When Charlie opened her eyes she was not in her living room. She wasn't in her bedroom or her kitchen or in her bathroom. She wasn't even in her own house. She was in a hotel lobby.
"Where am I?"
Charlie started searching for her husband and her son. She couldn't see them.
"Alastor! Aaron!" She called.
No answer. Panic seized hold of her, she started to blindly run down the first corridor and check each room for them. To her surprise, none of the doors were locked and every room she looked in was completely empty. That is until she reached the last five doors at the end of the hall.
She opened the first door and she let out a scream in terror. The entire floor was bloodied and the crimson fluid was flowing from a body that had been dismembered. It's lavender skinned arms, legs, hands, feet, had been ruthlessly cut from the body and into small pieces. Even the long white hair had been sheared from the scalp. But she didn't see the head or the face. Maybe it was for the best that she didn't see either one.
She slowly backed away from the doorway and opened the second door. That one had a similar horror show. A different body this time, but it too had been left mutilated in a pool of blood. The third door, no mutilation but another dead body who's blood stained the floors. What was behind the fourth door was barely any different.
Now Charlie was petrified. Her heart was pounding so fast and her veins were chilled, she could hardly breathe. She feared that when she did find her family, they would be in the exact same state as those four dead bodies. The very notion of that almost kept her from opening the fifth door, the very last one. She was frightened of what she could possibly find on the other side.
But suddenly, she heard the sound of a radio playing from behind that door, and she thought that she heard someone's humming being mixed with it. A humming that she recognized. This door she approached slowly, gripping the knob softly with her hand and slowly turning the knob, slowly opening the door. She saw no blood and no body inside. All that was in there was a vintage, 1930's style radio playing on top of a shelf.
Confused, she stepped inside the room as quietly as she could, trying to figure out what was going on here.
"Hello Charlie."
She was instantly startled by the unexpected voice from behind but she was instantly relieved when she turned around to find that the person standing there was her husband. Alive and well.
"Oh Alastor thank God." She panted. "I saw something so horrible! There were all these bodies and so much blood! Where...Where's Aaron? Where are we? How did we even get here?"
He smiled at her, and it was that unhinged smile that she recognized from when he was a boy and he had snapped that time.
"Will you dance with me Charlie?" He asked.
"What?" Her confusion was triple fold. "Dance with you? At a time like this?"
"Please Charlie." He pleaded with his hand reaching out. "Please don't make me beg."
Common sense told her that he must've been crazy to actually want to dance at a time like this. In a place she did not know which was full of dead bodies and their son was no where to be found. Yet despite her better judgement, she placed her hand in his. With his free hand, he snapped his fingers and the radio played a different song.
It played 1938's "I'll Be Seeing You."
As soon as the first word was sung, Alastor pulled her closer to him and moved his left arm to hold her, pressing her head to his chest as the two of them slowly moved to the music.
"Do you remember the first time we danced, Darling?" He asked her. His voice had an accent that she couldn't place.
"Yes. It was at the church carnival. We were competing in a cake walk."
He chuckled.
"Memory can be so funny, don't you think?"
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"On second thought, I don't think you'd believe me if I told you, Sweetheart." He smiled into her hair. "You know I never told you this but, holding you in my arms is my favorite thing in the world."
"It is?"
"Yes. Always has been. Even when I was a boy, too shy to touch you, I still wanted to hold you. I wanted to hold you forever and ever. Because when you're in my arms, no one can take you away from me."
His tone was chipper but she could sense an incredible amount of sadness within it.
"Why would anyone want to do that?" She asked.
"It's happened before."
She felt her breath hitch.
"I don't think you can even comprehend how much I love you Charlie. To see you everyday and every night is a blessing, and to be without you is utter torture."
She could feel his grip tighten, but not enough to hurt her or make her feel uncomfortable.
"When he ripped you from my arms and made it so that I could never see your face again, let alone hold you again, that was true Hell. But he couldn't keep me from you forever. I knew I'd find you again and when I did I promised myself that no one would take you away from me this time."
"I don't understand what you're saying. No one has ever taken me from you."
"Yes that's what's so wonderful about this new life we have together. We see each other everyday, we're married, we even have children. Ha! I started out not wanting children at all because I was afraid that I was far too psychotic to love them. But the day you brought them into my world, I never thought I would instantly love anyone else as much as I love you."
"I love you too Alastor."
"I know you do. I can't imagine why though. I am truly a vile and loathsome creature."
