***
After Owen returned with the pizza, Claire ate a few slices, then walked back upstairs to check on the kids. Chloe was sound asleep, her mouth open and drool pouring onto her pillow. Claire shook her head, hoping that whoever she married found it as endearing as Owen found her drool.
Matt was asleep too, and Claire hovered over him in bed. Hesitantly, she placed her palm onto his forehead, afraid that she’d feel the same icy touch as she did in the hospital. But as her palm contacted his skin, relief washed away the worry. He felt normal, and Claire immediately felt silly for letting her imagination run wild. She kissed Matt’s cheek, and then left him to rest.
Owen entered the dining room from the kitchen as she stepped off the last step of the staircase. “Everyone all right up there?”
“Yeah,” Claire answered, smiling for the first time all day. “Sound asleep.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and they kissed.
When she pulled back, Owen smiled, his eyes still closed. “I think they put something in your pizza.”
“Maybe,” Claire said. “Let’s go find out.”
She pulled him to their bedroom, the pair disrobing along the way like they did when they were first married, and relieved some stress. Once finished, sweating and exhausted in bed, they kissed goodnight and passed out on top of the sheets.
It was just past three o’clock in the morning when Claire awoke on her stomach, sweating and thirsty. She wrestled uncomfortably with her pillow then rolled onto her back. She looked at Owen, finding him sound asleep.
Naked, she grabbed the silk robe off the back of the door and wrapped it around herself before she headed toward the kitchen for a glass of water. On the way, she passed through the dining room and then glanced up at the kid’s rooms.
Chloe’s door was still wide open, but Claire slowed when she noticed that Matt’s door was closed. She paused, staring up at it, trying to remember if she’d closed it before going downstairs. She frowned, looking at the floor. No, she was sure she left it open.
The thought made Claire’s heart skip a beat as she ascended the staircase. She peeked into Chloe’s room to check on her and saw that her daughter was still in the same position she left her. She walked softly over the noisy floorboards to Matt’s room, not realizing that her hands were clenched tight into fists. A noise filtered through the cracks of Matt’s door, and she froze in her track so she could hear.
Whispers, nearly soundless, echoed inside. There was a familiar rhythm and cadence to them, and Claire swore she had heard them before. Softly, and quietly, Claire reached for the door knob. “Matt?”
Her silhouette spilled into the darkened room. Her son’s bed was empty. She followed the whispers to the rear left corner of the room. Matt was crouched down, his back turned to her.
“Sweetie, are you all right?” Claire asked, stepping inside.
Matt’s words grew louder, and the closer she moved, the better she heard.
“Tonga-Keira-Awalla-Liseta. Tonga-Keira-Awalla-Liseta. Tonga-Keira-Awalla-Liseta.”
The words pounded in Claire’s ears and heart as she drew closer to her son. “Matthew, get off the floor and back into bed.” Her voice had a panicked anger to it, but her son didn’t move. She stepped toward him hesitantly, afraid. “Matt, you need to—”
Matt spun around and belted out a piercing scream. His eyes were all black, void of the colorful blue that he was given upon his birth. A snake slithered from beneath his legs, its mouth open and fangs exposed.
Claire screamed and fell backward. Her feet and hands smacked against the floorboards on her retreat. The snake slithered toward her and Claire caught a brief glance at her son, staring down at the snake with those pitch-black eyes and repeating the same mantra louder and faster.
The high-pitched hiss of the snake followed her to the door, snapping twice for her feet that narrowly missed. Claire shrieked as she backpedaled out of the room and smacked into the banisters of the second-floor balcony.
Matt’s bedroom door slammed shut on its own, sealing her son and the snake inside. Black water, the same as from the faucet, flooded out of Matt’s room through the bottom door crack. Claire jumped from the floor as the putrid water rushed against her feet.
“Matt!” Claire pounded on the door with both fists, then jiggled the handle, which remained locked. The water rushed through the side cracks of the door frame now, soaking Claire’s robe.
“Mommy?” Chloe stood in her doorway, her eyes wide and her blanket pressed close to her chin.
“Stay in your room!” Claire pointed back toward her daughter’s bed, and then spun around and gripped the banister, her actions so quick and forceful that she almost thrust herself over the side. “Owen!”
Chloe screamed, and Claire spun back around, her mouth gaping in shock and horror. Hundreds of tiny black spiders crawled out from the top of the door, moving in wave-like layers up to the ceiling, an endless army of disgusting creatures.
Water gushed from the cracks faster now as Claire’s fists pounded on the door. Half of the spiders then shifted their path from the ceiling to Claire, and she frantically smashed them, their black bodies plastered flat against the door or falling to the floor in a lifeless heap.
She smacked at the ones crawling over her arms, their tiny legs tickling her skin, a few trying to get underneath her robe. The water on her feet grew ice cold and the door buckled like it was ready to burst. “Matt!”
Hands suddenly yanked her backward, and she watched Owen look at the spiders that had disappeared into the ceiling and the water still seeping through the cracks. “Stay back!”
Claire stepped aside as Owen smacked the door with his heel, the contact eliciting a loud crack as the door and wall rattled from her husband’s forceful hit.
The rush of water slowed to a trickle and the flow of spiders ended as Owen struck the door repeatedly. A crack in the wood crawled up the door frame on one of the kicks, and the next fractured off an entire piece as the door flung open.
Owen rushed in first, feet splashing against the puddles on the floor, Claire close behind. Matt was sprawled out on the hardwood, his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling and mumbling to himself, the same words that he was whispering when she first walked in.
“Matt!” Claire patted her son’s body, but the boy remained unresponsive, his eyes cast upward as she looked for the snake. She didn’t see it anywhere.
“What happened?” Owen asked.
“I-I don’t know,” Claire answered, her voice hoarse from screaming. “Matt’s door was closed and when I opened it, he was in here with a snake.”
“Check his arms, make sure he wasn’t bitten again.”
“He wasn’t,” Claire said. “He was… controlling it.”
And underneath the dismissive wave Owen gave her, Claire saw a glint of fear in her husband’s face. Fear because he believed her.