The Ring

Jun 28, 2009 Features / Columnists, The Creative Corner

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By Michael Jordan

Part Four — Night Screams

She was standing by Wayne’s crib when Maxwell entered the room. Her body was half-turned to the door as if she had been listening for his footsteps.
“Yuh home early.”
He tried to read the expression on her face, but she had already turned back to the crib. “The big man turn in early tonight,” she said, fumbling with the mosquito net.
An image of the ailing girl at the hospital leaped at him and he felt a spasm of dread. Was Wayne really asleep? So soon?
His heart thumping in his chest, Maxwell walked over to the crib. The boy lay on his back, legs asprawl, mouth slightly open.
Sleeping…just sleeping…thank God.

He watched as Sandra reached into the crib to straighten the boy’s limbs. One of her breasts brushed his shoulder; the softness of her chasing some of the dread that had brought him home. He felt the tension draining from him, replaced now by guilt at his suspicions.
Damn…he hadn’t even kissed her goodnight. He turned to Sandra, who was still tucking the net in, and drew her close.
I would never let anything harm you or Wayne, he thought. Never.
“Everything alright, Max? Voice muffled against his shoulder.
He realized his bag was still slung on his shoulder. His shoes, usually discarded at the door, were still on.
“Yeah. Just had a roughish day at work. What about your headache?”
A momentary pause before she said: “It gone now.” She squeezed his shoulder. “Yuh dinner on the table.”
Maxwell washed his hands then headed for the small dining room. He felt the juices spring to his mouth as he looked at the macaroni and cheese in his plate. He reached across the table for the ketchup, and then uncorked the bottle. It felt surprisingly light. He upturned the bottle and shook it.
Nothing.

He stared at the bottle for awhile, just thinking. His hunger was gone; all his earlier fears flooding him again.
He knew he was being silly, but he could not shake the feeling that the empty bottle —its seal broken only yesterday; brought for him because Sandra hated ketchup—was a link in a chain of events relating to the ring.
An image of the thin child in ICU came to him again, and he covered his dinner and hurried back to the bedroom. Sandra was sitting on the bed putting in her curlers. He checked Wayne again, undressed, and went to bed.
But he could not sleep. He was too aware of Sandra near him; the intermittent, soft rattle as she removed the curlers from a shoebox on the bed.
His surreal, hushed conversation with Dr. Delon returned to him …
“She’s a very frightened little girl Her mother said she woke up screaming three nights in a row; staring at the bedroom window as if she was seeing something there. But there was no one there when her mother looked…”

But although she had seen nothing, Dr. Delon said the mother had claimed that she had felt as if someone was watching her.
He had learnt that the child lived at Beterverwagting, and that had triggered memories of his dream-woman in a country house, and how he had awoken to his neighbour’s baby crying…
He felt Sandra shift on the bed. He watched her stretch for the light switch, and now the room was in darkness. Maxwell felt himself tense as she lay next to him, but when she snuggled to him he held her close.
And now was as good a time to unburden himself to her…
Sandra, I know it sound crazy, but I believe that you are in danger….and maybe Wayne, too. I feel it in my guts. And it’s all because of that damned ring. I know I threw it away, but I believe that whatever was on it is still affecting you.
I believe you’re changing somehow. What happen to the ketchup, Sandra?
No. it was crazy. It made no sense upsetting Sandra with things he couldn’t prove or fully explain. If, as he sensed, something was going to happen tonight, the thing to do was watch.
He lay in bed, remembering those times, as a boy, when he had lain in bed stiff with fright after listening to his grandmother’s stories about night creatures. But he wasn’t a boy now. He—
His eyes fluttered open. Shucks…he’d fallen asleep! It was Sandra’s stirring that had awoken him. She had risen from the bed. She moved to the bedroom window. She stared outside for awhile; then, with a sigh, returned to bed.

“Yuh sleeping Max?” she whispered.
He did not answer.
He felt her shift closer to him. She caressed his face, then pressed her mouth to his. He felt the softness of her and felt himself responding; but then an awful tiredness like no tiredness he’d ever experienced consumed him, and he was dropping…dropping…dropping into blackness…
Floating now, in some country house. He knows somehow he’s been here before. Looking down at the two men dressed in suits of a long-past era as they restrained the writhing woman on the bed. He knows her name…Isobella. Her hair is loose, her eyes are red, red like the ruby in the ring glinting on her hand. Her voice is a whisper of pain.
“I can’t stop the fire…I can’t stop…”

Suddenly she breaks free, oozing from their grasp, floating out of the bedroom window.
But she does not fall. And from somewhere nearby, comes a scream and the cries of a baby…
Wayne! Wayne was in danger!
With an effort, Maxwell broke free from the dream. He felt groggy, as if he had taken a valium. He could hear a baby crying harshly somewhere nearby. Still feeling groggy, he switched on the light and stumbled over to the crib.
The boy was lying on his back, his stubby legs sprawled again. He was asleep, but something was amiss in the room. Maxwell turned to the bed and saw what it was.
Sandra was not there.
He was pondering his next move when he heard a muffed sound from the direction of the toilet. It came again, and this time he recognized it as the sound of someone retching. It was a sound he heard often enough at the hospital, but now it made his arms break out in goosebumps.
He stumbled outside, part of him still wondering about his dizziness.
“Sandra?”

A pause, then the retching again.
He hurried towards the washroom. The door was open. Sandra was bent over the toilet bowl, clutching her stomach. The floor was spattered with her digested meal, and with a reddish-blown liquid. She straightened up and stared at him. She seemed about to say something when they both heard the scream.
“Oh Gad!” Ohhhh Gad meh chile! Ohhhh Gaddd…”
The screams were coming from somewhere behind their apartment. Although distorted by grief, the voice was still recognizable.
He stared at Sandra, feeling a tightening in his throat.
“Something happen to Karen baby.”
She stared back at him, her face contorted with agony. “I know.” Then she slumped on Maxwell, sobbing.
“Oh God, Maxwell. Help me, help me…”
(To be continued)

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