Bobo

The sound came to Sarah as a soft pecking. Someone knocking on a distant door.
It became louder. Filling the gray emptiness around her with the ringing sound of steel against steel.
God's blacksmith re-shoeing his steed.
The death knell of a distant bell.
Am I dead? she wondered.
She tried to roll over, to escape that clamoring sound and the gray emptiness that lay around her, but she could not move. Her arms were pulled tight above her head.  Her body  stretched to its limit. Her shoulders screaming in agony with every little movement as something coarse dug into the soft tissue of her wrists. Her fingers felt bloated, uselessly oversized, alive with the tingling sensation of pins and needles that danced across her flesh.
A thought rose to the surface of her consciousness, trailing oily bubbles of fear as it ascended from the nighted abyss of half forgotten secrets. The pounding became slow footsteps
moving down a crooked hall bathed in a yellow light as a name echoed in her thoughts.
Bobo.
The name sent a chill scrambling up her spine as a familiar voice whispered in her mind.
“It'll be our little secret.”
Bobo?
With the voice she saw the doll. Blue eyes glowing with a malevolent light, red lips spread in a wide smile, a three-pointed hat perched atop fuzzy orange hair. It was dressed in a velvety blue and green fabric that shimmered in the light. Its appearance would be comical if not for the tearing pain that invaded her upon seeing its leering face.
"No, don't hurt me, I'll be a good girl, I promise," a child cried out from her memories as the footsteps stopped before a peeling, paint cracked, door. The gray mists parted and Sarah saw her. The child, a young girl, lying huddled beneath a coarse blanket. The room around her was sparely furnished, the dresser against the opposite wall sitting crookedly on its broken leg, its chipped surface worn to a dull sheen.
"I'll be a good girl, I promise," the girl moaned as the door knob rattled, turned, and the hinges squealed with a shrill cry as the door swung open to reveal a waiting abyss through which the soft tinkle of a bell could be heard.
That familiar voice reminded her, "it'll be our little secret," and her terror blossomed into the pitiful wailing of a frightened child. She struggled against her bonds, pulling them tighter about her wrists, and felt a heavy hand fall onto her thigh.
Was it Roger? No, it couldn't be, he never touched her anymore.
“Mrs Michael’s, Mrs Michael’s we can't allow this,” the voice was cultured, slurring the S's with a sound like the hiss of a serpent sliding through dry grass.

The voice awakened another memory, this one different, fresher, and she could see a parking lot. Sunlight glittered from chrome and glass. She heard footsteps on the pavement, the rumble of a door behind her, something soft was shoved against her face. Overwhelming her with a sharp chemical smell that plunged her into that fuzzy gray emptiness.
"Mrs Michael’s, please calm down, we're not going to hurt you, I promise," she recognized it as belonging to the old man in the parking lot.
"Could you help me find my keys?" 
She was such a fool. Roger was right.  She was too trusting, too open with strangers, too willing to lend a helping hand.
"It's as if you're walking around with a sign hanging from your neck saying 'take advantage of me." Roger's voice sneered from the depths of her memory, driving her awake, and into the waiting darkness.
Where am I? What do they want? Why am I tied up?  As she searched for a reasonable explanation her struggles ceased.
"That's better Mrs Michael’s, much better," that hissing voice came from the thick darkness around her. She scanned the emptiness, searching for the owner of the voice, finding only more shadows pressing in on all sides. She had felt safer in that fuzzy gray emptiness.
She saw a shaded window across from her. The sunlight beyond had been turned into a soft effervescent glow that penetrated weakly into the dark interior of the room. And from beyond the window came the clanging sound that had invaded her thoughts. She turned her head in the direction from which the voice had come; her neck muscles crackling with pain. She could make out the ghostly image of bare plaster walls close to the window, gaping holes exposing the skeletal structure beneath, but beyond that everything else remained shrouded by a thick gloom.
On the other side of the drawn shade the pounding that had awakened her continued.  Between each ringing clang she heard a motor revving.
What is it? she wondered, briefly imagining a child’s nightmare machine chewing up its victims before spitting them out, a thing of steel jaws, and bloodied teeth.
As she listened, others sounds found their way to her, the bark of a tire on pavement, the blare of a horn. They were the sounds of people moving about their daily lives, going about their business, unaware of her predicament.
She wanted to scream to them, to shout until she was hoarse, to draw their attention to her plight. But she knew as soon as she thought of it that her screaming would not be tolerated for long. She recalled the cloying stench that had plunged her into the gray emptiness.  No, there had to be another way.
