I could still smell the heavy metallic scent of my best friend's blood on the grass, hear his blood curdling screams as the animal ripped into him like a piece of meat, and I could still see the gutted remains of his body in my mind like a freshly painted picture. Flash bulb memories, that's what the therapists called them. Yet, even with all the psychiatrist sessions and the anti – psychotic medications that my parents could force down my throat, I still awoke in the middle of the night; grisly images burned behind my eyelids like pictures from a B rated horror film.
And after two weeks, they began to follow me in my waking hours. The medicine numbed the depression and the wild outbursts of irrational anger, but it didn't stave off the scars left behind by the trauma. I began to isolate myself from the rest of my family. My mother was mostly quiet, but the tension she put off when in my presence was nearly enough to suffocate me. Julia, my fiancée, feared for her own safety due to my instability. I feared for her as well. I felt as if I were standing at the edge of a precipice, teetering back and forth between the solidity of sanity and the endless black pit of despair and anger. Even my sister, Emily, had begun to question my lucidity. She watched my down spiral, like a dog fixated on its favorite toy in the hands of its owner. But unlike our mother, she voiced her concerns and constantly reached out despite my repeated rebuffs.
The house, once a place of safety and security during my childhood years, had become a trap; its very walls closing in on me with each breath I took. And I wanted to escape it, to escape everything: the constant cover of storm clouds hovering over me, the nightmares, the terror, the outbursts, and the ever growing feeling of anxiety crawling beneath my skin. I felt trapped within myself – and I was slowly going mad. Each day that passed, my terrifying visions seemed to become a little more real, tangible; the smell a little stronger, the sound of my best friend's flesh ripping a little clearer, and animalistic growls coming from the beast murdering him a little more familiar.
Thump. Thump. Thump. My eyes flashed up from the intricate grains of the kitchen table to the source of the noise across the room; the sound of my mother's kitchen knife slicing through a particularly thick cut of prime beef for one of her famous stews. I swallowed against a cold lump of fear as the smell permeated the atmosphere around me, bringing with it the compulsion to vomit mixed with the disturbing urge to close the distance between us and rip the meat from her grasp. My hand fluttered to my lips in the next instant, the urge to vomit becoming that much stronger as I pushed back the fantasies of biting into the raw flesh and reveling in the copper taste of blood coating my tongue and throat. But before I could even entertain the idea of bolting from the room to empty my stomach contents into the nearest toilet, the chopping noise had stopped and my mother's eyes were on me.
"Josh? Sweetie?" she questioned softly, her voice dripping with trepidation as if the very notion of speaking to me scared her. The chocolate brown depths of her eyes, guarded, reflecting the way of which she spoke to me.
I simply stared at her. There was nothing I could say to her that would quell the hidden worry building inside of her. She, of course, pretended to be fine for my benefit. Her rehearsed smiles, the kind a battered wife would placate to an unknowing public, were beginning to wear thin and the manic edge flickered through – cutting sharper than the steel blade in her hands.
My mother wasn't one to typically launch into lectures; she preferred to stay in the background and accept thing. But, I could see that the 'incident' (as my father had come to start calling it) had become as much of a strain on her as it did on myself. Shadows clung to the delicate skin beneath her eyes from apparent sleep deprivation; she said it was because of stress, on part of my father; I knew it was because of me and my unpredictable psychotic breaks.
She frowned slightly, her eyes swimming with obvious concern. "Josh..."
Before she could continue, I sharply threw up a hand to cut her off. I'd heard it all before and I couldn't – didn't – want to hear it again. They were worried about me, about my state of mind, and they wished that I would consider signing myself into a facility for awhile. I remained firm that I could handle it and that I wasn't that far gone. I went to the therapy sessions, and I took the drugs the doctors prescribed. Hell, I even allowed my father to shrink me in the privacy of our own home. But I didn't think staying in a psyche ward was needed and I wasn't about to subject myself to that kind of humiliation... at least not yet.
In a flash of movement, the scene shifted; my eyes were holding not those of my mother, but of the beast that had nearly killed me along with my friend. Its upper lip was curled back menacingly, exposing its sharp – blood drenched – canine teeth. My eyes widened like a deer in head lights; air drug out of my lungs in labored breaths as if I were teetering on the verge of a panic attack. And in the next instant, I could feel my heart rate picking up, galloping into a terrible rhythm faster than humanly possible.
