#i am picturing. a flashback to janet as a loving mother. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pitifulmagicalocs · 7 years

Text

Flashback Chapter

Scene: Kyle Trauma Flashback

Characters: Kyle Hausman (Age 11), Peter Hausman, Theresa (Minor)

Words: 4590

Status: First Draft.

Comments: I feel like boiled crap right now. So I’m gonna lift my spirits by sharing this lovely horror scene. (Some feedback would make my life.)

WARNING: Gore, violence on a minor, cussing.

“Forty-four Willowmead Road.”

Kyle repeated the address for the hundredth time, all the while staring back at the grisly and peeling home that bore a rusted sign that boldly echoed his words.

‘44 Willowmead Rd’

Kyle swallowed hard. He’d never been to this part of the community before. Sure, his first home was quite close to the edge of the community, but this neighborhood was quite literally on the edge. He could actually see the community wall off in the distance, but close enough to walk to.

But this was it. This was where his father was living now. His dad had promised to show it to him at some point, but he never got the chance. Or, rather, Kyle’s mother never gave him the chance. At this point, he truly wished he had a guide.

But he was alone. He’d made the decision to go alone. He wasn’t going to turn back, wait for the next bus, go home to a tongue-lashing and permanent grounding from his mother until he saw his father, if only for a few minutes.

So he swallowed a second time, shifted his backpack up his shoulder and started up the walkway.

“You lost, sweetness?”

The voice was warm and gentle, but it nearly gave Kyle a heart-attack. He pressed a hand to his chest and spun around.

An older woman, whom Kyle would guess to be in her mid-to-late-60s, stood by the end of the walkway in a grey track-suit, her sweet smile not at all hiding the way she eyed Kyle up and down.

“Um, no, I,” Kyle stammered, motioning over his shoulder towards the house.

“Oh! Don’t you have a sweet face! You’re Kyle, aren’t you?”

Kyle dropped his brow. “Do I know you, Ma’am?”

The woman laughed and waved a hand over her head. “Sorry, hon. I’m Theresa. My son and I helped your father move in. Pictures of you were the first thing he wanted put up. I remember faces.”

Kyle felt himself smile a little at that. “Really?” He stepped back towards Theresa and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Theresa. I’m Kyle Hausman.”

“Oh, very polite!” Theresa beamed, shaking his hand.

“Is my dad home? Do you know?” Kyle pointed to the driveway. “His car’s out front, so…”

“Oh.” Theresa sighed. “I don’t doubt it. I haven’t seen him go anywhere in—“she shrugged. “—months? I saw him in the yard a couple nights ago, though.”

“Yeah, my—“Kyle shifted his weight. “Nobody’s heard much from him, so I’m visiting.”

Theresa lifted a brow. “And your mother’s okay with this?”

“Oh yeah,” Kyle lied.

Theresa looked from him, to the house and back.

“How old are you, sweetness?”

“I’ll be eleven in a couple weeks,” he answered. “September twentieth.”

“Alright, well—“Theresa started to move along at a slow pace. “I live right next door. House number forty-five. Come over if you need anything.”

“Absolutely! Much appreciated, Theresa!” Kyle waved her off, and then headed back towards the house again.

“Didn’t think old ladies actually called kids ‘sweetness’ in real life,” he whispered to himself as he walked. “Unsettling.”

He jumped up the steps, avoiding a couple that looked less than trustworthy. Although the ones he did put his weight on still sunk threateningly under it.

“What a dump,” he mumbled, approaching the front door, which luckily seemed to be fashioned from a sturdier wood. He knocked.

“Dad!” he shouted at the door. He counted thirty seconds of silence, eying house forty-five out the corner of his eye. Theresa was still lingering on her front step, watching him with both hands on her hips.

He stood on his tip-toes and put his mouth less than an inch away from the dusty stained-glass window that decorated the door.

“Dad!— I know you’re home! Your car is in the driveway!” He hollered. “Your neighbor said you’re home. Open up!”

