CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
The Truth in the Nightmare
Ryan found himself bare-ass naked in a football field, the same field he had seen in his dreams and thoughts. The world around him was much the same. The vegetation surrounding the area appeared dead and there was not a cloud in the sky. Just nothing, but darkness. The only lively quality about the world was the breeze that gently moved the dead trees’ branches. They pointed in the direction to the school next to the field. The breeze made no noise. Instead, it only gave Ryan’s body goosebumps. The whole world was quiet.
“Hello?” Called out Ryan. “Is there anyone here?”
There was no answer.
Again, he called, “Hello? Anyone?”
“Ryyyaaaannnn...” Cindy’s voice echoed.
He turned around. Cindy stood behind him, nude. There was nothing enticing about her bareness though. Her appearance seemed off. She was taller and nothing below her head matched her body.
“Come to me,” she said.
Ryan was not sure what to do. While one part of him wanted to hold her, another part did not trust what he saw in front of him.
“It’s okay,” she assured. “Come.”
Ryan approached her.
Her arms stretched out wide to seemingly impossible lengths, inviting him for a hug. “Come.”
Hesitantly, Ryan wrapped himself around her. He did not want to accept her comfort, but he did not feel like he had a choice. Her arms closed themselves around his back. As she held him, he could feel something was not right. He looked at her face. The skin shriveled away, shedding its mask. Hannah was the deceiver.
“Where’s Cindy?” He asked.
She shook her head. “No.”
Suddenly, Ryan felt sick. The sensation was the same feeling he had before he threw up, but no vomit was forcing his way through his system. Instead, he just felt the burning, sickly feeling in his stomach that antagonized him before the throw up. He collapsed to the ground. His skin began to shed, revealing a whole new layer. Hannah held a mirror to face him. He was now Kenny.
“No!” He screamed. “That’s not me!”
“Yes,” Hannah replied. “You are.”
“Look at yourself!” Called out a familiar voice.
Ryan turned. Coach Chris was standing behind him, his expression angry and full of disgust.
“Look what you’ve done to yourself!”
“It’s not me!” Ryan pleaded. “I would never - I’m not -”
Chris shook his head. “You’ve gone too far.” And then he disappeared.
“Chris!” Ryan called. “He’s not me! Chris!”
But Chris was gone.
Ryan collapsed to his knees. “Please,” he begged to anyone that could hear him. “Please make this stop.”
Hannah disappeared, but the mirror he held remained. Ryan looked back at it. His appearance had returned to normal. There was a moment of relief before the mirror suddenly shattered. The surrounding area changed seamlessly the moment the mirror’s broken glass hit the ground. Now he was no longer on the football field. Instead, he was surrounded by trees, deep in some woods.
Something moved. Ryan quickly caught a glimpse of a girl’s leg vanishing past some trees.
“Hey!” Ryan called out, running towards where the leg disappeared. “Wait! Come back here! I need answers!”
“You should tell him,” his mother’s voice echoed.
Ryan moved faster, brushing past the vegetation and branches around him. By his side, the two wolves ran with him. He was now in regular clothes. He could also feel the weight of his school bag strapped around his shoulders. The trees and bushes around him seemed to never end as he kept running.
A school bell rang.
An unseen voice announced, “All students, please report for first period.”
As Ryan and the wolves got deeper into the woods, the trees closed in around them. The branches felt sharp like glass and tore at their skin. Ryan remained undeterred even as his clothes and flesh ripped from him. He felt no pain from the branches’ tears even as he watched his muscles and insides become visible. The wolves kept on too. Ryan glanced back to see their skin and hair ripped away as the branches tore at them. Ryan’s eyes widened as he watched their organs flop out of their wounds.
“Stop!” He pleaded.
But they kept going, dragging their innards with them.
“Stop! You’re killing yourselves!”
