“I…” Groaning, she looked at the fridge, marching forward. She plucked the envelope from behind the magnet on the door. The small magnetic disc hit the floor and bounced, sounding like a pebble. “We give it what it wants.”
Though the paper was tucked inside the envelope, I could plainly see the crude, ink-drawn image of our tithe.
A child.
Sunday dragged on. Monica stayed in the bedroom all day. I tried working on the revisions for my newest novel, but had trouble concentrating. I made a sandwich for supper. My plate was still mostly full when I finished. We had no dog to eat the scraps.
A rule of Golden Gates—no pets. Too many had disappeared, breaking families’ hearts. Now pets were no longer allowed.
Sitting on the back porch, I puffed on a cigar, watching the sun sink behind the trees. The lower it got, the more my stomach hurt. When darkness surpassed the day, I was sick with dread. Even my forehead felt stretched and tingly.
I stubbed out the cigar in the ash tray on the table beside me, stood, and went inside.
Monica was in bed when I got in the bedroom, but not asleep. She leaned against the pillows, her head on the headboard. She had on my favorite white gown. A sheer thing that barely reached her thighs; her tanned skin was dark smears behind it. I could see the contours of her breasts, the dots of her turgid nipples. Feet crossed at the ankles, her calf bulged out. The light made a small, glimmering puddle on her lotion-fresh skin. Her thick auburn hair hung around her shoulders.
Though I was kind of mad at her, I felt myself becoming aroused.
Ignoring her, I headed to the bathroom. Took a quick shower, brushed my teeth, and combed my hair. I grabbed my robe from the back of the door, and threw it on, tying the belt in the front.
When I left the bathroom, I entered a room suffused in candlelight. Shadows writhed on the walls. Looking at the bed, I saw Monica had shed the gown. Naked, she lay on her side, leg bent, knee on the mattress. Her hand rubbed circles on the sheet.
Staring up at me, her eyes looked hopeful and a little nervous. She didn’t speak. Didn’t need to. I untied the knot, pulled my arms out of the robe. It dropped at my feet. I climbed onto the bed, positioning myself above her. As I crawled closer, her legs spread, opening up for me. I put an elbow down on either side of her head, angled my hips, and rammed into her.
Monica sucked in a deep breath, tilting back her head. We didn’t kiss, only stared at each other as I slammed over and over. Monica gasped under me as the headboard pounded the wall. My savage lunges brought her to a quick shuddering release. I felt myself begin to swell, preparing for the final burst.
Light blasted through the window. It shone as if a spotlight had been aimed at our house, killing the romantic candlelight. Squealing, Monica slapped at my shoulders. I tumbled off her. My back hit the mattress as Monica flung herself off the bed. She ran to the window, rump flexing. Though the curtains were closed, light shoved in, giving the wispy fabric a ghostly glow. Monica was a dark contour in front of the window.
“Get away from there,” I said. My testicles ached. “Somebody’ll see.”
“What the hell is that?”
“Bright light.” I sat up, swinging my legs over the mattress. I found my robe on the floor. Throwing it on, I stood up. “I’m going to see what the hell’s going on.”
Monica spun around, emitting a hysterical gasp. “You can’t go out! It’s after midnight!”
“The hell with the rules,” I said.
That was another one from the Golden Gates policy. Nobody could venture outdoors after midnight, without prior approval. They said it was out of respect for your neighbors. That way you wouldn’t wake them up by sneaking around.
Monica said, “Don’t you hear it?”
Pausing halfway across the room, I listened. I heard the low grumble of a clanking engine. I heard hissing spurts of air, like an old train. I heard the deep whopping sound a helicopter about to take flight might make.
Joining Monica, I pulled back the curtain enough to peek out. I was momentarily blinded by the garish luster pointed right at us.
“Sounds like a semi,” I said.
“What’s it doing out there?”
Watching us, I thought. But I said nothing.
For ten minutes, Monica and I stared out the window, at the light that seemed to be raptly fixated on just us. Whatever was causing that light was angry at Monica and me.
I shivered.
