The Manor Within, Part 3

Things get surreal.

Concluding the inaugural episode of the new Terrific!

If you missed them, read Part 1 and Part 2.

Previously: Alyssa ventured into Skyler’s mind to pull him out of his coma, but Skyler doesn’t want to leave. And he doesn’t want Alyssa to leave either.

Part 3

Alyssa awoke in heaven, on the softest, warmest, coziest bed.

“Morning,” Skyler said, propping himself on an arm as he gazed down at Alyssa.

“Morning yourself.”

They shared a gentle kiss. Something didn’t feel right. The kiss repeated, and all was perfection.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked.

“Surprisingly well,” Alyssa said, unsure what was surprising.

She could just lie there forever. Or could she?

She started to rise. “There’s something I need to—”

Skyler gently shushed her and guided her head back to the pillow. “Everything’s taken care of. We’ve got a whole day to ourselves, not a thing to worry about.”

A shadow cut across the sunlight.

“What—”

“Passing cloud,” Skyler said.

Alyssa shivered. “Cloud made it cold.”

“Stay right there.” Skyler hopped off the bed and headed for the closet. “Another blanket coming up.”

He opened the closet door and grabbed a blanket off an elephant’s trunk. Alyssa didn’t remember an elephant ever being in the closet. There was something incongruous about the arrangement, especially when the elephant said “Help.”

“Did you hear something?” Alyssa asked.

Throw blanket in hand, Skyler shut the closet. “Door creaks sometimes.”

“Oh, okay.”

He draped the blanket over Alyssa, climbed back into bed, and snuggled beside her.

“Better?”

“Much. Thank you.” But something wasn’t better. Alyssa kept almost remembering what. “You know, we really need to talk about … things.”

“Alyssaaaaa.” He smiled through his scolding. “Let’s just be, okay?”

Alyssa watched the sunlight reflecting against the white walls. “How long have we been here?”

“Where?”

“Right here. In this bed. I don’t—I can’t remember going to sleep.”

“Looks like someone was drinking a bit much last night.”

“I don’t remember drinking either.”

He laughed. “You seldom do.”

Alyssa sprang up to a sitting position, alarmed by her own question. “How long have we been together?”

“Doesn’t much matter to me so long as we are.”

There was a knock on the door. Alyssa couldn’t recall what lay on the other side. A hallway? A patio? What?

Skyler gazed wistfully at Alyssa, untroubled by any concerns, least of all their home’s ground plan or strange knocks on the door.

“You want to get that?” Alyssa asked. “Or should I?”

“Get what?”

Knock.

“That.”

“That what? I don’t—”

Knock knock.

“You don’t hear the knocking?”

Awareness finally penetrated. “Oh, the knocking. Probably for me.”

Skyler hoisted himself off the bed, trudged to the door, and opened it. Outside was an indiscriminate haze of sunshine. A large jack-o’-lantern sat on the washed-out ground.

Alyssa rubbed her eyes, and the outside became even hazier.

“I have to take care of something.” Skyler wore a tense smile. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Sure. I’ll be waiting here.”

Skyler exited, and Alyssa gazed at the white walls, white dressers, white blanket, white bedsheets. She wondered why they chose all white and why it felt heavenly. The absence of color shouldn’t have felt heavenly.

Alyssa lost the thought when a bear poked his head through the window, at which point she noticed the window frame was empty.

She pulled herself out of bed and walked to the closet. Inside, an elephant greeted her.

“Help me, Alyssa.”

Alyssa squinted into the closet. “Something’s not right here. What …”

A piece of felt tapped her shoulder. A trio of puppets had entered the bedroom when she wasn’t looking, and they stationed themselves behind the short, long dresser.

“Hello!” the pink one greeted with undue vigor.

“Hello,” Alyssa said. “You’re puppets.”

The orange one’s hand whipped to his mouth. “Shh! Quiet! Don’t let the children hear you say that. You’ll scar them for life!”

“Just call me Sam,” said the blue.

“I’m Pam,” said the pink.

“And I’m Cam,” said the orange.

“Together, we rhyme!” they declared in unison.

Pam asked, “Do you know what a rhyme is?”

“Pretty sure I remember,” Alyssa said.

“And what’s your name?” Cam asked.

“Alyssa.”

