Parental Guidance, by R.M. Duchene

Emptiness...that's what I felt. Not sometimes, all of the time. The inside of my body was a vacuum within a void, which was placed inside a mason jar, and then vacuum sealed, just to be sure. It wasn't always like that. I could remember happier times. Times when my parents loved me...times when they actually wanted me…but that was long ago.
 From the moment they died, they tormented me. Hardly a night would pass without them screeching inside my head or throwing objects across my bedroom. No matter what foster home I was in at the time, the torment never stopped. They are trapped in this world with me...forever damned to scratch at the walls of existence, searching for a way out.
 The night before my new foster parents had come to get me, I woke up screaming, just as I’d done all the nights before. I'd been without a foster home for a few months by then; the longest time that I could recall. I was told to get dressed and then ushered, suitcase in hand to the benefactor's office. I don't know why they called Mr. Brown the benefactor; they just did.

The skinny, frail, old woman that I knew only as Sister Anne guided me into the office and then closed the door behind me. Mr. Brown was sitting behind his large desk, smiling at me as if I’d walked in naked. He told me to take a seat in the empty chair next to his desk then spoke to the other two people in the room as if I wasn't there.

Sam and Terry Poole had tried for years to adopt a baby, but for one reason or another, were unable. Mr. Brown made the introductions. All I could do is look down at my shoes while they ogled about me, as if they were taking inventory. I never looked directly at them while we were in the benefactor's office, I didn't see any reason to.

I'd been ogled over by so many prospective parents that I'd lost count, and every other couple who’d fostered me had brought me back eventually. I didn't see any reason to think that these two would be any different.
The ride to their ranch took a couple of hours. My last foster parents let me keep the game system that they'd bought me the Christmas before (most of the others didn't), so I sat in the back-seat the entire way, trying not to eavesdrop, but it wasn't easy. They'd occasionally ask me a direct question and I would pretend that I was following along the whole time. I must've sucked at it though, because the last hour or so of the ride, they didn't talk to me again.

One of the biggest things that I learned about the Pooles' while I was trying to ignore them was that even though they'd been together for over fifteen years, they were newlyweds. Washington State had made it legal for same sex couples to marry the year before, so Sam and Terry rushed over to the courthouse before the powers that be could change their minds. They said their vows and began their new lives together as ummm…husbands. I knew a lot of grown-ups had a problem with same sex couples getting married, but I didn't. Especially after I had met the Pooles', I'd been in the custody of many so called traditional couples, and they all turned out to be rotten parents. To tell the truth, I kind of felt hopeful here...if only a little.

Their ranch was huge...and I don't mean five bedroom huge...it was a monster. Painted a weird, almost bluish color on the outside and trimmed with an odd shade of green, the only thing that looked better to my eyes was the inside. Terry spent his working hours searching online for antique furniture and fixtures. He'd buy them for almost nothing, fix them up, and then sell them on his website for tons of money. The house was decorated with couches and such that he just couldn't let go of -- and there was a lot.

Sam came from what I'd heard was referred to as "old money." His father owned some newspaper company and left it all to him when he died. This was even after Sam had told his father about his relationship with Terry. Grandpa John was gone long before I came into the picture, but I would've liked to have met him. He seemed like a really good guy.

My new foster parents led me up a spiral staircase to the second floor of the three story monster and showed me where my room was. I ran to my bed when I saw it. It was perfectly outfitted in Sci-fi blankets and I threw my suitcase on top of it. My mouth hung down in awe as I looked around the room and saw the entertainment center, complete with game systems and a bookshelf, loaded with all of the current young adult stuff.
"Do you like it?" Terry asked. He was standing right behind me, both of his hands on my shoulders.

"Boy, do I!" I shouted. "Can I stay?"

He turned me around and bent down to my level, still keeping his hands on my shoulders.

"Jake," he said; "you can stay here as long as you want."

*

The first night in my new home, my parents came to visit me; of course. Somewhere inside, I hoped that they would give me at least one night, just one, without them. I woke up screaming as they pressed my body down onto the bed and began to shake me violently. They screamed silent words at me, screwing their faces up in rage at my very existence. Frustrated when I couldn't hear them or answer them, they disappeared from above me, reappeared next to the book case and pushed it over…

When Sam and Terry came rushing in seconds later, my parents were gone.

They did what they could to console me. They comforted me as much as they could, but I could tell that they were new to the parenting thing. In the end, they pulled me into their large, king-sized bed and held me until they fell back asleep. It took a while for me to join them in dreamland. I lay between them for what felt like hours, jerking at every noise, sizing up every shadow. My parents didn't attack me again that night, but I knew that they were still there...watching me.
 The next morning turned out just as every first morning with new foster parents did, with the talk. Sam asked me how long I'd been having night terrors. I dreaded this talk; despised it. After foster parents found out about my visits, they never really looked at me the same.

It became the beginning of the end in most cases. I told them that I'd had night terrors my whole life and they didn't need to come running when they heard me screaming in my sleep. When I finished talking, I settled back in my chair and waited for it...that look. It didn't come. Terry only ruffled my hair and said that they would have to get used to it -- and that was it.
The second night at the ranch, Terry was the only one who came into my room after my parents ripped the game system out from its usual spot and threw it at me while I was sleeping. I let out a scream and sat up in bed. Both my real parents were floating above me, looking down and shaking their fingers. I knew that they were telling me not to do something; but what, I couldn't tell. They vanished in mid-float and I just managed to get the system back into the entertainment center and jump back into bed before Terry entered. I quickly rolled over and faced the wall, pretending to be asleep.

