Seeing Red

A short story

Adam Salwick hated the feel of his wife’s breath against his neck. These past few days, he’d grown to dread going to bed with her. Even her warm body pressed against his felt wrong now, like she was a stranger in his life. It was just him, though. She didn’t seem to notice anything different in their lives now. She still loved him madly, and he hated it. It annoyed him so much that he was the only one who noticed that their marriage was starting to deteriorate. Things would be progressing so much smoother, so much faster, if the bitch could just stop loving him.

He glanced over at the alarm radio by his bedside table, then at the red curtains at the windows by the dresser. The faint traces of sunlight creeping through told him enough, and he got out of bed, glad to be finally rid of Eliza’s touch. She didn’t notice him getting up though, and continued sleeping as he entered the shower, reemerging minutes later with his tall, muscular body draped in a towel.

And still she slept. There was such a peaceful look on her face that made Adam clench his fists tightly, fighting the urge to just yank the red covers off the bed and pull her out violently, telling her that he was walking away. Why? Why was she so oblivious to the fact that he didn’t love her anymore? Why did she have to be so forgiving? He’d gotten drunk, he’d hit her sometimes, yet still she loved him. Why did she have to be so goddamn happy?

After getting dressed and ready for work, he looked at her on his way out of the room and sighed. He turned back, treading softly back to the bed, and ever so gently, he shook her.

“Honey, get up,” he said. “Or you’ll be late for work.”

-

In a house a couple of blocks away, Katherine Tyers said goodbye to her husband, Ed as he left for work, his blue convertible reversing carefully out the driveway onto the street. He smiled at her from the driver’s seat, told her that he expected to be home late today, and drove off.

Sighing, she went back into the house, calling Matt down to make sure he didn’t miss the school bus.

In the kitchen, her sister, Claire had finished with her cup of coffee, putting down the morning paper as Kat came in. “He finally gone?” she asked with a wide smile. Seeing Kat nod in response, her smile turned into a grin as she stood up, “Then get dressed then! We’re going to go shopping!”

“Matt hasn’t even left the house yet, Claire,” Kat sighed as she sat down at the table. She poured herself a cup of coffee and took the morning paper for herself.

“Matt’s 18,” Claire reminded her, making sure that the fact that she was rolling her eyes didn’t go unnoticed. “It’s not like he can’t handle himself and the house from here.”

Kat thought about this for a while, then, seeing the way her sister was staring at her, she finally gave in and stood up from the table. “Fine,” she said. “Just let me go get changed first.”

“Wear that dress I brought in for you yesterday,” Claire said. “It looked perfect.”

At this, Kat stopped just as she was halfway out of the kitchen. She stopped, and turned around to look at her sister. “Claire,” she said. “I love that dress, really, I do. It’s just that, it’s red, and my husband-

“Oh c’mon,” Claire said, standing up. “It’s not like he’s coming with us. And really now, just because he hates the color doesn’t mean that you have to hate it too.”

“But Kat…you know how Ed-

“Yeah, I know,” Claire interrupted. “But again, he won’t know. You’re going out with me, and he’s at work. Now come on, let’s go shopping for more clothes you can wear for when your daughter pops out.”

At the very mention of her daughter, Kat’s hand automatically went to her womb. For a while, there seemed to be a look of sadness on Kat’s face. Regret, possibly.

‘Well, you’re the one who married Mr. Eccentric,’ Claire thought to herself. ‘You’re just lucky that Matt didn’t inherit any of his father’s weirdness.’

Silently, Kat turned around and left.

“We’re taking your car,” she called over her back.

-

A lot of people in the office didn’t really like Ed Tyers. Adam wasn’t one of them. Adam hated Ed Tyers. There were many instances where he’d felt like punching him, just to get him to leave him alone.

Now was one of those times.

“Hey, Adam,” Ed said, walking up to his desk with a friendly smile on his face. “Have you arranged for a performance for the coming Christmas party?”

