“Yes,” said Monica. “And I’m happy to be a part of it.”
“I admire that,” said Ms. Needlemire. “But what I admire more is a husband willing to fight for what he knows in his heart is right, even if it might cost him his life. We want you here, Mrs. Schaffer. But we can’t stand having a selfish wife who’s this quick to betray her husband to help herself.”
Monica’s mouth slowly dropped.
“Hold her,” said Ms. Needlemire.
Before Monica could react, The Duggins’ rushed her, grabbing her arms.
Pointing at me, Ms. Needlemire said, “Untie him, quickly. The Chomper’s coming.”
In the distance, I detected the faint rumble of an old engine, steadily growing louder. It would be here within minutes.
Mr. and Mrs. Dooley quickly untied my hands and feet. They helped me stand up. My legs tingled as if sand flowed through my veins.
“Put her in his place,” said Ms. Needlemire.
“No!” Monica screamed. The older couple pulled her, thrashing and bucking, toward the ropes. “Adam! Don’t let them do this! I’m sorry! I love you!”
I almost helped her, but a quick look at Ms. Needlemire convinced me to stay where I was. Monica fought and screamed, bucked and struggled, unable to get free. The Dooleys held her down while The Moores tied her.
Ms. Needlemire stepped in front of me, putting her hand against my chest. She shoved me back. “Now get inside, Mr. Schaffer. The offering has been left.”
“But…” I looked at Monica, who peered up at me with tear-soaked eyes. Her lips quivered. “I…”
“Now, Mr. Schaffer. The Chomper is almost here. If we’re out here when it arrives…”
She let the cautionary look in her eyes finish for her.
“Adam!” Monica cried. “Please! I’m sorry! Please, help! Adam!”
“Go,” said Ms. Needlemire.
Nodding, I walked backward. Seeing me go caused Monica to shriek. It was hard to understand what she was saying through her hysterical crying. Hearing the pitiful hopelessness in her voice made my chest tighten. Tears filled my eyes.
I put my back to her and went inside. I gave one last look out. My neighbors were heading home while Monica screamed, body jerking against the ropes. She cussed them, cussed me. Then she begged for forgiveness.
I closed the door.
Within minutes I was in my bedroom, the lights out, on my knees in front of the window, gazing down into my dark front yard. Though I couldn’t see Monica, I could surely hear her frantic pleas. But they were drowned out by the broken chugging of an impending engine.
Chills scurried up my spine when a bright light suddenly appeared like a glowing explosion, exposing Monica. No longer fighting, she still screamed as the light grew, spreading around her like garish water.
Then I saw the blades, twirling in a blur of sharp points. Huge jagged teeth, spinning like the spokes of a bicycle wheel. The machine the churning fins were affixed to appeared below me. Its blocky design was shaped like a tractor, but larger, bulkier. Scarier. Smokestacks on each side pumped thick plumes of exhaust as its movements squeaked and chirped like a bad fan belt. Its design was simple, yet palpably supernatural. There was no driver. The metal beast moved by its own accord.
Monica screamed one last time before her head was munched, killing her cries with juicy crunching sounds. I looked away as the blades chewed their way to her breasts.
Getting in bed, I thought about nothing. My mind was a void, flat and empty. I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but when my head touched the pillow, I plummeted into a deep slumber.
I didn’t wake until morning, to the peaceful harmony of chimes.
Ms. Needlemire smiled when I opened the door. “Mr. Schaffer, you look well-rested.”
Squinting against the bright light, I nodded. “I feel it, actually.”
“See how good tithing makes you feel?”
“For now.” My eyes drifted toward the yard. Where Monica had been was a trodden patch of dark wetness. Even the stakes were gone. “But I imagine the guilt will come when I have a chance to think about it.”
Ms. Needlemire shook her head. “No. Your conscience is clean, nothing to punish yourself over.”
“I gave my wife to a mysterious junk-heap called the Chomper. I have plenty to feel bad about.”
“Not at all,” she said. “Don’t you feel…good?”
I’d never felt better in all my life. Lighter on my feet, I fought the urge to whistle. Where Monica had hit me with the bat no longer throbbed. Checking my arm, I saw there wasn’t even a tiny blemish left behind.
“So I have to do this every month now?” I asked.
Ms. Needlemire smiled. “The blood offering is obligatory, yes. But you proved to all of us that you belong, proved it to the Chomper too. A man who’d be willing to give a child’s life to help his own is not the kind of person we’d want living here in Golden Gates.”
“So that was just a test?”
Ms. Needlemire’s smile stretched wider. “And you passed.” She held up an envelope that looked identical to the other one. “This is for you. Look at it when you get inside.”
I took the envelope from her, then Ms. Needlemire turned and started her slow shuffle down my steps. “Have a good day,” I told her.
“You too, Mr. Schaffer.”
I started to close the door.
“Oh, one more thing,” she said, turning around.
Looking out, I said, “What’s that?”
“I’m having a gathering at my house next Saturday. I’d love for you to be there.”
I smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
“Good. My granddaughter’s coming to stay with me for a while. She’s about your age, recently divorced and very easy on the eyes. It’s getting close to time for me to be offered, so she’s going to help me along until then. I think you two will hit it off splendidly.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Take care,” she said, turning away.
I shut the door. On my way to my office, I opened the envelope. It hadn’t been sealed. Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded. Opening it, I stared at the crudely drawn image.
And smiled.
In blue, smeary ink was the unmistakable likeness of a chicken.
Now that was a tithe I could handle.
Story Notes:
The original version of this story was written years back, but I tossed out most of it while rewriting it for Jack Bantry’s Splatterpunk Magazine. I kept the wife’s name the same, but changed the husband’s because they matched a couple I’d come to know since completing the first draft. I didn’t want them to think I’d purposely used their names, especially after what happens to them in the story.
I’m a fan of old anthology shows like Twilight Zone, Monsters, Tales from the Darkside, and Outer Limits. As a kid, I used to watch them with my mother, the lights turned off and drinking chocolate milkshakes while my father worked the late shift.
When I first sat down to attempt this story, I wanted to write something that I might have watched with mother back then. I’d planned to let her read it, but she never got to before dementia took hold of her. I hope she would’ve liked it.
Love Seat
“I see ya eyein’ her,” the old man said. “I’ll sell her to ya for ten bucks.” He spat a wad of brown phlegm onto the concrete.
The old man was dressed in a tan colored shirt, long-sleeved although it was nearly a hundred degrees, with a rolled pack of chewing tobacco in the chest pocket, and pants an even darker shade of brown. His gut wilted over his belt, dimpling the fabric around the buttons on his shirt.
Jacob Carlson had been at the Hickory Grove flea market for two hours, and his shirt was sodden with sweat. His mother had told him if he wanted a good deal on a couch, he should try the flea market.
You can find good stuff there, cheap!
Until coming across this booth, he hadn’t found anything nice or cheap. A foul-mouthed M
exican was selling some furniture still in its plastic off the back of a truck, but his prices were absurdly high and he wouldn’t haggle.
Jacob was contemplating a trip to Goodwill when he stumbled across this couch: a two-seater, red-violet in color, with a high back and heavily bolstered arms that looked as soft as marshmallows. It had to be a used furnishing, or the popularly coined term ‘Previously Owned’ but when Jacob glided his hand across the back cushion it felt too soft, too warm, for someone to have soiled it.
“You like her, dontcha?” The man wiped his mouth, coughed, but didn’t hock any odd colored mucus this time. “She’s something special. You’ll never find a couch like her.”
There, he’d done it again—referred to the couch as her.
“Why are you willing to sell her—it—so cheap?”
The man smiled. “Because she chose you, that’s why.” He rubbed his hands together. “I was packing up, ‘bout to head home for the day when I heard her calling. She told me the one had finally come to claim her.”
Jacob restrained a shiver. The man might not look it, but he was quite a salesman, albeit a creepy one.
“But before I can rightfully give her up, I have to ask you some questions.”
“Wuh-what kind of questions?” Jacob hadn’t realized there would be a background screening just to buy a damn couch. But looking at its ample cushions, he could almost understand why there was. She was too lovely to be handed off to just anybody, and he could accept that.
“Why are you in the market for a new couch?”
Frowning, Jacob looked up as if the reason hovered above him. And for a couple weeks everything had felt that way, like a black fog following him everywhere. Why did he need a new couch? He couldn’t remember. Trying to recall it was like looking through a frosted window. Something had happened, recently, and that was why he’d spent most of his Saturday off shopping for furniture. But his mind couldn’t quite grasp what it was. It was painful, that much he could remember, and nasty and bitter.
Hannah.
Then the memory crashed down on him, so heavy on his shoulders he began to slouch.
He remembered it all.
He’d come home from PC Problems, where he worked, early, to avoid overtime and found a foreign, yet vaguely familiar Mazda parked in the driveway of the two-bedroom house he shared with his fiancé, Hannah. The car sat in the spot where he normally parked his car. And because the short narrow driveway was occupied by Hannah’s Jetta and this Mazda, Jacob was forced to park at the curb. On Mable Street, he could do that without having to worry someone would bust his windows and steal something.
Plus, with him parking at the curb, Hannah hadn’t heard his arrival.
“Son?”
Jacob fluttered his eyes, shook his head to knock the cobwebs loose. “Yuh-yeah?”
“You just kind of zoned out there.” The man brandished a handkerchief from a rear pocket that had probably been white when it came out of the package, now it was forever yellowed. Then he wiped his brow, running the kerchief over his bald dome, and the horseshoe of hair around it.
“Sorry…I was …Never mind.”
“So, you were about to answer my question?”
Was he? Right. The question that had triggered the unwanted recollection. “My fiancé and I are separating…I moved into an apartment. It wasn’t furnished.”
“Ah. Okay. So you’re single.”
“Well, sort of…at the moment, yeah, but I don’t know how long this will be going on. But for now, yeah, I guess you can say I am.”
“Good.” He wiped his hands, then put the dirty square back in his pocket. “She isn’t going home with someone that’s already taken. This couch is special, and not meant to be shared. Know what I mean?”
“No…actually I have no idea.”
