STORY:
	PREMISE: abused child, "never had a father," mother marriest a stepfather, describe alien and awful due to trauma, mother is traumatized but father is working with her




My Mother Married a Monster


I can hear him breathing behind me.

He's standing right there. He thinks I can't hear him when he comes in at night, but I can. It doesn't matter how quietly he opens the door. I wake up and I <I>know,</i> every time, that he's watching me again. Just like he does every night.

Hia breathing gets heavier. I feel the sick rising up in my throat. Some nights he doesn't do this, but some nights he does, and those nights are the worst. I listen to the noises, like shit trying to rush through a clogged toilet and just burbling instead, and I try not to puke, and I don't move a muscle. I can't move a muscle. I can't let him know he's awake.

The noise stops. There is a rubbing, grinding noise, like sandpaper against brick. And then one slow footstep, and then another, and then the door is closed and he is gone.

I wait until he's all the way down the hallway before I run to the bathroom. I wait until everything in my stomach is gone to let myself cry.

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The day he showed up was the worst day of my life. One of the worst days. It's hard to tell anymore. Time blurs together and yesterday was the worst day and today is the new worst. Mom used to say that's just how life is. Now she says that Stan would be upset if he heard me. We try not to make Stan upset.

I was cooking when they came in. I call it cooking but it's really nothing special, just noodles and half the flavor packet and some of the vegetables from the bottom shelf. Today- that day- was carrots and celery and spinach. I hate spinach in my noodles but it was starting to wilt and it would have just rotted in one of the trash bags so into the noodles it went. I stirred the pot, and I made sure not to the scratch the bottom, and then the lock clicked and the door opened and they both came in.

I don't remember much past that. Mom says she didn't even have time to introduce him before I started screaming, just opened my mouth and hollered like Old Scratch himself was standing there. I don't remember screaming. I don't even remember the pot coming off the stove, even though I do remember having to wear an icepack for the next three days. I just remember seeing <I>him</i> for the first time. The way his arms and legs jerked with each step. The way his fingers didn't stop where they should, but kept going longer and longer. The blur of his face, all patchy skin and hollowed out eyes and his big, awful, <I>hungry</i> mouth, swirled together like a brown and gray and yellow watercolor set.

The next thing I remember was my bedroom. He didn't come inside yet, back then. It was safe then. Mom sat on the bed, and brushed my hair the way she used to, and told me all the things I needed to know. His name was Stan. I should address him politely, "yes sir" and "no sir" and "I'm sorry sir." I could call him Dad if I wanted, but she understood that I might never be comfortable with that, and that was okay.

And then she told me the most important part of living with Stan. Stan was a nice guy, he really was, she swore. But he was a very emotional person, and he could be a little scary when he got upset. So the two of us just had to work extra hard to make sure we never upset him. We'd need to clean up, and cook, and maybe other things too, but as long as we did all that it would be fine. Stan was here for us now. He was going to change our lives.

She was right. Mom's always right like that.

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He comes again the next night.

At first I think it's the same as ever. It's always the same. The footsteps come down the hall, and the door creaks open bit by bit, and even though it's dark and I'm not facing him I can see his awful face looking straight at me. He takes one step in with the long spindly branches that pass for his legs. Then another. And then another, and that's all it takes. He is beside my bed. He is watching me from a foot away. And even though I can feel my body locking up, and the bile burning away at my throat, I am not afraid. I just want it to be over with. Do what you have to. Please. Just leave. <i>Please.</i>

But he doesn't leave, and he doesn't make that wet, dirty sound either. For a moment I wonder if this is what he will do from now on. He will stand by my bed, and wait for me to wake up, and if I ever turn in my sleep or face him I'll see exactly what it is he's doing behind me. And once I know, that'll be it. I won't have any way out. I'll know, and he'll know, and he'll do exactly what I know he is waiting to do. The thought almost makes me retch, but I swallow it down without speaking. I've gotten much better at hiding it. He hates it when I throw up, after all.

And then I see it. I don't see it, but I <I>see</i> it, just like I know how he's staring at me. I feel the hairs on my arms rise up, and just like that I know he's getting closer. Those terrible, raking fingers are getting closer. Those long, long, long, long, long fingers are reaching out to me. I have to run. I have to run. I have to

But I don't run. I stay completely still. I hold my breath, because I know that if I move even a single muscle in the tiniest twitch he will reach me. My heart pounds and I wish I could rip it out, tear it away and hide it and never let anyone hear it again. But he doesn't hear it, and after a moment he draws back. He is biding his time. I am safe another night.

When I wake up the next afternoon, I see that he has left me a gift. Mom's stationary, covered from top to bottom with his awful scrawl. Lines and edges and runes that I couldn't read even if I wanted to. It makes my head swim when I look at it. I tear it to pieces and leave it there.

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Stan made a lot of changes. Some of them were obvious straight away. Mom started going to bed earlier and earlier. The trash bags vanished. Meat started to show up in the fridge. And every time, Mom would make excuses and apologize and explain. <I>He'll get grumpy if I keep him up too long. Oh, he's just got such a sensitive nose. He's a big fellow, you know, and he needs plenty of protein to keep him going through the day, and besides, haven't we had enough of our special ramen together? Isn't it better this way? Isn't this better than what we had before?</i>

I didn't argue. I wanted to. I wanted to yell, so loud everyone in the complex could hear me, that of <i>course</i> I didn't want this. I missed spending time with her, watching cartoons while she played with my hair and whispered me to sleep. I didn't want to see her panic every time six PM got closer and there was still trash where he could see. I didn't want to even think about the hunks of meat in our fridge drawer, the way he he piled his plate high and shoved bite after bite after bite past rows of teeth and into his throat. But every time I thought about it, every time the feeling got too bad, I remembered our new normal loud and clear:

We couldn't afford to make Stan angry. And Stan <I>hated</i> arguments.

