SIX

I FORCED MY EYELIDS OPEN and studied my reflection. No demon dog collar. I exhaled, then turned and checked the back of my head. No freaky dreadlock cords either.

Relief.

I was still bothered by the sight of myself, though. It was like a stranger was looking back at me. I rushed to my room and crammed my face in my pillow. I was beyond delusional. I needed to be locked up —or at the very least, sedated.

Did someone follow me?

I peered out the blinds, then yanked them shut, in full paranoia mode.

The front door! Did I lock it?

I shot downstairs, checked the lock, then ran back up to my room and shoved my desk in front of my door. I burrowed under the covers and hid there. For hours. I drifted in and out of sleep, wrestling over what I had or hadn’t seen.

The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that it was all in my mind, some sort of psychosomatic episode that only felt real.

It’s not easy to accept that you’re crazy —that your formerly sound mind is now overrun with hallucinations just because you did something rash the night before. I was almost certain the well water had poisoned me. Toxified my brain.

My phone was outside, in a holster on my bike, and it would stay there forever as far as I was concerned. Leaving the house was no longer an option.

My mom still hadn’t come home.

Eventually I pulled the covers off and looked for the clock that sat on my bedside table. I’d knocked it to the floor.

2:08 p.m.

I sat up and took a panoramic glance around my room. My stuff was the same, but I felt far removed —homesick even though I was home. I tried convincing myself I’d been sleeping all day, and this morning’s horrifying events were merely lingering images from a fever-induced nightmare. But I knew better. My desk was in front of my door. Irrefutable proof.

It hit me that I was missing track practice. Then it occurred to me that I might have a life-sucking brain tumor. What if, instead of sitting barricaded in my room, I should have been rushing to the nearest emergency room? Getting prepped for surgery?

But I trembled at the thought of going anywhere.

I was desperate to talk to someone —Jess, Lance, my mom —anyone who knew me before I became delusional. I needed my phone, but could I grab it and get back inside without being mauled by steel-trapped zombies?

I lifted one slat of my wooden blinds up half an inch. No one.

I grabbed a sweatshirt and pulled the hood over my head, then dug in my junk drawer until I found sunglasses. My Louisville Slugger baseball bat in hand, I drew a deep breath. Time to make my move.

I took slow, calculated steps down the stairs. Daisy sat by the front door, wagging her straggly tail.

“No walk today, girl. No way.”

I clutched my bat in one hand and slowly turned the lock with my other. Visions of this morning’s jogger overwhelmed me. I imagined her leading a charge against me, kicking the door down the instant I cracked it open, followed by the disgruntled guy who’d honked at me and a horde of other chained and corded monsters.

I peered through the sheer curtain panel. The coast was clear.

My hand hung motionless on the doorknob. I could hear my stampeding pulse. My stomach was subzero. But I had to act.

I swung the door open and sprinted to my bike, avoiding looking at the malicious word painted on my garage door. In seconds, I had my phone and was back inside. I slammed and locked the door, then pressed my weight against it, fighting to catch my breath.

Jess had texted me: Where are you???!!!!

I swiped my phone, anxious to call her, then stopped. How do you tell your prom date you’re seeing chains and cords everywhere? Hanging off people?

I hadn’t talked to my best bro back in Boston in a month, and he was too far to help me. I called Lance, pacing in circles in my living room while his cell rang. I got his voice mail.

“Hey, Lance. You know I don’t usually leave messages, but —I —I just really need you to call me. Like, the minute you get in the locker room. Something really, um, terrible happened to me today. I mean, I’m okay, I think, but —no, I’m not okay. Just call me.”

I hung up and texted him.

I wasn’t sure about calling my mom. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone to her for comfort. I only recalled babying her a million times. Bringing her boxes of Kleenex after bad breakups and putting damp washcloths on her forehead on hungover mornings.

I collapsed back onto the sofa and called her anyway.

“Hey, Owen.”

She sounded sober and upbeat. I instantly felt a little better.

“Hey, Mom, where are you?”

“I stayed at Teresa’s house last night. I brought my laptop with me. Been editing papers all day. You remember Teresa, don’t you?”

Yeah, right. She was at some guy’s house. I didn’t know whose, and I didn’t care.

“I’m sorry. I should have let you know I wasn’t coming home.”

As usual, our roles were reversed.

“I’ve had a really, really bad day, Mom.”

“You have?” I cherished the sound of concern in her voice. “What happened?”

“I don’t feel good. I’m kind of —seeing things or something. Scary things.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. “What do you mean?”

“People don’t look right.” I turned sideways on the sofa and dug my feet under a cushion. “It’s hard to explain. When are you coming home?”

“In about a half hour. Why don’t I pick up some chicken?”

“No! Please. Just come straight home.”

“Oh . . . um, okay. I can do that.”

My mom was so different when she wasn’t drinking. She actually kind of felt like a mom.

I counted down the minutes until she came home, but I wasn’t sure what to tell her. If I spilled my guts, she’d be no help —she’d just head straight for her liquor stash. If I couldn’t handle something, she sure couldn’t. And drinking was her go-to crutch. That and pathetic men.

