sometimes you think back on a memory and all the red flags are so… red. They are vibrant and in your face and waving so hard they couldn’t look at anything else. But at the moment? It’s mildly uncomfortable. Especially when you are only six years old.
The first time I saw her, I was in the park with my mother playing in the sandbox. I heard the perky “Hello!” And looked up to see a woman in a tiny red cocktail dress, black heels to match her black hair, and her tiny handbag. She waved at me with this cute smile, like I was the cutest thing she had ever seen, like a puppy or something. “What’cha up too?” She asked in that same voice. This didn’t strike me as weird, most people talked to me this way, I was and I was most definitely cute back then.
“I’m making a turtle,” I said. “They live in the sand on the beaches!” I was happy to share this wrong information with a total stranger. I was proud I learned something from tv. I bought books too but no one really read to me back then, so I kept this bit of falsehood in my head for far too long. I was so dumb then. But I’m not much better.
“Really? Can I see?” She asked. I didn’t remember anything about stranger danger, like I said, I was dumb. I went on about sea turtles living in the sand and eating sand as she tottered over on her thin heels to my side. She crouched next to me and nodded along. “Oh yeah?” “You don’t say?” “No, it can’t be!” I never took these as the things adults just say to a kid to get them to keep talking, like my babysitter or my Dad. I should have paid more attention to her and her face. Her perfect, painted face never blinked and never soured or changed. It was so joyful and kind looking. Gleeful was another word I would use now.
But soon my mom would call and ask who I was talking to but when I told her “The lady in the red dress.” she looked around confused. I tried to show her, but she was gone. When I think about how far it was from me to the edge of the woods, I get scared all over again. It was about half an acre. No one alive could run that fast and not be seen. Not in that short dress and never in those heels. She was just gone. I was scooped up and taken to get McDonald’s but I wasn’t happy. I wanted to say bye to the nice lady. Mom asked about her as we are our McRibs. I told her about the dress and the shoes and how she wobbled in them. I told her about her red lipstick and her blue eyes. They were so blue, like a cartoon pasted on a person kind of blue. Flat. Flat was the word. Like light didn’t apply to them for some reason.
Mom tried to tell me that I had a vivid imagination, but now I feel like she was trying to divert my attention to something else because it creeped her out. It frustrated me then, but now I understand why she did that to me. I peeked out of the windows for days to look for her by some trees and that made my mom more nervous. She even tried to get me to watch the power rangers movie to get me to calm down. She hated that movie. It was pretty bad.
A week later and I was almost done obsessing over the woman and on to some kind of dinosaur I think. Mom seemed happier and I got a new toy out of it, a Brachiosaurus. (Yeah, not scientific my accurate, and whatever, but I still like it so shut it) I even went to bed with it and fell asleep with it in my arms. But then I heard the tapping on my window. It was the persistent sound of a fingernail tapping on my window. I was so scared that it took me at least a few minutes to look up and see if a hand was attached to the finger tapping. Long manicured red nails. It stared for a minute longer but it never stopped or went off beat. I eventually decided this nail was not attached to a monster or witch or ghost, but maybe that lady from last week, I was sure she had red nails. I got up, dino pal in arm, and unlocked the window. It was her. She was crouched on the side of my house like a bizarre and sweet spiderman.
“What took you so long Silly Billy?” She said as she crawled into my room, tossing her tiny purse in before crawling passed me and standing up. “Your room is so cute, but I thought you would have more turtles and bug stuff for some reason.” She said absentmindedly.
“Mom says friends need to go home after dark,” I told her, confused and a bit scared. I didn’t know why I wasn’t terrified enough to shit myself.
She turned to me with that smile. “But I don’t have a home.” That threw a wrench in my child logic. What do I do now? “But that’s okay. You are so nice, I can just stay here, right?”
“I don’t know. I’m gonna ask mom.” I tried to walk around her because I was uncomfortable and mom always knows what to do right? She stepped in front of me. I stared up at her and my discomfort showed on my face because she asked about my new buddy. I tried to talk about him and stuff I knew about him, but she nodded and smiled and I forgot how scared I was soon enough. I had only been talking for a minute or two before my mom came into my room and asked who I was talking too. Well, she tried to but the closet door slammed the moment she walked in and that woman was gone. I suddenly began shrieking in terror. My mom scooped me up and I tried to tell her but I guess she barely understood me. She shouted for my Dad but he was already sprinting for my room. She hid me in her room as my Dad sprinted around with the bat he kept in his room and yelled for the person to get out of our house. He came back ten minutes, later telling us no one was in the house but my parents talked about the slammed door and how she saw it slam. I cried so hard, even harder when the police came and checked the whole house. Nothing. I told the police about the woman and what she looked like but they looked just as scared as my Mom and Dad. I guess my dad was mad my mom didn’t tell him because he yelled at her the whole way to the hotel that night.
