"Some might say it's the spice of life," Colin agreed, and slipped his arm around Madison's.
A woman approached the reverend, holding out something slate gray and globular. As Jack took it, Madison saw it was a rabbit mask, though it was far cry from the Easter Bunny, so devoid of cutesy as to be sinister. The reverend placed the mask on his head, tugged the strap behind it and turned to them, only his clear blue eyes and mouth visible. "For the benefit of the children," he explained, shrugging up his broad shoulders.
Reverend Jack the Bunny trotted down the stairs, chasing behind a few straggling boys and girls, who scurried to meet the end of the line. "Run!" he cried, laughing heartily. "Run, little children! We mustn't dally or the Easter Hare shan't leave his eggs!"
Colin turned to her. "Well, what do you think?"
Madison shrugged. "It's bizarre. But it's kind of sweet."
Colin embraced her and kissed her temple. She hugged him back, then started down the stairs to catch up to the others as the head of the line emerged around the other side of the church. Colin took the hand of a young dark-haired woman with high Irish cheekbones at the end of the clipping circle, and Madison took the hand left over. The old veteran took her free hand, smiling warmly at her from what had been the head of the line as they continued their stroll. Jealousy tweaked at Madison's nerves as the fair-skinned woman smiled back at Colin, but she trusted him. He could sleep with just about any woman in school, and he'd chosen her. If he'd been in the mood to sleep around, he'd have suggested it by now, and he certainly wouldn't have dragged her all the way out to the other side of the pond to do it.
She let the cheerful townsfolk merry-go-round her to the side of the church, where the crumbled, mossy gray stones of an old graveyard became visible on a green hill, the flat gray sea beyond it. Madison looked up at the steeple and bell tower, meeting the googly eyes of a gargoyle made to look like a monkey sticking out its tongue. Ahead of Colin and the dark-haired seductress, the pinwheel spun in the girl's limp pale hand as the wind took it, the girl herself hidden behind trudging legs.
Reverend Jack the Rabbit sprung from a doorway, throwing up his hands, and several people screamed, including the dark-haired woman, who smiled embarrassedly over her shoulder at Colin. They all laughed when the reverend raised the mask, and he smiled down on Madison as she passed.
"I hope we don't ruddy go 'round for very much longer," the old veteran said to Madison as they marched around the back of the church.
Madison smiled politely. She considered asking him about the medal Colin had pointed out earlier, but a woman's voice called out, "Now, round and round anticlockwise!" It took a bit of fumbling, laughter and apologies for people to get themselves turned around and traveling in the other direction. They passed the doorway where the reverend had jumped out and scared them, and for a moment, she felt Colin's hand slip from hers before snatching it again.
"Do you have the time?" the old man asked over his shoulder.
Madison twisted the hand he held to look at her watch. "It's quarter to two."
"Quarter of two, already? Cor, I'll need my kip in an hour!"
Madison didn't know what a "kip" was, but she smiled in sympathy. Colin's cold fingers grasped hers tighter, and she turned to smile back at him, startling when she saw a freckled young man with thick, dark eyebrows held her hand instead of Colin. "Where's my boyfriend?" The young man scowled at her. She called out Colin's name, prying her hand loose from the young man's, who held tight. "Have you seen my... my boyfriend?"
The young man continued forward, shoving her brusquely out of the way. Men and women gawked at her, suddenly not so friendly. The fields were empty. Gray clouds scudded across the sky. "Colin!" she cried, hurrying along in the other direction, disoriented by the blur of townsfolk trudging forward. "COLIN!"
The little girl's pinwheel stood alone in the grass, spinning in the wind. A simian-like gargoyle stood on its perch displaying its genitals, mocking her.
Madison stopped running when she reached the doorway, a part of her already certain Colin had slipped off with the dark-haired woman into some dark corner of the church. Everyone was out here, mindlessly circling. Inside, they would have privacy. She had to get in. The queue kept moving forward, blank stares meeting her frightened eyes, no one kind enough to break the circle and let her through.
"Excuse me!" The townsfolk gave her bewildered looks. "Get out of my way!" she shouted, ducking to squeak in under the arms of an elderly couple, pulling their hands apart and temporarily breaking the circle. She stood in the alcove where the reverend had hidden, hugging the door in bewildered terror as the glowering eyes of the crowd still circled.
