by Kevin Lucia
Juan nodded once with a small smile, as if he’d seen it before, and didn’t find it strange. “Well then, senorita.” He waved ahead. “Welcome to the catacombs.”
As they followed Juan down the narrow corridor dug out of red hardpan and rock, Whitey marveled at how dry the air was, but also how cool. It didn’t smell foul or rotten, as he’d feared it would. The only scent tickling his nostrils was of dust, an ancient spice he couldn’t place, and the musk of old books.
They passed the corpses leaned upright against the wall. Whitey was amazed at their condition. Their desiccated skin had pulled tight without rot. No maggots, rats or any of the more sensational signs of decay. Something about the dry, cool air, perhaps. Or something done special to the bodies themselves, like with Egyptian mummies.
Or, perhaps it was their good luck they hadn’t descended into the catacombs after a recently interred body. In either case, the experience—especially for Maria—of walking down the softly lit dirt corridor, past rows of the dead, wasn’t ghoulish, or ghastly, or stomach-churning in the least. It was intriguing, mysterious, enthralling, and peaceful. The corpses’ faces appeared composed and relaxed. Their hands folded on their midsections (Whitey had never been sure how the arms had stayed put; perhaps they’d been wired into place), their empty eyes gazing nowhere.
“Oh yes,” Maria murmured, hands clasped together in eerie pantomime of the corpses leaning against the wall, her eyes shining. “Yes, Whitey. Like this someday. Promise me, all of us together.”
“Of course,” Whitey murmured, thinking nothing of it, thinking it was only inspiration from the moment, nothing more.
“Promise me, Whitey. Please.”
And he did.
***
Whitey stomped his boots on the cellar’s cement floor. Thankfully, he’d poured several feet of sand and gravel before laying the concrete. Amazingly, after all these years, the floor was still relatively smooth, with few cracks and no heaving.
He placed a hand on the brick wall he’d mortared himself. It felt cool and dry, mostly, as did the air. Not quite as arid as the Mexican catacombs, but it was the best he could manage in the Adirondacks, and would have to suffice.
Flickering light drew his gaze to the cellar’s far wall. He faced the ofrenda he’d so lovingly constructed for Maria years ago, when she’d first decided to celebrate the Day of the Dead on Halloween night. He’d had to disassemble it, bring its parts here to reassemble. It hadn’t been easy. His hands shook these days, and his shoulder and back hurt. Of course, he’d had since Maria’s diagnosis to complete it. He’d sensed from the beginning hers was a losing battle.
For a moment, gazing upon the ofrenda, sharp grief twisted his insides. Thick white candles had been lit on all the ofrenda’s shelves, firing the bouquets of red, orange, and yellow marigolds with an unearthly glow. Framed pictures of Maria from when he’d started dating her to pictures from before her illness lined the top shelf. Next to them, sugar candy skulls he’d made himself, with her name written on their white crystalline foreheads. Also, some of her favorite bits of jewelry. The floppy gardening hat she always wore when tending the flowers lining the front walk. Sheets of wax paper and the thick black sticks of wax she used for her tombstone rubbings, a hobby she’d begun ten years ago.
The ofrenda’s second shelf burned with candles and was lined with marigolds also, but featured pictures of both Marcus and Carlos. Next to the pictures, toys from their youth. A football, basketball, soccer ball, and a baseball. Marcus’ old Nikon camera, from before he’d discovered writing. A hammer, saw, and a clutch of nails, because Carlos had fallen in love with Whitey’s hobby of carpentry and had pursued it as a career. Both of them, good boys. Strong boys. Devoted boys, as unique as day and night.
Before the car accident which had stolen Marcus, five years before. Before the unexpected heart attack claiming Carlos a year later. Suddenly, he and Maria had been rendered childless, having survived their children, which no parent should ever have to suffer.
But it was all right, now.
They were together again at last. Whitey had been worried, initially, how the boys would fare. This, after all, wasn’t the cool and dry catacombs of Mexico. The cement floor and brick walls had helped, and it never got hot here, even in the summers, but there had been spring thaws to deal with. He’d a mess to clean—simply from seeping fluids and general decay—the first several springs. Also, Marcus had suffered a maggot infestation which had been unpleasant. Since then, however, they’d weathered the years well.
He hadn’t been able to stand them against the wall, however, as was done in the catacombs. The embalming process had made them too rigid. He’d managed to prop them, seated, backs against the ofrenda, hands folded in their laps, sightless eyes gazing at him, somewhat accusingly, which did bother him, when he was honest with himself. For what could they accuse him of? What had he done wrong? He was only honoring Maria’s wishes, after all. Bringing them together as one family, forever.
He turned and grasped the rope hanging from the rectangle opening above, attached to a stick propping open the door he’d installed into the floor when he’d dug out the cellar. With a quick tug, he pulled the stick into the cellar. The door swung shut with a thump and the click of the special latch and lock he’d recently installed. A lock which could only be opened from the outside, which he’d also fused shut with an acetylene torch. He’d fastened a throw rug onto the hatch, concealing it from passing eyes. Perhaps, when he turned up missing, someone would eventually discover them down here. Perhaps for them, it would be like Maria descending into the catacombs so long ago.
Regardless, Whitey made his way in the flickering candle light—which cast shadows on his family’s faces, and in those shadows he saw them gazing at him—to Maria’s side. He lowered himself to the dry concrete floor, gathered her stiffness into his arms, and waited for the Day of the Dead.
***
Uncountable hours later, candles long since extinguished, a heavy presence—an intangible weight—filled the small catacomb. Whitey smelled Maria’s perfume. Her rich chestnut hair, before it had fallen out. The warm baked-flour odor of fresh empanadas. Whitey sat up and stared into the darkness, heart pounding with joy as he whispered, “Maria? Is that you? Maria? It’s me. I’m here, darling.”
Her head—light from decay—shifted against his neck.
Whitey cried out, fear squeezing his heart (because her dry touch was so cold) as he pushed weakly off the wall to his feet, tottering away into the darkness, stiff joints screaming. Hands out, searching the blackness, he felt brick, turned and flattened against the far wall. He frantically dug into his pocket for his lighter . . .
And heard it.
Scratching.
Dragging. Something, several somethings . . .
Carlos
Marcus
if I believe in it, it will happen
wasn’t supposed to be like this
. . . shifting and crawling toward him.
Whitey’s hand closed around the lighter in his pocket. He squeezed it, feeling the cool metal housing a cleansing flame.
No.
Fear drained away.
He tottered several steps toward the dragging, clicking, sliding. His legs trembled, and he fell to his knees. Opened his arms.
Waiting.
Maria reached him first. And she didn’t smell bad at all (not like her perfume or hair or freshly baked empanadas, but not bad, either) as she nestled her withered mouth at the base of his neck. Sighing, he craned his head back and, gently holding the back of her head, pressed her to him, so her teeth could get a better grip on his on jugular.
And with his other, he welcomed his sons as they came together, at last.
As he’d believed they would.
10.
I cowered against the stairway, shaking. The hand clutching my lighter with a white-knuckled grip jittered, throwing its faint orange light over their withered faces. Lips peeled back from white, jutt
ing teeth. Blind eye sockets stared, stopped up by crusty dead matter. Wispy cobweb hair—what remained—clung to skulls sheathed in tight, leathery flesh. Mouths gaped wide in silent screams.
I can’t tell you how many there were, exactly—three or four—nor can I say how they were positioned, because I couldn’t hold my hand still. It kept jerking up and down, the light flitting across their faces, filling up their blind eyes. Maybe two of them were embracing, one’s head buried in the other’s neck. Lovers? Husband and wife?
I’ve told myself maybe those weren’t real corpses at all. Could be they were old, cast-off Halloween decorations. Very genuine Halloween decorations. Made of foam, or something, and dressed in old rags. I’ve told myself this, and on some days, I actually believe it.
Other days?
I ask myself who would build such a small cellar under a store, and take the time to brick and mortar the walls? I wonder about the lingering scent of oil and gasoline, the kind of smells usually associated with lawn mowers.
