Welcome To The Nightmare In My Head
The obscenely bright orange trick-or-treat bag lays near the gutter, smashed bits of candy strewn over the gravel, pieces of it littering the sidewalk. It looks a lot like someone smashed a giant piñata right in the street, but none of the kids have dared to touch the treats, as if the tiny, colorfully wrapped sweets are filled with poison.
And, in a way, someone did smash a piñata in the street, only it wasn't a Mexican party favor adorned in bright bits of paper, it was a fourteen year old boy. A fourteen year old boy who now lays face down in the street, the blood seeping from the side of his mouth and nose and creating a sickening puddle on the pavement, his neck snapped at an odd angle, just like the rest of his mangled body. His arms are splayed out at his sides, one elbow bent backward, and the same goes for his legs. He looks like one of those posable dolls that the little girls like to play with, the ones you can mangle and shape into impossible positions and they still stay as sturdy as the day they came out of the box.
This poor boy's eyes are still wide open, filled with some odd form of fear, even though now the light has completely dimmed in them. The blue waters look both too deep and too shallow all at the same time, like the ocean rising and falling in a storm, unable to find the proper tide. They look like those glass eyes that people put in those horrifically realistic looking ventriloquist dummies, the ones the dead boy used to hate the most. He will never hate them again. He will never hate anything again. But he will never love again, either.
To look into those deep, sightless eyes is to go mad, and that's what the boy's brother is doing right now; going mad. He's screaming his lungs out, calling out to every person occupying this street for help, telling them all that something is terribly, terribly wrong. He can't feel the tears anymore, running a heated pathway down his cheeks, but he knows they're there because he can no longer see past the watery haze, and that's what's scaring him most of all right now, the not seeing. He needs to see his brother, needs to catch these last few glimpses of his pale, soft face and commit them to memory, no matter how gruesome they are. Because this is the last time he will ever see his brother, except for when he and his Ma have to go down to the coroner's office and identify the body, laid out on a metal table and covered in a sterile, plastic sheet, and he isn't sure he can handle that. Later, when they do go to the morgue, he will instantly burn the images of his dead brother on that table out of his memory. These last images of his brother in the street will be the only ones he will ever remember, because they are the only ones he will ever be able to live with.
Adults trickle into the street, try to pull the crying boy away so that the EMTs can swoop in and take the dead boy off the street, but he's struggling too much for them to get a good grip on him. By accident, or possibly on purpose, the boy's elbow catches an anonymous man's nose, breaking it, bringing blood. The man in question is not upset, merely surprised, and he figures that if this kid is willing to put up this much of a fight to stay next to his dead brother then he should be allowed to do so. The man walks over to one of the EMTs, holding a hand to his bleeding nose, and asks them to fix him up real quick. After all, it'll be a while before they're able to get within even a foot of the body in the street.
The boy in the street, the dead one, is Murphy MacManus. He had pushed and persuaded until finally Connor agreed to go trick-or-treating with him; Connor wishes now that he had never given in. Murphy was crossing the street in his innocent quest for more candy (his bag was almost full, but he wanted more, just like every other kid out that night), when someone going much too fast for the residential area screamed through the intersection, never slowing or stopping or even trying to swerve away from Murphy. Murphy tried to get out of the way, tried to jump back to where he'd been, back to Connor, but he wasn't as fast as that damn car.
And then came the sounds, those sounds that would haunt Connor for years to come. The thudding sound Murphy's body made as it came into contact with the front bumper of the car, the hideous snapping of Murphy's neck, so loud and clear even with all the other noise surrounding Connor. And then that final slumping sound as Murphy hit the ground and remained there, unmoving, dead to the world.
Connor couldn't remember much about the seconds following the hit. He was sure he had screamed something, probably Murphy's name, though it could also have just been an unintelligible shout of agony releasing itself from deep inside his chest cavity. He didn't remember running into the street. One moment he was on the sidewalk, the next his was patting uselessly at Murphy's body, trying to rouse him, trying to bring him back to life, and failing miserably on both accounts.
He could feel something inside of him breaking, something shattering into a million tiny pieces that could never be put back together again; whether that something was his heart or his sanity he couldn't tell.
Those eyes. Those eyes that stared both at him and away from him, unfocused, unblinking, gone. That was what finally did him in completely. Looking in those eyes. He collapsed onto the ground beside his brother, gently wrapping an arm around the mangled body, and got as close as he possibly could. The pooling blood was warm and sticky, staining his hair and cheek red, but he didn't care. He stared into those lifeless eyes until the dawn broke, and the EMTs had to carry the boys away together, for they could not be separated.
Connor screamed himself into awareness, the tears marking rivers from the corners of his eyes down into his hair and ears, the salt waterfalls now coursing down his cheeks. He struggled to breathe, his chest feeling too constricted, and he gasped down huge gulps of air that didn't seem to make it to his lungs.