Ryan wanted to stop moving, but his body wouldn’t listen. It kept running towards a clearing up ahead. He pulled and ripped at the trees’ branches that were tearing chunks from his body. By the time he made it to the clearing, he was sure he would be nothing, but bones…
As he collapsed into the clearing, his body returned to normal. The wolves were no longer there. In their places were Dalton and Luke. In front of Ryan stood his mother.
Ryan’s eyes widened. “Mom...” He hadn’t seen her in so long. He wanted to get up and hug her, but his body felt like cement.
“What have you done to your friends?” His mother asked.
Ryan looked to his sides. Dalton and Luke’s bodies were distorted and twisted up like pretzels. Their appearances were similar to the nightmare Ryan had during his mushroom trip with Cindy. They looked more like leftovers from a cannibalistic feast than people.
“Look at what you’ve done to them,” his mother said.
“I didn’t hurt them!” Ryan said. “It wasn’t me!”
A voice croaked, “You did this…”
Ryan looked to the source.
Dalton’s gouged eyes met Ryan’s. “You did this.”
“No! I can fix this!” Ryan grabbed Dalton’s arms and legs and tried to detangle them. As he tried to unwrap Dalton, his friend’s body began falling apart.
“Please, god!” Ryan begged. “No! Don’t let this happen!”
“It’s no use,” his mom said.
Ryan turned to his mother. “Why? Why is this happening?”
Ryan’s father appeared. “Is it my turn?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Hornbeck replied.
By some unknown force, Mr. Hornbeck’s bones and ligaments broke effortlessly. With every snap, bone protruded from the skin, ripping apart flesh and tissue.
“No!” Ryan screamed. “Stop it! You’re killing yourself!”
“You’re killing him, Ryan!” His mother screamed back. “This is your fault! You should have told him!”
“Stop it!”
Ryan tried to run to his father, but his body would not move. He threw his arms and legs wildly, but they only moved in slow motion. By the time Ryan was able to get to his father, his father’s body was a mesh of a person. All that was left was a pile of distorted limbs ripped apart from their connective tissue. Ryan collapsed to the ground, sobbing.
“I’m sorry, dad…”
“Why?” The mangled lips of his father asked. “You know I did this to myself.”
Ryan shook his head.
An eye from the father looked past his son. “Hey,” the mangled lips said. “You better go after her. She’s never coming back.”
Ryan looked in the direction his father’s eye was staring. His mother’s silhouette disappeared behind some bleachers.
“She’s already gone, isn’t she?” The lips asked.
Suddenly, Ryan found himself in a new realm, naked again. Around him was a field of large Amanita Muscaria mushrooms. Their sizes were gigantic, standing at over four feet tall with stems the size of tree trunks and caps wider than a king sized bedsheet.
From several yards away, Cindy sat on the tilted cap of one of the mushrooms. She glanced over her shoulder and looked at him with her big brown eyes.
“Cindy!” Ryan sounded relieved. “I need to talk to you!”
As he ran towards her, she turned her back to him. Ryan sprinted in front of her, regaining control of most of his body.
“Cindy,” he said, breathing heavily. “I’m - I’m sorry. I just need to explain to you what happened. It’s not what you think it is.”
Her back remained turned to him.
“Please, Cindy. Just let me talk to you.”
He got no reaction, her position frozen in the guarded pose.
“Cindy?”
He approached her. Gently, he put his hand on her shoulder. As she turned to face him, her face changed to Hannah’s. She stared at him with a mischievous smile that lengthened to an inhuman size.
“Where’s Cindy, Hannah?” He asked.
She shook her head. “No Cindy.”
“No Cindy?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” She grabbed his hand and placed it on her bare breast.
He pulled back. “I don’t want you. I want Cindy!”
Her smile faded as she crumbled into dust. The breeze carried what was left of her away.
Ryan stood there by himself. All he wanted was to see his girlfriend again.
“You don’t even know what you want anymore.”
Ryan turned around to see Frank standing behind him, untouched and not beaten to a pulp. For the longest time, Ryan only knew Frank as a corpse. It was strange to see him as a regular person.
