JOHN FELDMAN - THE AFTERMATH

John began his writing career while in college and hasn't looked back. A technical writer by day, ghostwriter by evening, and fiction writer by night, his word count for each day gets lost in the thousands. The fire never fades, though, and John finds himself grateful for the ability to make a living writing words for others to interpret. His newest psychological thriller novel OUT OF HIDING is available anywhere books are sold online. You can follow him on Twitter (@AuthorFeldman), InstagraM (JohnFeldmanAuthor), and Facebook: ​ (https://www.facebook.com/JohnFeldmanAuthor). 

---

​ 
THE AFTERMATH

​ 
 
 
                                                                Part 1
 
                                                                       1
Marty wasn’t chasing the American Dream. He didn’t want a big house or a fancy car. All he wanted was his family with him. And he’d do whatever it took to keep them around.
This dog is getting old, though, he thought to himself.
The Golden Retriever was sitting next to the arm of his recliner, where he always was whenever Marty plopped down into the chair. Spike’s tongue would hang low and he’d pant even when he hadn’t moved in quite some time. But the dog was nineteen years old. They got the damn thing right before Brooke was born. It’s amazing the pup lasted this long.
Marty had one hand on the remote and the other on the dog’s head. The only time he’d need a free hand would be when he had an itch in his scruffy beard, or some sort of tickle in his long, brown hair. Other than that, his feet were kicked up, especially this time of day, and especially on this rare occasion when his wife was in the kitchen preparing dinner.
Since Brooke left for college a few months ago, Lauri has had too much time on her hands. What the hell am I going to do with myself? she’d asked him so many times in the weeks following the moment they’d dreaded for years. Without her only child to care for, she had…what, Marty? After eighteen years of Brooke being number one, it was going to flip back to him again?
Yeah, right. Lauri knew that wasn’t going to happen, and so did Marty.
Marty gave Spike a little tap on the head which drew the dog’s attention away from the TV. “You ready to see Brooke again?” Marty whispered to the dog. “You miss her, boy?”
Spike’s response was to continue the open-mouthed pant without a change of expression.
“She misses you,” he said to the dog before looking back to the TV. “She sure does.”
Brooke was on her way back—the first time back since they saw her off to college a little over eight weeks ago. The dinner Lauri was making was due to the special occasion: Brooke’s return. The kitchen wasn’t anything fancy—the apartment complex itself wasn’t much, but it was home. Before Brooke took off, they’d sit around the old wooden table telling stories about each other’s day. Regardless of individual moods, dinner had always brought out happiness in each of them.
Marty couldn’t wait for tonight.
And he wouldn’t have to wait long. Within minutes, Brooke was walking through the door.
 
