Ron had to be the first to speak,
“I used to hate him for doing it.”
Gwen looked up at him, eyes swollen
with tears, “Oh Ronnie don’t say that honey!”
“No Mom it’s true.” Ron tried to
explain; even though he was sure his words would let him down. “People always
say it’s a selfish act. I believe that to an extent. But Dad, he didn’t think
that way. In the end, I just think he thought it was easier on us without him.”
“Though I hate to admit it- that
sounds like him.” Gwen had a realization. “Honey, we’ve never really talked
about this, have we?”
Ron shrugged then shook his head.
“Guess not. Probably should’ve happened awhile back.” Ron picked up the
Polaroid that showed his brother’s first trip to Grandma and Grandpa’s- his
first stop after being in neonatal intensive care for a month. “I suppose not
all the memories can be good ones huh?”
“No dear, I don’t think that’s the
way it works.”
Ron held onto the picture, but his
arm went slack as he thought. “Mom do you think we have worse luck than other
families?” He hovered behind his mother, ready to ask the question, but not
ready to look her in the eyes.
Gwen sensed her son’s discomfort,
made herself busy by arbitrarily stacking the photo albums. “What are you
saying, we’re cursed? Don’t let your imagination get to you. We are just like
any other family. Good days and bad. No better, no worse than anyone else.”
“I don’t know about ‘cursed’, but seems we
have more than our fair share of heartache.”
Ron absently glanced back down at
the Polaroid. It began to move….the
picture itself changing, morphing. A fog rolled through the background blotting
out the den where the picture was taken. Slowly, the fog passed from person to
person. As it touched them their eyes within the photograph glowed red then
seemed to burst and fade into pale blue and then grey. This first occurred to his Uncle Barry. Then
purposefully, the churning fog roiled from Barry, to his cousin Sue. Within the
photo, Sue’s eyes were washed in the frightening red of burning coal, which
quickly became the subdued blue of fish scales. This color was then fed upon by
a dull grey.
It wasn’t until the smoldering
cloud wafted to Ron’s Grandfather Henry that he began to understand the
purpose.
As if it had burned him, Ron threw
the Polaroid on the kitchen table, “Mom…” That word was all he could manage, an
empty utterance that only underscored his weakness and confusion.
Gwen’s gaze locked onto the photo;
at first she was ready to call herself senile, insane. Her brain fought what
her eyes insisted she was seeing. She saw the strange fog make its way through
the photograph and touch her late husband’s father. As it did so, his eyes grew
red with fire; they then cooled to a strange blue, and when the life left that
color a grey that was void of any feeling.
“Oh dear God,” Gwen grabbed her
heart with one hand, and her son with the other. Even that didn’t stop her head
from spinning, her world from unraveling. “What is it?”
Ron heard her. It’s recounting the order they died in. His attempt at a reply
never left his lips. He could only stare. How transfixed he became by the silky
movement of the fog, the insistent transition of color. When the malevolent fog
within the photo came to his father, Ron believed he shed a tear; it may have
left his eye and was currently at rest on his cheek. But at the same time he
could no longer trust his mind, as if his body was no longer there with him.
Meanwhile, Gwen was horrified; she
tried in vain to wrench her face away from this photo that had become a
monstrosity. She failed. When she made an effort to close her eyes some force
kept them open. Fascination and revulsion held her in its dual grip.
The picture still worked its devilish
magic there upon the table. Ron was the first to figure out what the end game
was, just before the fog crept over the shoulders of his younger brother like a
grim shawl. Ron heard his cries echo, but only in his mind. He screamed and
pleaded for his brother, but merely in the prison within himself.
Gwen came to understand the message
as well. Her mouth became a disfigured etching of pain and promise. She sobbed
for her baby boy without the benefit of tears.
Trapped, the mother and son watched
as the photo version of Christopher’s eyes grew red and lava-like; the energy
abated and then came that alien blue, finalized by that sickly grey tone.
For Ron, the sorrow continued. A
vision of he and his brother as young boys was now forcefully playing in his
head. He could do nothing to stop it, trapped in the theater of his mind’s eye.
Here in his grandmother’s home.
They were staying the night over summer vacation. There was only a single guest
bed, which the brothers shared. Rob’s mind populated with details of that
night: the perspiration of humidity, the way the blanket had stuck to him to
the point it had needed to be kicked off during sleep. The recollection came to
Ron, dreamlike in its quality. The parsed memories that made up that night
years ago came alive within him once more. Finally, there was the way he had
awoken to his brother twitching and convulsing as though Christopher was
experiencing a stroke, rather than simply a nightmare. As an eleven year old,
Ron recalled trying to yell out for his grandparents only to have his voice
stifled by the darkness that surrounded him.
His brother’s spasms increased in speed and violence to the point where
Ron wasn’t sure Christopher would survive. Again he tried to cry out, but
succeeded only in crying. He felt an immense pressure unfurl over his body,
weighing him down. In a last ditch effort, Ron worked his hand outward. With
what felt like a hurricane fighting against him, Ron reached for his brother’s
hand. The level of effort needed to even
move was lost on the young boy, but finally he was able to clasp his seven year
old brother’s smaller hand in his own. Ron smiled through a sheen of naïve
tears. The victory was short lived. For no sooner than Ron had secured his
brother’s hand was Christopher lifted limp as a doll from the bedclothes.
Eerily through his own child-like vision, fragmented and muddled, Ron
remembered the last remnant of blanket falling off his brother’s left foot.
This unseen influence then maneuvered young Christopher up away breaking Ron’s
already strained grip. Ron’s memory ended with Chris floating away from him,
head lolled and clad in the Pac Man pajamas he had been tucked away in only a
few hours before.
In the present, whatever
otherworldly strength held Ron and his mother, let go as quickly as it had
overtaken them. No matter what it was, it was done with them for now. Through
the kitchen curtains, the moon had long ago replaced the afternoon sun. Gwen
and Rob exchanged a look that only seemed to confirm they were both again in
control of their bodies.
It was then that Gwen’s cell phone
chimed in her pocket. Lethargy was evident in her motions, but after four rings
Gwen was able to retrieve the phone from her pocket. Without a word she
inspected the phone’s screen. Terror had coupled with petrification; Gwen was
useless, looking to Ron for some kind of explanation.
Ron read his mother’s eyes too
well. Without looking at the phone’s face, he knew the call had come from Camp
Lejeune in North Carolina. Ron knew it was about Christopher. Ron knew his
brother was dead.