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Chapter 3
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2024-10-29 19:42:56NOAH
I took my shoes off and kept them on the porch. Mom's room door was wide open. The bed was empty. She wasn't there. Must've been to the bathroom. I took everything out of the bags and began preparing for breakfast.
All of the crockeries were kept just as mom used to set them. But with a thick layer of dust. I spent more than half an hour washing a few dishes. That girl still hadn't come out. As time passed, my suspicion grew stronger that something was wrong.
I hit an egg against the edge of the bowl. It was a mess. Reminded me of the time when dad smacked me in the face with an egg. I was eight. Jenny and I were playing Tag. Right when dad threw an egg at a cockroach on the kitchen wall, I ran in. No sane man would do that. Dad was sane. But he was paranoid about insects that could fly.
I washed my hands and went to check on that girl. The bathroom door wasn't locked. There was no one inside.
"Hey?"
She was probably gone. I could see that she was reluctant to stay. But the situation made her. Now she was gone. Leaving splatters of blood and a broken yellow vase.
2 years later
Last week we got married, life seemed like a perfect featureless road leading to a cheerful ending.
Our yacht floated on the surface of lucid fluid gleaming with naïve hours of sunlight, shaped like a flawlessly smooth metal disc, exposing phoenix sand, off-white and trout grey colored stones over which small creatures with orange and black scales motioned their fins and tails to progress through the water. Light began to dwindle as we proceeded, at a modest speed, giving the water a light sapphire blue appearance. Puffs of air brushed past my skin, a faint earthy odor glided into my nose.
Ella stood before me her back commanding a view of my face.
“Imma go for a dive. You up?” I broke the silence.
She turned towards me, crouched, and ran her reedy fingers through the water waves.
“No way.” She chuckled. “Not in this freezing lake.”
I stopped the boat, took off my shirt, and plunged into the lake.
“You’re insane!” she said with a small laugh.
“No sane man can ever fall for you, love.”
“Oh, is that so?”
There was my pretty wife. Smiling at me. She sat on the swim platform. I swam to the other side of the boat and pulled her into the water before she could resist.
She took a deep breath, ran her fingers over her head, then wide opened her mouth with a hint of a smile.
"Oh, you didn't." She giggled. "You're so dead!"
The water was pressurizing my head. A muffled sound of singing flew to my ears. It was a song. About the trees. Without any music. The bubbles played it. A vague figure appeared a few meters away from my sight, which was gradually enlarging and lightening. 7-year-old Jenny. Her skin was pale, lips parched. Eyes wide open exposing brilliant blue iris. And thin light brown fibers descended till her elbows. She held out her hand to me.
“Come on Noah, let’s go. We’re all here, mom wants to see you.”
Reflections of her voice engulfed me.
“Jenny...”
My chin trembled; my eyes wouldn’t allow tears to fall. She touched my cheeks with her frosty bony fingers.
“You could’ve saved us, Noah! You knew. You knew it all along.”
I tried to touch her. She moved away. Then continued to move away from me. But it sounded like she was coming closer to me with every step. Her voice, word by word, got harsher.
“Yet you let us leave. Now you have to come to us. Come to us Noah. Mommy wants to see you.”
“I...”
“Why won't you come to us? Noah! Answer me!”
“Jenny, please...”
My voice box stopped vibrating.
Her fingers slid down to my neck clenching it. Her grip was too tight. I couldn’t breathe. Her eyes oozed out thick red liquid, skin withered away baring burnt flesh, lips parted releasing an extremely unpleasant odor that can be experienced from a rotten lifeless body.
“I’ll rip your head off you toerag!”
“what's wrong honey?”
Ella was holding my face. She stared with concern in her eyes. My heart pounded violently in my chest. Lungs malfunctioned. Ears at a loss of hearing a bare sound. I pushed myself up into the yacht and laid there wheezing.
“Jenny … Jen …”
“Hey, hey breathe. Look at me.”
“She was—here.”
“Calm down. No one was here.”
“Jen … my sister …”
“Honey breathe first.”
“Jen … she needs me. I gotta go, I … I gotta go back, mom … wants to see me.”
She dragged me near the boat and helped me up. I lied down. And stared at the sky.
“Baby it’s alright. You’re fine. It was like a bad dream. Nothing was real.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” she reassured me.
I placed my palms on the surface and got up.
“We should go back.”
“No. I'm fine.”
She started the boat anyway and turned it towards the house. Ella knew about these hallucinations. I knew whatever I saw wasn’t real. But they always get the best of me. Ella had been forcing me to see a psychiatrist. She was worried about me. Her care is what drives me insane for her. I love my wife. She is my everything.
I didn’t want to see a psychiatrist. Whatever I experience, may have an awful impact. But I lowkey wanted to feel my sister around me. Be it a ghost or something unreal. I just know that I met Jenny.