                                                                       2
Brooke’s long, blonde hair was caught on the shoulder strap of her duffel bag, and as she lowered the bag to the ground, she bent at the waist to set it free. Throwing the mane back over her shoulder as she stood straight, she said, “Hey, Dad.”
“Hey, Sweetheart,” he said, slowly moving out of the recliner. The slowness wasn’t due to lack of effort, but lacking physical ability. Marty had been aging quickly, certain that binge-watching TV on his recliner wasn’t helping put a stop to this trend.
Marty grabbed her bag from the ground after embracing her in a hug. He turned and tossed it on the love seat—a love seat, full couch, and recliner cluttered the living room in which no one visited and only Marty and Lauri now occupied. After tossing the bag, he noticed Spike hadn’t moved.
“Hey,” Marty called with a smirk. “Don’t you even notice who’s here?”
Spike looked over but didn’t move. The tongue was out and the pant continued, but there was nothing else coming from the dog.
“He must be going blind now, too,” Marty said to his daughter, who laughed. “Come on. Mom’s in the kitchen.”
They walked between the love seat and the recliner to get to the kitchen. On their way, Brooke reached out to pet the dog and once again received no response. The dog sat and watched TV like a deaf, old man. “Apparently he’s numb now, too,” Marty said. Brooke knew how old the dog was, but it must have hurt her a bit to see Spike not having any reaction to her being there after so long.
“What’s up with you?” he whispered to the dog as she walked on. Spike looked over at him and his tail started wagging. “You’re acting weird.”
Mom and daughter embraced in the kitchen. Lauri told Brooke how good the timing was. “The food is just about ready,” she said. “Why don’t you two go have a seat and I’ll bring it right out?”
“So tell me all about school,” Marty said to Brooke. “How’s it going?”
“It’s good. Finally starting to make some friends.” She looked at her dad and smiled. “Other than that, nothing crazy.”
“No parties?”
“No, Dad,” she said with a smile.
He spent what felt like minutes looking into her eyes, trying to read them. And then he asked again, sternly, “Brooke, have you been drinking?”
“No, Daddy. Not a drop.”
Marty’s tone caught Laurie’s attention and she chimed in from the kitchen. “She told you once already—”
“I’ll ask the goddamn questions!” He slammed his palm on the table, shushing the crowd. Even the TV in the other room seemed to go on mute.
Once he gained his composure, he said in a much calmer tone, “Drinking is bad, honey. I just want you to know that.”
Both Laurie and Brooke remained quiet. Laurie walked back and forth between the kitchen and dining room, bringing out the rest of what she’d cooked. And once she sat, they all began digging in, quietly asking one another to pass certain dishes. Conversation would come back, but it just wasn’t quite ready yet. Before they could pick it up again, they’d be interrupted by a knock on the door.
“Who the hell could that be? Knocking on the damn door at dinnertime.”
 
                                                                      3
Marty walked over to the door and pulled it open. The chain was still hooked up and the door came to a quick halt. Marty didn’t remember him or Brooke setting it after she’d walked in, but at this point he was glad it was still intact. Through the slit in the door, all he saw was the shit-eating grin he saw more often than he’d liked.
“What do you want, Eric?”
“Hey, man. Got a minute?”
“No, I don’t. What do you want?”
“Come on, man.” His salesman grin grew wider. He even looked like a salesman, dressed in his business wear, stopping on the way home from work as he usually does. “Just one minute.”
He always did this. Pushy as hell and not taking no for an answer. Recently, Marty had been caving easily and letting him in just so he would leave quicker. And though it went against his every desire at this moment—Brooke home from school and dinner on the table—Marty knew the fastest way to get him out of there would be to let him come in and say what he had to say.
“Make it quick,” Marty said, closing the door to unlock the chain and then swinging it back open.
Marty took a few steps back to let him in but then stopped. Any reasonable person would have taken this as a sign of a border—this is as far as you’re welcome—but not him. No, Eric walked in with wide eyes, looking around the place as if it were a mansion he’d just been invited into. Get on with it and get out, is what Marty wanted to say. But instead kept it a bit more respectful. After all, his family was there watching.
“So,” Marty shrugged. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, man. Just stopping in to see how you’ve been.”
“How I’ve been?” Marty turned to look at Lauri and Brooke at the table.
“I see Spike’s still holding in there,” Eric said and pointed to the dog sitting on the floor, ignoring the fact that Marty had an answer to his previous question.
“Yeah, he’s doing good. But Eric, can’t you see I’m a little busy right now?” He turned his body and gestured toward the table without taking his eyes off the man.
Eric looked at him a little wide-eyed, as if confused. But confused about what? Whether or not they had just started eating or were about to end? Was he considering hanging around until after the meal? Or, even worse, was he trying to invite himself to stay?
“You have to go,” Marty demanded.
Eric’s demeanor switched and he became apologetic. “I’m sorry, Marty. I didn’t mean to…” He trailed off without finishing.
“Well you did. Brooke comes home for the first time in weeks and you just invite yourself over.” He shook his head and walked to the door, opening it, holding the knob—the telltale sign for Get the hell out.
“Sorry, Marty.” He walked toward the door.
“Yeah? Maybe say sorry to them, too. That’s pretty rude.”
Eric turned toward the table and looked for longer than Marty wanted him to. He finally waved and said sorry. “Didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said. And then he was out the door.
“Sorry about that,” Marty tapped his head with his finger as he walked back to the dinner table. “Sometimes I think that guy’s not really altogether upstairs.”
 
