. That’s all I meant.”

  “I have to try.”

  “Try what? Spelunking? Organizing subterranean searches across the state?”

  I knuckle away a tear. “He’s somebody’s baby.”

  “I know.” Vince puts his arm around my back. “You remember what happened when we tried to fight them, what they did to Crysta.”

  I don’t trust myself to speak, so I nod.

  “You have too much to lose.”

  I swallow. “How can I live with myself if I let Luca die?”

  “You’re not letting anything happen. The demons have him. It’s already too late.”

  ***

  When I come to, I’m laying at the base of the onyx altar. It’s already cold. I don’t see Vince. I scramble to the wall.

  “Momma?” a tiny voice asks.

  A plume of breath slips from my lips. I press my hands against my belly and shut my eyes.

  “Momma, I love you. Momma . . . please.”

  “I can’t help you. I’m sorry.” I whisper the words so softly I doubt he hears me.

  A whimper, then, “Help me fall asleep?”

  My eyes bump along the flickering shadows of the cave. There’s no sign of Vince or any of those things. I move slowly to Luca. His eyes are shut. I slide my finger across his forehead, moving wisps of feathery hair. I hum the tune of a lullaby my mother used to sing to me. I’ll have to ask her the words. There’s a quiver in my womb. So she’s here too. Does she know where we are? I brush my palm against Luca’s cool face. He has the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. A beautiful boy who’ll never go home. A tear slips down my cheek and falls onto his. Luca’s eyes open. I back up to the wall. The two burning embers follow me. He’s turning. The next dream will be the last for Luca.

  “The monsters are coming,” he speaks the words dully. The fight has left his frail body.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. It will never be enough. I know that Luca’s mother feels a deep ache inside her, a desperate longing to hold her baby. I remember my mother screaming in the night for Crysta, pleading for her return. Prayers decay into hope for a body to bury. Twenty years later, Mom settled for an age progression photograph that now hangs between a snap of Vince leaning against his 67’ Mustang and my wedding portrait.

  The rats and roaches flee, and the fires in the sconces die out. Where the hell is Vince?

  “They hurt me.” Luca’s eyes close. A kick in my belly. I slip forward once more and kiss his forehead. A slimy residue slicks my lips. In my mind’s eye, I see a postcard image of the no longer operational Wonder Caves. That was the location of our last family excursion when there were still five of us. The place that shut down after a trio of second graders disappeared on a field trip. That’s where we are. Where Luca is. I crouch against the wall. Vince is here. He reaches for my hand as the crashing of water and scraping of claws echoes through the cavern, and the demons arrive.

  ***

  It’s 3:47 a.m. when I wake. I watch the clock.

  At 3:48 a.m. I can move. I text Vince: Wonder Caves.

  It’s 3:49 a.m. I see the blood.

  It’s on my thighs. When I feel between my legs, sticky liquid paints my hand red. No. No. No! I stare at my hand. A frozen scream fills my lungs. Wobs hops on the bed and yowls until Josh wakes.

  The drive to the hospital and subsequent emergency room chaos go by in a blur: Josh’s worried face, doors swinging open and close, nurse
s’ sympathetic nods, and buzzing fluorescent lights. Josh keeps muttering that everything is going to be alright. Just fine.You’ll see. It’ll be okay. I know better, but I let him murmur his reassurances like prayers on a rosary.

  Time slows, and I’m wheeled off to get an ultrasound. Every tick of the clock cuts into me. The cold goo the technician squirts onto my stomach reminds me of coagulated blood. The tech’s wand slips across my skin, and I make a wish. Knowing that things like wishes and prayers are useless unless accompanied by an oath—a sacrifice—I make an offer to whatever god or devil happens to be listening.

  Let my baby live and I’ll find Luca Locicero.

  I stare at the ultrasound screen. It depicts the universe inside of me: swirling blacks, grays, and highlights of white. Machines beep. My chest thuds. Josh squeezes my shoulder. At last, we see the flittering of a starfish hand and a twinkle of heart.

  I give silent thanks. I’ll keep my promise.

  There are more tests, and the doctor pats my arm reassuringly. Appointments are scheduled, and bed rest is recommended. Josh wants me to take a leave of absence as it’s too soon to start maternity leave. I promise to consider it. All I can think about is how close we came to losing her. The technician told us the sex. Vince was right. My brother sometimes just knows things.

  My phone chirps. I have dozens of missed calls and texts from Vince, all warnings about Wonder Caves. I text that we had to go to the hospital but that we’re alright; I assure him I have no reason to go near the caves. I almost believe that myself.

  ***

  While Josh showers, I sneak into the garage to call the Luca Locicero tip line. It rings and rings.

  “Help bring Luca home. Name please.” The operator snaps her gum, and I can hear papers rustling.

  “Um. Hi. I think I know where Luca is.”

  “Name?”

  “He’s somewhere in Wonder Caves.”

  “You saw him there?”

  My entire body goes hot. “Please. I just know.”

  “We have a volunteer who’s handling all premonitions and psychic tips. Please hold while I transfer you to Serena.”