In Nightmares We're Alone

In Nightmares We’re Alone

Greg Sisco

Copyright
©
2015 by Greg Sisco. All rights reserved.

Cover art by Jeffrey Kosh Graphics. Copyright © 2015.

www.jeffreykosh.wix.com/jeffreykoshgraphics
 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

www.GregSisco.com

The day the bad dolly comes, I call Mommy on the phone. I say, “Mommy, there’s a package at the door. I think it’s a new dolly. Can I open it?”

Mommy says, “I’ll be home at 4:30, sweetheart. Just hold tight till then.”

I protest but Mommy shuts me up. Mommy says if I keep asking I can’t open it at all. She says she’ll open it in her room and I can’t even see it until tomorrow.

Mommy knows I get excited when a new dolly gets here, but she’s always telling me I need to learn patience. She says I shouldn’t even call her. I should just wait till she gets home.

A long time ago Mommy wouldn’t even let me open them at all. Then I opened one while she was at work and she whupped me good. Now I know better.

Ever since then Mommy lets me open them if I wait till she comes home. It soothes her conscience because she hurt me pretty bad that day she whupped me. Now she gets her way, but she thinks I feel like I get mine since I get to open up the packages. All that’s okay with me though. I like opening the packages and seeing the new dollies.

At 4:30 I sit in the living room in my school uniform with my legs crossed because that’s how Mommy says ladies sit. Mommy gets real mad if I sit like I’m comfortable. On my lap, I have the package, still all wrapped and tied and pretty-looking.

“God, you look retarded,” Sissy says with a smile when she comes in.

“I do not!”

“What’s that?” she asks. “Another fucking doll?”

“I’m telling you said the f-word.”

Sissy sighs like I’m being stupid, but I know she’s scared. Sissy’s big, but she isn’t so big Mommy can’t whup her. I hear it happen sometimes.

“Unless you take back how you said I look retarded, I’m telling what you said.”

Sissy sits down next to me on the love seat and sighs the way old people do when they sit. Sissy’s old, but not crazy old. She’s seventeen. In high school they don’t have to wear uniforms so Sissy wears black jeans and halter tops that Mommy says make her look like a harlot. Mommy says men will think Sissy’s simple and the good ones will stay away and the bad ones will come right to her. But I think Sissy’s pretty.

I don’t think Mommy knows about good men anyway. If she did we’d still have a Daddy. But it’s okay Mommy took a long time to realize Daddy wasn’t good. Sometimes it takes a long time to notice things.

“I’m sorry I called you retarded,” Sissy says to me with fake sincerity.

“
Sorry
isn’t taking it back!” I tell her. “
Sorry
is like
You’re still retarded but I feel bad for telling you about it.
”

Sissy laughs. “I take back that you
look
retarded. I never said you
were
.”

“Fine,” I say. “I won’t tell Mommy you said fuck.”

“Oh, look who’s the little potty-mouth now!” says Sissy.

“You said it too!” I say. “I’ll tell on you if you tell on me and you said it first so you’ll get it worse.”

“That’s what they call collateral,” says Sissy. “Now we’re partners in crime.” She ruffles my hair.

“You should take a shower before Mommy comes home,” I tell her. “You smell like cigarettes and condoms.”

Sissy laughs out loud. “Shut up. Like you know what a condom smells like.”

“I do too, and you smell like one.”

“I should kick your ass.”

“You’ll break the new dolly if you try, and then you’ll really get it.”

Sissy stops laughing and looks sad. “Why do you care about another one of Mom’s stupid dolls?”

“I don’t. I just wanna see it.”

“You totally do! You’re sitting by the front door waiting for her so you can open it. Do you know what she spends on those things? She could buy you a whole doll-
house
for what she spends on
one
of those dolls, a
good
dollhouse. Maybe even a bicycle. When was the last time she bought anything for you? And how many goddamn dolls does she need?”

I say nothing.