The shade moved, touched by a soft breeze, and she could smell the unmistakable odor of freshly turned earth.  The comforting scent of baked goods.  The biting sting of exhaust fumes carried into the room on that errant puff of air. The musty smell of the room itself reminded her of boarded up attics, abandoned basements shrouded by perpetual twilight, holding close the secrets of occupants past.  Beneath it all, like the gentle undercurrent of a swift moving stream, she could detect that sharp chemical odor. Clinging to her as a constant reminder of the parking lot and her own naivety.
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she could see the lighter shadow of her captor on her right.
"What do you want?" she croaked through parched lips.
"What does anyone want Mrs Michael’s?" her captor answered, "an easy life. No worries.  Enough money to live in style.  In exchange for your safe return your husband will give it to us."
Roger?  Roger would give them money?
She doubted it, and the true depth of her predicament slammed into her with the force of a physical blow. Roger wasn't stupid.
"Please," she moaned, fighting to control her growing panic. Roger wasn’t going to pay. This she knew as well as she knew her own face.
"You don't understand," she said, trying to remain calm.
“It seems pretty obvious to me,” that voice continued with confidence, “Two million dollars for your safe return. I believe he'll pay.”
No he won't, she wanted to scream at that smug voice. To tell him about how she and Roger avoided one another in their daily lives. About the loveless bed in which she slept while Roger was out screwing around. About the coming divorce.
Ever since she had learned she was unable to conceive, her marriage had become cold, and empty as she stubbornly refused to accept what was painfully obvious to everyone else. Even then she understood that her inability to have children was only part of the reason Roger wanted a divorce.
He was tired of her. After thirteen years of marriage, of working themselves near to death, he wanted someone new to go with his newfound success. Someone more glamorous than she could ever hope to be. Someone like one of the models she always saw hovering around him as he accepted this award or that for his humanitarian work. Out having a wonderful time while she sat at home, ate ice cream, and watched on television. She had become the eternal outsider. A stranger to what should be her own life.
"Why don't you do something to your hair, lose some weight, put on some make-up," his voice sneered from the depths of her mind. Even when they were apart, he was always with her, holding her down. But for now it was her secret. They would learn the truth soon enough. When Roger screwed up the payment in one way or another, he, or they, would learn that to Roger's way of thinking they were doing him a favor.
She was alone, as she had been for most of her life, and it was how she would die. Alone, forgotten, unloved.
Childless. The last was the cruelest part, for to die without having known the unconditional love of a child was not only unjust, it was unpardonable.
"Please, I'll get you money, all you want.  Just let me go," she begged.
"Hardly," the reply was accompanied by a dry chuckle that stirred the short hairs on the nape of her neck.
She had to escape, but how? She pulled at the bonds holding her wrists, testing them, and felt movement. There was a slight loosening of the headboard above her.
"Mrs Michael’s, don't do that or I'll have to put you back to sleep."
She pulled harder, panic flashing through her, and was rewarded with the shrill cry of wood pulling away from wood.
"Mrs Michael’s," the alarmed tone that had crept into the otherwise calm voice lent her renewed strength. She could escape. But then what? Think. She didn't know where she was, much less how to get out of the building, all she was sure of, was that to remain here, would bring her death. She pulled again; her shoulders screaming in agony, and felt the headboard move another inch.
“I warned you, Mrs Michael’s.”
A hand appeared before her face as a damp cloth was pressed over her nose and mouth. The overpowering smell of the chemicals on the rag made her woozy and she fought to hold her breath as she concentrated on the soft light of the drawn shade.
It was the only light in a sea of shadowy darkness. She had to stay awake. She had to find a way out of this. She couldn't allow herself to die like this, like a dog chained to a tree, like her puppy Ambrose.
Her lungs screamed in her chest, seeking air, as a tremendous roaring filled her ears. From the depths of her memory came the pain filled yelp of a dog being beaten.
"I've told you," her father raged as the memory enveloped her. She was once more sitting on the front porch of the house she grew up in. Her puppy, Ambrose, was chained to the tree in the front yard unable to escape. Her father stood over him, a black silhouette against the sun-drenched background, featureless, devoid of substance, a shadowy stranger in her young life.
"Please daddy, don't hurt Ambrose, he didn't mean it," she cried out.