Adam heaved a big sighed. “It’s a bit iffy,” he said. “Apparently, according to the band manager, they’ve got a bigger offer upstate in New York.”

“What exactly did the manager say?” Ed pressed further.

“That he’ll ring me tomorrow, but I shouldn’t make any plans.”

“Well,” Ed said, looking slightly disappointed. “That won’t do, will it? Do you want me to ring the manager-

-You don’t need to,” Adam assured him. “I’ve done the talking. At great length, too. Everything that can be done, has been done.”

Ed’s eyes narrowed. “Be that as it may, there’s no substitute for experience.”

“Just, lay off it, okay?” Adam blurted, raising his hand. The exclamation had come out louder than he had expected, drawing looks from other office workers passing by. Feeling slightly ashamed, Adam lowered his hand, and his voice as he repeated, “Please, trust me just this once, okay? I’m quite capable, you know.”

Ed outstretched his hands in an exaggerated gesture. “Oh, I don’t doubt you, Adam. I don’t want to cast any aspersions or anything. I was just, willing to help,” he said. The good Samaritan ever ready to help a co-worker in need. Adam realized that Ed probably didn’t mean the things he usually said in an extravagant manner, but he couldn’t help but hate him anyway.

“Thanks,” Adam said, his face muscles contorting into what could vaguely pass off as a smile. “But really, I can handle this on my own.”

“Well, its your funeral,” Ed shrugged. “But it sounds like you should consider an alternative-

“I already have one lined up,” Adam pointed out sharply. He then stood up from his seat, putting on his jacket. “Stop worrying, Ed. I can handle it, okay? I’m done for today. See you at the party.”

And at that he marched out, without looking back, fuming under his breath. Every day was like this for him. Oh how he hated the old man! In fact he had already made plans for getting drunk enough at the Christmas party to land a punch or two on his face, giving him a piece of his mind.

Until then, he would wait. In the meantime, there was someone waiting for him at home.

Ed watched until he disappeared out the main double doors, then, a smile appearing on his face walked up behind Adam’s desk. He liked the kid. Really he did. He seemed capable. But in his opinion, misguided. He had attitude problems, probably owing to the fact that he’d been promoted too early. He was bound to make mistakes, impetuous decisions that he’d regret later. It was up to his elders to set him right.

He looked around, satisfied that no one else was paying attention to him. Most of them were busy finishing up for the day; others had already left.

Ed’s eyes searched the desk, searching for the letter with the number he would need to dial up the manager of the band. As expected, it was beneath an artificial potted plant with spidery red leaves Adam kept on his desk. Ed eyed the leaves cautiously, reaching for the letter.

His hand brushed against one of the protruding leaves.

And almost instantly, a sharp pain ran through his hand, causing him to recoil, howling in pain. The pain was searing- like a sharp hot poker. It caused him to stagger back, eyeing his right hand as though it had been infected by some kind of dangerous toxin.

He watched as deep grooves formed in his skin, filling up with red liquid that was unmistakenably blood. And it was bubbling, as though it were boiling inside his flesh.

As his knees buckled, and the darkness rushed in to claim him, he thought of his mothers antipathy to the bad color, the unlucky color, and his unquestioned inheritance of it. He’d never really thought about why it was bad until now. Too bad he found out too late…

-

“So your wife’s out of town?” Tina asked as she closed the door behind her. “I mean, unless you have a death wish, I don’t see why you’d ask me to come here of all places. Or is my place not good enough for you anymore?”

Adam grinned widely. “She’s going to be out of town for more than a week. That’s the thing with successful women. Work’s always more important than everything else. Even Christmas.”

As he led Tina up to the bedroom, she had already started taking off her clothes, starting with her jacket. By the time they were inside the room, she was down to her briefs, inching closer and closer towards Adam. “Well, her loss if she doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas. I’ll celebrate with you, from today, until Christmas, even after.”