“It’s just greedy,” says Sissy. “If I need a new phone or you tear your uniform or whatever, she’s all over us about ‘Where’s the money going to come from?’ but every week like clockwork there’s a new doll on the front porch. It’s just… It’s bullshit. And you enable her when you get all excited about it. She should feel bad about it.”

Sissy walks away. She goes in the bathroom and starts running the shower.

I don’t feel excited anymore. I just feel upset. I put the box on the love seat next to me and go to the bathroom door.

“Sissy?” I say through the cracked door.

“I know,” comes her voice. “I said a bunch of bad words, you said one, I said you looked retarded, you said I smelled like condoms. Collateral, remember? Partners in crime.”

“No, Sissy, I… I don’t like the dolls either.”

She doesn’t answer. I think I hear a dismissive sigh, but it might be the sound of the shower. Then I hear her sniffle.

She pushes the door shut.

* * * * *

By the time Mommy comes home, Sissy has gone to her room and shut the door.

Mommy’s in her work clothes, her purse still in her hand. I’m on the couch with the box in my lap. Maybe I don’t look so excited anymore. For one thing I’m annoyed that Mommy’s late, but I still kind of have a funny feeling about when Sissy got so mad.

Buster runs into the room and jumps up on Mommy. “Down, Buster!” she says. “Don’t jump up.”

She swats him a good one and he backs away. He regards her with excitement from afar. Dumb dog. He should shut her out when she swats him like that just for loving her. Dogs are too forgiving, I guess. Or people aren’t enough.

“Ooh, what have we got there, huh?” says Mommy excitedly. “You were extra careful with her, right?”

“Yeah.”

“
Yes
, honey. We don’t say
Yeah
.
Yeah
is what simple girls say.”

“Yes, Mommy. I was careful with her.”

“Okay. You shouldn’t touch the box before I get home, but as long as the doll’s fine we’ll let it slide, okay?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Mommy hangs up her jacket in the closet and turns to me. She claps her hands and rubs them together. “All right. Let’s see what we’ve got, huh?”

I pull the strings around the package till the knot undoes and the strings come loose. I peel away the packing tape and gently unfold the paper. If I tear it all up, Mommy gets upset. She says it’s how greedy girls open boxes. I guess selfless women let their daughters open the boxes and then say “give it to me” when it’s open.

I pull the cardboard box out of the wrapping and put it on my lap. I set the paper at my side delicately. I look down at the box.

When I look at the picture of the dolly on the front, I feel disgusted. I look up at Mommy.

“Come on,” she says. “Open the box. Let’s see what’s inside.”

I lift the cardboard cover and peak in. I shut it tight and put the box next to me, on top of the paper it was delivered in.

“What’s wrong?” asks Mommy with big eyes. “She’s not broken, is she?”

“It’s wrong,” I tell her. “They sent you a bad one. Her eyes are wrong.”

“What? What do you mean? Give her to me.”

Mommy runs to the love seat and snatches up the box. She pulls off the cover and looks in.

“She looks fine,” she says, puzzled.

“The eyes are weird,” I say. “They’re not like the other ones.”

When Mommy looks again she ignores me. She says, “Wow. Wow, wow, wow.” She lifts the doll out of the box and stares into its eyes in a way I don’t like, like the doll is so beautiful Mommy forgot I’m even in the room. She gives that deep sigh grown ups give at something they’re making a big deal about and then she kisses the doll on the forehead.

“It’s eyes are so ugly,” I say. “I think they ran out of eyes at the shop and gave you two different ones. You should send it back.”

Mommy laughs. Everybody laughs at me. “She’s not an
it
, she’s a
she
. And I like her. I think she’s beautiful this way.” Mommy cradles the new dolly.

“Her name is Beth,” Mommy says.

I can’t explain it then, and I don’t try, but what I don’t like goes deeper than the eyes. There’s something behind the eyes, like they’re not a doll’s eyes at all. Like they’re a person’s eyes. And the way they look at me, it scares me so bad it’s hard to breathe.

* * * * *

Heterochromia.

That’s the big word Mommy teaches me because she knows I like big words. That’s what she says Beth has. It means each eye is a different color. One green eye on the new dolly, one blue one. Two big, gorgeous eyes, but it’s like they’re from two different people. Two people’s eyes on one dolly. So you don’t know which one to watch when you look her in the eye. Your eyes go back and forth. Like hypnosis.

Mommy says it’s normal, natural. Mommy says there’s real people with eyes like that. Lots of people. Famous people. She says Jane Seymour has eyes like that, some TV actress who was famous when Mommy was a girl. Mommy says it’s beautiful.

Heterochromia.

I don’t think it’s beautiful.

The whole room scares me now. Little dolls with sewn cotton bodies and porcelain heads and hands. Little baby girls in booty pajamas or dresses, stacked on shelves, looking down at you. A hundred, maybe. Little girls in church clothes. Blue skirts. White blouses. Little girls with tiaras.

They’re expensive, Mommy says. She says look with your eyes. Don’t touch.

Mommy locks the doll room. She says it’s so Buster won’t go inside and smash the dolls. I don’t think it’s Buster she’s afraid of. I think she’s afraid I’d break her dolls, afraid I’d smash them one at a time on the dresser to see what’s in their heads. Mommy thinks I’m a lot stupider than I am. Sissy says Mommy doesn’t think I’m stupid. Sissy says Mommy knows one day I’ll realize she loves the dolls more than she loves me and I’ll get upset and want to break them. Sissy says Mommy’s got a guilty conscience.

But I wouldn’t smash Mommy’s dolls. I’m not mean like that.

I’d only smash the new one.

If I knew I could get away with it, I’d smash the new one to bits and burn it in the fireplace.

But what scares me the most is that I don’t know why I’m scared.

Beth.

Stupid little Beth with your ugly white dress with the pink and yellow flowers on the hem.

Ugly little Beth with your weird eyes. Blue and green and deeper than they should be. Your judgmental eyes.

I know Mommy comes in sometimes to look at you and hold you. I see it. And sometimes she even closes the door and talks to you. Holds you and says what a sweet baby you are and tells you she’s going to take care of you.

Well Mommy might love you, but I don’t. That cold, indifferent look on your face. That stare. That glare.

I don’t trust you, Beth. She’s not your Mommy. She’s mine.

Mean little Beth with your painted lips, your cocky half-grin like you know something I don’t. With your glued-on eyebrows that sit too low over those big, dumb eyes. Those heterochromia eyes.

I know where Mommy keeps the key to the doll room. I know it’s there, in the left hand drawer of the sewing table. Some days when Mommy’s at work or napping, I come in here and look. Come check on you.

Sometimes I whisper to you.

I tell you, “This is not your home, Beth.”

I say, “You are not welcome.”

I think you hear me. No, I know you do.

I see it in those eyes. Those broken,
wrong
eyes.

Go away, Beth. Get out of my house. Mine and Mommy’s and Sissy’s house. Go back where you belong. Hell, maybe. Or a garbage dump for defective toys.

I whisper. I talk. If nobody’s home, I scream. And you just stare. Just grin.

I know you hear me, Beth. And you know I know.

If I broke you, Mommy would hurt me. So I won’t break you. Not yet.

But you’ve been warned.

Watch your back, Beth. I have my eye on you.

I mouth the words silently, so you can see.

“Fuck you, Beth.”

* * * * *

The next time a doll comes, I leave it on the porch. Mommy’s out getting groceries and I don’t call her to tell her it’s here. I don’t care. I don’t want to open it. I want it to go back. I want them all to go back.

I go in my room and my own dolls are staring at me. Cheap little plastic K-Mart dolls. Dolls of beautiful grown women with big ta-tas and fulfilling lives. They live in big houses and drive toy convertibles Mommy won’t buy for me, and most of them wear long dresses Mommy knitted for them because she says only simple girls wear the clothes they were wearing when I bought them.