Page 113 of Requiem

Julia 44

Trudy has a bat. A baseball bat. And she is saying something to Jeremy, who is lying a few feet away from me on the flagstone entryway at the foot of the staircase. I can’t seem to speak or move, but I can just see the two of them in my line of sight. I notice that his leg is twisted at an unnatural angle. He is awake and looking at her as she speaks, but I am floating in and out of consciousness, only catching bits and pieces of the conversation.

“Matthew thought this was the safest place for David to be. Of course, no one had any idea that this is where you’d taken her …”

Is that why Trudy is here? Matthew had her bring David here? Oh, God. Please don’t let my baby see me like this. I don’t want him to remember me like this, sprawled out dead on the floor of his home.

“Please, Mom, please. It hurts so much. Help me, Mom …” Jeremy begs quietly.

Even in my haze, I’m struck by how different he sounds – almost human. Somehow, I know that I should try to stay awake. That the longer I lapse into the abyss, the less likely I am to ever wake up, so I force myself to focus on what is happening around me. Trudy is kneeling down beside Jeremy now, brushing the hair back from his forehead.

“What a disappointment you’ve been to us all. Your Grandma Ruth saw it when you were just a boy, but I didn’t want to believe it. Eventually though, there came a time when even I could not deny that fact that Satan was living under my very own roof.”

I can hear his breathing as it becomes more labored. Or is that my own breathing I’m hearing? I can’t even tell anymore.

Blackness again, I’m not sure for how long this time. When my eyes open, she’s standing again, now with the bat in her hand.

“Please, Mom, don’t …” he rasps.

“I’m sorry, Jeremy, but I stopped being your mother a long time ago. The only parent you have now is Satan,” Trudy laments. “Well, I don’t have the time to wait for you to die on your own. I’ve already called the ambulance for Julia and I need to get in touch with Matthew and, well, for all we know, the doctors may still be able to save your life. I can’t have that.”

She sighs.

“We tried to tell you all those years ago,” she recalls wistfully. “They that sow the wind shall reap the whirlwind. I am the one who brought you into this world, so now it is my job to deliver you to the whirlwind.”

Trudy Corrigan raises the bat high over her head. I close my eyes so I won’t see, but, unfortunately, I cannot close my ears.

“You have a good trip to hell, Son,” she hisses.

Jeremy and I are engulfed in blackness at exactly the same moment.