The Last Carton of Reds

The rain had been falling for three days straight, turning the streets of Millbrook into dark mirrors that reflected the sickly yellow glow of the streetlamps. My mother, Agnes, sat in the passenger seat of my old Honda, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes fixed on the blur of the windshield. She had been quiet since we left the house, and I knew that silence meant she was thinking about the results of her chest x-ray, the reason we were driving to see Dr. Marsh at the Millbrook Medical Clinic.

As we passed the old bakery that had closed down years ago, she turned to me and said, ‘I had another dream last night, Clara.’ I kept my eyes on the road, but my grip on the steering wheel tightened. ‘A little dark person came to me, not like a shadow but more solid, like a small man made of coal. He told me I’d be better off in the spirit world, that there was no more pain there.’ I felt a cold knot in my stomach. I had dreamt of a similar figure, but it had told me something different, something I could not bring myself to share with her.

‘And if it’s bad news about the x-ray, I’ll tell Dr. Marsh thanks but no thanks, and we’ll come straight home,’ she continued, her voice firm, as if she had already made peace with the outcome. ‘I don’t want to spend my last days in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines.’ I wanted to argue, to tell her that she had to fight, but the words caught in my throat. How could I tell her that my own spirit guide, a tall, pale woman with hollow eyes, had whispered to me that Agnes would suffer greatly before the end? That the little dark man was a liar, and that her journey would be long and painful?

We pulled into the clinic’s parking lot, the rain drumming on the roof like a funeral march. Inside, the fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting a sterile pallor on the waiting room. Agnes was called in shortly after we sat down. Dr. Marsh, a tired-looking man with spectacles that always seemed to slide down his nose, gestured for us to sit. The room smelled of antiseptic and old paper. He held up the x-ray, pointing to a dark void in the left lung. ‘The lung has collapsed,’ he said, his voice low but urgent. ‘And there’s pneumonia. You need to go to the hospital immediately, via ambulance. This is serious.’

My mother, true to her word, gave him a polite smile. ‘Thank you for your help, Doctor, but I’d rather go home and not make a fuss.’ She began to rise, but Dr. Marsh’s eyes met mine, pleading. He mouthed, ‘You can’t let her die.’ But I saw in my mother’s face a certainty that I had never seen before. I knew she would not be swayed. I turned to her and said, ‘Mum, please. Let’s go to the hospital. For me.’ She looked at me, her eyes softening, and placed a hand on my cheek. ‘I’m not going to suffer, Clara. I know what’s coming. That little man promised me peace.’

In the end, there was no pleading that could move her. She signed a release form against medical advice, and we drove home in silence. The rain had stopped, and the streets were now shrouded in a thick fog that seemed to swallow the sound of our car. As we pulled into our driveway, I noticed a discarded carton of red cigarettes on the porch, the brand she had smoked for forty years. She picked it up, looked at it for a long moment, and then dropped it into the bin. ‘No more of these,’ she said, and went inside.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my bed, listening to the creaks of the old house, and I felt a presence in the corner of my room. I turned on the lamp and saw nothing, but the air was cold. Then I heard my mother’s voice, not from her room but from my own mind. ‘He’s here,’ she said. ‘The little dark man. He’s waiting for me.’ I ran to her room, but she was sitting on the edge of her bed, perfectly calm, staring at the window. Outside, through the fog, I saw a small, huddled figure standing at the edge of the yard, watching her. I blinked, and it was gone.

For the next two weeks, my mother’s health deteriorated. She coughed so violently that she vomited blood, and her breathing became a shallow, ragged symphony of pain. I begged her to go to the hospital, but she refused, saying that the little dark man had promised her a quick and easy death. But it was not quick, and it was not easy. Her body wasted away, and her eyes grew hollow, and she often screamed in the night, clawing at her chest as if she were trying to tear out the cancer that had spread through her. I could not tell her that the spirit guide had warned me, that the little dark man was a tempter, and that her suffering was only beginning.

One night, as I sat by her bedside, holding her hand, she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, ‘I was wrong, Clara. He lied. I’m in so much pain.’ She gasped for air, and I saw the fear in her eyes. I finally broke down and told her about my dream, about the tall, pale woman who had said she would suffer. My mother listened, and then she whispered, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I had no answer. I just held her as the sun rose, and she took her last breath, a rattling, agonizing sound that I will never forget.

In the months after her death, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. One evening, as I was cleaning out her room, I found an old diary hidden in her dresser. In the last entry, dated the day before she died, she had written: ‘The little dark man is not a spirit guide. He is a demon who feeds on hope. I know now. If you read this, my dear Clara, do not follow the shadow. Find the light, even if it means suffering.’ I cried until I had no tears left.

The rain started again that night, and as I looked out the window, I saw the small, dark figure standing in the yard, closer than before. It seemed to be waiting for me. But I remembered my mother’s words, and I did not go to it. Instead, I closed the curtains and sat in the dark, listening to the rain, knowing that the last carton of reds had been thrown away, but the demon’s presence lingered like the smell of smoke in the house.