How long had it been since his father had seen him? Had his voice changed? He was growing pretty fast. He pushed a hand against his throat and hummed. Did the vibrations seem—deeper? Maybe his father didn’t believe it was really him? It’d make sense to be cautious in this kind of neighborhood.

“Dad! It’s Kyle!” He shouted. “You know; your son? Open up!”

Kyle dropped back down onto his heels and he looked back to where Theresa stood. She waved to him and then beckoned for him to come over.

“Come on, Kyle! You can use my phone! Call your mum!”

Kyle shook his head. “Nah! I’ve got it handled! Thank you!”

He leapt the entirety of the stairs back down, and then he swung down, hand on the railing, until he was kneeling beside the rickety steps. He held his breath, braced himself, and then reached his arm underneath the steps, cringing at the sticky sensation of ancient cobwebs.

When his fingers brushed against something dry and plastic, he smirked and bit down on his lip.

“Maybe my voice changed—” he grunted, pulling the old peanut can out from underneath the steps and popping it open, dumping a silver key from the inside onto his open palm. “—But you sure haven’t, Dad. You’re practically begging for an intrusion.”

He stood back up and rushed up the steps, this time forgetting to be cautious, but luckily taking no spills.

“I found the spare key!” he announced to Theresa, who shielded her eyes from the sun.

“You’re too smart for him!” she called back.

“Guess so!”

He unlocked the door and pocketed the key.

“Dad?” he called as he cracked the door open. He gave one last wave to Theresa, who hesitated and then waved back, and he popped inside, shutting the door behind him.

“Ugh!” he grunted, putting his forearm over his nose. What was that smell? He couldn’t quite pinpoint anything to compare it to, but it made the inside of his nose burn.

“Repulsive,” he sighed, kicking his shoes off. “Just nasty.”

He looked down at the rug, and smiled at his sudden discovery. A dirty old pair of work boots as familiar to him as own name.

“Found your boots, Dad! I know you’re here!”

He sat in silence for a moment, listening for something, anything. But the only sound that could be heard was the clanging of what sounded like a basement furnace, which suddenly made him realize how hot it was in there. Why would he have the furnace on in early September?

Kyle fanned his neck and stepped further into the house.

Clang. Clang. Clang.

Kyle skidded past the open basement door. He may have been grown, but a bizarre noise from the basement was still something to be avoided.

He slid past the cluttered living area, and into the cluttered kitchen. Just as Theresa had said, there were plenty of pictures hung up. Most without frames and therefore sloppily taped to the walls or stuck to the fridge, but hung up nonetheless. Kyle leaned in for a peek at one of the photos; himself during his first year of hockey. Next to that, his seventh birthday, when his mother had done her best to shape his birthday cake to look like an astronaut. He didn’t remember it looking that terrible.

Kyle smiled warmly, and then swept his eyes over the rest of the photographs, school awards and souvenirs. His dad really needed an update. Most of them were old. Although he did have last year’s school picture, and a recent photograph of Kyle and his mother on the wall by the cabinets, although the latter appeared to be printed out on plain white paper.

“Dad?” Kyle called as he crept his fingers along the countertops, pushing aside newspapers and folded-up cereal boxes. “You gotta do the recycling!”

A sudden ringing sound sent him jumping a couple inches into the air. He spun around and glanced around the room with wide eyes until the ringing sounded a second time, and drew his eye to an ancient-looking phone and answering machine, sitting on top of even more paper.

He cautiously approached, as if it would jump out at him, and he read the number on the tiny, illuminated number.

“Crap. Mom.”

Kyle shifted his eyes around the room, and pressed down on the ‘transfer to voicemail’ button.

There was a moment of silence, and then a loud beep, followed by a male’s droning voice.

“Hello, you have reached Peter Hausman— I am away at the moment. Please leave a message after the tone. If you are calling about a service, please leave your name and number and I will get back to you as soon as I can.”

Beep.

Although it was expected, his mother’s panicked voice still made his chest tighten.

