https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/11e8gj8/heritage_the_first_incident/
There are certain societal norms that are puzzling and crazy, but when it’s just something you’re used to, you accept it without question. It may be unfortunate, but it is what it is.
For example, thirty years ago the thought of people bringing a tiny portable computer to a restaurant or any other social setting and completely ignoring their company while they stared at the screen would have been thought to be inexcusable. Today, it is what it is.
Likewise, when your social network is composed solely of someone like my mother and she sets the norms, it comes as no surprise when you find yourself in a filthy gas station bathroom with a shaved head while she insists you give yourself an over the counter enema. Unfortunate, but it is what it is.
We had driven for over six hours after my mother had murdered six people with a butcher knife. I had spent that time completely silent while she played her favorite new album over and over on her little cd player that plugged into the cigarette lighter. I was staring out the window when How’s It Going To Be played for the fifth time. I dreamed of a day without my mom, but I had no idea how life would work without her. She made sure I was well read and educated, probably the only thing I’m now grateful for, but other than that, I didn’t know what a normal life was.
She pulled into an absurdly large and colorful gas station on a lonely road in the middle of the plains and turned the engine off.
“Doc?”
“Yes mom.” It wasn’t even a question. My response was monotone. I was processing.
“We need to change ourselves.” I knew what that meant. I wondered which identity I was supposed to slide into this time. When she pulled out the beard trimmer and a small brown paper bag with goodies she got from the store, I got my answer. Disease Boy.
She filled up the car while I was in the bathroom and went through the transformation. Disease Boy had not been used for three years. I shaved my head and then I made myself throw up everything in my stomach. I’ll spare you and myself the description of what I did next.
Disease Boy was my mother’s surefire way to not only change the way I looked but also to keep people from asking too many questions. No one likes to look at suffering. They like suffering to stay behind closed doors. They flee from it as if it were contagious. When I was done, I walked out to the car and waited for my mom to change into Put Upon Woman.
While I waited a car pulled up to the other pump and I made the mistake of looking over. The man driving the car had cracked skin all over his face. His eyes were a greenish yellow that had a terrible light all their own. The sight of him was enough to make me crap my own pants, but I had nothing in the chamber. He got out of his car and walked inside the station. I was still in shock, I think that’s why I followed the pretender inside.
The man with the cracked skin was talking to a normal man who stood behind the counter. The man behind the counter was trying not to cry while going on about how his wife had just passed away while the cracked man had his back to me. I could see the back of his neck, and the stuff I could see through the cracks in his skin was a pus yellow, and as the normal man behind the counter began to finally cry, something under the cracked skin was moving. Fluttering.
It reminded me of how a cat’s back seems to move on its own when you scratch it. Like the skin itself is in some kind of highly erotic state.
The smell inside the station changed. I couldn’t exactly explain what it smelled like at the time, but it was so strong and powerful that it made me double over and dry heave.
I felt my mother’s hands on my shoulders trying to pull me back outside when both the pretender and the man turned toward us.
“We need to go honey.”
“Morning mam.” The cracked man touched the tip of his baseball cap. The man behind the counter wiped his eyes and apologized. I assumed it was out of shame.
“Morning gentlemen.”
“Your boy ok?” The cracked man’s teeth looked more like little brown fingernails. Crud was dribbling from the side of his mouth and collecting on the front of his shirt. His voice sounded like he was speaking with lungs that were filled with a thick liquid.
“No, he’s not. He… well he…”
“Cancer huh?” The cracked man’s skin was fluttering all over. He began to breathe deeply through his nose.
“Yes. Well you gentlemen have a nice day.” The smell made me heave again. My mom ushered me out of the station and plunked me down into my seat. As she started up the car, I noticed that the cracked man was watching us through the window of the station. My mother was trying to keep her composure, but I could see that her hands were shaking.
She didn’t start talking again until God Of Wine started up. She began by crying.
“I didn’t…I didn’t want to do it…you made me do it. Give me one of those please.” From the time I was about five or so, I had been my mothers cigarette lighter while she drove. She thought it was dangerous to drive and light one at the same time. She may have been disturbed, I’ll give you that, but she was always looking out for my safety first. I started one of them and handed it over.
“That…thing in the gas station…I thought he might see us.”
“What thing?” I played stupid. Self preservation. If my mother knew that I was seeing whatever she was, I would cease to be her child. I’d be looked at as a confidant, or worse, an accomplice.
“Nothing…”
“Mom?”
“If you could see…you’d understand. You wouldn’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.” I hated the things she had done. In my mind I saw the ruin of my friends.
“I killed three babies…why were they there?” Snot was running into her mouth while she was crying. “I had to keep you safe…this is your fault. This is your fault! All your fault! No more school. No more. It only brings more problems!” She sucked half that cigarette down in one breath.
“What did you see at the gas station?” I wanted to hear it from her own mouth. She let out a slow long stream of smoke and said nothing until it was all out of her lungs.
“Nothing. Just…here this is way too depressing.” She pulled the plug on her cd player. “Dammit!” She took another long drag on her cigarette.
“What thing Mom?” She didn’t answer. We drove for a while longer. Most of the time she was quiet, but some of the time, she would burst into tears. Every time she did, I lit her another cigarette and handed it over. She always said thank you. I knew her rhythms.
She pulled into a quiet looking town. It was Sunday morning and churches were in session. While we drove around, my mother counted seven churches in total. My mother was not a religious woman at all. She was on the prowl. She was hoping for Baptists. According to her they gave lots of sympathy, food, assistance, and did not pay attention to what happened outside of their own little towns. We needed all of those things.
We walked into the Baptist church during the song service and my mom found a place for us in the back. Half the people inside weren’t people. They were raising their hands, just like the normal people were. They were dressed in their Sunday best, just like the normal people were. And they were singing, but they weren’t singing the same thing as the normal people were. They were letting out terrible sounds I had never heard before. A vile and blasphemous chorus that was spewed unashamed under a wooden cross suspended from above the pulpit.
“It’s a necessary evil to get our foot in the door. Just don’t look at anyone directly in the face and it’ll be over before you know it.” She was whispering in my ear. Looking back on it now, I’m sure she was saying it herself just as much as she was saying it to me.
I think I had broken at that point.
I couldn’t tell my mother about the things I was seeing. I didn’t want to be sick like her. She had murdered my friends. We were in a new town where she was going to keep me inside again. I was due for more enemas and probably going back to eating nothing but a can of tuna a day to look the part of Disease Boy.
And on top of it all, the smell and the noise of the monsters dressed in their nice suits and pretty dresses pushed me over the edge. It was my turn to let it go.
Ever since I had been pushed out of Tommy’s house and into our car, I was keeping it all inside. It’s that feeling when you’re on your knees in front of a toilet. You know that eventually something is going to come up whether you want it to or not, and if you’re brave enough to just stick your finger down your throat you’ll feel better. But instead, you hover over that nasty thing until you finally realize that no matter how much you push it off,no matter how much you fight it, you’re going to throw up. That’s what giving in to a mental break is like.
I started screaming and I couldn’t stop. Everyone in that church stopped singing and turned to look at me. The normal people in the church were looking at me out of concern. But I remember all of those greenish yellow eyes staring at me. I remember the smell in that church getting stronger with every scream I let out.
All of their skins were fluttering.
I was still screaming when everything went black.