“What if she is not hurting us? It would break my heart that I ever thought that she could have been hurting us.” Wilson replied lamely and I shook my head sadly. It was obvious that he was not ready to confront the truth yet.
“Let’s just get home and see Preggo at the hospital. We have already been through enough emotions for one day.” I said and turned my face away again.
A few hours later we were back from the hospital. We settled around the dining table to eat dinner, but everything felt so different to me.
I could not get the image of Grandma Kirsten’s brain all over the passageway down to the kitchen and her blood splattering on my body as I chopped her into smaller pieces so she would fit into the bag.
I had to hold down my nausea and I barely ate more than a few spoonfuls of food. I looked at Wilson and saw that he had not even touched his plate at all.
My mom, on the other hand, was eating heartily. It was almost like she was having one of the most enjoyable dinners of her life in the house.
“Why are you staring at me like that? Jealous, I do not want to risk looking like a twig?” Mom’s sharp reply cut into my thoughts and I jerked back to reality.
My thoughts had gone and the image of my mom eating dinner was suddenly replaced with the gory imagination of her drinking blood instead of soup and eating brains instead of bread.
Finally, I could not hold back the nausea and ran to the guest bathroom to throw up. After a few minutes of retching, I opened the door to find Wilson standing outside holding out a pill mom had given him for me to swallow.
I shook my head and whispered to him that I would not be taking it from him.
“Mom asked you to take this. She said it would help you feel better and eat more too.” He said.
“Wilson, I am not taking any pills. I am fine, just a little stressed, and understand the weather. Tell Mom thank you for the drugs, but I will be retiring to my room upstairs. I believe that resting well and early enough would help me bounce back to normal.” I argued and was surprised when Wilson shook his head slowly at me.
“You have to pretend you are. Something is happening to Mom. We do not know what yet. We do not even know if we are currently safe with her, and you want to disobey her in such a rude way. Something that you have never done before. Take the pill and throw it down the sink, you do not have to take it, but she definitely does not have to know the details. You can bid her goodnight after that.” Wilson advised and placed the pill carefully in my palm.
I went back into the bathroom and flushed the pill down the toilet. I turned on the shower to mask out the flushing sound and then threw some water on my body to make it look like I had to quickly wash my body.
I waited a few minutes before walking back to the dining table. Wilson’s plate remained untouched while Mom’s plate was empty, and she was sipping a glass of red wine before I came in.
“I have to go to bed now Mom. Tomorrow is a long day. I want to try to get enough rest so that Wilson and I can have enough strength to set up the bonfire for the barbecue tomorrow.” I lied, hating every minute of it.
Mom took a careful look at me and burst into laughter. It was an eerie laughter, something that would scare you as it sounded like it was straight out of a horror movie. Even Wilson shuddered at the creepiness of the laughter.
“Mom? Are you okay?” Wilson asked, and my mom turned her head sharply at him, leaving us scared that she might snap her neck.
She used to have such reactions to situations before now, but we have never thought so much about it and only said that it might just be the trauma of holding her husband in her arms as he died.
“I am. You can go. I do hope you feel better soon. I would hate for you to be sick at all.” She said, her voice and body composure suddenly returned to normal.
“Okay. Good night Mom” I bade her goodnight and left.
“I think I have to go too, Mom. See Ashley up to her room and make sure that she is really fine. She really did not look good. I hope that she is not coming down with a fever.” I heard Wilson say behind me.
When I got to the top of the stairs, I looked down and caught Mom’s eyes staring intently at me.
Our eyes met and she smiled coldly. The type of smile that would have you running to the security agents for protection.
I pretended not to have noticed the weird smile and smiled right back at her. Her smile changed into one of the warmest smiles I have ever seen that I began to doubt if I even saw the creepiness in the first one.
“Goodnight children. Sleep tight. Mama is just going to indulge in a bottle of red wine a bit before going to sleep.” She called out after us and laughed too joyfully.
“Maybe she is just tipsy,” Wilson whispered as he got to me. I just shrugged my shoulders calmly.
“Lock your doors properly tonight. We have a body in the car and another in the basement. By this time tomorrow, all of these would be a thing of the past.” Wilson said and kissed my forehead gently.
“Alright brother,” I replied calmly and entered my room, making sure to lock all of my doors and windows.