Collision (Course) Insurance - Part Four

[Joey "The Handyman" Handy]

Collision (Course) Insurance - Part Four 

I paid the cab driver that had dropped me on my doorstep in Kansas City. I think the cabbie was shocked when I gave him a decent tip. I was too. The bastard didn't deserve it. He drove like he was practicing for the Indy 500. All I knew was that during the brief drive, I could only think of how I'd have taken whatever it was that I saw at PCW Headquarters over a cab ride any day, but sometimes, it's unavoidable.



I only kept a change of clothes with me, sending the rest back home with Nadine and the kids, so all I would have to deal with was a carry-on. I looked like I should be begging for spare change; no coat to keep out the winter air, a torn red flannel long sleeved shirt and a pair of jeans that looked like they had been used for an oil rag in an auto shop.



I hadn't called Nadine to pick me up from the airport for a couple of reasons. It was late. Like really late. The "It's 2:30 in the morning. Why the fuck are you waking me up?" kind of late. I was tired, and really, really, didn't want to deal with Nadine, even when she wasn't cranky from being awakened for a lift home. I also wanted to surprise the kids, by being home when they got up. I could catch a few z's on the couch, and when they came down on Christmas morning, I'd be home and get a hero's welcome.



I shuffled up to the porch, my exhausted brain arguing with my keychain and losing the battle to identify the proper key. Just as I located the one for the front door, the porch light came to life.



"Oh yeah," I muttered to myself. "Motion sensor. Gonna have to reset the thing so it comes on sooner." I paused, hating that I just used that term. "Thing." I continued my internal argument. "That's a technical term when you're tired." I marveled at my fatigue as I twisted the knob, but it jerked from my grasp as the door flew open.



Nadine stood in the open doorway, but she wasn't the same as she had been of late. No, the woman standing before me was ravishing, clad in a skimpy silk negligee, the green one she knew I really liked. Her smile was radiant; it was the smile that I had fallen in love with so long ago, when we were both still wet behind the ears.



"You're home!" she cooed seductively, wrapping her arms around my neck. The pressure of her embrace almost toppled me over. She must have had her hands in the sink when she saw me approach. Her hands were still a bit wet.



This sudden change of behavior obviously caught me off guard, because, though I was speechless, it was also all I could do to not scream in her face about the way she had so recently treated me, or accuse her of only acting this way because the checks have cleared.



Then again, my nana always told me not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I think I finally understood that saying.



I gave in to her embrace, kissing her as a husband should after a long day.



"Ew," she remarked, her nose scrunching playfully. "You need a bath. Why don't I go draw you one?"



I was too tired to argue. I nodded compliantly. After she disappeared up the stairs, my brain suddenly jolted wide awake. "NANA!" I recalled that we had kept a trunk full of her odds and ends up in the attic, and one of them was a collection of books dealing with folklore; not the fairytale kind, but a much more somber and official looking set of tomes.



I resigned myself to looking for them after I got some rest and much needed family time. I heard the water running in the tub faintly in the background. I didn't normally take baths. I usually took showers, but if I was sick or just... well... exhausted like I am now, a bath with Epsom salts always made me feel just a little better.



I crept upstairs, barely dragging my body into our master bedroom. I set my carry-on by the chair in the corner of the room I used to get dressed in. I figured I could deal with it in the morning, along with every-damned-thing-else. My body had had it, as had my mind. I was barely...



Functioning?



I glanced over to the bathroom, only to see my wife's arm appear from the doorway, beckoning me seductively without a visible stitch of clothes. Part of me switched into autopilot as I doffed my clothes in an uncharacteristically sloppy, rushed way. There were games afoot, my dear Watson, and certain parts of me were more than willing to play along. I suddenly started feeling very happy to be home.



"I don't remember the tiles in here being so colorful," I thought to myself as I slipped into the tub, accompanied by the woman I married.



She began dipping my loofah into the bubble bath she had made for us. I didn't even feel emasculated by the fact that I even have a loofah and use body wash. She softly massaged my body with the scrubber, making sure to get every part except the one that was screaming for attention the most, but I didn't mind. Mostly, I was just cherishing the feeling of having my wife back to the lovely angel I remembered her as.



I could tell once she got to the coup de grace, that the bathroom wasn't where she wanted to finish welcoming me home. By then, my mind was swirling with the sensations she had treated me to for the first time in forever. In fact, everything felt amplified.



And odd.



It wasn't just her behavior that was out of place, reality felt skewed. Perspective stretched out in front of me like a B movie horror scene. Lights flashed that weren't there. Straight lines danced like trees in a strong breeze. I started to feel nauseous, but Nadine shoved me onto the bed. That seemed to make the world happy again while she worked me over.



