Featured story for June: ''Fallen,'' by Jeffrey Thomas
Jeffrey Thomas is the author of such novels as Deadstock (finalist for the John W. Campbell Award), Blue War, Monstrocity (finalist for the Bram Stoker Award), Letters from Hades, The Fall of Hades and A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers, and such short story collections as Punktown, Nocturnal Emissions, Voices from Hades, Voices from Punktown, Unholy Dimensions and (with his brother Scott Thomas) Punktown: Shades of Grey. Several of his books have been translated into German, Russian, Greek, Polish and Taiwanese editions. His stories have appeared in the anthologies The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, The Year’s Best Horror Stories, Leviathan 3, The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases and The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. Thomas lives in Massachusetts. His blog can be found at http://punktalk.punktowner.com.
Fallen
FALLEN
By
Jeffrey Thomas
“Angel of flight, you soarer, you flapper, you floater,
you gull that grows out of my back in the dreams I prefer,”
– Anne Sexton
He made his escape under the cover of rain, I realized later. And before he invaded my apartment, he firstpracticed his escape by invading my dreams.
The dreams were of soaring; above great forests, pastures, ancient villages and modem cities ...above landscapes totally alien, as lovely as strange-colored seas or as hideous as bloody canyons tom in the flesh of a living planet. I saw through his eyes, experienced the freedom and the ecstasy of flight.
But in one recurring dream, while he rested between flights in some secret place, the men in black robes appeared, and cursed him, made signs to bind him, converged upon him with daggers and chains and incantations. I would start awake, as if I were the one stabbed and bound, their evil faces still floating before my eyes in a dispersing vaporous residue.
I attributed these dreams of flight and freedom to some deep subconscious yearning. As a young girl I had been struck by a car while riding my bike, my legs so crushed I was lucky to regain the ability to walk. On cold damp days I had to use a cane, even at my still youthful age, and the scars on my legs were still so profound that I never wore shorts or a bathing suit. In fact, I was even ashamed to let a lover see them, and preferred the safety of darkness for lovemaking. Not that this was a frequent concern. My scars prevented me from even letting lovers approach me. They never had a chance to be repulsed; I was repulsed for them.
On that night of rain, I heard a crash from the parlor of the third floor flat I masochistically rented, and I sat up in bed to listen. I heard my cat Virgil hiss and spit, then scamper into another room. Afraid now, I slid stealthily from bed, pulled on sweat pants and a tee shirt and advanced shakily toward the murky parlor, picking up a flashlight from atop my bureau as I went, as much for a weapon as for light, though I didn't yet thumb it on.
Only the darkest light filteredinto the parlor, but still I hesitated to turn on the flashlight, let alone a lamp. Was anyone in here? If so, was I as invisible to them as they were to me? I strained my hearing, but only ended up listening to the rain, or was that the surf of blood in my ears? At last, unable to stand the thought of being studied from the shadows, I pointed the light at the door to my apartment and switched it on.
He crouched there, close to the floor, his curly dark hair plastered to his head, his eyes wide and frantic. Naked – and his flesh glaringly pale in the harsh light, which was unkind to the wounds in him, the hooks in his bruised flesh.
I screamed, and before I could turn to run or even move the light I saw him fling himself at me. In so doing, wings spread wide from his shoulders, and they were broad and black and it was as though a great wave were falling upon me.
When I awoke, I was back in bed, and the being knelt beside me, gripping my hand in both of his. I couldn't see him well, and I cried out again, jerked my hand free, fumbled for the bedside lamp. When it came on he shielded his eyes. His wings lifted a bit but did not unfold again.
"Oh my God," I remember saying, sitting up, hugging myself, "who are you? Who are you?"
He looked up at me, his eyes pained and beseeching. I had time now to better take in the severity and profusion of his wounds. Though his body was as beautiful as that of a Greek sculpture, it was cruelly pierced with barbs and hooks, some still attached to chains which he had wound around his arms or waist. His white skin showed scars that were whiter still, and raised symbolic designs that had been branded onto him. His wings were particularly mutilated, their joints and where they joined his shoulders bearing awful scars, and pinned with black metal clasps to hinder or prevent movement, these also hung with weights. The sleek black feathers of his wings held an oil-slick's iridescence, and still dripped rain drops to the hardwood floor.
Cautiously I crept out of bed, and only his eyes followed me. Moving around him, I was able to see his wings more clearly, to prove to myself that indeed they grew out of his shoulders, that the scars were not an indication of some bizarre surgery.
"My God," I said again, but softly this time; and again I said, but in awe, "who are you? Who are you?"
I knew only one thing about him. That he had visited me in my dreams so as to prepare me for this night.
I went to the parlor, put on one light. He had broken the chain of the door. I locked it with the bolt instead. Turning, I saw that he had timidly followed me into the room, and was reaching out to pet Virgil, who gave a warning growl and flicked his tail but reluctantly allowed his head to be stroked. The being looked to me, and smiled.
The bells of the old monastery at the end of my block tolled midnight as they did every night. I was not religious, had no idea if this were a common practice for such a place or what significance it held. But the sound terrified the creature. Before I could protest he came to me, and held my right hand in both of his hands. His grip was strong, painful, but it wasn't meant to restrain me, I knew. It was an expression of fear.
I did not go to my classes the next day. How could I leave him here alone? In the morning my landlady Mrs. Hanson, who lived on the firstfloor of the old tenement house, phoned to ask if I had had another of my awful nightmares last night. I told her I had, but that everything was all right now.
I made coffee, and the seraph sat at the kitchen table watching me, smiling whenever I met his eyes like a stray dog appealing for some kindness. His hair and wings had dried at last. I considered offering him some sweat pants to wear to cover his nudity, but the thought of so exotic a being in so prosaic a garment seemed beneath his dignity.
His wounds troubled me more than his nakedness, and at last I could stand it no longer. I set down my coffee, dug under the kitchen sink for the tool box my father had assembled for me, though only he ever used them when he came to make a repair for me or for Mrs. Hanson. I found a small set of bolt cutters in there Dad had used to trim the branches that had been scratching at my bedroom window at night (though now I wondered if it were the seraph, reaching for me in dreams). Gingerly, I approached him at the table.
Rather than assume a defensive attitude, he bowed his head, submissive, inviting me to shear away his painful tethers.
I started with a thin chain holding a weight to the clasp in one wing. I grunted as I forced the handles together, and the weight thumped into a nest of bath towels I had set underneath to dull its fall. Encouraged, I moved on to the other weights.
Now I examined the barbs in him more closely and realized that they were wed with his flesh so intimately that I didn't dare try to snip them, so the best I could do was cut the chains or remnants of chains depending from them. In order to do this, I couldn't help but touch him, and the first time my hand brushed his skin we both flinched, but he did not protest, and I went on to finish my work.
When my arms grew too tired he gently took the cutters from me and broke the last few chain fragments off their hooks himself, then handed the tool back to me with a smile of gratitude and a relief so deep I nearly broke into tears. I had to look away from him, go back to pour a fresh coffee. I offered him a taste but he raised a palm to decline, and declined all nourishment I offered later, including water.
After a few sips of my coffee, however, I set down the mug and offered him my hand. He rose, and I led him into the bathroom.
I filled the tub with steaming water but he seemed hesitant to enter it, and I didn't want to alarm him, so delicately I urged him into a kneeling position, and then knelt down beside him. I soaked a large sea sponge, and then began running it gently along his folded wings, washing layers of dried blood out from under and between the feathers, so that the floor tiles pooled with pinkish water. I didn't care. And as I bathed his wings, he made a great effort to unfold them. I could tell it agonized him. The bathroom was also too small to contain them. I made him follow me into the kitchen and kneel down once more, and I filleda plastic basin with soapy water. This time he spread his trembling wings to their full span, and remarkably they filled the room, nearly touching opposite walls, majestic and black, narrow and tapered like those of a falcon. His shoulders shook with the strain of holding them aloft for me, and in reverence I stroked them with the sponge. And then I realized that his shoulders were shaking harder because he was sobbing. Whether he was sobbing in pain or in gratitude I could not know, but I put down the sponge and began to smooth his feathers under my bare palms, as if I thought this alone might balm his pain somehow. Without really willing it, I began to run my hands down to his back, where I caressed his marred white flesh.
He rose, turned to face me, tears streaking his face. They were tears of blood, making the whites of his eyes glisten red as well. But I took his hand, and followed him from the room.
I didn't reach out from the bed to shut off the light. I didn't care if he saw my legs. I was too intent on seeing him.
As we made love some of the barbs still in him scratched me, even drew blood, but in our passion I didn't care, and it only made me feel closer to his pain, closer to him, merged as we had been in dream. He raised himself on his arms to look down at where our flesh was joined, and then stared down at my eyes, and again his great wings spread, almost to their fullness, making a canopy over us. I kissed the brands on his chest to cool them, licked his nipples despite the rings pierced through them, slicing my tongue on their edges. When we kissed he sucked the blood from my tongue, and I in turn licked the blood from his face, kissed the blood from his eyes. Then he arched his back and moaned in climax, the first sound I had heard him utter. When he collapsed upon me, spent, his wings covered both of us in a blanket.
When at last he stirred he lay half over me, his face almost shy with reverence as he stroked my breasts, my belly. Moving off me further to stroke me lower down, at last he noticed my legs, and I tried to take his chin and angle his face away. Instead, he gently slipped out of my fingers and shifted to the end of the bed. Bending over my legs, he lightly kissed my shattered knees, and then slowly began to trace his tongue along the white scar that wound up one thigh. I put my hands to his head to move him away, but then they held him there instead, as his tongue moved from the source of my pain to the source of my pleasure.
I did not go to my classes for several more days.
After those several days, Mrs. Hanson called to check in on me, since she hadn't seen me about. I told her I had a slight bug. She asked if the brothers had come upstairs to see me. "Brothers?" I asked.
"From the monastery, I think," she said. "I think they were monks. Priests, maybe; they had collars. They wanted to know if I'd seen anyone strange around the yard. I guess there's a brother they keep locked up because he's ill or something. I don't know why they don't have him in the hospital but I guess they'd rather care for him themselves..."
"Did he escape?" I asked, my heart blundering through its actions."
"Yes, the other night when it stormed.”
When I made love with the seraph that night my passion was clouded with fear for him. Lying in bed beside him, I begged him to talk to me, to tell me his story, to tell me about his former captors, the monks. And after a while of coaxing, he did try to tell me, but he spoke in tongues. Not in a frenzied rapture, however; his voice was deep, somnambulant, like a single voice lifted from a Gregorian chant. It was both weirdly beautiful and terrifying, and I put my finger tips to his lips to stop him.
I couldn't avoid my former life forever, despite my fears, and after a week I returned to my classes. The first day was difficult, and I returned to check on him several times, but he was fine, either looking through the pictures in books or napping or stroking Virgil in his lap. The monks would believe him gone from the area by this time, I thought, and my unease lessened.
And then one evening I came home to find Mrs. Hanson dead on the landing outside my apartment door.
She was unmarked, but her eyes stared upward, glassy. The door frame was splintered, and I burst into the apartment with my blood roaring through my head.
At first I thought my vision was blackening, until I realized it was the blood sprayed and splashed upon the walls, Virgil sitting on the backrest of the couch contentedly licking the blood that matted his fur. I stifled a scream at the carnage strewn on the floor of the parlor. These two ruins appeared to have once been men, and appeared, from their shredded black garb, to have once been clerics of some kind. My seraph still crouched over one of them, the corpse's head cradled in his lap. Alarmed, he lifted his head with a lupine snarl, his teeth coated thickly in gore, and I knew that this was the sight that had stopped the old heart of dear Mrs. Hanson.
Trembling, relieved and horrified at once, I pulled the door closed behind me and managed to bolt it. Despite my terrible nausea, my feverish dizziness, I was not afraid of him. And he, also, stopped his savage growling when he recognized me. He lowered his head, as though ashamed, and lowered the mauled red ball of the monk's head to the floor. I saw a dagger near this corpse, and a bottle of holy water spilled by the other, soaking into an already red-soaked throw rug.
He helped me drag Mrs. Hanson into the room, and by then I had arrived at the only decision I could come to. I helped him wash the blood from his hands, his body, his wings. This time he consented to a full bath, and it seemed to calm both of us.
I packed several suitcases. I selected a sweatshirt and some sweat pants I thought would fithim until I could buy him some clothing of his own.
From the generous tool box my father had lovingly equipped for me I raised a hacksaw. I showed it to the seraph. I moved it in the air to demonstrate its function. He sat on a chair and bowed his head in understanding, submitting to a cruelty worse even than those inflicted upon him by his captors. But we had no choice. In order to be free, both of us, I had to cut away the very symbols of his freedom...
And while I sliced them away, awash in his angel's blood, I shook hard with sobs just as he did, tears blurring my vision like the tears of blood on his beautiful face...agonized, as if it were my own wings I was severing.
By
Jeffrey Thomas
“Angel of flight, you soarer, you flapper, you floater,
you gull that grows out of my back in the dreams I prefer,”
– Anne Sexton
He made his escape under the cover of rain, I realized later. And before he invaded my apartment, he firstpracticed his escape by invading my dreams.
The dreams were of soaring; above great forests, pastures, ancient villages and modem cities ...above landscapes totally alien, as lovely as strange-colored seas or as hideous as bloody canyons tom in the flesh of a living planet. I saw through his eyes, experienced the freedom and the ecstasy of flight.
But in one recurring dream, while he rested between flights in some secret place, the men in black robes appeared, and cursed him, made signs to bind him, converged upon him with daggers and chains and incantations. I would start awake, as if I were the one stabbed and bound, their evil faces still floating before my eyes in a dispersing vaporous residue.
I attributed these dreams of flight and freedom to some deep subconscious yearning. As a young girl I had been struck by a car while riding my bike, my legs so crushed I was lucky to regain the ability to walk. On cold damp days I had to use a cane, even at my still youthful age, and the scars on my legs were still so profound that I never wore shorts or a bathing suit. In fact, I was even ashamed to let a lover see them, and preferred the safety of darkness for lovemaking. Not that this was a frequent concern. My scars prevented me from even letting lovers approach me. They never had a chance to be repulsed; I was repulsed for them.
On that night of rain, I heard a crash from the parlor of the third floor flat I masochistically rented, and I sat up in bed to listen. I heard my cat Virgil hiss and spit, then scamper into another room. Afraid now, I slid stealthily from bed, pulled on sweat pants and a tee shirt and advanced shakily toward the murky parlor, picking up a flashlight from atop my bureau as I went, as much for a weapon as for light, though I didn't yet thumb it on.
Only the darkest light filteredinto the parlor, but still I hesitated to turn on the flashlight, let alone a lamp. Was anyone in here? If so, was I as invisible to them as they were to me? I strained my hearing, but only ended up listening to the rain, or was that the surf of blood in my ears? At last, unable to stand the thought of being studied from the shadows, I pointed the light at the door to my apartment and switched it on.
He crouched there, close to the floor, his curly dark hair plastered to his head, his eyes wide and frantic. Naked – and his flesh glaringly pale in the harsh light, which was unkind to the wounds in him, the hooks in his bruised flesh.
I screamed, and before I could turn to run or even move the light I saw him fling himself at me. In so doing, wings spread wide from his shoulders, and they were broad and black and it was as though a great wave were falling upon me.
When I awoke, I was back in bed, and the being knelt beside me, gripping my hand in both of his. I couldn't see him well, and I cried out again, jerked my hand free, fumbled for the bedside lamp. When it came on he shielded his eyes. His wings lifted a bit but did not unfold again.
"Oh my God," I remember saying, sitting up, hugging myself, "who are you? Who are you?"
He looked up at me, his eyes pained and beseeching. I had time now to better take in the severity and profusion of his wounds. Though his body was as beautiful as that of a Greek sculpture, it was cruelly pierced with barbs and hooks, some still attached to chains which he had wound around his arms or waist. His white skin showed scars that were whiter still, and raised symbolic designs that had been branded onto him. His wings were particularly mutilated, their joints and where they joined his shoulders bearing awful scars, and pinned with black metal clasps to hinder or prevent movement, these also hung with weights. The sleek black feathers of his wings held an oil-slick's iridescence, and still dripped rain drops to the hardwood floor.
Cautiously I crept out of bed, and only his eyes followed me. Moving around him, I was able to see his wings more clearly, to prove to myself that indeed they grew out of his shoulders, that the scars were not an indication of some bizarre surgery.
"My God," I said again, but softly this time; and again I said, but in awe, "who are you? Who are you?"
I knew only one thing about him. That he had visited me in my dreams so as to prepare me for this night.
I went to the parlor, put on one light. He had broken the chain of the door. I locked it with the bolt instead. Turning, I saw that he had timidly followed me into the room, and was reaching out to pet Virgil, who gave a warning growl and flicked his tail but reluctantly allowed his head to be stroked. The being looked to me, and smiled.
The bells of the old monastery at the end of my block tolled midnight as they did every night. I was not religious, had no idea if this were a common practice for such a place or what significance it held. But the sound terrified the creature. Before I could protest he came to me, and held my right hand in both of his hands. His grip was strong, painful, but it wasn't meant to restrain me, I knew. It was an expression of fear.
I did not go to my classes the next day. How could I leave him here alone? In the morning my landlady Mrs. Hanson, who lived on the firstfloor of the old tenement house, phoned to ask if I had had another of my awful nightmares last night. I told her I had, but that everything was all right now.
I made coffee, and the seraph sat at the kitchen table watching me, smiling whenever I met his eyes like a stray dog appealing for some kindness. His hair and wings had dried at last. I considered offering him some sweat pants to wear to cover his nudity, but the thought of so exotic a being in so prosaic a garment seemed beneath his dignity.
His wounds troubled me more than his nakedness, and at last I could stand it no longer. I set down my coffee, dug under the kitchen sink for the tool box my father had assembled for me, though only he ever used them when he came to make a repair for me or for Mrs. Hanson. I found a small set of bolt cutters in there Dad had used to trim the branches that had been scratching at my bedroom window at night (though now I wondered if it were the seraph, reaching for me in dreams). Gingerly, I approached him at the table.
Rather than assume a defensive attitude, he bowed his head, submissive, inviting me to shear away his painful tethers.
I started with a thin chain holding a weight to the clasp in one wing. I grunted as I forced the handles together, and the weight thumped into a nest of bath towels I had set underneath to dull its fall. Encouraged, I moved on to the other weights.
Now I examined the barbs in him more closely and realized that they were wed with his flesh so intimately that I didn't dare try to snip them, so the best I could do was cut the chains or remnants of chains depending from them. In order to do this, I couldn't help but touch him, and the first time my hand brushed his skin we both flinched, but he did not protest, and I went on to finish my work.
When my arms grew too tired he gently took the cutters from me and broke the last few chain fragments off their hooks himself, then handed the tool back to me with a smile of gratitude and a relief so deep I nearly broke into tears. I had to look away from him, go back to pour a fresh coffee. I offered him a taste but he raised a palm to decline, and declined all nourishment I offered later, including water.
After a few sips of my coffee, however, I set down the mug and offered him my hand. He rose, and I led him into the bathroom.
I filled the tub with steaming water but he seemed hesitant to enter it, and I didn't want to alarm him, so delicately I urged him into a kneeling position, and then knelt down beside him. I soaked a large sea sponge, and then began running it gently along his folded wings, washing layers of dried blood out from under and between the feathers, so that the floor tiles pooled with pinkish water. I didn't care. And as I bathed his wings, he made a great effort to unfold them. I could tell it agonized him. The bathroom was also too small to contain them. I made him follow me into the kitchen and kneel down once more, and I filleda plastic basin with soapy water. This time he spread his trembling wings to their full span, and remarkably they filled the room, nearly touching opposite walls, majestic and black, narrow and tapered like those of a falcon. His shoulders shook with the strain of holding them aloft for me, and in reverence I stroked them with the sponge. And then I realized that his shoulders were shaking harder because he was sobbing. Whether he was sobbing in pain or in gratitude I could not know, but I put down the sponge and began to smooth his feathers under my bare palms, as if I thought this alone might balm his pain somehow. Without really willing it, I began to run my hands down to his back, where I caressed his marred white flesh.
He rose, turned to face me, tears streaking his face. They were tears of blood, making the whites of his eyes glisten red as well. But I took his hand, and followed him from the room.
I didn't reach out from the bed to shut off the light. I didn't care if he saw my legs. I was too intent on seeing him.
As we made love some of the barbs still in him scratched me, even drew blood, but in our passion I didn't care, and it only made me feel closer to his pain, closer to him, merged as we had been in dream. He raised himself on his arms to look down at where our flesh was joined, and then stared down at my eyes, and again his great wings spread, almost to their fullness, making a canopy over us. I kissed the brands on his chest to cool them, licked his nipples despite the rings pierced through them, slicing my tongue on their edges. When we kissed he sucked the blood from my tongue, and I in turn licked the blood from his face, kissed the blood from his eyes. Then he arched his back and moaned in climax, the first sound I had heard him utter. When he collapsed upon me, spent, his wings covered both of us in a blanket.
When at last he stirred he lay half over me, his face almost shy with reverence as he stroked my breasts, my belly. Moving off me further to stroke me lower down, at last he noticed my legs, and I tried to take his chin and angle his face away. Instead, he gently slipped out of my fingers and shifted to the end of the bed. Bending over my legs, he lightly kissed my shattered knees, and then slowly began to trace his tongue along the white scar that wound up one thigh. I put my hands to his head to move him away, but then they held him there instead, as his tongue moved from the source of my pain to the source of my pleasure.
I did not go to my classes for several more days.
After those several days, Mrs. Hanson called to check in on me, since she hadn't seen me about. I told her I had a slight bug. She asked if the brothers had come upstairs to see me. "Brothers?" I asked.
"From the monastery, I think," she said. "I think they were monks. Priests, maybe; they had collars. They wanted to know if I'd seen anyone strange around the yard. I guess there's a brother they keep locked up because he's ill or something. I don't know why they don't have him in the hospital but I guess they'd rather care for him themselves..."
"Did he escape?" I asked, my heart blundering through its actions."
"Yes, the other night when it stormed.”
When I made love with the seraph that night my passion was clouded with fear for him. Lying in bed beside him, I begged him to talk to me, to tell me his story, to tell me about his former captors, the monks. And after a while of coaxing, he did try to tell me, but he spoke in tongues. Not in a frenzied rapture, however; his voice was deep, somnambulant, like a single voice lifted from a Gregorian chant. It was both weirdly beautiful and terrifying, and I put my finger tips to his lips to stop him.
I couldn't avoid my former life forever, despite my fears, and after a week I returned to my classes. The first day was difficult, and I returned to check on him several times, but he was fine, either looking through the pictures in books or napping or stroking Virgil in his lap. The monks would believe him gone from the area by this time, I thought, and my unease lessened.
And then one evening I came home to find Mrs. Hanson dead on the landing outside my apartment door.
She was unmarked, but her eyes stared upward, glassy. The door frame was splintered, and I burst into the apartment with my blood roaring through my head.
At first I thought my vision was blackening, until I realized it was the blood sprayed and splashed upon the walls, Virgil sitting on the backrest of the couch contentedly licking the blood that matted his fur. I stifled a scream at the carnage strewn on the floor of the parlor. These two ruins appeared to have once been men, and appeared, from their shredded black garb, to have once been clerics of some kind. My seraph still crouched over one of them, the corpse's head cradled in his lap. Alarmed, he lifted his head with a lupine snarl, his teeth coated thickly in gore, and I knew that this was the sight that had stopped the old heart of dear Mrs. Hanson.
Trembling, relieved and horrified at once, I pulled the door closed behind me and managed to bolt it. Despite my terrible nausea, my feverish dizziness, I was not afraid of him. And he, also, stopped his savage growling when he recognized me. He lowered his head, as though ashamed, and lowered the mauled red ball of the monk's head to the floor. I saw a dagger near this corpse, and a bottle of holy water spilled by the other, soaking into an already red-soaked throw rug.
He helped me drag Mrs. Hanson into the room, and by then I had arrived at the only decision I could come to. I helped him wash the blood from his hands, his body, his wings. This time he consented to a full bath, and it seemed to calm both of us.
I packed several suitcases. I selected a sweatshirt and some sweat pants I thought would fithim until I could buy him some clothing of his own.
From the generous tool box my father had lovingly equipped for me I raised a hacksaw. I showed it to the seraph. I moved it in the air to demonstrate its function. He sat on a chair and bowed his head in understanding, submitting to a cruelty worse even than those inflicted upon him by his captors. But we had no choice. In order to be free, both of us, I had to cut away the very symbols of his freedom...
And while I sliced them away, awash in his angel's blood, I shook hard with sobs just as he did, tears blurring my vision like the tears of blood on his beautiful face...agonized, as if it were my own wings I was severing.
Chasm
David F. Daumit is a partner in Discount Rocket Productions, where he produces independent films. His writing has been published in professional and collegiate literary journals, and he has self-published several anthologies featuring his own and other people’s work.
Chasm
By David F. Daumit
The first image it brought to his mind was that of the moon—a bright white, perfectly round disc set within the infinite blackness of the heavens. But because the disc was larger in diameter than his whole body, and barely an arm’s length from his face, the perception did not last for more than a fleeting instant.
Suddenly, the disc fluttered. From within it was birthed a smaller, opaque disc, rising up from its bottom arc like some darkened sun into a bleached sky. The inner disc quivered, then contracted slightly. There was no doubt: The eye saw him.
His reflection showed inside it, wet and imperfect, constricting and loosening as the eye worked to focus on him. The movements of the internal muscles disconcerted him, and he began to lose his nerve. The pit of his stomach began to feel like his reflection looked. He tried to move away, but the razor-tipped spear points he had known were at his back pressed into his flesh, stopping him cold.
He had committed himself, and they were not about to let him leave.
An ache grew slowly within his skull, pushing out against his ears, nose, and the backs of his eyes. He knew somehow that it came from the titanic stare leveled at him. He tried to look away from the great eye, but he could neither pull his gaze from it nor even blink. The ache expanded and soon began to shift and resonate. As it increased and changed, it began to encompass him, first pervading his thoughts, then overpowering them.
WHY?
Over and over again, he thought WHY? until he understood that he was being asked this. Pain and question were one, entering him and demanding response.
AWAKENED. WHY?
“We...I...seek counsel with you.”
His pain receded for a moment, and he almost collapsed in relief. In its absence, his thoughts became his own again, and his eyes began to mercifully tear. He tried a tentative step back and found the stabbing points of pressure still there against his skin.
The ache renewed. He tried to open himself to it, to understand and be rid of it sooner this time.
EXPLAIN.
“I need to know...who...what you are. Who are you? Are you...are you....”
He could not bring himself to complete the question. Though that was the sole purpose for his being there, the very reason he stood at spear-point in front of six barbaric warriors, upon a platform elevated twenty meters above a craggy cliff, close enough to touch the ebony skin of an entity whose form ranged far beyond his peripheral sight, he could not ask it.
The eye shifted to look beyond him. Instantly, he felt free of its overbearing, and he could at last look away. He dropped his head and saw the expanse of flat blackness extend down beneath the platform to a point below the edge of the cliff.
Well over thirty meters beneath his feet, he could see a fissure of sorts running across the darkness. Within it hung a row of pale, inwardly curved objects that appeared to be like the ribs of a dinosaur or some even larger behemoth. Splotches that looked like rust-colored paste covered many of the things. They glistened wetly, and as the fissure undulated slightly up and down, they were intermittently exposed and hidden.
They scared him like nothing else in his life ever had.
Then the eye refocused on him, and every muscle in his body wrenched and tightened, as his gaze became magnetized to it again. The dull, pervading ache returned seconds later.
YES.
The answer came, at first surprising him because he had not finished his question, then surprising him again because it was an affirmation.
“You can’t be. It’s impossible. I mean...you can’t...because....”
More intense than before, the ache buffeted the inside of his skull. He felt the giving way of skin and tissue, the rupturing of blood vessels, and the sudden rush of fluids meant to be contained. One last thought followed him into the freedom of unconsciousness:
I AM.
“Harris. Harris, wake up.”
Her voice was cool and soothing in his mind, no, in his ears. He heard the sound in his ears first, not in his brain, not defined by fluctuating aches. He sighed and turned to face her, opening his eyes.
The movement caused a flare-up of pains throughout his head, some minor and others nearly agonizing. He groaned and closed his eyes again.
“Harris? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“You sound horrible. You look worse.”
“If we want to talk about how I feel, we can descend even deeper.”
“Poor thing!”
There was genuine sympathy in her voice, a rarity he felt was worth acknowledging. He opened his eyes and held out his hand to her. She took it in both of hers.
“Carolyn.”
“Yes?”
“I wish I hadn’t gone. I wish I hadn’t done it.”
“I know. But you’re back. You’re alive, and you’re back, and you’ll be okay.”
“I asked...”
“Oh, Harris.”
“And I got an answer. I know now.”
He turned away, wincing until the restarted pain slowly faded again. She released his hand, stood, and walked to the other side of the tent. She raised the flap and watched Laslo as he bartered with the warrior chieftain. For a moment, she wondered how much the return of Harris had cost them, then she turned her attention back to his bunk.
“Carolyn?”
“I’m right here.”
“I wish I didn’t know. I wish I hadn’t asked.”
He began to cry, silently, without visible sobs or wracking motions.
“Well, you did ask. We told you not to. Not to go, not to ask. But you did. So what? What does that change?”
“Everything. You don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Oh, God, Harris. Pull yourself together.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say it again until you know.”
“What, ‘God?’”
“Don’t, Carolyn, don’t. You have no idea what it means.”
Before entering the tent, Carolyn turned down the flame of the oil lantern. She walked in without knocking or signaling in any way, knowing she wouldn’t get a response. The man sat at a lab table, his back to the entrance. Both he and his experiment glowed orange under the light of an electric pest eliminator. She took a step towards him, then waited. When he finished making an adjustment on his work and moved to record it in his notebook, she knew the time was right for interruption.
“Laslo.”
“Hmm? Oh, hello, Carolyn. How’s Harris?”
He didn’t turn to face her but kept on writing. She moved over to lean against the table, placing the lantern next to the pest lamp.
“Not well.”
“Oh. His injuries didn’t look that severe. Is there internal damage?”
“He’s okay physically. He has some bruises, blood blisters, and a ruptured ear drum. I’m talking about mentally, emotionally.”
Laslo looked up at her, grimaced, then went back to his notations.
“It’s serious, Laslo. We need to talk. All three of us.”
“What’s the problem? Did the big bad monster scare him? Didn’t we warn him it might be too much to handle? Didn’t the natives warn him, too?”
“Yeah, it scared him all right, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
Laslo sighed, put down his pen, and met her gaze again. She was glaring at him in that way of hers that only hinted at the depth of her annoyance.
“All right, I’m game. How did it scare him?”
“He thinks he’s found God.”
“And from that he developed emotional problems? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around?”
“Laslo—”
“I mean, you found God, right? You told me that before we ever got here. It changed your life, you said, helped you see things more clearly, you said, gave you great comfort and all that.”
“Laslo! Don’t be such an ass! Harris thinks he’s met God.”
“Oh. Oh, wow. You mean the thing in the chasm?”
She nodded. He sighed and nodded back.
“Yeah, we need to talk.”
The generator hummed, skipped a beat, then hummed again outside the main tent. Carolyn, Laslo, and Harris sat inside, around the mess table, drinking watered down coffee out of graphite mugs. The electric light above their heads hissed and fizzed in time with its power source. Laslo eyed the naked bulb warily. Carolyn stared into her drink. Harris scratched at one of several patches of gauze about his head. Without looking up, Carolyn pulled his hand away.
“Sorry. It itches.”
“Good, that means it’s healing.”
Laslo got up and went over to the stove. He poured himself another mug of darkened water.
“When’s the supply ship due?”
“In a week, according to Central,” Carolyn said, “which means two to three.”
“More like a month, if it shows at all.”
“Stop whining. We have enough essentials for two more months, plus an unlimited supply of local water.”
“I’ll stop whining when I have something other than a bug zapper to light my experiments!”
“Look, can we just get down to it? Harris needs to get some rest.”
“Right. Sure. I’m sorry.”
Laslo sat down at the table. No one said anything. Harris rubbed his bandaged head. Carolyn chewed on a fingernail. Laslo sipped at his drink. Finally, he sighed and spoke up.
“Harris, what is it you think you’ve found?”
“I’ve found the Ultimate, the Infinite.”
“That’s excessive, isn’t it? The thing in the chasm, it’s big, yes. Huge. Tremendous. But infinite? How can you believe that something that dwells on a planet is infinite?”
Harris smiled knowingly and shook his head. Laslo rolled his eyes.
“I’m not doubting that the experience you went through wasn’t awesome. I’m not even saying that the thing isn’t a life form an order of magnitude beyond us. But it’s not God.”
“You don’t even believe in God, Laslo, so how do know what is or isn’t Him?”
“I know the difference between a slug in a hole and the Holy Spirit. I may not be a good Christian, but I am a good scientist. And I know what any good scientist would know.”
Harris waved him off and turned to Carolyn.
“You understand, don’t you? You are open minded enough to see a manifestation of the divine, right?”
“I understand that you’ve encountered something that has caused you physical and emotional trauma.”
“Only because I wasn’t ready. They told me so. You told me so. Even ignorant of the truth, you offered me wisdom.”
“Harris, I respect you as a scientist, I like you as a person, and I sympathize with your situation. But I can’t deal with this.”
“You don’t have to take me at my word. You can see for yourselves.”
Carolyn grew quiet, and her expression went blank. Laslo saw this and stiffened, knowing what the change in her signaled. Harris continued, oblivious to her mood.
“You both talk of science, but neither of you has seen the evidence. First-hand observation is essential for a scientist to make conclusions. I’ll take to you to Him, and you’ll see. Then, we can document—”
“Stop it, Harris! Stop it! What you’re saying is blasphemy. Blasphemy! Do you hear me? You are blaspheming God, and I won’t stand for it. I know you’ve been injured, and I know you’re delusional, but I can’t take what you’re saying any more. So just stop it. Think whatever you want, believe whatever you want. But keep your sermons to yourself. Understand?”
“But, Carolyn—”
“Do you understand?”
“Carolyn, listen—”
Carolyn made a fist and thrust it up under Harris’ chin. She extended her index finger from it and shook it in punctuation of her next words.
“Say no more. Not another word. Save your damnation for yourself. I’ll hear no more of it.”
She stood and walked out of the tent.
Laslo slowly blew out a breath he had not realized he was holding. He watched the tent flap fall back into place after Carolyn’s exit, eyed Harris briefly, then dropped his gaze to the graphite mug on the table before him. Harris stared straight ahead, just past Laslo.
“How can you explain a revelation to those who haven’t had it? How can you describe sight to the blind?”
He moved his stare to Laslo, who, sensing it, looked away.
“Will you come to the chasm with me, Laslo? Will you see what I’ve seen?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid to be proven wrong?”
“I’m definitely afraid, but not of that.”
“Even if I’m wrong, don’t you want to investigate it anyway? To catalog what it is, to know what it does?”
“Yes, I’ve wanted to since we got here.”
“Then come with me!”
“Harris, if I’m to explore the workings of a pistol, I don’t want to do it by looking down its loaded barrel.”
“No. No, it’s not like that.”
“It’s not like that? Look at yourself! You’re a mess! And believe me, you look a lot better now after days of rest and loads of bandages. You want Carolyn and me to go up to that peak, stare into that pit, and explode our eardrums? You want us to hemorrhage within our skulls? Is that how we should discover God? That kind of revelation we can get on a chem high or by beating ours head against a brick wall. So thank you kindly, Harris, but I’ll pass on your Mount Sinai expedition.”
Laslo finished his tirade and found the sudden silence both awkward and unnerving. He picked up his mug and took a sip of the now cooled semi-coffee. Harris went back to staring past him, nodding rhythmically.
“Like describing sight to the blind. A symphony played to the deaf.”
Harris got up. He stood looking down at Laslo, who eventually raised his eyes in acknowledgment.
“I pity you. I pity you because you are a closed-minded scientist, and that is one of the most pathetic things in the universe. Please give my regards and condolences to Carolyn, and accept them for yourself as well. I won’t be back. And I guess I won’t be seeing you where I’m going.”
Laslo did not watch as Harris left. He stared blankly at the tent wall. Intruding in on his thoughts came the hum of the generator and the flicker of the lights. The lingering blandness of his drink wallowed on his tongue. He imagined the supply ship, somewhere out there, as close as a week away or as far off as a month. He thought of the crew drinking fresh coffee with every meal, feeding the ship’s cat on it, stuffing bean bags and pillows with the bountiful grinds.
Then he imagined Harris brandishing a spear and sporting a native hair crest, now a member of the warrior cult, prostrated alongside the chieftain on the cliff overlooking the chasm. And there was God before them, not a monstrous alien being of immeasurable size, but Jove in white robes with flowing beard. He smiled at the vision and wondered whose version of God he found more absurd.
With a sigh, his smile faded, and he realized that he should go after Harris, or at the least, find Carolyn and let her know what was happening. Doing both would be best. He drummed his fingers on the table and drank the last of his stale brown broth. Minutes passed. The generator whined emphysemically, and the cold of night began to creep in past the tent’s insulation. Laslo remained where he was. He did not move for a long time.
Carolyn slung the pack over her shoulder and took the hard case up in her hand. She exited her tent, walking out into the slowly warming sunlight of early morning. The compound sat within a fog that until an hour ago had been dense and within another hour would be gone.
She found Laslo in his lab, bent over an experiment. He worked by sunlight, which entered through a transparent patch at the top of the tent. The pest eliminator sat dormant at the edge of the table. When he finished with his task and went to enter a notation in his book, she came forward.
“Have you seen Harris?”
“...”
“What?”
“No. I haven’t seen him since last night. We talked for a few minutes after you left, then he left, too.”
“Back to his new religion?”
“Yeah, that’s my guess.”
With a grunt of effort, Carolyn placed both her pack and the hard case on the floor. Laslo looked down at them, then up at her.
“You’re going after him?”
“Not after him. After his deity. I want to see it.”
“Carolyn, they’re not going to let you up the pass to the cliff. Harris finagled with them for a long time before they would take him.”
“I’m going, and I will see it.”
Laslo again eyed the items on the floor. He reached down, picked up the hard case, and set it on his lap. It had a combination lock on it, for which all three of the team members had an entry code. He keyed his in, felt the lock shudder in response, and opened the lid.
“The big one? I can understand your wanting to protect yourself, but wouldn’t one of the smaller ones be sufficient?”
“I have a small one in my bag. For defense, like you said.”
“Then what’s this for? Are going to try to kill the thing in the pit?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably not? Meaning that you’re leaving yourself an option either way.”
Carolyn did not answer. All emotion drained from her face. Laslo leaned back warily.
“Look, Carolyn, I’m not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. And I’m not saying what’s right or what’s wrong. We have a situation here, a very weird, dangerous situation. I don’t know what to do about it, whereas you apparently have some idea. I just don’t want you or Harris or me to get hurt.”
Still saying nothing, Carolyn took the case from him and shut it.
“Could you kill it even if you wanted to? Is a charge enough to even hurt it?”
She picked up her pack, shouldered it, and turned to leave. Laslo reached out to her.
“What are you going to do about Harris?”
“Nothing for now. If I find him, I’ll talk to him. But he’s not my concern.”
“Shouldn’t he be?”
“I don’t know, Laslo, is he yours? Did you try to stop him from leaving last night? Have you been out looking for him, or made any effort to talk to the chieftain about him?”
Laslo looked away and cupped his hand over his mouth.
“I didn’t think so. Tell you what: I’m going to go do what I need to do, and you can do or not do whatever you want. I won’t insult your dignity by asking if you’ll join me. See you around.”