“I want Cindy,” Ryan reiterated. “You took her from me!” His hands clenched into fists.
“No,” Frank replied. “You pushed her away.”
“That’s not true!”
Ryan punched Frank, but the hit did nothing. Ryan threw his other fist at Frank, but again nothing happened. Frank stood there, unfazed and unscathed.
“I killed you!” Ryan gritted through his teeth. “I killed you! I fucking killed you!”
“You can’t get rid of me, Ryan. I became a part of you the day you came to my house.”
Frank put his hands on Ryan’s shoulders. His palms and fingers felt like glue on Ryan’s skin. Ryan tried to shrug Frank off of him, but to no avail.
Frank took a step towards Ryan. “I am a part of you.” He took another step. “I’ll always be a part of you.”
Frank’s body began to absorb Ryan’s body. Ryan screamed and fought off Frank’s advances as much as he could, but the integration was unavoidable. Ryan could feel him and Frank becoming one…
Frank’s face met Ryan’s. “I am you.”
Ryan closed his eyes as the merging completed. He collapsed to the ground screaming, “No!”
Ryan did not know what to expect once he and Frank fused. It felt like the world would end as it happened.
The breeze blew over Ryan’s shoulders. He held his eyes for several seconds, waiting to hear something, anything that would confirm his worst suspicions. Instead, there was nothing. The world was quiet again. He opened his eyes and stood up. He was back at the football field.
Standing in front of Ryan was a man. He was somewhere between his late thirties and early forties. His physique was heavy. He was a good fifteen to twenty pounds overweight. His pop-eye forearms and broad shoulders suggested he was in good shape at one time in his life. The top of his head was balding with only a couple dozen strands of hair on his crown. Resting on the tip of his nose were glasses that he could only see through if he tilted his chin up. His get up consisted of a sweatshirt, sweatpants, and well- cushioned running shoes.
To Ryan, the man was an average looking guy. Granted, he was overweight, but there was nothing about him that stood out. If you crossed his path on the street, you would think nothing of him. But Ryan didn’t feel that way. Instead, he felt an impending sense of dread, the kind of feeling he imagined someone would have right before they died in some horrific way. He didn’t want to keep looking at the man in front of him, but he couldn’t help himself. His eyes wanted to know more…
“The truth,” the man said.
Then Ryan saw the man’s shadow. It did not match up with the body It came from. The monstrously sized silhouette stretched out all across the field. In It’s details were long, outstretched arms, razor sharp nails, and a hunchback build.
It dawned on Ryan who the Monster was. “You...” The presence in front of Ryan made him nearly faint. He felt weak in the knees and could barely hold himself up. “But - but you’re dead.”
The Monster shook It’s head. “I’ll always be alive inside you. No matter how much you try to forget about me, you can’t pretend what happened between us didn’t happen.”
Tears flowed down Ryan’s cheeks. “But why now? Why would you do this to me?”
The Monster put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. “Don’t you want to be a good football player?”
Ryan took in a deep breath, closing his eyes…
When he reopened them, he was standing inside a school. No one was around. Unlike the prior dreamscape he was just in, everything felt too real.
He heard the sounds of footsteps approaching him.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to talk back to me? Ten? Twenty?” Coming from a turn in the hallway was Coach Brackins, the Monster. His hand was on the backside of a seven year old Ryan, forcibly guiding him.
Ryan was not sure what to expect as Brackins and his younger self approached him, but they did not notice him. It was as if Ryan was a ghostly spectator watching what was transpiring. Even though it was surreal watching his younger self walk past him, Ryan knew this was not just a dream he was observing. It was a memory, one he had been desperately avoiding for the last decade.
Brackins walked younger Ryan into a classroom and closed the door behind them. Present day Ryan walked up to the door and looked through its window. The classroom was the same one in the dream Ryan had before.
Younger Ryan sat down at a desk as Brackins talked to him.
“What’s wrong, Ryan?” Asked Brackins. “Why have you been in such a bad mood? Do you not like being in camp?”
Backins was within breathing distance of the younger Ryan’s face. The younger Ryan looked away from him. It was as if he were scared or ashamed. The present day Ryan knew it was both.
“I just want to go home, Coach,” said the younger Ryan. “I don’t think I like football anymore.”
“Ah, well, you know I can make it better for you, right?” The Coach sounded trusting, even though the present day Ryan knew he was not. “Come with me to my desk.”
Brackins grasped the younger Ryan’s hand and led him to the back of the desk. The Coach opened up a drawer and took out a prescription bottle. The words “PERCOCET” stood out on the label. Brackins emptied a pill into his hand.
“Here,” he offered the pill to the younger Ryan. “Take my special pill. It’ll make you feel better. This is the same one you took last time. Remember how good it made you feel?”
The younger Ryan kept his head pointed down to the ground, avoiding eye contact. “I just want to go home, coach.”
“You know you can’t go home.” The Coach’s tone changed to a sterner one. “You’re at this camp for another couple of days.”
The younger Ryan did not reply back to Brackins. He just kept looking down at the ground.
Brackins continued, “If you don’t take the special pill, you’ll keep feeling upset. And if you keep feeling upset, you’re not going to just hurt my feelings. You’re going to hurt all the other players’ feelings. But you’re also going to hurt your father. You don’t want to upset him, do you, Ryan? You don’t want him to think you’re not a strong kid, do you?”
The younger Ryan looked at Brackins with his sad, ocean blue eyes. It was the same look the present day Ryan knew sealed his fate.
“Trust me,” said the Coach. “Take the pill, Ryan.”
“Don’t!” Present day Ryan banged his fist against the door.
The younger Ryan nodded and took the pill from the Coach.
Brackins grinned. “Atta boy.”
The present day Ryan kept banging his fist against the door. “Don’t take the pill!” He tried for the knob, but it wouldn’t move. He kicked the door, but it wouldn’t budge let alone make a sound.
Brackins offered the younger Ryan a water bottle. The younger Ryan used the liquid to help swallow down the pill.
“I’m sorry, Coach,” the younger Ryan said.
“I forgive you, Ryan.” Brackins kneeled down to the younger Ryan and gave him a prolonged, tight hug. “Now let’s do some private drills. Remember, you can’t share these with anyone. Okay? These are our secret moves. Just yours and mine. Right?”
The younger Ryan nodded. The present day Ryan screamed.
Brackins smiled. “Good boy.” He patted Ryan on the shoulder. “Now, you’re going to have to take off your clothes. You don’t want to tear them.”
The younger Ryan took off his shirt as the Coach pulled down his sweatpants and underwear.
The present day Ryan screamed at the top of his lungs and banged his fists against the door so viciously that he should have pounded the door down. But the door would not fall and the screams would go on unheard.
No matter how hard he tried to forget or convince himself what the Monster had done never happened, it did not change the truth. It may have gone down differently than how Ryan saw it now. The details were always too vague or too vivid. It was part of the reason Ryan doubted the experience ever happened, at least initially. But as time went on, the conclusions, as much as he tried to deny them, were always the same. There was no running from the truth this time. Ryan watched himself relive one of the multiple days Coach Brackins raped him.
When Ryan awoke from his nightmare, his skin was bluish and clammy, appearing as if he were a corpse. He took a giant gasp of air as if he hadn’t breathed through the entirety of his sleep. For several moments, he breathed heavily doing his best to catch his breath. As soon as it returned to him, he broke down into a crying spell.
“Memory repression thrives in shame, secrecy, and shock. The shame and degradation experienced during sexual assault is profound, especially for children who have no concept of what is happening to them or why. Sexual abuse is so bizarre and horrible that the frightened child feels compelled to bury the event deep inside his or her mind.”
― Renee Fredrickson, Repressed Memories: A Journey to Recovery from Sexual Abuse