In her father’s hand a leather belt dangled to the ground, staining the dirt with glistening spots of red blood that were absorbed by the parched earth thirsty for a sip of cool rain.
"I told you about pissing on the carpet," her father shouted as the belt hissed through the air, blood flew in a fine mist, and Ambrose cried his last.
"It'll be our little secret," that familiar voice whispered in her mind.
"I told you about pissing on the carpet," her father raged.
“It'll be our little secret.”
“I told you about pissing on the carpet.”
The sentences chased one another through her mind, merging, combining, to become one.  It was then she realized they were both the same voice. Each filled with a different emotion.  One of anger, the other of shame, both belonging to her father.
No! Her mind screamed, shocked, as she drew in a tiny sip of tainted air. The world spun around her and with a shuddering sob of resignation she inhaled deeply.
The chemically laden air slammed into her lungs, her heart stuttered in her chest, and she fell headlong into that waiting, clinging, fuzzy grayness. She floated effortlessly, buoyed upon drifting clouds of gray nothingness as voices from her past echoed around her.
"It's stillborn," her mother whispered in a listless voice.
"I told you about pissing on the carpet," her father yelled, then whispered in a conspiratorial tone, "it'll be our little secret."
She was too young for such secrets.
"Bobo," a small child cried out in terror.
The swirling mists parted to reveal a tiny bedroom, the same she had seen earlier. Sitting on the narrow bed, a coarse blanket wrapped about her shoulders, a young girl stared at the brooding stillness of the forest.  Sarah realized, with a start, that she was looking at herself as she once was.
The forest beyond her window was desolate and lonely, forsaken, appealing to the deep sense of despair that had moved into the dark chambers of her soul when Bobo came to live with them. The memory of his arrival awakened a tearing pain in her loins and she fought to hold back the scream welling up from deep within her.
It was best if you didn't let him know he was hurting you.
She concentrated on the forest, trying to will the pain away, while from behind her came the sound of slow footsteps approaching her door, accompanied by the soft jingle of a distant bell.
Bobo was coming.
The footsteps stopped at her door and from beyond the warped surface came the sound of a bell.
"I've brought something for you," her father said in a drunken slur.
"No, please, I'll be a good girl, I promise," she cried as her stomach swelled until it felt like it would explode. Something stirred within her, rolled over, and she bit her tongue to keep from screaming. Blood filled her mouth, its slick coppery taste coating her tongue, gagging her.
"It'll be our little secret," her father said, holding out a clown doll.
"I promise I'll be good, please," she begged.
"It'll be our little secret," her father said again, the forest fading from sight, to be replaced by his muddied brown eyes filled with shame and hope as the pain between her legs threatened to split her in half.
"Please, don't hurt me," she whimpered.
"I'm sorry sweetheart," her father's whisper echoed from the dank emptiness of her innermost thoughts, where secrets lay hidden behind a tattered veil of denial.
"No," she shouted, pulling at her bonds, as she rose once more the to the surface of her own consciousness, "no please," she begged, fighting against the ropes that held her as those half forgotten memories overwhelmed her, dogging her, riding her from the shadowy crypt of her buried emotions, and dragging her back to a past she would sooner forget.
"Can you ever forgive me?" her father begged, smelling of Old Spice aftershave, stale  tobacco, and cheap whiskey.
"Can you?" her father's memory asked.
"It isn't true," she raged but deep in her heart she knew it was. She could see his muddied brown eyes, inches from her own, as the aroma of spent sex wafted up from between their close bodies. Bobo was innocent. He had never harmed her. In fact.
"Please," her father whispered from the black depths of her past, "please forgive me."
"No!" she whimpered, catching sight of a shadowy movement from the corner of her eye.
Mom? Shame burned her cheeks. It wasn't fair, she was just a kid, why? why her?
Hot liquid splattered onto her face as a look of surprise flashed across her father’s dull, beaten, features. His surprise was replaced by an expression of agony and the growing knowledge of impending death. Behind his left shoulder she could see bright blue eyes glowing malevolently in the soft light of a full moon, above red lips pulled back to reveal long glittering teeth.
The image jumped, like a moving picture leaping its track, dropping her into another scene without a transition to maintain her sanity. Something moved within her, rolling over, and the agonizing pressure moved downward. She was still lying on her back, surrounded by glowing oil lamps. A sheet over her swollen belly, her feet propped up, her legs spread wide, as the pressure intensified.  Her mother looked up from between her legs. Eyes indifferent, ashamed, angry all at the same time.