The engine revved a few times. Smoke wafted across the light, curling in dark tendrils. Gears clinked and squeaked, the noise changing pitch as the light began to shrink. Soon, it was hardly there at all. The room darkened. Then the light was gone.
Only the carroty smolder of the candles remained.
I snuck out of bed as daylight was just beginning to thin the darkness. I had a limited window to do what I wanted. Quietly rushing downstairs, I entered my office. I quickly dressed in the clothes I’d hidden under my desk after Monica had finally fallen asleep.
Then I slipped out of the house.
The morning was cool and damp, only a hint of uncomfortable summer heat waiting to burst through. The mild temperature would burn off quickly when the sun broke through the clouds. But that was fine, since I planned on being back at home long before that happened.
At the end of our driveway, I turned left, hurrying up the road. Woods bordered either side, shading the blacktop enough to make it look bottomless. I wondered if I should’ve brought a flashlight.
As I walked, I noticed there were no sounds from the woods. No birds. No scuttles. Only a hollow silence that made my ears buzz.
The Duggins’ house was the first on the right, beyond the woods. It was a lovely, two-story home with a wraparound porch. Plants hung from the porch’s ceiling all over like slings of garlic. A stone path led from the porch, cutting a curvy line through the grass. The driveway had been designed of identical stone.
The dew-drenched grass glistened around a dark spot in the front yard. From where I stood in the road, this small patch looked scorched, but it was hard to tell for sure. I needed a closer look.
I gave a quick glance in both directions, saw nobody was out, and trotted into the front yard. The dew soaked through my shoes, making my socks feel sloshy. With each step, I looked around. Nobody watched from the house. The windows were dark. Reaching the begrimed patch of grass, my anus tightened into a ball.
The grass was soaked in fresh blood. Ribbons of what looked like flesh stretched like webbing. I checked other houses, finding similar stains. Sometimes I found clumpy brown bits sprinkled on top of slushy piles like gross ice cream.
By the time I reached Ms. Needlemire’s house where the road dead-ended, the morning was filled with light. I needed to head back home, but I couldn’t without checking her yard.
Even as I approached the front, I saw the familiar smear in the grass. I didn’t bother checking for anybody as I trespassed onto her property.
“My God,” I muttered.
Bone fragments covered the grass like gray mulch.
“You’ve seen it,” said Ms. Needlemire.
Jumping back, I nearly shouted in surprise. I looked at the porch. Ms. Needlemire sat in a rocking chair, a cup of coffee resting on her knee. Steam curled up to her face. She was blanketed in shadow, but her glasses shone like twin flashlights.
“What’s going on, Ms. Needlemire? What is all this?”
“You didn’t tithe, did you?”
I didn’t answer. The tone of her voice suggested she already knew.
“You got off with a warning this time,” she said. “A month from now, you better have the tithe it wants, or you won’t make it to regret it.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’re smart, Mr. Schaffer. You know what I mean.”
I did know.
“Just do what the Chomper wants. You’ll be fine.”
“I can’t,” I said. “I…”
“Do it, and be rewarded. Live th
e good life, like us.”
“Good life?” I pointed at the bone mulch. “This is the good life?”
“Our obedience is rewarded with kindness.”
Shaking my head, I walked backward, not tearing my eyes away from Ms. Needlemire’s frail form. I saw the coffee mug lift toward her mouth, heard the soft slurping sounds of her drinking. My feet nearly slipped out from under me when I staggered into the ditch at the verge of her yard. I found my balance when I reached the road.
Then I ran home.
The following week, I worked alone as I tried everything possible to get us out of this house. The three-day Right to Cancel policy had expired long ago. A phone call to my lawyer offered me no help, either. I could put the house up for sale, but we didn’t have enough money in the bank to afford another purchase. So I looked into rentals.
Monica was no help. She was against going back to an apartment. No house satisfied her, not even on a temporary basis. She said none of them compared to our house in Golden Gates. We’d found our home and she wouldn’t leave it.
She’d tasted happiness and didn’t want to lose it, no matter what.
I looked less and less for a way out. The neighbors mostly avoided us. But if we were outside as somebody walked past, they were kind and waved. Monica and I waved back, smiling.
