Gerald's Game

Jessie realizes that a small, sample-sized jar of face cream might have been left on the shelf above the bed. A voice in her head tries to convince her that it is not there, or that she cannot reach it, but Jessie spots the jar in the corner of her vision. She thinks that the jar’s presence is fate, since she could have thrown the jar at Prince, earlier, and she begins carefully reaching for it. She imagines opening the jar carefully, spreading the cream on her wrist, and slipping her hand out of the cuff. She manages to get the jar down and into her hand, and the lid begins to unscrew easily, already loosened. However, as she is about to remove the cap Prince enters, shocking Jessie into dropping the jar onto the ground. She yells at Prince, who takes another bite out of Gerald’s corpse, releasing a swarm of flies. Jessie is disturbed, but she does not lose control of herself. However, instead of praying to escape her predicament, she prays for a quick death before night falls and the man in the corner comes back.

Jessie continues to struggle to pedal and wave her arms, realizing that the cramps are getting more severe and dead spots are developing in her limbs. She feels that she is out of options, and her thirst is beginning to drive her insane. Jessie now believes that the man in the corner is real, and that he will return that night. Another cramp strikes her in the chest, and the pain is greater than any of the prior cramps. As the pain fades, she sees her younger self in the town square, but this time she is not in the pillory. Jessie wakes up and realizes that some time has passed. She goes back into her vision of herself, whom she calls Punkin, as Tom used to call Jessie, and Punkin says there is another way out that Jessie has not tried. In the vision, there is another girl next to Punkin who is overweight and has clearly died a painful death, with bruising in her face and a missing eye. Punkin tells Jessie that she needs to slide her right hand out of the cuffs, and she claims that the day of the eclipse in 1963 is the key to escaping the handcuffs. Jessie is confused, but she tries to remember the eclipse again.

Jessie remembers her father’s cologne and the way he touched her during the eclipse, but Punkin tells her that she needs to remember something that happened before the assault. Jessie acknowledges that remembering that day inevitably involves remembering the assault, but she is relieved that she does not need to relive that moment. She tries to remember a point in time before the eclipse happened.

Back on the day of the eclipse, Punkin tells Jessie that the eclipse is scary, and in the memory, the young Jessie is glad that her father is there to make her less scared. Jessie sits on Tom’s lap, struggling to get comfortable because of the “hard thing” pressing into her back, which is Tom’s erection. She asks to start looking at the eclipse through the smoked class that Tom cut from an old shed window, and he gives the pieces of glass to her in a potholder.

Tom says that Jessie needs to hold the glass in the potholder so that they do not have to go to the hospital, since the glass is sharp and might hurt her. Jessie realizes that Gerald’s glass of water can be used to cut herself, then the blood can act as a lubricant to slip her hand out of the handcuff. Jessie knows that it will hurt, and the voices in her head merge, telling her that she will need to act quickly to avoid bleeding out or letting the blood coagulate. Still, Jessie knows that bleeding out is better than waiting for the man to return or for the cramps to grow more severe. She reviews the situation for 10 minutes, going over the plan in her mind. Jessie imagines Gerald’s corpse telling her that the man will be back tonight, and outside the house, Prince retreats to the woods as he smells the stranger returning.

Jessie yells to keep the dog away, not realizing that Prince has already left. She grabs the glass and smashes it against the shelf above the bed. Some glass shards fall on and around her, but she does not feel any pain in her hand. Looking up, she sees that she has multiple cuts, and pieces of glass are sticking out of her fingers. However, Jessie suppresses her panic and sees that the bulk of the glass has formed a sharp point, which is precisely what she needs. A voice in her head that she identifies as her mother tells Jessie that she is overreacting to her situation. The voice tells her not to cut herself. Jessie ignores her mother’s voice and prepares to bring the glass down to her wrist.

As Jessie starts cutting into her wrist, she doubts that the blood alone with be enough to get her out of the handcuffs. Despite the voices in her head warning her that she might be hurting herself more than she needs to, she continues to cut into her wrist. Another cramp strikes as Jessie cuts into more sections of her wrist, and the glass drops to the ground. She yanks her hand through the cuff, but it still stops around the bones of her thumb. Continuing to pull, Jessie realizes that the cuff is moving up her hand as the skin moves along with it, peeling off her. As her skin peels away, the bone stops the cuff from pulling free, but in a sudden motion, the cuff finally slides over the bone and off her hand. The relief of being freed is undercut by the realization that she has lost a lot of blood, but Ruth’s voice, which is now Jessie’s own voice, encourages her to keep fighting.