“Peter? Peter. It’s Janet. I don’t know what to do here. Ines just called. Kyle hasn’t shown up to her house yet. The boys say he got on a different bus. I— I don’t know where he is, Peter! I don’t know where our boy is! Our baby! Please just, tell me he’s with you. Please pick up. Tell me you know where he is! Just… please. I don’t know what to do.”

Click.

Kyle rolled his eyes to the ceiling and he hovered his finger over the ‘delete button’.

“I’m fine, mother,” he huffed. “You need a lesson in overbearing.”

‘You have ten new messages.’

The answering machine’s electronic voice gave Kyle a second jolt. He pulled his finger away and squinted.

“What? Weird.”

Without thinking, Kyle’s finger slid to the ‘play’ button, and pressed down.

‘Message: One’

Another beep, and then an older woman’s voice began to speak.

“Hello Mr. Hausman. This is Anette calling from Doctor Bedi’s office. I’m calling to inform you of a missed appointment you had scheduled at the office on the third of July. Since you’ve only missed one, we’re not going to fine you, but I am warning you that there is a small fee should you miss another appointment with us. Thank you.”

‘Message: Two’

A man’s voice.

“Hey. I’m calling because you came by to fix the lighting in our basement last week and—it’s really not any better. I don’t know if you even did anything down there. It just—“

Kyle tapped ‘next’. He had no interest in customer complaints.

‘Message: Three’

“Hello Mr. Hausman. This is Anette. I’m calling from Doctor Bedi’s office to inform you of a missed appoi—“

Skip. He also had no interest in hearing the glitch old machine play the same message twice.

‘Message: Four’

“Hey! Petey! Buddy! It’s Isaac. Remember me? Uh, I don’t know if your cell is busted or you’re just being dramatic, but… errrr… fuckin’ uhhh… Right! Brent and I are going down to… fuck! I’ve forgotten what we were doing, man. I am half in the fucking bag right now… I--“

Skip. Plus a quick glance around the room to make sure his father hadn’t picked up all those f-bombs.

‘Message: Five’

““Hello Mr. Hausman. This is Anette. I’m calling—“

Skip.

“What the--?” Kyle whispered.

‘Message: Six’

“Hello Peter. This is Doctor Bedi—“

Kyle dropped his brow and leaned on the counter.

“— I’m calling because I’m a bit worried about you. You’ve missed three scheduled appointments and the last time we spoke you said some things that caused me some concern. My receptionist also says that she has made numerous attempts to reach you and hasn’t been able to. If you’d no longer like to receive treatment, please inform us. I’m not going to fine you. But I do believe you should continue treatment for your own best interest. You can contact me at the usual number. Take care of yourself, Peter.”

Kyle thinned his lips and huffed out through his nose.

“You said you’d keep going—“he whispered. “You promised Mom, asshole.”

‘Message: Seven’

Kyle shook his head, and he pressed ‘stop’. The machine barely had the time to let out the first syllable from a female voice before falling silent.

“No! God dammit!” A man’s voice hollered from below his feet, and Kyle sucked in a breath.

“Dad?” Kyle called.

No answer. But Kyle knew he’d heard his father. He was in the basement. A slow smile crept across his face.

“I heard you!” he shouted with laughter in his voice. He stepped around the counter and made his way back down the hall. He skidded to a stop in from of the basement door and looked down at the steep, wooden stairs, lined with tools and stockpiled laundry detergent that turned and disappeared around a corner into darkness.

“Uh… Dad?”

Clang. Clang. Clang. The furnace’s banging and sputtering was the only answer he received.

“Dad! Are you mad I’m here? I just wanted to see you. You said you wanted to see me, right? On the phone?”

Clang. Clang. Clang.

“I’ll tell Mom it was all my idea.” Kyle leaned in the doorway, peering down into the darkness. He reached overhead and yanked the cord for the light bulb overhead. It flashed and died instantly. Kyle grunted and grabbed hold of the door frame again. He sucked in his gut and hollered.

“Dad! Don’t ignore me! Or I’ll just go and— then you won’t see me at all, Dad!”

A long silence, more clanging, and then finally— a voice.

“Kyle?”

