End of Eternity 3 (2 page)

I can feel a deep and heavy rage building
slowly in my chest. It is only a small, black kernel of vitriol,
but I can feel it threatening to spread and consume my whole body,
inch by inch, like a cancer.

I will do nothing to slow its progress.

I know that I could try to let it go, like I
have let go of everything that has ever bothered me in my entire
life. The old Carmen would have tried to rise above this, but the
new Carmen wants to sink below. Something has snapped in me, and I
want to give in to the darkest parts of myself. I want to let them
come out to play, and be the cruel, vindictive bitch that I’ve
never allowed myself to be. Not once.

After all, I have failed at being able to
create. I might as well destroy.

“Let me make you a meal, dear,” Grayson’s
mother is saying as she rises to her feet. “When was the last time
you ate?”

“I don’t need food,” I tell her sharply. “I
need to know why. Why did he do this to me? What the fuck is wrong
with him?”

The old woman lifts her shoulders in a
shallow and empty gesture. “I—I don’t know, dear. Brad didn’t
really have anything against Helen. The poor girl was just standing
in the way of his plans for Grayson, so he disposed of her and her
child.”

“They were collateral damage,” I muse, “on
his rise to the top.”

“Exactly. That man would never let anything
stand in his way. Maybe your child was standing in the way of
Brad’s plans for you?”

“What plans for me?” I ask with a frown.
Frenzied thoughts rush through my mind as my eyes dart around the
room rapidly. “What does he want from me?”

“I don’t know,” Grayson’s mother says
softly. “You need to calm down, dear. It’s not good for your health
to get all worked up again. Let’s get some food in you. Do you like
pizza?”

Something suddenly clicks in my brain. “Brad
lied to me. My daughter wouldn’t have been sick.” I grab one of the
small pillows on the couch and crush it within my hands. “Grayson
wasn’t a monster. If drug abuse and steroids led to his
schizophrenia... then my daughter would have been fine. Brad said
that she’d be born mentally ill, like her father. But all along, he
knew the truth.”

“My son was never mentally ill,” Grayson’s
mother says defensively. “Brad is the one who made him sick. Brad
played with my boy like a puppeteer pulling on strings. He
controlled his entire life.”

“And his death,” I add numbly. Closing my
eyes, I inhale slowly. Brad might enjoy controlling those around
him, but he will never control me. I will see to it that he learns
that. I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to find a way to make him
regret that he ever messed with my life and my family.

“I can’t believe this is happening,”
Grayson’s mother says quietly, and her voice breaks. “I always
dreamed that I’d see my son again someday. I thought that maybe
when I was sick and dying, he would finally come to visit this old
woman. I thought I’d get a chance to hold him one last time. I
thought he’d kiss my forehead and say goodbye, and that his smile
would be the last thing I saw before I left this world. How can my
son be gone before me?”

Hearing the sorrow in the woman’s voice
reminds me of the reason I came here. I see that she has dragged my
suitcase inside, and I grasp the arm of the sofa to help myself
stand. A wave of dizziness hits me, but I ignore it as I walk
toward the suitcase and fall to my knees. Unzipping the small
carry-on luggage, I carefully retrieve the bubble-wrapped urn.

It occurs to me that this is the last time
that
I’m
going to hold my husband.

I’m really going to lose him forever
now.

As my hand tenderly caresses the curve of
the container, I realize that I have never loved Grayson as much as
I do in this moment. Tears touch my eyes again. Now, long after he
has departed from this world, I have finally been able to learn who
he truly was.

And he was beautiful.

It means everything to me that I have gotten
a chance to understand the true motives behind everything he did.
Despite what anyone else believed, I always knew that there was a
good soul inside that man. I always knew that there was something
pure and full of love inside him, even when he was distant and shut
down.

It breaks my heart to think of how the world
twisted him up.

Grayson could have been someone great. Of
all the men I’ve ever met, there was something truly special about
my husband; so special that I was willing to overlook his every
flaw.

And now he’s gone.

All that’s left is a pile of ashes in a
decorative urn that I now hold in my hands.

I bite my lip as I gently remove some more
of the packing material. The urn is silver in color, and there is
mother-of-pearl inlaid in slender rings around the canister. It’s a
lovely design, but it’s cold and artificial to the touch. I would
give anything to be able to touch Grayson’s warm skin instead of
this inanimate flask. I would give anything to wrap my arms around
his strong shoulders and cuddle against his neck, and feel the
gentle prickle of his stubble. I would give anything to listen to
his heartbeat and feel his chest rising with deep, invigorating
breaths. I would give anything to hold his hand.

How could a man be reduced to dust so
easily?

Maybe we’re all just dust, anyway. It’s our
natural state; the state to which we are all heading. Someday the
whole planet will be dust, and what will any of this matter? Every
day we manage to stay alive is just delaying the inevitable.

A sound distracts me from my morbid
thoughts. I hear a soft whimper coming from behind me, and I turn
to see Grayson’s mother crying.

“Is that—is that him?” she asks
tearfully.

I nod, rising slowly to my feet. There is a
bit of pain in my knees and weakness in my legs, but I don’t care
anymore. I move over to the woman and hold out the urn. “This is
yours, Mrs. Scott. Grayson’s will stipulated that I should bring
his ashes to you after his passing.”

She smiles through her tears as she accepts
the urn. “My son did love me after all. He wanted his final resting
place to be close to his mother. Brad can’t take him away from me
anymore. No one can.”

Large droplets of water roll down her cheeks
and splash down onto the vessel as she holds it tightly against her
chest. I don’t know if I have the heart to tell her that Grayson
meant it as an insult.

