SOMEWHERE BEHIND BLACK EYES_Part 6

Mark is already brokenhearted, but what arrives on his door may finish him off!

Somewhere Behind Black Eyes…

Dear Britney;

        You finally did it. You finally left me. I could say I’m surprised, but you have been threatening me with this for months.

        I guess you don’t know or at least I never told you, but I knew about the other man. I have known about him. I am aware I didn’t let on, but I figured regardless of whether I told you or not if you wanted to leave me, you were going to.

        I know he works with you at your government job. I’ve seen you two lean in a little too close. I’ve seen you giggle at the things he’s said to you. I’ve seen the look on your face when he looks at you and the way your body language changes.

For awhile I denied it. I lied to myself. I even tried to pull you close to me on one occasion, but you coldly, resisted me.

        I guess you both are laughing at me now, because you think I don’t know, or I will never know. I never quite measured up to your expectations.  I didn’t acquire the fancy government jobs you both have, and I didn’t have a big enough paycheck. I didn’t have the mind you wanted even though my construction job provided me with the body you approved of. Without physical intimacy, which really doesn’t mean much, does it?

        I guess I will deliver this letter to you, since I know where he lives and where you are. I will wait for you to come get your stuff. Hopefully, you will have enough respect for me to leave him outside and not bring him into the home we have lovingly shared all these years.

        Someday you will see I was the guy who really loved you. He will dispose of you after he’s finished with you. I know the type he is. I can bet you he has left his wife for another woman before and then he got sick of her and she too was discarded; just as you will be, my dear Britney.

 

Love forever, Mark

 

He did it. He wrote it and now he had to make a trip to her new residence to deliver it to her. He had to see the look on her face when she opened the door and saw him standing there. What if the guy answered the door instead?

“Damn!”

If he showed up there, he could be tagged as a stalker. When did delivering a letter become so complicated, he thought.

What if the “love forever” came on too strong or too desperate? He was desperate…Wasn’t he? NO. The only way Mark was going to survive this, is if he paddled up the river of denial. Ha-ha, funny how an expression could mean two different things.

He laughed, his laughter melted into him sobbing and his sobbing ended up him with his head in his arms on the table. Tears splashed on the table inches away from his eyes. Shame made him cry more. Then his guilt made him feel privately humiliated. The humiliation made him wrack with sobs so pronounced he almost didn’t hear:

 

THUD, THUD, THUD!! Then…THUD, THUD, THUD!!!

 

His first reaction outside of “What the F**k” was a quick heart leap away into the ceiling. It felt late, but it was winter, so he probably was misjudging the time. A slight glace at the clock on the wall told him it was until the clock’s second hand ceased to move directly after he looked at it.

“Weird.”

 

Maybe the battery just died. What were the chances of this scenario happening? This had to be listed on the events of this real horrible night he was having. And all the horrible nights he would have after since she is gone.

 

THUD, THUD, THUD!!!

 

Jeez, who was at his door, the cops, the FBI…Bigfoot? His snicker played its way from his brain to his mouth to where it would be audible and was instantly cut short by…

 

THUD, THUD, THUD!!!

 

Whoever it was obviously wasn’t going to piss off anytime soon. His surprise, heart palpitations and apprehension were immediately replaced by frustration and annoyance. “I’m coming!!” He breathed under his breath, “Damn it!”

 

Not only was he unprepared for company, he wasn’t properly dressed; even to answer the door.

Mark popped the door a crack open then quickly said, “Wait a minute.” Immediately he realized he was apprehensive to open the door again. Jeez, couldn’t he just turn around and head up the stairs to the bedroom, jump under the covers and live there forever?

 

Since when was he weird-ed out by answering the door to some adolescent?! Wait. There was a kid outside in the cold at 8 PM at night? He turned to glance at the clock a second time when…

 

THUD, THUD, THUD!!!