She left, pushing the tent flap open with far more force than it required. Laslo despondently watched as it fell back to a closed position, replacing the sight of her moving away. The realization that he was alone struck him suddenly. He had always been one to appreciate and make the most out of solitude. But now, a dread akin to slow venom filled him at the thought of being alone, and at the thought of why he was.
Three warriors lay dead in the pass that led up the hill, blackened hollows despoiling their naked chests. Another five lay sprawled on the cliff, just below the stairs that led up to the towering platform, and two more lay crumpled upon the steps themselves. All the corpses bore similar wounds and smelled perversely of seared meat.
Atop the platform, Carolyn knelt, her arms limp at her sides. Blood streamed from her ears and nose. The small weapon rested beside her, discarded but still warm. Harris sat a pace away, breathing shallowly through bloodied nostrils and lips. He clutched in both hands the large weapon. Its muzzle glowed a semi-molten hue and emitted wisps of smoke.
The thing in the chasm moved. All of its pure black form, which spanned the breadth of human sight and beyond, shifted. Its eye bled. Fluids foul and viscous poured from the organ, as it shook convulsively.
“Thou shalt not kill,” Carolyn said, her voice leaden.
She grimaced against the involuntary replaying of images of the warriors dying before her. The charged weapon had worked well, dealing death to those in the forefront and terror to those behind them. Her resolve in the quiet aftermath was no longer what it had been when they had barred her from her chosen confrontation. How she had struck them down, systematically and with callous indifference, now bewildered her. She could not imagine ever doing so. But the corpses were there, and the images were real. By her hand, they had died.
“God forgive me,” she said.
Just then she desired the immense darkness past the platform to be God. She needed a physical proximity to Him, needed to know that He acknowledged her. Regardless of whether or not He forgave her dread sins, she needed to know He was there and was watching over her. If that thing was God, she could attain this knowledge. It could speak to her, as her God never had. It could let her know.
And yet, if the thing in the chasm were God, then all might be forever lost. If not dead, it was badly hurt, perhaps dying. Its eye was all but destroyed, and she could only guess at the extent of its internal injuries. Divine or not, living or dead, the thing did not speak. It had been silenced, and she did not expect to know of its voice again. Thus she could never learn what she craved to know. If it had been God, it was lost to her now. And if it had not been, then she still remained distant from her creator and unable to find Him any longer within herself.
“What have I done?” Harris asked.
He stared down at the weapon in his hands. A mixture of revulsion and self-loathing welled up inside him, realized in the form of bile-washed ulcerations. His was the hand—the will—of the destroyer. He alone owned the shame, despair, and anguish.
Carolyn had been desperate, almost crazed, when he saw her on the platform. Past the scorched bodies he had climbed, weeping for each of his newly found and now lost brethren. By the time he had reached her, she stood transfixed and beset by the gaze of God’s eye. Despite her sins, he had wanted to help her, as she had helped him through his days of recovery.
He had pleaded for her safety, even offered himself in her place, but to no avail. His God had answered him: NO. As he watched Carolyn’s agony, he had known she didn’t understand and couldn’t stop her own pain. He had pleaded again. Again, he was answered: NO.
Desperation had gripped him. She wouldn’t survive long and had already begun reeling from trauma. He had seen the hard case on the platform, known its contents. He had acted swiftly. With the weapon, he had reached out and sundered God.
Harris wept openly. His God was dead. Or worse, he was dead to his God. He neither knew which, nor cared, for by either fate he had cast himself out of rapture into eternal ruin. His was the blow that Lucifer envied. He stood alone, before the empty face of God, at the threshold of his own consumptive hell.
The thing in the chasm shuddered. Its eye receded inward, leaving only odorous discolorations beneath a brief furrow of white. Then its movements stopped, and its flesh lost all distinctiveness from that of a solid black wall, stretching in all directions to nigh infinity.
On the platform, Harris and Carolyn lost themselves in throes of mourning and became as they saw the thing, silent and void amidst all of creation.
Chasm
By David F. Daumit
The first image it brought to his mind was that of the moon—a bright white, perfectly round disc set within the infinite blackness of the heavens. But because the disc was larger in diameter than his whole body, and barely an arm’s length from his face, the perception did not last for more than a fleeting instant.
Suddenly, the disc fluttered. From within it was birthed a smaller, opaque disc, rising up from its bottom arc like some darkened sun into a bleached sky. The inner disc quivered, then contracted slightly. There was no doubt: The eye saw him.
His reflection showed inside it, wet and imperfect, constricting and loosening as the eye worked to focus on him. The movements of the internal muscles disconcerted him, and he began to lose his nerve. The pit of his stomach began to feel like his reflection looked. He tried to move away, but the razor-tipped spear points he had known were at his back pressed into his flesh, stopping him cold.
He had committed himself, and they were not about to let him leave.
An ache grew slowly within his skull, pushing out against his ears, nose, and the backs of his eyes. He knew somehow that it came from the titanic stare leveled at him. He tried to look away from the great eye, but he could neither pull his gaze from it nor even blink. The ache expanded and soon began to shift and resonate. As it increased and changed, it began to encompass him, first pervading his thoughts, then overpowering them.
WHY?
Over and over again, he thought WHY? until he understood that he was being asked this. Pain and question were one, entering him and demanding response.
AWAKENED. WHY?
“We...I...seek counsel with you.”
His pain receded for a moment, and he almost collapsed in relief. In its absence, his thoughts became his own again, and his eyes began to mercifully tear. He tried a tentative step back and found the stabbing points of pressure still there against his skin.
The ache renewed. He tried to open himself to it, to understand and be rid of it sooner this time.
EXPLAIN.
“I need to know...who...what you are. Who are you? Are you...are you....”
He could not bring himself to complete the question. Though that was the sole purpose for his being there, the very reason he stood at spear-point in front of six barbaric warriors, upon a platform elevated twenty meters above a craggy cliff, close enough to touch the ebony skin of an entity whose form ranged far beyond his peripheral sight, he could not ask it.
The eye shifted to look beyond him. Instantly, he felt free of its overbearing, and he could at last look away. He dropped his head and saw the expanse of flat blackness extend down beneath the platform to a point below the edge of the cliff.
Well over thirty meters beneath his feet, he could see a fissure of sorts running across the darkness. Within it hung a row of pale, inwardly curved objects that appeared to be like the ribs of a dinosaur or some even larger behemoth. Splotches that looked like rust-colored paste covered many of the things. They glistened wetly, and as the fissure undulated slightly up and down, they were intermittently exposed and hidden.
They scared him like nothing else in his life ever had.
Then the eye refocused on him, and every muscle in his body wrenched and tightened, as his gaze became magnetized to it again. The dull, pervading ache returned seconds later.
YES.
The answer came, at first surprising him because he had not finished his question, then surprising him again because it was an affirmation.
“You can’t be. It’s impossible. I mean...you can’t...because....”
More intense than before, the ache buffeted the inside of his skull. He felt the giving way of skin and tissue, the rupturing of blood vessels, and the sudden rush of fluids meant to be contained. One last thought followed him into the freedom of unconsciousness:
I AM.
“Harris. Harris, wake up.”
Her voice was cool and soothing in his mind, no, in his ears. He heard the sound in his ears first, not in his brain, not defined by fluctuating aches. He sighed and turned to face her, opening his eyes.
The movement caused a flare-up of pains throughout his head, some minor and others nearly agonizing. He groaned and closed his eyes again.
“Harris? Can you hear me?”
“Yes.”
“You sound horrible. You look worse.”
“If we want to talk about how I feel, we can descend even deeper.”
“Poor thing!”
There was genuine sympathy in her voice, a rarity he felt was worth acknowledging. He opened his eyes and held out his hand to her. She took it in both of hers.
“Carolyn.”
“Yes?”
“I wish I hadn’t gone. I wish I hadn’t done it.”
“I know. But you’re back. You’re alive, and you’re back, and you’ll be okay.”
“I asked...”
“Oh, Harris.”
“And I got an answer. I know now.”
He turned away, wincing until the restarted pain slowly faded again. She released his hand, stood, and walked to the other side of the tent. She raised the flap and watched Laslo as he bartered with the warrior chieftain. For a moment, she wondered how much the return of Harris had cost them, then she turned her attention back to his bunk.
“Carolyn?”
“I’m right here.”
“I wish I didn’t know. I wish I hadn’t asked.”
He began to cry, silently, without visible sobs or wracking motions.
“Well, you did ask. We told you not to. Not to go, not to ask. But you did. So what? What does that change?”
“Everything. You don’t understand. You can’t.”
“Oh, God, Harris. Pull yourself together.”
“Don’t say that. Don’t ever say it again until you know.”
“What, ‘God?’”
“Don’t, Carolyn, don’t. You have no idea what it means.”
Before entering the tent, Carolyn turned down the flame of the oil lantern. She walked in without knocking or signaling in any way, knowing she wouldn’t get a response. The man sat at a lab table, his back to the entrance. Both he and his experiment glowed orange under the light of an electric pest eliminator. She took a step towards him, then waited. When he finished making an adjustment on his work and moved to record it in his notebook, she knew the time was right for interruption.
“Laslo.”
“Hmm? Oh, hello, Carolyn. How’s Harris?”
He didn’t turn to face her but kept on writing. She moved over to lean against the table, placing the lantern next to the pest lamp.
“Not well.”
“Oh. His injuries didn’t look that severe. Is there internal damage?”
“He’s okay physically. He has some bruises, blood blisters, and a ruptured ear drum. I’m talking about mentally, emotionally.”
Laslo looked up at her, grimaced, then went back to his notations.
“It’s serious, Laslo. We need to talk. All three of us.”
“What’s the problem? Did the big bad monster scare him? Didn’t we warn him it might be too much to handle? Didn’t the natives warn him, too?”
“Yeah, it scared him all right, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
Laslo sighed, put down his pen, and met her gaze again. She was glaring at him in that way of hers that only hinted at the depth of her annoyance.
“All right, I’m game. How did it scare him?”
“He thinks he’s found God.”
“And from that he developed emotional problems? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around?”
“Laslo—”
“I mean, you found God, right? You told me that before we ever got here. It changed your life, you said, helped you see things more clearly, you said, gave you great comfort and all that.”
“Laslo! Don’t be such an ass! Harris thinks he’s met God.”
“Oh. Oh, wow. You mean the thing in the chasm?”
She nodded. He sighed and nodded back.
“Yeah, we need to talk.”
The generator hummed, skipped a beat, then hummed again outside the main tent. Carolyn, Laslo, and Harris sat inside, around the mess table, drinking watered down coffee out of graphite mugs. The electric light above their heads hissed and fizzed in time with its power source. Laslo eyed the naked bulb warily. Carolyn stared into her drink. Harris scratched at one of several patches of gauze about his head. Without looking up, Carolyn pulled his hand away.
“Sorry. It itches.”
“Good, that means it’s healing.”
Laslo got up and went over to the stove. He poured himself another mug of darkened water.
“When’s the supply ship due?”
“In a week, according to Central,” Carolyn said, “which means two to three.”
“More like a month, if it shows at all.”
“Stop whining. We have enough essentials for two more months, plus an unlimited supply of local water.”
“I’ll stop whining when I have something other than a bug zapper to light my experiments!”
“Look, can we just get down to it? Harris needs to get some rest.”
“Right. Sure. I’m sorry.”
Laslo sat down at the table. No one said anything. Harris rubbed his bandaged head. Carolyn chewed on a fingernail. Laslo sipped at his drink. Finally, he sighed and spoke up.
“Harris, what is it you think you’ve found?”
“I’ve found the Ultimate, the Infinite.”
“That’s excessive, isn’t it? The thing in the chasm, it’s big, yes. Huge. Tremendous. But infinite? How can you believe that something that dwells on a planet is infinite?”
Harris smiled knowingly and shook his head. Laslo rolled his eyes.
“I’m not doubting that the experience you went through wasn’t awesome. I’m not even saying that the thing isn’t a life form an order of magnitude beyond us. But it’s not God.”
“You don’t even believe in God, Laslo, so how do know what is or isn’t Him?”
“I know the difference between a slug in a hole and the Holy Spirit. I may not be a good Christian, but I am a good scientist. And I know what any good scientist would know.”
Harris waved him off and turned to Carolyn.
“You understand, don’t you? You are open minded enough to see a manifestation of the divine, right?”
“I understand that you’ve encountered something that has caused you physical and emotional trauma.”
“Only because I wasn’t ready. They told me so. You told me so. Even ignorant of the truth, you offered me wisdom.”
“Harris, I respect you as a scientist, I like you as a person, and I sympathize with your situation. But I can’t deal with this.”
“You don’t have to take me at my word. You can see for yourselves.”
Carolyn grew quiet, and her expression went blank. Laslo saw this and stiffened, knowing what the change in her signaled. Harris continued, oblivious to her mood.
“You both talk of science, but neither of you has seen the evidence. First-hand observation is essential for a scientist to make conclusions. I’ll take to you to Him, and you’ll see. Then, we can document—”
“Stop it, Harris! Stop it! What you’re saying is blasphemy. Blasphemy! Do you hear me? You are blaspheming God, and I won’t stand for it. I know you’ve been injured, and I know you’re delusional, but I can’t take what you’re saying any more. So just stop it. Think whatever you want, believe whatever you want. But keep your sermons to yourself. Understand?”
“But, Carolyn—”
“Do you understand?”
“Carolyn, listen—”
Carolyn made a fist and thrust it up under Harris’ chin. She extended her index finger from it and shook it in punctuation of her next words.
“Say no more. Not another word. Save your damnation for yourself. I’ll hear no more of it.”
She stood and walked out of the tent.
Laslo slowly blew out a breath he had not realized he was holding. He watched the tent flap fall back into place after Carolyn’s exit, eyed Harris briefly, then dropped his gaze to the graphite mug on the table before him. Harris stared straight ahead, just past Laslo.
“How can you explain a revelation to those who haven’t had it? How can you describe sight to the blind?”
He moved his stare to Laslo, who, sensing it, looked away.
“Will you come to the chasm with me, Laslo? Will you see what I’ve seen?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid to be proven wrong?”
“I’m definitely afraid, but not of that.”
“Even if I’m wrong, don’t you want to investigate it anyway? To catalog what it is, to know what it does?”
“Yes, I’ve wanted to since we got here.”
“Then come with me!”
“Harris, if I’m to explore the workings of a pistol, I don’t want to do it by looking down its loaded barrel.”
“No. No, it’s not like that.”
“It’s not like that? Look at yourself! You’re a mess! And believe me, you look a lot better now after days of rest and loads of bandages. You want Carolyn and me to go up to that peak, stare into that pit, and explode our eardrums? You want us to hemorrhage within our skulls? Is that how we should discover God? That kind of revelation we can get on a chem high or by beating ours head against a brick wall. So thank you kindly, Harris, but I’ll pass on your Mount Sinai expedition.”
Laslo finished his tirade and found the sudden silence both awkward and unnerving. He picked up his mug and took a sip of the now cooled semi-coffee. Harris went back to staring past him, nodding rhythmically.
“Like describing sight to the blind. A symphony played to the deaf.”
Harris got up. He stood looking down at Laslo, who eventually raised his eyes in acknowledgment.
“I pity you. I pity you because you are a closed-minded scientist, and that is one of the most pathetic things in the universe. Please give my regards and condolences to Carolyn, and accept them for yourself as well. I won’t be back. And I guess I won’t be seeing you where I’m going.”
Laslo did not watch as Harris left. He stared blankly at the tent wall. Intruding in on his thoughts came the hum of the generator and the flicker of the lights. The lingering blandness of his drink wallowed on his tongue. He imagined the supply ship, somewhere out there, as close as a week away or as far off as a month. He thought of the crew drinking fresh coffee with every meal, feeding the ship’s cat on it, stuffing bean bags and pillows with the bountiful grinds.
Then he imagined Harris brandishing a spear and sporting a native hair crest, now a member of the warrior cult, prostrated alongside the chieftain on the cliff overlooking the chasm. And there was God before them, not a monstrous alien being of immeasurable size, but Jove in white robes with flowing beard. He smiled at the vision and wondered whose version of God he found more absurd.
With a sigh, his smile faded, and he realized that he should go after Harris, or at the least, find Carolyn and let her know what was happening. Doing both would be best. He drummed his fingers on the table and drank the last of his stale brown broth. Minutes passed. The generator whined emphysemically, and the cold of night began to creep in past the tent’s insulation. Laslo remained where he was. He did not move for a long time.
Carolyn slung the pack over her shoulder and took the hard case up in her hand. She exited her tent, walking out into the slowly warming sunlight of early morning. The compound sat within a fog that until an hour ago had been dense and within another hour would be gone.
She found Laslo in his lab, bent over an experiment. He worked by sunlight, which entered through a transparent patch at the top of the tent. The pest eliminator sat dormant at the edge of the table. When he finished with his task and went to enter a notation in his book, she came forward.
“Have you seen Harris?”
“...”
“What?”
“No. I haven’t seen him since last night. We talked for a few minutes after you left, then he left, too.”
“Back to his new religion?”
“Yeah, that’s my guess.”
With a grunt of effort, Carolyn placed both her pack and the hard case on the floor. Laslo looked down at them, then up at her.
“You’re going after him?”
“Not after him. After his deity. I want to see it.”
“Carolyn, they’re not going to let you up the pass to the cliff. Harris finagled with them for a long time before they would take him.”
“I’m going, and I will see it.”
Laslo again eyed the items on the floor. He reached down, picked up the hard case, and set it on his lap. It had a combination lock on it, for which all three of the team members had an entry code. He keyed his in, felt the lock shudder in response, and opened the lid.
“The big one? I can understand your wanting to protect yourself, but wouldn’t one of the smaller ones be sufficient?”
“I have a small one in my bag. For defense, like you said.”
“Then what’s this for? Are going to try to kill the thing in the pit?”
“Probably not.”
“Probably not? Meaning that you’re leaving yourself an option either way.”
Carolyn did not answer. All emotion drained from her face. Laslo leaned back warily.
“Look, Carolyn, I’m not trying to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. And I’m not saying what’s right or what’s wrong. We have a situation here, a very weird, dangerous situation. I don’t know what to do about it, whereas you apparently have some idea. I just don’t want you or Harris or me to get hurt.”
Still saying nothing, Carolyn took the case from him and shut it.
“Could you kill it even if you wanted to? Is a charge enough to even hurt it?”
She picked up her pack, shouldered it, and turned to leave. Laslo reached out to her.
“What are you going to do about Harris?”
“Nothing for now. If I find him, I’ll talk to him. But he’s not my concern.”
“Shouldn’t he be?”
“I don’t know, Laslo, is he yours? Did you try to stop him from leaving last night? Have you been out looking for him, or made any effort to talk to the chieftain about him?”
Laslo looked away and cupped his hand over his mouth.
“I didn’t think so. Tell you what: I’m going to go do what I need to do, and you can do or not do whatever you want. I won’t insult your dignity by asking if you’ll join me. See you around.”
She left, pushing the tent flap open with far more force than it required. Laslo despondently watched as it fell back to a closed position, replacing the sight of her moving away. The realization that he was alone struck him suddenly. He had always been one to appreciate and make the most out of solitude. But now, a dread akin to slow venom filled him at the thought of being alone, and at the thought of why he was.
Three warriors lay dead in the pass that led up the hill, blackened hollows despoiling their naked chests. Another five lay sprawled on the cliff, just below the stairs that led up to the towering platform, and two more lay crumpled upon the steps themselves. All the corpses bore similar wounds and smelled perversely of seared meat.
Atop the platform, Carolyn knelt, her arms limp at her sides. Blood streamed from her ears and nose. The small weapon rested beside her, discarded but still warm. Harris sat a pace away, breathing shallowly through bloodied nostrils and lips. He clutched in both hands the large weapon. Its muzzle glowed a semi-molten hue and emitted wisps of smoke.
The thing in the chasm moved. All of its pure black form, which spanned the breadth of human sight and beyond, shifted. Its eye bled. Fluids foul and viscous poured from the organ, as it shook convulsively.
“Thou shalt not kill,” Carolyn said, her voice leaden.
She grimaced against the involuntary replaying of images of the warriors dying before her. The charged weapon had worked well, dealing death to those in the forefront and terror to those behind them. Her resolve in the quiet aftermath was no longer what it had been when they had barred her from her chosen confrontation. How she had struck them down, systematically and with callous indifference, now bewildered her. She could not imagine ever doing so. But the corpses were there, and the images were real. By her hand, they had died.
“God forgive me,” she said.
Just then she desired the immense darkness past the platform to be God. She needed a physical proximity to Him, needed to know that He acknowledged her. Regardless of whether or not He forgave her dread sins, she needed to know He was there and was watching over her. If that thing was God, she could attain this knowledge. It could speak to her, as her God never had. It could let her know.
And yet, if the thing in the chasm were God, then all might be forever lost. If not dead, it was badly hurt, perhaps dying. Its eye was all but destroyed, and she could only guess at the extent of its internal injuries. Divine or not, living or dead, the thing did not speak. It had been silenced, and she did not expect to know of its voice again. Thus she could never learn what she craved to know. If it had been God, it was lost to her now. And if it had not been, then she still remained distant from her creator and unable to find Him any longer within herself.
“What have I done?” Harris asked.
He stared down at the weapon in his hands. A mixture of revulsion and self-loathing welled up inside him, realized in the form of bile-washed ulcerations. His was the hand—the will—of the destroyer. He alone owned the shame, despair, and anguish.
Carolyn had been desperate, almost crazed, when he saw her on the platform. Past the scorched bodies he had climbed, weeping for each of his newly found and now lost brethren. By the time he had reached her, she stood transfixed and beset by the gaze of God’s eye. Despite her sins, he had wanted to help her, as she had helped him through his days of recovery.
He had pleaded for her safety, even offered himself in her place, but to no avail. His God had answered him: NO. As he watched Carolyn’s agony, he had known she didn’t understand and couldn’t stop her own pain. He had pleaded again. Again, he was answered: NO.
Desperation had gripped him. She wouldn’t survive long and had already begun reeling from trauma. He had seen the hard case on the platform, known its contents. He had acted swiftly. With the weapon, he had reached out and sundered God.
Harris wept openly. His God was dead. Or worse, he was dead to his God. He neither knew which, nor cared, for by either fate he had cast himself out of rapture into eternal ruin. His was the blow that Lucifer envied. He stood alone, before the empty face of God, at the threshold of his own consumptive hell.
The thing in the chasm shuddered. Its eye receded inward, leaving only odorous discolorations beneath a brief furrow of white. Then its movements stopped, and its flesh lost all distinctiveness from that of a solid black wall, stretching in all directions to nigh infinity.
On the platform, Harris and Carolyn lost themselves in throes of mourning and became as they saw the thing, silent and void amidst all of creation.
Goddess River Is Not Pleased
Homer H. Morris was Born in Joplin MO. Married 47 years. One daughter, one granddaughter, one grandson. Served in the U.S.Navy 4 years. Earned a B.A. and an M.A. from Pittsburg (Kansas) State University. Taught at Harford Community College for 31 years and also served 12 years during that time as an associate dean. In the 70'sand 80's, played banjo in a folk group at two churches and also appeared in several community theater productions. First published short story in 1963. Published fiction every year until his death; published articles from the 60's through the 80's. Also published a book on church budgets.
In memory of H.H. Morris
1937 – 2008
GODDESS RIVER IS NOT PLEASED
By H. H. Morris
People frequently said that Carson read the river like a book. The belief was false. Books are words on paper, one-way communication. When Carson talked to the river, goddess River answered him.
“You’re too brown,” Carson told River.
“Paved roads and parking lots are killing me.”
“A goddess doesn’t die.”
“A goddess gets sick. I need a sacrifice, Carson.”
“Yes, River.”
Was he her only worshiper left?
River arose in low mountains and understood that a straight line led her nowhere but into
the flow of a bigger god or goddess. Of course, the loss of identity was ultimately her fate, as it is the fate of all such deities. Even the Mississippi disappears in the greater godhead of the Gulf of Mexico. There was no need to rush toward that fate by flowing straight, however.
Carson hadn’t found such wisdom in a book. Goddess River had taught him, had explained from when he was a child why sacrifices were necessary. Foolish people also claimed that Carson could think like a fish and therefore found perch or cat when other resort owners and guides thought River barren of bounty. That was as absurd as calling River a book. He worshiped daily, sacrificed when commanded, and received River’s bounty in return. Any man or woman who worshiped and obeyed the goddess would find fish in abundance.
Although his mother had recognized River’s divinity, she’d refused to worship or sacrifice. She spoke to River only to curse the goddess. Jenny Carson had inherited the land from her parents, the third generation to hold the large house set against a bluff and far enough above River to have never flooded. Carson’s living, like his mother’s, came mostly from the low-lying land across the old state highway that had been downgraded to a county route when new, wider, straighter primary and secondary roads were carved through the hills. Much of the area was gravel bar. People swam from it and picnicked on it. The bar had parking space for 50 cars. Fishermen wandered slightly up or downstream from it to drop lines in the clear, cold water. River took her identity from the gods and goddesses of lesser streams forced to submerge themselves in her, and she used the power so accrued to reward one fisherman with a catch and punish the next with failure.
RV owners frequently camped on the gravel. Carson offered no electrical or plumbing services. He had no boat ramp, although those who wished could use his gravel bar to shove canoes or flat-bottomed fishing boats into the water. He charged a daily admission fee, whether it was a camper, a car, a bicycle, or a pedestrian entering. He demanded the same fee the next day. In addition, he sold groceries, camping supplies, and fishing gear in the store that took up much of the house’s lower level. When the highway had been rerouted, Carson should logically have gone out of business, as had two roadhouses, a service station, and a café along the same stretch of road.
Carson survived because he found fish. One angler told another, “I discovered this great spot to fish and a guide who mutters to the river as if it were alive and always finds fish when he floats with you.” So fishermen came, and those who camped brought wives and sometimes children. Some swimmers came because the gravel bar led to a gently sloping area where the current didn’t drag children away and where no deep holes trapped unwary waders. Other swimmers came because Carson, like his mother before him, didn’t care what they wore or didn’t wear.
“Carson,” said the blonde tourist, stepping out of her small RV, “are we parked too close to the river?”
“No,” he said. “River has finished rising unless we get more rain.”
“We’re the only campers. Will my little one be all right?”
Blondes beget blondes. It was as if the drunken, balding, dark-haired father didn’t exist.
This woman’s blondness reminded him of his mother’s. If her attitude was as disrespectful toward River. . . .
Don’t judge. River knows what River wants.
“Get something out of your high school education,” Jenny Carson had told her son. “Don’t be a river rat like me or a construction worker like your daddy. Run away from this bitch goddess River before she sucks the life out of you the way she did out of your granddaddy.”
His maternal grandparents had died before he was old enough to have clear memories of them. His father had been killed when a trench caved in on him. But if Jenny had worshiped River properly, she would have received the bounty River now gave to Carson.
He looked at the blonde tourist and said, “Little ones like to talk to River, ma’am. That’s the danger.”
“What do you mean, Carson?”
“When I was a kid, I got to know River. I talked to her. It did me good. Let your daughter wander along the bank. You keep your eyes open, the way my momma did. Your girl goes to bed and dreams fish. When River goes down, her daddy doesn’t need me or any other guide, provided he’ll let her dream him to the fish.”
“Where’s the danger in dreams?” the woman asked.
“River can make a child forget safety. River is so fascinating that everyone wants to step into her soothing waters. You watch so your little one doesn’t fall in.”
The earlier rain had become mist, creating an unseasonable chill. The blonde woman stared at him as she evaluated his questionable sanity. If she’d been his mother, a swinger shaped by the wild sixties, she wouldn’t have worn a sturdy bra under the top that frequently slid off her shoulders. Her shorts would have been over woman, not briefs. Carson suspected there were no wild women left now that River had taken both Jenny and Aunt Darla.
“She’s for you, Carson,” River roared behind him.
For me. River looks out for me. It had been several months since he’d had a woman. The young matron who worked in the store was too fat to desire and too happily married to realize she wasn’t appealing to most men.
The tourist said, “No one can fish in this weather, Carson.”
He laughed and asked, “Do you want to discover how wrong you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“River tells me my bank hooks and trot lines need running. Do you and your husband want to share the bounty?”
“He’s napping,” she said, bitterness making her voice brittle.
“Drunk?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Go easy,” River roared, her voice audible to all, her words intelligible only to those who believed. “Slowly, Carson. She isn’t your momma.”
“Don’t ever suffer the indignities I do, boy,” Jenny had told Carson again and again.
The indignities were those of a young woman without a steady source of love. He suffered his own, male indignities.
“The fish are alive,” he said. “I’ll throw most back. A wise man doesn’t take more from River than he needs. I’ll keep enough to share with you for dinner.”
“My husband says fish don’t bite in brown water.”
“All right.”
“What the hell does ‘all right’ mean?”
“Have a nice evening, ma’am. I don’t know what you’re eating, but I intend to fry fish, probably perch, maybe cat.”
He turned away.
“Wait!” she commanded.
“Wait!” River echoed.
“I can’t leave the girl with him,” the tourist said.
“Bring her. She’ll be safe with both of us watching.”
“That makes me safe from what I thought you wanted.”
“Does it?”
“In front of my own child?”
The lithe woman came from a background unlike Carson’s. How many moonlit nights had he seen his mother’s white bottom gleaming as she stretched across an overturned rowboat and presented herself to her man of the moment? He couldn’t recall the first time he’d seen redheaded Darla standing in the river nude, teasing a man until he overcame the cold water and entered her without dragging her ashore. Later he’d been the man with Aunt Darla.
“She’s ready,” River told him. “Don’t mention sex. Then she’ll feel free to accompany you for sexual reasons.”
Even if he hadn’t had other ways of knowing River was goddess instead of god, such reasoning would have told him he dealt with a female deity. Carson understood that he didn’t need to understand.
He said, “I can run my bank hooks alone. I need an adult’s help with my trot lines in this kind of water. The child can talk to River while we’re busy.”
The little girl stood passively in the door of the RV. He started walking downstream.
“Wait,” the woman said. “I’ll check on him.”
“Wait” seemed to be her favorite word, as though the world raced when she wanted it to proceed slowly. River told Carson the man was drunk and unconscious for the remainder of the day and probably all night, the better part of 750 milliliters of bourbon in him.
“Snoring,” the tourist said as she led the child from the RV door.
“Watch your little one closely. River won’t give her back if River gets her.”
“You care about kids, Carson.”
He said, “It’s never too soon for them to start learning nature’s secrets.”
“The river can tell her something?”
“River tells us a lot. Lift her over that dead cottonwood.”
The woman lifted the child over the fallen trunk. Carson boosted the mother up and over, his hand light on the seat of her khaki shorts. He vaulted the obstacle with practiced ease.
“You’re learning, Carson,” River told him. “She didn’t mind your touch. I’m sure you like that rump, even if it isn’t big and bouncy like your mother’s or Darla’s. You seduce her with ecology. How perfect. The slut comes here with plastic utensils she’ll throw in my channel and riding in a gas-guzzling RV, yet thinks of herself as a lover of me and all my kindred.”
“Rabbit hole to your right, missy,” Carson told the child.
“Her name is Melissa,” said the blonde tourist.
“That puts her ahead of you, Mrs. Blank.”
“Blank?”
“Fill in the blank on the registration form. He said your name was Gordon. Are you really a Gordon?”
“By marriage.”
He said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Gordon. Young Melissa Gordon wants to find Bugs Bunny.”
“Does Bugs live here?” the child asked.
“One of his cousins. Not the Easter Bunny, though.”
The woman asked, “Carson, are you a warlock?"
“I don’t know the word, Mrs. Gordon.”
“That means you can’t be a warlock. What would you call me if I weren’t Mrs. Gordon?”
“Blondie.”
“I like Blondie,” she told him. “Where does this goddamn river talk?”
He shuddered at the blasphemy–not against the God his neighbors told him lived in heaven, but against Goddess River.
“Right about here.”
Seventeen inches of channel catfish on his bank hook. Enough dinner for two, maybe three. He slipped the hook from its mouth, re-baited, and dropped it back in the muddy river.
“Big enough?” he challenged.
“With one too drunk to eat, it’s more than enough. What if I wanta see more than fish?”
“Do you trust me to look out for your daughter?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Melissa Gordon, front and center.”
The child came.
“River answers girls who ask her questions,” Carson said.
“Yes, sir.”
“River has to hear the question asked fourteen times.”
The child couldn’t count to fourteen. She knew it was a big number, though.
“What do I ask River, sir?” Melissa demanded.
Blondie had taught her daughter to speak courteously, but the child had yet to master the polite tone of voice. Perhaps she was spoiled by her drunken father during his sober spells.
“Ask River if your daddy will catch the fish you and I show him. Fourteen times, Melissa.”
“Yes, Mr. Carson. Where do I ask River the question?”
Four years old, he reckoned. Four smart years. When Carson was four, he hadn’t been ready to talk to River. He got Melissa seated on the bank and listened to her little voice asking about a fish. He walked back to her mother.
“She’s occupied,” he said.
“You’re good, Carson. Good in a way my husband doesn’t understand.”
They moved behind a screen of trees. He watched the garments come off–top, bra, shorts, briefs. She dropped to the ground, legs opening without urging. If he’d needed foreplay to get ready, he’d have failed. They were two animals rutting. While they coupled, he heard River roaring bawdy encouragement in the background.
“Yes, Carson,” Blondie said.
Yes to what? At this point, the act well underway, her yes or no meant nothing. They finished. He rolled off her and straightened his clothing. Aware of the girl, Blondie dressed quickly. They walked to the bank.
“I think that’s fourteen, Carson,” said the girl.
It was probably more like 114.
“What does River say, Melissa?”
“You and mommy and a trot line?”
“That’s what I hear her saying, too. Are you sleepy?”
“Yes.”
“The grass is soft, Melissa. Shall I carry you to your bed?”
“Yes, Mr. Carson.”
She was out before he stretched her small body on the grass. He looked down at her and bowed his head. River demanded a sacrifice. His mother had been high on drugs when Carson helped her fall in. Darla had needed no assistance. She’d caught a cramp while frolicking in the cold water and been swept away unnoticed. If River wanted Melissa, River would tell the child when and where to jump in. The child understood what River said. The mother thought the little one imagined it.
Blondie said, “You’re wonderful with kids, Carson.”
Carson’s presumed skill with children set him apart from the drunk asleep in the RV and provided a rationale for adultery. His mother and his aunt had never required a reason to spread for a man except their need for sex and the belief that the man for whom they opened their legs would make the experience good. He thought Blondie might have the ability to develop into the same type of wild swinger, but she’d never do so while chained to a sot and a brat.
“I listen to River, Blondie.”
“What comes next?”
“We run a trot line.”
“I’ve never done that.”
He said, “You start by taking off all your clothes.”
“I don’t know why I bothered putting them on.”
“The reason is named Melissa.”
She stripped quickly. He put his arm around her. She leaned against him.
“Bring the woman in,” River ordered.
He’d run his trot lines that morning and found nothing. The drunk wasn’t totally wrong about fish not biting in brown water. The cat on the bank hook had been River’s gift to him for obedience and obeisance. Carson jumped off the bank and into the waist-deep water, which ran
about a foot higher than normal. He helped Blondie down. She shivered as the cold water washed across her lower body.
“This is crazy,” she said. “This damn river is freezing.”
The blasphemy condemned her. River didn’t want Melissa. Melissa had met the goddess and been respectful. River wanted Blondie. His mother had called River a bitch and had died. Aunt Darla had cursed River the day Jenny Carson died and subsequently met her own fate in the spring-fed current. River was a jealous goddess, yet River loved those who worshiped and obeyed. They waded out into the stream. His trot line was slack and low, so that boats wouldn’t tangle in it. He moved easily, feeling River lave him with love. Blondie struggled and grabbed him several times to keep from being swept away.
“Take me out of this water, Carson. Warm me up the way you did before.”
“What’s your name?” he asked the woman.
“For you, Carson, I’ll always be Blondie. Blondie does what Susan never dared.”
“Good bye, Susan.”
He forced her under and held her until River accepted the sacrifice. Then he committed the tourist’s body to the current. He went back ashore for her clothing, swimming out to the middle of the channel with it after ripping the top and the bra and yanking a button off the shorts, so that it would seem as if the rushing current and hidden rocks had stripped Susan Gordon. He dressed and scooped up the sleeping Melissa, carrying her back to the RV where her drunk father lay atop the unmade bed, the bottle at his side. Carson rubbed some of the remaining bourbon over the child’s lips and teeth and tongue. When she awakened–River would make her sleep until there’d be no chance of the law suspecting Carson of anything–she’d babble about a river who told her where to find fish.
Carson took the catfish to the store and handed it to Sheila, his obese employee.
“Cook this for your family,” he said.
He gave her the rest of the afternoon off. There’d be no business. Rain would keep the tourists away. He relaxed on his front porch and listened to River talk and sing as she passed the Carson property. Her voice grew stronger as she drew healing from his sacrifice.
In memory of H.H. Morris
1937 – 2008
GODDESS RIVER IS NOT PLEASED
By H. H. Morris
People frequently said that Carson read the river like a book. The belief was false. Books are words on paper, one-way communication. When Carson talked to the river, goddess River answered him.
“You’re too brown,” Carson told River.
“Paved roads and parking lots are killing me.”
“A goddess doesn’t die.”
“A goddess gets sick. I need a sacrifice, Carson.”
“Yes, River.”
Was he her only worshiper left?
River arose in low mountains and understood that a straight line led her nowhere but into
the flow of a bigger god or goddess. Of course, the loss of identity was ultimately her fate, as it is the fate of all such deities. Even the Mississippi disappears in the greater godhead of the Gulf of Mexico. There was no need to rush toward that fate by flowing straight, however.
Carson hadn’t found such wisdom in a book. Goddess River had taught him, had explained from when he was a child why sacrifices were necessary. Foolish people also claimed that Carson could think like a fish and therefore found perch or cat when other resort owners and guides thought River barren of bounty. That was as absurd as calling River a book. He worshiped daily, sacrificed when commanded, and received River’s bounty in return. Any man or woman who worshiped and obeyed the goddess would find fish in abundance.
Although his mother had recognized River’s divinity, she’d refused to worship or sacrifice. She spoke to River only to curse the goddess. Jenny Carson had inherited the land from her parents, the third generation to hold the large house set against a bluff and far enough above River to have never flooded. Carson’s living, like his mother’s, came mostly from the low-lying land across the old state highway that had been downgraded to a county route when new, wider, straighter primary and secondary roads were carved through the hills. Much of the area was gravel bar. People swam from it and picnicked on it. The bar had parking space for 50 cars. Fishermen wandered slightly up or downstream from it to drop lines in the clear, cold water. River took her identity from the gods and goddesses of lesser streams forced to submerge themselves in her, and she used the power so accrued to reward one fisherman with a catch and punish the next with failure.
RV owners frequently camped on the gravel. Carson offered no electrical or plumbing services. He had no boat ramp, although those who wished could use his gravel bar to shove canoes or flat-bottomed fishing boats into the water. He charged a daily admission fee, whether it was a camper, a car, a bicycle, or a pedestrian entering. He demanded the same fee the next day. In addition, he sold groceries, camping supplies, and fishing gear in the store that took up much of the house’s lower level. When the highway had been rerouted, Carson should logically have gone out of business, as had two roadhouses, a service station, and a café along the same stretch of road.
Carson survived because he found fish. One angler told another, “I discovered this great spot to fish and a guide who mutters to the river as if it were alive and always finds fish when he floats with you.” So fishermen came, and those who camped brought wives and sometimes children. Some swimmers came because the gravel bar led to a gently sloping area where the current didn’t drag children away and where no deep holes trapped unwary waders. Other swimmers came because Carson, like his mother before him, didn’t care what they wore or didn’t wear.
