Her voice is more firm. “Don’t be mean, Leigh. I know you’re mad. I can’t help that. I’m here to take care of you.

  “Dammit, Mama, no.”

  “But Leigh! Don’t you understand?” Her voice is pleading now, pitiful and squeezed. “You’re so awful to me when you don’t get what you want, Leigh. How did you grow up so selfish? You lie and you say terrible things. Why are you doing this to me now, when all I want is to be with you?”

  “Mama, no! Stop twisting everything around. I’m not being mean. I’m telling you the truth. I can't help that it hurts.” She stares at me with wet, injured eyes. “Mama, you can't be with me. You can't take care of me. Don’t you remember? Four years ago in the hospital you told me to go away and never come back, and now, now you've come back and—” The truth is so ugly that I don’t want to say it out loud. “Mama, I don’t know anything about what happens when you die, but you shouldn’t be here.”

  “But Leigh, I need you.”

  A chunk of truth lands hard in my throat. Its weight pulls me farther down, squeezes my lungs and neck and shoulders down into my chest. I don’t want to believe it, but I know her. I know how she has always worked. She always knew how to keep me weak so that she could get what she wanted.

  “Mama, are you…are you doing this to me?” Of course it was true. I knew it like I knew the sound of her voice.

  “No! Of course not. What is wrong with you? What kind of a girl could believe that about her own mother?”

  “Mama, you are doing this. I just don’t know why. Are you punishing me? Because I wasn't good enough?”

  “No, sweetheart, I would never punish you for that.”

  “Are you trying to take me with you? Is that it?”

  “Leigh Ann, no, it's not like you think. I need to take you home with me so you'll get well. You need me to take care of you. That's why I'm here. Don't you understand?”

  Of course. “I understand. You’re the one who doesn’t get it. I don’t know how you’re doing this but it’s not okay. I always took it from you, whatever you gave me, because I thought it was my job. But it’s not my job to let you hurt me anymore. Especially not this way. This isn’t right.”

  She stands a little taller next to her cane and sighs. “Leigh Ann, I’m not like you. I’m not strong. I need you, sweetheart. Am I such a terrible mom that I can’t even raise one daughter to take care of me?” Her plaintive voice wedges itself into the upper octaves of her range before it turns to an impossibly high croak. “Don't you love me?”

  “Mama, stop. I'm not being mean. I’m sorry, I swear.” It feels like I'm peeling her sticky hands from around my neck. “I’m just telling the truth. I love you, Mama, but you died. You’re gone. I don't know why I can see you and talk to you, but you shouldn't be here anymore. Can’t you see this is hurting me?”

  “You listen to me, Leigh Ann.” Her voice is suddenly firm, drained of its pleading tone. “That’s enough of that. You’re just being stupid. Now let it go. We have to focus on getting you home.”

  Inside me there has always been a little girl who couldn’t help but comply with that voice. Maybe as a child I had no choice. Mama always had so much more will than I did. As an adult I never had enough time to teach myself any other way to react to her.

  I take a deep breath, then reach out to touch her free hand, ready to support her as she takes me wherever she wants to take me. I can fight her later, I think. This is a long game. Right now, she's not reasonable. Of course, part of me knows there’s a chance I might never fight her again. She was always so much stronger in her weakness than I was.

  Mama stands a little straighter as I bend under her weight. Her hospital gown has changed into a perfectly pressed, powder-blue pantsuit. She absently brushes invisible lint from her jacket, releases my hand, and looks down at me with hard, dry eyes.

  Her smile is perfect and chilling and oh so sweet. “You just remember that I know what's best for you, sweetheart. Everything I do, I do for you.”

  Capturing my eyes with hers, with one bent finger she touches my collarbone and traces beneath my shoulder the meandering line of her old spinal X-ray. As she traces, I feel my own spine collapse further, the pain making me hot and nauseous. When I look down, the shape that had been drawn on her back is now on me, glowing faintly through my hospital gown.