Ignoring him, the man delicately patted the couch. “She’s not just something you plop your ass down on at the end of the day. This couch is so much more. You take her home and you are committing yourself to her. Your life will never be the same. Can you do that—uh, what’s your name, son?”
“Jacob.”
“Can you do that, Jacob? Can you give all of yourself to such an immaculate piece of furniture?”
This old man was beginning to really bother Jacob, speaking like a father would about his daughter before allowing her to leave the house on prom night. He was ready to tell this guy thanks but no thanks, when his mind went fuzzy again. All the negative thoughts, the second guesses began to dissolve, and in their place came comfort. Tranquility. These were feelings he wasn’t used to, not since he was a child on his mother’s lap being rocked to sleep. He’d felt so safe then, so loved, and was feeling that way now.
Jacob rubbed the couch again, the downy material soft and plushy against his hand. He found himself wanting to squeeze it.
“Can’t keep letting ya grope her if you don’t plan on buyin’ her.”
“Ten bucks?”
“From you I’ll take five. Like I said, she wants to go home with you, and she’s a tough one to please.”
“I’ll take her.” This time, Jacob didn’t even notice—or care—he’d started referring to the couch in the flesh and blood sense as well.
“You won’t regret this.”
“Thank you, mister…I don’t even know your name.”
“Just call me Gus.”
“Thank you, Gus, for all your help.”
“Don’t thank me, thank her.” He nodded at the couch.
Jacob silently did.
Gus told him to pull around to the back and take the gravel road that circled around the hive-like buildings. Then he shook the old man’s hand, and went out to his truck. When he got back there, Gus already had the couch’s body wrapped in plastic. He’d removed the seat cushions and placed them in padded bags.
The old man waved at Jacob as he parked the truck. “I haven’t seen her so excited in a long time. I think she’d ‘bout given up hope the right one would come along and take her home.”
For some reason, Jacob felt himself beginning to blush.
On his way home, he went through the Burger King drive-thru, got a double cheeseburger combo, and ate it as he drove. Every so often, he checked the rearview mirror where he could see the loveseat in the bed of his truck. Afraid of going too fast and the cushions blowing away, he made sure to keep the speed five miles below the required limit.
He had finished eating and was sipping on his Coke when he pulled into the driveway. Jacob’s abode was considered an apartment, although it had been a house at one time—a very old house, and had been converted into two separate apartments, upstairs and down. Nobody lived above him, and the landlord had told him it would probably remain vacant since he’d gotten too old to go up and down those stairs himself. Jacob was just fine with that. The idea of having someone trampling all over his ceiling at odd hours didn’t sound very appealing.
He dropped his trash in the can outside, then walked over to the tailgate, and lowered it. He studied the couch through the plastic wrap. Its design was so basic, yet incomparable to anything he’d ever seen, the kind of furniture Jacob wouldn’t normally want to own. But from the first glance, he knew this couch wasn’t an ordinary furnishing. Something about her was otherworldly.
She chose you. And she’s a tough one to please.
Jacob smiled, feeling good about that.
Two hours later he had the couch in the living room, unwrapped, and on display. He stood there, gazing at her proudly. She was an article of exuberance, much too beautiful for this shitty place Jacob was renting for two-hundred dollars a month.
He wondered what Hannah would think of her, then realized he didn’t really care what she would’ve thought.
A couch like this isn’t meant to be shared…
He hadn’t sat on her yet. Her sloping softness beckoned him. But he was sweaty, and his clothes were filthy. He decided to shower first.
Standing under the hot streams, his mind wandered to
six weeks ago, as it often did when he was alone. He was standing on the front porch, his key to the doorknob of the house he shared with Hannah, about to put the key in when a faint noise resonated from deep inside.
A throaty gasp.
Hannah.
Jacob didn’t kick down the door and rush to her rescue. It wasn’t that kind of gasp. It was the kind Hannah used during certain secretive pleasures, like the time he’d accidentally walked in on her with an immense dildo to the hilt between her legs as she lay sweaty and mussed on the bed. The whole room had reeked of dirty sex.
Could she be in there pleasuring herself again?
It had been more awkward for him the last time than for her. It had also put an idea in the hind regions of his mind that he wasn’t enough to satisfy the urges she obviously had, but was too ashamed to discuss with him. Perhaps it was because when it came to sex, Jacob didn’t color outside the lines. He was a simple, three position man and didn’t much care for trying new things. He hadn’t even watched a porno since he was a teenager, yet adult sites kept popping up in his internet browser’s history. He figured that was Hannah’s doing as well, though he’d never confronted her about it.
As he’d put the key in the lock, Hannah cried out. “Fuck me…Yeah…Yeah…”
He froze.
His heart hammered against his chest. Something cold and prickly rose up into his throat. He began to shiver in the late May heat.
“Stick it in my ass! You want to, don’t you? Fuck my ass…”
Jacob’s eyes swelled. He looked over at the Mazda, knowing that he would not be interrupting a masturbation session. This time she had a partner.
Delicately, he turned the key, disengaging the deadbolt. Then he curled his fingers around the knob. It felt cold and clammy in his hand. He opened the door and was slapped in the face with a domineering odor.
Bone Chimes Page 3
