The Wish Room

The Wish Room

- A Novel -

Christopher Bloodworth

The Wish Room

- A Novel -

Copyright © 2015 by Christopher Bloodworth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.

Cover design by Christopher Bloodworth

Interior design by Christopher Bloodworth

www.iambloodworth.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bloodworthhorror

Instagram: www.instagram.com/iambloodworth

tumblr: iambloodworth.tumblr.com

Twitter: @iamBLOODWORTH

For Dina.

The best dog a writer could ever have.

4.1.2005 - 6.12.2014

&

Jeonylakalaka (Finally...)

OTHER BLOODWORTH TITLES

HANDBOOK FOR A TEENAGE ANTICHRIST

WELCOME TO THE FAMILY

BEDTIME STORIES FOR THE DAMNED

BOOTHWORLD INDUSTRIES EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS

DARKNESS BLOOMS (Free)

Table of Contents

Other Bloodworth Titles

Free Download

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Part II

Part III

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Epilogue

Book 1 of the Armageddon Trilogy

Other Bloodworth Titles

Sign up for the author’s New Releases mailing list and get a free copy of the latest novel Handbook for a Teenage Antichrist: Book 1 of the Armageddon Trilogy.

Click here to get started: www.iambloodworth.com

Chapter 1

Is the box cutter in there? Harold Withers yelled down the hall. He slumped over at the hips with his hands on his knees, his face bright scarlet.

Harold couldn’t seem to catch his breath after carrying the box labeled Study Things from the U-Haul to the room he was claiming as the study. Pinpricks of sweat on his balding cul-de-sac caught the light that streamed in through the window behind him.

Harold straightened up, his massive belly heaving as he sucked in air. The hot sweat from the top of his head trickled down his face. Taking off his glasses with their coke bottle lenses, Harold wiped his face in the crook of his elbow.

Sweat.

Only God knew how much Harold hated sweat. He hated everything about it. How dirty it was, how filthy it made him feel, the ugly smell of it. And at thirty-seven, overweight, and aching in all of his joints—mainly his knees and lower back—the sweat mocked him.

Nora! Harold shouted through the door. Do you have the box cutters or not?

When Harold and Nora visited the house in the weeks previous to purchasing it, Harold knew this was the room. This was the room that he wanted as his study. The way the light streamed in through the solitary window and lit the whole room ablaze was one reason, but the other Harold couldn’t explain.

The room felt right. Harold wasn’t sure what it was about the room that so attracted him, he just knew that it did.

The trip from Boston, Massachusetts to Solo, Texas to check out the house had been a disaster. Harold and his wife’s fights so punctuated the affair that by the end they were just happy to go back to Boston, even if it was forever poisoned to them.

G.D., Nora. What took so long? Harold mumbled as he heard her footsteps on the wooden floor outside the door to his study.

Harold smiled.

His study.

He liked the way that sounded.

Nora stepped into the doorway, barely taking up half.

Just twenty-three, she still had the same figure she had in high school. Small hips, slight frame, small breasts. Waify was what her mom used to call her, but with her ebony hair and pale skin, Nora always thought she looked more like an elf than anything else.

A tiny, strained smile played on Nora’s face as she looked across the room at her smiling husband.

She married Harold five years ago, just out of high school and naive about the world. The first three years of their marriage went by in a hurry. Happiness tends to speed things along. The last two dragged on, full of misery and pain.

Since Joshua, Harold replaced hugs and I-love-you’s with nods and grunts.

What are you smiling about, Harry? Nora asked her sweating, red-faced husband from the doorway.

Nothing. Box cutters? Harold asked, thrusting out his meaty right hand, palm up.

What? Nora asked.

Box cutters.

Harold’s smile disappeared as well.

They’re in the kitchen. Did you need them? Nora asked.

Harold made a big show of looking down at the large, taped box that sat at his feet and then back up at Nora.

The box. Nora.

The box. Nora.

Geez, a simple yes would’ve sufficed, Nora said as the frown that had become so common over the last two years returned to her face again.

Harold frowned and shook his head at her exiting figure. Was it really so much to expect her to think before she spoke?

Harold didn’t think so.

After a while—forever according to Harold—Nora walked back into the room with the box cutter.

What box is that? Nora asked as she handed him the box cutter. I thought we were going to make this room into a nursery for the baby.

Harold didn’t say anything as he sliced through the shiny, brown packing tape.

The baby. Nora said it like it was a fact. Like she was already pregnant. Like she wouldn’t birth a stillborn again.

Harold couldn’t even understand why she wanted to try again so soon. He’d argued with her over and over about it. Why couldn’t she just let her body reset or whatever it had to do? Harold didn’t want to deal with another dead child and another devastated Nora.