Pam and Cam looked at each other with profound disappointment.

“That doesn’t rhyme,” Cam said.

“Quiet, you!” Sam said. “So, Alyssa, what brings you here this fine day?”

She shrugged. “I live here.”

Pam nodded thoughtfully. “You do? Alyssa, I find that most interesting. Tell me, please, what made you choose to live here as opposed to, say, over there?”

“Over where?”

A hulking silhouette lumbered past the window.

“Like over there with that big guy,” Cam said.

The front door swung open, and a man with a jack-o’-lantern head burst through, issuing a triumphant “A-ha!”

Several deformed arms yanked him away at once. The door slammed shut, and Alyssa forgot all about it. Mostly.

“Was there a …”

“You didn’t see that,” Pam said.

“Then what did I just see?”

The puppets consulted each other, deliberating through unintelligible whispers, then turned back to Alyssa.

“Your overactive imagination at play!” Sam said as the others nodded along.

“I like imagination,” Cam said.

“Yes, Cam, we all like our imaginations,” Pam said. “Our imagination is our friend. Alyssa, do you know what a ‘friend’ is?”

“Yes,” Alyssa said flatly.

“A true friend stays with you through thick and thin!” Sam said.

“Very good, Sam.”

“I do try, Pam.”

The door slammed as a chill swept through the room.

Alyssa shivered. “What was that?”

“Oh, I just said, ‘I do try, Pam.’ ”

“No, at the door.”

“Door!” Cam shouted. “That starts with the letter D!”

“Wow!” Pam said. “You’re right, it does!”

A fog clouded Alyssa’s head, but she suspected everything was clearer by the door.

“Uh, where are you going, Alyssa?” Sam said.

“Alyssa! That begins with the letter A!”

“Quiet, Cam!”

“Just trying to help, Pam.”

Alyssa opened the door and found an empty jack-o’-lantern mask on the ground. She picked it up and carried it inside, gazing into those hollow eyes.

“Oh, look!” Sam said. “Some nice fellow made us a jack-o’-lantern! Wasn’t that thoughtful?”

Alyssa flung the pumpkin down, and it bounced across the floor.

“Damn him.”

The puppets gasped at her language.

“I put myself on the line for him, and he does this to me.”

“Something is clearly troubling you,” Pam said, “so—”

“Of course something is troubling me! One of my best friends tried to trap me in his brain!” She released a long, loud sigh. “And I’m talking to puppets.”

A trunk pushed the closet door open. “Would you feel better talking to an elephant?”

“Sky!” Alyssa shouted. “Sky, I want to talk to you!”

A chicken crossed the bedroom.

“All right, fine. Be that way. I’ll find you.”

The puppets rose from the dresser as their puppeteers stood up, all shrouded in black from head to toe, each an obsidian blank.

“We can’t allow that,” Sam said.

“Just stay here!” Pam said. “It’s so nice and comfortable.”

The word didn’t ring true as Alyssa eyed the bed. She pulled the mattress off, and dozens of tall spikes snapped to full extension.

Pam gasped. “Cam! Did you spike the bed?”

“Wasn’t me, Pam.”

Alyssa yanked Pam and Cam off the puppeteers’ hands and tossed them on the spikes.

“Ow! This hurts!” Pam said without moving her mouth.

“I think I broke my back,” Cam said, also immobile.

Alyssa approached the puppet-less puppeteers. “Which one of you is Sky?”

“No, silly, those aren’t Skyler,” said Sam, whose mouth continued to flap atop his puppeteer’s hand. “I’m Skyler!”

Alyssa looked Sam in the eye, as though the puppet was the brains of the operation. “What?”

Teddy poked his head through the window. “No, I’m Skyler.”

“I thought I was Skyler,” the elephant said.

The chicken waddled back across the room. “I’m Skyler.”

Alyssa threw her hands up. “You know what—fine! I’ve had enough. I’m out of here.”

Sam plunged onto Alyssa’s shoulder and took a big, toothless bite.

“Stay,” he mumbled into her shirt.

Alyssa threw Sam onto the spiked bed with the others. His screams ended soon enough.

Skyler rushed through the front door, and his eyes went straight to the jack-o’-lantern. “Ah, there you are. Been looking all over for you.”

