Bad Games

63



The explosion echoed throughout the room. Caleb screamed. A mist of red popped from Maria’s chest like a party favor.

Amy didn’t realize she’d dropped the knife. She didn’t even hear it clatter to the floor once it left her hands. The sound of the gun was so loud, and the scene before her so shocking, that her senses had been altered—time distortion giving everything a slow, dream-like quality. For a brief, comforting moment, she even embraced the notion that the scene in front of her was a dream, and that she was now close to waking, to shaking the mist of images until they were nothing but a stain on her memory, time her ally in removing the bulk of that stain.

She blinked; blinked again, and shook her head in tiny bursts. She wanted the images to disperse, for the mist to clear, for time to begin working on the stain. She wanted to wake next to Patrick in their bed back home. Wanted to tell Patrick about the horrible dream she’d had, and once that was done, she wanted to get out of bed and check on their children. Give each of them a silent kiss as they slept peacefully in their beds. She wanted to return to her room and slip back under the sheets and embrace her husband’s warm body, maybe even make love in the middle of the night. She wanted it so badly. If only Arty’s face would fade away. If only the strange house would dissolve to black, reappear as her giant ceiling fan in their bedroom back home, twirling and humming at a slow, hypnotic pace, its pleasant breeze caressing her face with security and comfort.

Time distortion had allowed Amy to entertain these thoughts in the span of seconds. But even time distortion could not ultimately blind her to certain truths.

Because Arty was not fading away.

The now-dead woman sitting in the recliner before her was not dissolving.

The house was not fading to black before reappearing as her ceiling fan with its comforting touch and reassuring hum.

The house was real; its contents and horrific goings-on therein real too, more so, if such a notion was possible.

Arty’s voice was the final slap that brought her back, and the moment Amy returned, she knew her inevitable fate.

“I guess you lost your leverage,” Arty said.

Amy took a step back from the recliner, held both hands up in front of her. “Wait, wait.”

Arty shot Amy in the right side of her chest. She spun and dropped hard. Caleb screamed and cried out for his mother. Arty looked down at the boy, considered him, and finally said, “Aw hell, I’ll do you a favor.” He pointed the gun at Caleb’s head.