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Noah The only subject for argument over these past months between us has been my refusal to visit a psychiatrist and Ella forcing me into it. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to ask for. What I needed to get peace. I wasn’t satisfied with my life. Even though I had a reason to. I could just ignore everything. And focus on my family. My wife. My future children. I didn’t know how to tell about my feelings. Feelings about Jenny luring me to meet everyone. But I hated it when she says that. I wanted to forget that I was the reason they died. I remember how she said to me that if mom knew she would be very disappointed. It was a mistake. Just a mistake. That cost me everything. And cost them their lives. I wiped my tears. My head rested on a squashy grey pillow while my eyes gazed out of the glass window at a lonely nightingale perched on a branch of the tree. Its head turned towards me; eyes set on mine. A moment later it cruised through the air scanning the ground below.
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NOAH Jenny placed the white tile marked ‘m’ on the cell of the scrabble board, between ‘e’ and ‘a’. “This is not a real word,” I complained. “Yes, it is.” Jenny and I were sitting adjacent to each other on the bean bag in our toy room. A white wooden shelf stood vertical to the teal wall. Jenny fancied a mermaid-themed room while I had my heart set on a football theme, consequently, dad had the workers paint one wall as I wanted and the one opposite to it according to Jenny’s liking. Dad heard us quarreling and came to the room. “Dad Jenny’s cheating. She is losing so she made up some word.” Jenny answered as she got to her feet and wrapped both of her hands around dad’s, “Tasha taught me this word and he doesn’t know it so he’s calling me a cheater.” Dad beamed at her and walked over to the scrabble board. “Oh, honey.” He twinkled. “you’ve got your ‘e’ and ‘i’ misplaced, and there’s an ‘m’ missing over there.” He swapped the places of ‘e’ and ‘i’ tiles with one anot
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OLIVIA I opened the door and let the ward boys in. They unbolted the handcuffs, grasped both of Noah’s arms, and took him to Lane’s office through a narrow hallway. I could tell he was in anguish, in extreme agony. Lane is one of the senior psychiatrists at The Montana Mental Health Institution. He is a white bald man, who appears as a beast but has a heart of an angel. No one in this place is capable of controlling the patients in the way he does. I recollect a memory when we had a patient named Arthur Brown. He was huge and menacing. Nobody would dare to go within his reach, this man used to sit beside him when he was not handcuffed. To everyone’s astonishment, Lane would walk out of Arthur’s room alive and untouched. Noah sat in the chair before Lane’s desk, he seemed drowsy. His long grey sleeves reached till his fingers; he was staring at Lane with a piercing glare. “I’m going to spend the next couple of sessions interrogating you about your health and life. Is that okay wi
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OLIVIA The moonlight scattered over the swaying ripples in the ocean. Melissa and I stood in queue anxiously waiting for our turn, as one of the families progressed inside, we advanced to the ramp. “Can’t wait!” Melissa squealed with exhilaration. Elena had returned from Sweden after seven years. We both are orphans; she was the first person to speak to me at Ramsdale’s Home for Orphans after Mrs. Clayden, the administrator, of our orphanage. That day is carved into my mind, to this date, when my younger sister Abigail and I were taken to that place. As we sauntered into the enormous hall a woman appearing to be in her late 40s approached us. A monumental chandelier dangled from the ceiling, it wasn’t lit. The walls were all painted off-white. A vast red plain carpet lay over the wooden floor covering only the center of the room. There were two gigantic doors on either side and a set of wide stairs before us that led to a narrow corridor. The place bore a resemblance to a palac
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Olivia 4 days later I rotated the doorknob and pushed it open. Noah lay in the dark on his bed snoring. I pressed the switch on the wall on my right to light up one of the bulbs. On swinging the curtains to one side, the glimmering golden coin set in the sky beamed at me. “Hey good, you’re up. How are you feeling?” “Pretty good actually. Way better,” Noah uttered reposing his head on the headboard of his bed. Rude awakening. Last night he sited on his thin mattress with his prominent cheekbones descended, head hung with a feeling of blue. Those symptoms were divulging something significant. The evening I first encountered him he was reluctant to be injected but then in a few moments, he didn’t resist at all. “Great, do you think that you’re ready to go out to the cafeteria, for breakfast?” “Yeah,” he exclaimed. He scooted off to the hallway. The chimes of my phone tore through the air. It was Lane. “Hey, how’s it going?” “Well. I wanted to check on that guy Noah,
That Night in the Woods Chapter 10
