When Death Screams

    I think I was around six

    I was around six when it first began and it started in my toes.

    “Mama,” I said. I shook her sleeve and my feet. They were tingling. Very badly. I could feel them numbing.

    “Mama,” I said louder. She was on the phone, brushing me away with a sharp look. My fingers were cramping. My lungs hurt. A soft ringing pierced through my head, growing louder and louder until it wasn’t a ringing but a blaring alarm blasting out my ears. I clapped my hands over them.

    “MAMA!”

    She turned to me with a huff.

    A gunshot rang out.   

    My mama hit the floor with a solid thud.

    I froze.

    They got away with it. They shot my mama right in front of me and they got away with it. We were sitting just outside of a cute little diner, shaded under a big red umbrella. It was a blue-sky day. Warm. Sunny. It was two days before my birthday.    

    The police came around a lot after that. Talking to my papa. Talking to me. I didn’t say anything to anybody. I didn’t look them in the eye. My papa would yell that they weren’t trying hard enough. That they had to find who took my mama from me. Eventually, the police stopped coming around.

    I could hear papa crying when he thought I wasn’t around. His head buried in his hands. Slumped over on the couch. He smiled when I came up to him but his red eyes gave him away. He would hug me. Whisper in my ear but I never heard what he said. I was too distracted by the faint ringing in my head.

    It started to happen more and more frequently the older I got. A deafening shriek resonating through my skull and then it would die down to that constant, annoying buzz in the back of my mind. Sometimes it lasted minutes. Sometimes hours. At first I would scream. Wail right along with the demon trapped in my brain. My papa would yell at me to stop, tired of crying. Tired of reminders. He’d come upstairs and see me sobbing in a corner, face red, palms pressed over my ears. He would sigh and slide down next to me - pull me close to him.

    I told him about the demon.

    There was nothing wrong with me. Doctor’s said it was shock, trauma. I was a perfectly healthy child. In the end they diagnosed me with an extreme case of tinnitus. They could do nothing about that. There was no cure.

    I learned to keep it quiet. To just squeeze my eyes shut and clench my fists or dig my fingernails into my thighs. Some other form of pain to distract me from the alarms in my head. I went back to the hospital, my papa convinced that the tinnitus had somehow magically disappeared. The doctors told him that was impossible - maybe it had just reduced some. We were on our way out when a nearby patient flat-lined. We both heard that steady alarm. It got sharper, more obnoxious, a shrill ringing stabbing through my skull. That’s when I realized.

    It was a death sentence.

    Every time I heard that shrieking - someone would die.

    The realization seemed to spark something in me. I could hear everything. That constant buzzing grew just loud enough to be a distraction, a hinderance, always taunting me: someone's dead. Someone's dead. Someone's dead.

    What can you do?

    Nothing.

    Usually it was just soft enough for me to function. Crawling under my ribs, through the center of my brain. There but never revealing it’s true form. But every once in awhile it pounced. Exploding my head into pieces. I would choke back a scream. Close my watering eyes. Pray it was no one I knew.    

    It only got worse once I hit high school. The stress of classes, homework, deadlines magnified everything. I could hardly focus. Hardly sleep. The few friends I made stayed exclusively at school. They weren’t allowed anywhere that I dropped my act. Let myself go.

    I’m glad I never learned how these people died. Only that they did. That made it a little more bearable.

    I was seventeen when I finally decided I’d had enough. I was exhausted. Failing all of my classes. I’d pushed away the last of my friends. I thought that would make it better. It didn’t. The dead haunted me. It was my senior year.

    I found a tattered old rope in my garage. Made a sloppy, hurried noose. Slung it over the rafters. The ringing in my head grew steadily louder. My ears popped when I stood on the chair. My brain shattered when I started to stick my head through the noose. I passed out. Toppled off the chair to the cold concrete. I woke up a half-hour later and quickly cleaned up before my father got home.

    The same thing happened when I took a knife to my wrists a week later.

    I stayed up late. Listening to the demon echoing in my head. He hated me. Which was fine. I hated him too. I asked him why he picked me but he just laughed and told me who died that night. Hundreds of names. Hundreds of souls flying in the sky. Hundreds of ghosts imprisoned in my mind. I was tired.

    On my nineteenth birthday I woke up to silence. No alarms blaring. No buzzing through my veins. Just my own thoughts, confused and dazed. I didn’t know what to do. The rest of the week was spent getting used to the sudden vacancy in my head. I talked to myself. I tried to reach the demon. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of darkness.