“Carson,” said the blonde tourist, stepping out of her small RV, “are we parked too close to the river?”
“No,” he said. “River has finished rising unless we get more rain.”
“We’re the only campers. Will my little one be all right?”
Blondes beget blondes. It was as if the drunken, balding, dark-haired father didn’t exist.
This woman’s blondness reminded him of his mother’s. If her attitude was as disrespectful toward River. . . .
Don’t judge. River knows what River wants.
“Get something out of your high school education,” Jenny Carson had told her son. “Don’t be a river rat like me or a construction worker like your daddy. Run away from this bitch goddess River before she sucks the life out of you the way she did out of your granddaddy.”
His maternal grandparents had died before he was old enough to have clear memories of them. His father had been killed when a trench caved in on him. But if Jenny had worshiped River properly, she would have received the bounty River now gave to Carson.
He looked at the blonde tourist and said, “Little ones like to talk to River, ma’am. That’s the danger.”
“What do you mean, Carson?”
“When I was a kid, I got to know River. I talked to her. It did me good. Let your daughter wander along the bank. You keep your eyes open, the way my momma did. Your girl goes to bed and dreams fish. When River goes down, her daddy doesn’t need me or any other guide, provided he’ll let her dream him to the fish.”
“Where’s the danger in dreams?” the woman asked.
“River can make a child forget safety. River is so fascinating that everyone wants to step into her soothing waters. You watch so your little one doesn’t fall in.”
The earlier rain had become mist, creating an unseasonable chill. The blonde woman stared at him as she evaluated his questionable sanity. If she’d been his mother, a swinger shaped by the wild sixties, she wouldn’t have worn a sturdy bra under the top that frequently slid off her shoulders. Her shorts would have been over woman, not briefs. Carson suspected there were no wild women left now that River had taken both Jenny and Aunt Darla.
“She’s for you, Carson,” River roared behind him.
For me. River looks out for me. It had been several months since he’d had a woman. The young matron who worked in the store was too fat to desire and too happily married to realize she wasn’t appealing to most men.
The tourist said, “No one can fish in this weather, Carson.”
He laughed and asked, “Do you want to discover how wrong you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“River tells me my bank hooks and trot lines need running. Do you and your husband want to share the bounty?”
“He’s napping,” she said, bitterness making her voice brittle.
“Drunk?”
“What’s that to you?”
“Go easy,” River roared, her voice audible to all, her words intelligible only to those who believed. “Slowly, Carson. She isn’t your momma.”
“Don’t ever suffer the indignities I do, boy,” Jenny had told Carson again and again.
The indignities were those of a young woman without a steady source of love. He suffered his own, male indignities.
“The fish are alive,” he said. “I’ll throw most back. A wise man doesn’t take more from River than he needs. I’ll keep enough to share with you for dinner.”
“My husband says fish don’t bite in brown water.”
“All right.”
“What the hell does ‘all right’ mean?”
“Have a nice evening, ma’am. I don’t know what you’re eating, but I intend to fry fish, probably perch, maybe cat.”
He turned away.
“Wait!” she commanded.
“Wait!” River echoed.
“I can’t leave the girl with him,” the tourist said.
“Bring her. She’ll be safe with both of us watching.”
“That makes me safe from what I thought you wanted.”
“Does it?”
“In front of my own child?”
The lithe woman came from a background unlike Carson’s. How many moonlit nights had he seen his mother’s white bottom gleaming as she stretched across an overturned rowboat and presented herself to her man of the moment? He couldn’t recall the first time he’d seen redheaded Darla standing in the river nude, teasing a man until he overcame the cold water and entered her without dragging her ashore. Later he’d been the man with Aunt Darla.
“She’s ready,” River told him. “Don’t mention sex. Then she’ll feel free to accompany you for sexual reasons.”
Even if he hadn’t had other ways of knowing River was goddess instead of god, such reasoning would have told him he dealt with a female deity. Carson understood that he didn’t need to understand.
He said, “I can run my bank hooks alone. I need an adult’s help with my trot lines in this kind of water. The child can talk to River while we’re busy.”
The little girl stood passively in the door of the RV. He started walking downstream.
“Wait,” the woman said. “I’ll check on him.”
“Wait” seemed to be her favorite word, as though the world raced when she wanted it to proceed slowly. River told Carson the man was drunk and unconscious for the remainder of the day and probably all night, the better part of 750 milliliters of bourbon in him.
“Snoring,” the tourist said as she led the child from the RV door.
“Watch your little one closely. River won’t give her back if River gets her.”
“You care about kids, Carson.”
He said, “It’s never too soon for them to start learning nature’s secrets.”
“The river can tell her something?”
“River tells us a lot. Lift her over that dead cottonwood.”
The woman lifted the child over the fallen trunk. Carson boosted the mother up and over, his hand light on the seat of her khaki shorts. He vaulted the obstacle with practiced ease.
“You’re learning, Carson,” River told him. “She didn’t mind your touch. I’m sure you like that rump, even if it isn’t big and bouncy like your mother’s or Darla’s. You seduce her with ecology. How perfect. The slut comes here with plastic utensils she’ll throw in my channel and riding in a gas-guzzling RV, yet thinks of herself as a lover of me and all my kindred.”
“Rabbit hole to your right, missy,” Carson told the child.
“Her name is Melissa,” said the blonde tourist.
“That puts her ahead of you, Mrs. Blank.”
“Blank?”
“Fill in the blank on the registration form. He said your name was Gordon. Are you really a Gordon?”
“By marriage.”
He said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Gordon. Young Melissa Gordon wants to find Bugs Bunny.”
“Does Bugs live here?” the child asked.
“One of his cousins. Not the Easter Bunny, though.”
The woman asked, “Carson, are you a warlock?"
“I don’t know the word, Mrs. Gordon.”
“That means you can’t be a warlock. What would you call me if I weren’t Mrs. Gordon?”
“Blondie.”
“I like Blondie,” she told him. “Where does this goddamn river talk?”
He shuddered at the blasphemy–not against the God his neighbors told him lived in heaven, but against Goddess River.
“Right about here.”
Seventeen inches of channel catfish on his bank hook. Enough dinner for two, maybe three. He slipped the hook from its mouth, re-baited, and dropped it back in the muddy river.
“Big enough?” he challenged.
“With one too drunk to eat, it’s more than enough. What if I wanta see more than fish?”
“Do you trust me to look out for your daughter?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Melissa Gordon, front and center.”
The child came.
“River answers girls who ask her questions,” Carson said.
“Yes, sir.”
“River has to hear the question asked fourteen times.”
The child couldn’t count to fourteen. She knew it was a big number, though.
“What do I ask River, sir?” Melissa demanded.
Blondie had taught her daughter to speak courteously, but the child had yet to master the polite tone of voice. Perhaps she was spoiled by her drunken father during his sober spells.
“Ask River if your daddy will catch the fish you and I show him. Fourteen times, Melissa.”
“Yes, Mr. Carson. Where do I ask River the question?”
Four years old, he reckoned. Four smart years. When Carson was four, he hadn’t been ready to talk to River. He got Melissa seated on the bank and listened to her little voice asking about a fish. He walked back to her mother.
“She’s occupied,” he said.
“You’re good, Carson. Good in a way my husband doesn’t understand.”
They moved behind a screen of trees. He watched the garments come off–top, bra, shorts, briefs. She dropped to the ground, legs opening without urging. If he’d needed foreplay to get ready, he’d have failed. They were two animals rutting. While they coupled, he heard River roaring bawdy encouragement in the background.
“Yes, Carson,” Blondie said.
Yes to what? At this point, the act well underway, her yes or no meant nothing. They finished. He rolled off her and straightened his clothing. Aware of the girl, Blondie dressed quickly. They walked to the bank.
“I think that’s fourteen, Carson,” said the girl.
It was probably more like 114.
“What does River say, Melissa?”
“You and mommy and a trot line?”
“That’s what I hear her saying, too. Are you sleepy?”
“Yes.”
“The grass is soft, Melissa. Shall I carry you to your bed?”
“Yes, Mr. Carson.”
She was out before he stretched her small body on the grass. He looked down at her and bowed his head. River demanded a sacrifice. His mother had been high on drugs when Carson helped her fall in. Darla had needed no assistance. She’d caught a cramp while frolicking in the cold water and been swept away unnoticed. If River wanted Melissa, River would tell the child when and where to jump in. The child understood what River said. The mother thought the little one imagined it.
Blondie said, “You’re wonderful with kids, Carson.”
Carson’s presumed skill with children set him apart from the drunk asleep in the RV and provided a rationale for adultery. His mother and his aunt had never required a reason to spread for a man except their need for sex and the belief that the man for whom they opened their legs would make the experience good. He thought Blondie might have the ability to develop into the same type of wild swinger, but she’d never do so while chained to a sot and a brat.
“I listen to River, Blondie.”
“What comes next?”
“We run a trot line.”
“I’ve never done that.”
He said, “You start by taking off all your clothes.”
“I don’t know why I bothered putting them on.”
“The reason is named Melissa.”
She stripped quickly. He put his arm around her. She leaned against him.
“Bring the woman in,” River ordered.
He’d run his trot lines that morning and found nothing. The drunk wasn’t totally wrong about fish not biting in brown water. The cat on the bank hook had been River’s gift to him for obedience and obeisance. Carson jumped off the bank and into the waist-deep water, which ran
about a foot higher than normal. He helped Blondie down. She shivered as the cold water washed across her lower body.
“This is crazy,” she said. “This damn river is freezing.”
The blasphemy condemned her. River didn’t want Melissa. Melissa had met the goddess and been respectful. River wanted Blondie. His mother had called River a bitch and had died. Aunt Darla had cursed River the day Jenny Carson died and subsequently met her own fate in the spring-fed current. River was a jealous goddess, yet River loved those who worshiped and obeyed. They waded out into the stream. His trot line was slack and low, so that boats wouldn’t tangle in it. He moved easily, feeling River lave him with love. Blondie struggled and grabbed him several times to keep from being swept away.
“Take me out of this water, Carson. Warm me up the way you did before.”
“What’s your name?” he asked the woman.
“For you, Carson, I’ll always be Blondie. Blondie does what Susan never dared.”
“Good bye, Susan.”
He forced her under and held her until River accepted the sacrifice. Then he committed the tourist’s body to the current. He went back ashore for her clothing, swimming out to the middle of the channel with it after ripping the top and the bra and yanking a button off the shorts, so that it would seem as if the rushing current and hidden rocks had stripped Susan Gordon. He dressed and scooped up the sleeping Melissa, carrying her back to the RV where her drunk father lay atop the unmade bed, the bottle at his side. Carson rubbed some of the remaining bourbon over the child’s lips and teeth and tongue. When she awakened–River would make her sleep until there’d be no chance of the law suspecting Carson of anything–she’d babble about a river who told her where to find fish.
Carson took the catfish to the store and handed it to Sheila, his obese employee.
“Cook this for your family,” he said.
He gave her the rest of the afternoon off. There’d be no business. Rain would keep the tourists away. He relaxed on his front porch and listened to River talk and sing as she passed the Carson property. Her voice grew stronger as she drew healing from his sacrifice.
Temporal Redemption
Robin B. Lipinski loves to write and has more stories in his head tormenting him than he has life left to write them all. He lives with his wife and dogs in Anchor Point Alaska where he keeps busy writing, building, and trying to understand the meaning of life. He has self-published a self-help book, 'Signs of a Free Mind,' and is currently trying to get two other books published.
Temporal Redemption
Robin B. Lipinski
Lofty clouds, white, high, sweeping change, change the sky.
Lofty ideals, a woman sighs, sweeping change, change the sky.
Lofty emotions, boyhood choices, growing, changing, anger showing.
Crash the clouds in lightning, thunder bellow, change sky change.
Give me the answer on why.
“Body of Christ.”
“Amen.”
One simple word to answer the call of First Communion, a very important rite for the person receiving their affirmation of faith into the Catholic Church. Amen, the word spoken by Greg, a young boy of eight who now returned to his place in the pew with his other comrades in faith.
Greg’s mother and older brother, Sam, sat farther back in the church waiting their turn to enter the line to receive communion.
Tears rimmed the eyes of Greg’s mother. She was very proud of her children who were both students at St. Mary’s Catholic school. Sitting next to her, Sam snickered as only an older brother can at their younger sibling.
According to the time of adults, the age difference between Sam and Greg were miniscule, not even worthy of consideration. He was only four years older, proudly wearing the age of twelve. Of course, among children, four years can mean the difference between a baby and ancient.
“Sam, behave yourself,” the mother turned to scold him as he softy laughed while watching the ‘young’ children file up for their first taste at true redemption.
After mass was over, everyone filed out to gather in a reception room to celebrate the festive occasion. Young girls in vibrant white confirmation dresses mixed with the young boys dressed in black pants, white shirt, and tiny ties.
While cake and cookies were being munched on, Sam and their mother approached the smiling Greg.
“Looking good there dufus,” Sam said.
“Sam, behave yourself,” the mother said while giving him a twist of his right ear. Pain is still considered the reward for those youth who act badly.
“Ouch…OK, I’ll stop.”
Discipline over for the moment, she turned to the smiling young son, “Oh Greg, you look so handsome. It is hard to believe you are almost grown up.”
Smothering her son in a motherly embrace, it caused the red blush of embarrassment to show on Greg’s face.
“Mom, please stop that. My friends will laugh.”
Greg was correct, as his older brother let loose with a silent batting of his eyes and made a smooching-face towards his brother while the mothers back was turned to him.
The current situation was not noticed by the others, as they too, were being embraced and congratulated by friends and family complete with their own mini-drama. They experienced their own embarrassment, their own battles; it is this way as it always has been since time began.
After the reception, the young children, along with their families, headed off to whatever it is families do after such moments. For Greg and Sam, they headed home with their mother in the families beat up Volkswagen Jetta with Greg sitting in the back-seat making fun of his brother sitting in the front, while the mother sighed and said quietly to herself, “Boys…”
The family of mother and son’s was complete by being the three. There was a father of course, but he had moved out years earlier to spread his seed among those younger, easier, prettier, women. He considered his wife, and mother to his two boys’s, as being old, worn out, and a cranky bitch compared the young, fresh fruit the world had to offer.
Being a loser at being a father, he failed in making his monthly child support payments, leaving the mother to struggle raising two very hungry and fast growing boys. He instead, chose to spend his money on a new sports car, Viagra, and the other means necessary to bed the insatiable appetite of women seeking pleasure from such a loser.
The boy’s father had made the choice to marry and father the two children with his wife just as he made the choice to leave them all. Choice, a very important word in the human vocabulary. The choice to be good or bad, again, it is this way as it always has been since time began.
Cain and Able, good and bad, sweet and sour, yin and yang, the opposites repel, yet, the opposites attract. Choice is the perfect word to describe what we all must choose. It is the single word best used to describe humanity.
“Mom, Greg is messing with my stuff again,” an angry Sam exclaimed.
“I am not, Sam is lying. I’m just minding my own business.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I am not.”
“Am too.”
“Am not.”
“Am…”
“Boys, behave yourself. You both will be sorry if I have to come in there,” the exasperated mother said for the twentieth time for this day. If you add up the past few years, she had said such a phrase for thousands of times. Usually, just saying it worked, but occasionally, she had to enforce her words with actions. Corporal punishment in her family was enforced when she grew up and now that the boy’s father was absent, it was her only tool she had to enforce family discipline.
For her, the weapon of choice was a plastic cooking spoon which she would use to swat the boys butt’s. She did not whack with strength of frustration, as her father did to her and her fellow siblings, rather, she used just enough force to let the boy’s know it would be best to behave for awhile.
Sometimes, just telling the two to behave themselves while rattling the wooden drawer containing the ultimate solution to whatever current dilemma the two battling youths found so important, was enough to simmer the boiling pot of contention down for awhile. Yet, sometimes, even the use of the spoon did not solve the problem and the two would be at each other the moment their mother left the room.
Good and evil, it exists all around you. For Sam and Greg, to a stranger, it was as easy to see the difference between the two as it is to see the sun rise and set.
Greg was the perfect picture of a mother’s dream. He was polite, smart, good looking, peaceful, loving, and was a perfect student at school. He also was a good alter-boy and his mother thought he might even grow up and choose to be a priest.
Sam, on the other side of the coin, was boisterous, mediocre in intelligence, belligerent, and always seemed to get into trouble. As a baby, he constantly cried and fussed while his younger brother was a sweet angel.
If you are of the judging type, you would probably say the soul of Greg was destined for great things, that it would raise to the heavenly pillars while Sam’s soul would eventually drift to the bottom coals of the eternal flame tickling the choices which abound.
It may be hard to make any real judgment about the two based on the few words you have just read, or maybe you already have already figured out the plot of the story and judged Sam guilty of murder, of being an evil son-of-a-bitch. Or, that there is a twist in the story and Greg is actually the one pulling the strings of evil.
Innocent, or guilty? Humble or proud? There we go with the choice thing again. What the boy’s truly are, or will be, is entirely up to them just as it is your choice to continue reading to find out what is the reason for this story.
Boys grow up as that is what boys and girls do. Nothing can stop the progress of youth. Not God, not Satan, not you, not I, absolutely nothing can stop the parade of choices embraced or rejected.
The time for Sam and Greg speeded up as both left grade school and entered high school. The battle for the soul of both continued at the same speed they both grew.
“Hey Greg, wanna go smoke some weed?” a young, pimple covered girl, with colored hair questioned.
“No, I’m not into drugs. They are bad for you.”
“Ah, come on, it is only weed. It will make you feel mellow. It is not like you will become addicted or something.”
“No, besides, I’ve got to go help Mr. Barker in science lab. I told him I would help clean up storage bins.”
“Suit yourself, you’re gonna miss out though.”
While Greg resisted the temptation of smoking with his friends, his older brother was currently involved in his own choices.
“Man, have you been to the lane lately? Some mighty fine ladies been hanging there. Hanging the chest, if you know what I mean.”
“Sam, you wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if she was totally naked and sitting on your head.”
“I’ve had plenty of women on my head,” the smirking Sam replied. “In fact, Sally knows my head well.”
“Hey, Sally is my girl you prick. Watch what you’re saying about her,” the young man said while his temple started to throb with a redness of anger appearing on his face.
“Sally, sweet Sally, oh baby what a show, she knows my bed, she knows my head, sweet Sally, sweet Sally, I’ll take her to bed,” sang the young man, who now was also a high school senior.
Anger in the offended youth turned into the arm of force as the boy’s clenched fist stuck the chin of Sam as he continued to ridicule the friend’s girl friend in song.
Whack, the blow caught Sam directly on the chin, ending the singing instantly. Reaching up with his right hand, he rubbed the sore spot and glaring at the attacker, said, “So, you can’t take a little ribbing? What, are you that much of a pussy-whipped moron, unable to take a little joking?”
“It is no joke what you’re singing about my girl friend, no joke at all. If you keep it up, I’ll hit you again.”
A look of blackness overcame the face of Sam. His eyes turned inward, as he returned the look of anger, with anger. “Sally, sweet Sally, I’ll do her when, how, and when I want as sweet Sally is mine.”
“You son-of…”
Before the young man could finish his sentence while preparing his body for battle, Sam followed his offending words with the physical pain of foot planted into the groin of the victim.
With a soft thudding sound being made by his foot, the attack by Sam hardly made a sound, yet the sound the boy made, well, it was not soft at all. It sounded like what a wounded rabbit sounds like just before it dies at the hands of the butcher preparing the hare for dinner.
“Oh, you bastard! You’re gonna pay, Ohhhh…crap.”
The young man withered in pain on the floor while grabbing the family jewels in both hands, moaning and cursing Sam in language that would make a sailor blush.
“Hey Sam, a teachers coming. We got to get the hell out of here,” another young man said to the gloating form of devil standing over his victim on the floor.
“Yeah, you’re right, let’s go.”
While the small gang of Sam’s friends left the scene of pain, Sam could be heard singing, “Sally, sweet Sally, oh baby, what a show…” while walking down the long school hallway.
Young years for a young man do not stay young for long. After the incident between Sam and the young man in the hallway of the school, word of his actions previous, and now current, reached the ears of those in charge. As a result, Sam was expelled from school. It was probably better it was this way, as his grades were below dismal. An ant would maintain a better grade-point average than what Sam had done. Because of his expulsion, Sam was instantly thrust into the age of adult, as his own mother had finally realized how bad her son had turned. His choice at being bad lead him to now be on his own complete with his own anger. In a way, he had become a version of his father.
“Sorry to hear about what happened to your brother,” said the same young girl who earlier asked Greg if he would like to smoke some weed.
“I know, Sam always had a lot of anger issues, but something finally made him snap. My mom is pretty torn up about the whole situation.”
“What is he going to do? Without a diploma, he won’t be able to even get a good paying job.”
“I know, but whatever he does, I hope he does not hurt anyone else. After being subjected to his abuse, I know full well what evil he is capable of. At least now, he will go to jail for assault if he does anything like it again, his eighteenth birthday is next week.”
“Why do you think he attacked his friend like he did? I mean, gosh, Sally is a nice girl and those two were in love and not hurting anyone.”
“I know, but that is for Sam and himself to decide, not us,” Greg concluded the conversation and taking the young girl’s hand, the girl he had a strong crush on, walked with her down the same long hallway his brother had walked after attacking his friend. It brought both of them great pleasure.
Pleasure or pain, another choice we have. For some, pain is pleasure while pleasure is pain for others. It appears Sam enjoyed mocking and attacking his friend, relishing in the pain he caused, whereas, his brother Greg, relished the companionship of his love and to lead a life of being a good Christian. Oh the mystery of life.
Life in the family of three had changed. There were now only Greg and his mother living at home, the broken home whose mortgage was being paid by the mother working two jobs. Talk about the missing link, Sam, was hard. First, it was the father who caused the family pain, and now it was the brother, Sam, who drove the knife of pain further into the chest of harmony for the remaining two.
“Where did I go wrong?” the crying mother said about a week after Sam was kicked out of school. “How could this happen?”
“It was nothing you did mother, Sam always had a mean streak.”
“He was just a strong-willed boy, I never saw him in a bad way. You both fought like normal brothers do. It must have been your father and I who are responsible for how he turned out.”
“Mother, you did a great job raising us. Even if father was here, I’m sure Sam would have been the same as he is now. I’m sure of it.”
The mother sat and cried as that is what mothers do when seeing the failed ways of their children. Finally, she said, “Oh Greg, I’m so lucky I still have you.”
Greg shed a few tears and in reply, said, “I love you too mother.”
With that said, Greg and his mother hugged deeply and shared each other’s grief.
Meanwhile, Sam celebrated his eighteenth birthday stoned out of his mind. In just a few days, his transformation into being a truly horrible person was complete. He broke any law he chose to break, which was all of them. Any strings of morality or goodness was completely sheared in two by his current embrace of choices.
He stole a car when he wanted to drive somewhere. He stole merchandise from homes or stores when he wanted something. He stole the kiss of any whore he wanted when he wanted sex. Basically, he did what he wanted when he wanted. On his birthday, he wanted to erase some memories, especially the ones about his family. Why this is so, is a reason known only to him.
The afternoon following the eighteenth birthday of Sam, he had sobered up enough to steal a crappy piece of American automotive technology, a Ford escort. Driving past his old home, he noticed Greg walking with his girlfriend. This triggered a red mask of anger in him. Stopping the car, he jumped out and confronted his younger brother.
“Hey you little dweeb, aren’t you a little young to be fornicating? Aren’t you afraid you won’t go to heaven?”
“It’s none of your damn business what I’m doing. I’m no longer the brother you can push around.”
Like two young bull’s pawing the earth in preparation for battle, Sam and Greg exchanged body language that bespoke an escalating intention to erupt into violence.
“Come on Greg, he is not worth it,” the pretty young girl said with fear in her voice.
“Yeah, listen to the little cunt, you’re not worth it and neither is she,” the mocking voice cut into Greg’s heart faster than you can put a wooden knife into the soft butter in the dish.
Choice, much has been mentioned about the word in this story. I can see you chose to read this far and you can see the choices the characters in this story have chosen. What you can’t see, is the anger that had built up in Greg for years. Years starting at his birth.
First, it was his father leaving. Then, it was the torment of watching his mother slave at jobs to provide a roof and food for his brother and he. Followed by years of being subjected to his brother’s anger and abuse.
Greg always chose the path of goodness. He went to mass with his mother every Sunday. He abstained from pre-marital sex. He abstained from drug, drink, and any form of juvenile delinquency. He was a good boy. He loved his mother, his friends, even his enemy. But, at the moment, he snapped.
Greg chose violence.
Launching himself at his brother, he screamed, “Ahhhh!”
The older brother locked into battle with the younger brother. Blood was spilled.
Screaming, Greg’s girlfriend tried to break the fight up, but was not even able to come within five feet of the two. To do so, would make her susceptible to great injury, as the two traded blows, kicks, and primordial yells.
Panting hard, the two continued a conflict as old as mankind itself. Above the combatants, the spring clouds were forming into a typical thunderstorm, common for this time of year.
“You are a prick,” Greg said, while regaining some breath, facing his brother, who was also trying to regain his strength.
“And you are just a momma’s boy. Always have been, always will be. Now you are going to cling to that dumb cunt standing over there. Is she going to be your new mommy?”
Years of pent up anger are hard to contain, that is why they are pent up. Adding the anger to the insult of his brother about his girlfriend, Greg squeezed out some more adrenalin into his raging heart and leaped forward once again.
The two locked together, only this time, Greg had picked up a large stone while rolling on the ground with his brother. Smashing the weight into the side of his brother’s head, he was met with instant gratification of seeing Sam grow weak.
Again and again, the stone filled hand struck, the screaming sounds of his girlfriend let the whole world know of the horror occurring.
Soon, reality set in. Greg was astraddle of his dead brother’s body, holding the blood covered rock high over the mutilated head of one who had spent years tormenting him. The ‘good’ boy immediately heaved in a sob and dropped the rock while regaining his feet.
Looking at the screaming form of his girlfriend and the arriving group of witness’s, Greg cried, “What have I done?”
Pulling aside the curtains, the sounds of screaming had awoken their mother. She had only recently gone to bed from putting in a hard sixteen hours of work. What greeted her view, was a shock.
She saw her dead son, Sam, lying in a fresh puddle of blood. Standing above the body, was her other son, Greg, covered in the crimson color of blood.
It was too much for her to handle, and as is common in such extreme moments of shock, she lost consciousness, striking her head on the table, adding her life to the other recently departed in death.
Above the scene, the sky opened in sound as the bolt of lightning split the sky in turmoil and sound. It would be a bad storm arriving, a very bad storm indeed.
Temporal Redemption
Robin B. Lipinski
Lofty clouds, white, high, sweeping change, change the sky.
Lofty ideals, a woman sighs, sweeping change, change the sky.
Lofty emotions, boyhood choices, growing, changing, anger showing.
Crash the clouds in lightning, thunder bellow, change sky change.
Give me the answer on why.
“Body of Christ.”
“Amen.”
One simple word to answer the call of First Communion, a very important rite for the person receiving their affirmation of faith into the Catholic Church. Amen, the word spoken by Greg, a young boy of eight who now returned to his place in the pew with his other comrades in faith.
Greg’s mother and older brother, Sam, sat farther back in the church waiting their turn to enter the line to receive communion.
Tears rimmed the eyes of Greg’s mother. She was very proud of her children who were both students at St. Mary’s Catholic school. Sitting next to her, Sam snickered as only an older brother can at their younger sibling.
According to the time of adults, the age difference between Sam and Greg were miniscule, not even worthy of consideration. He was only four years older, proudly wearing the age of twelve. Of course, among children, four years can mean the difference between a baby and ancient.
“Sam, behave yourself,” the mother turned to scold him as he softy laughed while watching the ‘young’ children file up for their first taste at true redemption.
After mass was over, everyone filed out to gather in a reception room to celebrate the festive occasion. Young girls in vibrant white confirmation dresses mixed with the young boys dressed in black pants, white shirt, and tiny ties.
While cake and cookies were being munched on, Sam and their mother approached the smiling Greg.
“Looking good there dufus,” Sam said.
“Sam, behave yourself,” the mother said while giving him a twist of his right ear. Pain is still considered the reward for those youth who act badly.
“Ouch…OK, I’ll stop.”
Discipline over for the moment, she turned to the smiling young son, “Oh Greg, you look so handsome. It is hard to believe you are almost grown up.”
Smothering her son in a motherly embrace, it caused the red blush of embarrassment to show on Greg’s face.
“Mom, please stop that. My friends will laugh.”
Greg was correct, as his older brother let loose with a silent batting of his eyes and made a smooching-face towards his brother while the mothers back was turned to him.
The current situation was not noticed by the others, as they too, were being embraced and congratulated by friends and family complete with their own mini-drama. They experienced their own embarrassment, their own battles; it is this way as it always has been since time began.
After the reception, the young children, along with their families, headed off to whatever it is families do after such moments. For Greg and Sam, they headed home with their mother in the families beat up Volkswagen Jetta with Greg sitting in the back-seat making fun of his brother sitting in the front, while the mother sighed and said quietly to herself, “Boys…”
The family of mother and son’s was complete by being the three. There was a father of course, but he had moved out years earlier to spread his seed among those younger, easier, prettier, women. He considered his wife, and mother to his two boys’s, as being old, worn out, and a cranky bitch compared the young, fresh fruit the world had to offer.
Being a loser at being a father, he failed in making his monthly child support payments, leaving the mother to struggle raising two very hungry and fast growing boys. He instead, chose to spend his money on a new sports car, Viagra, and the other means necessary to bed the insatiable appetite of women seeking pleasure from such a loser.
The boy’s father had made the choice to marry and father the two children with his wife just as he made the choice to leave them all. Choice, a very important word in the human vocabulary. The choice to be good or bad, again, it is this way as it always has been since time began.
Cain and Able, good and bad, sweet and sour, yin and yang, the opposites repel, yet, the opposites attract. Choice is the perfect word to describe what we all must choose. It is the single word best used to describe humanity.
“Mom, Greg is messing with my stuff again,” an angry Sam exclaimed.
“I am not, Sam is lying. I’m just minding my own business.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I am not.”
“Am too.”
“Am not.”
“Am…”
“Boys, behave yourself. You both will be sorry if I have to come in there,” the exasperated mother said for the twentieth time for this day. If you add up the past few years, she had said such a phrase for thousands of times. Usually, just saying it worked, but occasionally, she had to enforce her words with actions. Corporal punishment in her family was enforced when she grew up and now that the boy’s father was absent, it was her only tool she had to enforce family discipline.
For her, the weapon of choice was a plastic cooking spoon which she would use to swat the boys butt’s. She did not whack with strength of frustration, as her father did to her and her fellow siblings, rather, she used just enough force to let the boy’s know it would be best to behave for awhile.
Sometimes, just telling the two to behave themselves while rattling the wooden drawer containing the ultimate solution to whatever current dilemma the two battling youths found so important, was enough to simmer the boiling pot of contention down for awhile. Yet, sometimes, even the use of the spoon did not solve the problem and the two would be at each other the moment their mother left the room.
Good and evil, it exists all around you. For Sam and Greg, to a stranger, it was as easy to see the difference between the two as it is to see the sun rise and set.
Greg was the perfect picture of a mother’s dream. He was polite, smart, good looking, peaceful, loving, and was a perfect student at school. He also was a good alter-boy and his mother thought he might even grow up and choose to be a priest.
Sam, on the other side of the coin, was boisterous, mediocre in intelligence, belligerent, and always seemed to get into trouble. As a baby, he constantly cried and fussed while his younger brother was a sweet angel.
If you are of the judging type, you would probably say the soul of Greg was destined for great things, that it would raise to the heavenly pillars while Sam’s soul would eventually drift to the bottom coals of the eternal flame tickling the choices which abound.
It may be hard to make any real judgment about the two based on the few words you have just read, or maybe you already have already figured out the plot of the story and judged Sam guilty of murder, of being an evil son-of-a-bitch. Or, that there is a twist in the story and Greg is actually the one pulling the strings of evil.
Innocent, or guilty? Humble or proud? There we go with the choice thing again. What the boy’s truly are, or will be, is entirely up to them just as it is your choice to continue reading to find out what is the reason for this story.
Boys grow up as that is what boys and girls do. Nothing can stop the progress of youth. Not God, not Satan, not you, not I, absolutely nothing can stop the parade of choices embraced or rejected.
The time for Sam and Greg speeded up as both left grade school and entered high school. The battle for the soul of both continued at the same speed they both grew.
“Hey Greg, wanna go smoke some weed?” a young, pimple covered girl, with colored hair questioned.
“No, I’m not into drugs. They are bad for you.”
“Ah, come on, it is only weed. It will make you feel mellow. It is not like you will become addicted or something.”
“No, besides, I’ve got to go help Mr. Barker in science lab. I told him I would help clean up storage bins.”
“Suit yourself, you’re gonna miss out though.”
While Greg resisted the temptation of smoking with his friends, his older brother was currently involved in his own choices.
“Man, have you been to the lane lately? Some mighty fine ladies been hanging there. Hanging the chest, if you know what I mean.”
“Sam, you wouldn’t know what to do with a woman if she was totally naked and sitting on your head.”
“I’ve had plenty of women on my head,” the smirking Sam replied. “In fact, Sally knows my head well.”
“Hey, Sally is my girl you prick. Watch what you’re saying about her,” the young man said while his temple started to throb with a redness of anger appearing on his face.
“Sally, sweet Sally, oh baby what a show, she knows my bed, she knows my head, sweet Sally, sweet Sally, I’ll take her to bed,” sang the young man, who now was also a high school senior.
Anger in the offended youth turned into the arm of force as the boy’s clenched fist stuck the chin of Sam as he continued to ridicule the friend’s girl friend in song.
Whack, the blow caught Sam directly on the chin, ending the singing instantly. Reaching up with his right hand, he rubbed the sore spot and glaring at the attacker, said, “So, you can’t take a little ribbing? What, are you that much of a pussy-whipped moron, unable to take a little joking?”
“It is no joke what you’re singing about my girl friend, no joke at all. If you keep it up, I’ll hit you again.”
A look of blackness overcame the face of Sam. His eyes turned inward, as he returned the look of anger, with anger. “Sally, sweet Sally, I’ll do her when, how, and when I want as sweet Sally is mine.”
“You son-of…”
Before the young man could finish his sentence while preparing his body for battle, Sam followed his offending words with the physical pain of foot planted into the groin of the victim.
With a soft thudding sound being made by his foot, the attack by Sam hardly made a sound, yet the sound the boy made, well, it was not soft at all. It sounded like what a wounded rabbit sounds like just before it dies at the hands of the butcher preparing the hare for dinner.
“Oh, you bastard! You’re gonna pay, Ohhhh…crap.”
The young man withered in pain on the floor while grabbing the family jewels in both hands, moaning and cursing Sam in language that would make a sailor blush.
“Hey Sam, a teachers coming. We got to get the hell out of here,” another young man said to the gloating form of devil standing over his victim on the floor.
“Yeah, you’re right, let’s go.”
While the small gang of Sam’s friends left the scene of pain, Sam could be heard singing, “Sally, sweet Sally, oh baby, what a show…” while walking down the long school hallway.
Young years for a young man do not stay young for long. After the incident between Sam and the young man in the hallway of the school, word of his actions previous, and now current, reached the ears of those in charge. As a result, Sam was expelled from school. It was probably better it was this way, as his grades were below dismal. An ant would maintain a better grade-point average than what Sam had done. Because of his expulsion, Sam was instantly thrust into the age of adult, as his own mother had finally realized how bad her son had turned. His choice at being bad lead him to now be on his own complete with his own anger. In a way, he had become a version of his father.
“Sorry to hear about what happened to your brother,” said the same young girl who earlier asked Greg if he would like to smoke some weed.
“I know, Sam always had a lot of anger issues, but something finally made him snap. My mom is pretty torn up about the whole situation.”
“What is he going to do? Without a diploma, he won’t be able to even get a good paying job.”
“I know, but whatever he does, I hope he does not hurt anyone else. After being subjected to his abuse, I know full well what evil he is capable of. At least now, he will go to jail for assault if he does anything like it again, his eighteenth birthday is next week.”
“Why do you think he attacked his friend like he did? I mean, gosh, Sally is a nice girl and those two were in love and not hurting anyone.”
“I know, but that is for Sam and himself to decide, not us,” Greg concluded the conversation and taking the young girl’s hand, the girl he had a strong crush on, walked with her down the same long hallway his brother had walked after attacking his friend. It brought both of them great pleasure.
Pleasure or pain, another choice we have. For some, pain is pleasure while pleasure is pain for others. It appears Sam enjoyed mocking and attacking his friend, relishing in the pain he caused, whereas, his brother Greg, relished the companionship of his love and to lead a life of being a good Christian. Oh the mystery of life.
Life in the family of three had changed. There were now only Greg and his mother living at home, the broken home whose mortgage was being paid by the mother working two jobs. Talk about the missing link, Sam, was hard. First, it was the father who caused the family pain, and now it was the brother, Sam, who drove the knife of pain further into the chest of harmony for the remaining two.
“Where did I go wrong?” the crying mother said about a week after Sam was kicked out of school. “How could this happen?”
“It was nothing you did mother, Sam always had a mean streak.”
“He was just a strong-willed boy, I never saw him in a bad way. You both fought like normal brothers do. It must have been your father and I who are responsible for how he turned out.”
“Mother, you did a great job raising us. Even if father was here, I’m sure Sam would have been the same as he is now. I’m sure of it.”
The mother sat and cried as that is what mothers do when seeing the failed ways of their children. Finally, she said, “Oh Greg, I’m so lucky I still have you.”
Greg shed a few tears and in reply, said, “I love you too mother.”
With that said, Greg and his mother hugged deeply and shared each other’s grief.
Meanwhile, Sam celebrated his eighteenth birthday stoned out of his mind. In just a few days, his transformation into being a truly horrible person was complete. He broke any law he chose to break, which was all of them. Any strings of morality or goodness was completely sheared in two by his current embrace of choices.
He stole a car when he wanted to drive somewhere. He stole merchandise from homes or stores when he wanted something. He stole the kiss of any whore he wanted when he wanted sex. Basically, he did what he wanted when he wanted. On his birthday, he wanted to erase some memories, especially the ones about his family. Why this is so, is a reason known only to him.
The afternoon following the eighteenth birthday of Sam, he had sobered up enough to steal a crappy piece of American automotive technology, a Ford escort. Driving past his old home, he noticed Greg walking with his girlfriend. This triggered a red mask of anger in him. Stopping the car, he jumped out and confronted his younger brother.
“Hey you little dweeb, aren’t you a little young to be fornicating? Aren’t you afraid you won’t go to heaven?”
“It’s none of your damn business what I’m doing. I’m no longer the brother you can push around.”
Like two young bull’s pawing the earth in preparation for battle, Sam and Greg exchanged body language that bespoke an escalating intention to erupt into violence.
“Come on Greg, he is not worth it,” the pretty young girl said with fear in her voice.
“Yeah, listen to the little cunt, you’re not worth it and neither is she,” the mocking voice cut into Greg’s heart faster than you can put a wooden knife into the soft butter in the dish.
Choice, much has been mentioned about the word in this story. I can see you chose to read this far and you can see the choices the characters in this story have chosen. What you can’t see, is the anger that had built up in Greg for years. Years starting at his birth.
First, it was his father leaving. Then, it was the torment of watching his mother slave at jobs to provide a roof and food for his brother and he. Followed by years of being subjected to his brother’s anger and abuse.
Greg always chose the path of goodness. He went to mass with his mother every Sunday. He abstained from pre-marital sex. He abstained from drug, drink, and any form of juvenile delinquency. He was a good boy. He loved his mother, his friends, even his enemy. But, at the moment, he snapped.
Greg chose violence.
Launching himself at his brother, he screamed, “Ahhhh!”