Adam got down on the bed, which was covered with red rose petals. As Tina moved in, slowly unbuttoning his shirt, it suddenly occurred to him that today was the best day of his entire life. Partially because of this. Partially because of his promotion. Partially because of the phone call he’d gotten from Larry at the office, informing him of Ed’s sudden seizure. The old man was in the hospital now, and if Adam was just lucky enough, he’d stay there until after the Christmas party itself.

Yes. Everything was just perfect.

-

Ed opened his eyes to find himself lying in a hospital bed, very much alive. The realization did very little to comfort him, and he immediately sat up, his heart beating furiously against his chest. He hated hospitals. It was more of a subconscious thing. Hospitals made him think of surgery and shots, both of which made him think of blood.

And Ed was deathly afraid of blood, whether it was his own or anyone else’s.

A nurse came in, and upon finding that he was awake, began insisting that he lay back in bed, telling him to relax.

“Relax?” Ed gasped, looking as though his eyes would bulge out of their sockets. “But my-

He looked at his hands, and noticed that they were perfectly fine.

What the hell was going on?

Deciding not to dwell on it too much, he looked up at the nurse and asked, “Where’s my family? Has no one thought of contacting my wife?”

“Your wife is two floors above us, Mr. Tyers,” the nurse told him pleasantly. “She just gave birth two hours ago. It’s a girl. Congratulations.”

‘Congratulations?’

Ed somehow found the idea of being happy absurd. Something was going to happen. He was sure of it. Something was coming. Something red. He wasn’t really all that excited about their second child. He hadn’t even wanted it. He’d tried telling Kat that one was enough, but no…

“Aren’t you pleased?” the nurse asked.

“Pleased,” Ed repeated dully, as though trying to fathom the meaning of the word. With things happening as they were, he wondered if there was any point in all this.

Either way, it wouldn’t hurt to go look.

-

The nurse led the way up to the fifth floor. The halls in Maternity were pale gray and dull, unlike what they usually made it seem like on TV- glowing, radiant. It seemed more like a walk down a prison alley to Ed. The nurse took him to a blue door which was the fifth one on the right side of the hall from the elevator. Grinning, she opened the door to let him in.

The nurse, whose name was Alice Fenton, was actually beginning to have second thoughts about this. Something seemed to be wrong about Ed. Half the time he looked like he was sleepwalking. The other half he just looked dangerous, somehow. He’d scared a visitor on one of the previous floor just now, when he’d screamed his lungs out upon seeing the roses the visitor was carrying. He had also flinched away from the Santa Claus the hospital had hired to visit the pediatric ward, almost as though a gun was being pointed at him.

Now, as she watched him step into the room to confront his wife, she wondered if bringing him here was such a good idea after all.

As Ed walked in, Kat, Claire and Matt all turned their heads away from the sleeping thing in Kat’s arms. They greeted him with warm smiles, well, save for Claire. Ed got the feeling that every smile that Katherine’s sister gave him hid daggers. Back when they were engaged, Claire had been most open about how she disliked him. It had…complicated things for a while.

Kat was still lying in bed, her belly still large. She looked pale and exhausted, her fringe a sweaty curtain. Whenever she moved, her face creased with pain. On the side of the bed near the door, Matt and Claire sat on plastic blue chairs, still smiling at him.

The nurse gave him the slightest push, as though urging him onwards. “Go on, Mr. Tyers. Don’t you want to hold your baby?” she whispered.

Ed staggered forward, glancing about the room as though watching for booby traps. As he stood in front of Kat’s bed, he peered down at it, her words an incessant drone in the background. A tiny red thing slept in the blankets, its fists clenched and its mouth clamped in a grimace. Its eyes seemed to bulge from behind closed eyelids as though they were too big for its head. It looked, Ed thought, like a skinned chimpanzee.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Kat said finally.

Her words were like an arrow launched straight into his heart. What was the point of beauty anymore?