Terror tore up my spine, blazing white hot at the back of my brain as the beast lowered itself into a position to spring. 'Oh, God!' I thought, internally panic stricken but unable to move from the chair I occupied; I felt as if I were weighted down by my own fear.
Before I had a chance to scream, the wolf lunged for me; I pitched reflexively in my chair and tumbled to the ground, coming to land with my cheek pressed against the cold tile. I made no move to get up, my chest heaving as I tried to focus on the sound of the air rasping in and out of my lungs, the feeling of stone pressed against my face. But despite my best efforts, the images of the creature ripping my friend apart like a slaughtered deer replayed themselves in my mind as I laid there, lashing at my heart and tearing open healing wounds.
Clenching my eyes shut I waited for the images to cease as I concentrated on the sound of rapid footsteps, and soon my mother's panicked voice. In less than a second, she was at my side. And I opened my eyes to the blurred vision of her hands frantically fluttering around my face.
"Josh? Are you okay? What happened?"
Bolting to my feet, I stumbled backward toward the arched door way separating the living room and kitchen. "I'm sorry – I just – I have to leave." I stammered out, tumbling over my own words as I wildly spun myself around and broke into a sprint – leaving her staring after me in complete confusion.
Her voice carried after me as I threw open the front door and flew down the porch steps, the sound of my feet muted as I leapt the last two and tore across the yard to my car.
She stood there on the porch, her eyes swimming with tears belying the pain she felt as she watched me climb into the driver's side of my car. My skin crawled. Even the satisfying purr of the engine roaring to life couldn't chase away the sudden wave of guilt crashing over me for making my mother weep.
Great, I internally whined.
In the next instant, I was mashing my foot against the gas pedal and tearing up the gravel in my wake as I ripped a semi donut and screeched my tires in my desperate attempt to escape the madness that was the Kasey house hold. Just a few hours, I reasoned with myself. I would stay out a few hours; go by the nearest diner, grab a bite to eat, maybe swing by Gino's bar and grab a beer or two. Maybe even three. Or, four. Depending on how adventurous I was feeling.
I'd driven around for awhile. Aimlessly taking the back roads of Ithaca, until I found myself sitting in a corner booth at a local Denny's. I'd been pushing my fork around in their version of scrambled eggs when the first spasm of pain struck. (If you could even call them that; they were hard... and kind of chewy. I nearly vomited after the first bite and decided my appetite was lost after that.)
Before I could recover, and blame the stomach pain on food poisoning, which was at the top of my list. Another one hit; this one was even more paralyzing than the previous. It ripped through my body in a wave of thousands of tiny razor blades, leaving me gasping in dry gulps of air like a drowning man who'd just broke the surface of the water.
I stumbled from my booth and lurched across the room, one arm wrapped around my stomach as if I were trying to hold myself together. Only one thought stood out against the thousands screaming inside of my head... I needed to get out.
Terror, along with another crippling spasm, seared through my body as I desperately fumbled for the door handle. Another wave of fire coursed through my body, and my knees went out from under me reducing me to a cowering position as I clutched the handle like a life preserver. I clenched my teeth against a cry of pain, and the skin of my knuckles stretched white over bone. Somehow, I managed to jimmy the door open just enough that I could crawl outside.
Once I found the cool evening September air, and the concrete, I forced myself to my feet and staggered across the parking lot toward the woods bordering the restaurant. Blinding white hot flashes of panic burned at the back of my brain, urging my legs onward. Even if I wanted to collapse and let it all take me, to let myself go with it and hope that death would come swiftly, I couldn't.
After reaching the seclusion of the trees, a scream broke from my lips that spoke of the agony burning through my body. I went rigid as it ripped its way up my spine, crashing to my knees in the following instant. My bones made a sickening crunch as they snapped and began their shift. I threw my head back, howling out another cry of pain that increasingly turned animalistic as I prayed for death.
More bones cracked and my ribcage sprung wide, straining the fabric of my flannel shirt as I lurched forward and clawed my talon tipped fingers into the dirt searching for a release. I was changing, becoming something that had lain dormant inside of me. Now it was tearing its way out of my flesh, revealing itself to the world. And it was terrifying.
Above the roar of the rising snarl rumbling in my throat and resonating in my ears, I could hear the last of the buttons pop off of my shirt; the stress of the strain had become too much and they'd given way one by one, until the last one pinged off and bounced into the leaves and foliage.
Before I succumbed to the encroaching darkness blotting out the edges of my vision, I released my last cry of anguish and screamed until my lungs burned and the growls of the beast over took the remaining shreds of my humanity...