Kyle beamed, and he took a couple hasty steps down.

“The one and only!” he called. “Well, not only. There’s about ten Kyles in the community, but—“

“Where are you?”

Kyle tilted his head. “On… the stairs? The light bulb’s busted. Want me to grab a new one?”

“Come here.”

Uh oh. He was definitely angry. Oh well. His father was rarely angry at him, and when he was, it lasted mere seconds.

“Alright. I’m comin’.”

As he descended the stairs, the rattling and clanging grew louder and louder, until he had to hold his hands over his ears.

When he reached the basement, and stepped down onto the cold concrete, he was happy to see that it was at least dimly lit by a few more light bulbs overhead, yellowing and aged as they were.

He was happiest, however, to see the back of the man standing by the furnace. He was scrawnier than before, and his hair was disheveled and growing over his ears. But it was his father. He almost called out to him, but his attention was grabbed by another loud pop, like a gunshot, coming from the furnace. He examined it further and his mouth dropped open to see the machine had been half disassembled. Pipes and nails strewn around it as it hissed out steam and strained trying to do its purpose. A monkey wrench hung limply in his father’s hand.

“That’s not—even the right tool. Dad, what are you doing?” Kyle took a few steps forward, hands still over his ears.

His father’s head perked, and Kyle watched with squinted eyes as Peter glanced over his shoulder, and then slowly turned, placing upon him two murky, yellow eyes.

For a moment, it felt as though Kyle’s brain was malfunctioning. It refused to turn what he was seeing into a coherent thought. Even as his father stared back at him with those telltale eyes, shirt stained with rot, and skin etched with fat, black veins, his mind would not put the pieces together.

“Dad?” Kyle breathed. It was more like a squeak.

“K-kkk-k!” Peter choked, dropping the wrench to the floor with a bang that was drowned out by the sound of the furnace. A splatter of ink gushed past his lips and onto the concrete below, creating a puddle that he then stepped into as he began to stagger towards Kyle.

Move! He screamed to his own legs. Move! But the best they could do was carry him a couple of staggering steps back. It didn’t stop his father from closing the distance between them, so as his father’s cold hand clamped down on his upper arm, Kyle could only scream.

He screamed as hard as he could, until Peter pressed a clammy, rot-slick hand to his mouth. He continued to scream against Peter’s palm, and struggle weakly against his grip, until he ran out of breath and had to reduce to a muffled groan. The smell of decay burned in his nose and sent bile to the back of his throat.

“Shhh,” Peter hushed, a few flecks of rot spraying from his gritted teeth. Kyle shuddered and struggled to draw in breaths despite the paralyzing fear in his chest. Peter dipped down until his face was inches away from Kyle’s, those sickening eyes examining his face up close.

Kyle squeaked into Peter’s palm, and he tried to jerk away, but his father held him there with a vice-grip on his arm.

“Kyle,” Peter croaked, slowly dropping his hand from Kyle’s mouth. Kyle opened his mouth and tried to scream again, but all that came out was a squeaking hiss. “You f-found me.”

So instead, he sobbed. He bared his teeth and squinted his eyes, trying to hold it back, but still he sobbed.

“Kyle,” Peter repeated, tilting his head and looking him over in confusion. “Shh.”

He pulled Kyle closer by the arm and brushed a hand over his hair. Kyle winced and sniveled.

“Shh,” Peter soothed in a rasping voice. “It’s—alright… I’m here.”

“P-Please— Don’t hurt… me.” Kyle didn’t urge those words to come. They just crept out past his trembling lips.

Peter’s brows dropped and he stared back in silence for a while before he stood, joints crackling, and he began to lead Kyle back towards the furnace by the arm.

“Wha- What?” Kyle sputtered, digging his heels into the floor, but his socks provided no grip.

“No!” he screamed, pulling back. Peter dug his grip in harder, crushing his thumb into Kyle’s arm. “No! No!”

“Kyle. I have to work,” Peter grunted. “I have to—watch you.”