Jessie rolls off the bed, managing at the last moment to prevent fracturing her still-cuffed left wrist, and another cramp hits her in the back. Nonetheless, she is relieved to stand up next to the bed, and she begins reflecting on how to fully free herself. Jessie starts pushing the bed toward the bureau that has the keys to the cuffs. On the way, she bumps into Gerald and realizes that she has no remaining feelings about his death and corpse. She is in survival mode, and Gerald’s corpse is merely an impediment to her goal, so she shifts his body as much as she can. She steps on his stomach, releasing gas from his mouth and a swarm of flies, but she continues her journey toward the bureau.

As Jessie approaches the bureau, her consciousness fades, and she sees the woman from the vision she had in 1963. The woman is next to a well with her dress piled up beside her. Jessie braces herself, and her clarity returns as she spots the keys to the handcuffs. Though only a few fingers on her right hand are functioning, she manages to grab the identical keys. The first key she tries falls to the floor as she has another bout of lightheadedness, but the second key fits, freeing her left hand. She is stunned for a moment, not realizing that she has succeeded, and she screams victoriously. In her excitement, though, Jessie tumbles back onto the floor, hitting her head. She is still conscious, and the Punkin voice tells her to keep moving.

She crawls to the bathroom, licking up some water left in a puddle on the ground before lifting herself up to the sink. She turns on the cold-water tap and notes that the smell of the water is the same smell she previously associated with her childhood trauma, but now, the smell makes her think of success. She drinks as much cold water as she can before a cramp causes her to vomit. She continues to drink more water after vomiting, though, and she does not vomit again.

Jessie relishes the feeling of drinking water, and she realizes that she needs to bandage her right hand. She uses sanitary pads and adhesive tape to fashion a bandage, but blood begins seeping through it immediately. Even though she knows that aspirin can thin blood and prevent clotting, she takes some painkillers to help with the now extreme pain in her hand. Jessie starts to get dizzy and focuses on the sunshine through the bedroom window. She manages to climb across the bed and avoids looking at the handcuffs still latched to the bedposts, but she has trouble balancing once she stands up on the other side of the bed.

Heading over to the phone, Jessie does not hear a dial tone, and she yanks on the cord connecting the phone to the wall to check if Gerald unplugged it when they arrived. The wire sticks, but she is not sure if it is plugged in or if the main phone line was cut by the man in the corner the previous night. Instead of checking the wall, Jessie puts on a skirt and blouse, preparing to go out to the car and drive away. She is afraid that the stranger will return, and she resolves that she only needs to drive to the highway, where she will likely be found if she passes out. She finds the keys to the car in the pocket of her skirt, but as she moves to leave, she loses her strength, drifting into the memory of the eclipse and collapsing onto the bed.

When Jessie wakes up, it is almost night, and she hears Prince howling loudly in the woods nearby. She panics, realizing that the stranger must be coming back. She bangs her injured right hand against the bedpost, using the pain to refocus herself, and manages to walk out of the bedroom, down the hall, and past Gerald’s study. She hears a strange hissing noise coming from the study that forces her to investigate the room. The stranger is inside, and he leans forward to give Jessie a better look at his deformed face. Jessie thinks that he is trying to smile at her. He opens his box, which Jessie notices is an old-fashioned coffin for a child, and stirs the bones and jewelry inside.

Jessie struggles to move and decides to toss her wedding rings into his box as an offering to keep him away. The man seems disappointed by the offering, and he starts to make the hissing sound again as he walks toward Jessie. She yells and moves as quickly as she can to the front door of the house, feeling like the man is right behind her all the way. Once outside, Jessie sees that the man did not follow her, and she laughs, thinking morbid jokes to herself. She gets in the car and thinks she sees the man again for a moment, but she is alone, with Prince still howling in the woods. The transmission sticks, and Jessie has to press upward on the transmission lever to get the car to start. When the engine starts, the car’s headlights illuminate Prince, who is now in the driveway, and Jessie sees how scrawny and matted he is.

Jessie pulls out of the driveway, still partially convinced that the stranger will catch up to the car and stop her with superhuman strength. She takes note of minor landmarks as she drives, keeping track of how far she needs to drive to get to the highway. Looking in her rearview mirror, Jessie sees that the stranger is in the back seat of the car, and he begins reciting the different names of the voices in Jessie’s head. Jessie crashes the car and passes out, slumped against the driver’s side door, and there is nothing but moonlight in the back seat.