The older brother locked into battle with the younger brother. Blood was spilled.
Screaming, Greg’s girlfriend tried to break the fight up, but was not even able to come within five feet of the two. To do so, would make her susceptible to great injury, as the two traded blows, kicks, and primordial yells.
Panting hard, the two continued a conflict as old as mankind itself. Above the combatants, the spring clouds were forming into a typical thunderstorm, common for this time of year.
“You are a prick,” Greg said, while regaining some breath, facing his brother, who was also trying to regain his strength.
“And you are just a momma’s boy. Always have been, always will be. Now you are going to cling to that dumb cunt standing over there. Is she going to be your new mommy?”
Years of pent up anger are hard to contain, that is why they are pent up. Adding the anger to the insult of his brother about his girlfriend, Greg squeezed out some more adrenalin into his raging heart and leaped forward once again.
The two locked together, only this time, Greg had picked up a large stone while rolling on the ground with his brother. Smashing the weight into the side of his brother’s head, he was met with instant gratification of seeing Sam grow weak.
Again and again, the stone filled hand struck, the screaming sounds of his girlfriend let the whole world know of the horror occurring.
Soon, reality set in. Greg was astraddle of his dead brother’s body, holding the blood covered rock high over the mutilated head of one who had spent years tormenting him. The ‘good’ boy immediately heaved in a sob and dropped the rock while regaining his feet.
Looking at the screaming form of his girlfriend and the arriving group of witness’s, Greg cried, “What have I done?”
Pulling aside the curtains, the sounds of screaming had awoken their mother. She had only recently gone to bed from putting in a hard sixteen hours of work. What greeted her view, was a shock.
She saw her dead son, Sam, lying in a fresh puddle of blood. Standing above the body, was her other son, Greg, covered in the crimson color of blood.
It was too much for her to handle, and as is common in such extreme moments of shock, she lost consciousness, striking her head on the table, adding her life to the other recently departed in death.
Above the scene, the sky opened in sound as the bolt of lightning split the sky in turmoil and sound. It would be a bad storm arriving, a very bad storm indeed.
Gospels of Blood
Paul Allen Leoncini:Paul is San Diego Native, a published musician/founder of Infamous Sinphony 88 to 95, and happily married to his lovely wife Jinky, and currently works as a pharmacy tech to pay the bills.
I've written ten novels, Horror, Fantasy, and two YA, and a book entitled Conjuror; published by PA Books in 08. I love playing my guitar, and writing Novels and riding my skateboard along the Pacific Beach Boardwalk
. . Gospels of Blood
By Paul Allen Leoncini
Aquarius: one
Outside Aquarius’s window many-things were visible, the Church’s tottering steeple, the town that surrounded it with bright slanted facades, the Memphis Cemetery, and thousands of rows of abandoned tombstones reflecting hot under the sun, and into the gray of eternity, into the hateful doom. What wasn’t visible was a terrible fear that gripped the town with more reports of murders, and more unexplained sightings outside Aquarius’s window. She prayed that it would go away, prayed for the town, prayed for her family, prayed to god, but something terrible answered her back, whispering outside her window one sordid night.
She prayed for help but something terrible answered her back, whispering outside her window one sordid night.
Why are you afraid, child? The demon said.
Aquarius never answered and would just lay there, the covers pulled over her head, with just enough cotton peeled open to see the demon’s grin, to see the thing’s grievances.
Yes, it promised many things to her, unspeakable things that would surely beget her once its work was finished, once the game of flesh was done away with, the chains that kept the devil from her grace. That refused intimacy of touch, it’d get her someday it’d promise, despite the bonds of flesh.
What would she do runaway from home? Runaway from the dammed thing, or be called crazy like the others in town had been.
She had seen her share of victims like her institutionalized for less, and proofed more than the frightened complaints of twenty-one year old. Grandpa had warned her of making gossip, making trouble for the both of them wasn’t just bad; it was bad luck, and bad for business.
Although she never confided to the old-man about the demon outside her window, and never gave away to fear, with a shriek in the middle of the night, or called out for help during the witching hour. She’d rather die than betray Grandfather’s faith.
IV
That day began as any another day; the tired eyes, the restless nights, the Devil outside her window, promising the world, promising his love. All she had to do was ask for it. Something most people had suffered for, he would willingly grant the world to her, and more; all she had to do was just ask for it, all she would have to do was beg for it upon dirtied knees, the demon seed promised, at Aquarius’ window, upon so many frayed nights.
It had been several weeks since the Demon’s arrival, since the murders, and disappearances unraveled on the nightly news with gruesome details. Seems there was a serial killer in the town of Crypt, and whoever it was was out for more than blood. Cryptic messages were left upon the victim’s skin, tattooed like freaks of art, freaks of literature; stitched to their outer shells. It was too much to comprehend with more stories of victims’ apparitions haunting the streets, yet it happened every night, and nobody wanted to believe it, especially Aquarius, and Grandfather Joe.
It was the devil alright, and the devil ought to be left alone, left to his incredulous devices, Grandfather preached, preached like the devil himself, and cursed all of Hell’s creation. Sure that End Times had arrived and was waiting outside, howling in the winds with the ghouls said to be loosed upon the countryside.
There were murders, yes, but they weren’t the acts of deranged homicidal maniacs, they were the result of something far more insidious that was not of the fruited plains or amber waves of grain, rest assured. The place didn’t need the bad publicity, times were bad enough and unexplained phenomenon flesh or ghoul tainted the breeze with more than just stench, and the gruesome murders compelled many things, but justice wasn’t one of them.
“Morning Sunshine,” barked the boisterous Grandfather, Joe.
Aquarius yawned, awaking truant once again, “Morning! Is there coffee?”
“It’s in the pot.”
She plopped down upon a wood chair, at the kitchen table, and complained. “I am so tired, Joe.”
“Nonsense.”
She stared vacantly into Grandpa’s ancient gaze, the previous night’s horrors reverberating between her ears, and bloodshot eyes, the devil’s whispers tempting her, fatigued with another day of work ahead of her at the Diner.
Kill him! Kill him!
“Something wrong, honey?”
Her eyes answered, yes. “No.”
“The devil keep you up all night, again?” he laughed.
He’s making fun of you Aquarius, make him pay for it.
“Shut up!” she shouted aloud.
“Be still, girl,” demanded Grandpa Joe.
“Go to Hell old man!” she hollered, got up from the table, and glanced briefly out the window to the Memphis Cemetery. “The stories are real, as real as we are, and all your Bible talk won’t do a damn thing to protect us from that.”
“Blasphemy! Utter Blasphemy. We’ve been safe thus far young lady. And don’t you forget it,” he said, and pounded the table with clenched fists, and half chewed food pouring out his mouth.
“I don’t care, I don’t want to live here anymore, I don’t want to hear the devil in my head, and the things he says.” She confessed. “It’s driving crazy, old man! Don’t you understand?”
“Get out of my sight!” he sneered, the morning sun failing under darkening clouds, and the rumble of thunder beyond the Blue Mountains beckoned outside.
Kill him! Do it now, do it fast, do it for love, do it for Satan?
The voices returned with vigor, they returned without the cloak of night, without the gruel of tears, and the delirium of sleepless fog, reserved for the Witching Hour as they usually had in the past. Now they haunted her thoughts during the days, as well. A butter knife lay next to the yellow dish:
Pick it up Aquarius, and slit the Bastard’s throat.
“No. Not today, not ever, I’ve got to go to work, I’ve got to get out of here,” she hollered, shaking the demon’s thoughts from her head, ridding the unthinkable looming within her thoughts, shadowed like voluminous beings upon the inside of her skull, spindly and grotesque. The truth of their errands lost between shadow and light, reality and illusion.
Grandpa Joe watched on, disbelief upon his jaundice face, cigarette dangling between his emaciated lips, and said. “Don’t come back, till you start making some god damn sense.”
She ignored him, ignored the Devil, ignored the fiendish threats, and went up the stairs to shower and change, the volume of the television drowning Grandpa’s religious epithets away. It was time to clean the rabble from within and without, infecting her thoughts; a shower was just the thing to wash it all away, just the thing to wash all the sins away from her conscience, and welcome back the positive in her life. Welcome home the clean upon her greasy skin, and greasy thoughts.
The waters welcomed her, cold at first, and then warmed the length of her salubrious body, like a thing alive washing the sins away. Every wretched morning with the birth of despair, came another plea for forgiveness, under the splash of hot water, under the wash of hollowed fluids, reckoned from the well beneath the house. From the well Grandpa Joe drilled with his own two hands, with the sweat of hard work under the fingernails, and the waters welcomed the world, and the waters welcomed the living, despite the demon’s seed.
Red Pumps met her bare feet, and tight blue jeans were laid out the night before with a bright linen blouse, set neatly upon the bed. Beside the vanity, crowded with bottles of perfumes was a bar stool she used to access the mirror and the little Make-up, she often wore. She readied quicker than usual that day and after several minutes sauntered down the stairs and shunted out the front door without saying goodbye to Grandpa Joe, as she normally would.
V
From the kitchen window, Joe watched Aquarius leave and get into her battered Volkswagen Bug; music echoed as she speeds off down Willow St and disappeared from view.
Voices emerged for him, as well, except Joe denied them, on account of Aquarius, on account of the Lord, on account of the Scriptures. Because they were the way and the light, and he never went against God, even though he had seen things that presented grave problems to his faith; things that undermined his sanity. He’d seen hideous things, incredulous things; apparitions, nebulous beings, haunting the streets, and outside the house, things so terrible, he left home only when necessary, and pretended alls well concerning his Granddaughter. The reality was that all was terribly wrong, and appeared things weren’t going to get any better anytime soon.
“Worlds coming to an end,” he said out loud, he talked to himself often, and witnesses had occasion to call him crazy for it. “We’re doomed; I’ll tell you we’re all doomed.” He poured himself another cup of coffee.
What makes you think that, my Son?
“Huh?” Joe looked around. “Who said that?” But there was no answer, not at first.
Outside, playful chatter reverberated through the window; relax old man, it’s just the birds is all.
Is it? Appeared the unwanted voice, once again, crocus.
“What do you want? Who’s there?”
Who do you think it is, child, the devil?
“I don’t know, I don’t know? What do you want with us?”
Us, child?
“Quit calling me Child! Quit calling me Child!” Have I lost my mind?
Suddenly, a door slammed somewhere in the home, someplace upstairs, in the attic. Joe’s eyes found the hallway, where the stairs began, and said, “Who’s there?
Booted footfall answered above, slapping the floorboards, and faded away. Joe followed them into the next room, the air stale like old cigarette smoke, his bewildered eyes sought the upstairs’ banister, and there was nobody there. Chills inexplicably populated his skin, an unseen thing shunting around one of the second floor bedrooms, cultivating hesitation.
The thing that spoke to him earlier like a god, like a devil, like an undead thing, meant for hollowed ground.
“Who the hell’s up in there?” he shouted. Was it human?
The house groaned, as it awakened to the unwelcome visitor, and Joe’s insolent questions.
“I don’t like strangers, especially thieves.” Each word was another step closer to the staircase, and the unexplained ruckus upstairs, each accusation given birth to courage, and faith.
It could have been anybody up there, anybody, anything, except ghosts and goblins don’t exist, do they? He was a sensible man with many Western orthodoxy beliefs, and nothing from death’s doorstep, or the House of God had ever darkened his doorstep.
He witnessed much from his windows, much in the streets, in the gutters, his home was supposed to be safe from the evils of the world, safe form the wickedness of Crypt’s City limits. This wasn’t any ordinary morning however, he had heard the voices for himself this time, and weren’t the rants granddaughter Aquarius this time. They were as plane as day, as clear as rain water, as problematic as physics, and as chilling as ice. That didn’t bother Joe none, he had his faith to protect him, he had the Word of God to counteract the delirium of the Devil. He muttered the words of a familiar psalm under his breath, finding the first stair underfoot, and the clutter of controversy delinquent somewhere within the two-story dwelling.
Joe had had enough hollering through the house, expecting an answer, expecting the culprit to come out from hiding, to reveal themselves without confrontation, without the banalities of Police, or violence. It was the lord that would see him through that quiet morning, the power and the glory of the everlasting; was it not? Each step forward, creaked with the aged timber of early construction, heightened from the crazy din inside of the somewhat religious decorated interior.
At the top of the stairs, a wooden crucifix hung with the tiny body of Jesus Christ nailed to it, and more accompaniments of contemporary ornamental religiosity of sacred saints and statues praying. He hesitated at the elegant banister, surreptitiously exploring the hall and the god-fearing paraphernalia, offering comfort for eager eyes. With tethered apprehension, as if he were a visitor in his own home, as if he’d been a stranger in a strange land, as if he were a trespasser, an out maneuvered fool; he dared follow the corridor to granddaughter’s bedroom, and have a look for him. To see what was making that racket.
Nervously, he shouted, yet again, “Who’s in there?”
I am
“I am?
Yes, answered the intruder, I am. Don’t you know me?
“Know you? I don’t understand,” answered Joe, stepping toward Aquarius’ darkened bedroom door.
And why not, you’re a child of God, are you not?
“Better than the Devil’s fool!”
God forbid!
“Get out of here, whatever you are? Get out of my house.”
That’s not very nice, Believer, that’s not very nice at all.
Joe continued forward and toward oblivion, toward the unknown, toward the devil, perhaps to God? He reached for the warn apparatuses upon the door, and turned it easily enough, without even a squeak.
What took you so long? A breath of cold air pressed against his face, as if it were alive, and the door swung open.
He scanned the poster ridden walls, and stepped oddly through the threshold, the window afar had been left open and he went to close it, but the pane had jammed tight.
Bam!
The door slammed behind him and the window suddenly plunged down upon his wretched fingers, having been distracted. Screams bellowed from his burning lungs, tears crawled from reddened cheeks; and the broken strips, his bleeding fingers swelled black and blue, like sausages.
“God help me!” he cried, desperate for reconciliation.
I am here child, answered the disembodied voice.
“No! Not you.”
Why not?
“You’re hurting me” He cried. “Please god help me!” More prayers rushed to his lips.
I am, helping you, child.
“Huh?”
You’re a sinner, a rotten sinner.
“I don’t understand,” shouted Joe, unable to rid the window clamped upon his fingers, unable to rid the malicious voice from his brain.
You must suffer to rid yourself of Sin, child.
Suddenly Joe was freed, he fell to weakened knees, upon his weeping face, the utter realization of failure, and suffering.
Quiet child, we’ve only just begun to redeem your soul.
VI
Several blocks from home, Aquarius sickened, something was wrong, and the sudden urge to turn around and go home rifled through her psyche. Yet, work was already in view, and abruptly snatched the thought away. She pulled into the black-top drive, and passed different colored models of vehicles, some fancy, others economical, most she just didn’t like. Even so, the sun chased the hate away and the sun shown brightly upon her innocent features. Early, she stretched her legs with a cup of coffee, as usual.
Inside the shanty restaurant where she worked was decorated with fricassee statues, smelled of sausage, fresh cinnamon-sprig, and espresso. Several tables were occupied with quiet conversation, and the newspaper stand headlines read in bold letters BODIES FOUND AT WHITE CHAPEL. She briefly glanced through the pages before settling in with a teen magazine, and waited for service. Soon a man from Pakistan, the owner, offered a smile and word of good luck.
“Here for coffee, I see?”
She smiled back—and found-quiet-place at the rear of the restaurant, where she could look out the front window—encase she’d been followed. Thickets of early morning cloud shadows emerged outside; dampening the sun, dampening her spirits, with the cup of coffee the proprietor sat before her beleaguered eyes. They coalesced together, and clouded the blended brew, the façade of ghouls swimming in her spoon. The parking lot conjured more images, what was once a bright shiny day, bloomed with the bitterness of gloom, spewed with the shinny of something wrath from the middle of earth, to the plains of the living plaguing her meanderings with the cream and sugar, and the murmuring of modest patrons.
What were they talking about? Were they talking about her, or the scourge of murders, and what of Grandfather Joe?
Their faces suggested nothing except food between their cheeks, yet Aquarius refused to believe it. She refused to believe that the world was sane like she was that the world was hypnotized by the blur of signs around them, around the town of Crypt. Fooled by their television sets and bombastic tom fooleries, couldn’t they see what she seen, couldn’t they see the transparent horrors huddling, shadowed by light, stained in blood, in retribution. The thought dirtied her, dirtied the reality with the falsity of ignorance, with the dismay of slaughter.
It was coming for her as well; she just knew it. It’d come for her like it’d come for the others. It was coming for them too.
“Aquarius?”
She looked up, broken from thought, somebody was calling her name? It was co-worker Carol, standing in the lobby waving to her.
“Come on, honey, you’ll be late for work.”
Abreast of the time, Carol was right; it was getting late, work called. Except upon standing to meet her friend, somebody else, something horrible suddenly appeared beside her. The vaporous bulk of mist materialized with the glint of steel in its paws, something horrible was happening and there was nothing anybody could do about it, especially Aquarius.
She screamed, “Look out!” But it was too late, the bewildering mass slit Carol’s throat like melon, and the woman toppled to the floor.
Gagging from the hideous gruel spewing from the wounds, Aquarius followed suit and monkey crawled in retreat; fearing the thing would come for her, as well.
“Somebody help her,” shouted a customer, nearby.
The proprietor, Adam came to Aquarius’ aid, and offered a hand up from the floor, assuring her that there was nothing to be afraid of.
She opened sweaty eyes, and Carol stood over her with that delightful smile as always, and said, “What’s that matter babe?”
She lives!
“I think you should sit down, and forget about work today.”
“I think your right,” said Aquarius tears rolling down her cheeks, and holding Carol’s outstretched hand. The proprietor snatching harassing flies from mid air, with clenched fists, just beyond the staring customer’s greedy eyes. “I think I am going to be sick?”
“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” offered Carol.
Still embraced with the previously shocking events boiled in her skull, Aquarius hesitantly agreed to go along.
Paying for the coffee, the two of them left for Aquarius’ home in Carol’s car, leaving Aquarius’s vehicle in the parking lot till a friend could drop it off later.Little conversation exchanged between the two of them save for Carol’s random small talk about work gossip.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” interrupted Aquarius, abruptly.
Carol looked surprised, revealing a crooked grin, and skeptical plucked eyebrows.
“I am serious, I can’t take this town anymore, I can’t take the murders, and the damn cemeteries.”
“Never bothered you before, honey?”
“That was before you were murdered.”
Murdered? What are you talking about, sweetheart? I am not murdered, I am right here with you.” She held Aquarius’ hand.
“I saw you die; I saw the devil grinning at you back, as you bled all over Adam’s floor, all over The Chicken Nest,” she complained desperately.
“Jesus Aquarius! What’s wrong with you?
“You’re next, Carol, you’re next, I tell you. Better get out of Crypt before they come and get you, better get out of town before you wind up like all the others. Before you wind up like me.”
“You’re scaring me, Aquarius. Don’t talk like that
“Talk like what, the truth? I’ve been silent far too long, and now it’s too late, the devil’s on the loose, he’s the one responsible for the unexplained murders.”
“Oh my God, Aquarius, You’re fucking crazy!”
“Maybe, you’re right, Carol.”
With those words they rounded the corner, and home loomed up ahead.
“There it is!”
“I’ve been here before, honey. I know where you live,” said Carol, and pulled into the driveway. “I want to talk to your Grandfather Aquarius; that alright?”
“Sure, he’ll want the company.” She frowned; home wasn’t where she really wanted to be, especially there. But sleep was a rare commodity, truant of late that beckoned from her bedroom window.
Was the devil waiting for her?
She looked up to the window where the demon lurked, where the thing that haunted her crept outside and kept her up all night; riddling the woes of the wailing world to her, and promising everything except for lustful flesh, the ghoul promised would come as well, rest assured. She didn’t believe in promises, she didn’t believe in much of anything, especially of late.
Carol lead the way, oddly enough, determined to have words with Grandpa Joe, on dear granddaughter’s behalf, she had seen her share of abuse and reckoned it was Grandpa Joe’s doing, all of his doing and something needed to be done about it. She stopped just short of the door and waited for the lingering Aquarius, slothfully creeping up the half dozen laddered façade, just steps away, just steps away from the chilling breath waiting inside.
“Hold on, Carol, I’ve got the keys. Grandpa likes to keep the doors locked at all hours, day an night. It’s a pain in the ass, especially, when you’re in and out all the time like myself.”
“Where is he, he usually meets us at the door?”
“He’s in there somewhere, I’d imagine?” and fumbled for the keys, just as the door creaked opened with the stench of something queer. “Where you at old man?”
Carol pressed ahead, sure of herself, sure of her woe begotten friend, the friend that needed help, and was sure she could help with just a few words with Grandpa Joe. Just a few chosen words: she’d done it before, when Aquarius pretended to leave the Cafe every night, and instead held out, and hid in the bathroom, hid from the sleepless nights at home, hid from the self ridicule, psychological abandonment. She not let it happen to her friend once again.
“Joe. You home?” She echoed Aquarius’ words with words of her own, but there was no answer, the doldrums quiet, save for the ticking of a Grandfather Clock hidden from thirsty eyes, from the rest of the random furniture, and terrible world outside. By the time Carol turned around Aquarius was gone; where’d you go? She followed the short corridor into the living room and gathered her thoughts and a sharp lookout for Joe. At closer inspection, the room was scattered with odd religious paraphernalia, Jesus statues, and the rest of assorted saints and conjurors were nailed to the postcard cluttered walls. There was also dozens of incense cauldrons bruised with ashes, blackened with soot darkened with the prayers of the past, with the prayers of the dead.
Although modest, the rooms were bigger than the three-story place looked, and Carol soon found that out, along with the door to the basement ajar, and a slant of thirty or more stairs beckoning her to come down and join them at the bottom. She mouthed the words Joe but the sound resonated not, and she found that her legs ignored her commandments as well, and against better judgment descended the gauntlet of steps, surreptitiously goggling the murk, and asked:
“You down there, anybody?” She continued hesitantly, the scent of sweet cloves scintillating the air. “I can here you down there, Joe.”
Hushed voices, the chattering of tools reverberated with conversation; they met Carol emerging from the grim lightlessness, except for the fizzing of a delinquent lamp overhead, somewhere down the seemingly vast basement corridor. She offered a look back at the opened door atop of the stairs and bargained the real world was just outside;there was nothing to be afraid of.
“Is someone there, I can hear you in there,” she shouted, weak kneed, then the door atop the stairs slammed shut and a light went on overhead, and Joe stood there a wicked grin peeled upon his sweaty face.
“What you doing down here, Carol?”
“Jesus Joe, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
There was an awkward pause, before Carol answered with. “I wanted to talk to you about Aquarius.”
Joe glared into here glazed eyes, as if hypnotized, as he’d been dumb-struck by her question, or the devil lurked inside him.
“You ok, Joe?”
“Why, is there something a matter with me?” he said, calmly. “Do I look sick or something? Thought you were here to talk about Aquarius; that little bitch!”
“Pardon me, Joe, I think I’ve had about enough of your callous remarks, however Aquarius needs help. And as her friend, I wanted you to know about that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving. No wonder she’s got problems, thought you were a religious man?” Carol turned her back on Joe.
He watched her ascend the darkened stairwell, toward the closed door, toward the first floor with the Devil whispering in his head, with hell it was enough to have burned his soul, possessed his thoughts and actions, even after a life time of faithful servitude. He wouldn’t be servant to anybody again, especially to flesh. With one swift lunge, he grabbed Carol’s fleeting ankle, and pulled the stunned, flailing, and screaming woman to the floor, and dragged her down the voluminous corridor.
“God needs sinners too,” he boasted.
“No, let me go, you Bastard!” She wailed, snapping fresh painted nails into the carpeted floor with bloodied screams, and gnashing of teeth. “Somebody, help me, dear God!”
VII
Upstairs, sleepy eyed at the second floor banister, the muffled cries of a woman and the volley of neighborhood dogs outside shrilled the hair on the back of Aquarius’ neck, and wrought dismay upon her gentle features.
What the hell’s that?
Her gaze followed the anomalous shrills, with her tanned legs downstairs, searching for the delirious errand, and the sharpened famine fading into obscurity.
“Carol, Grandpa?” she called out nervously, and listened; where’d they go?
Retracing Carol’s steps from the front entrance, she entered into the living room that accessed the basement below, and the door shut tight. She glanced through the front window, and Carol’s car still sat parked out front, and then there echoed the faint clutter of laughter from beneath the wood floor, from beneath her bare feet, from behind the closed door. For an instantaneous moment, she balked at opening the barred threshold, feigned at turning the key, to the things that lurked just behind the door.
She was just hearing things; it was her imagination that’s all, that’s all it was: a voice told her in her head. Go on, open it, don’t be afraid, the words spurred her onward, spurred her forward into places she ought not to tread, places Grandfather forbid her go, places she’d been afraid of since childhood, places that rumbled with scent of rot, like her bedroom window upstairs reeked of evil.
The door burped open with a cold blast of fetid air, and the ghoulish squeal of an animal of some kind shadowed by the descending well of stairs and suffocating movements. She held her breath and tongue, afraid to call out into the fitful doom, afraid to give herself away. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, she was afraid of the murderous apparitions that lurked beneath its lucid veil, beneath the remains of the Memphis Cemetery across the road.
One step at a time, she managed the tiers, one after the other, no haste in her steps, and no urgency suggested anything else. The dizziness welcomed her with the emptiness of quiet; the dark welcomed her with the sweat of dank air, and murmuring from the din. She continued despite her imagination, despite the devils that surely lurked beyond reality’s gaze, beyond the fog of shadow, save for the swaying gleam of fizzing light, dangling at the bottom of the stairwell.
Voices suddenly emerged in argument, once again; it was a woman’s voice, it was carol’s soft natured words expelling insults, and cries for mercy, cries for help. Aquarius stood frozen for several desperate seconds, frozen as what she should do, and wishing it would go away: wishing she’d wake up and find that she had been sleeping all along, wishing that she would have stayed at work. Notwithstanding, Carol needed her help, and she was going to give it to her, and careened down the lightless space hoping for the best, hoping that it was all a miserable mistake, all a big misunderstanding. As she rounded the corner, a manheld Carol by the throat veiled in shadow; it was Grandpa, and for a second time stopped, then he slit her throat.
“The slaughtered lamb,” he hollered [praising his invisible god] and gutted more flesh like the catch of the day. I’ve saved another sinner honey, I’ve saved another.” And wiped the blood from his chin with one hand and with the other greasy paw, dropped Carol’s floundering corpse to the floor.
With the half rattled remains of her friend squirming on the floor, she panicked; slipping in the gruel and monkey crawled to the foot of the stairs, overwhelmed, and the insults of the lord threatening her with lash and limb, threatening her with psalms.
“Get away from me! Get the Fuck away!” she hollered, and kicked the maddened man in his frothing face. “Go to hell!”
Stunned, Joe keeled over onto his maniacal expression, his slobbering tongue bitten clean off, and flopped like a salamander, the terrible screams of a possessed man, cursing God, and cursing granddaughter; he’d tear her watery eyes out of their beds.
Ignoring the gargled threats, Aquarius was already atop of the landing; she’d lock him in the basement, with Carol’s stiffening remains, forever: he’d never get out, alive.
I've written ten novels, Horror, Fantasy, and two YA, and a book entitled Conjuror; published by PA Books in 08. I love playing my guitar, and writing Novels and riding my skateboard along the Pacific Beach Boardwalk
. . Gospels of Blood
By Paul Allen Leoncini
Aquarius: one
Outside Aquarius’s window many-things were visible, the Church’s tottering steeple, the town that surrounded it with bright slanted facades, the Memphis Cemetery, and thousands of rows of abandoned tombstones reflecting hot under the sun, and into the gray of eternity, into the hateful doom. What wasn’t visible was a terrible fear that gripped the town with more reports of murders, and more unexplained sightings outside Aquarius’s window. She prayed that it would go away, prayed for the town, prayed for her family, prayed to god, but something terrible answered her back, whispering outside her window one sordid night.
She prayed for help but something terrible answered her back, whispering outside her window one sordid night.
Why are you afraid, child? The demon said.
Aquarius never answered and would just lay there, the covers pulled over her head, with just enough cotton peeled open to see the demon’s grin, to see the thing’s grievances.
Yes, it promised many things to her, unspeakable things that would surely beget her once its work was finished, once the game of flesh was done away with, the chains that kept the devil from her grace. That refused intimacy of touch, it’d get her someday it’d promise, despite the bonds of flesh.
What would she do runaway from home? Runaway from the dammed thing, or be called crazy like the others in town had been.
She had seen her share of victims like her institutionalized for less, and proofed more than the frightened complaints of twenty-one year old. Grandpa had warned her of making gossip, making trouble for the both of them wasn’t just bad; it was bad luck, and bad for business.
Although she never confided to the old-man about the demon outside her window, and never gave away to fear, with a shriek in the middle of the night, or called out for help during the witching hour. She’d rather die than betray Grandfather’s faith.
IV
That day began as any another day; the tired eyes, the restless nights, the Devil outside her window, promising the world, promising his love. All she had to do was ask for it. Something most people had suffered for, he would willingly grant the world to her, and more; all she had to do was just ask for it, all she would have to do was beg for it upon dirtied knees, the demon seed promised, at Aquarius’ window, upon so many frayed nights.
It had been several weeks since the Demon’s arrival, since the murders, and disappearances unraveled on the nightly news with gruesome details. Seems there was a serial killer in the town of Crypt, and whoever it was was out for more than blood. Cryptic messages were left upon the victim’s skin, tattooed like freaks of art, freaks of literature; stitched to their outer shells. It was too much to comprehend with more stories of victims’ apparitions haunting the streets, yet it happened every night, and nobody wanted to believe it, especially Aquarius, and Grandfather Joe.
It was the devil alright, and the devil ought to be left alone, left to his incredulous devices, Grandfather preached, preached like the devil himself, and cursed all of Hell’s creation. Sure that End Times had arrived and was waiting outside, howling in the winds with the ghouls said to be loosed upon the countryside.
There were murders, yes, but they weren’t the acts of deranged homicidal maniacs, they were the result of something far more insidious that was not of the fruited plains or amber waves of grain, rest assured. The place didn’t need the bad publicity, times were bad enough and unexplained phenomenon flesh or ghoul tainted the breeze with more than just stench, and the gruesome murders compelled many things, but justice wasn’t one of them.
“Morning Sunshine,” barked the boisterous Grandfather, Joe.
Aquarius yawned, awaking truant once again, “Morning! Is there coffee?”
“It’s in the pot.”
She plopped down upon a wood chair, at the kitchen table, and complained. “I am so tired, Joe.”
“Nonsense.”
She stared vacantly into Grandpa’s ancient gaze, the previous night’s horrors reverberating between her ears, and bloodshot eyes, the devil’s whispers tempting her, fatigued with another day of work ahead of her at the Diner.
Kill him! Kill him!
“Something wrong, honey?”
Her eyes answered, yes. “No.”
“The devil keep you up all night, again?” he laughed.
He’s making fun of you Aquarius, make him pay for it.
“Shut up!” she shouted aloud.
“Be still, girl,” demanded Grandpa Joe.
“Go to Hell old man!” she hollered, got up from the table, and glanced briefly out the window to the Memphis Cemetery. “The stories are real, as real as we are, and all your Bible talk won’t do a damn thing to protect us from that.”
“Blasphemy! Utter Blasphemy. We’ve been safe thus far young lady. And don’t you forget it,” he said, and pounded the table with clenched fists, and half chewed food pouring out his mouth.
“I don’t care, I don’t want to live here anymore, I don’t want to hear the devil in my head, and the things he says.” She confessed. “It’s driving crazy, old man! Don’t you understand?”
“Get out of my sight!” he sneered, the morning sun failing under darkening clouds, and the rumble of thunder beyond the Blue Mountains beckoned outside.
Kill him! Do it now, do it fast, do it for love, do it for Satan?
The voices returned with vigor, they returned without the cloak of night, without the gruel of tears, and the delirium of sleepless fog, reserved for the Witching Hour as they usually had in the past. Now they haunted her thoughts during the days, as well. A butter knife lay next to the yellow dish:
Pick it up Aquarius, and slit the Bastard’s throat.
“No. Not today, not ever, I’ve got to go to work, I’ve got to get out of here,” she hollered, shaking the demon’s thoughts from her head, ridding the unthinkable looming within her thoughts, shadowed like voluminous beings upon the inside of her skull, spindly and grotesque. The truth of their errands lost between shadow and light, reality and illusion.
Grandpa Joe watched on, disbelief upon his jaundice face, cigarette dangling between his emaciated lips, and said. “Don’t come back, till you start making some god damn sense.”
She ignored him, ignored the Devil, ignored the fiendish threats, and went up the stairs to shower and change, the volume of the television drowning Grandpa’s religious epithets away. It was time to clean the rabble from within and without, infecting her thoughts; a shower was just the thing to wash it all away, just the thing to wash all the sins away from her conscience, and welcome back the positive in her life. Welcome home the clean upon her greasy skin, and greasy thoughts.
The waters welcomed her, cold at first, and then warmed the length of her salubrious body, like a thing alive washing the sins away. Every wretched morning with the birth of despair, came another plea for forgiveness, under the splash of hot water, under the wash of hollowed fluids, reckoned from the well beneath the house. From the well Grandpa Joe drilled with his own two hands, with the sweat of hard work under the fingernails, and the waters welcomed the world, and the waters welcomed the living, despite the demon’s seed.
Red Pumps met her bare feet, and tight blue jeans were laid out the night before with a bright linen blouse, set neatly upon the bed. Beside the vanity, crowded with bottles of perfumes was a bar stool she used to access the mirror and the little Make-up, she often wore. She readied quicker than usual that day and after several minutes sauntered down the stairs and shunted out the front door without saying goodbye to Grandpa Joe, as she normally would.
V
From the kitchen window, Joe watched Aquarius leave and get into her battered Volkswagen Bug; music echoed as she speeds off down Willow St and disappeared from view.
Voices emerged for him, as well, except Joe denied them, on account of Aquarius, on account of the Lord, on account of the Scriptures. Because they were the way and the light, and he never went against God, even though he had seen things that presented grave problems to his faith; things that undermined his sanity. He’d seen hideous things, incredulous things; apparitions, nebulous beings, haunting the streets, and outside the house, things so terrible, he left home only when necessary, and pretended alls well concerning his Granddaughter. The reality was that all was terribly wrong, and appeared things weren’t going to get any better anytime soon.
“Worlds coming to an end,” he said out loud, he talked to himself often, and witnesses had occasion to call him crazy for it. “We’re doomed; I’ll tell you we’re all doomed.” He poured himself another cup of coffee.
What makes you think that, my Son?
“Huh?” Joe looked around. “Who said that?” But there was no answer, not at first.
Outside, playful chatter reverberated through the window; relax old man, it’s just the birds is all.
Is it? Appeared the unwanted voice, once again, crocus.
“What do you want? Who’s there?”
Who do you think it is, child, the devil?
“I don’t know, I don’t know? What do you want with us?”
Us, child?
“Quit calling me Child! Quit calling me Child!” Have I lost my mind?
Suddenly, a door slammed somewhere in the home, someplace upstairs, in the attic. Joe’s eyes found the hallway, where the stairs began, and said, “Who’s there?
Booted footfall answered above, slapping the floorboards, and faded away. Joe followed them into the next room, the air stale like old cigarette smoke, his bewildered eyes sought the upstairs’ banister, and there was nobody there. Chills inexplicably populated his skin, an unseen thing shunting around one of the second floor bedrooms, cultivating hesitation.
The thing that spoke to him earlier like a god, like a devil, like an undead thing, meant for hollowed ground.
“Who the hell’s up in there?” he shouted. Was it human?
The house groaned, as it awakened to the unwelcome visitor, and Joe’s insolent questions.
“I don’t like strangers, especially thieves.” Each word was another step closer to the staircase, and the unexplained ruckus upstairs, each accusation given birth to courage, and faith.
It could have been anybody up there, anybody, anything, except ghosts and goblins don’t exist, do they? He was a sensible man with many Western orthodoxy beliefs, and nothing from death’s doorstep, or the House of God had ever darkened his doorstep.
He witnessed much from his windows, much in the streets, in the gutters, his home was supposed to be safe from the evils of the world, safe form the wickedness of Crypt’s City limits. This wasn’t any ordinary morning however, he had heard the voices for himself this time, and weren’t the rants granddaughter Aquarius this time. They were as plane as day, as clear as rain water, as problematic as physics, and as chilling as ice. That didn’t bother Joe none, he had his faith to protect him, he had the Word of God to counteract the delirium of the Devil. He muttered the words of a familiar psalm under his breath, finding the first stair underfoot, and the clutter of controversy delinquent somewhere within the two-story dwelling.
Joe had had enough hollering through the house, expecting an answer, expecting the culprit to come out from hiding, to reveal themselves without confrontation, without the banalities of Police, or violence. It was the lord that would see him through that quiet morning, the power and the glory of the everlasting; was it not? Each step forward, creaked with the aged timber of early construction, heightened from the crazy din inside of the somewhat religious decorated interior.
At the top of the stairs, a wooden crucifix hung with the tiny body of Jesus Christ nailed to it, and more accompaniments of contemporary ornamental religiosity of sacred saints and statues praying. He hesitated at the elegant banister, surreptitiously exploring the hall and the god-fearing paraphernalia, offering comfort for eager eyes. With tethered apprehension, as if he were a visitor in his own home, as if he’d been a stranger in a strange land, as if he were a trespasser, an out maneuvered fool; he dared follow the corridor to granddaughter’s bedroom, and have a look for him. To see what was making that racket.
Nervously, he shouted, yet again, “Who’s in there?”
I am
“I am?
Yes, answered the intruder, I am. Don’t you know me?
“Know you? I don’t understand,” answered Joe, stepping toward Aquarius’ darkened bedroom door.
And why not, you’re a child of God, are you not?
“Better than the Devil’s fool!”
God forbid!
“Get out of here, whatever you are? Get out of my house.”
That’s not very nice, Believer, that’s not very nice at all.
Joe continued forward and toward oblivion, toward the unknown, toward the devil, perhaps to God? He reached for the warn apparatuses upon the door, and turned it easily enough, without even a squeak.
What took you so long? A breath of cold air pressed against his face, as if it were alive, and the door swung open.
He scanned the poster ridden walls, and stepped oddly through the threshold, the window afar had been left open and he went to close it, but the pane had jammed tight.
Bam!
The door slammed behind him and the window suddenly plunged down upon his wretched fingers, having been distracted. Screams bellowed from his burning lungs, tears crawled from reddened cheeks; and the broken strips, his bleeding fingers swelled black and blue, like sausages.
“God help me!” he cried, desperate for reconciliation.
I am here child, answered the disembodied voice.
“No! Not you.”
Why not?
“You’re hurting me” He cried. “Please god help me!” More prayers rushed to his lips.
I am, helping you, child.
“Huh?”
You’re a sinner, a rotten sinner.
“I don’t understand,” shouted Joe, unable to rid the window clamped upon his fingers, unable to rid the malicious voice from his brain.
You must suffer to rid yourself of Sin, child.
Suddenly Joe was freed, he fell to weakened knees, upon his weeping face, the utter realization of failure, and suffering.
Quiet child, we’ve only just begun to redeem your soul.
VI
Several blocks from home, Aquarius sickened, something was wrong, and the sudden urge to turn around and go home rifled through her psyche. Yet, work was already in view, and abruptly snatched the thought away. She pulled into the black-top drive, and passed different colored models of vehicles, some fancy, others economical, most she just didn’t like. Even so, the sun chased the hate away and the sun shown brightly upon her innocent features. Early, she stretched her legs with a cup of coffee, as usual.