I clung to the sofa and took comfort in the normal humans on TV, even on the Shopping Channel. Why didn’t the people outside my house look normal? It just didn’t add up.

I sat there drowning in my own cognitive typhoon until finally I heard the garage door open. I turned and faced the kitchen, knowing she’d enter from there any second. I was desperate to see a familiar face.

“I’m in the living room, Mom.”

I heard her fumbling through the mail. Seriously? She went traipsing down to the mailbox at the end of the driveway instead of coming straight in to check on me?

“You got a letter from Boston U.”

“Great, Mom —can you please come here?”

Finally, I heard junk mail hit the recycle bin. But then . . .

No.

I tried to deny the echo in my ears —metal skimming the tile floor, then the hardwood. I couldn’t bring myself to look. I stared into my lap, hardly blinking.

“How are you feeling?” I could see her silhouette in my peripheral vision, but I didn’t dare lift my head.

My phone dinged. It was Jess: You okay? I’m worried. Call me!

My mother lowered herself into the lounge chair across from me. A nauseating quiver crept up my back.

“What happened to you today?” She opened an envelope.

“I told you. I’ve been seeing really horrible things.”

I felt her staring at me, silently looking me over. “Are you on something?”

I balled my fists and glared at her, no longer slumped over. How dare she? Good news, though —there was nothing weird about her appearance. I was still incensed but more relaxed than I’d felt all day. “Mom, why would you even ask me that?”

“Well, you sounded strange on the phone. And you wouldn’t be the first teenager to get high.”

I popped my knuckles —mostly because it drove her nuts —then crossed my arms. “Getting plastered isn’t my thing.”

She averted her eyes, guilty as charged. But she was never one to admit to her vices.

She got preoccupied again, digging through that stupid envelope, but that was fine with me. I was just relieved to see her looking normal. I studied her —she wore a flowing skirt with a loose-fitting silky blouse. A scarf encircled her neck.

Why had I thought I’d heard chains scraping across the floor? Maybe it had come from outside. Or maybe I was a basket case.

My mom shifted her weight, removed her shoes, and tucked her legs up on top of the chair cushion.

Clank. My adrenaline kicked in again.

“So are you sick?” She reached across her chest up to her shoulder and unwound her scarf, a layer at a time.

“I just don’t feel like —”

It was like my lungs just quit working. My mother’s scarf cascaded to the rug, and now I could see it. A shackle. Hulking, rusty, squeezing Mom’s throat. I must have looked like I was about to pass out.

“What, Owen? You don’t feel like what?” She paused, then leaned away from me. “You’re scaring me.”

Irony at its worst.

I felt myself inhale. “I just —don’t know —what else to tell you.”

She sighed, then put one foot on the floor and bent forward in her chair, extending a hand. I shuddered back into the couch cushions. She pressed her eyebrows together.

“Hand me the remote, Owen!”

I should have known she wouldn’t push me for more information. She was an expert at changing the subject. I guessed she just didn’t care enough.

I didn’t have the remote. It was at the end of the coffee table, beyond our reach. “I’ll get it,” I said.

Too late. She was on her feet. My jaw dropped as a wall of chains draped over the back of her chair, forming a metallic canopy. There were too many to count. She bent over, and a dozen gnarled cords slid and dangled down her left shoulder. She stepped to grab the remote, and the chains jerked from behind the chair, slamming to the floor. It was like a crate loaded with pots and pans was hurled down from the second story of our house, shattering at her feet.

I sprang up and covered my ears, stumbling backward, afraid to be in the same room with her. She didn’t notice —the noise or my reaction.

“Owen, bring me a Diet Coke out of the fridge. And take some Aleve. That’ll make your headache go away.”

In the midst of my catastrophic mental breakdown, I had two oddly practical thoughts. One, I never said I had a headache. Two, as far as I knew, we were out of Diet Cokes.

I took a few steps in the direction of the kitchen without turning my back on her. “Mom?”

“What?” She flipped through the channels, totally unaware I was dying inside.

Frustrated as I was with her, I hated the sight of that shackle encasing her throat. Where had it come from? Was it really there?

Either I needed serious help, or she did.

“What, Owen? Out with it.”

“Never mind.” I should have known better than to look to my mother for sympathy. She didn’t have it in her.

I opened the fridge, refusing to cry. Sure enough, no Diet Cokes. I slammed the door shut.

Why is this happening to me?

I grabbed a stack of bills by the microwave and launched them at the wall, then collapsed into a chair at the breakfast table and stared out the window, rocking back and forth like a lunatic. As if on cue, Jess’s Mustang convertible pulled up.

I darted out the door at the back of the kitchen and sprinted through the garage toward the driveway. I didn’t care if some scary figure lurched at me. If I could just get to Jess, my world would flip right side up. At least for a moment.

The door on the driver’s side opened, and I ran faster. She reached out to me. I could smell her perfume.

But then my legs jarred to a halt. Refused to go any farther.

I couldn’t hug her. Couldn’t touch her.

No way.

I couldn’t get near anyone with a shackle.