                                                             Part II
 
                                                                    1
“Oh, good morning, Mr. Ellis.”
Vivian worked the front desk of the Sure Smiles Nursing Home for over fifteen years. If there was anyone that was more familiar with Eric, you’d be hard-pressed to find them. Mostly because if there was one person who knew him and his situation better, they wouldn’t admit it. Eric was typically met with eye rolls and a specific mumbled curse word.
Vivian was there to greet him this morning and he was grateful she was.
“Good morning, Vivian,” Eric said. “How is she?”
“She’s good,” she said. Her eyes and tone were like that of a nervous child fumbling with lies to their parents for the first time. “Having a really good day. Been having a really good few days, actually.”
He understood that comment very well: She’s been having a good few days so don’t come in here fucking anything up for us.
It’s not that he liked annoying the staff here—after all, they were the caregivers for his mother—but he had something he needed to take care of. They rolled their eyes at him because it had drawn on for eighteen years without a positive sign, but he’d go another eighteen if he had to.
“I just need to talk to her for a bit.” He walked up to the receptionist desk and then right around it without breaking stride. He knew the deal here. “I won’t be long.”
Oh, but those days when Eric told them that were the worst, and he could see the despair all over Vivian’s face: You’re going to set her off, aren’t you?
As a matter of fact, ma’am, I am.
She certainly didn’t want him to go back, but she must have frozen up because Vivian said nothing else. Eric walked right on back into the “Open Room,” as they called it.
 
                                                                       2
It was just as a majority of his visits went, where staff and security—big, burly guys who outweighed the patients here by about four-to-one—stood in some corner of the room waiting for the chaos to occur. They knew it would, it was just a matter of when.
“Mom?” Eric said. “You doing OK?”
Mom just stared into the soundless TV hanging from the wall—Good Morning America or Kelly Ripa or one of those morning shows. Closed captioning came across the screen but there was no way she could read it from where she was sitting. The TV was on, and she was looking right into it, but she sure as hell couldn’t have been watching anything. Her mind was gone. Elsewhere. Thinking of some distant memory or place and probably wondering if it was real or not.
“Mom?” he asked again. “Can you hear me?” He leaned closer to her, hanging halfway over the small, round table that separated both plastic chairs.
This had been happening for all eighteen years she’d been in here: No responses. Eric always tried to be sincere and to plead with her, but none of it ever worked. The only times he could ever get a rise out of her was when he mentioned Marty’s name. And that was what the staff—those security guards and nurses waiting impatiently in the corner—knew he was here to do today.
“I want to ask you a question, Mom.” Eric pulled out his phone and started recording his mother. “Can I ask you a question, Mom? Do you know where you are?” He kept recording, turning his phone around periodically to show his own face in the film. “Do you know why you’re here?”
No response. The plethora of questions did nothing to faze her. It’s only what he did next that brought her to life.  
“What about Marty, Mom.” He looked over at the staff members in the corner. They were all looking back at him now. “Mom? Do you remember Marty?”
 