Anyway, I’m not sure how long I cowered on those steps. Mesmerized, transfixed, seeing things through those corpses’ (or decorations) eyes, I lay there silent and still.
And then I started blubbering.
Hell, yes. Blubbering and bawling, right there on the steps, but not for the reasons you might think. Sure, I was scared out of my mind. Lost my wits completely, broken as broken could be.
But it wasn’t the corpses themselves. No, I was broken because even dead folks had each other. They had what I’d never had growing up. Hell, they had it still, in their moldy afterlife, more so than me. Family. People they belonged to. Someone to hold them.
Family.
While I’d never had anyone, didn’t have anyone, and knew I never would.
Sobbing, I flicked my lighter off. Those corpses (or maybe decorations), fell into merciful darkness. They deserved their privacy with each other. I left them, at first crawling backwards up the steps, sobbing more quietly. About halfway up, I rolled over onto my hands and knees and crawled up a few more steps. Then I lurched to my feet for the last two, staggering back up behind the sales counter. My thighs were weak and quivering, threatening to spill me to the floor.
I glanced down and saw what I’d missed: The cellar’s trapdoor had been left open, held by a hook and eye screwed into the counter. The open door had been flat against the counter, out of the way. If I’d glanced down first, I would’ve seen the dark open rectangle in the floor, but as it was, I’d only looked along the endless hallway (which I had no desire to explore), not down at the floor.
I didn’t bother wondering how the shopkeeper had walked around the trapdoor without falling, or if he’d opened it special for me before he’d disappeared. Not thinking anything, I unhooked the door and flipped it down. I sat on my ass, put my head in my hands and sobbed incoherently. My shoulders were shaking, chest heaving. God, I was wailing. Wailing at the top of my lungs.
Of course I was. No one to call my own. No place I belonged. Nothing to do in this world but sell fucking magazine subscriptions, and I wasn’t even doing that, only conning others into selling them for me. All alone, for as long as I could remember.
Considering everything that had happened, I suppose what came next was inevitable.
I grabbed my shirt and wiped my face. Glanced up and saw them, arranged in orderly piles on shelves under the sales counter.
Hand guns.
Pistols.
Old revolvers and a few shotguns. I didn’t know what kind of pawn shop sells used guns. Didn’t know if it was legal, or if they had to do background checks or anything, or if they needed a license to sell them. But I was getting the idea by then, you understand, that no license existed for what Handy’s sold, and there they were. Hand guns, pistols, revolvers, shot guns and some rifles, all stacked neatly. And of course, sitting nearest to the counter’s edge, newer and more polished than the rest, practically gleaming bright silver: A .38 exactly like the one I’d left back in a box under my bed at The Motor Lodge.
See, the one thing which kept niggling away at my brain but I’d kept repressing was not remembering what I’d done with the .38. Did I put it away? Bring it along? Use it? I certainly remembered sitting on the bed, holding it, sorta caressing it with the pad of my index finger, but I didn’t remember putting it away. All I remembered was driving around Clifton Heights and eventually pulling up in front of Handy’s, where they sold “things you need.”
I didn’t remember putting it away.
And where the hell was my rental?
Did I even drive to begin with? It was a blur.
I reached out and grabbed the pistol. Same one? Was it the pistol I didn’t remember putting away?
Did it matter?
No.
My hand suddenly steady, I flicked the .38, and the cartridge cylinder popped open. Was it loaded?
Sure it was. Four barrels, anyway. The other two only had empty casings. What happened to them?
It didn’t matter.
I did the only thing I could’ve done right then. I stood up, not wanting to go out on my ass. Slapped the cartridge cylinder back into place and spun the cylinder, its rhythmic clicking filling my world. When it came to a stop, I cocked the hammer back and stuck the muzzle in my mouth, gazing into an old mirror propped up on a shelf near the sales counter, seeing the truth of everything in my eyes as my finger tensed on the trigger.
Almost Home
“How much longer?”
“Not long, I don’t think.”