“Let go!” Kyle screamed. “Let go, you’re hurting me! Dad!” His knee buckled underneath him, and he twisted and strained and squirmed to no avail. Still Peter yanked him one step at a time towards the spitting heat of the furnace.

“Stop!” Peter barked.

Kyle screamed louder, his throat burned, but not nearly as much as his arm, which had started to go numb.

“Stop!” Peter shouted a second time, halting and giving Kyle a firm shake.

“Let go!” Kyle howled again, yanking all of his weight back.

At first, Kyle didn’t realize when he’d been struck. He just felt his head fly back, felt his neck crack and saw the room spin. It wasn’t until he was hanging limply by the arm, and a throbbing, stinging pain spread all throughout the left half of his face, that he realized his father had punched him.

“What is your problem!?” Peter screamed by his head, adding a sting in the ear to his list of things that hurt. This, his voice dropped. “Just like your mother; you know that?”

Kyle could only spit out nonsense syllables.

“Come,” his father demanded. This time, Kyle had no choice but to go along. He let Peter drag him across the floor, away from the furnace this time, and lift him into the air with both arms before dropping him down on something hard. Kyle rolled his head down and saw that he had been seated on an old crate.

“Stay here,” Peter ordered. Kyle sat silently, but it didn’t seem like Peter wanted a real answer. He immediately turned and shuffled back to the furnace. Kyle strained his vision trying to see only one of him, but a blurry double sat unmoving on the right side.

Kyle curled in on himself atop the crate, cradling his aching cheek tenderly in his palm and trying to take some of the weight off of his stinging neck. His skin was hot and swollen against his hands, which he noisily wept into.

“I need to fix this damn thing,” Peter grumbled, picking the wrench back up off the ground. “Broken.”

He swung the wrench up over his head and it came clanging down against the side of the furnace. Kyle flinched at the sound and sobbed out loud.

Peter froze, and then he slowly spun around again. Kyle yelped and shrunk in on himself further, trying to be small.

“Don’t cry,” Peter demanded more than eased.

Kyle shuttered, and tried to blink away some of the blurriness.

“Please,” he begged. “Please let me go.”

Peter took a hard step forward. “You want to leave me?!” he shouted, dead magic hissing on the surface of his skin.

“No!” Kyle screamed, pushing himself back against the wall. “No! No! Please don’t!”

“You can’t leave me!” Peter continued approaching. “I can’t lose you too!”

“I won’t!” Kyle sobbed. “I won’t! I won’t! I promise!”

Peter stopped moving, and he stood a couple feet away from Kyle, chest heaving with wetted breaths, hissing magic calming to gentle whisps around his fingertips.

“My boy,” Peter mumbled, a second dribble of rot falling from his bottom lip.

Kyle held his breath and waited. But soon enough, Peter turned back around and returned to the furnace.

Peter hammered against the metal for a while longer, occasionally pulling a broken piece away and throwing it to the floor. Kyle sat in silence, save for his shaky breathing, which he couldn’t control if he tried. His eyes stayed glued to his father, only taking a break to glance at the storm cellar door. Safety could be just outside those doors. But he couldn’t be brave enough. He couldn’t even bring himself to unwrap his body from the fetal position as he sat atop the crate, listening to his witched father spit out cuss words as he tried to fix a machine he was actively destroying.

“I want my mom,” he whispered helplessly to himself as he tried to replay the message she’d left on the answering machine in his head. Was that the last time he’d ever hear her voice? The idea made him whine out into his arms. “I want my mom!”

He imagined his mother at work, panicked, calling everyone in the town. He should have just gotten off the bus and gone straight to Ines’ house, like he was supposed to.

“God dammit!” Peter hollered as he pulled away another pipe and tossed it to the ground. The clanging sound abruptly ceased, but the sputtering noise remained.

Kyle’s eyes popped back up to the storm-cellar door. He mentally wished for the power of teleportation. But his only chance to get out, to live, to see his mother again, would be to run.

He clenched his eyes shut. Well, the one that wasn’t already swelling shut on its own. He silently willed himself to be brave. As brave as he could be. Then he spoke:

“Dad..?”