Inside the shanty restaurant where she worked was decorated with fricassee statues, smelled of sausage, fresh cinnamon-sprig, and espresso. Several tables were occupied with quiet conversation, and the newspaper stand headlines read in bold letters BODIES FOUND AT WHITE CHAPEL. She briefly glanced through the pages before settling in with a teen magazine, and waited for service. Soon a man from Pakistan, the owner, offered a smile and word of good luck.
“Here for coffee, I see?”
She smiled back—and found-quiet-place at the rear of the restaurant, where she could look out the front window—encase she’d been followed. Thickets of early morning cloud shadows emerged outside; dampening the sun, dampening her spirits, with the cup of coffee the proprietor sat before her beleaguered eyes. They coalesced together, and clouded the blended brew, the façade of ghouls swimming in her spoon. The parking lot conjured more images, what was once a bright shiny day, bloomed with the bitterness of gloom, spewed with the shinny of something wrath from the middle of earth, to the plains of the living plaguing her meanderings with the cream and sugar, and the murmuring of modest patrons.
What were they talking about? Were they talking about her, or the scourge of murders, and what of Grandfather Joe?
Their faces suggested nothing except food between their cheeks, yet Aquarius refused to believe it. She refused to believe that the world was sane like she was that the world was hypnotized by the blur of signs around them, around the town of Crypt. Fooled by their television sets and bombastic tom fooleries, couldn’t they see what she seen, couldn’t they see the transparent horrors huddling, shadowed by light, stained in blood, in retribution. The thought dirtied her, dirtied the reality with the falsity of ignorance, with the dismay of slaughter.
It was coming for her as well; she just knew it. It’d come for her like it’d come for the others. It was coming for them too.
“Aquarius?”
She looked up, broken from thought, somebody was calling her name? It was co-worker Carol, standing in the lobby waving to her.
“Come on, honey, you’ll be late for work.”
Abreast of the time, Carol was right; it was getting late, work called. Except upon standing to meet her friend, somebody else, something horrible suddenly appeared beside her. The vaporous bulk of mist materialized with the glint of steel in its paws, something horrible was happening and there was nothing anybody could do about it, especially Aquarius.
She screamed, “Look out!” But it was too late, the bewildering mass slit Carol’s throat like melon, and the woman toppled to the floor.
Gagging from the hideous gruel spewing from the wounds, Aquarius followed suit and monkey crawled in retreat; fearing the thing would come for her, as well.
“Somebody help her,” shouted a customer, nearby.
The proprietor, Adam came to Aquarius’ aid, and offered a hand up from the floor, assuring her that there was nothing to be afraid of.
She opened sweaty eyes, and Carol stood over her with that delightful smile as always, and said, “What’s that matter babe?”
She lives!
“I think you should sit down, and forget about work today.”
“I think your right,” said Aquarius tears rolling down her cheeks, and holding Carol’s outstretched hand. The proprietor snatching harassing flies from mid air, with clenched fists, just beyond the staring customer’s greedy eyes. “I think I am going to be sick?”
“Come on, I’ll drive you home,” offered Carol.
Still embraced with the previously shocking events boiled in her skull, Aquarius hesitantly agreed to go along.
Paying for the coffee, the two of them left for Aquarius’ home in Carol’s car, leaving Aquarius’s vehicle in the parking lot till a friend could drop it off later.Little conversation exchanged between the two of them save for Carol’s random small talk about work gossip.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” interrupted Aquarius, abruptly.
Carol looked surprised, revealing a crooked grin, and skeptical plucked eyebrows.
“I am serious, I can’t take this town anymore, I can’t take the murders, and the damn cemeteries.”
“Never bothered you before, honey?”
“That was before you were murdered.”
Murdered? What are you talking about, sweetheart? I am not murdered, I am right here with you.” She held Aquarius’ hand.
“I saw you die; I saw the devil grinning at you back, as you bled all over Adam’s floor, all over The Chicken Nest,” she complained desperately.
“Jesus Aquarius! What’s wrong with you?
“You’re next, Carol, you’re next, I tell you. Better get out of Crypt before they come and get you, better get out of town before you wind up like all the others. Before you wind up like me.”
“You’re scaring me, Aquarius. Don’t talk like that
“Talk like what, the truth? I’ve been silent far too long, and now it’s too late, the devil’s on the loose, he’s the one responsible for the unexplained murders.”
“Oh my God, Aquarius, You’re fucking crazy!”
“Maybe, you’re right, Carol.”
With those words they rounded the corner, and home loomed up ahead.
“There it is!”
“I’ve been here before, honey. I know where you live,” said Carol, and pulled into the driveway. “I want to talk to your Grandfather Aquarius; that alright?”
“Sure, he’ll want the company.” She frowned; home wasn’t where she really wanted to be, especially there. But sleep was a rare commodity, truant of late that beckoned from her bedroom window.
Was the devil waiting for her?
She looked up to the window where the demon lurked, where the thing that haunted her crept outside and kept her up all night; riddling the woes of the wailing world to her, and promising everything except for lustful flesh, the ghoul promised would come as well, rest assured. She didn’t believe in promises, she didn’t believe in much of anything, especially of late.
Carol lead the way, oddly enough, determined to have words with Grandpa Joe, on dear granddaughter’s behalf, she had seen her share of abuse and reckoned it was Grandpa Joe’s doing, all of his doing and something needed to be done about it. She stopped just short of the door and waited for the lingering Aquarius, slothfully creeping up the half dozen laddered façade, just steps away, just steps away from the chilling breath waiting inside.
“Hold on, Carol, I’ve got the keys. Grandpa likes to keep the doors locked at all hours, day an night. It’s a pain in the ass, especially, when you’re in and out all the time like myself.”
“Where is he, he usually meets us at the door?”
“He’s in there somewhere, I’d imagine?” and fumbled for the keys, just as the door creaked opened with the stench of something queer. “Where you at old man?”
Carol pressed ahead, sure of herself, sure of her woe begotten friend, the friend that needed help, and was sure she could help with just a few words with Grandpa Joe. Just a few chosen words: she’d done it before, when Aquarius pretended to leave the Cafe every night, and instead held out, and hid in the bathroom, hid from the sleepless nights at home, hid from the self ridicule, psychological abandonment. She not let it happen to her friend once again.
“Joe. You home?” She echoed Aquarius’ words with words of her own, but there was no answer, the doldrums quiet, save for the ticking of a Grandfather Clock hidden from thirsty eyes, from the rest of the random furniture, and terrible world outside. By the time Carol turned around Aquarius was gone; where’d you go? She followed the short corridor into the living room and gathered her thoughts and a sharp lookout for Joe. At closer inspection, the room was scattered with odd religious paraphernalia, Jesus statues, and the rest of assorted saints and conjurors were nailed to the postcard cluttered walls. There was also dozens of incense cauldrons bruised with ashes, blackened with soot darkened with the prayers of the past, with the prayers of the dead.
Although modest, the rooms were bigger than the three-story place looked, and Carol soon found that out, along with the door to the basement ajar, and a slant of thirty or more stairs beckoning her to come down and join them at the bottom. She mouthed the words Joe but the sound resonated not, and she found that her legs ignored her commandments as well, and against better judgment descended the gauntlet of steps, surreptitiously goggling the murk, and asked:
“You down there, anybody?” She continued hesitantly, the scent of sweet cloves scintillating the air. “I can here you down there, Joe.”
Hushed voices, the chattering of tools reverberated with conversation; they met Carol emerging from the grim lightlessness, except for the fizzing of a delinquent lamp overhead, somewhere down the seemingly vast basement corridor. She offered a look back at the opened door atop of the stairs and bargained the real world was just outside;there was nothing to be afraid of.
“Is someone there, I can hear you in there,” she shouted, weak kneed, then the door atop the stairs slammed shut and a light went on overhead, and Joe stood there a wicked grin peeled upon his sweaty face.
“What you doing down here, Carol?”
“Jesus Joe, you scared the hell out of me.”
“Why would I want to do that?”
There was an awkward pause, before Carol answered with. “I wanted to talk to you about Aquarius.”
Joe glared into here glazed eyes, as if hypnotized, as he’d been dumb-struck by her question, or the devil lurked inside him.
“You ok, Joe?”
“Why, is there something a matter with me?” he said, calmly. “Do I look sick or something? Thought you were here to talk about Aquarius; that little bitch!”
“Pardon me, Joe, I think I’ve had about enough of your callous remarks, however Aquarius needs help. And as her friend, I wanted you to know about that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be leaving. No wonder she’s got problems, thought you were a religious man?” Carol turned her back on Joe.
He watched her ascend the darkened stairwell, toward the closed door, toward the first floor with the Devil whispering in his head, with hell it was enough to have burned his soul, possessed his thoughts and actions, even after a life time of faithful servitude. He wouldn’t be servant to anybody again, especially to flesh. With one swift lunge, he grabbed Carol’s fleeting ankle, and pulled the stunned, flailing, and screaming woman to the floor, and dragged her down the voluminous corridor.
“God needs sinners too,” he boasted.
“No, let me go, you Bastard!” She wailed, snapping fresh painted nails into the carpeted floor with bloodied screams, and gnashing of teeth. “Somebody, help me, dear God!”
VII
Upstairs, sleepy eyed at the second floor banister, the muffled cries of a woman and the volley of neighborhood dogs outside shrilled the hair on the back of Aquarius’ neck, and wrought dismay upon her gentle features.
What the hell’s that?
Her gaze followed the anomalous shrills, with her tanned legs downstairs, searching for the delirious errand, and the sharpened famine fading into obscurity.
“Carol, Grandpa?” she called out nervously, and listened; where’d they go?
Retracing Carol’s steps from the front entrance, she entered into the living room that accessed the basement below, and the door shut tight. She glanced through the front window, and Carol’s car still sat parked out front, and then there echoed the faint clutter of laughter from beneath the wood floor, from beneath her bare feet, from behind the closed door. For an instantaneous moment, she balked at opening the barred threshold, feigned at turning the key, to the things that lurked just behind the door.
She was just hearing things; it was her imagination that’s all, that’s all it was: a voice told her in her head. Go on, open it, don’t be afraid, the words spurred her onward, spurred her forward into places she ought not to tread, places Grandfather forbid her go, places she’d been afraid of since childhood, places that rumbled with scent of rot, like her bedroom window upstairs reeked of evil.
The door burped open with a cold blast of fetid air, and the ghoulish squeal of an animal of some kind shadowed by the descending well of stairs and suffocating movements. She held her breath and tongue, afraid to call out into the fitful doom, afraid to give herself away. She wasn’t afraid of the dark, she was afraid of the murderous apparitions that lurked beneath its lucid veil, beneath the remains of the Memphis Cemetery across the road.
One step at a time, she managed the tiers, one after the other, no haste in her steps, and no urgency suggested anything else. The dizziness welcomed her with the emptiness of quiet; the dark welcomed her with the sweat of dank air, and murmuring from the din. She continued despite her imagination, despite the devils that surely lurked beyond reality’s gaze, beyond the fog of shadow, save for the swaying gleam of fizzing light, dangling at the bottom of the stairwell.
Voices suddenly emerged in argument, once again; it was a woman’s voice, it was carol’s soft natured words expelling insults, and cries for mercy, cries for help. Aquarius stood frozen for several desperate seconds, frozen as what she should do, and wishing it would go away: wishing she’d wake up and find that she had been sleeping all along, wishing that she would have stayed at work. Notwithstanding, Carol needed her help, and she was going to give it to her, and careened down the lightless space hoping for the best, hoping that it was all a miserable mistake, all a big misunderstanding. As she rounded the corner, a manheld Carol by the throat veiled in shadow; it was Grandpa, and for a second time stopped, then he slit her throat.
“The slaughtered lamb,” he hollered [praising his invisible god] and gutted more flesh like the catch of the day. I’ve saved another sinner honey, I’ve saved another.” And wiped the blood from his chin with one hand and with the other greasy paw, dropped Carol’s floundering corpse to the floor.
With the half rattled remains of her friend squirming on the floor, she panicked; slipping in the gruel and monkey crawled to the foot of the stairs, overwhelmed, and the insults of the lord threatening her with lash and limb, threatening her with psalms.
“Get away from me! Get the Fuck away!” she hollered, and kicked the maddened man in his frothing face. “Go to hell!”
Stunned, Joe keeled over onto his maniacal expression, his slobbering tongue bitten clean off, and flopped like a salamander, the terrible screams of a possessed man, cursing God, and cursing granddaughter; he’d tear her watery eyes out of their beds.
Ignoring the gargled threats, Aquarius was already atop of the landing; she’d lock him in the basement, with Carol’s stiffening remains, forever: he’d never get out, alive.
Michael Mulvihill
Michael Mulvihill
Soul Scrubber
Michael Mulvihill is a 32 year old writer and clinical hypno-psychoanalyst. In 1998 he wrote a poem about The Omagh Bombing in Northern Ireland called “The Bombing”, which was published in The Kingdom Newspaper in Ireland . A year later he published a short story called “Ethagoria Nebsonia”, which was a science fiction story about a monster.
Between 1999 and 2009 he gained 6 higher level qualifications up to Masters Degree level in addictions studies, psychotherapy, social sciences, psychology, clinical hypnotherapy and hypno-psychoanalysis and finally integrative counseling and psychotherapy.
He published vampire poems in 2009 and 2010 with Black Petals issue 49 and 50. In 2010 published a short story called Bone Idle with Yellow Mamma. Now that his studies are over he is dedicating his time to hypnotherapy, research and writing. He intends to publish many creations of writing.
Soul Scrubber
Michael Mulvihill
Stop! Open your eyes to the page in front of you, and the case of “TJ.” He embodies the psychoanalytical definition of anal—a character who could make old Freud himself feel more like an empiricist than an artistic impressionist of the human psyche. Forget the enigmatic, literary tradition of mystery, and focus on our boy’s profound anal retention. He didn’t need to be considered enigmatic—the dude needed a psychic enema. In fact, the waste of his life would fill the entire room.
By what definition was he shaped and sculpted, except the anal as characterized by extreme acrimoniousness, orderliness, cleanliness, and tidiness.
Just look at him when he was 12, perceived by his teachers to be a genius, brain, and all-rounder—an academic with a big nod of agreement from that dictator, the Principal Herself (infamous for an anger inspired by the fires of Hell). The Devil had made a special pact with this control freak, or so it was rumored amongst her students, held hostage to their Head Teacher’s unholy rage.
TJ was her pet. But, for the others, she enacted vicious anger like a pro—wild, roaring, screaming, yelling till her face went beet red. She was the type to drain and devour her charges with her vampire teeth, beat their backsides to near death, and, quite possibly, scoop the brains from their little heads and pan-fry them (while laughing hysterically just for the laugh)—all over a minor item, such as misspelling obscure.
But TJ was her idea of perfect, everything lined up and arranged like a dress rehearsal. He was destined in the official school people’s eyes to be a true genius, although his perfection seemed artificial in the clearer perception of his classmates. (The adults assumed those classmates who disagreed were polluted by the green fog that the Green-NastyMonster emits to create envy.)
The others, therefore, were delighted when the Head Teacher ended up kicking TJ’s chances straight in the balls. One of her boyfriends happened to be even more of a psycho than she. This dude, given a bigger pot of volcanic rage, could really hand out a sentence and go into overkill mode. When he arrived at her home one Wednesday afternoon his pot was too warm, so he decided to unleash his inner beast. He knew how to be domestically violent, a pattern he learnt from his father, who learnt from his father—behavior some speculate went back many generations into the mists of time.
How did domestic violence destroy our subject’s future? The boyfriend, not satisfied with smashing the Head Teacher’s face against the wall, got the crystal ball she needed to determine who’d be smart and who dumb, and smashed it to smithereens. With her teeth lying on the ground she could not exactly remind him that he’d wrecked the tool the Devil gave her to run a second business during the summer months. Her pact was broken. Just like the false, fecal gold with which Satan rewards his paramours, her deal was dust. Breaking her side of the bargain—the duty of cherishing the Devil’s gift—meant her master was going to be mightily pissed. Although this deal-buster happened when TJ, at 13, was no longer her pupil, he suddenly became intellectually isolated and academically slow. In short, he could not learn a wee thing.
His dear mother, mentally disturbed by this change, developed acute psychotic symptoms. TJ cried like a child, when on his 15th birthday, after his receiving 9 consecutive F’s, his mother went completely mad and was committed to hospital (thanks to the required signatures of two medical doctors).
Fellow students referred to his mother as Mary, Mad Mary. Their derision and cruel guffaws wounded him more deeply than his failure. He had no one but his mother; lonely without her, he would visit Mary. But was it his mother he visited? She had become a jumper, a leaper, and a creeper (like frogs unexpectedly gathering around one’s sleeping body in a room infested with rats and snakes). Along with the language, the words that must exit from the mouth to enable communication, she gave him nothing but withering looks. If looks could cut like a knife, the ones she shot him promised he’d be chopped up flesh chucked into a barbecue, turned a full 360 degrees, devoured vigorously, and spat out by his mother. Her venom battered his self-esteem to pieces.
Her doctors listened to what she spewed, and then took her care to the holistic, multi-disciplinary level. They heeded the nurses, the family, the psychotherapists and, of course, her side. Flat out, they realized she needed 24/7 supervision because she represented a danger to herself and others.
She was relating to her son (in a torrent of foul disparagement). That sorry soul had been destined to stop the rot of intellectual dunces in her family since the passing of Great-Great-Grandpops—the tycoon. All the progeny sprung…no, shaken…from the stupid tree, were so unattractive to boot, that every vulgarity, from the top branch (of a huge, ugly tree) to the bottom, fit them, making them a family of uglies, leeching off Great-Great-Grandpops because they could barely put two and two together.
“But…” said Mad Mary to her son, and could not finish because she started getting all Tourettes-like amidst fantasies of taking a handgun and shooting his useless head off. “You…” she continued, blind with rage,“[insert crude word].” She loved the C. word best, feeling it was posh like Kent and sure to churn stomachs.
Her words could have burned the impression of Psycho Witch into her victim’s forehead. As sure as summer is long and hot, winter short and dark, no one would have wanted TJ’s momma as their Hot Momma. She had degenerated into a shrew who could turn her son’s world inside out, make sweet May like cold Siberia in January (with him pinned on a piercing bed of icicles), or leave him looking like a Thick Mick with Shamrocks growing out of his nose and ears.
Lovely Liberals might say Poor Mad Mary! Well, do pigs fly, vampires lament being blood suckers, tigers become friendly pussy cats? Mad Mary did not do lovely. She being angry, to under-speak it a bit, TJ wanted to prove her wrong.
“But Mom, I was a smart kid. I’m a bit mentally slow these early teen years due to my hormones. When I’m 17, which is only two years away, don’t forget about Ireland ’s major state examination—the Irish Leaving Certificate. It determines places for people in 3rd level institutions. If I study hard I might gain a fine entry to such disciplines as medicine, law, science, chemistry…the sky’s the limit. Get better and I’ll earn 600 points of a leaving certificate, all honours, all A-1’s, just like the good old days with me rewarded cakes and presents. Remember the trigonometry set and the scientific calculator? We’ll even invite my primary school principal over and have a massive, high heaven’s celebration,” he begged with many a tear rolling down his face. “Just get well, Mommy”.
Mad Mary figured this sounded good, but wanted to put the fear of Hell into the young dude. “Listen, Son, I love you, but see here.” She pulled out her A-1-psycho card. “Don’t say I wouldn’t literally do anything for you. Years ago, I met your principal for an extraordinary parent-teacher meeting. I saw potential in her cruel eyes, and, when she told me she had the power to bargain with the Devil himself to make you intelligent, I believed her. Now it’s time for me to carry out what Frank Sinatra said in his song—do things my way. Study your ass off and these crocodile teeth will not eat you alive.”
Recalling his mother’s latest fearsome smile, TJ did everything she said. He studied for two years straight—like a Soviet, East German athlete on steroids—doing the intellectual equivalent of a multitude of climbs up Everest. He learned it all upwards, backwards, forwards—the very way the good, old-fashioned, draconian, punitive, Irish educational system demands. He studied till his eyes almost cost him their sight. After that, still a hive of anxiety, he thought it would be a good idea to staple the stuff into his brain. He studied every page, every word—the real education, omitting all rhyme, reason, analysis, logic and intelligence, and hence distilled into 100-proof, pure Irish Education. For those 600 points, in addition, he eradicated personality and all forms of socializing, actually becoming anti-social.
By the end of the two years he had made sure to lose the skills that being a good student would not need, and was completely unable to talk to members of the opposite sex, to listen attentively to another human being, or to hold down a normal, rational conversation. As his teachers would agree, none of these necessary lifelong skills would be required in the exam for the Irish Leaving Certificate.
When he did take the exam he felt sure of his 600 points, and that this would help his mother lose her psychosis and homicidal tendencies. She’d be released from the asylum, and everything would be like a fairy tale—big hugs to all and everyone around her. Who knows, she might even stop trying to do crazy deals with obscenely weird people.
He kept thinking and worrying about the exam results. He would do extremely well—happy days, join happy land, give himself a big hug, a well deserved cake, and correct all those people who believed he was a failure (by telling them what they could really go do with themselves). If not, he’d be satisfied with a middle-of-the-road score, which would be far better than anyone in his family had done since Great-Great-Grand Pops…or…he could completely fail, and that would not be so nice.
Months passed after the Irish Leaving Certificate exam. Every day felt like an execution, till, finally, he started to follow his mother down the crazy path. “Maybe,” he said to the mirrored reflection he thought was his mother, “I’d do better if I weren’t so dirty. I’ve found dirt on my hands, even after washing them with strong disinfectant soap. The dirt will not leave me—that ton of dirt you put on my soul by making pacts with Satan and the school principal.”
“I” replied the reflection, “don’t care about crazy! I’ll carve you into mince meat, using the butchering equipment in the asylum kitchen. I’m looking forward to eating some human, especially if you got bad marks. I’m sick of this traditional Irish clan becoming more and more stupid. Be jeepers, I had to pay a media lad not to tell the whole of Ireland how stupid we’ve become as a family.”
Perhaps he was manifesting extreme post-exam nerves that could only be relieved by seeing what his results were, for his whole body was affected by anxiety and stress. Or, his betraying hormones were working overtime from a combination of fear, terror, trauma, and an overactive fight-or-flight response. He said he was afraid (extremely afraid) of: viruses, bacteria, germs, streets, knives, envelopes, door knobs, cats meowing, dogs barking, trees, televisions… He did not permit anyone to stay in his house.
Anxiety, phobias, obsessions, hysteria, stress, inner turbulence, self reproach, and self disgust manifested throughout his dermis as warts and psoriases. The sight of his body was inwardly distressing. He convinced himself that he’d become a walking disease display because of his mother’s dealings with the crazy principal and Satan. He expected his skin condition to get so bad that he would not be able to tolerate resting on a recliner, couch, or bed.
He felt such a compelling inner turmoil and self loathing that he wanted to do justice to these feelings. He wanted to emancipate (even emaciate) himself from his sins. He thought them his sins because as a child he’d participated well at school at a high cost to others. After years of repressed childhood memories started coming to the fore of his consciousness, he recalled the Unforgivable. The Principal had made sure lessons were prepared for him so that he’d excel whilst the other children were left academically in his wake.They had been abandoned to a chaotic state of utter miscomprehension, incalculable internal suffering, chaos and confusion, from which that Devil’s Servant derived a perverse sense of pleasure.
“There goes dunce face. Hey listen, dunce face: the reason I sit you in the right corner of the class is simple. Oh! I know your mother said it was remedial lessons, but why waste school money giving remedial classes to unworthy children who have poor, socially disadvantaged parents from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and will not graduate from any higher learning institute in Ireland ?”
After saying this she would turn around to TJ and wink—his cue to make sure he was in stitches laughing. He recalled how he’d indeed be in hysterics at this moment every time. He did not recall being scared to death of her (and the unspeakable things she could do).
Her favourite subject to teach was the Irish language, aware that it was a tongue the majority of Irish people cannot and do not speak. It was her opportunity to inflict the most damage. And this particular memory triggered TJ’s survivor’s guilt.
Why not me? Why was I not the one beaten black and blue for not understanding a word of the unspoken, dead language, considered compulsory by that sadistic agent of the Irish educational system. It’s not right that I knew the answers because I cheated by being taught them beforehand. I should have been dumb like the rest of my classmates. What can I do to atone for my sins? I won’t collect my Leaving Certificate results that I’ve been waiting for all summer until I clean my soul first. When I’m finished cleaning out my sins, my mother’s sins, my teachers’ sins, only then will I bother to check my results.
TJ saw his bad skin condition as an affliction destined to worsen. It would burrow deeper and suck at his blood, cover his bottom, and then grotesquely engulf his whole body. Like chicken weed, it would seize him and, like a straight jacket, immobilize him. Yes, it would cover his entire face and body. The condition would subdue his senses, rendering him unable to relate to his soul because it was caused by his and his mother’s terrible inequities. He would start to smell foul and would lose his sight. The disease would eat into his ears and he would not be able to hear a word.
TJ knew it was time to take action before all these terrible predictions came true. Yesterday, he ordered a huge pot brought into his house. Now, he’s filling it with hot water, fairy liquid, soap bars, whole bottles of various cleaners, toothpaste, mouthwash, and packets of washing up liquid. If bathing in the pot does not work to clean all the sins that grew so vigorously on his body, he’s sure he’ll have to drink this solution straight. That would exorcise the Devil trying to separate him from everything good in life.
Another part of his psyche, his unconscious mind, hints at the behavioural changes of which he is unaware. His Self remains an unsolved mystery to him. His skin problems started to manifest the day following his final exam in June. He was deeply confident he would do well. However, when it dawned on him that he would have no idea of his results until August, this alone had made him so sick.
His mother succeeded in having his Leaving Certificate results sent to her hospital address. Seeing that they read straight A-1’s, she sighed and said to herself, “So the war is finally over.”
Is it?
Her son at home is busy scrubbing away, ignorant of when he’ll be fully satisfied and of how to communicate with his mother or read his exam results. Once he washes himself clean, he thinks he may be okay. Ultimately, though, the question for the Soul Scrubber is: will he ever feel okay?
Between 1999 and 2009 he gained 6 higher level qualifications up to Masters Degree level in addictions studies, psychotherapy, social sciences, psychology, clinical hypnotherapy and hypno-psychoanalysis and finally integrative counseling and psychotherapy.
He published vampire poems in 2009 and 2010 with Black Petals issue 49 and 50. In 2010 published a short story called Bone Idle with Yellow Mamma. Now that his studies are over he is dedicating his time to hypnotherapy, research and writing. He intends to publish many creations of writing.
Soul Scrubber
Michael Mulvihill
Stop! Open your eyes to the page in front of you, and the case of “TJ.” He embodies the psychoanalytical definition of anal—a character who could make old Freud himself feel more like an empiricist than an artistic impressionist of the human psyche. Forget the enigmatic, literary tradition of mystery, and focus on our boy’s profound anal retention. He didn’t need to be considered enigmatic—the dude needed a psychic enema. In fact, the waste of his life would fill the entire room.
By what definition was he shaped and sculpted, except the anal as characterized by extreme acrimoniousness, orderliness, cleanliness, and tidiness.
Just look at him when he was 12, perceived by his teachers to be a genius, brain, and all-rounder—an academic with a big nod of agreement from that dictator, the Principal Herself (infamous for an anger inspired by the fires of Hell). The Devil had made a special pact with this control freak, or so it was rumored amongst her students, held hostage to their Head Teacher’s unholy rage.
TJ was her pet. But, for the others, she enacted vicious anger like a pro—wild, roaring, screaming, yelling till her face went beet red. She was the type to drain and devour her charges with her vampire teeth, beat their backsides to near death, and, quite possibly, scoop the brains from their little heads and pan-fry them (while laughing hysterically just for the laugh)—all over a minor item, such as misspelling obscure.
But TJ was her idea of perfect, everything lined up and arranged like a dress rehearsal. He was destined in the official school people’s eyes to be a true genius, although his perfection seemed artificial in the clearer perception of his classmates. (The adults assumed those classmates who disagreed were polluted by the green fog that the Green-NastyMonster emits to create envy.)
The others, therefore, were delighted when the Head Teacher ended up kicking TJ’s chances straight in the balls. One of her boyfriends happened to be even more of a psycho than she. This dude, given a bigger pot of volcanic rage, could really hand out a sentence and go into overkill mode. When he arrived at her home one Wednesday afternoon his pot was too warm, so he decided to unleash his inner beast. He knew how to be domestically violent, a pattern he learnt from his father, who learnt from his father—behavior some speculate went back many generations into the mists of time.
How did domestic violence destroy our subject’s future? The boyfriend, not satisfied with smashing the Head Teacher’s face against the wall, got the crystal ball she needed to determine who’d be smart and who dumb, and smashed it to smithereens. With her teeth lying on the ground she could not exactly remind him that he’d wrecked the tool the Devil gave her to run a second business during the summer months. Her pact was broken. Just like the false, fecal gold with which Satan rewards his paramours, her deal was dust. Breaking her side of the bargain—the duty of cherishing the Devil’s gift—meant her master was going to be mightily pissed. Although this deal-buster happened when TJ, at 13, was no longer her pupil, he suddenly became intellectually isolated and academically slow. In short, he could not learn a wee thing.
His dear mother, mentally disturbed by this change, developed acute psychotic symptoms. TJ cried like a child, when on his 15th birthday, after his receiving 9 consecutive F’s, his mother went completely mad and was committed to hospital (thanks to the required signatures of two medical doctors).
Fellow students referred to his mother as Mary, Mad Mary. Their derision and cruel guffaws wounded him more deeply than his failure. He had no one but his mother; lonely without her, he would visit Mary. But was it his mother he visited? She had become a jumper, a leaper, and a creeper (like frogs unexpectedly gathering around one’s sleeping body in a room infested with rats and snakes). Along with the language, the words that must exit from the mouth to enable communication, she gave him nothing but withering looks. If looks could cut like a knife, the ones she shot him promised he’d be chopped up flesh chucked into a barbecue, turned a full 360 degrees, devoured vigorously, and spat out by his mother. Her venom battered his self-esteem to pieces.
Her doctors listened to what she spewed, and then took her care to the holistic, multi-disciplinary level. They heeded the nurses, the family, the psychotherapists and, of course, her side. Flat out, they realized she needed 24/7 supervision because she represented a danger to herself and others.
She was relating to her son (in a torrent of foul disparagement). That sorry soul had been destined to stop the rot of intellectual dunces in her family since the passing of Great-Great-Grandpops—the tycoon. All the progeny sprung…no, shaken…from the stupid tree, were so unattractive to boot, that every vulgarity, from the top branch (of a huge, ugly tree) to the bottom, fit them, making them a family of uglies, leeching off Great-Great-Grandpops because they could barely put two and two together.
“But…” said Mad Mary to her son, and could not finish because she started getting all Tourettes-like amidst fantasies of taking a handgun and shooting his useless head off. “You…” she continued, blind with rage,“[insert crude word].” She loved the C. word best, feeling it was posh like Kent and sure to churn stomachs.
Her words could have burned the impression of Psycho Witch into her victim’s forehead. As sure as summer is long and hot, winter short and dark, no one would have wanted TJ’s momma as their Hot Momma. She had degenerated into a shrew who could turn her son’s world inside out, make sweet May like cold Siberia in January (with him pinned on a piercing bed of icicles), or leave him looking like a Thick Mick with Shamrocks growing out of his nose and ears.
Lovely Liberals might say Poor Mad Mary! Well, do pigs fly, vampires lament being blood suckers, tigers become friendly pussy cats? Mad Mary did not do lovely. She being angry, to under-speak it a bit, TJ wanted to prove her wrong.
“But Mom, I was a smart kid. I’m a bit mentally slow these early teen years due to my hormones. When I’m 17, which is only two years away, don’t forget about Ireland ’s major state examination—the Irish Leaving Certificate. It determines places for people in 3rd level institutions. If I study hard I might gain a fine entry to such disciplines as medicine, law, science, chemistry…the sky’s the limit. Get better and I’ll earn 600 points of a leaving certificate, all honours, all A-1’s, just like the good old days with me rewarded cakes and presents. Remember the trigonometry set and the scientific calculator? We’ll even invite my primary school principal over and have a massive, high heaven’s celebration,” he begged with many a tear rolling down his face. “Just get well, Mommy”.
Mad Mary figured this sounded good, but wanted to put the fear of Hell into the young dude. “Listen, Son, I love you, but see here.” She pulled out her A-1-psycho card. “Don’t say I wouldn’t literally do anything for you. Years ago, I met your principal for an extraordinary parent-teacher meeting. I saw potential in her cruel eyes, and, when she told me she had the power to bargain with the Devil himself to make you intelligent, I believed her. Now it’s time for me to carry out what Frank Sinatra said in his song—do things my way. Study your ass off and these crocodile teeth will not eat you alive.”
Recalling his mother’s latest fearsome smile, TJ did everything she said. He studied for two years straight—like a Soviet, East German athlete on steroids—doing the intellectual equivalent of a multitude of climbs up Everest. He learned it all upwards, backwards, forwards—the very way the good, old-fashioned, draconian, punitive, Irish educational system demands. He studied till his eyes almost cost him their sight. After that, still a hive of anxiety, he thought it would be a good idea to staple the stuff into his brain. He studied every page, every word—the real education, omitting all rhyme, reason, analysis, logic and intelligence, and hence distilled into 100-proof, pure Irish Education. For those 600 points, in addition, he eradicated personality and all forms of socializing, actually becoming anti-social.
By the end of the two years he had made sure to lose the skills that being a good student would not need, and was completely unable to talk to members of the opposite sex, to listen attentively to another human being, or to hold down a normal, rational conversation. As his teachers would agree, none of these necessary lifelong skills would be required in the exam for the Irish Leaving Certificate.
When he did take the exam he felt sure of his 600 points, and that this would help his mother lose her psychosis and homicidal tendencies. She’d be released from the asylum, and everything would be like a fairy tale—big hugs to all and everyone around her. Who knows, she might even stop trying to do crazy deals with obscenely weird people.
He kept thinking and worrying about the exam results. He would do extremely well—happy days, join happy land, give himself a big hug, a well deserved cake, and correct all those people who believed he was a failure (by telling them what they could really go do with themselves). If not, he’d be satisfied with a middle-of-the-road score, which would be far better than anyone in his family had done since Great-Great-Grand Pops…or…he could completely fail, and that would not be so nice.
Months passed after the Irish Leaving Certificate exam. Every day felt like an execution, till, finally, he started to follow his mother down the crazy path. “Maybe,” he said to the mirrored reflection he thought was his mother, “I’d do better if I weren’t so dirty. I’ve found dirt on my hands, even after washing them with strong disinfectant soap. The dirt will not leave me—that ton of dirt you put on my soul by making pacts with Satan and the school principal.”
“I” replied the reflection, “don’t care about crazy! I’ll carve you into mince meat, using the butchering equipment in the asylum kitchen. I’m looking forward to eating some human, especially if you got bad marks. I’m sick of this traditional Irish clan becoming more and more stupid. Be jeepers, I had to pay a media lad not to tell the whole of Ireland how stupid we’ve become as a family.”
Perhaps he was manifesting extreme post-exam nerves that could only be relieved by seeing what his results were, for his whole body was affected by anxiety and stress. Or, his betraying hormones were working overtime from a combination of fear, terror, trauma, and an overactive fight-or-flight response. He said he was afraid (extremely afraid) of: viruses, bacteria, germs, streets, knives, envelopes, door knobs, cats meowing, dogs barking, trees, televisions… He did not permit anyone to stay in his house.
Anxiety, phobias, obsessions, hysteria, stress, inner turbulence, self reproach, and self disgust manifested throughout his dermis as warts and psoriases. The sight of his body was inwardly distressing. He convinced himself that he’d become a walking disease display because of his mother’s dealings with the crazy principal and Satan. He expected his skin condition to get so bad that he would not be able to tolerate resting on a recliner, couch, or bed.
He felt such a compelling inner turmoil and self loathing that he wanted to do justice to these feelings. He wanted to emancipate (even emaciate) himself from his sins. He thought them his sins because as a child he’d participated well at school at a high cost to others. After years of repressed childhood memories started coming to the fore of his consciousness, he recalled the Unforgivable. The Principal had made sure lessons were prepared for him so that he’d excel whilst the other children were left academically in his wake.They had been abandoned to a chaotic state of utter miscomprehension, incalculable internal suffering, chaos and confusion, from which that Devil’s Servant derived a perverse sense of pleasure.
“There goes dunce face. Hey listen, dunce face: the reason I sit you in the right corner of the class is simple. Oh! I know your mother said it was remedial lessons, but why waste school money giving remedial classes to unworthy children who have poor, socially disadvantaged parents from lower socio-economic backgrounds, and will not graduate from any higher learning institute in Ireland ?”
After saying this she would turn around to TJ and wink—his cue to make sure he was in stitches laughing. He recalled how he’d indeed be in hysterics at this moment every time. He did not recall being scared to death of her (and the unspeakable things she could do).
Her favourite subject to teach was the Irish language, aware that it was a tongue the majority of Irish people cannot and do not speak. It was her opportunity to inflict the most damage. And this particular memory triggered TJ’s survivor’s guilt.
Why not me? Why was I not the one beaten black and blue for not understanding a word of the unspoken, dead language, considered compulsory by that sadistic agent of the Irish educational system. It’s not right that I knew the answers because I cheated by being taught them beforehand. I should have been dumb like the rest of my classmates. What can I do to atone for my sins? I won’t collect my Leaving Certificate results that I’ve been waiting for all summer until I clean my soul first. When I’m finished cleaning out my sins, my mother’s sins, my teachers’ sins, only then will I bother to check my results.
TJ saw his bad skin condition as an affliction destined to worsen. It would burrow deeper and suck at his blood, cover his bottom, and then grotesquely engulf his whole body. Like chicken weed, it would seize him and, like a straight jacket, immobilize him. Yes, it would cover his entire face and body. The condition would subdue his senses, rendering him unable to relate to his soul because it was caused by his and his mother’s terrible inequities. He would start to smell foul and would lose his sight. The disease would eat into his ears and he would not be able to hear a word.
TJ knew it was time to take action before all these terrible predictions came true. Yesterday, he ordered a huge pot brought into his house. Now, he’s filling it with hot water, fairy liquid, soap bars, whole bottles of various cleaners, toothpaste, mouthwash, and packets of washing up liquid. If bathing in the pot does not work to clean all the sins that grew so vigorously on his body, he’s sure he’ll have to drink this solution straight. That would exorcise the Devil trying to separate him from everything good in life.
Another part of his psyche, his unconscious mind, hints at the behavioural changes of which he is unaware. His Self remains an unsolved mystery to him. His skin problems started to manifest the day following his final exam in June. He was deeply confident he would do well. However, when it dawned on him that he would have no idea of his results until August, this alone had made him so sick.
His mother succeeded in having his Leaving Certificate results sent to her hospital address. Seeing that they read straight A-1’s, she sighed and said to herself, “So the war is finally over.”
Is it?
Her son at home is busy scrubbing away, ignorant of when he’ll be fully satisfied and of how to communicate with his mother or read his exam results. Once he washes himself clean, he thinks he may be okay. Ultimately, though, the question for the Soul Scrubber is: will he ever feel okay?
Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Mark Joseph Kiewlak has been a published author for more than twenty years. Currently, his work can be found in The Bitter Oleander, Bewildering Stories, A Twist of Noir, All Due Respect, Plots With Guns, and many others. His story, "The Present," was nominated for the 2010 Spinetingler Award: Best Short Story on the Web. He has also written for DC Comics.
A Terrible Beauty Is Scorned
Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Mistress D pulled back the covers, and as she climbed into bed with me, she brought all the cold of the world with her.
"J-Jesus," I said. "I'll fr-freeze to death."