Only two years had passed since the stillbirth of Joshua.

Joshua, the firstborn.

Joshua, his son.

Harold blamed Nora. Months before the delivery, they both agreed that she wouldn’t get an epidural. When the time came though, Nora broke down like a tower of dominoes with her begging and whining and crying about the pain.

Harold cornered the doctor in the hallway afterwards, interrogating the man about stillbirth and epidurals. The doctor said that the epidural had nothing to do with his stillborn child, but Harold thought he saw something in the doctor’s eyes.

Pity.

Pity that Nora chose to take the poison that eventually killed their son. Harold’s son.

Nora’s weakness killed their baby boy and Harold knew it. He never told her though. He could never do that. It would be like folding a royal flush and Harold never folded.

Harry, did you hear me? Nora asked.

Harold grunted his assent.

Well? Nora asked.

Well what? Harold asked back.

The nursery. I thought we decided this was going to be the nursery, Nora said. She felt the tension fill her shoulders like achy joints before a storm.

Decided, Harold scoffed, hearing her cries for the epidural fresh in his ears.

We decided, Harry, Nora said, her shoulders lifting up.

Harold looked up at her, his face bland. We’ve decided on a lot of things that have fallen through, haven’t we?

What are you talking about? Nora asked.

Nothing. I like this room. I want it as my study. If we ever conceive, we can talk about converting this room into a nursery, okay?

"If? What do you mean if?" Bright spots of red rose up on Nora’s cheekbones.

"You heard me. If we have a baby. I’m still part of the equation here, and I haven’t decided whether or not I’m ready for another— the word stillborn almost spilled out —baby."

Haven’t decided? Did I hear you correctly? You haven’t decided? Nora whispered.

I haven’t, Harold said as he pulled out his antique leather desk blotter.

We decided this already. You were there, right? I know you were because you even said, Nora dropped her voice and tried to mimic the bumbling manner in which Harold always spoke, Well, Nora. If you want to make another child, I will give you that child.

Harold pulled out a box of blue Montblanc fineliner refills, setting it on top of the blotter which now lay on the desk in the center of the room.

Harold looked up from the box and blotter, I didn’t commit to it though. I wasn’t ready to commit to that yet.

Nora snorted.

Then why did you tell me you would give me another child? Why build up my hopes like that?

It was a mistake, Harold said, pulling five pads of Rhodia from the box and slipping them into the drawer on the right.

No, Nora said, pointing a pale finger at him. "Don’t you do that. Don’t you dare do that, Harold."

Do what? Harold asked. He carried a rubber banded bundle of unsharpened Ticonderogas from the moving box to his desk, snapping off the pink rubber band from around the pencils as he walked.

Nora stared as he spilled the pencils onto the blotter and started placing them into the center drawer one at a time, erasers to the left.

"This, Harry. This! Nora screamed the last word at him and threw out her arms. You always do this. Anytime anything goes wrong, you turtle, you ostrich, you hedgehog. You always just give up. Like nothing matters to you. Like I don’t matter to you."

Harold kept placing pencils into the drawer one at a time, the green aluminum around the erasers catching the light from the window and kicking it back into Nora’s eyes. She looked away.

Do you even love me anymore? Nora whispered.

Harold froze, the pencil in his fingers an inch above the drawer, glimmering in the sleepy midday light. Instead of putting it into the drawer, he placed it onto the blotter next to the few pencils still there.

Walking over to Nora, Harold took her into his arms. Her tiny shoulders began to tremble and he felt her tears seep through the front of his shirt.

Of course I love you. I’m just stressed about the move. We go from a one bedroom apartment to a two story, three bedroom house and a mortgage. I’m sorry if I’ve been acting off, honey. I’m just stressed.

Harold held her close until her shoulders quit shaking, then he held her out at arm’s length. I love you. It’s just stress, okay?

It felt like a truce to Nora.

Okay, she said, sniffling between calming breaths, but then her face crumpled as she looked at the front of his shirt. Oh no, look what I did.

Harold looked down at the chest of his white polo. An ugly black smudge of mascara frowned back at him.

Oh, Harold said, putting on a smile. It’s okay. It’s just a polo.

No, Nora said, untucking it from his shorts. It’s not just a polo; it’s your lucky polo.

Nora pulled the polo up around Harold’s ever inflating midsection, and over his head. Harold grunted and had just enough time to grab his glasses before Nora’s tugs combined with the collar sliding over his head pulled them off.

Be it tugging off a polo shirt or screaming for an epidural, his wife never seemed to think about the consequences of her actions. Never.