 

Sometimes multi tasking isn’t a good idea. Not only was he wasting his time looking to a clock for accurate time which he witnessed die about ten minutes ago, but he was trying to put his leg in the left side pant leg of the pants he discarded by the door, when he came inside hours ago. There’s no way he could have gotten away with this if Britney was here. He almost tripped halfway inside the leg and just about fell forward… Mark looked for his shirt. He really didn’t need a shirt, did he? Yeah, it was winter, but it was just a kid. How long could it possibly take? Especially, if he got the wrong house, which was possible.

Dread filled his heart and subconscious. Just when he was trying to shake it off…

 

THUD, THUD, THUD!!!

 

After he jumped a little, Mark reached for the door knob and ripped the wooden door almost off its hinges. This kid was persistent.

 

“Yeah! What’s up?!” He said hastily.

 

The kid was wearing dark clothes. The hoodie he wore was moreover big for him and had dark and even darker wide, horizontal stripes on it. His pants were baggy. They hung where it looked like he had a load of s**t in them. Mark wanted to burst into nervous hilarity, but he was too terrified. Why was he scared of a kid? Maybe it was because this he was out in the cold of winter with nothing but earlier stated; his shoes or even whether he had any couldn’t be noted. The water stained pant legs were so long, they covered up the child’s feet. The kid was also, eerily calm. He didn’t shuffle or seem to shift around fretfully like other kids.

The other extraordinarily, strange thing about him was his voice. It boomed louder and clearer than most kids his age which he seemed to be about twelve to fifteen years of age. Another thing about his speaking style was he seemed to be asking a question, but it came out as a command instead.

 

“You want to go get Britney.”

 

Huh? What would a kid want with Britney? Maybe her new boyfriend had a kid or an illegitimate child? Please let it be the latter. Mark needed all the ammunition he could get on her new boyfriend.

“Britney’s not here. She’s with your dad.”

There. Maybe this kid would confirm or deny his suspicions. A good percentage of Mark wanted this kid to leave and he couldn’t shake how freaked out this kid was making him. Perhaps, he was just under a great deal of stress. It seemed was a rational perception.

What wasn’t rational was what came next.

 

The kid’s gaze slid up from the porch to Mark’s eyes. He looked directly into Mark’s eyes and repeated his earlier statement. “You want to go get Britney!”

 

Mark was more than way beyond scared now. He was frozen in place. This kid had somehow taken over his mind. Blackness crept into his cognizance fogging his soul with nothingness. His sorrow turned shadowed with a zombie-like need to do what this kid was commanding him to do. Any unclouded days in his past seemed to be all filled with death; his death.

 

Childhood days with his favorite people were plagued in his mind, blackened like an old water damaged mirror. He could now imagine them in his head, dying and aging to be corpse. Like his favorite fantasy fiction character when he was younger.

 

Mark heard a slow low crackling sound. He robotically pulled his eyes away from the teen to look behind him to see there were two other kids. Upon their arrival pops in the atmosphere followed by the smell of sulfur.

Mark then blinked a few times.

He said, “Britney doesn’t live here anymore. She’s gone!” It came out more like a whimper than a decisive statement.

The kid blinked a few times. The slow buzzing noise in Mark’s head ceased. Then a shill, familiar sound smashed through the gloom and fog engulfing his mind. It was his cell phone! His cell phone was ringing. He had to answer it, but it was like running through beach sand to pull his consciousness out of the anguish which seemed to crawl like a parasitic worm into his brain.

 

Mark turn his head. His upper torso was trying to turn with it. He was moving as if he was in a slow-motion movie. The phone continued to ring. He was two feet away from the door when he realized he had left the door wide open! What if they came in?! Robbed him, or worse. His head was turned for less than a half of a minute but when he turned back around all three of the children were gone! The night air seemed electrified and staticky. He felt more alive than he had ever felt but his mind caressed as if it was being put to sleep.

He reached for his phone after he readjusted the direction of his body.

“Hello?!”

“Britney?!”

Then he collapsed.