By the third week, I no longer tried. Monica stopped speaking to me unless it was to remind me of the tithe. I buried myself in the new book, finishing up the revisions and sending the manuscript off to my pre-readers for input. While I waited to hear back, I began working on notes for the next one.
I saw Monica less and less. She avoided me like the neighbors had been. I figured she was still mad at me for trying to make us leave, and decided to let her have some space. When she was ready to let it go, she’d tell me.
On the fourth week, I began writing the new book. I’d almost made myself forget about that night last month. It seemed like a dream I’d had years ago. I could still envision the images of the nasty stains in the yards, but they were faint photographs in my memory.
Ms. Needlemire didn’t pay a visit on the third Saturday of the month. I hadn’t expected her to. She’d said all she needed to say.
On Sunday night, I rushed out to pick up some pizza since Monica hadn’t cooked anything in a month. By the time I got back to the house, it was dark. I couldn’t find Monica anywhere. After a quick search through the house, I finally located her on the back porch. She sat in the chair I usually occupied when I smoked cigars. A cigarette was pinched between her fingers. Seeing she’d started back smoking wasn’t shocking. She’d quit seven times in the last three years.
“Where’d you go?” she asked without looking back.
“I got pizza. It’s in the kitchen.”
“Did you get our…tithe?”
“What do you think?”
I saw Monica’s shoulders lift and drop with a sigh. “You know what’s going to happen if we don’t tithe.”
“Nothing’s going to happen.”
“I heard Ms. Needlemire talking to you last month. I heard what she said.”
“That’s fine. It wasn’t a big secret.”
“You tried to keep it from me like a secret.”
“Not really. I just didn’t want…”
“Just didn’t want to scare me. Yeah, I figured that.” Another sigh. “Damn it, Adam. Why didn’t you just get the tithe?”
“You really wanted me to?” No response. “You saw the envelope. Saw what was in it. A child. Where the hell am I supposed to find a child?”
“There’re plenty out there…”
“Listen to yourself. You want me to abduct…?”
“A real husband would’ve handled it. He didn’t have to like it, but he would’ve done it for his wife, for his home.” Monica stabbed the cigarette in the ash tray. “We can’t move, Adam. This is our home. We’ve worked too hard to get here to lose it now.”
“We’re not putting a child out there for…”
“The Chomper.”
“Don’t even say its name.” I shivered. “It’s sick. These people are sick. We shouldn’t have ever moved here.”
“Where else would we have found a place like this?”
“Plenty of others we liked.”
“But we chose this one. More than that, it chose us.”
“Jesus Christ. Now you sound like Ms. Needlemire.”
Monica stood up, turned around to face me. Her hair hung in disheveled tangles around her face. She still had on what she’d slept in: plaid shorts and a white tank top. Barefoot, she started walking toward me. “I heard what Ms. Needlemire said.”
“You already told me that.”
“She said we could choose our own tithe…for forgiveness.” Monica’s eyes looked wild and haunted.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“I haven’t slept in days,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it, over and over and over. We’ve gone through a lot together. It was always us, a team pushing through it. But now…this place—I’m not leaving it behind for you. You can’t make me.”
“We won’t leave,” I said. I didn’t realize I’d been backing up until my back hit the sliding door. “We’ll make it work here.”
“It’s going to work,” she said. Her shoulder dipped, arm lowering. I saw the bat leaned against the house. Her hand closed around its taped handle. “As always, leave it to me to fix your mess!”
I dodged her first swing. The bat smashed through the glass behind me, throwing shards onto the kitchen floor. Looking at Monica, I saw her leer. “Shit, Mon! What the hell…?”
A wicked grin splitting her face, she twirled. The bat whacked my shoulder, blasting my arm with pain before it went numb. I tried lifting it. Couldn’t. It hung useless and limp beside me. So when she swung again, I had no way to protect myself. My other arm wouldn’t make it in time to thwart the blow.
The bat came at my face, filling my vision.
Pain exploded in my head.
Then darkness covered everything.