Peter banged the wrench against a pipe.

“Dad!” Kyle cleared his throat of tears and saliva. “Dad! Can I help?”

Peter still didn’t answer. Kyle swallowed hard, let out another shuttering sob, and he lowered his feet onto the floor, forcing his unsteady hands out in front of himself.

“C’mon,” he whispered to himself. “You can do it.”

Gradually, he pushed physical magic along his arms. It crackled underneath his fingernails and put a ruby glow in his veins. But his hands still shook, and he couldn’t aim, no matter how he tensed his muscles, or how firmly he planted his feet on the ground. So he gave up on that plan, and instead just turned and ran.

Peter let out an infuriated roar, and Kyle felt adrenaline shoot through his legs as he bolted for the cellar door. It was so close, yet it seemed to be moving further away from him. Still, he ran as fast as he could, feet slipping over the cold flooring.

He’d almost made it, almost brushed against the bottom step, when the sound of energy crackled in the air and something sharp struck his spine. Dead magic tore through his body like an electric shock and sent him crashing to the ground, landing on his one uninjured arm.

“No!” he screamed breathlessly as Peter’s hand dug into his shoulder and roughly tossed him over onto his back, slamming him back down against the floor and knocking what little breath he had left out of him.

“Please!” he pleaded. “I’m sorry! Please! Don’t hurt me!”

Peter brought his hand down to Kyle’s leg, and he clamped down on his calf with full strength. Kyle squawked out and tried to jerk away, but he was in another vice-grip.

His father’s face was inhumanly bestial. He snarled with grey teeth and his eyes were intense with anger, the black veins in them pulsating as he slowly lifted the wrench up in his free hand.

“No!” Kyle squealed. “Please! I don’t wanna die, Dad! Please! Please, I’m scared! Stop!”

Peter looked him dead in the eye, nostrils flaring and chest heaving.

“You’ll never leave me again!” he growled-- and brought the wrench down hard on Kyle’s ankle.

This pain didn’t lie, or wait to arrive like the blow to the face. This pain was sudden, and unlike anything he’d ever thought possible. It ripped a scream from his breathless lungs. It twisted his spine and threw him back, convulsing against the floor. It erased all the pleading he had yet to speak from his memory. It even took the fear of dying away. For a while, it was just white noise and the unimaginable pain.

When the searing agony eventually dulled to an unbearable ache, clarity slowly began to return to Kyle’s mind. He choked on tears and opened his eyes to find himself face-to-face with Peter once again, still wearing that murderous expression. The wrench clattered to the floor, and Peter grabbed hold of Kyle by the neck, not squeezing, but still far too rough. Kyle was helpless, unable to beg anymore. Only able to sob and whimper as he was lifted painfully into the air, balancing on the toes of his one uninjured foot. The other foot hung uselessly, feeling like glass shards piercing up into his leg. He grabbed hold of his father’s wrist, trying with that little strength he could muster to relieve some of the strain on his neck and shoulders, but he couldn’t struggle. Not only did he lack the energy, but each movement beckoned that searing pain back up his leg and into his whole body.

He couldn’t breathe. But couldn’t do anything about it but cry pathetically as he watched his father watching him, eyes still wild, teeth still bared.

“Da-Dad…” he choked out. His last feeble attempt at survival.

Peter stiffened, his grip tightening and then loosening, and then tightening again. The anger melted from his facial expression and was replaced with a pained grimace.

“Kyle,” he croaked, stumbling to the side with Kyle dangling limply from his grasp. Rot bubbled at the corners of his mouth, the words he spoke gurgling out. His free hand rose and clumsily brushed down Kyle’s injured cheek.

“You’ll be— alright…”

With those final words, Kyle was flung through the storm cellar doors. He crashed through the wood and directly into something solid on the other side. Another sharp pain ripped through his arm and a second pounded into his skull, both mixing in with the fire in his leg. But it only lasted a moment before darkness swallowed up his consciousness.

#Writing snippet (PM)#Kyle Hausman #Peter Hausman

1 note · View note