What have I done? Why is mom mad at me?
She screamed as a tearing pain rippled across her body. Her swollen stomach fell in upon itself and after a moment of silence her mother looked up with that same dead expression.
"It's stillborn, child," she said in a listless voice.
"No, please," she begged, she wanted children so bad, needed them to justify her own existence, to save her marriage.
A soft disturbance pulled her to the surface of her consciousness, this time she broke through as reality came crashing back around her, and she opened her eyes to a velvety emptiness. She lifted her head to look into the thick darkness around her. The pale light of a nearby streetlight was glowing weakly around the drawn shade. Day had become night.
Something had awakened her. Something had disturbed the silence that filled the room around her. What? What had she heard?
She searched her memory, trying to put her finger on what it had been; when from the emptiness next to the window came the muted tinkle of a single bell.
"No," she moaned as terror washed over her like a crashing wave, "please, Bobo, don't," he'd come back to her, in her moment of need, he had returned. Small footsteps moved quickly through the darkness, moving away from the window, to where?
"Please Bobo, don't," she lifted her head from the pillow, the muscles in her neck screaming in agony. The door opened, and a narrow beam of light washed over her face, then it vanished into the emptiness. But before it did she saw the unmistakable outline of a three pointed hat tilted at a jaunty angle upon a small head.
Dropping her head back she allowed the tears to flow freely as the old memories once more began to stir. Suddenly a scream of terror drove her memories back into the darkness of her thoughts. A gunshot rang out. Followed by another.
"Bobo," she moaned.
"Get it off of me," a man screamed from beyond the door, that cultured voice now lost in terror. Approaching footsteps shook the room around her. Someone slammed into the door.
Sarah struggled against her bonds, now fully awake, the voice of her past lost in her own panic. They were coming for her. Roger didn't pay. Panic dampened the pain from her wrists as she pulled at her bonds. The headboard shrieked with a shrill cry. The door rattled in its casement as the man screamed again.
"Get it off of me," the scream collapsed into an unintelligible cry of pain and terror.  The door opened, then slammed shut again. The bed collapsed under her and with a cry of agony she pulled her arms down to her sides. Struggling with her bonds, her fingers nearly useless, she worked to get the knots out of the rope around her wrists.
The door exploded in, filling the darkness with a wide band of soft yellow light, and she rolled off the collapsed bed as a figure staggered into the room to fall onto the mattress. It rolled back and forth through the soft light, and she could see brief flashes of green and blue fabric, muddied, rotted in places, the colors faded from their once vibrant appearance.
“Bobo!” she shouted in a hoarse voice.
In the distance a police siren began to wail with a mournful cry.
Please come for me, she prayed silently.
The figure stopped rolling and Sarah backed into a corner of the room as a smaller figure detached itself from the deep shadows and got to its feet.
"Please forgive me," she whispered, her hands clasped before her, on her knees, ready to beg for her life.
"It's stillborn," her mother whispered in the back of her mind, but Sarah now understood that Death was not the barrier many believed it to be. Small footsteps moved to her in the darkness. A bell jingled with a muted, dirty, tinkle.
"Bobo?" she asked.
"Mama," a childish voice whispered in reply.
Sensations flooded her overwrought mind. She felt as if she were trapped, darkness pressing in on every side, and she clawed her way to the freedom she knew was waiting above.  Just as Bobo had clawed his way from the moldering earth to come for her. She could see him with her mind's eye, a tattered wraith moving through the shadows of the night.

"Mama," the stench of an opened grave wrapped itself about her as the small figure moved to her.
"I, I, I'm sorry," she whispered,
A chilly finger softly caressed her arm, completing a circuit, her breasts became heavy, painful, and she was overcome by a desire to nurse.
"Mama," the childish voice was right in front of her. She could see the three-pointed hat against the yellow rectangle of the opened door.
Footsteps rushed down the hallway towards her, flooding into the room as beams of light stabbed the darkness.
Someone yelled, "I found her."
She pulled the small bundle close to her breasts and looked up, blinking as the light focused on her face, she smiled.
She brushed the smooth face against her exposed breast. One blue eye gazed up at her with a malevolent glare. The other was chipped with but a small part of the blue still intact. Glittering teeth, long and narrow, shimmered from behind dull red lips drawn back into a twisted smile.
Roger would be so proud of her, she could hardly wait to show him, he'd wanted children so bad.
And now she'd given him a son.


THE END