    Everything was new. Everything was clearer. I could hear the birds singing in the treetops. I could hear people laughing. I hadn’t heard laughter in years. I hadn’t laughed in years. I smiled. I slept. I studied. I got used to not hearing death and I learned to not miss it. Not once. I was finally happy.

    I am happy.

    I’ve got a lovely husband and a beautiful baby girl with eyes like the sea. I wake every morning to a kiss on the cheek. I go downstairs and brew coffee, scratching my cat behind the ears as I wait. I make a quick breakfast and read a book, only stopping for a quick kiss before he’s out the door and off to work. I am lucky enough to work from home, watching over my Charlotte as she coos from the floor. She smiles when she sees me, reaches up her tiny hands, giggles when I tickle her belly. I laugh with her, smile with her. She falls asleep in my arms and I press my lips to her soft brow. My heart flutters lovingly when I lay her in her crib. She sighs in her sleep and I close my eyes.

    I haven’t heard death in twelve years.

    I’m happy.

    We’re happy.

    But I wake up today with a feeling of dread deep in my gut. John leans over, kisses my cheek, heads to the bathroom. I stumble out of bed, downstairs. I’m dizzy. I lean against the counter. My cat jumps up, rubs against my chest, against my neck. My head is reeling. I jump when John touches my back. I didn’t hear him come down.

    There’s a ringing in my ears.

    “You okay, babe?” His voice is muffled. I nod, eyes wide. I fake a smile.

    “Of course. Have fun at work.” I can’t tell if I’m shouting. He narrows his eyes. Searches my face.

    “You know I always do,” he says finally. He grabs his coat, his keys. The door shuts behind him.    

    Almost immediately fireworks of shrieks and agony detonate in my head. A low laugh echoes, rumbles through my body.   

    I’m back.

    Did you miss me?

    My knees buckle. I can’t see, my vision blurry, wet. I barely catch myself on the counter before I crumble to the floor. I drag myself to the door, drag it open.

    “John!”

    Flashback to a diner, an umbrella. My foot is tingling. Someone is on the phone next to me, ignoring me. I tug a green sleeve.

    “Carolyn?” He’s opening the car door.

    They’re opening the car window.

    I stand there. One hand settled on my face. The other gripping the doorframe. He repeats my name. Comes closer.

    “You have to come inside.” I choke.

    “I have to go to work, hon.”

    “Call in sick,” I plea. He touches my cheek. Meets my wild eyes. I silently beg him, grasp his arms. I have no breath. The demon scratches the sides of my brain. Chuckles.

    A gunshot splits the air.

    “Okay.”

    He comes inside.

    The ringing doesn’t reside.

    We sit on the couch. His arms embrace me. His fingers trail my skin, familiar. I’m tense, anxious. He turns on the TV. Flips through the channels. The added noise doesn’t calm me down.

    “ - A drive by shooting at Amelia’s, a local diner on Sixth Street. Two people were pronounced dead with one wounded.”

    My breath catches. John curses. His heartbeat picks up.
    “I always stop by there before work.”

    Jesus Christ, it could have been him. I could’ve lost him.

    It’s been twelve years.

    My husband could’ve died.

    But he didn’t.

    So why is my head still screaming?

    “Are you okay?” He brushes my cheek. I’m breathing heavily. I nod, fighting back tears, fighting back the demon. He asks another question. “Did you know? How did you know? You saved me.”

    I don’t answer.

    “Where’s Charlotte?”

    Her crib.

    “Crib.”

    He slides from underneath me. Footsteps grow distant. Grow silent. I want the TV off. I don’t have the strength to turn the TV off. The ringing gets closer to breaking through my ears.

    “CAROLYN!”

    The demon hums curiously.

    I bolt off the couch. Through the kitchen. Up the stairs. Freeze in the doorway. He’s standing over my baby. My baby. I walk towards my baby. I grip the crib rail above my baby. Her tiny body is still. Pale. Her face buried in her blankets. I reach out shakily, touch the back of her soft head. I let out an anguished wail, sink to the floor. She is cold. John extends his arms, scoops her up, presses his forehead against hers. Tears stream down his cheeks. He kneels slowly in front of me, lets my baby settle in my arms. Her face is peaceful.

    Dead.

    The demon isn’t the only one who screams.