She propped herself on one elbow, facing me, chin resting in her cupped hand. "Warm me then," she said. "Hold me. Your barest touch will set me aflame."
I crossed my legs tightly and pulled the covers up to my neck. "H-How's that work?" I said.
"Embrace me," Mistress D said.
For a moment the covers rolled and receded, contorting themselves into all manner of grotesque shapes. When Mistress D's hand reappeared, she held in it a crumpled ball of brittle cloth, which I recognized as the dress she had been wearing. Her naked shoulders glowed a hard bluish tint within the otherwise all-encompassing darkness.
"You want to embrace me," she said.
"No," I said. "That's the l-last thing I want."
"I saw you," she continued, "upon this very bed, only a moment ago. I saw what you did."
Her breath turned the air to visible frost, lingering but a moment, then dissipating.
"And I know why you did it," she said.
Here my face became heated, the skin stretched across my cheeks tingling, despite the draft she brought, equal to that of standing naked on the windswept plain in subzero weather.
"I had an orgasm," I said. "If you expect me to be ashamed,
f-forget it. You'll be waiting until hell fr--"
Here I stopped and frowned at my poor choice of words.
"It is not the orgasm of which you are ashamed," Mistress D went on, "but the reason behind your need for it."
"Drop dead," I said to her.
"Tell me about the need," she said. "That's why I've come."
I eased away from her under the blankets, as surreptitiously as the creaky mattress would allow. I felt the cold paneling to my back. I was up against the wall.
"The reason," Mistress D insisted, "or shall I tell it to you?"
"Because I was afraid," I blurted out. Then more slowly: "Whenever I'm awake in the middle of the night, which is pretty damn often, there comes a time when my mind goes blank, just for a second" -- now I was all but whispering -- "And then ..." I said.
"Tell me, please."
The sudden change in Mistress D's tone startled me. Authority was giving way to sympathy. And as her voice, her entire manner, softened, so, too, was the icy bluish glow of her shoulders melting to a warmer shade.
"And then, suddenly," I said, "it's as if all the death in the world rushes in to fill that void. The fear is euphoric."
And I found that it was my thinking about it, my talking about it to her, which was warming the both of us. I no longer stuttered.
"I get so paranoid," I said. "I can almost feel my own death. Even if it's fifty years off, I can feel it coming. Like a locomotive vibrating the tracks, that death is coming for me."
Mistress D's eyes were wide. Engrossed she was, as a child with a parent's bedtime story.
"The only escape," I said, "the only escape is to go inside myself. And I can only do that when, well, when, you know ..."
"I know," she said. "Oh, I know. It's the most selfish of acts, creating one's own pleasure. But it's also the most satisfying, because you don't need anyone else to complete it."
"The emotions are so strong," I said.
Here her voice cracked a little. "And so dichotomous," she said.
"Yes!" I inadvertently moved toward her. "Yes, exactly."
She touched her fingertips to my cheek. A second of cold. Then I felt the warmth like blood flowing out of me ... and into her. But I did not feel cold. I was warming her.
Mistress D withdrew her fingertips from my cheek. "Continue," she said. "I want to know all of it."
And I suddenly wanted to tell her!
"In my mind I'm climbing a mountain," I said. "When I begin, it seems I can stop anytime without consequence; I'm only a few feet from the ground. But as I continue my progress, hand over hand, there comes a point, I'm never sure when, but at one time or another, I pause to look over my shoulder -- and the world beneath me is gone! Dwindled to a speck, less than a speck, on the floor of infinity."
"Past the point of no return," Mistress D said.
"Yes. I know then that I can't stop climbing. No more looking down. No more worrying about how far I've come or how far I've still to go. All that's left is to keep my gaze fixed on that peak and keep my ass moving."
"You either make it or you fall," she said. "Amazing. I've never heard it expressed that way. So --"
"Desperate," I said.
"I was going to say 'eloquent,'" Mistress D said.
"But the damnedest part occurs when I, at last, reach that peak ... I feel a brief sensation of relief, followed by complete giddiness. I know I can't possibly stay perched there, can't possibly keep my balance; but even as I'm losing my footing, slipping off the top, I'm laughing."
"At what?"
"At the absurdity of what I'm seeing. I climbed all that way ... and you know what's on the other side of that peak?"
Mistress D had sidled herself up intimately close. I no longer minded as much, lost as I was in my narrative.
"The same valley," I said. "The same damn valley as the one I just climbed out of. And I'm falling like a meteor back to earth."
Mistress D reached a hand toward my face, then thought better and withdrew it.
"If I'm lucky," I said, "I've exhausted myself. Not only the thoughts of death, but all thoughts are gone from my mind. I can crawl under the covers and fall asleep."
"But not tonight," she said.
"I couldn't. My mind didn't blank. It's the irony that I keep fixating on."
Mistress D waited. She no longer needed to goad me on; her silence now served that function. I had her ear and I wanted, needed, to keep it.
"Because I don't know what I want out of my life, I end up spending everyday in pain and fear, almost an unending torrent of doubt and dissatisfaction. Yet I can achieve bliss, if only for a heartbeat, when I succumb totally to the sensations of my body."
"And the irony?"
"The irony is that my body is the vessel of my eventual end. It's going to, someday, betray me. But it's all I've got."
Mistress D positioned herself such that barely an inch lay between us.
"We live a lifetime of pain," I said, "for just a few moments of pleasure."
"And you would wish it otherwise?"
"I would wish it reversed," I said.
"And so the reason why I'm here...."
My heart opened like a river's mouth to the ocean. "You came ... to help me?"
"Of course," she said. "Why else?" Her hand was suddenly upon my cheek. She reached around and pressed the palm of her other hand to the small of my naked back. A sensation like ice cubes down the back of your shirt.
Mistress D was crying.
The words escaped my lips heedless of consequence. "I love you," I said to her.
All the warmth which was welled within me rose up. She embraced me urgently, feeding on the heat, feeding on the current, pressing me, her entire body now a receptacle for my fire.
We burned together.
More satisfying than any physical sex I'd ever experienced, it felt as if I'd actually lent her my soul.
For all I knew, I had.
Near the end, it was my sex itself which possessed her. She took hold of me with both her hands -- hands now a deeper blue, warm as a tropical sea is warm -- and fed like a flame upon pure oxygen.
We exploded together.
Afterward I felt as if I were floating in the heat -- a snug sheath surrounding me on all sides.
"I've given you what you desired," Mistress D said.
"And then some," I said, only half paying attention, caught up as I was in that durable ecstasy.
"I've inverted the dominions of pleasure and pain," she said.
"From now on, you will feel wave after wave of happiness, day in and day out; happiness in equal measure to the pain you once experienced."
I kissed her softly, my nose nuzzling just beneath her ear. "And my pain?" I whispered.
"All but removed," Mistress D replied. "You will experience pain but once a day, in a brief flash that passes as quickly as it begins. Potent it will be, I warn you, condensed like the flash of creation you formerly experienced as pleasure."
I found myself in tears over this revelation. She held my face to her breast, as I released what could now only be called joyful anguish.
"How can I thank you, my love?" I said.
"You have warmed me," she answered. "As a true woman is warm.
Through you, I am corporeal."
I fell asleep in her arms.
***
Mistress D was gone from my bed when I awoke that next morning, but I felt her with me always, like a second shadow, at times the steaming kiss of her presence so immediate that she moved as a second skin upon me. This was to say that I was never lonely, nor did I feel any hint of despair.
My doubts, too, had been discarded. All the unnecessary baggage of our uncertain existence. My shoulders were freed. My steps like flight.
There was but a moment in which she left me.
That terrible moment.
Almost from the start, the agony of it was greater than my mind could conceive.
Naked I was, as a thousand razors worked simultaneously upon my skin, sloughing me to the bone.
A desert of salt then poured over the ocean of my wounds.
Where was my Mistress then?
Always she returned, like the sun in the aftermath of a hurricane, to comfort me.
But the moment came regardless.
Worse yet, the hour of its coming followed no discernible schedule. I never knew until it was upon me, rending me in its jaws, then discarding me -- until the next day's meal.
In truth I did not worry over this. I could not worry, save in that instant when I likened myself to a man who had tripped over the cord of existence and, having dislodged the plug from its socket, found himself awash the next instant in nothingness.
Otherwise, things were fine.
***
One particular evening I found myself sharing a bed with two women -- sisters I think they were, or perhaps mother and daughter -- when the moment swept over me. Returning to reality I found the women dead, strangled by the very sheet I held knotted in my grip.
This presented a new dilemma.
It had never occurred to me that this eyeblink of horror might affect my actions in the physical world. The emotional repercussions were, of course, non-existent. Even staring into their gaping mouths, their disbelieving eyes, their flared nostrils desperate for intake, I felt only tides of fulfillment gently lapping the shores of my conscience.
And every time I called to Mistress D, questioned her, the reply was the same: my arms raised suddenly of their own accord, my hands controlled by her will, fingers closing, thumbs extending upward.
For every woman I bedded -- two thumbs up.
For every foul thought, every lust, greed, or anger, every decision period -- two thumbs up.
Awakening from another momentary trance, finding more bodies -- two thumbs up.
And myself only capable of shedding tears of joy.
Then buckets of remorse, a flood to the top of the world, when the next moment came.
Still, I was happy.
What choice did I have?
Pendulum-like I swung upon this cross. Pain at the speed of light. Pleasure taking as long as evolution.
I told myself I could endure that pinprick of death to receive the ministrations which every other moment laid like a damp cloth upon my feverish forehead.
I could endure it.
...
I could not endure it.
No one around me knew of my suffering. Each time I tried to explain, a smile wide as a king-size bed unfolded upon my face, and I began to laugh hysterically.
As you can imagine, no one believed I was truly hurting.
And the moment came again, always, always unexpected.
Would it be any less horrible if I knew the hour?
***
One day this inconstant demon called Fate worked itself up into a never-before-achieved pitch and hit me with the unimaginable.
Two moments joined as one: the first striking me at 11:59 p.m. -- the very end of the day -- and the next lashing at me without pause at 12:00 a.m. -- the very beginning of the next day.
Mistress D gone twice as long, Forever passing without her.
And I thought I had known pain, known the definitions of suffering.
In those moments all the dictionaries burned.
When I again felt her touch, I demanded -- in the nicest possible language -- an immediate audience.
No reply.
A barroom full of people lay dead around me.
Two thumbs up.
My rational mind screamed obscenities to which my heart's ears were deaf.
I felt good, better than I ever had.
I never wanted to harm a soul.
My own had been harmed irreparably.
"Mistress D!" I screamed/shouted in anger/joy.
And from nowhere she was there upon the stool next to me, naked, her blue skin rippling like the surface of an irresistible swimming pool in the mid-summer heat.
"You have to take it away," I said. "This pain ..."
"I have taken it away," she said. "Before it would consume you, feed off you on a daily basis. Now it sees but a few scraps once per day."
I tugged her arm. Like trying to pull a puddle toward you. "Once is too much," I said. "The dichotomy is overwhelming me!"
She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "What can I do?"
"Take it away, for chrissake! Take away that moment of pain. Without it, I'll be completely at peace."
Her blue eyes fell heavy upon me. She blinked her long lashes several times.
"I can't," she said. "That wasn't our agreement."
"I don't give a damn about our agreement! I'm a prisoner, don't you understand?" -- and here I held her by both shoulders and shook her -- "If I can't escape that lousy last tick of death, I'll never be free, no matter what the rest of my life is like!"
She nearly slipped from the stool, as I rocked her one final time, before releasing my grip. Her face began to crumble. Rivers of tears. Her eyes red as the sea with blood.
"I love you," she pleaded. "You made me real. I tried to give you what you wanted ..."
I realized I was angry, genuinely angry. And this wasn't the moment; the moment had already come today. In separating herself from me, Mistress D had, by accident or by design, nullified our arrangement.
I relished every instant of my anger. "To hell with you!" I screamed at her, free to be unmindful, at last, of another's feelings.
"I did as much as I could for you," she sobbed. "We all have to live with some pain. What you're asking ... I can't ..."
"I want it back," I said.
She was confused now, disoriented.
"My soul," I said. "My heat. Whatever the hell you took from me, you bitch!"
"You gave it to me," she cried. "You were happy to."
"Happy was all I could be!"
Mistress D was up off the stool, trying to cover herself now, as she saw the change in my eyes.
"Give it back to me!" I roared.
She moved with her back to the bar, gaze fixed on me, as she stepped over the bodies which lay strewn here or there.
"I came to you because you were miserable," she said. "And afraid."
"You told me you could take away my pain," I said. "But you lied. You lied!"
She broke into a run, heading for the exit, but I was right on her. She tripped over an outstretched arm and we tumbled together onto the hardwood floor, which had, at some earlier point, become carpeted with glass. I sat on top of her, straddling her writhing form. With my knees, I pinned her arms at her sides. I ripped off my shirt and tore open my slacks. She flailed blows upon my head and chest.
All I could do was laugh.
When I was naked, I collapsed my body atop hers, pressing my full weight upon her.
"No, please, don't," she cried. "I l-love you."
I felt my heart like a vacuum pump sucking the fire out of her. She grew colder each second, and each second sprawled itself in my mind like a whore for all eternity, each moment of ecstasy surpassing the last.
Finally I could take no more, spread-eagle as I was, upon a block of ice. The choked sobs came out of her still, like the breath of a coffin, unearthed and opened after a millennium. I shuddered with uncontrollable shivers, numb to the shards of broken beer bottles that had pierced my hands and feet.
I looked down upon Mistress D's body: rigid, brittle, reflecting the dull glint of the cheap overhead lamps. She hugged herself, her head turned to one side, crying still. And the tears as they came froze upon her cheeks.
And I felt saddened by what I had done.
Then, all at once, Mistress D rose up, and wielding one of the larger fragments of broken glass, stabbed me squarely in the chest with it. The shard lodged like a spear between my ribs and hung there, as she removed her hand and ran from the bar.
Feeling no pain, I took hold of the protruding end of the fragment, still frosted from her touch, and yanked it out of my chest. As I went light-headed and collapsed to the floor, I remembered only the giddiest of sensations, as I probed with my fingers the wound inside my chest....
***
When I awoke in the hospital, the first thing they told me was how lucky I was to have been the only survivor of the "barroom massacre."
Two days later I was released.
Soon my life had returned to much as it had been before Mistress D visited my bed.
Then one night, lost in that eternity between dusk and dawn, my mind again went blank. I lay sprawled atop the covers, visions of inevitable death flooding in upon me. I went to work immediately, seeking to banish them in the manner I always had.
And I achieved an orgasm.
And I felt nothing.
No moment of peace, no pleasure, nothing to make it all worthwhile.
Mistress D had screwed me. She had taken it from me -- the one true moment of existence.
My dichotomy was laid forever to rest.
And in my mind, where before there had been peaks and valleys, there now stood only a single, vast, unending and barren plain.
A Terrible Beauty Is Scorned
Mark Joseph Kiewlak
Mistress D pulled back the covers, and as she climbed into bed with me, she brought all the cold of the world with her.
"J-Jesus," I said. "I'll fr-freeze to death."
She propped herself on one elbow, facing me, chin resting in her cupped hand. "Warm me then," she said. "Hold me. Your barest touch will set me aflame."
I crossed my legs tightly and pulled the covers up to my neck. "H-How's that work?" I said.
"Embrace me," Mistress D said.
For a moment the covers rolled and receded, contorting themselves into all manner of grotesque shapes. When Mistress D's hand reappeared, she held in it a crumpled ball of brittle cloth, which I recognized as the dress she had been wearing. Her naked shoulders glowed a hard bluish tint within the otherwise all-encompassing darkness.
"You want to embrace me," she said.
"No," I said. "That's the l-last thing I want."
"I saw you," she continued, "upon this very bed, only a moment ago. I saw what you did."
Her breath turned the air to visible frost, lingering but a moment, then dissipating.
"And I know why you did it," she said.
Here my face became heated, the skin stretched across my cheeks tingling, despite the draft she brought, equal to that of standing naked on the windswept plain in subzero weather.
"I had an orgasm," I said. "If you expect me to be ashamed,
f-forget it. You'll be waiting until hell fr--"
Here I stopped and frowned at my poor choice of words.
"It is not the orgasm of which you are ashamed," Mistress D went on, "but the reason behind your need for it."
"Drop dead," I said to her.
"Tell me about the need," she said. "That's why I've come."
I eased away from her under the blankets, as surreptitiously as the creaky mattress would allow. I felt the cold paneling to my back. I was up against the wall.
"The reason," Mistress D insisted, "or shall I tell it to you?"
"Because I was afraid," I blurted out. Then more slowly: "Whenever I'm awake in the middle of the night, which is pretty damn often, there comes a time when my mind goes blank, just for a second" -- now I was all but whispering -- "And then ..." I said.
"Tell me, please."
The sudden change in Mistress D's tone startled me. Authority was giving way to sympathy. And as her voice, her entire manner, softened, so, too, was the icy bluish glow of her shoulders melting to a warmer shade.
"And then, suddenly," I said, "it's as if all the death in the world rushes in to fill that void. The fear is euphoric."
And I found that it was my thinking about it, my talking about it to her, which was warming the both of us. I no longer stuttered.
"I get so paranoid," I said. "I can almost feel my own death. Even if it's fifty years off, I can feel it coming. Like a locomotive vibrating the tracks, that death is coming for me."
Mistress D's eyes were wide. Engrossed she was, as a child with a parent's bedtime story.
"The only escape," I said, "the only escape is to go inside myself. And I can only do that when, well, when, you know ..."
"I know," she said. "Oh, I know. It's the most selfish of acts, creating one's own pleasure. But it's also the most satisfying, because you don't need anyone else to complete it."
"The emotions are so strong," I said.
Here her voice cracked a little. "And so dichotomous," she said.
"Yes!" I inadvertently moved toward her. "Yes, exactly."
She touched her fingertips to my cheek. A second of cold. Then I felt the warmth like blood flowing out of me ... and into her. But I did not feel cold. I was warming her.
Mistress D withdrew her fingertips from my cheek. "Continue," she said. "I want to know all of it."
And I suddenly wanted to tell her!
"In my mind I'm climbing a mountain," I said. "When I begin, it seems I can stop anytime without consequence; I'm only a few feet from the ground. But as I continue my progress, hand over hand, there comes a point, I'm never sure when, but at one time or another, I pause to look over my shoulder -- and the world beneath me is gone! Dwindled to a speck, less than a speck, on the floor of infinity."
"Past the point of no return," Mistress D said.
"Yes. I know then that I can't stop climbing. No more looking down. No more worrying about how far I've come or how far I've still to go. All that's left is to keep my gaze fixed on that peak and keep my ass moving."
"You either make it or you fall," she said. "Amazing. I've never heard it expressed that way. So --"
"Desperate," I said.
"I was going to say 'eloquent,'" Mistress D said.
"But the damnedest part occurs when I, at last, reach that peak ... I feel a brief sensation of relief, followed by complete giddiness. I know I can't possibly stay perched there, can't possibly keep my balance; but even as I'm losing my footing, slipping off the top, I'm laughing."
"At what?"
"At the absurdity of what I'm seeing. I climbed all that way ... and you know what's on the other side of that peak?"
Mistress D had sidled herself up intimately close. I no longer minded as much, lost as I was in my narrative.
"The same valley," I said. "The same damn valley as the one I just climbed out of. And I'm falling like a meteor back to earth."
Mistress D reached a hand toward my face, then thought better and withdrew it.
"If I'm lucky," I said, "I've exhausted myself. Not only the thoughts of death, but all thoughts are gone from my mind. I can crawl under the covers and fall asleep."
"But not tonight," she said.
"I couldn't. My mind didn't blank. It's the irony that I keep fixating on."
Mistress D waited. She no longer needed to goad me on; her silence now served that function. I had her ear and I wanted, needed, to keep it.
"Because I don't know what I want out of my life, I end up spending everyday in pain and fear, almost an unending torrent of doubt and dissatisfaction. Yet I can achieve bliss, if only for a heartbeat, when I succumb totally to the sensations of my body."
"And the irony?"
"The irony is that my body is the vessel of my eventual end. It's going to, someday, betray me. But it's all I've got."
Mistress D positioned herself such that barely an inch lay between us.
"We live a lifetime of pain," I said, "for just a few moments of pleasure."
"And you would wish it otherwise?"
"I would wish it reversed," I said.
"And so the reason why I'm here...."
My heart opened like a river's mouth to the ocean. "You came ... to help me?"
"Of course," she said. "Why else?" Her hand was suddenly upon my cheek. She reached around and pressed the palm of her other hand to the small of my naked back. A sensation like ice cubes down the back of your shirt.
Mistress D was crying.
The words escaped my lips heedless of consequence. "I love you," I said to her.
All the warmth which was welled within me rose up. She embraced me urgently, feeding on the heat, feeding on the current, pressing me, her entire body now a receptacle for my fire.
We burned together.
More satisfying than any physical sex I'd ever experienced, it felt as if I'd actually lent her my soul.
For all I knew, I had.
Near the end, it was my sex itself which possessed her. She took hold of me with both her hands -- hands now a deeper blue, warm as a tropical sea is warm -- and fed like a flame upon pure oxygen.
We exploded together.
Afterward I felt as if I were floating in the heat -- a snug sheath surrounding me on all sides.
"I've given you what you desired," Mistress D said.
"And then some," I said, only half paying attention, caught up as I was in that durable ecstasy.
"I've inverted the dominions of pleasure and pain," she said.
"From now on, you will feel wave after wave of happiness, day in and day out; happiness in equal measure to the pain you once experienced."
I kissed her softly, my nose nuzzling just beneath her ear. "And my pain?" I whispered.
"All but removed," Mistress D replied. "You will experience pain but once a day, in a brief flash that passes as quickly as it begins. Potent it will be, I warn you, condensed like the flash of creation you formerly experienced as pleasure."
I found myself in tears over this revelation. She held my face to her breast, as I released what could now only be called joyful anguish.
"How can I thank you, my love?" I said.
"You have warmed me," she answered. "As a true woman is warm.
Through you, I am corporeal."
I fell asleep in her arms.
***
Mistress D was gone from my bed when I awoke that next morning, but I felt her with me always, like a second shadow, at times the steaming kiss of her presence so immediate that she moved as a second skin upon me. This was to say that I was never lonely, nor did I feel any hint of despair.
My doubts, too, had been discarded. All the unnecessary baggage of our uncertain existence. My shoulders were freed. My steps like flight.
There was but a moment in which she left me.
That terrible moment.
Almost from the start, the agony of it was greater than my mind could conceive.
Naked I was, as a thousand razors worked simultaneously upon my skin, sloughing me to the bone.
A desert of salt then poured over the ocean of my wounds.
Where was my Mistress then?
Always she returned, like the sun in the aftermath of a hurricane, to comfort me.
But the moment came regardless.
Worse yet, the hour of its coming followed no discernible schedule. I never knew until it was upon me, rending me in its jaws, then discarding me -- until the next day's meal.
In truth I did not worry over this. I could not worry, save in that instant when I likened myself to a man who had tripped over the cord of existence and, having dislodged the plug from its socket, found himself awash the next instant in nothingness.
Otherwise, things were fine.
***
One particular evening I found myself sharing a bed with two women -- sisters I think they were, or perhaps mother and daughter -- when the moment swept over me. Returning to reality I found the women dead, strangled by the very sheet I held knotted in my grip.
This presented a new dilemma.
It had never occurred to me that this eyeblink of horror might affect my actions in the physical world. The emotional repercussions were, of course, non-existent. Even staring into their gaping mouths, their disbelieving eyes, their flared nostrils desperate for intake, I felt only tides of fulfillment gently lapping the shores of my conscience.
And every time I called to Mistress D, questioned her, the reply was the same: my arms raised suddenly of their own accord, my hands controlled by her will, fingers closing, thumbs extending upward.
For every woman I bedded -- two thumbs up.
For every foul thought, every lust, greed, or anger, every decision period -- two thumbs up.
Awakening from another momentary trance, finding more bodies -- two thumbs up.
And myself only capable of shedding tears of joy.
Then buckets of remorse, a flood to the top of the world, when the next moment came.
Still, I was happy.
What choice did I have?
Pendulum-like I swung upon this cross. Pain at the speed of light. Pleasure taking as long as evolution.
I told myself I could endure that pinprick of death to receive the ministrations which every other moment laid like a damp cloth upon my feverish forehead.
I could endure it.
...
I could not endure it.
No one around me knew of my suffering. Each time I tried to explain, a smile wide as a king-size bed unfolded upon my face, and I began to laugh hysterically.
As you can imagine, no one believed I was truly hurting.
And the moment came again, always, always unexpected.
Would it be any less horrible if I knew the hour?
***
One day this inconstant demon called Fate worked itself up into a never-before-achieved pitch and hit me with the unimaginable.
Two moments joined as one: the first striking me at 11:59 p.m. -- the very end of the day -- and the next lashing at me without pause at 12:00 a.m. -- the very beginning of the next day.
Mistress D gone twice as long, Forever passing without her.
And I thought I had known pain, known the definitions of suffering.
In those moments all the dictionaries burned.
When I again felt her touch, I demanded -- in the nicest possible language -- an immediate audience.
No reply.
A barroom full of people lay dead around me.
Two thumbs up.
My rational mind screamed obscenities to which my heart's ears were deaf.
I felt good, better than I ever had.
I never wanted to harm a soul.
My own had been harmed irreparably.
"Mistress D!" I screamed/shouted in anger/joy.
And from nowhere she was there upon the stool next to me, naked, her blue skin rippling like the surface of an irresistible swimming pool in the mid-summer heat.
"You have to take it away," I said. "This pain ..."
"I have taken it away," she said. "Before it would consume you, feed off you on a daily basis. Now it sees but a few scraps once per day."
I tugged her arm. Like trying to pull a puddle toward you. "Once is too much," I said. "The dichotomy is overwhelming me!"
She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully. "What can I do?"
"Take it away, for chrissake! Take away that moment of pain. Without it, I'll be completely at peace."
Her blue eyes fell heavy upon me. She blinked her long lashes several times.
"I can't," she said. "That wasn't our agreement."
"I don't give a damn about our agreement! I'm a prisoner, don't you understand?" -- and here I held her by both shoulders and shook her -- "If I can't escape that lousy last tick of death, I'll never be free, no matter what the rest of my life is like!"
She nearly slipped from the stool, as I rocked her one final time, before releasing my grip. Her face began to crumble. Rivers of tears. Her eyes red as the sea with blood.
"I love you," she pleaded. "You made me real. I tried to give you what you wanted ..."
I realized I was angry, genuinely angry. And this wasn't the moment; the moment had already come today. In separating herself from me, Mistress D had, by accident or by design, nullified our arrangement.
I relished every instant of my anger. "To hell with you!" I screamed at her, free to be unmindful, at last, of another's feelings.
"I did as much as I could for you," she sobbed. "We all have to live with some pain. What you're asking ... I can't ..."
"I want it back," I said.
She was confused now, disoriented.
"My soul," I said. "My heat. Whatever the hell you took from me, you bitch!"
"You gave it to me," she cried. "You were happy to."
"Happy was all I could be!"
Mistress D was up off the stool, trying to cover herself now, as she saw the change in my eyes.
"Give it back to me!" I roared.
She moved with her back to the bar, gaze fixed on me, as she stepped over the bodies which lay strewn here or there.
"I came to you because you were miserable," she said. "And afraid."
"You told me you could take away my pain," I said. "But you lied. You lied!"
She broke into a run, heading for the exit, but I was right on her. She tripped over an outstretched arm and we tumbled together onto the hardwood floor, which had, at some earlier point, become carpeted with glass. I sat on top of her, straddling her writhing form. With my knees, I pinned her arms at her sides. I ripped off my shirt and tore open my slacks. She flailed blows upon my head and chest.
All I could do was laugh.
When I was naked, I collapsed my body atop hers, pressing my full weight upon her.
"No, please, don't," she cried. "I l-love you."
I felt my heart like a vacuum pump sucking the fire out of her. She grew colder each second, and each second sprawled itself in my mind like a whore for all eternity, each moment of ecstasy surpassing the last.
Finally I could take no more, spread-eagle as I was, upon a block of ice. The choked sobs came out of her still, like the breath of a coffin, unearthed and opened after a millennium. I shuddered with uncontrollable shivers, numb to the shards of broken beer bottles that had pierced my hands and feet.
I looked down upon Mistress D's body: rigid, brittle, reflecting the dull glint of the cheap overhead lamps. She hugged herself, her head turned to one side, crying still. And the tears as they came froze upon her cheeks.
And I felt saddened by what I had done.
Then, all at once, Mistress D rose up, and wielding one of the larger fragments of broken glass, stabbed me squarely in the chest with it. The shard lodged like a spear between my ribs and hung there, as she removed her hand and ran from the bar.
Feeling no pain, I took hold of the protruding end of the fragment, still frosted from her touch, and yanked it out of my chest. As I went light-headed and collapsed to the floor, I remembered only the giddiest of sensations, as I probed with my fingers the wound inside my chest....
***
When I awoke in the hospital, the first thing they told me was how lucky I was to have been the only survivor of the "barroom massacre."
Two days later I was released.
Soon my life had returned to much as it had been before Mistress D visited my bed.
Then one night, lost in that eternity between dusk and dawn, my mind again went blank. I lay sprawled atop the covers, visions of inevitable death flooding in upon me. I went to work immediately, seeking to banish them in the manner I always had.
And I achieved an orgasm.
And I felt nothing.
No moment of peace, no pleasure, nothing to make it all worthwhile.
Mistress D had screwed me. She had taken it from me -- the one true moment of existence.
My dichotomy was laid forever to rest.
And in my mind, where before there had been peaks and valleys, there now stood only a single, vast, unending and barren plain.
The Hole in the Floor
Nicholas Seeley is a writer and journalist who lives in Amman, Jordan. He was for five years the editor of JO, Jordan's leading current affairs and cultural magazine, and his non-fiction work has appeared in numerous local and international publications, including The Christian Science Monitor, Middle EastReport and The National. His fantasy writing and criticism can be seen at Strange Horizons. He is currently taking some time off from journalism to finish up his first novel.
The Hole in the Floor
by Nicholas Seeley
The hole in Ali Fadhil's floor appeared on the last day of his medical leave. It was the kind of early autumn Sunday when the leaves up and down Elden Street were just beginning to show their yellow edges, and while the summer heat had gone its way there was still no sign of the chill October winds, except the certainty that they would soon begin to blow.
Ali sat in the window seat, sipping tea and watching Gary's car as it inched out into the snarl of post-church traffic. The tea was getting cold, but Ali kept at it. It was the kind that reminded him of home: too strong, and served in a tiny, fragile thimble glass; mint leaves on top and loads of sugar so heavy they make a silken layer on the bottom. Fatima used to drink strange, flavored teas out of big ceramic mugs; after ten years, Ali had never got used to it.
Gary had been talking about Ali coming back to the office. He'd brought Ali's cousin, Husayn, for moral support.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Gary had asked, in the tone he used to demonstrate how concerned he was. "If you need more time, we can keep using freelancers for a while. It's OK. Some of them are pretty good--"
Gary was bad at feelings. It wasn't that he lacked them altogether, he'd just picked them all up off the department store rack, and none really fit him properly. Husayn just stood there, rubbing his lip like he wanted a cigarette. He never said much, something Ali attributed to growing up in America. Americans concealed their feelings as much as they could; it was their thoughts that they held up for public scrutiny. In Damascus it was just the opposite.
For Husayn, Damascus must be a vague memory, Ali thought--perhaps now nothing more than a sensation, lodged deep in the rose-like stem of his brain, where it would trigger an inexplicable nostalgia at the smell of coffee with cardamom. Husayn would ignore such a feeling, of course.
After Ali had gotten engaged, it was Husayn who had found him his job at the Middle East desk, his green card, his new life. He could still easily conjure the terror of that first day: stepping off the plane, jet lagged and bewildered by the air-conditioned smell of nothing. The upholstered tunnel to the airport could have been the throat of jahennem, hell itself. It was another world, ready to devour him.
But in that world, she had been waiting.
"Might do you good to get back, y'know," Husayn said, breaking the awkward silence.
"Yes!" Gary leapt at the opportunity to be reassuring. "It's not that we don't want you, Ali. Having you on the job would really take a load off us all. Not, uh, that we want to pressure you into anything you're not, uh, ready--" Ali saw his boss getting lost in his own sympathizing, and reached out to touch his arm. It was a rare gesture of affection, practiced many times in a mirror. With Fatima gone, he must be the one to dispense comfort and reassurance.
"I'll be fine," he said. "I should get back to work."
Ali liked being around Gary. The man's fakery complimented his own. Perhaps that's what I need, he thought: a mentor in the art of not feeling.
So they'd talked, and the men had left, and Ali had sipped his hot, sweet tea and thought about Fatima. The bland, decaffeinated drinks she liked, and the way she said whatever was on her mind, and the light of her at the end of the tunnel. He had never felt at home in this place. Husayn had brought him, but she had held him all these years: Home was her.
He let the glass linger between his teeth and thought about the way her hair would explode from under her scarf the moment she came in the door. It would come down like a shower of rain, and when he kissed her it would dance through his hands as if every shining lock had missed him. He had a thick chunk of that hair curled into the pages of her copy of The Road to OZ; dead as a finger severed from a hand.
When he looked up again he realized that it had grown dark outside--the absolute darkness of a clear and moonless night. No sign of the town was visible, no starlight through the trees. He floated alone in the center of a great black emptiness, which no light, no sound or memory could penetrate.
#
Armed with a heavy cardboard box, Ali searched his living room with the care of a forensic detective. In a way, he thought, that's what I am. Examining the crime scene. Removing evidence.
Photographs, of course, mementos, those were the easy parts: the dead body surrounded by shell casings. The little things were harder--the ticking time bombs of the innocuous inanimate. The short pencils she would use to hold up her hair. The notepad she kept by the phone that never had a phone number written in it, covered with doodled spirals and dogs with wings. Into the box with them.
The antique OZ books, with their beautiful illustrations. Alice in Wonderland. Beardsley prints, Doré engravings, books of calligraphy: into the box.
The Cure albums stacked carefully on the back row of the rack. The Psychedelic Furs, Roxy Music. Joy Division rubbing shoulders with Nusrat Fatteh Ali Khan. Into the box.
The prayer beads camouflaged in the dripping Spanish moss of house keys. The vast collection of colored scarves. It took him half an hour to find the smoking gun: her Qur'an, laid carefully on top of a folded prayer rug inside the window seat he had so recently been sitting on. Into the box.
When he was convinced the place was clean, Ali stopped. He was looking at her favorite armchair, sitting by the coffee table in defiant, yellow-patterned ugliness. It would have to wait for Thursday, when the large disposal men came. He tossed a white sheet over it and moved on.
So all of the pieces were gathered with care, no detail missed, until every remaining bit of Fatima was carefully stowed in its cardboard coffin and stashed in the bottom of the hall closet beside the old typewriter, the word processors, the newspaper cuttings that chronicled life in daily installments. Like so many things: there always, but carefully out of sight.
#
In his dream, he couldn't recall if he was in the driver's seat again, or only watching. He remembered the patch of shiny blackness on the road, then the shouting, the scream of the brakes and the black petroleum smoke in choking clouds.
He woke up coughing.
#
At quarter-to-twelve, Ali paced the house. Insomnia was not something he understood. Growing up in the perpetual broil of an Arab home, surrounded by nine brothers and sisters, he went to sleep when he was tired. But tonight he had insomnia, and with it he drifted, anchorless, unsure whether to stand or lie down, to watch television or to try again to sleep.
It was as he was heading into the kitchen that he saw it. At first he thought it was a trash bag, or maybe an errant sweater that had somehow migrated under Fatima's chair. He crossed to pick it up, and found himself looking into a large hole in the floor.
It was about a foot across, irregular, with splintered edges, like the hole he imagined a cannonball might make. Ali pushed the chair out of the way and looked down. He could see the one-bys in the floor, the matching hole where the basement ceiling had been torn through. Beyond that, darkness.
#
The only light on the basement stairs was a single naked bulb at the bottom, operated by a pull cord. Ali stood frozen at the top, gaging the distance between himself and the light he couldn't see. He had no childhood fear of the creaking basement stairs; like insomnia, this was something he had never known in his youth. But still he stood, trying with some primitive instinct to see into the darkness, although he knew the way.
#
The basement had been a studio once. Unfinished canvases were stacked against the walls, covered in white sheets like bodies in a hospital.
With the work lamps on, Ali stared up at the unblemished sheetrock of the ceiling. The living room was definitely directly above him. The problem was, there was no hole on this side. Ali found himself wondering if that made the damage uninsurable.
Just to be on the safe side, he turned on all the lights before going back upstairs.
The hole looked exactly the same. Wherever it led, it wasn't the basement. And there were no lights on there.
#
It took another full search of the house to come up with a functioning flashlight. It lit up the crawl space between the living room floor and the basement ceiling perfectly; Ali could see every protruding nail and tuft of dirt. But in the hole itself, the slender beam illuminated nothing.
His eye lit on the selection of Damascene coffee cups on the mantle. Ali had brought them with him when he came to the U.S., a reminder of a home he would never go back to. He picked one up and tossed it into the hole. There was no sound at all as it vanished.
For a long time he stood there, watching. Then he pushed the chair back over the hole, so he wouldn't catch his foot in it. Before leaving, he adjusted the sheet so that it covered not only the chair, but what was underneath. Then he went again up to bed.
And dreamed.
#
Going back to work was easy, like picking up a book long put aside and finding you remember every plot twist. Congress was fighting over war funding. The Syrians were resisting Western imperialism. As the day went on, Ali found he was disappointed. Keeping busy was supposed to make things easier, help the time go faster. Perhaps it did, but always there was with him the sense of something wrong, forgotten or misplaced. It hung at the edges of his mind, and when he reached for it, it drifted like smoke between his fingers.
#
When he come home the hole was waiting for him. He stood in the doorway shaking the wet leaves from his shoes, while it eyed him appraisingly from under the yellow chair. It seemed larger. The sheet was gone.
Ali had stopped at the hardware store on his way home, and in a plastic bag he carried 100 feet of tough string and a half-inch hex wrench. He tied one end of the string tightly through the loop on the wrench and, shoving the chair aside, lowered it into the hole.
He took his time playing out the line, turning the ball over in his hands and watching it get smaller and smaller. Bit by bit, he unwound the entire length. It didn't reach the bottom. Ali could feel the wrench swinging slowly back and forth far below. When he pulled it back out it was cold to the touch, but otherwise quite normal.
For most of an hour he paced the living room in uncertain spirals, his eyes never straying from the hole. Something had to be done.
Finally, even though Thursday was still three days away, Ali took the the ugly yellow-patterned chair out to the curb and left it by the trash barrels. Fines be damned.
Returning, flushed from the chill, he grabbed one end of the heavy black leather sofa and dragged it over the hole. The sofa skirt came right to the floor. The hole was gone, but Ali still felt as if he could see it, as if he'd grown some kind of x-ray vision. He tossed some TV guides and an old newspaper onto the sofa, and headed to bed.
#
The next evening, he brought Gary and Sanjay from work back for a couple of drinks. They sat in the living room with the lights blazing, laughing and talking loudly about politics. Ali realized he was smiling to himself.
They hadn't noticed a thing.
Even so, late in the evening, when Gary sprawled himself on the sofa as he rambled on about the open-source revolution, Ali realized he was holding his breath.
"What?" Gary asked, "I spill beer on myself or summin?"
"It's nothing," Ali said.
When they were gone, he moved the sofa aside, and stood looking down into the hole--hoping, perhaps, for some glimpse of movement in its depths.
#
Again he woke up coughing.
He sat up in the dark, listening for something that wasn't there anymore. The clock read 3:21.
He got out of bed and pressed his ear to the door, straining for any recurrence of the sound that had waked him. He stood there for two minutes, then three, warnings about never confronting intruders whirling in his brain. But there was no sound from below, not even a footstep, and he felt like a coward. Finally he opened the door and quietly begin to pad down the stairs.
A shadow loomed in the living room, and Ali froze. His heart was pounding loud enough to listen to. His hands tingled with the rush of blood; it roared in his ears. He labored to breathe.
Ghosts loomed on the edges of his vision, things forgotten suddenly recalled, a legion of ancient grudges populating the dark corners. The shadow did not move. Slowly Ali's breathing quieted, and he realized what he was looking at. His pulse still pounded.
The end of the sofa was projecting at a steep angle from the hole in the floor, like the stern of a sinking ship. As Ali watched, the boards give a creak and a groan, and the sofa shifted further, standing up straight on its end for a moment before slipping quietly down into the darkness.
When Ali turned on the light, all he could see was the hole, now at least three feet across, gloating in the center of the room. He ran back up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door. Its heavy wood was firm beneath him as he gasped for air, but each breath seemed torn away into the freezing night.
#
That weekend, Husayn was supposed to be coming for dinner with his brother, Mohammad. Mo brought his girlfriend, Dana, and her friend Nour, who they were trying to set up with Husayn.
Before they arrived, Ali bought three long pieces of plywood from the hardware store and nailed them over the hole. As they walked past the hole, he mentioned--how casually!--that he was doing some repairs after a plumbing problem. They must have known he'd never used a power tool in his life, but still they suspected nothing. They sat at the kitchen table, and drank coffee and talked about business.
Ali ordered food from the Chinese place three blocks up Elden Street. They had good rice; he had written a letter about them once to a local paper. As they ate, there was a small noise from the next room, a squeak like a frightened animal.
"What was that?" Mohammad asked.
"It sounded like a mouse," Nour said.
Or a nail, Ali thought, pulling itself out of a board.
"Surface subsidence," he said.
"If you have mice, you should put something down," Husayn said, starting to rise.
"Don't!" Ali shouted, a little bit too loudly. Everyone looked at him.
"What's wrong?" Nour asked.
"Nothing," Ali said. "Sit down. It's fine. I didn't hear anything."
But it was too late. There was nothing to do but follow them as they trooped into the next room.
"Wu'allahe, ya zellame! Ya himar, Ali, why don't you cover this?" Mohammad shouted, pointing to the gaping hole. Ali muttered that he had. "What happened?" Mohammad said, and Ali had to confess that he didn't know. It was Nour, who was leaning over the hole like she was looking for something she lost, who first began to realize.
"Why can't we see your basement?" she asked.
"That doesn't go to my basement," Ali said, very softly.
"Maybe you should sit down," said Dana. “You don't look well."
Ali laughed, and took another cup from his Damascene coffee service. With a flick of the wrist he tossed it into the hole and the others flinched, waiting for a crash that never came. The fragile ceramic cup fell into the silence like a well full of water, and silence came splashing up and filled the room.
"You should cover that," Mohammad croaked.
#
Husayn approached every problem the same way, with a sort of militaristic determination. After discovering the hole, he went out immediately and bought a section of chain-link fencing to put over it. Then he turned Ali's living room into a kind of command center. He brought high powered lights to try and shine in the hole, and took careful measurements of its dimensions.
Ali would just stand there, looking into dark, as his cousin made his notes.
"You need to find out what's down there," Husayn said.
"There's nothing down there," Ali replied.
"How do you know if you haven't looked?"
"What did you have in mind?" Ali asked, in frustration. "Say bism'illah al rahman al rahim and jump in?"
"I thought we'd hire a professional," Husayn said.
#
"I saw online you do cave tours," Ali told the man on the phone. "I wondered if I could hire you for a different kind of job."
"Nothing illegal," the man said.
"No. I just need help exploring something. It's on my property."
"What is it?"
"There's a--a hole. It's appeared in my house. I want to see what's in it."
"A hole? Like a sinkhole?"
"Something like that," Ali said.
Husayn had been calling science labs all afternoon on his cell phone. At the moment, he was asking about rifts in space time. He got hung up on a lot.
"No, this is not a prank," he shouted, for the twelfth time, as Ali put down the phone.
"Well that's why I'm calling you--"
Ali had to admire his cousin's persistence, though he often questioned the motives behind it. In the world he came from, there was not always a solution to every problem. Some things just couldn't be fixed.
"No, I'm not going to call a contractor, until I--I'm telling you, this hole is not nor--oh, just see for yourself!" And with a final exclamation, Husayn turned and hurled his cell phone into the hole. It vanished without a sound.
“Shit,” Husayn said, after a long moment looking wistfully down into the darkness. “That cost $200.”
"Maybe we should call it a night," Ali said.
"Yeah.”
#
At work the next day, Ali saw the headline. "Space Scientist Freezes in October." Police, the paper said, were baffled. Ali nearly laughed at the bad-TV phrase. But the man had been found dead in his apartment, clutching a telephone. The heat was on, but his body was frozen solid, its temperature more than 100 degrees below zero. The police hadn't been able to figure out who he was talking to. The official theory, ludicrous though it was, was that someone had broken into his apartment and attacked him with liquid nitrogen.
Ali called Husayn from the office.
"I don't think we should go down there," he said.
#
That night, the hole swallowed the chicken wire, and the big lamps Husayn had brought. It occupied most of the room now. In the morning, Ali stood on the the narrow ledge above the void, looking down as he often did, expectantly.
He called in sick to work. When the phone rang, he unplugged it. He was busy. It wasn't until someone knocked on the front door that he turned away.
"Jesus, Al, you look like crap," Gary said, when Ali let him in. "You weren't answering the phone, we thought something might have happened."
"I'm just feeling bad," Ali said.
"I'm sorry I bothered you." Gary answered. He asked a few questions about work, to justify his presence, and then turned to go. "Maybe you should see a doctor," he added, as he left. "Just to make sure."
As Ali watched his boss walk down the drive, he realized with a start that it was growing dark.
#
In the mirror, Ali studied himself, reading the marks of the past weeks on his body. He had lost weight. The skin of his face was baggy from lack of sleep, his eyes red. His hair looked thinner, though that, at least, must have been his imagination.
He ran his fingers over one sunken cheek, and thought about the hole in the floor: about the face he never quite saw in the darkness, the voice he never quite heard.
#
He opened the closet again. The box, filled with the reminders of Fatima's life, was carried out in the cold to the dumpster. As he was about to throw it in, he stopped, and pulled out her Qur'an.
He tossed the box in the trash and walked back home with the holy book under his arm, wrapped up in his windbreaker like a package from someone living far away.
#
In the bathroom, he took off his shoes. He washed his feet, then his hands, in scalding water, letting it turn them lobster red. He washed his face.
In the hall, he faced east and knelt on the gray carpet, saying the words again by heart. Then he picked up the Qur'an, its green leather cover warm in his hand. The suras for exorcism were right at the end.
He stood over the hole, saying the words, shouting them down into the darkness. He waited for the darkness to shout curses back at him, but it never did.
He tried to pray again. His intention hadn't been strong enough. The exorcism could work if he had faith. Standing in the bedroom, by the east window where Fatima used to pray, he went through the phrases again.
He couldn't focus; his mind was not on what he was saying. Prayer was her. It was her crossing to the window with her hair tied up in green and gold; it was the curve of her feet on the mat, the smell of nail polish remover, the shock of blackness as she finished and untied her hair, the sound of her humming as she folded away the rug.
Ali found himself looking up at the stars, shining in the windows of their distant houses. He wondered how far back the darkness went.
#
He went back downstairs, the Qur'an in his hand, and stood again over the hole. His fingers felt frozen as he tossed in the book. It seemed to fall too slowly; hovering in the darkness as if it has its own gravity, its own light. Then it, too, grew small and faded away.
The floorboards groaned, and Ali turned and ran from the room, locking the door behind him, double-locked.
It wouldn't hold long, but every minute counted.
Behind him, he could feel the hinges straining.
Why can't I keep it out, he thought. Why can't I keep it out?
#
The house was shaking; the walls creaked, bulged, lost their shape as the hole swallowed more and more. The living room was gone; the door opened now on nothing but blackness.
Ali scrambled from room to room, looking for anything to put between himself and the hole. Chairs, tables, heavy filing cabinets filled with a lifetime's words, he piled them all against the living room door, barricading himself against the dark. The walls wouldn't hold much longer, he guessed. The locks were rattling in their housings.
His breath came in gasps, like the air itself was drowning him. Rugs, kitchen appliances, shelves still filled with books; he built higher and higher. With a massive effort, he dragged the heavy mattress from his queen-sized bed upstairs, and hurled it against his barricade. He looked around for the next thing, and saw nothing. He fell to his knees, shivering.
"Why can't I keep it out?"
With a final rattle, the locks gave way. The old pine door slowly twisted, warped, tore free from its hinges and fell into nothing.
A cold wind howled down the hall, and Ali still could not move; he hid his head with his hands. The chairs tumbled down after the door, the walls buckled and bits of the floor began to crack and splinter. Be very small, Ali thought, be very small, and it won't see you.
With a screech of metal, the filing cabinet began to tip backwards. A floorboard broke away, and the cabinet turned sideways, then slid gently back, its drawers flying open as it fell in a whirlwind of paper. The walls followed, then the rugs, the chairs, the mattress too, as Ali lay curled on the floor.
Bit by bit, he disappeared.
#
Ali's legs were rubber as he stood up, his knees popped in agony. The last tiny portion of his hallway projected into the darkness like the span of some shattered bridge.
He listened for voices from the other side, but there was nothing, still.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go now."
The hole still waited, expectant, as Ali turned his back on it, and as he walked into the kitchen the darkness followed him.
#
From a neighbor's house, Ali called everyone he know and told them he was having a party in his back yard. Bring people, he told them, bring music and gifts.
Each had to be convinced. To Marko, he said: "It'll be a great party; you'll be sorry if you miss it." He promised to play good music. To Mohammad, he said: "You always want us to hang out more. When will we get another chance like this?" To Gary, it was: "Well, it's because I value our friendship that I invited you."
He told Husayn that Nour had already said she was coming; then he called her and told her the same thing about him. To Sanjay: "We can talk about that feature you want to work on." To Tom: "I'm afraid this may be my last party in a long, long time."
In the end, they all came.
#
When they arrived, the house was gone. The hole gaped, empty, in the lawn. A few of the guests decided to leave when they saw it, but many stayed. Marko brought his speakers, as instructed, and Ali plugged them in to the outlet in the back shed.
He'd saved no furniture, they sat on borrowed lawn chairs and apple boxes. He'd decked the lawn in balloons and streamers from the local party store. They were all in Halloween colors, but it was the best he could do.
They danced all night. Ali played the Cure, and Roxy Music and the Psychedelic Furs. Marko played "More Than This," and "Heaven" by the Talking Heads, and Fatima's favorite song ever, "Pictures of You." When it was time for aasha, they played a prayer by Nusrat Fatteh Ali Khan on the stereo. The hole didn't go away, so they kept on dancing.
No one spoke much. What could they say? They danced. The hole grew slowly. From time to time, one of the dancers would stumble or slip, and the darkness would swallow them without a sound. Some tried to run away, scampering into the other darkness that surrounded the yard.
The rest kept going. They danced until the hole surrounded everything but them, and they were dancing alone at the center of a darkness that was just beginning to gray in the anticipation of dawn.
- END -
by Nicholas Seeley
The hole in Ali Fadhil's floor appeared on the last day of his medical leave. It was the kind of early autumn Sunday when the leaves up and down Elden Street were just beginning to show their yellow edges, and while the summer heat had gone its way there was still no sign of the chill October winds, except the certainty that they would soon begin to blow.
Ali sat in the window seat, sipping tea and watching Gary's car as it inched out into the snarl of post-church traffic. The tea was getting cold, but Ali kept at it. It was the kind that reminded him of home: too strong, and served in a tiny, fragile thimble glass; mint leaves on top and loads of sugar so heavy they make a silken layer on the bottom. Fatima used to drink strange, flavored teas out of big ceramic mugs; after ten years, Ali had never got used to it.
Gary had been talking about Ali coming back to the office. He'd brought Ali's cousin, Husayn, for moral support.
"Are you sure you're ready?" Gary had asked, in the tone he used to demonstrate how concerned he was. "If you need more time, we can keep using freelancers for a while. It's OK. Some of them are pretty good--"
Gary was bad at feelings. It wasn't that he lacked them altogether, he'd just picked them all up off the department store rack, and none really fit him properly. Husayn just stood there, rubbing his lip like he wanted a cigarette. He never said much, something Ali attributed to growing up in America. Americans concealed their feelings as much as they could; it was their thoughts that they held up for public scrutiny. In Damascus it was just the opposite.
For Husayn, Damascus must be a vague memory, Ali thought--perhaps now nothing more than a sensation, lodged deep in the rose-like stem of his brain, where it would trigger an inexplicable nostalgia at the smell of coffee with cardamom. Husayn would ignore such a feeling, of course.
After Ali had gotten engaged, it was Husayn who had found him his job at the Middle East desk, his green card, his new life. He could still easily conjure the terror of that first day: stepping off the plane, jet lagged and bewildered by the air-conditioned smell of nothing. The upholstered tunnel to the airport could have been the throat of jahennem, hell itself. It was another world, ready to devour him.
But in that world, she had been waiting.
"Might do you good to get back, y'know," Husayn said, breaking the awkward silence.
"Yes!" Gary leapt at the opportunity to be reassuring. "It's not that we don't want you, Ali. Having you on the job would really take a load off us all. Not, uh, that we want to pressure you into anything you're not, uh, ready--" Ali saw his boss getting lost in his own sympathizing, and reached out to touch his arm. It was a rare gesture of affection, practiced many times in a mirror. With Fatima gone, he must be the one to dispense comfort and reassurance.
"I'll be fine," he said. "I should get back to work."
Ali liked being around Gary. The man's fakery complimented his own. Perhaps that's what I need, he thought: a mentor in the art of not feeling.
So they'd talked, and the men had left, and Ali had sipped his hot, sweet tea and thought about Fatima. The bland, decaffeinated drinks she liked, and the way she said whatever was on her mind, and the light of her at the end of the tunnel. He had never felt at home in this place. Husayn had brought him, but she had held him all these years: Home was her.
He let the glass linger between his teeth and thought about the way her hair would explode from under her scarf the moment she came in the door. It would come down like a shower of rain, and when he kissed her it would dance through his hands as if every shining lock had missed him. He had a thick chunk of that hair curled into the pages of her copy of The Road to OZ; dead as a finger severed from a hand.
When he looked up again he realized that it had grown dark outside--the absolute darkness of a clear and moonless night. No sign of the town was visible, no starlight through the trees. He floated alone in the center of a great black emptiness, which no light, no sound or memory could penetrate.
#
Armed with a heavy cardboard box, Ali searched his living room with the care of a forensic detective. In a way, he thought, that's what I am. Examining the crime scene. Removing evidence.
Photographs, of course, mementos, those were the easy parts: the dead body surrounded by shell casings. The little things were harder--the ticking time bombs of the innocuous inanimate. The short pencils she would use to hold up her hair. The notepad she kept by the phone that never had a phone number written in it, covered with doodled spirals and dogs with wings. Into the box with them.
The antique OZ books, with their beautiful illustrations. Alice in Wonderland. Beardsley prints, Doré engravings, books of calligraphy: into the box.
The Cure albums stacked carefully on the back row of the rack. The Psychedelic Furs, Roxy Music. Joy Division rubbing shoulders with Nusrat Fatteh Ali Khan. Into the box.
The prayer beads camouflaged in the dripping Spanish moss of house keys. The vast collection of colored scarves. It took him half an hour to find the smoking gun: her Qur'an, laid carefully on top of a folded prayer rug inside the window seat he had so recently been sitting on. Into the box.
When he was convinced the place was clean, Ali stopped. He was looking at her favorite armchair, sitting by the coffee table in defiant, yellow-patterned ugliness. It would have to wait for Thursday, when the large disposal men came. He tossed a white sheet over it and moved on.
So all of the pieces were gathered with care, no detail missed, until every remaining bit of Fatima was carefully stowed in its cardboard coffin and stashed in the bottom of the hall closet beside the old typewriter, the word processors, the newspaper cuttings that chronicled life in daily installments. Like so many things: there always, but carefully out of sight.
#
In his dream, he couldn't recall if he was in the driver's seat again, or only watching. He remembered the patch of shiny blackness on the road, then the shouting, the scream of the brakes and the black petroleum smoke in choking clouds.
He woke up coughing.
#
At quarter-to-twelve, Ali paced the house. Insomnia was not something he understood. Growing up in the perpetual broil of an Arab home, surrounded by nine brothers and sisters, he went to sleep when he was tired. But tonight he had insomnia, and with it he drifted, anchorless, unsure whether to stand or lie down, to watch television or to try again to sleep.
It was as he was heading into the kitchen that he saw it. At first he thought it was a trash bag, or maybe an errant sweater that had somehow migrated under Fatima's chair. He crossed to pick it up, and found himself looking into a large hole in the floor.
It was about a foot across, irregular, with splintered edges, like the hole he imagined a cannonball might make. Ali pushed the chair out of the way and looked down. He could see the one-bys in the floor, the matching hole where the basement ceiling had been torn through. Beyond that, darkness.
#
The only light on the basement stairs was a single naked bulb at the bottom, operated by a pull cord. Ali stood frozen at the top, gaging the distance between himself and the light he couldn't see. He had no childhood fear of the creaking basement stairs; like insomnia, this was something he had never known in his youth. But still he stood, trying with some primitive instinct to see into the darkness, although he knew the way.
#
The basement had been a studio once. Unfinished canvases were stacked against the walls, covered in white sheets like bodies in a hospital.
With the work lamps on, Ali stared up at the unblemished sheetrock of the ceiling. The living room was definitely directly above him. The problem was, there was no hole on this side. Ali found himself wondering if that made the damage uninsurable.
Just to be on the safe side, he turned on all the lights before going back upstairs.
The hole looked exactly the same. Wherever it led, it wasn't the basement. And there were no lights on there.
#
It took another full search of the house to come up with a functioning flashlight. It lit up the crawl space between the living room floor and the basement ceiling perfectly; Ali could see every protruding nail and tuft of dirt. But in the hole itself, the slender beam illuminated nothing.
His eye lit on the selection of Damascene coffee cups on the mantle. Ali had brought them with him when he came to the U.S., a reminder of a home he would never go back to. He picked one up and tossed it into the hole. There was no sound at all as it vanished.
For a long time he stood there, watching. Then he pushed the chair back over the hole, so he wouldn't catch his foot in it. Before leaving, he adjusted the sheet so that it covered not only the chair, but what was underneath. Then he went again up to bed.
And dreamed.
#
Going back to work was easy, like picking up a book long put aside and finding you remember every plot twist. Congress was fighting over war funding. The Syrians were resisting Western imperialism. As the day went on, Ali found he was disappointed. Keeping busy was supposed to make things easier, help the time go faster. Perhaps it did, but always there was with him the sense of something wrong, forgotten or misplaced. It hung at the edges of his mind, and when he reached for it, it drifted like smoke between his fingers.
#
When he come home the hole was waiting for him. He stood in the doorway shaking the wet leaves from his shoes, while it eyed him appraisingly from under the yellow chair. It seemed larger. The sheet was gone.
Ali had stopped at the hardware store on his way home, and in a plastic bag he carried 100 feet of tough string and a half-inch hex wrench. He tied one end of the string tightly through the loop on the wrench and, shoving the chair aside, lowered it into the hole.
He took his time playing out the line, turning the ball over in his hands and watching it get smaller and smaller. Bit by bit, he unwound the entire length. It didn't reach the bottom. Ali could feel the wrench swinging slowly back and forth far below. When he pulled it back out it was cold to the touch, but otherwise quite normal.
For most of an hour he paced the living room in uncertain spirals, his eyes never straying from the hole. Something had to be done.
Finally, even though Thursday was still three days away, Ali took the the ugly yellow-patterned chair out to the curb and left it by the trash barrels. Fines be damned.
Returning, flushed from the chill, he grabbed one end of the heavy black leather sofa and dragged it over the hole. The sofa skirt came right to the floor. The hole was gone, but Ali still felt as if he could see it, as if he'd grown some kind of x-ray vision. He tossed some TV guides and an old newspaper onto the sofa, and headed to bed.
#
The next evening, he brought Gary and Sanjay from work back for a couple of drinks. They sat in the living room with the lights blazing, laughing and talking loudly about politics. Ali realized he was smiling to himself.
They hadn't noticed a thing.
Even so, late in the evening, when Gary sprawled himself on the sofa as he rambled on about the open-source revolution, Ali realized he was holding his breath.
"What?" Gary asked, "I spill beer on myself or summin?"
"It's nothing," Ali said.
When they were gone, he moved the sofa aside, and stood looking down into the hole--hoping, perhaps, for some glimpse of movement in its depths.
#
Again he woke up coughing.
He sat up in the dark, listening for something that wasn't there anymore. The clock read 3:21.
He got out of bed and pressed his ear to the door, straining for any recurrence of the sound that had waked him. He stood there for two minutes, then three, warnings about never confronting intruders whirling in his brain. But there was no sound from below, not even a footstep, and he felt like a coward. Finally he opened the door and quietly begin to pad down the stairs.
A shadow loomed in the living room, and Ali froze. His heart was pounding loud enough to listen to. His hands tingled with the rush of blood; it roared in his ears. He labored to breathe.
Ghosts loomed on the edges of his vision, things forgotten suddenly recalled, a legion of ancient grudges populating the dark corners. The shadow did not move. Slowly Ali's breathing quieted, and he realized what he was looking at. His pulse still pounded.
The end of the sofa was projecting at a steep angle from the hole in the floor, like the stern of a sinking ship. As Ali watched, the boards give a creak and a groan, and the sofa shifted further, standing up straight on its end for a moment before slipping quietly down into the darkness.
When Ali turned on the light, all he could see was the hole, now at least three feet across, gloating in the center of the room. He ran back up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door. Its heavy wood was firm beneath him as he gasped for air, but each breath seemed torn away into the freezing night.
#
That weekend, Husayn was supposed to be coming for dinner with his brother, Mohammad. Mo brought his girlfriend, Dana, and her friend Nour, who they were trying to set up with Husayn.
Before they arrived, Ali bought three long pieces of plywood from the hardware store and nailed them over the hole. As they walked past the hole, he mentioned--how casually!--that he was doing some repairs after a plumbing problem. They must have known he'd never used a power tool in his life, but still they suspected nothing. They sat at the kitchen table, and drank coffee and talked about business.
Ali ordered food from the Chinese place three blocks up Elden Street. They had good rice; he had written a letter about them once to a local paper. As they ate, there was a small noise from the next room, a squeak like a frightened animal.
"What was that?" Mohammad asked.
"It sounded like a mouse," Nour said.
Or a nail, Ali thought, pulling itself out of a board.
"Surface subsidence," he said.
"If you have mice, you should put something down," Husayn said, starting to rise.
"Don't!" Ali shouted, a little bit too loudly. Everyone looked at him.
"What's wrong?" Nour asked.
"Nothing," Ali said. "Sit down. It's fine. I didn't hear anything."
But it was too late. There was nothing to do but follow them as they trooped into the next room.
"Wu'allahe, ya zellame! Ya himar, Ali, why don't you cover this?" Mohammad shouted, pointing to the gaping hole. Ali muttered that he had. "What happened?" Mohammad said, and Ali had to confess that he didn't know. It was Nour, who was leaning over the hole like she was looking for something she lost, who first began to realize.
"Why can't we see your basement?" she asked.
"That doesn't go to my basement," Ali said, very softly.
"Maybe you should sit down," said Dana. “You don't look well."
Ali laughed, and took another cup from his Damascene coffee service. With a flick of the wrist he tossed it into the hole and the others flinched, waiting for a crash that never came. The fragile ceramic cup fell into the silence like a well full of water, and silence came splashing up and filled the room.
"You should cover that," Mohammad croaked.
#
Husayn approached every problem the same way, with a sort of militaristic determination. After discovering the hole, he went out immediately and bought a section of chain-link fencing to put over it. Then he turned Ali's living room into a kind of command center. He brought high powered lights to try and shine in the hole, and took careful measurements of its dimensions.
Ali would just stand there, looking into dark, as his cousin made his notes.
"You need to find out what's down there," Husayn said.
"There's nothing down there," Ali replied.
"How do you know if you haven't looked?"
"What did you have in mind?" Ali asked, in frustration. "Say bism'illah al rahman al rahim and jump in?"
"I thought we'd hire a professional," Husayn said.
#
"I saw online you do cave tours," Ali told the man on the phone. "I wondered if I could hire you for a different kind of job."
"Nothing illegal," the man said.
"No. I just need help exploring something. It's on my property."
"What is it?"
"There's a--a hole. It's appeared in my house. I want to see what's in it."
"A hole? Like a sinkhole?"
"Something like that," Ali said.
Husayn had been calling science labs all afternoon on his cell phone. At the moment, he was asking about rifts in space time. He got hung up on a lot.
"No, this is not a prank," he shouted, for the twelfth time, as Ali put down the phone.
"Well that's why I'm calling you--"
Ali had to admire his cousin's persistence, though he often questioned the motives behind it. In the world he came from, there was not always a solution to every problem. Some things just couldn't be fixed.
"No, I'm not going to call a contractor, until I--I'm telling you, this hole is not nor--oh, just see for yourself!" And with a final exclamation, Husayn turned and hurled his cell phone into the hole. It vanished without a sound.
“Shit,” Husayn said, after a long moment looking wistfully down into the darkness. “That cost $200.”
"Maybe we should call it a night," Ali said.
"Yeah.”
#
At work the next day, Ali saw the headline. "Space Scientist Freezes in October." Police, the paper said, were baffled. Ali nearly laughed at the bad-TV phrase. But the man had been found dead in his apartment, clutching a telephone. The heat was on, but his body was frozen solid, its temperature more than 100 degrees below zero. The police hadn't been able to figure out who he was talking to. The official theory, ludicrous though it was, was that someone had broken into his apartment and attacked him with liquid nitrogen.
Ali called Husayn from the office.
"I don't think we should go down there," he said.
#
That night, the hole swallowed the chicken wire, and the big lamps Husayn had brought. It occupied most of the room now. In the morning, Ali stood on the the narrow ledge above the void, looking down as he often did, expectantly.
He called in sick to work. When the phone rang, he unplugged it. He was busy. It wasn't until someone knocked on the front door that he turned away.
"Jesus, Al, you look like crap," Gary said, when Ali let him in. "You weren't answering the phone, we thought something might have happened."
"I'm just feeling bad," Ali said.
"I'm sorry I bothered you." Gary answered. He asked a few questions about work, to justify his presence, and then turned to go. "Maybe you should see a doctor," he added, as he left. "Just to make sure."
As Ali watched his boss walk down the drive, he realized with a start that it was growing dark.
#
In the mirror, Ali studied himself, reading the marks of the past weeks on his body. He had lost weight. The skin of his face was baggy from lack of sleep, his eyes red. His hair looked thinner, though that, at least, must have been his imagination.
He ran his fingers over one sunken cheek, and thought about the hole in the floor: about the face he never quite saw in the darkness, the voice he never quite heard.
#
He opened the closet again. The box, filled with the reminders of Fatima's life, was carried out in the cold to the dumpster. As he was about to throw it in, he stopped, and pulled out her Qur'an.
He tossed the box in the trash and walked back home with the holy book under his arm, wrapped up in his windbreaker like a package from someone living far away.
#
In the bathroom, he took off his shoes. He washed his feet, then his hands, in scalding water, letting it turn them lobster red. He washed his face.
In the hall, he faced east and knelt on the gray carpet, saying the words again by heart. Then he picked up the Qur'an, its green leather cover warm in his hand. The suras for exorcism were right at the end.
He stood over the hole, saying the words, shouting them down into the darkness. He waited for the darkness to shout curses back at him, but it never did.
He tried to pray again. His intention hadn't been strong enough. The exorcism could work if he had faith. Standing in the bedroom, by the east window where Fatima used to pray, he went through the phrases again.
He couldn't focus; his mind was not on what he was saying. Prayer was her. It was her crossing to the window with her hair tied up in green and gold; it was the curve of her feet on the mat, the smell of nail polish remover, the shock of blackness as she finished and untied her hair, the sound of her humming as she folded away the rug.
Ali found himself looking up at the stars, shining in the windows of their distant houses. He wondered how far back the darkness went.
#
He went back downstairs, the Qur'an in his hand, and stood again over the hole. His fingers felt frozen as he tossed in the book. It seemed to fall too slowly; hovering in the darkness as if it has its own gravity, its own light. Then it, too, grew small and faded away.
The floorboards groaned, and Ali turned and ran from the room, locking the door behind him, double-locked.
It wouldn't hold long, but every minute counted.
Behind him, he could feel the hinges straining.
Why can't I keep it out, he thought. Why can't I keep it out?
#
The house was shaking; the walls creaked, bulged, lost their shape as the hole swallowed more and more. The living room was gone; the door opened now on nothing but blackness.
Ali scrambled from room to room, looking for anything to put between himself and the hole. Chairs, tables, heavy filing cabinets filled with a lifetime's words, he piled them all against the living room door, barricading himself against the dark. The walls wouldn't hold much longer, he guessed. The locks were rattling in their housings.
His breath came in gasps, like the air itself was drowning him. Rugs, kitchen appliances, shelves still filled with books; he built higher and higher. With a massive effort, he dragged the heavy mattress from his queen-sized bed upstairs, and hurled it against his barricade. He looked around for the next thing, and saw nothing. He fell to his knees, shivering.
"Why can't I keep it out?"
With a final rattle, the locks gave way. The old pine door slowly twisted, warped, tore free from its hinges and fell into nothing.
A cold wind howled down the hall, and Ali still could not move; he hid his head with his hands. The chairs tumbled down after the door, the walls buckled and bits of the floor began to crack and splinter. Be very small, Ali thought, be very small, and it won't see you.
With a screech of metal, the filing cabinet began to tip backwards. A floorboard broke away, and the cabinet turned sideways, then slid gently back, its drawers flying open as it fell in a whirlwind of paper. The walls followed, then the rugs, the chairs, the mattress too, as Ali lay curled on the floor.
Bit by bit, he disappeared.
#
Ali's legs were rubber as he stood up, his knees popped in agony. The last tiny portion of his hallway projected into the darkness like the span of some shattered bridge.
He listened for voices from the other side, but there was nothing, still.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I have to go now."
The hole still waited, expectant, as Ali turned his back on it, and as he walked into the kitchen the darkness followed him.
#
From a neighbor's house, Ali called everyone he know and told them he was having a party in his back yard. Bring people, he told them, bring music and gifts.
Each had to be convinced. To Marko, he said: "It'll be a great party; you'll be sorry if you miss it." He promised to play good music. To Mohammad, he said: "You always want us to hang out more. When will we get another chance like this?" To Gary, it was: "Well, it's because I value our friendship that I invited you."
He told Husayn that Nour had already said she was coming; then he called her and told her the same thing about him. To Sanjay: "We can talk about that feature you want to work on." To Tom: "I'm afraid this may be my last party in a long, long time."
In the end, they all came.
#
When they arrived, the house was gone. The hole gaped, empty, in the lawn. A few of the guests decided to leave when they saw it, but many stayed. Marko brought his speakers, as instructed, and Ali plugged them in to the outlet in the back shed.
He'd saved no furniture, they sat on borrowed lawn chairs and apple boxes. He'd decked the lawn in balloons and streamers from the local party store. They were all in Halloween colors, but it was the best he could do.
They danced all night. Ali played the Cure, and Roxy Music and the Psychedelic Furs. Marko played "More Than This," and "Heaven" by the Talking Heads, and Fatima's favorite song ever, "Pictures of You." When it was time for aasha, they played a prayer by Nusrat Fatteh Ali Khan on the stereo. The hole didn't go away, so they kept on dancing.
No one spoke much. What could they say? They danced. The hole grew slowly. From time to time, one of the dancers would stumble or slip, and the darkness would swallow them without a sound. Some tried to run away, scampering into the other darkness that surrounded the yard.
The rest kept going. They danced until the hole surrounded everything but them, and they were dancing alone at the center of a darkness that was just beginning to gray in the anticipation of dawn.
- END -
Matt Spencer / The Empty Whisper
Matt Spencer is the author of the novel The Drifting Soul, which was illustrated by award-winning artist Stephen R. Bissett. Mr. Spencer's short fiction has appeared in Aphelion,Back Roads, Darkened Doorways, Demon Minds andHardluck Stories. He has lived all over the US, as a factory worker, restaurant cook, dishwasher, bartender, newspaper journalist, and rambling bum. He presently lives and writes in Vermont. Check him out on the web at http://mattspencer.webs.com/. E-mail: [email protected]
The Empty Whisper
By Matt Spencer
I ain’t been indoors for three nights and four days. The first night I fell asleep in the yard. After that it got cold so I slept in the barn. That scratchy old horse blanket made me sneeze like crazy and it still tickles in my nose. By now I don’t know what keeps me goin’. What’d I do if she came outside?
Now out of the trees comes this pack of hardass weirdoes. Obviously they’re here for her, like those old lynchin’ mobs Daddy used to tell me about. Except not even the shaggy old man leadin’ ’em will set foot on the porch, even though he looks like a modern-day Wild Bill Hickock, only crazier. Two of his men think about it, the bug-eyed guy with truncated arms and the one who’s round as a bolder. And yeah, he’s about as big an’ solid. When they exchange looks, the old man strides forward, whippin’ out his big Bowie knife quicker than my eyes can follow. He moves weird and jerky like a skeleton on puppet strings. Dry dead leaves crackle twice as loud as they should, and I realize his joints are makin’ half the racket. When he waves that knife in Bug Eyes and Bolder’s faces, the edge glistens in the red sunset. It looks sharp enough to cut you without touching you.
“Jody, Ralph, you bitches take one more step, I’ll cut your nuts off and feed ’em to the kids. Do anything stupid now, that’s what you might as well be doin’ to us all.”
Jody and Ralph say he’s wastin’ time, yell names of folks I guess are dead, lookin’ ready to get into it with the old bastard. I figure they’re both idiots, knife or no, even though he’s so skinny he’d get stuck in either of their asses if they sat on him.
“Keep back, I say! We don’t know anything yet.”
“We know plenty,” Ralph pleads. “We know what she is, what she did to Joan…”
“We know what she did back there, where we met her. She’s whatever she needs to be wherever she is. She’s as many kinds of trouble as there’s places to find her.”
The old bastard stalks off. Soon as he puts that knife away, three women move close and circle him. They’d all three be pretty if I wasn’t scared shitless, two kinda big girls and a little one. He keeps sniffin’ and his limbs keep tensin’, his lips twistin’ into all kinds of silent snarls. Obviously they’ve all spent days in these deep woods, twigs and bits of brush clingin’ to their matted clothes and hair, faces long an’ sunken. Now that Jody and Ralph have quit actin’ stupid, they’re all frozen silent like church folk after some fire an’ brimstone from the preacher… All ’cept the young feller with his long stringy red hair and beady eyes like a rabid fox. I ain’t put a name to him, but I know he’s native to Riversville. He’s the one came through them trees in the lead… like he’s at home here, showin’ the others around, crouchin’ an’ stalkin’ quietly through the brush, sensin’ out all the native dangers. The knife strapped to his leg matches the old feller’s. He comes towards me like we’re old buddies.
“So when’d she show up?” Yep, the accent’s pure Riversville.
“Three nights ago.” I’m pretty sure that’s right.
“You invite her in, or she just invite herself?”
“Well, uh… Son, look…”
“Hey, look, whatever, dipshit.”
“You an’ yer friends gonna make her go away?” I shake, feelin’ the sobs comin’ back.
He takes out a flask, swigs and passes it to me. It’s some kinda sweet thick spicy whiskey, harsher than the stuff from the stills ’round here. I almost puke, but the second swig feels good like whiskey should. “Tell me what happened while they jaw at each other,” he says. “Now look, I’m tellin’ you up front: I catch any lyin’ – or leavin’ shit out – in your tone, I’m gonna start cuttin’ on you ’til I hear you tell it proper. And it hurts my feelin’s when I have to be an asshole, so do me a favor and don’t do that.” His tone’s the friendliest I’ve hear in a while.
How am I supposed to answer him proper? Shit, I don’t know what happened! The sky was black like a tarp yanked over everything, all ’cept the full moon bright enough to bring out all the werewolves. I swear that’s what the clouds around it resembled: a werewolf face, like someone had carved ’em that way. It was pointed straight down at me and the moon looked like its one eye blazin’ out of the socket, down into my soul. When Magpie kept barkin’, its face moved a little closer to earth. I tried shuttin’ Magpie up, but Magpie wrestled loose even when I tried holdin’ his jaw shut and draggin’ him indoors. Then I realized he wasn’t barkin’ at the werewolf’s eye moon no more, but at somethin’ out in the woods, which were blacker even than the sky around that moon and patch of clouds. ’Bout then Gladys walked out and we both heard the whisperin’… The difference was, I didn’t hear words I understood. Gladys obviously did.
“Listen Kenny…” Her nails dug into my arms.
“I’m listenin’… Shit, that sounds creepy!”
“Don’t swear. Not in Her presence!”
“Huh? Who?”
“Can’t you hear Her out there? She’s speakin’ my name! Yours too, Kenny, tellin’ us She loves us. It’s time to receive Her…”
“Her?”
“I… I didn’t think She’d be a woman… Oh Kenny, can’t you feel it?”
Oh yeah, I felt it… Still ain’t quite got the words for it, ’cept it made me want to feel what Gladys did. But somethin’ kept squeezin’ my innards shut so the poison sweetness couldn’t get in. Part of me said I should fight off this doubt for the Lord and His love when He stands before you. Doubt’s the devil’s greatest weapon, after all. I was raised with the blackness of these nighttime woods around me. It’s never scared me, just puts me on high alert when I hear noises that shouldn’t be there. That alertness is around us Langell men from birth, in the air our fathers breathe out, and we absorb it in our cribs.
Now the blackness scared me, ’cause it didn’t feel threatening. It felt more like the nicest thing in the world to walk into, so I’d never have to worry, ever again. And every bone in me said it wasn’t right. But Gladys kept pullin’ on me harder as the whispers got louder. It kept remindin’ me that there was nowhere else to go so I’d best accept it and follow my wife. That first part was about right, ’cause these whisperin’ black woods surround this house for miles. The only light came from the open door behind us, and the werewolf moon above. The whispers seemed to say the darkness would only lift if we walked through it to the light hidden inside it. Don’t be scared. Pass through the darkness unharmed, and embrace everlasting peace.
Now I was the one pullin’ Gladys back towards the house. She felt stronger than she’d ever been. “Kenny, stop holdin’ me from my lord’s love!” She shouted at the shadows, “Forgive my husband, Lady of the Lord, he don’t know what he’s doin’! Take away his fear!”
The whisperer tickled my innards, tryin’ to oblige my wife, makin’ me want to let go my fear… It felt so peaceful, yet somehow at the same time not at all. The high alertness of my line still spoke loud an’ clear. Gladys broke loose and ran into the blackness, arms outstretched. I loved her more than ever as she vanished, and I hated her guts. ’Cause I knew right then I’d never see her again. She’d deserted me for her false god or goddess or whatever. And she’d given up tryin’ to pull me with her to what she’d swear in her heart was the one true salvation, and I hadn’t for an instant been worth second thoughts. I hated myself too. ’Cause I hadn’t been good enough, and I obviously didn’t love her enough to damn myself. She I’d sworn before God to love, honor and protect ’til death did us part. I did run after her, meanin’ to drag her back from it, but I twisted my foot and sprawled in the dead leaves.