Liam “One small coffee please.” I sagged over the counter tapping on the top, waiting for my coffee. It was a calming day; the tables were arranged under a clear blue sky, over the velvety and perfectly trimmed green grass, surrounded by 6 chairs each. Sun-kissed flowerbeds lined up from the counter and stretched to the main gate, manifesting various species and colors of flowers. I grasped my coffee, filled in a paper cup, in one hand and strolled out of the canteen while scrolling through my texts with the other hand. “Oh … I’m so sorry,” I said. I bumped into one of the patients. Most of the time an encounter like this is not very kind. That fine young man had an oblong beige face and brilliant blue close-set eyes. He had a clean shaved razor-sharp jawline, a wedge-shaped nose, and a set of broader shoulders. It was him, Noah Parker. Almost everyone here is aware of Noah Parker, the murderer. I stumbled into him. “Oh … no no I’m sorry,” he replied. I refuse to believe
That Night in the Woods Chapter 11
Noah I was strolling on the lawn when Olivia approached and notified me about the blood test that was to be conducted. I ascended to my room. Ethan entered with a syringe, removed its cap and turned the bevel up. He pulled the skin tight on the inside of my elbow and pierced the skin and vein in one movement. A week had passed, and yet there was no news about Ella that Olivia promised me. Every night I pat myself to sleep by fantasizing about those priceless moments we spent together. I inserted one end of the USB cable in my laptop and the other end in the port of microcontroller motherboard to transfer the C program that was supposed to operate the machine I had built. It was a transformer vehicle that could transfigure into a plane or a bot from a car on command by its remote control. It took me on a trip down the memory lane of the time when Jenny and I used to build a fan utilizing the motor extracted out of a store-bought remote-control car. A vehicle out of question is sup
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That Night in the Woods Chapter 33
OliviaEzra, Alyssa, and I perched in the waiting area. I wondered if this was the hospital she worked at. But if she worked here, then why was she sitting with us and not on her duty? She probably was employed in some other hospital or a nursing agency. My heart was throbbing. Any of the veins attached to it could explode any moment sending me up there to God. Every time a nurse passed by, my body was ready to jump up to listen to what they had to say. Hopefully, they’d tell us that she’s alright now. And we can go meet her. And probably take her home with us a few hours later. My sight fell over Ezra’s fidgeting fingers. She appeared as anxious as I was. A faint smell of medicine which was continuously lingering around my nose grew stronger. I lay another glance at Ezra. She looked like her name. A nice middle-aged lady with short hair and a fair complexion. Which made me think if she looked like her name in her teens. I don’t know about other people but that is what an Ezra would
That Night in the Woods Chapter 32
OliviaThen“Then his toes were minced. It was so--““Wait, hold on. Why are you watching those movies, Alyssa?”She gazed at my hands over which smeared the foam from the dish soap. I stopped scrubbing the plate for a moment and looked her in the eye. That was so messed up. We were barely able to keep an eye on her. “It was on the TV,” her volume dropped.“Not everything that they show on the TV is for you to watch.”I sat the plate in the basin after sponging, then reached the foamy sponge to the bottom of the blender jug.“But I didn’t have anything to do. You’re always busy doing something. We don't even go out anymore.” Her tone was getting whiny. Like it always does when she sees me serving dinner. Abruptly, a river of things that enrage me seeped into my brain. Yes, my brain was striving to make itself understand that she was a little child. A little child who was boiling my blood at the moment. Who was setting me on fire. I didn’t want this either. I wasn’t fond of washing d
That Night in the Woods Chapter 31
Olivia Then Two Months Later I stood before the stove, the sole of my foot resting on the side of my knee. As the bubbles started appearing over the pancake, I stuck the spatula beneath it and flipped it over. The pancake liberated a sweet and buttery aroma, only because I added butter essence. But, it would taste like crap. I could only make scrumptious pancakes using the mix. But they were way too expensive. We were running out of money. Dad’s bank accounts had been emptied. And after mom’s medicine, we only had a couple of hundred dollars left at home. She wasn’t in a condition to work. She could barely get out of bed lately. The future appeared dark to me. We hadn’t heard about dad since the cops took him. Mom could barely take care of herself, and Alyssa and I were left on our own. The stress, of how everything will end up, was catching up to me. The ringing of the house phone tore through my eardrums, making the sizzling noises unnoticeable. I set my foot on the ground, flip
That Night in the Woods Chapter 30
OLIVIA20 years ago“When your parents tell you to back off, you back off Olivia!” mom scolded me with one hand on her waist and the other holding her phone.“But--““I don’t want to hear any ifs and buts, young lady. What if someday your dad has to bear the consequences of your actions like this? Huh?” she interrupted.Alyssa gazed at us. I shot a glance at her. She was petrified. “I’m sorry.”The hand on her waist went down with a sigh. She dialed a number on the phone and walked into another room. Guilt engulfed me as mom’s words sauntered into my mind. I just wanted to be a good daughter. I wanted to protect him like he provided a shield for us. I knew my father was innocent. ****Mom had been strolling around the house, with the phone in one hand tapping her nails on it. Alyssa perched on the couch, peeling the skin on her lips, staring at mom. My stomach grumbled. But I was too stressed to eat something. “It’s okay girls. Don’t worry your dad will be alright.”Mom sat beside