The next week was a mess because none of us wanted to go home but we couldn’t afford to stay longer, my parents had to work, and I had school the next day. Eventually, we went back home. But my mom told me I started to talk again to her and I always sounded scared when I did. I can remember, her asking me weird but benign questions about my classroom and my likes and dislikes. We moved later that month and my parents took a huge financial hit because of it. It was only five blocks away but it was far for my child brain. It took her three weeks to find me and now we were stuck in a worse house with the same problem.
Every time I looked into those eyes, it was the same thing, flat blue, unblinking eyes. Her smile never reached her eyes and it took long for me to understand that about her. She was like a nightmare of an Instagram model that lived in my closet most days. Some days it was under my bed or walking in from the hallway. If I was lucky, she didn’t come in at all. Even the conversation was weird. Overly personal, and intense, she never seemed to absorb the answers. She must have asked me what color my eyes were a hundred times. It didn’t get better over the years. She would try and tuck me into bed sometimes or leave me weird rocks in my bed. Why rocks? They still had dirt on them too. One time she touched my hair to move it out of my eyes. The feeling was like she had shocked me with cold venom. I screamed and slapped her hand away but that only hurt more and she looked furious.
Kids began to notice I was always tired and looking around and hated being asked questions about anything. The teachers liked this even less and my parents hated the constant notes home but they knew why. I was reaching thirteen and basically only slept in their presence, in their room and bed. I was destroying their marriage. They fought and failed to hide it from me when you can not fight and whisper at the same time. They both felt so trapped by me and her. It only got worse when they saw her. It was my turn to wake up at night to the sound of my parents screaming about seeing a woman in red standing on the end of the s bed. I spent a month at my grandparent’s house across town in March.
I went home one day to only my Mom and my Dad’s things missing. She looked miserable and no longer looked at me. But she had, the woman in red. She was behind my mother in the kitchen, just standing there. This was the first time I saw her next to another person in my entire life. Things had only gotten worse somehow. I refused to tell my mom. She had enough misery with me in her life.
I wish I had been that been left alone since all I did was sleep in class, but no. Thirteen-year-olds can be cruel for no reason. “Narcolepsy Nate” is the shittiest name in history. Most of them couldn’t pronounce it right and called me Narcotic Nate. That somehow got me targeted by the druggy kids from all grades and visits from the principal and threats from CPS. I was sure I was losing my mind. She was getting stronger and bolder but her bubbly greeting never changed. Her “Hello there!” never stopped giving me an instant adrenaline rush. Somehow I learned to tolerate her touch for her to my hand. I did not have a choice and I still have damage in my left hand and learned to use my right.
Fucking Billy Riley began to follow me home he was the worst, convinced I sold “top tier” pills since I fell asleep so often. He and his cronies beat me up all the time, and that did not make her happy. One day we passed that park, the one I met her in as I told Billy to stop hitting me. He was doing that dumb kid laugh. How do all bullies have that same laugh?
“Just give me some fucking pills, Nate. We know you have them. Look at you! Only pill poppers wear tie dye!” I got them at goodwill because mom couldn’t afford anything else.
“Bill, go away with your middle age name and rob your grandma some more-“ He punched me in the face before I could tell him he would go to jail for a failed bank robbery one day. Maybe because by the time I looked back up, he was being held up by the dainty hand with his eyes bulging out of his skull. His dumb friends Ryan and Brian we’re covering bloodied injuries and screaming.
And in a tone I never heard from her, she said the magic words. “Goodbye there, Bill.” She slammed him to the ground and stomped on his throat with her heels. The blood sprayed across her calf and he gurgled briefly before going silent. At least he did, Ryan and Brian ran as fast as they could. When she turned to me with that smile, I ran too.
The police were at my door in about an hour and I was questioned for hours and hours until I was crying and dehydrated. It was pretty obvious that I hadn’t done it and neither had they and that there was no woman like that found anywhere near to be questioned.