"Another nightmare?" Murphy asked, quietly moving from his own bed to Connor's.
Murphy. Murphy was okay. Murphy wasn't hurt or dead, he was perfectly fine; he was alive and breathing and rosy cheeked, his blue eyes wide and full of love and concern, and Connor thought he could drown in those waters and swim in them until the end of time so long as that meant Murphy was safe and secure.
Connor didn't answer the question, because Murphy already knew the answer. Murphy had just said it as a way to release Connor from those final holds of shadowy sleep and the sorrow the dream, or rather nightmare, had brought on; it worked every time.
As soon as Murphy was seated on Connor's bed, Connor reached out and wrapped his arms tightly around Murphy's waist and shoulders. He pulled his twin into his embrace, his fingers caressing frenzied pathways over Murphy's skin, making sure everything was as it was supposed to be. Connor buried his face into Murphy's hair, his soft dark hair, and took a deep inhale; only Murphy's scent could fill Connor's lungs with the air they needed, and he partook of it with something akin to gratitude, something akin to reverence.
Fresh tears poured from Connor's eyes, dripping onto Murphy's mussed hair. Murphy didn't mind. He was too worried about his brother, about how these nightmares were affecting him, to care about Connor manhandling him. To be honest he actually kind of liked it, knowing that Connor worried about him and cared about him as much as he worried and cared about Connor.
Connor let out a small whimper, sounding a lot like a wounded baby animal, and Murphy knew that was Connor's plea for him to lay in bed with him and hold him, at least until his fear subsided. Murphy obliged, crawling over Connor and wriggling under the blankets and then covering them both underneath the warm sheets.
Connor graced Murphy with a grateful smile, and then cuddled close into his twin. Now that Connor had assured himself that Murphy was alright, it was Murphy's turn to hold Connor. Murphy would card his fingers through Connor's hair, embrace him tightly, and whisper sweet nothings in his ear until his breath stopped hitching and he felt ready to talk about whatever particular nightmare had plagued him that night.
So Murphy did just that, his fingers gently pulling at the soft, silky strands of Connor's lush hair, his other hand rubbing soothing circles into Connor's bare back, his lips pressing onto whatever exposed skin he could find on Connor's face. He kissed his twin's forehead, cheeks, nose, and chin repeatedly until Connor stopped shaking.
When Connor was finally still, his gaze meeting Murphy's once more, Murphy voiced the fateful question, "What was it about this time, Conn?"
Connor's eyes widened just slightly, the tenseness returning to his muscles, but Murphy rubbed it all away.
"We were out trick-r-treatin', an' some asshole sped down th'street just as y'were crossin' it. Y'couldn't move outta the way in time, and… and…" Connor collapsed into sobs again, this time burying his face into the crook of Murphy's neck.
"I understand, Conn. You don't gotta say no more." Murphy whispered, holding his brother close.
This had happened every year since they turned ten. For at least a week before Halloween, sometimes two, Connor would get horrifically vivid nightmares, all of which concerned Murphy dying in some gruesome way. The situations usually varied, though this car accident one came about every night just before Halloween, and all of them equally terrified Connor.
Halloween was Murphy's favorite holiday. He loved dressing up in a costume, getting free candy, and staying up late to gorge himself on said candy while he and Connor watched horror movie marathons until they eventually fell asleep in front of the TV. But Connor had come to dread the day, had come to dread the whole month of October even, because of these persistent nightmares. Every year he asked Murphy to stay home with him, and Murphy always agreed to make Connor happy, but by the time Halloween finally did arrive Connor would cave in; he couldn't possibly deprive Murphy of his favorite holiday celebration.
It was no different this year. Connor had asked Murphy when the nightmares started to stay home this year, and Murphy had instantly conceded, though the pout he tried to hide made Connor feel as guilty as a death row convict. And tonight was Halloween night; he knew that because the nightmare he'd suffered had been the car accident one. He still didn't want Murphy going out, even if he was with him, but he didn't want to upset Murphy by saying so. And when the time came Murphy would silently go up to their shared room to get into his costume and grab his trick-or-treat bag, and Connor would put on some kind of festive hat they had lying around so he wouldn't miss out completely, and the two would walk the streets together. Nothing ever happened, but Connor was on edge the entire time they were out.
Connor, still locked in his twin's embrace, made himself the same promise that he did every year. I'll never let anythin' happen t'Murph. If he's crossin' the street, I'll cross with him, so close it'll be like we're damn near sewn t'gether. That way, if some asshole does come n' cause an accident, I'll get hit, too. Maybe I'd even cushion the blow fer Murph, then he'd live an' I'd be the one to die. But he'll be safe, no matter what.
And maybe that promise really was what kept both of those boys safe every year.