What a Trip!

"Is that the last of it?"

"Yes, ma'am," I said, giving my wife a salute.

She playfully punched me in the arm. "Get in the car."

I laughed. "As you wish," I said with a smile, hoping she'd caught my Princess Bride reference.

She rolled her eyes. "Are you done? Have you gotten it all out of your system?"

I nodded, smiling ear to ear. "Yeah, I'm good." After I slid into the passenger seat, I leaned over to her and said quietly, "For now."

With a laugh of her own, my wife shoved me back towards the passenger side door. "You're a real piece of work. You know that?"

"So you keep telling me. Sorry you married me yet?"

"Never," she said, leaning over to give me a peck on the cheek. "You guys ready back there?" she asked, adjusting her rearview mirror so she could see the kids.

The backseat of our minivan erupted with laughter and excited whoops and hollers. That excitement didn't last long, though. Three hours is a long time to be trapped in the backseat of a minivan, after all. But, we made it through unscathed.

Our tour of the caverns was a total blast. I've never seen a prettier cave system in my life. Although, I could've done without the other guests. They were so rude, and disrespectful. There were signs all over the place reminding visitors not to touch the cave walls or use flash photography, and yet there they were. Human troglodytes just smearing the rocks with the oils from their fingers. You could literally see the damage it had done to the cave's growth. Broke my heart to see that. But, I was pleasantly surprised when my daughter whispered something about it to my wife and they both scowled at the Neanderthals next to us. I was one proud papa just then.

We spent the rest of our day poking about the park that surrounds the caverns. They have some really cool antiques parked in various places, activities for the kids, and all kinds of awesome food. By the time we left, all four kids were just about passed out in the back seat. We snagged a cheap motel room and posted up for the night.

It was obvious the next morning that the kids just weren't ready to go home yet. They were following their mom and I around like those little yappy dogs, asking us where we were going, what we were going to see, and so forth. So, my wife - being the genius that she is - whips her phone out while the kids are distracted and Googles nearby activities.

Mom for the win, once again! She found us a plethora of stuff to do in under thirty seconds. By the time she stopped talking, the kids had left me alone to rally around their mother, gawking at her phone. I smiled. This was just one of those moments. I realized that my life was good, for once. The things I wanted in life had finally come to pass. I shed a few silent tears and then rallied the troops.

Our last day in Virginia wasn't quite as fantastic as our day at the caverns, but we still had a ton of fun. Before we knew it, it was nearly five PM and we were all pretty worn out, so, we packed back into the minivan and headed for home.

Before long, everyone in the van was rumbling about getting dinner. My wife spotted a billboard for McD's and said, "Get me there."

"Roger that," I said with a smile. I often help my wife navigate when we're on long drives. "Turn right, here," I said, pointing to a nearby side street.

She made the right hand turn and a short piece down the street was a small mom 'n' pop burger joint. The kind of place that isn't even part of a chain. They don't have brightly colored, branded drink cups and fry boxes. They're old school. Paper sacks and all that jazz. I said, "Hey, babe. Let's check them out."

"That place?" she asked with a grimace. "Why?"

"Because it'll be epic! It's a one of a kind dining experience. Come on! Let's live a little."

"If I hate it, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

I threw my hands up in a 'don't shoot' gesture. "Easy, killer. We're on the same team here. Jeez."

She laughed. I will always love the sound of her laugh.

Once we got in the joints front doors, we were swept away in a torrent of delicious smells and mouth-watering menu items. I watched as one of the employees grabbed a massive burger and passed it to the customer in front of him. My mouth watered and my stomach rumbled. I nudged my wife with my elbow. "Looks like I'll be keeping you company in bed tonight, huh?"

My wife nodded. "Dude, they have frozen custard! I haven't had that since I was a kid. This was a great find, husband."

I smiled, stood up straight and brushed my shoulders off. "Aw, shucks, ma'am. There weren't nothing to it."

With our two trays of food and frozen custard in hand, we headed for a nearby table. It was a beautiful, solid wood table. Darkly stained so that the grain popped out and caught the eye. No lie, I'd put one of those bad boys in my dining room if I could.

We sat down at the table and my wife started handing out food to the kids. Before she'd even finished passing it all out, the younger kids started eating. They were silently stuffing their faces, so, I knew I'd struck fast food gold. I leaned over and kissed my wife on the cheek. "Gotta run to the restroom right quick, babe. I'll be right back."

"You better hurry, or you won't have a meal to come back to."

I laughed. "Fair point," I said, turning and heading for the bathroom. It was a small restroom, as restrooms go. One of those old school joints with a single toilet and a porcelain sink just a foot or two away. It fit the overall aesthetic of the place well.

After I'd done my business, I stopped at the sink to wash my hands and caught sight of my reflection in the mirror. I looked like total crap. Dark bags under my eyes and sallow, nearly gray skin. I leaned in towards the mirror and pulled down the skin under my eyes. The light overhead flickered. I looked up at its reflection and it flickered again.

"Weird." Then the music overhead began to slow, becoming a demonic warbling before petering out entirely.

"What the-" that's when a shrill ringing pierced my ears, nearly bringing me to my knees. I lurched forward in pain, smacking my face into the mirror. Fresh pain flashed through my head, over and above what i already suffered. The mirror cracked, and a large chunk fell away, revealing…something.

It wasn't a wall. Walls don't breathe. They don't bleed. Right?