He picked it up and set it over his head.

“Now, Alyssa …” The creepy tone returned. “It seems as though I wasn’t quite thorough enough the first time around. Let’s try this again.”

Alyssa yanked the mask right off.

“No! Stop hiding behind an old nightmare and talk to me yourself!”

Skyler reached for the mask, sinister voice intact. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk after you give me the—”

Alyssa whacked him over the head with it.

“There. Want it again?”

She whacked him one more time for good measure. He tottered back a few steps, disoriented, his pretensions deflating. Alyssa dropped the jack-o’-lantern mask and shook her head.

“Sky, I love you. You were like a brother to me. You made those four years of my life so much more bearable than they would have been. You could make my life now a lot more bearable. I could do the same for you. But instead you want to hide in your own little head and just forget the rest of the world exists. You selfish bastard. What the hell is the point of that? Tell me, Sky. Why won’t you try?”

But Skyler just looked at her and sighed. “You ever think about why we got along so well? About what drew us to each other?”

She shrugged. “We were both cool. Good enough for me.”

“No.” Skyler eyed the puppets impaled on the bed. “We were both cowards.”

Alyssa squinted, which failed to help her see whatever he was getting at. “I’m not following.”

“I think you are.” Skyler approached, shadows deepening across his face. “You told hardly anyone that you had wanted to be an astronaut, but you told me. You somehow got the sense that I would validate your decision to give up.”

“No, I was not looking for validation, and I sure as hell couldn’t read minds back then. It was a complicated situation with my parents—”

“That was just an excuse, and you knew it. However rotten and corrupt your parents were, there was absolutely no reason for you to abandon that old dream of yours. You abandoned it because you were afraid.” He tossed out a humorless chuckle. “Just like I was. And whenever you expressed the slightest doubt, whenever you considered reaching for the stars again, I was always there to remind you to keep your feet on the ground. I couldn’t have you striving while I was settling—couldn’t risk you leaving me behind.”

“That’s—” Alyssa remembered confiding in Skyler about her aerospace ambitions. She did not remember him ever even hinting that she could possibly succeed on that path. “You’re distorting things.”

His smile was fire. “You really helped me feel better about myself.”

The jack-o’-lantern mask glowed on the floor. Skyler started to reach for it. His hand hovered over the mask, then his fingers snapped together.

“Get out,” he said, voice quavering. “Leave while you can.”

Alyssa wanted to. He was creeping her out. But, she believed, he was creeping himself out most of all. She understood the feeling.

“Not without you,” she said.

“Aren’t you listening?”

“Yeah. You’re kind of messed up. Guess what? I am too. The things I’ve done lately—look, you didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to. You didn’t keep me from anything I wanted. I did that. Me. Now get over yourself and come on.”

She offered him her hand. Skyler studied the proffered lifeline, then smiled softly.

“Thanks for everything, Alyssa. You were the best friend I ever had, and you’re much too good for here.”

Demons, monsters, and puppets pounced on Alyssa and dragged her away—not into the closet, not through any window, just … away. She struggled against the flood of nightmares, but the current proved too strong. The white bedroom receded into the distance, dwindling into a distant star.

“Sky!”

*****

Skyler gazed at the empty bedroom, particularly the bed with the inconvenient spikes.

“That won’t do,” he muttered.

A paw landed on his shoulder. “No. It won’t.”

He wasn’t alone. Teddy presented a smaller bed, one free of all spikes.

Skyler patted his fur. “Thanks, buddy.”

Teddy smiled and exited, closing the front door behind him. Skyler laid himself down.

He could still be with Alyssa, he realized. He had his memories. She could appear any time he desired, could do anything he desired.

“No,” he muttered to himself, resting his head on the pillow. “Can’t do that to her.”

Skyler closed his eyes. Later, he might return to the manor. He liked it there. But for now, he needed rest. Lots of rest.

*****

Alyssa snapped awake and gasped for air.

A feeling of solidity returned. She was back in her own mind, in her own body—and in a hospital room, sitting at Skyler’s bedside.

He lay there, exhibiting not even the faintest ember of consciousness, entirely unchanged since her arrival.

“Idiot. Tried to … tried …”

Her face plunged into her hands, and there was no denying the reality of her tears.

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Next: Earth Imperfect