Lessons of Life, Part Three

Lindsay drove them to a motel, a dismal place that advertised cable television as a feature and paid for a room. The clerk was an overweight man in a sleeveless white shirt covered in grease stains who eyed her as if she were a side of meat. Lindsay quickly got to the room and locked the door behind her.

Turning to look at Sharon, she jumped when she gazed into Sharon’s dark eyes, mere inches from her face. Jumping back, she sucked in a breath to try and steady her pounding heart.

“Sharon! What is it honey?”

Sharon blinked owlishly, before turning to walk to the bed. “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

“Okay… do you want anything, maybe a glass of water?”

“I’m fine.”

“Okay, well let me just tuck you in. We’ll have to share a bed, so I hope you don’t-“

“I said I’m fine,” Sharon replied, not looking back at her mother. “Just be quiet so I can sleep.”

Taken aback by the tone, Lindsay just watched as her daughter climbed into the bed and pulled the blankets over her head. She nestled into a cocoon of cloth and was soon still. Lindsay didn’t know what to say as she watched this, instead choosing to walk into the bathroom to wash her hands and face.

Lindsay, still dressed in her night clothes from earlier, stepped to the bed and studied her daughter’s lump for a minute. After deciding against it, she went over to a sofa and propped the pillows into a comfortable state. She was asleep in minutes.

+++

Lindsay felt something prodding at her hand, something wet. She fluttered her eyelids, annoyed at being lulled out of her fitful sleep. She pulled her arm up to cover her eyes, only to find she couldn’t move it.

“What the…” she started, looking in the darkness down at her arm.

She shrieked when she saw two pitiless white orbs staring up at her, a long sinewy tongue sliding up her wrist in an obscene gesture.

Tugging, she found the she didn’t have any control over her arm, nor her legs. Thrashing about she continued to scream as the haunting face floated up her arm, black hands scaling her like some horrid tree-bound creature would a branch. Cold breath ghosted over her shoulder as the face loomed ever-closer.

“You scream so beautifully,” it rasped. “Sing for me louder, Mommy.”

Lindsay would have questioned the strange comment, but she couldn’t think as the face lunged into her collarbone, sharp teeth digging into the meat of her clavicle. She felt her collarbone snap, before being pulled through her flesh. The face crunched on the wet bone, before ramming its rough tongue into the wound. It wriggled deep, pushing aside blood and tissue.

Lindsay was hoarse from screaming, eyes clenched shut, when she felt a gentle hand wiping her forehead.

Wrenching her eyes open, she barley made out Sharon standing at the head of the sofa, watching on with indifference.

“Sharon! Run, get help!”

Sharon smiled. “Why would I do that Mommy? He’s just playing.”

Lindsay gurgled as the monstrous tongue pushed along the joint in her neck, pulsating beneath her skin. “P-playing?”

“Like he taught me,” Sharon clarified. “Like he did with the man in our house.”

Lindsay grunted, her vision going black as the last vestiges of life left her body. She died hearing giggles from a demented monster, echoed by her giddy daughter.