                                                                        3
The security guards didn’t need to drag him out, or even grab him by the arm and direct him out. He was going. That piercing, chilling scream was enough to drive anyone away. But for her own son to have to listen to it drove him mad. Mostly because there might have been a way to stop it.
“I’m sorry,” Eric said.
Walking behind him were two nurses and two guards, all wearing white.
“I feel like one of these times this is going to work.” They ignored him but he kept going as he was escorted through hallways and into the lobby. “One of these times it will. She can’t spend the rest of her life in here because of what happened. It’s not fair to her. It’s not fair to me.”
As he hit the sliding glass doors leading him out of the office, he turned to apologize once again. It really wasn’t his intention to give them the extra work of caring for his mother in a maniacal state. But they’d lost their ability to empathize with him. In their eyes, she was here for life and Eric just couldn’t get that damn thought to stick in his thick skull.
As the doors shut to separate Eric from the staff members, one of them yelled out, “Just stop coming back.”
It was official: they’d had it with him.
 
                                                             Part III
 
                                                                    1
“Are you sure you can’t stay?”
It had only been one night, but Brooke had to leave—her studies, she said. “Dad, college is a lot more work than high school,” she’d told him. Marty wouldn’t know because he’d never gone, but he believed his little girl. He just hated to see her go.
“Sorry,” she said, grabbing her duffel bag with enough stuff to last her a week. “I feel like midterms just passed and I already have two tests to take on Monday; I need to go to the library to study.”
“Alright, well have a safe ride, sweetie,” Lauri said to her daughter. “Make sure you call me when you get back.”
They were about to give their goodbye hugs when a loud knock at the door broke up the peaceful moment.
Marty hated that damn door. He hated hearing the sound of fists wrapping against it. He hated it because it startled him, but mostly he hated it because he always knew who was on the other side of it.
He answered, cracking open the door, chain in its lock again.
It was Eric.
Marty shut the door.
 
                                                                      2
“Come on, Marty.” Eric’s muffled voice came through the door. “I really need to talk to you.”
“You always need to talk to me.”
“But this time I really need to talk to you.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“Come on, just let me in. I’ll be gone in two minutes.”
Marty hesitated, turned to his wife and daughter who were standing in the middle of the living room, Brooke with her bag over her shoulder and Lauri with her arms crossed. Spike decided he wasn’t going to say bye to Brooke, and curled up nice and snug by the foot of the recliner.
After a deep, aggravated breath, he opened the door wide. Come on in, Eric. Make yourself at fucking home. You’re not being a nuisance right now or anything.
“Thanks,” Eric said.
“Yeah.”
“You want to take a seat, Marty?”
“You want to maybe say hello to my family first? I think it’s pretty rude not to.” Marty looked over to his wife and daughter and shook his head: What’s wrong with this guy?
“Oh.” Eric turned. “Hey, guys. I’ll just be a minute.”
The only thing Marty could notice was that Eric was looking about five feet to the left of where Brooke and Lauri stood when he said hi. At that moment, he told himself he was cutting the guy out of his life. What a quack.
Eric turned to Marty. “Want to sit? I’ll be out of here in no time.”
In no time. Marty sat and started the timer in his head.
 
                                                                    3
“Do you know where you are?”
“What?”
“Do you know where you are?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Right now, at this very moment, do you know where you are?”
“Of course I do.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m inside my fucking apartment. Annoyed. And you’re about to leave.”
“I will,” Eric said. “Soon. As soon as you tell me who I am.”
“You’re annoying.”
“Not what I am. Who I am.”
Marty took a long, deep breath and tried to figure out what the hell he was getting at. And then he stared at him. They were friends. Of course that’s who Eric was—he was Marty’s friend. Why else would he show up here as often as he did, uninvited? He’s a needy friend, for sure, but a friend.
Right?
Now Marty was second-guessing himself. Come to think of it, he couldn’t really remember how the two met. He couldn’t remember why they met or even when. So how was it that Eric came to be so dominant in his life?
“We’re friends,” Marty managed to say. But it came out as more of a question than an answer and Eric could smell it.
“We’re not friends.”
Marty paused, hoping for more but nothing came.
“No?”
“No, Marty. You and I are not friends.” He pulled out his cell phone. What the hell was he doing? He pressed a few spots on the touch-screen and then flipped the camera around to show Marty. “You remember her?”
“No.” The answer came out shaky and way too fast.
Eric let the video run for a few more seconds and then the audio could be heard. The voice coming from behind the camera sounded like Eric’s. And then it was confirmed when his face appeared on the screen.
“Hey, Mom,” Eric within the video said to the old, battered lady who sat in silence, zoned out. “When was the last time you heard from Marty?”
Something had triggered the old lady in the video. Her eyes opened and even more importantly, they filled with life. She looked over at the Eric within the camera and began to scream.
Marty turned away. What the hell is he showing me this for? But Eric stood and followed his eyes with the phone screen.
“Look at it,” Eric said. “This is our mother. Our mother. This is what you’ve done to her.”
 
