Thumps
Parish
By afternoon, Parish had been thrown into two different memories of October’s. Three different nurses had come in, trying to find out what he was screaming about. Twice, the Warden had ordered them to take off the strait jacket. But with the memories and the screaming came the injuries, and in the end they’d decided to leave the jacket on.
Little did they know that the wounds were not self-inflicted. That the cuts and scratches were given to him by unseen forces and that, despite the straitjacket they had put him in, there would still be wounds where they wouldn’t see.
The first memory came in the morning, when Parish was still mostly under the influence of the sedatives that had been shot into his system. He woke up, groggy and sleepy-eyed to find himself in the center of a very comfortable queen-sized bed. The duvet that covered his legs was white, decorated with pale pink orchids and spiraling green creepers, and the walls surrounding him were washed out and white in the light of the moon that spilled in through the wide un-curtained windows.
The wall that held the windows was the only unpainted wall, maintaining a rustic air with its original red bricks.
The room was huge, almost twice the size of Parish’s own room back home, with dark, varnished, hardwood floors and expensive-looking furniture. But for all its space, the room was practically bare. Except for a few framed photographs on the wall above the large writing desk on the other side of the room, there were no knick-knacks or tokens to suggest anything about the person whose room it was.
There were no clothes strewn about the place. No personal photographs, no collection of rocks or pressed flowers, no stray shoes on the floor. Not even a book on the long, detachable bedside shelves on either side of the headboard.
And yet, Parish knew without a doubt whose bed he was lying in. October’s.
October scooted back against the pillows and yawned sleepily, bringing her fist, as well as Parish’s, to her lips to shield her mouth. When she finished yawn, she blinked around the room, wondering why she’d woken up.
Deciding to go downstairs for a glass of water, October threw off the duvet. She was wearing a pair of yellow shorts that stopped around mid-thigh; they had green dinosaurs on them.
She sat up on the edge of the bed and slipped her feet into a pair of bright, fuzzy slippers. Grabbing a hair-tie off the top of her bedside shelf, she tied her hair in a loose ponytail by the nape of her neck.
In the surface was the glass window, Parish could see her reflection. She was still as young as she’d been during the first memory – the night her uncle and aunt died – but there was something about her that made her seem older now. But other than the bags under her eyes, there was nothing different about her reflection.
As she brought her hands away from her hair, Parish saw faint marks on her skin, on the inside of her wrist.
This is when the self-harm started, he realized.
She gingerly touched one of the marks with a finger, and Parish felt a pang of pain hit him. He wasn’t unfamiliar to the feeling. He’d hurt himself many times in his past, too.
Wincing, she put her hands down and moved towards the door.
Her fingers had just closed around the glass doorknob when something slammed into the wall by her door. There was another thump against the door, causing October to let go of the handle and stare at it in horror.
In her mind, she began to remember what the voices had been doing for the past few days. Parish saw, through her eyes, as she sat huddled in bed, listening to the sounds of her parents slamming against her walls and her door. They’d come three nights this past week and then suddenly stopped. She’d been hoping that the voices were done tormenting her that way…
Apparently not.
Breathing in deeply, she made to back away from the door when suddenly, a voice called her name.
“October honey, is that you?”
“Mom?” Confused, October put her hand on the doorknob again. Her mother was awake… and she rarely ever came upstairs to October’s floor. Was something wrong?
“Not quite,” her mother replied with a snarl. Something slammed heavily against the door and October yelped. There was a thud as another body, her father’s, threw itself against the wall.
Hands shaking, she tip-toed to slide the deadbolt at the top of her door in place and, for extra measure, turned the key in the keyhole. Scared, she stepped away from the door slowly, aiming to get back into bed and shove her pillow over her ears.
She’d get no sleep tonight, she knew. She’d spend the entire night listening to her parents slam their bodies against her walls and her door, not stopping until it was almost time for Elise to wake up. And then the voices would take them back to their room and let them sleep for a few hours.
She’d have to listen to them complain about strange bruises and aching arms at breakfast. She’d have to listen to them ask why she looked so sleepy and why she had bags under her eyes. She’d have to shrug and make up yet another excuse before quickly changing the topic to their next business trip.
And then she’d have to feel Elise’s eyes on her, knowing that she was dodging questions.
October was so tired.
As the key turned and the door locked, Parish and October both jumped in surprise when a loud scratching noise sounded against the door – as if her mother was raking her nails against the lacquered wood.
“Come out, honey,” Her mother hissed through the keyhole.
October whimpered, moving backwards.
You’re okay, Parish wanted to tell her; wanted to hold her and be there for her. He could feel her fear and pain flooding through him, could feel her heart thudding against her chest. The wounds from her uncle and aunt’s deaths were still fresh, and the Voices were adding to the grief by making her parents suffer too.
It was getting too much for her to handle all by herself. She couldn’t tell anyone – not that she had anyone she could tell, besides Elise. And she would never put Elise in danger. And that’s why, despite how hard she tried not to, she’d resorted to self-harm.
Suddenly, Parish was reminded of her words to him, back when they were in the abandoned shop, running from Abercoster’s nurses.
“I’m sorry that you had to go through it by yourself,” she’d said, gingerly tracing the scars on his wrist. “… you shouldn’t deal with your pain alone.”
Before he hadn’t understood how she could so easily push aside her own pain to offer to be there for him when he was feeling low. But now, now he understood. Feeling the anguish she was going through, seeing that she’d been reduced to hurting herself to get rid of all the pain she was feeling inside… he desperately wished he could have been there for her.
“Come out. Let’s play. We haven’t done anything together in so long,” her mother continued, thumping the door in regular beats.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The backs of October’s knees hit the edge of her bed and she fell into it just as one of her parents threw themselves against the wall. The only picture on that wall rattled and fell to the floor. Glass shattered.
Crying now, October scrambled into bed and curled herself into a tight ball. Pulling her duvet over her body, she pressed her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, praying for the ordeal to be over soon.
Parish felt a pang of pain on his thigh and October screamed. Looking down, she saw a cut in her leg from where the bottom of her dinosaur pajamas ended to her knee.
“Don’t ignore us,” a little girl’s voice hissed in her ear.
Parish felt a wave of fury wash over him as he witnessed just how much the Voices tortured October, mentally as well as physically. He was oblivious to the fact that, in his room, The Warden was watching him with a grave face.
Because Parish wasn’t just reliving October’s memories in his dreams, he was also acting them out. Living it as October did.
While October murmured under her breath for the Voices to leave her alone, in his cell, Parish did the same, not aware he was doing it.
He was given another sedative a few minutes later and the strait jacket that had been removed was put back on.
Because The Warden had watched as, while he whimpered and cowered in a ball on his bed, Parish had reached down and scratched him leg through the material of his clothes, from mid-thigh up to his knee, the edges of the fabric soaking up the blood from his leg.
As sleep took over, Parish listened to the thumping sounds of October’s parents slamming themselves against her door, taunting her.
And when the memory ended, he still heard the thumps. Following him into the darkness, consuming him...