She inched her way onto the bed, on top of me, her sly grin widening almost inhumanly, her teeth appeared to be gnashing razors. Her skin morphed from a smooth and silky shade of olive to a leathery, almost scaly shade of crimson as she mounted me. My eyes were wide in horror as her features went from the woman I married, to a haggard crone eyeing me as if she hadn't eaten in years and I was invited to (be) dinner.



I felt a slap across my face, causing sparklers to ignite while she... the thing... gyrated. The act began to become more and more rough, each subsequent knock to my noggin feeling like it was just falling short of a closed fist caress. I was no longer enjoying what was going on.



Panic started to set in as I tried to buck her off, but she held on like a pro from the rodeo circuit. The more I resisted, the more she seemed to relish it. The odd thing was, even though I was genuinely beginning to fear for my life, that part of me hadn't wavered.



A creaking caught my attention. My eyes shot to the door. I saw two figures standing there. On first glance, they were my kids, so I did my best to cover myself up with the bed sheets, but Nadine slapped them away, her grimace seething at me, her eyes staring daggers into my soul. It wouldn't have been the first time the kids have walking in on mommy-daddy time but...



I looked again.



What I thought were my kids were mangled and gnarled looking creatures of relatively the same height as Nicholas and Anna. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn they were cheering their mother-thing on. They even started to get mockingly affectionate with each other, chittering an unpleasant language and laughing at my awkwardness.



Disgusted and mortified, I finally unseated Nadine from her throne only to come eye-to-eye with the vanity mirror across from the bed. The grey skinned thing staring back at me mimicked my moves precisely as I explored what I gawped at in disbelief. It looked like I had turned into a larger version of the creature I witnessed on the video of Collision Course. I felt my face. It looked gray and scaly. I had shark-like teeth in an unspeakable grin.



Then my reflection began moving on its own, cackling as it seemed to emerge from the looking glass in front of me. The lights flickered off briefly, and when they came back on, both my reflection and the thing that had pretended to be it, had disappeared.



The lights flickered once more, and I felt myself being pinned down once more, gazing back into the eyes of the critter from the mirror. I felt a scream die in my throat as it leaned closer, its maw craning open like a bear trap, ready to spring shut.



I woke with the same silent scream finally being birthed from my lungs. My heart had nested in my throat to the point of nearly suffocating me. I looked around, doing my best to catch my bearings. Sweat drenched leather couch. Christmas tree with dancing colored lights. The soft clang of dishes in an adjacent room.



I was home.



I sat up, resting my head in my hands. My head was throbbing. Even light hurt. Migraine? Never had them before. Then again, I never had nightmares like that before, either. Oh, the joyous "firsts" of adulthood. The day hadn't even started, and I was already done with it.



Nicholas strolled out of the kitchen, holding what he called a "small bowl of cereal," and what we called a "salad bowl."



"Oh, hey dad," he chirped before spooning a heap of Cap'n Crunch into his gullet. "Have a bad dream?"



"Yeah. I dreamt your mm was a succubus." I didn't expect him to know what I was talking about, but I wasn't even sure if that was the correct word for what I saw.



"What's a suck-your-butts?" chimed Anna's angelic voice. She sauntered in, dressed in what looked like a mini-me version of Alexa Black's wrestling outfit.



"Succubus, you dweeb," Nicholas corrected. "It's a creature that..."



"That was just a bad dream your daddy had, sweetie," I interrupted, shaking my head at my son to prevent him from going into further explanation. Something caught my eye on Nicholas' forearm. "What's that?"



"Oh, that?" He strutted up to me proudly. "It's a temporary tattoo I got. It came with the signed poster I got from Alexa. Mommy got some too. They're really..."



His eyes suddenly glassed over, his body stiffened, as the cereal he hadn't finished chewing sprayed out of his mouth. The bowl dropped out of his hands as he began to fall like a cut tree. I caught him, my heart going for round two in my throat.



"NADINE!" I called to the kitchen, but she wasn't there. Thinking quickly, I laid my son on his side. I looked at Anna, who was in shock at what she was seeing. "Sweetie! I need you to help me find my phone and call 9-1-1. Sweetie?"



She still looked frozen in fear as her brother started frothing at the mouth and his entire body convulsed.



"ANNA LEE!"



That snapped her back to reality. I ordered her to find the phone, dial 9-1-1, and hand it to me. I followed the instructions the dispatcher gave me to the letter, trying to remain calm in the process with one kid having a fit, and the other seizing. Sirens blazed far away, but I knew they were closing in. They had to be coming here.



They just had to.