"What? That's not true. Why in the world would you say that?"
"Because it is true. I'm a vicious, disturbed, and mentally ill man. I have this terribly wicked side that I try so hard to keep under wraps. I cannot bear the thought of scaring you or hurting you. So I made myself into a wimp and buried that side of myself so deep, that I even forget that it's there. But sometimes that side can't stay hidden."
His hand moved to comb his fingers through her blond locks. Was it her imagination or did his fingernails feel longer?
"I will never let anyone hurt you Charlie. You or our children. Never. And sometimes that desire proves stronger than the one I have to keep my other side buried. Each time someone ever tried to hurt you or one of our children, I would unconsciously allow that side of myself to be released because it's the only part of myself that is strong enough to keep you all safe. But I know how much that side frightens you my dear. I am so sorry."
She knew that he was referring to when he killed those boys who tired to rape her and then later that abomination that tried to eat Aaron.
"I just want you to know that when I'm in that state, I would never hurt you or Aaron or Carrie. You three are my whole world. Everything I do, I do for you all."
"I know you would never hurt us Alastor."
She did know that. She couldn't explain why, but she knew. She knew even back then when they were kids, when it first happened, that he wouldn't harm a hair on her head.
"You hurting us is not what frightens me. When you get like that, you seem thrilled with what you can do. The carnage you create. I'm scared that once you get like that, you won't ever come back from it and it could ruin your life. You have such a good heart but not everyone can see it. So many people think there's something wrong with you and I...I couldn't bear it if you were to end up in a psychiatric ward or jail or worse."
"Oh my charming demon belle." He sighed lovingly. "No wonder you try so hard to redeem sinners."
"Wait, what?" She said. "What did you call me?"
She looked up from his chest and gasped to find that her husband did not look at all as she had known him to look. He was so much taller, his skin beige colored, and he had a broad, permanently afixed smile full of sharp, yellow teeth. His hair had turned red and was angled bob-cut with black tips at the ends and two large, black tipped tufts of hair extending from the top of his head, evoking the ears of a deer Small antlers were on his head, he wore a pin-stripe suit and a monocle, and his eyes were that haunting red shade that she had seen him develop whenever he lost control.
She tried to speak but in that moment she lost her voice. At first she became scared again because she didn't know who this man or...Creature was. She started to pull away from him but then his maniacal smile turned into a gentle one. The very same gentle smile that belonged to the man she married. The one that he had always used to comfort her. To assure her that everything would be alright as long as he was here.
"Alastor?" She found her voice inquiring.
"Yes my dear. It's still me. This is just another part of myself. The part that I'm scared and ashamed of. That part that I wanted to forget because I was terrified that it would hurt you."
Her fear began to fade.
"You don't remember, but there was a time when you loved this part of me. To this day, it escapes me as to why but your love was so deep and true that I found myself wanting to become a better man for you. Sadly though, not everyone was pleased with your noble deeds."
He turned to the open door way where the other four rooms were.
"Those bodies you found, that was the work of the person who took you from me before. The person who just refuses to let us be happy. But I promise you, history will not repeat itself."
"He who?" Charlie asked. "And what do you mean by history repeating itself?"
He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
"No matter what happens, no matter what I do, no matter what life we're born into, please remember this one thing. I love you. I'll always love you, and there's nothing anyone can say or do to change that."
Suddenly there was fire. Fire all around and right before her eyes, his body was engulfed in flames, slowly turning to ash. She screamed again.
...
When she woke up it was still pitch black outside. She could feel her heart ready to jump out of her chest and she would taken off, desperately searching for someone but stopped when she heard light snoring next to her.
She looked down to find her son fast asleep between her husband and herself. First she gathered up the boy into her arms, kissed his temple, and rocked him back and forth just as she had done with him when he was a baby. She prayed from the depths of her soul the horror she had seen in her mind would never touch her child and that soon she would have her other child back in her arms.
She then tucked him back on to the mattress and moved to the other side where her husband laid. She curled up next to him and gazed upon his beautiful face. She thought about what he had said to her in her dream and wondered if that's how he truly felt inside.
She kissed his temple too. Then she kissed his eyes, his cheeks, his nose, and finally his mouth. As their lips touched, he started to wake a little and he responded. He sleepily kissed her and when they parted, he stared at her with a dazed look of pure adoration and love.
"I love you." She told him while stroking his hair and caressing his cheek. "I love you more than you'll ever know."
He smiled and slowly drifted back to sleep.