 I heard the door open, saw the shadow of Terry's head project on the wall above me, and then the door closed again, leaving me to the darkness. The next morning, I was relieved when Terry acted like nothing had happened. I was relieved and hopeful... for the first time that I could remember...I was hopeful.

*
Weeks went by, and it was more of the same. Sometimes Terry would come in when I’d scream in the night, and other times Sam would. They never complained about having to wake up...not once. Usually, by a few weeks in, other foster parents would be at their wits end. They would begin to get snippy with me, telling me that it was my fault, and then start asking me if I could give it a rest for just one night. When it got to that point, I'd begin to pack my bags, making sure to leave everything that they'd given me for the next lucky kid...whoever that might be.

My parents would make their nightly visits to me, terrorize me for a few minutes then go on their way. After three whole weeks in the same place, though, they either began to back off a little, or I was becoming more accustomed to them. The night terrors stopped feeling so terrible. A few times, they jerked me awake and I told them to go away. If a picture could be taken of vengeful spirits, I would've loved to have had a camera at that moment, capturing their wide-mouth, gawking expressions as I rolled over and turned my back on them like they were never there.  

With the fading night terrors, my parents decided to play a different game of practical jokes. They hid my left shoe and I spent hours searching for it, only to give up and find it that night hidden under my pillow. I'd found my toothbrush in the toilet, and small, dead mice under my bed.
I refused to let them get to me. They wouldn't ruin my new family like they'd ruined others, and every other one I'd had since. Seeing that they couldn’t get to me anymore, they turned on my foster parents instead.

I couldn't prove it, but I was pretty sure it was my parents who slammed the front door on Terry's hand, breaking three of his fingers. I was also sure that it was them who kept messing with the thermostat, cranking the heat all the way up until someone finally went to check on it. Sam asked me a couple of times if I'd been playing with it. I told him no, but got that look... that dreadful look: the one that said he didn't believe me.

One night, my parents made an all-out-attack on Sam and Terry just as they were getting ready for bed. I ran to their bedroom when I heard them screaming. Sam was on top of the bed, which had been lifted to the ceiling. My father stood under it and slammed it up, over and over; making Sam hit his head. I called for Terry and heard him scream. I stepped further into the room and saw him, pinned up against the wall; his feet a full foot off of the floor. I was grateful that he couldn't see my mother, holding him up and licking his face with her unnaturally long tongue.

"Stop it!" I screamed at them.

They didn't listen. My mother began to pull Terry away from the wall and slam his body back into it. On the third strike, a blood-spot appeared where his head bounced off. He went unconscious, so she dropped him to the floor and joined my father under the bed. Together my parents pushed the bed upward to the ceiling. I heard Sam screaming and struggling as his body sank deeper into the mattress.

"What do you want from me?" I screamed out. In all the years that they'd been haunting me, I'd never thought to ask them that.

They vanished from under the bed, sending it falling to the floor. When the bed landed, Sam's limp body bounced off of it and slithered off to the side. Both of my parents appeared before me. My mother mouthed the first thing that I'd ever been able to understand; she said,"What?"

I leaned back against the wall and began to cry.

"What do you want from me?" I asked again.
I felt her hand under my chin. She pulled my head up until our eyes met. In those dark hollow eyes, lightning began to flash. I felt myself being sucked into those storm-filled sockets. There was a flash...little hands opening a kitchen drawer and pulling out a knife almost too big for them to hold.  Yet another flash...the light from the hallway falling upon my parent's sleeping forms. Another flash...both of my parents leaning off the sides of their bed, their throats cut; eyes staring into some unseen abyss. Another flash...I was standing in front of Sam and Terry's dresser, staring at the vanity. Across the center of the mirror, written in blood, were the words, Let us go! I lifted my hand to touch the writing and found that a large knife, not unlike the one that I'd used to kill my parents, had been placed in it. I turned from the mirror and approached Sam and Terry, one at a time. It was simple...a couple of cuts and it was all over.

When I was done, my parents didn't reappear again. They took their first opportunity to leave the world without looking back. I was happy to see them go. I left my foster parent's room and returned to my own, changed into my pajamas, washed my face, crawled back into bed, and fell asleep.

The alarm woke me. It was the first day at my new school and I didn't want to be late. I threw on my clothes and ventured out of my room. As I passed by Sam and Terry's room, I noticed that their door was slightly open, so I closed it. I didn't want to disturb them. In the kitchen downstairs, I poured a bowl of cereal and was still in the process of eating it when the bus pulled up outside. I jumped from the dining room chair and rushed out the front door, blowing a kiss to a picture of my foster parents as I left.

"Hey!" someone called out from behind me as I ran to the end of the drive. I turned around and saw Terry, standing on the front porch in his bathrobe, holding out a paper bag. I ran back to him and took the lunch.

"Sorry," I said. I couldn't look him in the eye.

"Hey...hey," he said. "You don't ever have to be sorry again." He leaned over and gave me a tight hug, then a quick kiss on the cheek. "Hurry," he said, "before you miss your bus."

I grabbed him and gave him an even tighter squeeze, before running off. As the bus pulled away, the front room’s curtains pulled back and the faces of Sam and Terry appeared. They each blew me a kiss goodbye...I returned it.