  “Mama, no. Please.”

  She walks away from her cane and comes around beside me to help support my weight. “Let's just get you home, baby doll, and then all this won't matter.”

  In the distance I see our old house in Virginia, its wide porch and gables, the gravel driveway and the path around to the semi-detached kitchen. I lean against her and am honestly grateful for the support. Of course, the more I give her my weight, the more my strength drains out through my flimsy hospital slippers.

  Hot tears roll down my cheeks.

  She looks over at me sweetly. “I know, honey. This is how it always should have been. You and me against the world. Just us. Forever.”

  I know this isn't right. I know that isn't really our home she’s leading me towards. But between us she has all the power. The weight of my childhood is so much heavier than the few years I've spent learning to be independent.

  We approach the kitchen door through a thickening fog. I can barely see, and I feel as if I’m growing fainter with every step. Meanwhile, the pain in my back has wrapped itself around me like a cold, wet blanket, numbing me until I don't know where it ends and I begin.

  Maybe this is right. Maybe this is my destiny. Maybe caring for her is what I’m supposed to do with my life, no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts. I lose my footing on the gravel path and she loosens her grip, letting me fall. When I look up, she’s smiling, holding out her hand for me. I take it.

  “Don't you see how much easier this is if you let me help?”

  I cringe. “Yes, Mama. Thank you, Mama.”

  “We're gonna get you your own pillows and blankets, your own bed, and all our cats to set up around you. It'll be nice. You'll see.”

  “I know, Mama.” I pause for a breath. “Thank you, Mama.” My voice is soft like cotton candy, almost not there at all.

  I shuffle up the two shallow steps to the kitchen door, and she turns the knob, looking back over her shoulder at me. She turns her back to the door once it’s open, so she can help me with both hands.

  My vision is fuzzy and dark and my mind is hopelessly clouded, but over her shoulder I see what she doesn't. Through the doorway is not our warm kitchen but a howling black vortex. It pulls gently at her clothes and hair as she backs closer to it.

  Whatever this place is, it is not home. But if I don't follow her, I will have failed her one last time. I will be the terrible daughter she has always known me to be. Whether or not she believes in this charade of our house and our porch and our kitchen door, her end game is clear to me. She wants to be taken care of, to be cared for, in all the needful, desperate ways she always demanded. That will be my duty, just like she always planned. A few more steps will seal my fate and her gnawing hunger will be satisfied forever. I know if I go inside I will be gone forever.

  I stop at the top step and take both her hands. “Mama, I love you so much. You know that, right?”

  “Well, of course you do, honey. I'm your Mama.”

  “I took good care of you, didn’t I, Mama?”

  “Don't worry about that now.” She smiles, tugging me towards the threshold.

  “I did, Mama. I took good care of you. We both have to understand that.” I pause and square my feet. “Because now it's time to say goodbye.”

  Her eyes flash with anger. “Leigh Ann, don't be so stubborn. You always thought you could live without me, but don't you see you can't? Without me, you're a failure. You need me to show you what's right. Now come with me. You know it's the right thing to do.”

  With that she yanks hard on my hands. I stumble and the pain in my back screams at me to stop resisting, to let her take me, to finally allow myself to rest. I muster all my strength to remain on the top step. I cannot let her win.

  “Mama, no. I'm not going, not with you. Your time is over. It's my life now.” My voice shakes as I say this, my body breaking with grief and anger and exhaustion.

  “No, Leigh. Don't you see how much I love you? I want us to be together. We can start fresh, build a new life together.”

  With all the strength I can find, I push. As she falls back across the threshold, a great, hot wind suspends her in the air in front of me, pulling her back into the nothing that is supposed to be our kitchen. She clutches at my wrists, pulling me dangerously close to the vortex. Her scream lashes out at me like thorny vines.

  “Leigh! No! Stay with me. Please, I want to be with you. We were always supposed to be together.”