But the worst part was all the small changes. The things you didn't notice at first, but they kept building up, and up and up until there was no way to avoid them. The way the apartment smelled different, like old wood and cinnamon and meat. The way half the photos in the family picture book disappeared, not all at once but a few at a time so you could never really be sure they were there in the first place. The way Mom bent for him, and twisted herself, and turned herself inside out until I could barely recognize what was left. She wore different clothes because he liked them. She used different shampoo because he liked the smell. She started trying to cook, more and more, until the kitchen was all different and the pots and pans weren't where they used to be and I couldn't even be safe in there anymore for a few minutes every day.

She fattened herself up for him. She made herself presentable. And all I could do was watch, and hope that horrible mouth stayed away from her for just another day.

<LINE DIVIDER>

He comes into my room again the next night. Is it the next night? It's so hard to tell. The sun goes up and down, sometimes twice or three times and sometimes not even once, and I sleep and wake up and survive another day, and all I can do is look out the locked window in my room and say <I>it's night now</I> or <I>it's day now.</i>

It's night now. The door creaks open, and his footsteps get louder and louder, and I am prepared for another night of the same. But it never comes. He stops, only two steps in this time, and with a tiny creak I hear him kneel down to feel around with those awful fingertips. He's found something. Something important enough to distract him from me. What is it? What could possible-

<I>The gift.</i> I feel like my blood has turned to ice. I would try not to make a sound, but I couldn't even if I wanted to. I am paralyzed, stuck from the fear and horror and overwhelming sense of regret. How stupid could I be? I tore up the note last night. He visits most nights. I didn't get rid of the note. He knows I saw it. He knows I rejected it. <I>He knows</i>, and there is nothing I can do to stop him now.

The sound begins. Gurgling, rumbling, a backed pipe trickling rust and sewage and stagnant water to the ground. I cannot breathe, but the awful smell still burns away at my nostrils. Sulfur. Sandalwood. Rubbing alcohol. Salt. Sour. My eyes water, and I can't help the streaks of tears that run down my cheeks, but I stay quiet. I don't want him more angry. I cannot make him more angry.

He shakes, the floor creaking beneath his weight, and for a moment I wonder if the foundation will break beneath him, if the earth will crack and Hell will swallow us both whole. It's strangely reassuring. Maybe I would die, but he would come with me, and maybe Mom would hurt for a while but she would be free of him. She'd be free of both of us. Maybe it's the kindest thing that could happen. I squeeze my eyes shut and I think the Lord's Prayer as hard as I can, and I hope that God is real and He is listening and He will do this one kind thing for my mother in need.

God doesn't answer. He never does. So I lie there, with my eyes shut tight, and I watch his hunched, gyrating form from the shadows behind my eyelids. I stay still for what must be hours, until my arms and legs have fallen asleep and my arms are sticking to the sheets and I can feel each dried out stain in the fabric tearing at my skin, and I say nothing. And finally, after night passes into night and then again, I hear him right himself and slip out of the room.

I don't have the energy to expunge his smell. I'm drained out. I'm tired. I don't know how much longer I can keep living like this. So I just lie there with my eyes closed, pretending to be tired until I can stop existing for a little while longer.

<LINE DIVIDER>

I did something terrible last week. I don't really know why I did it. I could make excuses but Mom always said the only person you can change is yourself and that anything that happens happens for a reason, so when things go bad you've only got yourself to blame.

And that's what happened. We were trying to all eat at the dinner table together, because Stan likes it when we pretend we're a family. Mom ate quietly at her brussel sprouts while he shoveled the meat into his mouth, spoon after spoon without stopping to breathe. And I just sat there. Stan doesn't like it when I don't eat, but Mom says he understands, and that if he's angry he's angry <I>for</i> me but it never comes out that way. She's always there to stand up for me, in her own way.

But this time it wasn't Stan. It was Mom. She got upset with me, and started saying that I couldn't keep this up forever, and that I had to eat, and I didn't know what to do. I tried to apologize to her. I said I wasn't hungry, and of course it wasn't because it was Stan's cooking, and it even really wasn't that time. But she kept pressing, and saying it was unhealthy, and that she was just worried, and I

I said something awful. I snapped at her. I let everything that had been building up go at once. I told her she was acting different, and she'd changed, and that I didn't recognize her anymore. She knew she'd messed up, and she knew I was making a mistake, but she didn't have it in her to stop me. She just stared at me, and at Stan, and tried to ask me with her eyes to please stop, to just leave it there and maybe things would still work.

But I didn't. I was so upset. I was hurting so much. I told her that she didn't even care about me. That maybe she'd never cared. That as brainwashed as she was, she might as well not be my mother anymore.

I knew I'd crossed a line. I'm not stupid. I knew I'd crossed it with the first words I said. But that last part was so much worse than any way I'd ever hurt her before. And I knew that no matter what I did, no matter what I said, that was the kind of thing you could never, ever, ever take back. So I didn't even bother. I didn't even try to think of a way to apologize.

And I think he knew that, somehow. Because when he stood up, and he drew himself up all the way - tall, so tall, so tall I could barely see his face - I knew, that he knew, that everything was about to change. My Mom was whispering, so quiet I could barely hear her, but I knew what she was saying anyway. <I>Please. Please don't. Please don't, Stan-</i>

And that's when he opened his mouth wide for the first time, and I knew it was over.

<LINE DIVIDER>

(THE NIGHT; THE UNREALITY/DREAM; THE TOUCH; THE END)