Wake to Dream(78)
Max paused, a resigned sigh filling the dark room. "I'm sorry, beautiful, but that won't be happening this time. Save your breath."
Alice tipped her head to the side, as if the angle would help her understand what she was hearing. The play of light flickered from around the corner, and if she could just take one more step, she’d be able to see what caused the sound.
The risk at that point far outweighed the threat of her husband’s anger, so Alice took that one last step.
The board beneath her foot broke and she fell forward to crash against the dusty floor.
*
It was disorienting, the ephemeral glow of fractured light, filthy windows lining the top of a room, her exposed skin practically frozen against a floor as cold as ice. Blinking open her eyes, Alice watched the barren walls morph and bend around her, the ability to focus on any one thing stolen by her confusion.
Where am I? Alice thought, her head pounding and her body thrumming with pain. Pushing herself up, she looked around the darkened room trying to remember where she was and how she’d arrived there.
Damp and dirty, the room was unfamiliar. A destitute place with crumbling plaster walls and a sickening stench of mildew and filth. Everything was out of focus, not one object settling within its own perimeter lines.
“Hello, wife.”
Max’ voice, and from the sound of it, he wasn’t happy. A shiver ran over her spine at the pure menace in his tone.
Ignoring the terror that crippled her, she attempted to speak calmly to soothe the beast that she knew had risen to the surface of her husband. "I can't see you, Max. Where are you? At least show your face."
No response, no noise, nothing.
He stepped into view after a minute, but only so much that Alice could see his silhouette, a dark shadow in contrast to broken and dirt filtered light.
“Why did you come down here? Especially since I’ve warned you so many times before. Dark places are dangerous for women like you.” He paused, his voice dropping to a bare whisper. “Or don’t you know that already?”
Her head fell back against the wall where her body was leaning. She winced in pain at that soft contact. “I wanted to know what you do down here all day,” she explained.
Max laughed, the tone cruel and ill-humored.
"Is that what you want? To know your monster?"
Seeing her husband, knowing he was real and not an illusion cast by a frightened and disorganized mind didn't help Alice in the slightest.
Unable to peel her eyes from the form of his body, she watched silently as he sat down in a chair she hadn't noticed before, the wood feet scraping against the cold, concrete floor.
"Where do we go from here, Alice? Now that you’ve stumbled upon a place where you were never invited?"
Shaking her head, she regretted the movement instantly. Her tongue ran over the film on her teeth, her voice laced with the pain she was feeling. “I don’t know, Max. That depends on what I heard when I was coming down here.”
Silence for several moments, and then, “Would you like something to drink?”
Calm, collected, even kind, the voice broke through the sticky film of darkness across Alice's senses.
She laughed at the odd question, her throat as gritty as coarse sandpaper. "Depends on what you're offering."
Her laughter took Max by surprise, if his silence was any true indication of his reaction.
"Water," he answered after a span of silent seconds. There was no inflection in his voice, no anger or loss of control in response to Alice's behavior.
Nodding her head in acceptance of the water proved difficult. Alice was sluggish and uncoordinated. But the jostled movement had been enough.
Chair legs scraped against the floor, the rhythmic thud of shoes against the ground announcing Max’ approach. The joints in his knees clicked when he knelt down in front of her, betraying the length of time he'd been sitting motionless in the chair.
With a face masked in shadow thick enough to conceal his features, he held a plastic bottle of water between them.
Alice's efforts of accepting the bottle were thwarted by a weakness in her arms, a remnant of injury she’d sustained by falling down the stairs. It wouldn’t surprise her if she was suffering from a concussion, if the pain she felt at the back of her head were any indication of how hard she’d fallen.
“Why are we still in the basement, Max?”
It took him a few minutes to finally answer the question.
"You walked through a door, Alice."
Settling himself on the concrete at her feet, he studied her silently before adding, "and now you're here."
After uncapping the bottle, he grabbed her chin, sliding his thumb along her bottom lip before pulling her mouth open. The lip of the bottle met her mouth, tilting up to pour cool water over her tongue as he said, "Swallow."
Cool liquid slid down her throat, a soothing balm against the burning flesh, and she swallowed fervently, greedily, until only a few drops were left.
Pulling it from her lips, Max recapped it and tossed it to the side, the plastic ricocheting off a wall that only existed in Alice's peripheral vision.
Her head fell back against the wall, a thick blanket of silence sliding between them until his smooth, deep voice broke it apart completely.
"I have something I'm going to show you." He paused, looking Alice over with a critical eye. "After that fall, I don’t think you can walk. I'm going to carry you."