Harold folded his arms across his chest, embarrassed of his overlarge areolas and his ever inflating yet sagging man breasts.

I’ll go put this in the sink to soak. Be right back with a fresh shirt, okay? Nora said as she bustled from the room.

Shaking his head at her departing figure, he leaned against the desk and felt the brass handle of the drawer containing the Rhodia pads dig into his not inconsiderable rear. He leaned back and slid onto the desk so that he was sitting. Feeling the warmth from his belly pressing through his shorts, Harold stared at the door in front of him.

Closet?

He didn’t remember this room having a closet when he and Nora first visited, or the other times when they came back to plan their move.

Harold slipped off the desk and walked the three steps over to the closet door. He stood there for a moment before reaching out a hand to grasp the knob.

Footsteps came from the hallway and Nora walked back in, shaking out the wrinkles from a clean red polo.

Here we go. One fresh polo, baked to order. Nora walked over to him and handed over the polo with a smile at her own wit.

Harold let go of the doorknob and took the shirt from her, struggling into it as fast as he could. He made sure to put his glasses down on the desk before pulling the polo over his head, though.

Consequences could be mitigated with planning.

Thanks, Harold said as he walked back over to the closet door. He grasped the knob and twisted.

The knob didn’t turn. It didn’t even budge. It could’ve been cement.

I completely forgot about this closet being in here. Do we have a key for it? Harold asked.

It’s been in here every time we have, Harry, and I’m sure we have a key for it somewhere, Nora said as she reached out to try the knob for herself.

Nothing.

Nora shrugged.

Back to work, she said in a cheery voice as she walked out of the room.

Harold put the rest of the pencils into the drawer before turning back to the door again, frowning.

Who would put a lock on a closet?

And why?

Harold walked back to the door, and without thinking about it, pressed his ear against it, straining to listen.

He stood there for a whole minute, his ear and stomach pressed against the door. At one point, he thought he heard a scratching noise, but then realized it was only Nora in the kitchen dragging boxes around.

The hell was I expecting to hear anyway? Harold muttered and went back to unpacking.

Chapter 2

Nora stood alone in the kitchen. The fatigue of moving boxes all day dripped down from her neck to her back muscles. She stared into an empty cardboard box that felt so much like her own life.

Without looking, she tossed the empty box over her shoulder into the space she was beginning to think of as the breakfast nook. Nora’s forehead creased as she thought of Harold’s face. Not Harold’s face as she had just seen it, but his face when she gave birth to their son.

The pure happiness and pride highlighting Harold’s features made her heart soar through the pain of the contractions, but the way his face fell coupled with the lack of crying from between her legs, made her heart freefall down the shaft of her chest into her wrenching bowels.

Joshua never even took a breath.

Harold looked over at her after the doctor apologized and left them with their grief. The pride and happiness evident earlier on Harold’s face washed away in a torrent of disgust. Disgust at her, at Joshua, or the doctor, Nora didn’t know. She just knew that on the day she bore their dead son, Harold wore the disgust he’d felt plain on his face.

According to the doctor, Joshua’s umbilical cord entered the birth canal before he did. Joshua’s head then entered a loop in the umbilical cord and as he traveled towards the doctor’s open hands, the cord crushed his throat which resulted in his death.

Nora had a different take. She thought that her body killed her son. Her body was to blame for his death. Her body was judge, jury, and executioner in the trial for her son’s life. The sentence was death by hanging.

After hauling up a new box onto the work surface of the kitchen’s little island, and slicing through the packing tape with a chef’s knife, Nora began the tedious process of pulling out forks and spoons while trying to make the sounds of metal tinkling against metal block out the memory of the sound of Harold’s footsteps leaving her alone in the hospital room.

Sorting out different sized forks, knives, and spoons, Nora remembered Harold coming back into the hospital room. The look of disgust on his face had migrated to his eyes as a false, understanding sort of smile tried to form itself on his lips.

Harold said he loved her and didn’t blame her.

The way he said it made Nora feel like he’d actually said that he hated her and this was all her fault.

That day, Nora watched the husband she knew and loved be kidnapped by the imposter she could hear stumbling around in the nursery.

It’s not his, Nora said.

And the room wasn’t. They had talked about it. They had planned. They had decided.

Nora had even asked to make sure he was serious about having another child, and after a moment’s reflection, the man standing in the other room had said that he would give her another child if that was what she wanted.

Nora’s hands shook, something that was happening more and more these days, as she picked up the yellow tray holding the sorted, shiny utensils and slipped it into a drawer beside the clear glass refrigerator.

