व्रेत्च पत.4

Wretch

The house was quiet. The dogs had quieted down from my arrival. I sat and wondered if my parents would be angry tomorrow for my showing up so late. My brother was at the back of the property, no doubt, in his trailer. He enjoyed having moved from my room, then from there into his own room and then into his own space. Lucky him. The silence tonight was defening. The paper thin walls that usually would provide a hum from a tv or my parents talking offered no comfort other than possibly the hum of a highway or whatever other sounds of passing cars late in the night.

I felt myself drifting under the now warm covers. I felt the colors and images of spuractic visions play across my eyelids, numbing my senses. A whining and moaning now entered my lucid state. My visions continued to play the sounds becoming much more intense. A violent ripping interrupted the serenity of my visions. My eyes open. A wretching squelch vibrated through the silence of my room. Was I dreaming? Were the nightmares going to start so soon?

Again a violent noise disrupted my comfort. I sat up. Listening intently now I strained to find this horrific noise. Again, it ripped through me. The vision in my head was now violent, although I was fully sobered by the noise. I pressed my ear to the wall that ajoined my parents room to my own.

Wretching. I called out to my mother, no response. Wretching....
"Mommy?" ....a terror ripped through my innocent mind. Eyes wide, my heart raced waiting for an answer.
"Help me..." The wretching had stopped, My heart had stopped, my breathing had stopped. I rose to my knees clenching my covers. My chin shivered...A whine cleared through the room, it was my own.
"MOM!"
"Anna, get your dad...I need help.................................Im dying in here"
"DYING? My dad?" I thought, "where in the hell was he?" His truck was in the driveway. He was not in the living room, where in the hell else would he be?

Wretch. The sound refocused me. What was happening? Is she hurt? Is she vomiting? Choking? Has someone hurt her? Why was the sound so violent? I had not heard a sound this intense before. It squalled much like I had heard dinosaurs on tv do. WRETCH.

With that I sprung to me feet and I hit the black hallway in what seemed to be instantaneously...... WRETCH.

I looked into the living room, rather confused on what to do. I stood motionless, quiet, the only sensations I could feel was the buzzing from the quiet intermissions, between the ripping sound and the hot tears that ran down steadily from my eyes. My own breath stung, I was in a state of sheer terror when I realized I was alone.

The beat of my heart felt too big for my chest and I walked to the living room quietly. The sound was interrupted by the loud ringing of my kitchen phone. The way my heart jumped reminded me of how I felt watching horror flicks in movies. I went to the phone, hurried, to make the too loud noise stop. Who would be on the other end?

"....Hello?" I sniffed.

"This is 911 we have a call that there is an emergency....." What?
"Hello, is there someone there needing help?" I began to sob, barely able to function. Yes. There was. I has terrified, I had no idea how to put into words what was happening, because for one, I had no idea myself.

"Are you there alone? Is anyone else there with you?" ...Dad, where was he? The RV. This wasnt the first time. He had stayed out there, not often, but on the occasion they would fight. This would be his retreat.

"My dad maybe in the motor home...I am alone in the house with my mother."
The voiced urged me to check. Why now, I do not know, would anyone send a child to "gopher" while an unknown emergency was in the works.

I dropped the phone, the wretching was now clear in the distance again. I ran. My bare feet hitting the porch, to the concrete, to the gravel drive that spread the distance of the driveway between me and the RV. I yelled for my dad somewhere between. I hit the RV door my dad was already there standing clearly in the same confused state of myself. He cussed and reentered the back of the motor home. When he came out I followed.

We entered the house, he went to the back, I went to the phone. I told the silent end of the phone my father was here. The voice replied to stay on the line and that help was nearby. Somewhere there in the silence, I fell into a ball on the floor. The silence quickly became chaos as the house was filled with strangers. I sat on the ground, hanging up the phone, watching boots and wheels roll across our floor of our hallway...I got to my feet and followed. No one seemed to notice me meekly following. Our small hallway was at capacity. Radio noises and frequencies filled the long distant quiet of our home.

I slid into our lit front bathroom connected to the hallway and I sat back into my ball and listened. My forehead rest onto my knees and I hugged my legs. A voice was there. I looked up to find a face next to mine, telling me to get up and come with them. The paramedic led me to my livingroom now algow.

I sat on my couch, time had passed but, how much I do not know. I looked out the window to glowing red flashing red lights. The occasional blue shown through. Strangers overtook my house as quickly as the whole strangeness of my night had.
Some how again...my heart stops again and my terror takes over as I see a stretcher emerge from the hallway. Panic and disorder overtakes my horror and I am silent. I cannot cry. I cannot react as her eyes meet mine. A strangers arm wraps my soulders, but there is no comfort in this cold. My mind goes blank and I cannot remember a reaction or the next steps of our long night. In a house full of help... I am helpless. In a house full of people... I am alone.