Nervous to turn her back on them, Madison kept an eye on the clipping circle and tried the doors. She spilled into a small dark vestibule as they opened. She closed them behind her, cold eyes peering in at her as the doors came together.
"Colin!" Her own voice echoed in reply. Madison pressed her palms against her eyes, adjusting them to the darkness. The small, round chamber contained a door and a winding set of stone stairs. She tried the door, found it locked. Upstairs then, or back outside with the insane people and their poor, oblivious little children.
Madison called out his name once more on the stairs. The damp walls were cold to the touch, but the height made her nervous. She felt her way up to the top, where another door muffled voices in whatever room lay beyond. She pressed her ear against it, not ready to get caught by surprise, worried she might die if she saw Colin with another woman. Difficult to identify the sounds beyond the door: moaning or talking or some kind of rhythmic chanting.
Only one way to find out, she thought, and twisted the knob.
She saw Reverend Jack Rabbit first, standing at the far end of the bell tower, reading from a book he held out in one long-fingered hand. Candles burned and smoldered from crevasses in the walls. Below the old brass bell, Colin lay shirtless on a stone slab. The dark-haired woman lifted his head by his beautiful silver hair and before Madison could raise her voice in alarm, she dragged a curved blade across his throat.
The blood came in gouts, splashing the dark-haired woman's coat and showering Colin's chest as his tongue wriggled in strangled chokes, his warm brown eyes locked on Madison. She stumbled back, reaching out to grab hold of the arch, only vaguely aware of the steep drop behind her. Cold hands snatched her from behind and forced her roughly into the room.
The reverend pulled up his mask with a grin. "Ah... you've arrived just in time, my dear child, to bear witness to the conclusion of the ritual."
Madison struggled against the hands. "Let me go! What the fuck is wrong with you people?"
"Wrong?" He closed the book. "There is nothing wrong with us, dear. You see, this town is quite old and so are we. A handful of us are older than this church, aren't we, Carwen?"
Carwen, the dark-haired woman, winked and smiled, allowing Colin's head to strike the stone while his gurgling abruptly ceased. As the reverend crossed to Madison, Carwen unbuttoned her long red coat, revealing her pale, freckled body, small breasts with puffy, perky nipples, a triangle of dark hair in the crease below her jutting hipbones.
"What's she doing?" Madison wanted to know.
"Never mind her. Listen to me, my dear. If we're to prosper, this town needs children. You could live with us, the two of you."
Behind him, Carwen unzipped Colin's jeans and jerked them and his white briefs down to his knees. Colin's penis, slightly crooked in its thatch of salt-and-pepper pubic hair, sagged over his tightened balls while his lifeblood trickled down the slab to the cold stone floor, and his dead eyes stared vacantly at the interior of the bell above his head.
"You ki-- you killed him..." Madison wept as the reality of it sunk in. "You killed my Colin!"
"Ah yes, but the power of resurrection!" Reverend Jack said. "St. Francis was right... it is possible to know the power of resurrection! To become like Him in death. He will rise again, my dear. We have all risen again."
"This is insane!" She struggled against the cold hands, hot tears streaming down her face. "You're insane!"
The reverend unbuttoned and removed his collar, revealing a jagged pink scar across his throat. "Do not doubt me, Thomas," he said to her calmly. He nodded to whomever still held her tight. "Show her."
The hands let her go, and she twisted round, face to face with the young man with thick eyebrows. He pulled up his shirt and she turned away, not wanting to see.
"Look at him, dear."
She didn't want to look, but the reverend wore the rabbit mask again, and Carwen had straddled Colin's body, crouching over his hips and thrusting herself back and forth on his limp cock, now glistening with her juices. She'd always thought she would die if she saw Colin with another woman, but here she was still alive and Colin dead. Reluctantly, Madison turned. The young man smiled at her, fingering a large open wound like a fish gill under his ribs.
"The same wound Pontius Pilate gave to Jesus," Reverend Jack said. "Do you still doubt?"
Madison shuddered. "What is this...?" she managed to groan.
"We need more children," the reverend told her. "Only the dead can impregnate the dead."
"But... but he's..." She turned to her lover, tears filling her eyes, causing her vision to blur. She blinked them away, startling as Colin's prick began to stiffen, rising like a snake from the bushes. