The Face of Fear
by John Miller © 2008
She looks at the book in her lap, its black leather cover, feels the texture of the upraised bumpy leather. A chill licks her skin. Ice water dribbles down her spine. The book squirms on her lap which is surprising because it's thick, heavy.
What could possibly be making it move?
Terri's body trembles as the chill seeps into her bones, down to her soul. She grabs the sides of the metal folding chair to steady her trembling hands, and she decides she doesn't want to touch the book again. She looks down to keep from looking at everyone else in the room.
“You want to belong don't you?” Alvin asks in a high pitched voice. He's the group's leader, a computer nerd with an avid interest in the occult shared by all in attendance.
Necromancy. They all believe they can raise the dead, practice divination by reading the bloody entrails of domesticated animals. They are freaks and Goths and preppies wanting to play, to escape their studies and the expectations placed upon them from parents and teachers.
Terri imagined their necromantic meetings to be like the adult-versions of children's séances. On the slim chance they could do what they told her they could—and Alvin swore, “So help me God!”—she has come for the first time thinking only of her mother and her desire to hear mom's voice… to make sure she's okay.
“Be careful of your heart,” she remembers her mother's gentle reprimands when she was still alive.
She heard it over and over when she was little, constant warnings about her condition, mom's voice full of concern. The world was a better place when mom was alive, safer.
Now it's darker… so much darker.
“The doctor says your heart murmur can be serious if we don't watch it, sweetie. That's why you don't play sports. That's why we worry and—”
Alvin clears his throat. Terri's starts, her reverie shatters, and she looks at Anna sitting next to her. Anna smiles encouragement and hands her a Kleenex.
Terri takes it and dabs her eyes, wipes her nose. When she's done she doesn't know where to put it, finally stuffing it into her shirt pocket. She refuses to rest her hands on the squirming book in her lap. She hears something chatter and clenches her teeth.
“Yeah, I want to join,” Terri finally says. Her voice cracks. “I've wanted to talk to mom since she died. I guess this is how I'm going to do it.”
As long as I don't have to touch this book.
She swallows to keep from crying, but the tears come anyway. Her vision blurs. The book seems to sense her grief and it moves faster on her lap.
She wishes she could hand the thick tome back without upsetting them. She's not sure about this anymore. The book creeps her out, but not just because it squirms on her lap. It's the way it's made.
Plastic tubing is attached to the back of the book. It the kind used to connect filters to swimming pools. The book looks stupid connected to the plastic tubing, and now she wishes she hadn't come. She has no idea what the book is for, nor does she understand what why the billows are connected to the opposite end of the tubing. Is the billows supposed to blow air into the book through the plastic tubing? For what purpose?
“You wouldn't come to the graveyard,” Anna says patting her arm. “So we brought the graveyard to you.”
The book jumps an inch in her lap as if in response to Anna's words.
This is crazy! Insane!
She wonders if there's a mouse in the book. Something living is moving the book on her lap, making it squirm—what else can it be?
Yes, that's it: the book is hollowed out and there's a goddamned mouse in there jumping around. They're going to have such a good laugh when it crawls out and I scream… they're going to die laughing.
She glances at Anna with narrow eyes, shoots a scathing look at Alvin who is oblivious.
This is all wrong. People can't talk to the dead.
She nods as if concreting that fact in her mind.
This is nothing more than a stupid gag. They're going to make her pay for her fear. I wouldn't come out to the graveyard and play their stupid games.
At first when the book twitched in her lap, she thought Alvin had pumped air into it to make it move. But he had been sitting still without touching anything. The billows rests untouched on the floor beside him while the book continues moving.
When are they going to take this damned thing away?
No, they're not going to take it away. That's why they're watching her with expectant expressions. They won't let her go without opening it, the damned book that keeps moving as if it's alive. Something other than air from the billows makes the leather tome move, but what?
With a deep breath she grabs the heavy tome. That's what they're waiting for, she knows. They smile as she touches its cover, as she prepares herself for the laughter she's sure will soon follow fill the room.
We brought the graveyard to you.
The sooner she opens it the sooner she can get the hell out of there.
Just give them what they came for: a gag, a good laugh. Nothing more.
Leather squeaks when she slowly opens the book. She smells something dead, rotting.