“Hold her, Ed,” Kat urged.

Ed reached forward to do so.

And that was when it woke up.

The attack took Ed so by surprise that he couldn’t even scream. As the paralysis set in, he cursed himself for not realizing it earlier. This was why he had been chosen. He had seen it coming and yet he had been blind to its methods, its true nature. He looked down with abhorrence at this thing… to think that he had fathered it, this thing purported to be his daughter. “Ed,” he heard Kat call him insignificantly. But his eyes were locked onto the thing’s eyes.

They were red.

“Ed!” he heard Kat call, sounding even more far away now. “Ed! Ed! Ed!”

He wanted to warn them, that this was the vessel of evil. He wanted to destroy it. But the red light swamped his brain and bludgeoned him into unconsciousness.

-

Two days later, Kat and her son were hanging up the Christmas decorations around the house with Claire’s help. As much as Claire had tried, she had been unable to light the somber mood that hovered between Ed’s wife and son. Now Christmas was drawing in, and they were celebrating it without him, while he lay unconscious in the hospital.

“Kat, you can come over to celebrate at my place, you know,” Claire told her as she sat back on the living room sofa. “Dave and I wouldn’t mind.”

“It’s okay,” Kat replied. “Matt and I need to be here in case he comes home.”

Kat placed the star at the top of the tree before settling back on the sofa beside Claire while Matt soundlessly went back upstairs to his room.

“Kat,” Claire murmured. “Something’s wrong with him. You know that, don’t you?”

“He’s just been going through a hard time, that’s all,” Kat replied without looking at her. “Things haven’t been going so good at work, and he’s been having all those bad dreams.”

“But you saw the look on his face when he looked at your daughter!” Claire reminded her. “I think you should consider getting help from him.”

Kat sighed deeply, putting her hands on her face. “I don’t know, Claire,” she murmured, her voice breaking. “Things just seem to be falling apart. Ed’s in the hospital. Matt was caught by the cops yesterday for vandalizing a bus stop- and it wasn’t even the first time. And the baby just seems so… sick. The doctor said she’s fine, but I feel like there’s something wrong.”

Claire placed a comforting hand on her sister’s shoulder.

And that was when the phone rang.

-

Even though she was asleep, Adam couldn’t help but kiss her on the cheeks, repeatedly, passionately. Yes. This was what he was looking for. They’d been in bed all day, with the snow only starting to fall outside. Eliza had called in only minutes ago from her cellphone, just to tell him that she missed him. That had been the only part of the day that he’d found not to his liking.

Why the hell had he married her in the first place, anyway?

It had felt like a good idea at the time. He and Eliza had been at the height of their romance, then. Where the relationship had been like fireworks in college, now it was only sputtering, waiting to die.

Tina didn’t wake up. It didn’t matter. He could wait. He’d get up, have a shower, get dressed, make dinner, and then wake her up. After that they could get in bed again.

He hadn’t heard the sound of the front door opening while he was in the shower. He came out, deciding that he wouldn’t get dressed after all. They’d have dinner without their clothes on, and then they wouldn’t have to worry about clothes when they jumped right back into bed.

As he stepped back into the bedroom, that was when she saw her.

‘Ohmygod.’

Eliza didn’t say anything. She just stared, her eyes moving between him and the woman lying in bed. For what felt like an eternity, it looked like she was going to scream.

Then, sobbing, she turned around and ran.

He ran after her, catching her by the left hand as they reached the stairs.

“Don’t say anything,” she threatened, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Let go of my arm.”

When he didn’t, she slapped him with the other, right across the face.

Feeling the blood rush to his face, in that brief moment of anger, he slapped her back.

She struggled. He tightened his grip on her arm. She slapped him again.

And he let go, hitting her again.

He watched as she fell.

-

“Ed escaped the hospital,” Kat murmured as she put down the phone. “The doctor said he just slipped out.”