                                                                   4
“Why the hell are you showing me this…this crazy woman screaming?”
“Don’t you deny it.” Eric was still standing over Marty with his phone in Marty’s face. “This our mother. And you’d better damn well admit it.”
He couldn’t. And he told Eric why. “My mother died a long time ago. Cancer.”
“Bullshit. Bullshit you fucking coward. This is your mother. Look at her,” he pushed the phone closer to Marty’s face, “and tell me this isn’t your mother.” The woman in the video was screaming, wailing almost. It was more of a painful scream than a mourning scream. “Look at her and tell me.”
He looked closer at the woman he slightly recognized and said to Eric, “That’s not my mother.”
“Bullshit!” Eric pulled the phone back and hit a button on the side to send it to sleep. The screen was now black but he pointed to it once more and said through gritted teeth, “This is our mother, and you’ve ruined her life. You can’t cope with fucking reality and you’ve ruined her life. My kids will never know their grandmother—never be able to sit on her lap or hear bedtime stories—because you’re too much of a chicken shit to cope.”
Marty can still hear the screams, but he won’t succumb.
 
                                                                    5
“It’s time for you to leave,” Marty said, standing from the couch.
Eric had quickly raised from his slouched position once Marty stood. They met eye-to-eye and Eric asked him why.
“Why? Listen to yourself. You come in making these crazy accusations…” He turned to Lauri and Brooke and said, “I’m sorry. He’ll be gone in a second.”
Eric shook his head, turned up his palms and asked, “Who the fuck are you talking to?”
“Who am I talking to? Can you not see my family standing right here? Are you that damn selfish that you can’t even see them standing right here, waiting for you to leave?”
“See who?” Eric asked. He walked over toward Brooke and Lauri where standing and started spinning in circles with his hands out. “Who do you see? Who the hell is here?”
Lauri and Brooke moved away without saying a word and that’s the only thing that kept Marty from lunging at him. “My goddamn wife and daughter, you asshole.”
“You mean Lauri and Brooke, Marty? Is that who you mean?”
“So you know them but you want to pretend you can’t see them?”
“Pretend?” He laughed. “Pretend what, Marty? Pretend they’re here?” He waved his hands around the room again. “They died eighteen years ago, Marty! You’re the one pretending!”
 