She is right. The pages have been hollowed out, but there isn't a mouse inside. Instead, the gray face of her mother animates grotesquely inside the book. It twitches with dark lips cracking into a smile. Terri sees purple gums holding her mother's perfect teeth. She looks into her mother's yellowed eyes widening in recognition, and Terri inhales to scream.
Her lungs lock and her ribcage cramps. Her throat constricts, and her scream freezes like ice. Adrenalin pumps into her system when her heart thumps in her chest, loud and painful.
She hears her heart murmur through her scapula. Blood leaks from her heart, the source of the murmuring sound in her chest. The sound increases as her heart bleeds bloody tears for Mom. Her mother's face rests in her lap, stares at her from the book. In a sense, her heart rests in the hollowed-out book, a thing of death.
Her heart skips two beats, pauses in silence, then pounds wildly. The pulse in her ears drowns out all sound. Anna leans toward her with a kind smile, saying something she can't understand. She cannot take her eyes off the gray flab of face smiling at her.
Oh, mommy. What did they do to you?
Anna shakes her gently and Terri hears her say something about talking to your mother .
The roar of her pulse, like the surf in a seashell—only amplified a thousand times—continues to fill her ears. Her heart won't stop pounding, and veins in her temples protrude. She's never felt such pressure before.
It hits her then, what the bastards did. They had to have unearthed her mother's grave, opened her coffin and cut off her mother's face.
How else could they get it inside this book?
She shudders as her mom tries to talk. The jaw opens, the lips crack from movement, but no sound comes from her mother's face.
Oh, mommie, no. Please no.
“We don't do this for everybody,” Alvin says. “Consider yourself lucky.”
Terri cannot help but look at her mother's face, at the wide yellow eyes darting around the room, her lips moving as if engaged in silent prayer. Mother's neck is sewn into the bottom of the book.
I can't do this.
She takes a deep and shaky breath and feels her temples throb, her chest constrict.
This is wrong.
Alvin stands and places his foot against the billows, pumps his leg, forcing the air-pump into action. Air hisses from the billows into the plastic tubing which suddenly moves as if alive, like a snake. The air hisses as it flows through the plastic tubing into the back of the book. A pungent stench blows out of her mother's mouth.
The groan fills the room, a long sound of tortured sorrow and endless pain. It is her mother's voice, and yet it isn't. It sounds hollow somehow, baritone.
“Took a while to attach her vocal chords and sew her neck to the inside of the book,” Alvin says with a smug smile. “A work of genius, really. Took a lot of time and work, but we want you to join us.”
They want the money you left me, mom.
“We should be able to hear her talk now.” Anna smiles. “Isn't it exciting?”
She's wanted so badly to talk to her mother, hear her voice, but now that her mom's demonized voice fills the room…
“Ask your mom a question,” Anna says. “Go on.”
“She has no brain.” Terri clutches her chest, her words running over each other hysterically. “How can she talk without a freaking brain?”
“Your mother's memories are embedded in her flesh, sweetie.” Anna smiles and rubs her shoulder. “Calm down. This is as good as it gets.”
Her heart skips three beats. When it starts beating again, it overcompensates by pounding too fast. Way too fast. Pressure fills her eyes. Her temples throb in agony. Nausea fills her stomach and vertigo pushes against her. She stands knocking the book onto the floor, and Terri hears the singing of her own heart, the beginning of a mournful dirge.
“What's that sound?” Anna asks. “Are you okay?”
When her heart explodes she's already falling, her eyes closed, and she lies beside her mother in death, their faces near each other.
Terri opens her eyes when she realizes her heart has stopped. She cannot hear the heart murmur, and the silence is the loudest thing she's ever heard.
Her mother looks worried, same as in life, but no words come out of her mouth although it's moving. Alvin has stopped pumping the billows. He kneels at Terri's side. Anna and the rest encircle her, standing.
I'm dying!
Anna picks the book up and places it on a chair. Terri watches until her vision fades to black, until she feels herself floating like a cloud. When she opens her eyes again she is looking down at everyone gathered around her body on the floor.
She sees the open book on the chair. The face looks concerned and blackened tears like bile rims its eyes. It looks around for its daughter, and when it doesn't find her, it closes its eyes forever.
Darkness seeps into everything until she can't see, can't breathe. She floats in dreamless sleep until light from somewhere… and a presence she loves from somewhere…
Mommy?