As I hobbled up, Gladys shouted from somewhere. “Kenny, come out to us! It’s wonderful! Ain’t no description for this beauty… none for Her beauty… what She’ll do for you… how She’ll set you free… show you the way…”
I didn’t hear her whisperin’ no more, ’cept she now sang in Gladys’s voice. It was the prettiest sound I ever heard, and the ugliest. I don’t know what Magpie was doin’ all that time, but he’d stopped barkin’. But when that thing sang in Gladys’s voice, he barked again and ran past me. I fell over again tryin’ to grab him, and he vanished into that blackness. His barkin’ got farther off for what seemed like miles. All I could do was hobble to my door, slam it and turn the bolt and shove a chair up under the knob. After lockin’ all the doors an’ windows, I loaded the shotgun an’ slumped against a wall, facing the front door. My eyes wanted to fixate murderously, wait for the whisperer to try gettin’ in so I could blow her apart. But that’s when the sobs got me. Because I knew right then I’d damned myself by runnin’ an’ hidin’ while my wife was out there in that thing’s embrace. I felt its black essence leakin’ in ’til I could smell it.
Once I ran out of sobs, the world went silent, like everything had frozen into one big black an’ white photograph hangin’ in a frame somewhere in hell. By the time the doorknob rattled, I’d forgotten my gun and watched numbly. The knob shook an’ jiggled, the chair vibratin’ little by little to the left. I didn’t move to stop it, just let it fall over. The door was locked. I’d turned the bolt, right? I didn’t dare get up to check.
Finally the chair crashed on its face. The door swung open, slidin’ it away in a scratchy squall. That’s when I first saw her. If I could put her face in words so you’d see it in your mind, you wouldn’t believe me. It was too perfect, every angle just right like faces never are. That’s supposed to be ultimate beauty, ’cept actually seein’ it’s horrible, remindin’ you how short you fall of the glory or somethin’… ’cept, turns out, it’s somethin’ you don’t wanna get near. ’Cause it’ll just gobble up what’s good of you to fuel its fire and leave the rest in a dry twitching heap. At first she – this girl, this woman, whatever she was – just looked around like I wasn’t there, like she planned to make herself at home, tryin’ to decide whether to fix dinner or flop on the couch and watch TV. She was full of all the light behind the blackness… except it wasn’t so much light as a big white sheet of emptiness… All she carried of the blackness was her hair and her eyes. Otherwise I could hardly tell the skin of her face, neck, and hands from the white robe she wore, like the robe you always see Jesus wearin’ in pictures. She moved so serene like you always picture Jesus movin’, ’cept I didn’t feel Jesus’s love for all God’s critters. No, I could tell, all she loved was whatever she managed to suck into that emptiness. It felt like everything in this room, everything in this house, in this world, would get sucked into it like a black hole… like I’d let Gladys be sucked in.
When I sobbed again, she came my way. Her eyes were the worst, so I looked where I figured her feet would be under the robe.
“Why do you weep, when I offer a place where you need never weep again?”
“Where’s my wife? Where’s my dog?” I remembered my gun, but didn’t think to raise it to her. I just hugged it to my chest ’cause it was all I had left to hug.
“Your wife came to me and took my hand. She stepped within my life and now moves through it, to hinder those who’d interfere with my good works. You are a good man, a humble man, for you know not to try to hinder me. Your dog was a mad creature that would not be moved. For now his energy has dispersed back into the wild chaos I seek to draw within the great glowing harmony.”
“You killed my dog…”
“That is what you would call it, for you still dwell in the chaos. When all things pass into this harmony, your wife and dog will be there, though you will not recognize them. You will not recognize yourself. You will no longer need to. Your wife has accepted. Why can’t you?”
I don’t know how long I huddled there, and I don’t know where my shotgun got to when I finally pulled myself together and hauled ass outside. I felt my whole house dissolvin’ into that emptiness she called purity and harmony. It was the worst thing you couldn’t imagine, and part of me wanted it. The rest of me – the part that still fought for life – felt like I was bein’ raped. Like I’d gone to prison an’ shared a cell with that weird empty bitch, an’ she’d grown a dick an’ bent me over and was knockin’ my guts to jelly. When I finally ran out, I couldn’t make it past the light spillin’ out of the house… I couldn’t make myself go into the forest’s blackness. I felt Gladys, or what had been Gladys. It was like feelin’ that weird empty bitch still out there waitin’. So I fell down again and slept in the dead leaves.
I still don’t know why I didn’t leave when I woke up with the sun. She ain’t out there now. I still feel that nasty bright emptiness leakin’ out, ticklin’ an’ suckin’ at me from what used to be my house. That’s how I know she’s still in there. Now all around me there’s these hardass crazy motherfuckers. I’ve been tellin’ all this to the young feller while we swig whatever we’re swiggin’ from his flask. Well, I’m swiggin’. He’s chuggin’ like it’s water. The weirdest thing is, it ain’t empty yet. Hell, he should’ve polished it off by now a few times over. But every time I drink, it’s from a full container. I’m pretty drunk already. Must be ’cause I ain’t eaten much lately. All I’ve had is what’s left in the garden, and it’s late fall so most of that’s been harvested and stored in the basement freezer.
The young feller busts out laughin’. “You noticed that wolf in the sky too? Shit! Man, you thought it was lookin’ at you? I saw that thing lookin’ right down at me, like he was darin’ me towards somethin’. So I looked right back into that one glowin’ eye and said You got somethin’ to say? Fuckin’ say it, bitch! That’s about when them clouds broke apart and the moon went back behind ’em. Guess the ol’ werewolf in the sky wasn’t up for fightin’. Then I took a few minutes and figured the rough direction he was hoverin’ over. So I pointed this group that way, and it led… here! Turned out to be the right way.” He shakes his head. “Gods work in weird ways, huh?”
“There’s just one god,” I mutter, like the god I grew up hearin’ about in church could possibly be there and let all this go on in the world.
He just chuckles more, keeps thumbin’ that knife handle eagerly. Yards off, the others gather in a huddle. The youngest of the women walks up, and the feller’s eyes light up, like a man’s eyes will towards a daughter. He’s too young to be her daddy, but she looks too young to be his woman. She yanks his shoulder and he sways a little. She’s strong but so’s he, so he holds his ass in place. “C’mon, Spaz, we’re discussing what to do.”
“I’ll be over.” He leers sideways at me. “I’m gettin’ the scoop from the farmer here. We’re gettin’ to be good pals, ain’t we, Kenny?” When he says my name, I shrink up. The girl laughs and I can’t help noticin’ she’s beautiful: full figure, lush dark hair, sharp face, bright young savage eyes. She also makes me tense up, like when someone comes at me for a fight. Spaz keeps cool, but them rabid eyes flash nasty and he thumbs the strap off the knife’s hilt. “Hoss, meet my niece Jenny. Them two other lovely ladies over there are my sisters. The dark haired one’s her mom. Look at her! Why, anyone messed with her, I reckon I’d have to slice ’em up good, and I don’t reckon I’d quit once they were down. No sir, reckon I’d take my time, have me some fun… like that last bitch tried messin’ with her. Ran into that’n a day or so ago.”
As he strokes the knife’s pommel lovingly, I realize who he is. Weird redheaded little Everett Kale, who everyone in school and town used to bully ’til he tightened his limbs and started bullyin’ back. I never got into it with him, but I heard an’ saw how he liked to grab sharp things to get at people with. School would’ve expelled him, but his folks started keepin’ him home, lockin’ him in the cellar rumors went, so he had nothin’ to do down in the dark but go crazier and work out with whatever heavy shit was lyin’ around. But when he got loose, he was smart about bein’ crazy. When bad shit happened at night, everyone knew who it was. But the law never pinned him, even after that business with the Sheriff’s daughter.
Now here’s ol’ Everett sittin’ next to me, jawin’ all casual about the woman in my house, about werewolves in the sky and cuttin’ folks up with his pretty new knife. While I’m ready to shit my pants, his niece leans on his shoulder, smirkin’ an’ rollin’ her eyes. Just a kid, and to her he’s just a lovable ol’ softy. Folks used to say he was adopted from somewhere, so he must’ve run off and found his real kin. Now the whole brood’s here chasin’ the woman in my house. And here I am sandwiched between ’em.
Finally Jenny’s momma calls her back over with the rest. The ladies have out glass jars of red powder, and someone passes Jenny one. From here it looks like dried blood, lots of it, crumbled fine.
“Oh,” Everett says, “they’re bustin’ out that stuff. That’ll keep her pinned a while.”
“Keep her in there?”
“Well, yeah, ’til we figure how to take her down.”
“How long you been chasin’ her, Mister? What’s she out to do?”
“Well, I’m workin’ on some theories. See, after we had our first run-in with her, we put out the word to others like us, seein’ who all’d seen her. Turns out plenty have. We started formin’ a pattern from what we heard and everywhere it came from, to figure where she might head next. We started in the Midwest. Trail led east, zigs an’ zags everywhere from there. But we’ve seen plenty places she’s stopped, and it tends to look a lot worse than around here. There’s whole little towns where everyone’s turned into dopey-eyed zealots of whatever she preaches, and they run screamin’ to put us down when they realize we’re chasin’ her, so we gotta put them down. Then there’s where folks resisted her, and those places you really don’t wanna see… Everyone’s crawlin’ through the dirt, stretched out like sickly weedy vines dyin’ of drought. The ones already dead have weeds growin’ up around ’em and through ’em, and those spindly stalks sway towards you in the wind, and you swear you hear the dead cryin’ at you through ’em, beggin’ you to come down and give ’em company. And you almost want to, ’cause it feels like the safest place to be in a world with her in it. I’ve noticed her trail’s always in the rural places, the farmin’ towns, kindsa places there’s less and less of in this rottin’ civilization. You gotta go further an’ further between ’em. But if you know how to look at the maps, you see there are straight lines linkin’ ’em all up… byways gone untouched. She’s followin’ those, one at a time, leavin’ her path of cryin’ emptiness, linkin’ ’em all up. There’s somewhere at the center they all lead to, and that’s the black hole she’ll suck the world into once she ties the strings together. You an’ me, we’re sittin’ on one of the knots on the way.”
My drunken eyes are blurry, the images he paints swirlin’ in the fuzzy edges around everything. What’s in this whiskey? The women are circlin’ the house, sprinklin’ the red stuff around the edges, chantin’ things I can’t understand. Sky’s bleedin’ pink across the blue. Soon it’ll be red as the powder from them jars. A loud hoot echoes in a wave through the treetops, cuts itself to ribbons on the dead branches stickin’ out everywhere like jagged twisted blades waitin’ for it. More sounds follow, and I realize how quiet these woods’ve been these past days. Now they come alive like woods should sound at night. A dog barks, and my heart jumps thinkin’ it’s Magpie. That evil antichrist bitch didn’t kill him… She said that to fuck with me, break me down. But no, that ain’t Magpie’s bark. It could be any dog yelpin’, probably one of them wild ones ’round here. The weird part’s how all the forest critters sound like they’re chantin’ with the women. Might almost call it a tune. Like it’s drawin’ her poison out of the forest so the birds and bugs and dogs and wind feel safe singin’ and barkin’ and blowin’. So maybe they feel like helpin’ the ladies box the bitch in. I almost feel like dancin’, like maybe everything’ll turn out OK.
The house is really fumin’ with it now, like smoke backin’ up in a clogged chimney. I can’t see this exactly, though I guess these folks can. It’s just a feelin’ I get, real strong. The more I look at the house, though, the more I almost do see it. Everett stands up slow like a snake gettin’ ready to strike and stalks towards it. He slides out that knife, lookin’ real happy for the chance. All the men do, all except the old feller who halts ’em with his voice again:
“Keep back! We’ve found an advantage, but we haven’t yet found how to make good on it. We’ve made our stand, but she’s still holding hers. Keep back.”
They stop as their women quit chantin’ and float back from the house to their sides. They all look at the old feller, who’s tense an’ snarlin’, remindin’ me of Magpie. It’s the cold end of fall, but everything’s hot as hell suddenly. Then she walks out and halts sharply at the edge of the porch. The way her body goes rigid, it’s the closest I’ve seen her show to real human feelin’. Like she’s startled to find herself trapped. But there’s no more feelin’ than before in them eyes. Across her chest she holds my shotgun, like some frontier woman come to ward off wild Indians, which is what these folks are kinda like. Then she tosses the gun into the dust, over the line of red powder like she’s surrenderin’.
The old guy strides halfway to the line but ignores the gun. “Keep back! Keep back!” Now he’s shoutin’ it at her. “Your trail stops here. Time for you to choose how it’s settled, ’cause we finally pinned you dead to rights.”
“You speak as though I’m the one to spread death, when it is I who spread life… true life to this chaotic limbo you call a world. You’re the ones who spread more death in your vein chase.” She looks at Ralph. “Your woman Joan is only dead to you because you persist in thinking of her as so. Cross the red line, into my light, and you will be with her again, within me.” He shakes and tears up, starin’ at her. His buddy Jody clamps a hand on his shoulder. She splays a hand my way. “This man’s woman opened her eyes to the life within my light, and she set out into the chaos as a beacon. But she no longer moves through that chaos, for she tried to halt your quest of death and you have sent her home. To me.”
My eyes dart around to all of them. Everett particular’s lookin’ at me funny. “What’s she sayin’?” I blurt.
“What she wants you to believe,” says the old feller. “Keep your damn head.”
His voice is so powerful I’m almost compelled to obey. Then other stuff clicks in my head. Your wife came and took my hand… She now moves to hinder those who’d interfere with my good works. Then Everett sayin’ Why, anyone messed with my niece, I reckon I’d have to slice ’em up good… Take my time, have some fun… Ran into that’n a day or so ago.
Quicker than any of ’em can grab me, I’m divin’ for my gun, blood thumpin’ in my temples. I swing the barrel around, not thinkin’ to aim ’til that sick fuck comes into my sights! But he ain’t the one to come into ’em first… No, there’s that pretty young girl he called Jenny, and for just long enough her crazy gorgeous eyes lock on mine and that’s where my barrel pauses. I ain’t even thinkin’ when my finger tightens on that trigger. Then there’s this awful snarl in my ear, worse than any critter in these woods. Some kinda karate chop swings up under my arms, knockin’ the barrel skyward. The crotch of a tall tree explodes so birds fly out squawkin’. Jenny hunches up, eyes buggin’, ears probably ringin’ somethin’ fierce from the gunshot that almost blew her head off. Then my body wants to twist up into a ball from the pain shreddin’ it at the center, but I can’t. Everett Kale’s holdin’ me up while he drives his knife in and out. The worst part’s knowin’ he’s just startin’… It’s all I know anymore, all my mind’ll hang onto in the middle of this agonized chaos the whole world’s turned into.
Everett’s buddies are shoutin’, draggin’ him off so I fall and hit the dirt. I must’ve landed right on that red line. If it is powdered blood, my own blood’ll dry here and be part of it. Either way I guess my fall breaks the line, ’cause I feel her move past me, her horrid perfect empty light whisperin’ by like a ghost. Then it’s gone, and all that’s left in the darkness are those crazy folks shoutin’ back an’ forth. Jenny’s mom’s calmin’ her down, makin’ sure she’s OK. Soon they head on, eager to pick her trail back up. Either Everett thinks I’m dead or he’s lost interest.
#
I wake up wishin’ I’d die, not sure why I don’t. Must be the ol’ strength of the Langell men… or somethin’ bigger an’ older, tellin’ me I’ll get through this. My first view is the black scratches of trees across the faint blue. Weird… I figured it’d gotten fully dark a while ago. Then I realize this is mornin’ settin’ in. Either way, I manage to crawl inside and tie my guts in me best I can. Then I crawl back out an’ I keep crawlin’ ’til some hunters find me. They get me to a hospital where I’m stuck mendin’ for months. I got lots of time to think, so things settle in.
Once I’m out, I set to findin’ who I need to find. I can’t think at first where to start. Then I find some maps, dig around through any clippings of weird news around… news from while I been laid up, and in the months leadin’ up to it. I spot plenty of Her works, and plenty of theirs. I’m takin’ my time, mappin’ the patterns. Once I figure it out, I’ll head straight to the center… to the black hole where I can escape from this chaos they’ve turned my world into… what the world’s always been, just I couldn’t see it. Not ’til she let me glimpse it. Maybe they’ll find out I’m alive, come after me. It won’t matter. She’ll keep me safe. When I step into her light at the center, Gladys and Magpie’ll be waitin’. We’ll all be safe and whole together. But I won’t recognize ’em. I won’t even recognize myself. None of us’ll need to.
THE END
The Empty Whisper
By Matt Spencer
I ain’t been indoors for three nights and four days. The first night I fell asleep in the yard. After that it got cold so I slept in the barn. That scratchy old horse blanket made me sneeze like crazy and it still tickles in my nose. By now I don’t know what keeps me goin’. What’d I do if she came outside?
Now out of the trees comes this pack of hardass weirdoes. Obviously they’re here for her, like those old lynchin’ mobs Daddy used to tell me about. Except not even the shaggy old man leadin’ ’em will set foot on the porch, even though he looks like a modern-day Wild Bill Hickock, only crazier. Two of his men think about it, the bug-eyed guy with truncated arms and the one who’s round as a bolder. And yeah, he’s about as big an’ solid. When they exchange looks, the old man strides forward, whippin’ out his big Bowie knife quicker than my eyes can follow. He moves weird and jerky like a skeleton on puppet strings. Dry dead leaves crackle twice as loud as they should, and I realize his joints are makin’ half the racket. When he waves that knife in Bug Eyes and Bolder’s faces, the edge glistens in the red sunset. It looks sharp enough to cut you without touching you.
“Jody, Ralph, you bitches take one more step, I’ll cut your nuts off and feed ’em to the kids. Do anything stupid now, that’s what you might as well be doin’ to us all.”
Jody and Ralph say he’s wastin’ time, yell names of folks I guess are dead, lookin’ ready to get into it with the old bastard. I figure they’re both idiots, knife or no, even though he’s so skinny he’d get stuck in either of their asses if they sat on him.
“Keep back, I say! We don’t know anything yet.”
“We know plenty,” Ralph pleads. “We know what she is, what she did to Joan…”
“We know what she did back there, where we met her. She’s whatever she needs to be wherever she is. She’s as many kinds of trouble as there’s places to find her.”
The old bastard stalks off. Soon as he puts that knife away, three women move close and circle him. They’d all three be pretty if I wasn’t scared shitless, two kinda big girls and a little one. He keeps sniffin’ and his limbs keep tensin’, his lips twistin’ into all kinds of silent snarls. Obviously they’ve all spent days in these deep woods, twigs and bits of brush clingin’ to their matted clothes and hair, faces long an’ sunken. Now that Jody and Ralph have quit actin’ stupid, they’re all frozen silent like church folk after some fire an’ brimstone from the preacher… All ’cept the young feller with his long stringy red hair and beady eyes like a rabid fox. I ain’t put a name to him, but I know he’s native to Riversville. He’s the one came through them trees in the lead… like he’s at home here, showin’ the others around, crouchin’ an’ stalkin’ quietly through the brush, sensin’ out all the native dangers. The knife strapped to his leg matches the old feller’s. He comes towards me like we’re old buddies.
“So when’d she show up?” Yep, the accent’s pure Riversville.
“Three nights ago.” I’m pretty sure that’s right.
“You invite her in, or she just invite herself?”
“Well, uh… Son, look…”
“Hey, look, whatever, dipshit.”
“You an’ yer friends gonna make her go away?” I shake, feelin’ the sobs comin’ back.
He takes out a flask, swigs and passes it to me. It’s some kinda sweet thick spicy whiskey, harsher than the stuff from the stills ’round here. I almost puke, but the second swig feels good like whiskey should. “Tell me what happened while they jaw at each other,” he says. “Now look, I’m tellin’ you up front: I catch any lyin’ – or leavin’ shit out – in your tone, I’m gonna start cuttin’ on you ’til I hear you tell it proper. And it hurts my feelin’s when I have to be an asshole, so do me a favor and don’t do that.” His tone’s the friendliest I’ve hear in a while.
How am I supposed to answer him proper? Shit, I don’t know what happened! The sky was black like a tarp yanked over everything, all ’cept the full moon bright enough to bring out all the werewolves. I swear that’s what the clouds around it resembled: a werewolf face, like someone had carved ’em that way. It was pointed straight down at me and the moon looked like its one eye blazin’ out of the socket, down into my soul. When Magpie kept barkin’, its face moved a little closer to earth. I tried shuttin’ Magpie up, but Magpie wrestled loose even when I tried holdin’ his jaw shut and draggin’ him indoors. Then I realized he wasn’t barkin’ at the werewolf’s eye moon no more, but at somethin’ out in the woods, which were blacker even than the sky around that moon and patch of clouds. ’Bout then Gladys walked out and we both heard the whisperin’… The difference was, I didn’t hear words I understood. Gladys obviously did.
“Listen Kenny…” Her nails dug into my arms.
“I’m listenin’… Shit, that sounds creepy!”
“Don’t swear. Not in Her presence!”
“Huh? Who?”
“Can’t you hear Her out there? She’s speakin’ my name! Yours too, Kenny, tellin’ us She loves us. It’s time to receive Her…”
“Her?”
“I… I didn’t think She’d be a woman… Oh Kenny, can’t you feel it?”
Oh yeah, I felt it… Still ain’t quite got the words for it, ’cept it made me want to feel what Gladys did. But somethin’ kept squeezin’ my innards shut so the poison sweetness couldn’t get in. Part of me said I should fight off this doubt for the Lord and His love when He stands before you. Doubt’s the devil’s greatest weapon, after all. I was raised with the blackness of these nighttime woods around me. It’s never scared me, just puts me on high alert when I hear noises that shouldn’t be there. That alertness is around us Langell men from birth, in the air our fathers breathe out, and we absorb it in our cribs.
Now the blackness scared me, ’cause it didn’t feel threatening. It felt more like the nicest thing in the world to walk into, so I’d never have to worry, ever again. And every bone in me said it wasn’t right. But Gladys kept pullin’ on me harder as the whispers got louder. It kept remindin’ me that there was nowhere else to go so I’d best accept it and follow my wife. That first part was about right, ’cause these whisperin’ black woods surround this house for miles. The only light came from the open door behind us, and the werewolf moon above. The whispers seemed to say the darkness would only lift if we walked through it to the light hidden inside it. Don’t be scared. Pass through the darkness unharmed, and embrace everlasting peace.
Now I was the one pullin’ Gladys back towards the house. She felt stronger than she’d ever been. “Kenny, stop holdin’ me from my lord’s love!” She shouted at the shadows, “Forgive my husband, Lady of the Lord, he don’t know what he’s doin’! Take away his fear!”
The whisperer tickled my innards, tryin’ to oblige my wife, makin’ me want to let go my fear… It felt so peaceful, yet somehow at the same time not at all. The high alertness of my line still spoke loud an’ clear. Gladys broke loose and ran into the blackness, arms outstretched. I loved her more than ever as she vanished, and I hated her guts. ’Cause I knew right then I’d never see her again. She’d deserted me for her false god or goddess or whatever. And she’d given up tryin’ to pull me with her to what she’d swear in her heart was the one true salvation, and I hadn’t for an instant been worth second thoughts. I hated myself too. ’Cause I hadn’t been good enough, and I obviously didn’t love her enough to damn myself. She I’d sworn before God to love, honor and protect ’til death did us part. I did run after her, meanin’ to drag her back from it, but I twisted my foot and sprawled in the dead leaves.
As I hobbled up, Gladys shouted from somewhere. “Kenny, come out to us! It’s wonderful! Ain’t no description for this beauty… none for Her beauty… what She’ll do for you… how She’ll set you free… show you the way…”
I didn’t hear her whisperin’ no more, ’cept she now sang in Gladys’s voice. It was the prettiest sound I ever heard, and the ugliest. I don’t know what Magpie was doin’ all that time, but he’d stopped barkin’. But when that thing sang in Gladys’s voice, he barked again and ran past me. I fell over again tryin’ to grab him, and he vanished into that blackness. His barkin’ got farther off for what seemed like miles. All I could do was hobble to my door, slam it and turn the bolt and shove a chair up under the knob. After lockin’ all the doors an’ windows, I loaded the shotgun an’ slumped against a wall, facing the front door. My eyes wanted to fixate murderously, wait for the whisperer to try gettin’ in so I could blow her apart. But that’s when the sobs got me. Because I knew right then I’d damned myself by runnin’ an’ hidin’ while my wife was out there in that thing’s embrace. I felt its black essence leakin’ in ’til I could smell it.
Once I ran out of sobs, the world went silent, like everything had frozen into one big black an’ white photograph hangin’ in a frame somewhere in hell. By the time the doorknob rattled, I’d forgotten my gun and watched numbly. The knob shook an’ jiggled, the chair vibratin’ little by little to the left. I didn’t move to stop it, just let it fall over. The door was locked. I’d turned the bolt, right? I didn’t dare get up to check.
Finally the chair crashed on its face. The door swung open, slidin’ it away in a scratchy squall. That’s when I first saw her. If I could put her face in words so you’d see it in your mind, you wouldn’t believe me. It was too perfect, every angle just right like faces never are. That’s supposed to be ultimate beauty, ’cept actually seein’ it’s horrible, remindin’ you how short you fall of the glory or somethin’… ’cept, turns out, it’s somethin’ you don’t wanna get near. ’Cause it’ll just gobble up what’s good of you to fuel its fire and leave the rest in a dry twitching heap. At first she – this girl, this woman, whatever she was – just looked around like I wasn’t there, like she planned to make herself at home, tryin’ to decide whether to fix dinner or flop on the couch and watch TV. She was full of all the light behind the blackness… except it wasn’t so much light as a big white sheet of emptiness… All she carried of the blackness was her hair and her eyes. Otherwise I could hardly tell the skin of her face, neck, and hands from the white robe she wore, like the robe you always see Jesus wearin’ in pictures. She moved so serene like you always picture Jesus movin’, ’cept I didn’t feel Jesus’s love for all God’s critters. No, I could tell, all she loved was whatever she managed to suck into that emptiness. It felt like everything in this room, everything in this house, in this world, would get sucked into it like a black hole… like I’d let Gladys be sucked in.
When I sobbed again, she came my way. Her eyes were the worst, so I looked where I figured her feet would be under the robe.
“Why do you weep, when I offer a place where you need never weep again?”
“Where’s my wife? Where’s my dog?” I remembered my gun, but didn’t think to raise it to her. I just hugged it to my chest ’cause it was all I had left to hug.
“Your wife came to me and took my hand. She stepped within my life and now moves through it, to hinder those who’d interfere with my good works. You are a good man, a humble man, for you know not to try to hinder me. Your dog was a mad creature that would not be moved. For now his energy has dispersed back into the wild chaos I seek to draw within the great glowing harmony.”
“You killed my dog…”
“That is what you would call it, for you still dwell in the chaos. When all things pass into this harmony, your wife and dog will be there, though you will not recognize them. You will not recognize yourself. You will no longer need to. Your wife has accepted. Why can’t you?”
I don’t know how long I huddled there, and I don’t know where my shotgun got to when I finally pulled myself together and hauled ass outside. I felt my whole house dissolvin’ into that emptiness she called purity and harmony. It was the worst thing you couldn’t imagine, and part of me wanted it. The rest of me – the part that still fought for life – felt like I was bein’ raped. Like I’d gone to prison an’ shared a cell with that weird empty bitch, an’ she’d grown a dick an’ bent me over and was knockin’ my guts to jelly. When I finally ran out, I couldn’t make it past the light spillin’ out of the house… I couldn’t make myself go into the forest’s blackness. I felt Gladys, or what had been Gladys. It was like feelin’ that weird empty bitch still out there waitin’. So I fell down again and slept in the dead leaves.
I still don’t know why I didn’t leave when I woke up with the sun. She ain’t out there now. I still feel that nasty bright emptiness leakin’ out, ticklin’ an’ suckin’ at me from what used to be my house. That’s how I know she’s still in there. Now all around me there’s these hardass crazy motherfuckers. I’ve been tellin’ all this to the young feller while we swig whatever we’re swiggin’ from his flask. Well, I’m swiggin’. He’s chuggin’ like it’s water. The weirdest thing is, it ain’t empty yet. Hell, he should’ve polished it off by now a few times over. But every time I drink, it’s from a full container. I’m pretty drunk already. Must be ’cause I ain’t eaten much lately. All I’ve had is what’s left in the garden, and it’s late fall so most of that’s been harvested and stored in the basement freezer.
The young feller busts out laughin’. “You noticed that wolf in the sky too? Shit! Man, you thought it was lookin’ at you? I saw that thing lookin’ right down at me, like he was darin’ me towards somethin’. So I looked right back into that one glowin’ eye and said You got somethin’ to say? Fuckin’ say it, bitch! That’s about when them clouds broke apart and the moon went back behind ’em. Guess the ol’ werewolf in the sky wasn’t up for fightin’. Then I took a few minutes and figured the rough direction he was hoverin’ over. So I pointed this group that way, and it led… here! Turned out to be the right way.” He shakes his head. “Gods work in weird ways, huh?”
“There’s just one god,” I mutter, like the god I grew up hearin’ about in church could possibly be there and let all this go on in the world.
He just chuckles more, keeps thumbin’ that knife handle eagerly. Yards off, the others gather in a huddle. The youngest of the women walks up, and the feller’s eyes light up, like a man’s eyes will towards a daughter. He’s too young to be her daddy, but she looks too young to be his woman. She yanks his shoulder and he sways a little. She’s strong but so’s he, so he holds his ass in place. “C’mon, Spaz, we’re discussing what to do.”
“I’ll be over.” He leers sideways at me. “I’m gettin’ the scoop from the farmer here. We’re gettin’ to be good pals, ain’t we, Kenny?” When he says my name, I shrink up. The girl laughs and I can’t help noticin’ she’s beautiful: full figure, lush dark hair, sharp face, bright young savage eyes. She also makes me tense up, like when someone comes at me for a fight. Spaz keeps cool, but them rabid eyes flash nasty and he thumbs the strap off the knife’s hilt. “Hoss, meet my niece Jenny. Them two other lovely ladies over there are my sisters. The dark haired one’s her mom. Look at her! Why, anyone messed with her, I reckon I’d have to slice ’em up good, and I don’t reckon I’d quit once they were down. No sir, reckon I’d take my time, have me some fun… like that last bitch tried messin’ with her. Ran into that’n a day or so ago.”
As he strokes the knife’s pommel lovingly, I realize who he is. Weird redheaded little Everett Kale, who everyone in school and town used to bully ’til he tightened his limbs and started bullyin’ back. I never got into it with him, but I heard an’ saw how he liked to grab sharp things to get at people with. School would’ve expelled him, but his folks started keepin’ him home, lockin’ him in the cellar rumors went, so he had nothin’ to do down in the dark but go crazier and work out with whatever heavy shit was lyin’ around. But when he got loose, he was smart about bein’ crazy. When bad shit happened at night, everyone knew who it was. But the law never pinned him, even after that business with the Sheriff’s daughter.
Now here’s ol’ Everett sittin’ next to me, jawin’ all casual about the woman in my house, about werewolves in the sky and cuttin’ folks up with his pretty new knife. While I’m ready to shit my pants, his niece leans on his shoulder, smirkin’ an’ rollin’ her eyes. Just a kid, and to her he’s just a lovable ol’ softy. Folks used to say he was adopted from somewhere, so he must’ve run off and found his real kin. Now the whole brood’s here chasin’ the woman in my house. And here I am sandwiched between ’em.
Finally Jenny’s momma calls her back over with the rest. The ladies have out glass jars of red powder, and someone passes Jenny one. From here it looks like dried blood, lots of it, crumbled fine.
“Oh,” Everett says, “they’re bustin’ out that stuff. That’ll keep her pinned a while.”
“Keep her in there?”
“Well, yeah, ’til we figure how to take her down.”
“How long you been chasin’ her, Mister? What’s she out to do?”
“Well, I’m workin’ on some theories. See, after we had our first run-in with her, we put out the word to others like us, seein’ who all’d seen her. Turns out plenty have. We started formin’ a pattern from what we heard and everywhere it came from, to figure where she might head next. We started in the Midwest. Trail led east, zigs an’ zags everywhere from there. But we’ve seen plenty places she’s stopped, and it tends to look a lot worse than around here. There’s whole little towns where everyone’s turned into dopey-eyed zealots of whatever she preaches, and they run screamin’ to put us down when they realize we’re chasin’ her, so we gotta put them down. Then there’s where folks resisted her, and those places you really don’t wanna see… Everyone’s crawlin’ through the dirt, stretched out like sickly weedy vines dyin’ of drought. The ones already dead have weeds growin’ up around ’em and through ’em, and those spindly stalks sway towards you in the wind, and you swear you hear the dead cryin’ at you through ’em, beggin’ you to come down and give ’em company. And you almost want to, ’cause it feels like the safest place to be in a world with her in it. I’ve noticed her trail’s always in the rural places, the farmin’ towns, kindsa places there’s less and less of in this rottin’ civilization. You gotta go further an’ further between ’em. But if you know how to look at the maps, you see there are straight lines linkin’ ’em all up… byways gone untouched. She’s followin’ those, one at a time, leavin’ her path of cryin’ emptiness, linkin’ ’em all up. There’s somewhere at the center they all lead to, and that’s the black hole she’ll suck the world into once she ties the strings together. You an’ me, we’re sittin’ on one of the knots on the way.”
My drunken eyes are blurry, the images he paints swirlin’ in the fuzzy edges around everything. What’s in this whiskey? The women are circlin’ the house, sprinklin’ the red stuff around the edges, chantin’ things I can’t understand. Sky’s bleedin’ pink across the blue. Soon it’ll be red as the powder from them jars. A loud hoot echoes in a wave through the treetops, cuts itself to ribbons on the dead branches stickin’ out everywhere like jagged twisted blades waitin’ for it. More sounds follow, and I realize how quiet these woods’ve been these past days. Now they come alive like woods should sound at night. A dog barks, and my heart jumps thinkin’ it’s Magpie. That evil antichrist bitch didn’t kill him… She said that to fuck with me, break me down. But no, that ain’t Magpie’s bark. It could be any dog yelpin’, probably one of them wild ones ’round here. The weird part’s how all the forest critters sound like they’re chantin’ with the women. Might almost call it a tune. Like it’s drawin’ her poison out of the forest so the birds and bugs and dogs and wind feel safe singin’ and barkin’ and blowin’. So maybe they feel like helpin’ the ladies box the bitch in. I almost feel like dancin’, like maybe everything’ll turn out OK.
The house is really fumin’ with it now, like smoke backin’ up in a clogged chimney. I can’t see this exactly, though I guess these folks can. It’s just a feelin’ I get, real strong. The more I look at the house, though, the more I almost do see it. Everett stands up slow like a snake gettin’ ready to strike and stalks towards it. He slides out that knife, lookin’ real happy for the chance. All the men do, all except the old feller who halts ’em with his voice again:
“Keep back! We’ve found an advantage, but we haven’t yet found how to make good on it. We’ve made our stand, but she’s still holding hers. Keep back.”
They stop as their women quit chantin’ and float back from the house to their sides. They all look at the old feller, who’s tense an’ snarlin’, remindin’ me of Magpie. It’s the cold end of fall, but everything’s hot as hell suddenly. Then she walks out and halts sharply at the edge of the porch. The way her body goes rigid, it’s the closest I’ve seen her show to real human feelin’. Like she’s startled to find herself trapped. But there’s no more feelin’ than before in them eyes. Across her chest she holds my shotgun, like some frontier woman come to ward off wild Indians, which is what these folks are kinda like. Then she tosses the gun into the dust, over the line of red powder like she’s surrenderin’.
The old guy strides halfway to the line but ignores the gun. “Keep back! Keep back!” Now he’s shoutin’ it at her. “Your trail stops here. Time for you to choose how it’s settled, ’cause we finally pinned you dead to rights.”
“You speak as though I’m the one to spread death, when it is I who spread life… true life to this chaotic limbo you call a world. You’re the ones who spread more death in your vein chase.” She looks at Ralph. “Your woman Joan is only dead to you because you persist in thinking of her as so. Cross the red line, into my light, and you will be with her again, within me.” He shakes and tears up, starin’ at her. His buddy Jody clamps a hand on his shoulder. She splays a hand my way. “This man’s woman opened her eyes to the life within my light, and she set out into the chaos as a beacon. But she no longer moves through that chaos, for she tried to halt your quest of death and you have sent her home. To me.”
My eyes dart around to all of them. Everett particular’s lookin’ at me funny. “What’s she sayin’?” I blurt.
“What she wants you to believe,” says the old feller. “Keep your damn head.”
His voice is so powerful I’m almost compelled to obey. Then other stuff clicks in my head. Your wife came and took my hand… She now moves to hinder those who’d interfere with my good works. Then Everett sayin’ Why, anyone messed with my niece, I reckon I’d have to slice ’em up good… Take my time, have some fun… Ran into that’n a day or so ago.
Quicker than any of ’em can grab me, I’m divin’ for my gun, blood thumpin’ in my temples. I swing the barrel around, not thinkin’ to aim ’til that sick fuck comes into my sights! But he ain’t the one to come into ’em first… No, there’s that pretty young girl he called Jenny, and for just long enough her crazy gorgeous eyes lock on mine and that’s where my barrel pauses. I ain’t even thinkin’ when my finger tightens on that trigger. Then there’s this awful snarl in my ear, worse than any critter in these woods. Some kinda karate chop swings up under my arms, knockin’ the barrel skyward. The crotch of a tall tree explodes so birds fly out squawkin’. Jenny hunches up, eyes buggin’, ears probably ringin’ somethin’ fierce from the gunshot that almost blew her head off. Then my body wants to twist up into a ball from the pain shreddin’ it at the center, but I can’t. Everett Kale’s holdin’ me up while he drives his knife in and out. The worst part’s knowin’ he’s just startin’… It’s all I know anymore, all my mind’ll hang onto in the middle of this agonized chaos the whole world’s turned into.
Everett’s buddies are shoutin’, draggin’ him off so I fall and hit the dirt. I must’ve landed right on that red line. If it is powdered blood, my own blood’ll dry here and be part of it. Either way I guess my fall breaks the line, ’cause I feel her move past me, her horrid perfect empty light whisperin’ by like a ghost. Then it’s gone, and all that’s left in the darkness are those crazy folks shoutin’ back an’ forth. Jenny’s mom’s calmin’ her down, makin’ sure she’s OK. Soon they head on, eager to pick her trail back up. Either Everett thinks I’m dead or he’s lost interest.
#
I wake up wishin’ I’d die, not sure why I don’t. Must be the ol’ strength of the Langell men… or somethin’ bigger an’ older, tellin’ me I’ll get through this. My first view is the black scratches of trees across the faint blue. Weird… I figured it’d gotten fully dark a while ago. Then I realize this is mornin’ settin’ in. Either way, I manage to crawl inside and tie my guts in me best I can. Then I crawl back out an’ I keep crawlin’ ’til some hunters find me. They get me to a hospital where I’m stuck mendin’ for months. I got lots of time to think, so things settle in.
Once I’m out, I set to findin’ who I need to find. I can’t think at first where to start. Then I find some maps, dig around through any clippings of weird news around… news from while I been laid up, and in the months leadin’ up to it. I spot plenty of Her works, and plenty of theirs. I’m takin’ my time, mappin’ the patterns. Once I figure it out, I’ll head straight to the center… to the black hole where I can escape from this chaos they’ve turned my world into… what the world’s always been, just I couldn’t see it. Not ’til she let me glimpse it. Maybe they’ll find out I’m alive, come after me. It won’t matter. She’ll keep me safe. When I step into her light at the center, Gladys and Magpie’ll be waitin’. We’ll all be safe and whole together. But I won’t recognize ’em. I won’t even recognize myself. None of us’ll need to.
THE END