It had been four years since my younger sister died. Since then, my mother has never been the same. Lucy had been the apple of her eye, and her death carved a rift in our family.
My father became a stranger towards us, and his grief was different from my mother’s. He seemed indifferent, as if Lucy’s death had lifted a burden from him. My mother had discovered my father’s affair and the revelation of the mistress’s pregnancy poured gasoline on the fire.
I watched my mother’s mental state begin to deteriorate day by day. She often held my hand tightly and asked me the same question.
“Where is my Lucy?”
I had to remind her repeatedly that Lucy had died many years ago. Each time, her face crumpled in sorrow and her cries of anguish were painful to bear.
My father showed no empathy when I tried to explain my mother’s condition. He often dismissed it casually, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell him how much it hurt that he had moved on—then came the day that changed everything.
It was a quiet afternoon when I heard a knock at the front door. I opened it to find my father standing there trembling and terrified.
“Can I come in?” he whispered.
He looked disheveled, and I hesitated for a moment but eventually let him inside. He collapsed onto the couch, staring blankly at the floor—then he uttered something that confused me.
“Lucy is here —”
“What—Lucy died years ago —” I remark.
“NO—NO SHE IS NOT,” screamed my father “SHE IS HERE!”
His voice cracked as he fell to the floor in a heap. His eyes held terror and he crawled toward me, shaking as he muttered incoherently.
“Ask—your—mother,” he said in an eerie voice.
He violently tore his hair from his scalp. Blood and flesh clung to his nails as he ripped at his own skin. I tried to stop him, but he broke free from my grasp and surged outside, screaming into the night. From the corner of my eye, I noticed movement at the top of the stairs. My mother stood motionless in the dark.
When I finally looked up at her, her eyes were glowing red. She descended the stairs slowly, and I noticed her fingers were gnarled and pale. Her skin was stretched tight across her face and her eyes were hollowed and sunken with maggots writhing beneath. In her arms was a small child that resembled Lucy.
“Look—,” my mother whispered in a fragile voice “it’s Lucy”.
The child turned toward me and smiled while extending out her tiny hands in my direction.
“Mom….that’s not Lucy,” I whispered in fear.
Her pupils shrank to pinpricks and with a high-pitched shriek, she screamed at me.
“HOLD HER!”
Her body lunged forward with an unnatural speed and I ran out of the house in fear. I sprinted down the street and saw a trail of blood that led to a car parked by the curb. There— I saw my father’s lifeless body sprawled across the road. His face was carved out from his head and his neck was twisted at an impossible angle.
I dropped to my knees beside my father’s body and began to cry. Through my blurred vision, I saw her—my mother—standing in the distance while holding the child’s hand. I quickly staggered to the car and opened the door. Inside, to my shock, I stumbled back, for what I saw was truly a nightmare.
My father’s mistress was mangled beyond compare in the front seat. Her stomach was sliced open and the organs were discarded on the floor by her feet. Her arms were broken off by their sockets and her face —. I couldn't bear the sight. Yet, in the back seat of the car, I noticed an empty child safety seat.
At that moment, I felt something behind me, and when I turned around — I saw my mother.