The old woman moves to a small, worn-out
fireplace. She lovingly places the urn on the mantle. “Now we can
finally be a family again; for eternity.”

The word gives me a little shiver. “Brad
said that Grayson wanted you to have the ashes because he hated
you. That Grayson said the only way he’d return home was in a pile
of ashes...”

“Brad said that?” the old woman scoffs.
“What would he know about the love shared between a mother and her
child? Brad never had a mother. Not a real one, anyway.”

This piques my interest. “He didn’t?”

“He was a curse,” the old woman explains.
“He grew up in the foster system and mostly lived in group homes.
No one would adopt him, because every family he ever belonged to
ended up losing one of their other children—or they would get
seriously injured. It was never confirmed, but there were rumors
that he was responsible for the deaths.”

I ruminate on this information for a moment.
It seems like Brad is the one who was born a monster. “Maybe he
killed them out of jealousy? To get more love and attention from
his foster parents?”

“Maybe,” the old woman says with a small
shudder. “I don’t know if you can actually find reasons for the
messed up things that man does. I think he just does whatever he
wants. Maybe he killed your daughter so that he could get more of
your attention.”

“Well,” I say softly. “It worked. Brad has
my full attention.”

“What are you going to do?” she asks me
nervously. “There’s a strange look in your eyes.”

Turning away from her, I try to conceal the
anger that’s eating me alive inside. I wonder if I can hurt Brad
even a fraction as much as he has hurt me. How will I go about
doing this? I need to take away everything he cares about. I need
to damage his body, the way he’s damaged mine.

My eyes settle on an old picture frame.
There is a slender young man wearing a high school football jersey,
and holding his helmet below his arm. A smile touches my lips at
this image of my husband as a teenager. I have never seen any of
his baby photos. If he had lived, maybe we would have had a son.
Maybe our son would have looked a little like this beautiful young
boy.

Brad has ripped this all away from me.
Everything that could have been is ruined.

“Will you help me?” I ask Grayson’s mother.
“I’m going to hurt him.”

“How?” she asks me fearfully.

“In the most brutal way that I can hurt
another human being. In every way I can think of.”

“My dear, you should not take this upon
yourself. God will punish him someday. He will be made to atone for
his sins. But if you hurt Brad, then you will be damaging your own
soul. You will become just like him.”

“I don’t care anymore.” Being a good girl
never got me anywhere. Maybe it’s time I took a page out of Brad’s
book, and played the villain. I have no other purpose for living,
other than to cause him pain.

“Just be patient, dear. When the reckoning
comes, Brad will be made to pay for all he’s done. Nothing you can
do to him will compare to his eternal suffering.”

My head snaps toward the old woman. I stare
at her for a moment, before a smile slowly overtakes my features.
“Is that a challenge?”

“Carmen,” she says, moving toward me and
grasping both of my hands. There is a great tenderness in her eyes.
“My son might be gone, but I have gained a daughter-in-law. It
means so much that you’ve come all this way to meet me. Please,
don’t do anything to hurt yourself. Brad isn’t worth it. He is
going to hell for sure; there is no reason that you should follow
him.”

“Hell?” I ask in confusion. I don’t know
what that means. Hell and heaven are fine concepts, but there is no
guarantee. Maybe Grayson is in hell right now; maybe he’s in
heaven. I have no time for these hypothetical places. Even if Brad
does spend an eternity burning in hell, it won’t be enough for
me.

I need to know that
I
caused him
pain.

I need to do this
now;
long before
the onset of any fabled afterlife.

If I had absolute confirmation that he would
burn in hell, I might not be so enraged. If I could contact the
underworld organization and send them advance payment for his
imprisonment and torture, and receive some kind of receipt for
their services, I might feel a tad bit better. But then I’d have to
wait. I simply can’t wait any longer. Why should Brad live a long,
happy, prosperous life when Grayson will not? When that poor young
girl, Helen, could not? When my daughter will never live to see the
candle on her first birthday cake?

One thing’s for sure:

Long before Brad turns to dust, I am going
to make him suffer.

“You can rest here,” the old woman says as
she guides me into a small bedroom and turns on a lamp. “This was
Grayson’s room. I’ve kept it clean over the years, in case he ever
wanted to come home. It’s not much... but you can see that all his
things are still here. Just as he left them, a decade ago.”

For the most part it looks like the normal
room of a young boy. The furnishings are cheap and simple, and
there are some old toys lining the shelves. However, there is one
thing that catches my attention. In one corner of the room, near an
old writing desk, there is a wall covered in sketches and
paintings. They are very similar to the ones that Brad showed me in
the attic. The same young girl with light brown hair is depicted,
over and over. At first, the images are simple. They are even so
true to life and perfect that I believe they might have been
sketched from a photograph. But then, they change. They become
morbid, with plenty of blood and darkness. The color scheme changes
as the art grows more and more sinister.

Finally, I see the angel wings beginning to
appear. That was a common theme in the drawings I saw in my
house.

“My son was a talented artist,” the old
woman explains. “It was one of the many things he excelled at. His
art teacher gave him private tutorials after school, and frequently
encouraged him to become an artist. But we had no money, and he
knew he needed to pay more attention to his other skills if he
wanted a strong career someday. This took a backseat as his
hobby.”

“He’s drawing her?” I ask softly. “The girl
that died. Helen.”

“Yes. It was the only way he could cope with
what happened,” his mother explains. “I told him to trust that she
was with God, and that she was now an angel looking down on him.
That she would be watching over him for all the days that he lived.
He found peace in that thought at first, but he later grew a little
obsessed with it. He sometimes told me that he could see her
standing in the shadows, watching him from afar. He often said that
he could hear her voice.”