Without prompting, my hand drifted toward the strange surface behind the broken mirror. As my hand got closer, I realized that the ringing had faded and had been replaced by something else. A new sound. No, new sounds.

Whatever those noises were, they were coming from beyond the bathroom door. I turned and leaned on the door, pressing my ear to its surface. The restaurant beyond the door was a cacophony of happy slurping, crunching, and belching. Shrieks of pain and terror dotted the soundscape and sent shivers racing down my spine.

There wasn't a single part of me that actually wanted to open that door, but what else could I have done? Was I supposed to just cower in that little bathroom until the end of my days?

I swallowed the lump in my throat and grabbed the doorknob. A pained hiss escaped my lips as I pulled my hand away from the knob. When I looked down, I noticed for the first time that the knob was almost cherry red.

Oh, God, the place is on fire! My kids! My wife! I started to panic then and wrapped my shirt around my hand and threw the door open.

The place was on fire all right. It was a smoldering wreck, held together by some Infernal miracle. Everywhere I looked, the customers had been replaced by horribly twisted creatures. I saw extra eyes, extra mouths full of sharp and rotting teeth, extra limbs, drooping skin and sagging flesh. Some of them tore at each other, eating the flesh of their neighbors. Others continued to sit at their tables, happily eating their meals.

My wife and children's table was still occupied, but I no longer recognized the things sitting there. Their burgers had become piles of rotten meat stacked between putrid buns. The hand-cut french fries had been replaced by a pile of severed, deep-fried fingers. I watched in horror as my wife casually tossed one into her mouth and crunched it into oblivion, bone and all. My youngest sat on a flaming bench, swinging his little feet while he ate his frozen custard, which was now a sundae dish full of brains, topped with a disembodied eyeball.

Outside, the entire world had become a landscape of cracked desert, scorched skies, and flaming death. Enormous winged creatures dove and tumbled in the sky, attacking both things on the ground, and their own kind. Fire spread as far as the eye could see.

Just then, my wife turned to face me. The sneer she wore could've stopped Satan's own heart. Her jagged teeth jutted sharply from her mouth at odd angles. When she stood, I realized that she wasn't the mousy little woman I once knew. She was a hulking brute with three bright green eyes, something akin to a pig's snout, jagged teeth, and extra appendages. "What's the matter, honey?" she crooned in a monstrous voice. "Have you lost your appetite?"

Briefly I looked down to see if I had somehow transformed when I stepped out of the bathroom, but no such change had taken place, which meant that I was in a world of trouble. My pulse thrummed in my ears and my mouth went bone dry. With few options available to me, I took a step backwards towards the restroom, without taking my eyes off of the thing in front of me. "Just, uh…just forgot to wash my hands. Be right back," I said, trying on a lighthearted tone.

She wasn't buying it. Without warning, she leapt forward crashing into me. The force of the impact shoved me off of my feet and sent me sprawling to the ground. My head slammed into something and the world began to spin again. Consciousness slipped away from me and the thing that was my wife stood over me.

"Get up," it growled.

I wanted desperately to do just that. To get up and run. To hide. But, I couldn't move. I could barely keep my eyes open.

"Honey, get up," it said, its voice further away now.

"Honey, please. Get up!" Was the last thing I heard as I slipped away into the darkness.

With a huge, gasping breath I awoke on the same bathroom floor. This time, there were two paramedics to either side of me. One checked my vitals while the other held an open vial of smelling salts. He said, "Welcome back."

"What?"

"You took a nasty tumble, man," the other paramedic said.

Looking up, I could see blood on the edge of the bathroom sink. Slowly, I raised my hand and touched my fingers to my forehead. I winced. When I pulled them away, they were slick with blood. "How long was I out?"

"Maybe five or ten minutes."

"Huh," I said, trying to sit up. "Where's my wife?"

"Easy, man. Take it easy," the paramedic with the smelling salts said. "Here. Let me help you." He stretched out his hand and gently pulled me into a sitting position. My head swam from the movement.

"You good?" the other paramedic asked.

I nodded. "I mean, I've had better days, but I think I'm okay."

"All right, man," he said. "You're wife's right over there." He pointed and I could see her standing beyond the area the paramedics had cleared for themselves.

"Thank you," I said, dragging myself to my feet. I lurched my way over to my wife and half fell into her arms.

Her tears wet my cheek and then, so did my own. When she kissed me, the world melted away and everything was right in the universe.

When she broke the kiss, she smiled and said, "I really thought I'd lost you."

I smiled back and gently touched her cheek. "You won't be rid of me so easily. I promise."

"I hope you're right," she said.

"Where are the kids?" I asked, suddenly aware that I hadn't seem them since I came to.

"They're okay. They're in the van."

"Alone?"

She chuckled. "No, you big goof. There's a very nice police officer out there with them."

"Ah," I said, nodding. "Shall we?" I asked holding out my arm to her.

"Yes. We shall," she said, hooking her arm through mine and leading me toward the van. When we arrived, we thanked the officer for his time and then piled in the van with the kids. They were happy to see me back on my feet. My daughter and the officer had helped reassure the younger three children that all would be well. I was just thankful that they were right.

As I dropped into the passenger seat of the van, I smiled widely and said, "Still feel like making me sleep on the couch tonight?"

My wife finished buckling her seatbelt, then looked at me and said, "Nah. I think you've been through enough hell for one afternoon."

I might have left the pun go unnoticed had it not been for that sinister grin and the carefully placed wink when she dropped the word hell.