“What?” Claire gasped. “Where is he now then?”

Even before the knock came at the door, Kat knew. She just knew.

“Kat. Open the door.”

He sounded disturbingly calm. She would have ran for the door to welcome him, had her instincts not screamed for her not to. Claire was looking at her desperately, mouthing the words ‘Don’t do it.’

And he started banging on the door loudly, repeatedly.

“I want to see my daughter.”

Kat picked up the phone again, to call for help.

And that was when the door came crashing down.

He stepped in slowly, calmly, as though nothing was wrong. It was his face that told her that her hadn’t come down to exactly celebrate Christmas with the family. His eyes were bloodshot, and a trace of drool ran down his chin. He was still wearing his hospital garments, walking barefoot towards them carrying an axe which he had probably picked up from the garage earlier.

“Where is she, Kat?”

The two women screamed, running up the stairs. Where Claire was just desperate to get away, Kat was running for the master bedroom, where her daughter was asleep. She didn’t know what was wrong with her husband, but she wasn’t going to let him touch her.

They slammed the door to the master bedroom shut, before blocking the door with furniture.

As Ed reached the top of the stairs, the other door at the end of the hallway opened and Matt stepped out with a look of confusion on his face.

“Dad?”

His eyes darted to the axe in his father’s hand, and he backed off into his room instantly, slamming his door shut.

Before he could even lock it, the axe head and started hacking at the door, penetrating the thin layer of wood.

“Where is she, Matt?”

Panicking, Matt backed off towards the opposite wall, his eyes searching the room for something to defend himself. Then he found something better- the window.

The door came crashing down as he had just started to climb out. Ed grabbed his son violently by the shoulder before yanking him back in, pushing him down onto the bedroom floor.

“Where is she?” he repeated, his voice still disturbingly calm.

His mind racing, Matt leaped at his father, tackling him down. The two struggled on the floor, wrestling for hold of the axe. In the confusion, Matt accidentally kicked the leg of his study desk, sending a sharp pain running up his leg. He howled in pain as Ed pulled the axe away from him.

Matt reached for the first thing that fell from the table, near his outstretched hand-

A can of red spray paint.

Without hesitating, he pointed it up at his father’s face, and pressed down on the spray head. The paint mingled with the blood on his father’s forehead, covering his face in a jet of red. He looked hideous now. Like a zombie, a car crash victim come alive.

Howling with agony, Ed got off his son and ran out of the bedroom.

-

Adam slammed the trunk of his red Cadillac shut, before hastily getting into the driver’s seat. He looked over to the passenger’s seat, and made sure that the shovel was still there. With luck, he would be able to go and come back before Tina woke up.

‘That stupid bitch.’

She must’ve known, somehow, he realized. That was why she had called in before to make sure he was at home. She had wanted to catch him in the act.

‘Well you caught me, you bitch. Are you happy now?’

He hadn’t meant to kill her. He hated her, yeah, and he’d wanted to get rid of her. But he hadn’t wanted her to fucking break her neck.

His tires screeched as he hammered down on the accelerator, almost flying up the street.

-

Ed ran out the front lawn, gasping for breath. His eyes were still closed- oh how they stung! He felt like they were sizzling, bubbling in their sockets. Was he going to go blind? He didn’t know. He didn’t know if it mattered anymore. He didn’t know if anything mattered anymore. He had failed.

When he opened his eyes, the whole world was gray. He couldn’t see anything clearly, couldn’t hear much. He thought he could hear voices calling his name, but he couldn’t be sure.

He turned towards the front porch to see three figures coming out of the house. He couldn’t see their faces, but he saw their eyes, and that was enough to get him running again, screaming. He was in hell. Yes, that had to be it. How else could there be so many of them out?

As he ran up the street, he stopped when he thought he saw something else coming towards him at incredible speed-

Something red.

The last sound he heard before it all ended was the sound of screeching tires, just as the wall of red metal ran up to meet him.