                                                                    6
Eric began telling his story, still standing in the center of the room but no longer twirling around trying to make Marty realize there was nothing there.
“Eighteen years ago, Marty.” He spoke to him like a sympathetic brother now, and unlike an aggravated friend. “The car accident. You don’t remember it?”
No I don’t. There was no car accident. My family is right here, you moron.
“Samuel Morone. Drunk driver. Smashed into them on the highway after falling asleep with a box of wine on his lap. Ran them off the road and into the…come on, Marty. You have to tell me you remember this or you’re going to end up eating lunch with mom every day in the damn nightgown.”
“Next to that crazy lady you showed me?” He asked.
He could hear the phone call. He tried to push it out of his head, but all he could hear were the loud rings of the landline.
Ring ring. Ring ring.
Shut the fuck up! I know what you’re trying to tell me and it’s a lie!
Eric, what are you doing? How are you putting this in my head?
Mr. Ellis, this is the Haverton Police Department. We have some news about…
He could see the sirens in the night through the waving wiper blades on his windshield.
He could feel the caution tape trying to pull back on his stomach but he plowed through anyway.
His wife.
His infant daughter.
No life. No movement.
He could feel the horror again. The terror, deep in his gut. The feeling of wanting to be dead, right then and there so he wouldn’t have to suffer through one more second of the thought of life without them. And then he remembered what he remembered that night—his wedding day; the day Brooke was born; their first nights together; calling Lauri from work hours before she died to tell her he couldn’t make it to Brooke’s six-week appointment that afternoon.
And just like that, he was there again. In hell. Reliving it. Suffering through it all over again. He looked over to where his nineteen-year-old daughter was waiting to go back to her dorm room, and nothing was there. Nor was Lauri, now middle-aged and preparing to send her daughter back to University.
The last time Lauri took a breath, she was only a few years older than Marty was imagining Brooke to be.
He was back in hell. Thanks a lot, Eric.
Marty fell to the floor and let it all out.
 
                                                             Part IV
 
                                                                    1
“It looks good, man,” Eric said with a smile.
“Thanks.” Marty rubbed a hand across the skin on his face he hadn’t felt in so many years. The scruffy beard was gone, and so was the long, shaggy hair.
This had been the first time Marty stepped into a public place in at least ten years, and it showed. He was a little nervous, but Eric’s happiness was much more apparent.
“It’s good to see you like this. It took a few long weeks, but it really looks like you’re back on your feet.”
The waitress came over and asked in her raspy but friendly voice if she could start the two men off with a couple of drinks.
They went through a meal like any two normal people would, chatting and laughing and doing a whole lot of reminiscing. They spoke of childhood memories and getting into trouble—as any brothers would do—and then came to talking about their mother.
“I’m planning on going to see her, you know,” Marty said.
“It means a lot,” Eric said. “I’ve been working on getting her back to normal since a few months after the accident. She lost it, you know. Showed you were her favorite,” he said with a smile, “but when you…well, when you lost your mind, so did she.”
“I just had a better way of handling my craziness, I guess.”
“I guess so.”
The two brothers laughed and carried on. The eighteen-year gap was finally closed, and it seemed like they didn’t miss a beat.
 
                                                                     2
Marty was on his way back from lunch with his brother. A joke was made by Eric about Marty’s ’97 Lincoln that would need to be upgraded now that he was going to be leaving his apartment every now and then. But Marty was fine with it. The car had treated him well over the years.
It did feel good to be out, though, he had to admit. Maybe all the time being cooked up in that apartment was worse for him than he believed.
And for Spike, too.
On the way back to the apartment, he stopped and picked up some rawhides for the old dog. Whether his brittle teeth could handle it was one question, but there was no question the pup had toughed it out long enough to see his old man sane again. Marty seemed to think that was the reason he was hanging around so long.
He was excited to show up with treats from the pet store. Heaven only knows how long it’d been since that happened.
This new life was going to be good. He could feel it.
He turned left and into the apartment complex with his windows down and the warm wind blowing against his bare cheeks. The Lincoln pulled into the marked spot and Marty got out with the bag of Spike’s treats in his hand.
He wasn’t sure whether it was Spike’s excitement that he was coming home—how long had it really been since he’d left the apartment?—or his nose smelling the treats in the bag. Whatever it was, the old dog stood up from his nap as fast as his deteriorating joints could handle and came to the door when it was opened. Marty bent down, pet his head, and dumped the contents of the bag. Have at it, buddy.
It was a happy time for the two that had been through so much together.
“Don’t worry,” Marty said. “I didn’t forget you two.”
He turned around to Lauri and Brooke sitting on the couch—Brooke with a bag on her lap.
“For us, I got a Redbox movie. We can watch it now, since Brooke has to go back to school tonight.”