The Surfacing by Terrance Coffey

Author:Terrance Coffey [Coffey, Terrance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

MIRIAM POSITIONED HERSELF on the couch with her gaze squarely facing her front door. She didn‘t bother to turn on the lights, she welcomed the pitch-black darkness that concealed her presence. She had resolved to sit there in her unlit living room and wait patiently. Her maternal instincts would not allow her to keep silent any longer. Confrontation loomed, an inevitability she had prepared herself for. As Miriam peered at the outline of the door through the darkness, her emotions wavered, oscillating between fear, anxiety, and concern as she anticipated the doorknob turning. It took only minutes for the door‘s slow, deliberate creaking to break the silence.

Rebecca stepped inside and carefully shut the door, trying to dampen the sound of any noises. When she directed the light from her cell phone to illuminate the stairway, Miriam flicked the light switch on the lamp that was positioned on the table next to her. Rebecca gazed at her like a deer caught in headlights.

“Your father said I was imagining things,” said Miriam in a subdued manner, “that I was being overly dramatic, that because of what you must’ve gone through you were traumatized and it would take time before you could begin to heal. I want to understand it. What happened to you, honey? Those five days you were missing, tell me what happened?”

“Nothing happened. Everything’s fine,” said Rebecca.

“My eight-year-old daughter is sneaking out of the house, riding around in a car with a stranger at three in the morning, and you’re telling me everything’s fine?”

“He’s not a stranger. He’s a friend.”

Miriam stood up from the couch, infuriated. She firmly grabbed Rebecca by the arm. “A young child does not have adult friends, and they certainly don’t go riding around in a car with an adult man that the parent doesn’t know. I am three seconds away from calling the police. Who are you? Because you’re not my Rebecca. You look like her, but you don’t speak like her, and you don’t think like my daughter, so who are you? Tell me. I want to know now what happened to my daughter.”

Rebecca just stood there and stared at Miriam, trying to decide whether to tell her the truth or nothing at all. After making Miriam wait an uncomfortable amount of time, Rebecca bluntly answered. “I’ve changed her.”

Miriam assumed that she had misheard her. “What did you say?”

Rebecca repeated it louder, though still in a calm and controlled voice. “I said I’ve changed her. I have taken over her body, Miriam. In order to save the majority of you, a minority had to be sacrificed. Your daughter was chosen. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not for you to make a choice for her. I want my daughter back the way she was. What gives you the right to take over her body? She’s just a child. Please, give her back to me,” she said as tears welled up.

“You seem to be one of extraordinary empathy—an admirable trait, but if I’m extracted from your daughter’s body, she will die.

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