  My voice is calm, almost sympathetic. “No, Mama. Now it's time for you to go without me.”

  Her face grows hard and cold and proud. No longer is she the pleading, syrup-sweet mother she’s always wanted the world to see. She holds her head high, hair whipping behind her into the void. Her voice is like a sponge, wet with contempt.

  “You stupid, useless girl. I always knew that you would fail me.”

  I have to tuck my hips beneath me and lean back to avoid being pulled in with her. She is tugging hard with desperate hands to dislodge my stance.

  “No, Mama. I won’t go.”

  I feel all her weight and strength yanking me towards her. “You’re too weak to do this yourself. I have to make this decision for you.”

  And she does, but not the way she would have wanted.

  “You're right, Mama. You were always right.” I shake her hands loose and watch her fly back into the yawning gulf.

  As blackness closes around her, the house disappears as does the path and the driveway and everything else. I fall backwards into my hospital bed, surrounded by beeping and wires and tubes and nurses. The sheets are cool around me. The bed is firm and reassuring.

  And there is Rob, smiling. He leans down and kisses my hot forehead.

  I can’t feel my body. I don’t know what has happened in the real world while I was lost outside Mama's terrifying Hell. I do know that inside I feel tall, taller than I’ve ever felt before.

  And very, very light.

  A native of the southern United States, author Jane Brooks ultimately escaped from her birthplace below the Mason-Dixon line to the general safety of the West Coast, where she now makes a living turning numbers into stories for a large software company.

  Co-written with author Peter Whitley, her short story “Release” offers a fresh new take on the zombie genre and is featured in the Grey Matter Press anthology Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror - Volume Two.

  Rain. It felt like it had been raining every single day for the past month. Maybe it had. Madeline slouched her shoulders uncomfortably beneath her jacket, careful not to dip the umbrella. Not that it mattered; the damp weather was slowly soaking its way into her regardless.

  She stared off at the gravestones, her eyes unfocused. Little gray fingertips pushing through the dirt. Rows and rows of tiny, rotting teeth. No, the handful of scattered trees ruined that illusion. The trees, and the workmen currently lowering the casket into the ground. Into the ground. Down, down, down. This cemetery might actually be pretty if it wasn’t for all the damn rain.

  That made her pause.

  Madeline glanced around, examining the landscape. Why was it raining so much? They weren’t in Portland.

  “Where are we again?” she asked, turning to Cavallaro.

  He grimaced, his eyes never leaving the casket. “We’re in Ohio.”

  Madeline nodded. “I didn’t think it rained this much here.”

  “I don’t believe it usually does.”

  Perhaps it didn’t. The cemetery workers certainly seemed unaccustomed to it. Not only were they having a difficult time keeping the integrity of the grave walls in place, their machinery kept slipping in the mud. The entire complicated affair had almost spilled over once. Both Madeline and Cavallaro stood by on the hill and passively watched the whole comedy of errors play out.

  She had been surprised her first few times at gravesites like this, watching caskets being lowered. She expected dozens of mourners surrounding the grave, a wailing mother, and a child or two standing there solemnly as they watched a loved one lowered into the earth. Cavallaro had laughed at her. Turns out that was mostly Hollywood fakery. The graveside funeral was a thing to add drama to a tale. Oh, they happened, most definitely, but only in regions that could accommodate them, not in Ohio.

  Before things started happening, before Cavallaro, the only person she knew that died had been her grandmother. It was a small, private affair for her family. She had been seven.

  Ruminating on that, she was broken from her thoughts once again as one of the workman came trudging up the hill towards them. She felt herself stiffen, preparing for the worst, but she heard Cavallaro snort his little chuckle beside her. She said nothing and followed his lead.

  “I’m guessing you’re the family?” the man asked, wiping rivulets of brown water from his face with the back of his ball cap.

  Cavallaro said nothing for a moment, then, “Is there a problem?”