That Night in the Woods Chapter 29
NOWNOAHElla lay curled up in bed. A white mushy blanket wrapped around her, eyes squeezed shut. I drew open the curtains and went back outside to grab the breakfast tray and bouquet of roses, which I ordered this morning. Holding the tray in one hand and flowers behind my back with the other, I gushed, “good morning WiFi!”She wrinkled her nose, cheeks raised up, a pout on her face with a hint of a smile.“No,” Ella shook her head, “No.”“No?” I asked.“Yeah--no.” She let out a chuckle.“I thought you’d like some breakfast in bed, with a thing I got here in the back.” I raised an eyebrow and beamed at her. “About the WiFi thing silly.” I knew she was talking about the ‘WiFi’ thing. I adored how my cringe pet names wrinkled her nose every time. She rested her back against the bed’s headboard, still enveloped in the blanket. I placed the tray before her, in which sat a stack of perfectly cooked souffle pancakes. Perfectly cooked according to her, overcooked in my opinion. She love
That Night in the Woods Chapter 28
NOW OLIVIA Tracy gazed at a band of white light over which sat a cluster of uncountable stars. As I ran my eyes down from the top, the dark blue tint altered into a dull purple. With descending height the hues kept on changing, from purple to a rose beige to the lightest shade of yellow. All of that sat over a dark tone of the blue-greyish background. The Milkyway band before our eyes walked as slow as a person stuck in quicksand. We were in a planetarium. They cast a Milkyway band over the ceiling, which appeared domed, tricking everyone’s eyes that it was real. I found it fascinating that humans were able to see what lies light years away. And the accurate projection of it was spectacular. It was one of the items on Tracy’s bucket list, to go stargazing. Even though doctors said that we could, I was paranoid. I didn’t want to risk her life by taking her more than a hundred miles away from the hospital to a star-gazing sight. Her condition has gotten worse as compared to the week
That Night in the Woods Chapter 27
OLIVIA 13th August, Monday, 1990 My eyes opened up to the beams of sunlight crashing in through the window. Alyssa was still asleep. I got to my feet and drew the curtains shut so that she did not wake up by the bright light. The clock struck nine in the morning. My stomach was grumbling. I didn’t have dinner last night. I could eat a horse and still be famished. I opened the door and shut it gently as I walked out of the room. My eyes caught dad grinning from ear to ear, holding moms hands, leaning over the kitchen countertop. I rubbed my eyes hard and widened them to make sure it wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t! My heart did a backflip. I was euphoric that he was back. And he was alright. At least physically there was no visible damage. He has been gone for a long time. “You look ravishing, honey.” Dad’s smile widened.”I missed you girls.” I sprinted into the kitchen and hugged dad from the back. “I missed you too dad. Where have you been?” I asked him. He turned around and hugged
That Night in the Woods Chapter 26
Noah It had been over a month since Olivia yanked my heart out of my chest and chopped it into a million pieces. It still is divided into a million pieces that I have scattered now. I wasn't prepared to believe her. My mind wasn't ready to believe this atrocious truth. I just wanted to sleep. I didn't want to feel anything. I didn't want to feel this air engulfing me. This mushy bed, I was sitting on. The body my soul dwelled in. I just wanted to stop. Stop feeling everything. Every time I hear her words heat of anguish arises in my body and soul. The fury takes over. I couldn't control myself when it happened two weeks ago. I slammed the door shut pounding my head over it, expecting the physical pain to put an end to that agony inside of me. It didn't go away. I smacked the glass window with my bare hands until the shards of glass punctured my hand. It still didn't go away. It won't ever go away. I wanted to do it again. I wanted to hurt myself for believing she existed. I wanted t
That Night in the Woods Chapter 25
Olivia Sunday 24th June 1990 We were having the time of our lives. Alyssa's fifth birthday was right around the corner when she desired to go to Hawaii. She didn't say that she wanted to go to Hawaii. Last Friday, we were sitting on the patio after dinner. I rested my head on the armchair's backrest, with one hand over my bloated stomach, holding back a burp because mom taught us that it was discourteous to let out a loud belch around people. I couldn't help cramming that delicious salmon and sweet potato wedges in my mouth. Dad swiped through the images of travel destinations on his tablet, racking his brain that what will be our destination for the family vacation. We go on vacation twice every year. On my and Alyssa's birthday then Mom and Dad's birthday each year alternatively. While he was swiping through photos of some of the eye-catching places in Hawaii, Alyssa, who was dangling over the armrest of Dad's chair, pointed at one of the pictures and screamed with excitement, "I