The fridge reminded Nora of a gas station fridge filled with cheap beer and garbage energy drinks, nothing more than a bum’s treasure chest.

Harold had seen that particular monstrosity in a magazine and obsessed over it for weeks, badgering her about color schemes and sizes and what she thought the optimal level of crisper space was.

Optimal level of crisper space?

Enough to fit a couple of tomatoes, some cilantro, and some parsley.

That answer had earned her a scowl from Harold and a week filled with sulking and sour looks. He even bumped shoulders with her in the kitchen several times, always saying sorry afterwards like it was an accident, but Nora knew better.

The utensils inside clattered and the drawer slammed as she forced it closed. Nora stood before the fridge, staring at its cold lines and its unforgiving harshness.

For all its love and caring, the fridge could’ve been Harold.

A hot tear slipped down her cheek, the familiar warmth and wetness feeling more like home than the house in which she now stood.

The doorbell rang as Nora rinsed lettuce in the sink a few hours later. The doorbell was a foreign sound and reminded her that although they’d bought the house, it still felt like a stranger’s.

Nora shook her hands off before drying them with a dish towel, then she walked out of the kitchen.

Hi, the couple standing in front of her said in unison when she opened the front door. The man held a magenta box with a black taffeta ribbon bowed on top.

The woman was at least seventy. Her hair glowed a deep shade of blue that Nora was certain the woman hadn’t intended. Large gold hoops hung down from her ears and her lips were painted a gaudy shade of red.

Really, everything about the woman in front of her screamed gaudy. She wore a tangerine blouse and a vibrant, multicolored shirt with flying parrots and toucans on top. Large stones of turquoise hung around her neck and almost every ring was dotted with the same tell-tale blue. The woman’s pants were the same color as her tangerine t-shirt, and her shoes looked like lime-green genie slippers with beaded flowers on each toe.

The man next to her stood tall and only a bit hunched. His face was lined and he squinted at Nora, who wasn’t sure if it was the bright day or cataracts. He wore a light blue pair of coveralls and a bleached white pair of Keds that seemed even brighter than the whole of the woman’s ensemble.

Hi? Nora said, not sure who these people were.

I’m Elsa and this is my husband Dougie. Elsa nudged the man.

Douglas, if you please, he said, smiling at Elsa. I’ve simply quit asking her to call me that. She likes Dougie and my Elsa does pretty much whatever she wants.

I do, Elsa said, then addressed Nora. Greyburn, honey.

What? Nora asked.

Greyburn, Douglas said. Our last name is Greyburn.

Okay? Nora said, still not sure what this was, hoping it wasn’t a church trying to recruit new members.

Relax, Elsa said. We’re not from a church or anything. We live across the street.

Ah, Nora said. Well it’s so nice to meet you both. Would you like to come in?

Only after you introduce yourself, honey, Elsa said.

Nora laughed. Now where are my manners? Sorry about that. My name is Eleanor Withers, but I prefer to go by Nora, and my husband, Nora turned away from the door and called into the house, Harry!

And your husband’s name is Harry, Elsa finished for her.

Close, Nora said. Harold.

Well that’s nice, Elsa said as Nora moved from the door and allowed the two to enter.

Both of the Greyburns walked into the foyer and looked around.

Well, Elsa said, looking over to Nora. You’ve made quite a bit of headway already and the furniture is so nice. So pretty.

Nora blushed. We’re still unpacking, but thank you.

Footsteps pounded on the stairs as Harold came walking down.

Hello, Harold said, putting an arm around his wife.

Harry, these nice folks live across the street from us. This is Elsa, Nora said.

Hi. Harold smiled and shook Elsa’s hand. It’s a pleasure, Elsa.

He’s polite, Elsa said to Douglas who nodded back.

And this is Douglas, Nora said.

Good to meet you, Douglas said, holding out his hand to Harold.

Harold grasped it and was surprised at the strength of the man’s grip. "Good to meet you, Douglas."

Where are y’all from? Elsa asked.

Boston, Harold and Nora said at the same time, looking at each other and laughing.

Oh? Douglas asked. You a Pats fan?

Of course, Harold said as the two women shared a knowing glance that said, men and their sports.

Do you think they have much planned in the way of winning this season? Douglas asked.

I think Belichick always plans to win, Harold said. Who do you follow? The Cowboys? The Texans?

"I followed the Cowboys for quite a time when I was younger, but I don’t see Jerry Jones doing a thing with that team as long as he’s the owner. And that quarterback? The one that used to date what’s-her-face? Chokes harder in the clutch than my old Honda lawnmower. I watch the Texans, so I guess I know