  “Well,” the man began, staring up into the sky as if answers might be found there, “I guess that’s up to you. You have a choice, I mean. The ground is saturated and we can’t keep fighting it. We can try to finish lowering him now but it won’t be regulation. Or we can wait, and I can understand that. But sir, I don’t know when—”

  “Bury him now,” said Cavallaro. “Three feet or two. It doesn’t matter.”

  The man’s eyebrow rose, obviously surprised. Six feet under was another little myth.

  Cavallaro reached into his pocket and pulled out five twenty dollar bills. “You and your crew go out, have fun tonight. But get it done now.”

  Taking the money and nodding, he said. “It’ll be done within the hour.”

  Madeline watched the man slide and stumble back down the hill. Everything about what just happened was probably illegal. Illegal she could deal with. It was what would come later that put a sour taste in her mouth.

  Another glance at Cavallaro. Immaculate Brooks Brothers suit, Burberry trench coat, handmade Italian shoes, Rolex watch. He was attractive, no doubt about it, but alluring in the way of a predator. Dark hair cropped short, sharp features, pale eyes that showed no emotion. There were no emotions there to show, as far as Madeline had deduced. Greed, rage, contempt. Did those count?

  “Are you actually going to stay for another hour?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied, not even looking at her.

  Madeline sighed. “I’m sitting in the car.”

  Cavallaro said nothing as she walked away.

  The wind hadn’t been bad where she stood next to Cavallaro on the hill, but as she made her way back to the car, she found herself gripping the umbrella tighter to keep it from blowing away. It was doing little to stop the rain from drenching her at this point, but Madeline stubbornly refused to give up and close it. The fence along the perimeter of the cemetery was a short, wrought iron design that had probably never done much in the way of keeping out trespassers. Her Gucci heels were already ruined, so she decided not to tempt fate on her jacket. Instead of trying to climb over it, she kept on walking all the way to the exit.

  A part of her laughed at the part about the heels. Had she become so corrupted by Cavallaro that she cared that much now about a pair of shoes? Maybe that was proof. Or maybe it was proof that she realized the change in herself.

  Madeline reached the black Escalade, hit the button and pulled open the door as she lowered the umbrella. Just as she moved to sit, she saw the teenage girl in the backseat. Blood poured from two jagged wounds right above where her heart should be.

  The girl’s eyes went wide with fear, looking past Madeline. “Are you alone?”

  “Yeah,” she said to the ghost. “He’s still waiting on his next score.”

  * * *

  She could remember a time before the nightmares walked out of her dreams, walked into the day. That’s when things were easy, silly and bright. She rode the school bus every morning, sat with Taryn and pretended not to notice the boys goofing around in the back. Different classes, different kids in eighth grade, but lunch was always the best. Everyone crowded together, some with lunch boxes and some with cafeteria trays, everything seasoned with petty arguments, awkward flirting and crude jokes. It’s where she felt safest, felt the farthest away from the nightmares.

  It’s where the nightmares first walked into the light.

  So much screaming. More screaming than blood, really. The dead man with blood on his hands, staring at her, begging her to help him. But there was no dead man, no blood, not that anyone else could see.

  Madeline didn’t see Taryn very much after that.

  * * *

  Dropping the passenger side visor to fix her hair in the vanity mirror, Madeline tilted it to look at the ghost in the back seat. The girl couldn’t have been any more than sixteen when she died. Sad. Looks like she had been shot, too. The part of Madeline that always ached for the dead wanted to ask how it happened. Instead, she silently continued to fiddle with her long black hair. No good would come of asking the question. No good ever did.

  “We have enough,” said the ghost. “More than enough.”

  “All right,” said Madeline, leaving it open for the ghost to report more on her own.

  “We—I mean some—don’t think you’ll go through with it.”

  “I see,” replied Madeline.

  Silence.

  The ghost shifted in her seat. “You are, right? Going to go through with this?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “My name? Um, Gabby. It was Gabby.”

  “Gabby,” said Madeline. “I’m most definitely going to go through with this.”