Geoffry stumbled along the sidewalk, pulled towards his house by the same force that squeezed his middle. His mind raced and surged, trying to figure out who would die this time.
Cap...his dad...
Mom.
He remembered how plastered she sounded on the phone earlier that day, when he was at school, and imagined her drinking more, drinking bottle after bottle after bottle.
Stop it, just stop thinking that.
Oh, but you know it's true, you know she'd do something like that, just drink herself into her grave, the old sop, you know she would, and you're afraid, you're afraid you're-
No, stop thinking, just stop-
He stopped an inch away from slamming into the side of his house, surprised that he arrived that fast, then darted around to the front and turned the knob. Or attempted to; the door was locked.
It wasn't locked when I left, he thought. Panic grew into a monster lodged into his chest as he uselessly jiggled the knob and pounded on the door.
"Mom, mom! Are you in there?! Are you OK?!"
Silence, then the growing growl of a car engine as one stopped a few feet away from the front porch. A car door slamming.
"Son, is your mother here to talk to?"
Geoffry turned around and winced internally as the same police officer he saw inside the 7-Eleven looked sternly at him, his soft pudgy hand on his soft pudgy hip.
"Not sure...I can't open the door- I forgot my key."
"She locked you out?" The police officer's eyebrows raised and his mouth tightened. Not a good sign. "It seems we'll have a lot more to talk 'bout than I thought....here, allow me."
The police officer squared his body, obviously prepared to ram the door down, when his walky-talky squawked urgently. He relaxed slightly, then grimaced as something that sounded like gunshots cut through the static. He looked at his walky-talky, then at the house, and sighed.
"Son, you and your mother have a lot of explaining to do, but I've got to do something first. Wait here, outside the house, you hear? I'll be back."
Geoffry watched the officer as he left, then glanced around the porch. FInding the correct potted plant he quickly shoved the pot aside and stooped to pick up the key.
He turned to face the door again and his heartbeat accelerated even more, pounding in his chest like a tribal drumbeat. Gripping the key tightly in his shaking hand, he brought it closer and closer to the keyhole...
All at once, everything was still. Numb. His heart calmed, his breathing slowed, his sweat finished dripping. The world held its breath.
The house was empty as a tomb.
The bottles he saw all over the floor earlier were gone. The fetid stank of stale wine had dissipated like a dream.
The floor, where earlier there had beed wine-stains and God-knows-what-else, was spotlessly clean, no stains, nothing to indicate any proof that his mother had been in the house. Furniture was gone. Pictures were gone. Every one of his possessions were gone. Chips, stains, anything impure had been wiped from existance. As if to enunciate the change further still, the walls were now a pure, hospital-esque white.
The silence was deafening.
But worst of all, he was alone, and, judging from what he saw, he always would be.
"No," he muttered. He dragged himself towards the stairs. His mother had to have been here, had to have been in the house, he had to have lived in this house...was his entire past, like his social life, just a fabrication?
A moan, almost too low to be perceived, reached his ears with the barest whisper of hope and horror.
"Mom?"
He quickly stomped up the stairs, his heart beginning to jumpstart into that now-familiar frantic pace.
"Mom!"
He sprinted up the rest of the stairs, then stopped mid-stride as a frantic gurgle reached his ears.
Then nothing.
He fought against his growing revulsion and managed to force himself a couple of steps forward. His hand reached, trembling once again, towards the knob.
The door opened at his touch, without him even turning it.
He stared at the scene before him with no expression, shock numbing his emotions as he took it all in. He approached the prostrate form of his mother, and gently wiped the string of regurgitated alcohol from her lips before kissing her forehead and shutting her eyelids. He sat down opposite her, regarding her with his head tilted, and stayed like this for half a minute before he realized she was truly dead. When that realization hit him, his gaze slowly drifted from her prostrate form and the mountain of bottles she lay on to an innocent-looking picture that lay to the side.
Cap was playing with his tongue lolling out. His dad was being a goofball. His mom was laughing, and Geoffry was just being himself, with a big, cheesy picture-smile on his face.
And there lay his mother, dead from the crack which ran through her belly.
After some time, he pulled his legs up to his chest. A hysteric chuckle escaped his mouth, which only deepened when he felt a band tighten around his belly. He rocked back and forth like this, laughing with the tears running down his face.
It got her, I knew it would, now it's going to get me, go ahead you bastard, come and get me, hell, I'm ready, come and get me and make it stop just make it stop
He didn't stop crying, even when he vaguely felt large, strong arms encircle him and lift him to his feet, and an authoritative voice ask him what happened. He just laughed and cried and rocked back and forth, back and forth, lost in the shattered remnants of his mind.
After all, dead men tell no tales, my father never told me anything and look, he's dead, hahahaha God please just end it now, please end it now
End it now.