Opening my eyes, I saw the night sky above me, the stars smeared in my distorted vision. My head throbbed each time I blinked. My eyelids felt as if they had weights pushing them down. There was a lot of pressure on my forehead, as if a brick had been pushed under my skin.
I couldn’t move my arms. The left one felt sore and tight, but at least it was no longer numb. Didn’t help matters, though. My wrists had been tied to stakes, forcing my arms straight out on each side. Looking down my chest, I saw my legs were spread, trails of rope leading from my ankles to another pair of stakes.
I’d been splayed like an X on the ground.
Looking around, I cried “Monica!” when I spotted her standing off to the side of me. The porch light painted half her face in a pale glow, leaving the other half veiled in shadow. But I saw enough of her eyes to see the hate she was throwing at me.
I felt my testicles shrink back as if trying to hide. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“Giving the Chomper what it wants.”
“And that’s me?”
Monica nodded. “You didn’t leave me much of a choice.”
“There were plenty of choices!”
“You’re wrong.”
Shaking my head, I said, “You’d rather offer me to this thing than move?”
“We’ll never find a better place, a safer place.”
“Monica, don’t do this, okay? I’ll go find our tithe. I’ll do it right. I’ll…”
“It’s too late. Where will you find a child this time of night? Besides, I’ve grown to accept my decision. And if I don’t give the Chomper something tonight, we’re both dead. You know it. I know it. So…it has to be you.”
“I would’ve never done this to you. I can’t believe you’re doing this…”
I knew I should’ve been enraged, but I just felt blank inside, a numbness that seemed to spread all through me. I suppose anger was in there too, but muted by my broken hea
rt.
Monica’s betrayal had left me paralyzed.
I heard the clacking of heavy heals on asphalt. Looking toward the road, I spotted Ms. Needlemire approaching. Some of the neighbors walked with her, a congregation of senior citizens moving in a lethargic wave. All of them were dressed as if they were about to go to church.
Monica noticed them, and smiled. “Ms. Needlemire, look.” She pointed at me. “Here’s my tithe. Will the Chomper accept it?”
Looming above me, Ms. Needlemire’s mouth was a tight line that caused her wrinkles to excavate. She nodded. “Oh, yes,” she said. “The Chomper will be very pleased.”
Monica looked on the verge of maniacal laughter. “Oh, thank goodness. I love it here. I understand why you do this—you don’t want to leave, either. And like you I want spend the rest of my life here.”
My eyes locked on Ms. Needlemire’s. They looked sympathetic behind the thick glass. “Well, Mr. Schaffer, did you expect to find yourself in this predicament?”
I tugged at the ropes. The stakes didn’t budge. The rope was too tight, looped many times around my wrists. Giving up, I let my head drop on the damp ground. It soaked my hair. “No…”
Ms. Needlemire nodded. “I bet not.” She looked at Monica. “We like having you here, Mrs. Schaffer. A lot. We really wish things would’ve been different.”
“Me too,” said Monica. “But I couldn’t think of any other way.”
“Why didn’t you just do the tithe?” Ms. Needlemire asked me.
I thought about giving her some kind of snarky remark, one last jib to go out on. I had nothing. “Somebody shouldn’t have to die so I can have happiness.”
Ms. Needlemire stared at me. The corner of her mouth arced. “Good answer, Mr. Schaffer. I knew I liked you for a reason. That’s why you got my vote.”
Confused, I watched Ms. Needlemire walk toward Monica.
“Mrs. Schaffer, Golden Gates is a community for families—husbands and wives, kids. The kids grow up, move out, and the parents stay here, grow old and die. Then we are laid out on our lawns, and devoured by the Chomper. Then our children come back, take our places, keeping the cycle alive. That’s our duty. In the meantime, we offer tithes to the Chomper to keep us safe, to keep our lawns looking plush, and to keep the vermin away, human and animal. Strict rules are applied here. Laws, curfews, bedtimes, all put into place to protect us. You got this opportunity because cancer took the Johnsons’ only son. The house was left vacant when they were offered to the Chomper at the end of their lifespan.”
Bone Chimes Page 2