“How long?”
***
Mary blinked at the rain-slicked windshield while her mind struggled against the wipers’ droning metronome. She was so tired. Tired of driving, tired of not knowing when it would end.
I chose this. Shouldn’t complain.
She touched the .38 under her belt. The cold metal chilled her fingertips. Shivering, she pulled her hand away. Bile churned in her gut, made her mouth taste sour, because she couldn’t blame anyone but herself for this. She’d known what Barry had been like—God help her, she’d known—and it wasn’t as if people hadn’t warned her. But she hadn’t listened, because she’d thought she could change him. Make him better.
And now, here they were.
“Shit.”
“Johnny. Watch your mouth.” She glanced over her shoulder into the backseat. “What’s wrong?”
The old Gameboy she’d bought for him at a thrift store in Clifton Heights warbled. Arcs of light from the tiny screen played across Johnny’s forehead, accentuating the angles of his nose and cheeks, flaring in the hollows under his eyes.
“Only two lives left. Thing’s fuckin’ hard.”
She faced forward and squinted at the rain-blurred road. “Don’t swear, honey. It’s crude.”
“Dad swore.”
She swallowed all the sharp words she wanted to spew about him. “Well, I don’t want you to. It’s low. You’re gonna do better. Okay?”
Tiny stars blossomed over Johnny’s cheeks while his thumbs raced. “Whatever.”
“No. You can change, Johnny. If you want to.”
“Sure.”
It wasn’t much of an answer, but they were both tired, and Johnny was too absorbed in the Gameboy for her to push the issue much further. Still, she persisted. She was his mother, after all.
Fine time to pick that responsibility up. Where was she when the bruises on his arms had started showing? When he started complaining of back aches? Where was she when Johnny got his first black eye “falling down outside?”
She sucked in a deep breath, swallowing her self-recrimination. “You can always change, Johnny. Always.”
“Okay. When’s the next stop? My ass . . . my butt hurts.”
She bit her lip. They hadn’t seen anything for miles, and the highway stretched out before them into the dark: A black strip broken only by pale yellow lines. Wet darkness swirled around them as it rained. Only a few pinprick stars glimmered through night’s velvet curtain, a
long with snatches of bone-white moon.
They’d gotten lost. Probably took a wrong turn after Clifton Heights. The next stop could be minutes or hours away, and she had no way of knowing. She could try the map, but all those lines and interstate numbers only confused her.
She glanced at the gas gauge. The needle trembled inside the yellow of Caution, above the red of Empty. Her stomach cramped.
“I dunno, kiddo. Hopefully we’ll find something, soon.”
Vinyl-seating squeaked and electronic trumpets blared. “Whatever. Just want to get up and walk around a little.”
She didn’t answer, swallowing bitter fear. Her stomach chewed on doubt and empty promises. Here was the truth: Things were no better now than they were before. Barry’s behavior had been erratic, impossible to predict, and life with him had been a violent roller coaster ride, but they’d had a home, at least. A place to call their own. A roof over their heads. Food, shelter, warmth.
Now?
She gazed in the rear-view mirror. Its cracked glass reflected her worn face, her skin pulled tight at the corners of her mouth. Old bruises shadowed her eyes. Johnny looked much better than she did. Thankfully, young skin healed faster.
She frowned.
That’s not my face.
Her mirror eyes laughed. The gun pressed against her belly. She dreamed of pulling its trigger soon and making all her regrets and nightmares disappear for good.
No.
Not yet.
Mary drove to the tune of the Gameboy’s warbles.
***
Johnny had shut the Gameboy off and fallen asleep in the back. The silence made her eyelids flutter as she drove. She’d tried listening to the radio to stay awake, but all it seemed to play were angry evangelists and shouting politicians. She’d turned it off, and the silence had swallowed them whole.
Her arms trembled. Fatigue burned her stomach.
Something caught her gaze. Up ahead, on the right side of the road, a building shimmered through the raindrops. A rest stop and welcome center, built of night-washed brick, its parking lot empty. Understandable, given the late hour.