That night she peaked from my closet, with the same smile and dress, makeup, and dead smile. “What’s your name?” I asked her before she could ask me anything.
She paused for the first time. “Jessica.”
I nodded. “Jessica. I want to show you something.” I got out of my bed, I had never changed my clothes or taken my shoes off. I had something to do. I jumped out the back window and she followed me into the woods. I had heard of this little house about two miles into the woods from my house if I followed the one trail. She wobbled on those heels, asking me the same questions but I didn’t answer this time. The house was real and just as terrible as I had heard.
“Why are were here?” She asked as I opened the stiffened door. I gestured her inside.
“Jessica. I need you to stay here.”
“Here?”
“Here.”
“But why?” Her voice was so sweet and empty-headed that I could have been talking to any 20-year-old at a year’s party. Like she hadn’t just assaulted two kids and killed another nine hours ago.
“I can’t have you in my life anymore.” I stared down at my feet. “You keep hurting me. I have asked you so many times to not touch me, to let me sleep, or give me more time before you visit. But you don’t listen!” My voice rose until I was yelling. She looked shocked, and it reached her eyes. “I… I hate what you did to my life and my parent’s marriage! You killed a kid! You killed Bill!”
“But he-“
“I don’t care! I know what he did! But you killed a kid! He hurt me because you keep me up all night and they think I sell drugs! It’s your fault!” I was ugly sobbing and she looked apologetic.
“Hey, there there-“ She put her arms out like she was going to hug me.
I backed up and yelled no at the top of my lungs. She flinched back. I hated that she looked hurt. “Stay here. Stay here and never hurt anyone ever again.”
Her arms dropped slowly to her sides and she stared at me. I saw the attempts of thought behind her eyes. “Okay. I’ll stay here until the day you come back.” Her voice was sullen, sad even. I wiped my face with my sleeve and backed up. She hadn’t moved. A perfect model I a derelict house, abandoned for over a century wearing black and red. I backed out until I couldn’t see her anymore. I finally ran home.
I stayed up for the next three days waiting for her or the police to come and take me. I think my mom noticed and slipped a sleeping pill in my coffee because I fell asleep on my dinner plate at some point. She never came and neither did the police. It took me months to feel safe and three years to learn to sleep like a person.
By college, it was like a fever dream. I spent too long there to realize I had no real interest in school or college or an office job but I had a girlfriend and friends for the first time in my life. This also felt like a fever dream but in a good direction. I was afraid to sleep in case it was not real somehow. Angie, Becky, Terri, Terry, David, and Tod. We smoked and hung out and at some point, I lived with all of them in the three years since we started college. But all good things come to an end, right? But why did my friend Terri have to accuse me of grabbing her boob when she was drunk? I didn’t! I just got her off the bathroom floor and helped her to the couch. But my girlfriend sided with her and dumped me. I think she wanted an excuse to date Terry, the guy with the barbed wire tattoo on his skinny arms. I punched him and nearly beat him to death.
I was taken by the police and questioned. I spent a week in jail and mom got me out on bail but she can’t afford this and she had just started talking to me again. That’s why I am staring at that house again in the woods. I see her hand in the doorway. They aren’t dropping the charges and I have no one else. My feet feel like lead as I walk to the door and see her standing there. Her blue eyes were filled with excitement but her pose had never changed, arms slightly out for a hug. But everything else had changed. Make-up fades, hair a mess, broken little purse on the ground, dress and skin dirty. Her shoes had crumbled under her permanently arched feet. She did as she promised I was terrified and impressed.
“What… Cha…” She croaked. I began sobbing at the sound of her tired but familiar voice.
“I don’t have anyone to turn to, Jessica. No one else.” I tried to cover my mouth with a hand but it was like I couldn’t keep it all in anymore. Not from her. “Dad remarried, he won’t speak to me, mom hates me, all my friends hate me! Over a lie someone else told!”
A few short wobbles and her thin arms hugged me. She stank like mold and mildew and dirt and bird shit. Fuck I wanted to run but she was strong. She buried her head in my shoulder and hugged me to her tightly. “My… Nate.” She rasped out. “I… held my promise… for you. Now, you’ll let… me keep you safe… forever!” Her squeeze tightened on me. My ribs were starting to ache from her grip. But my Ex claimed she was pregnant. What choice did I have?
Edit: spelling/grammar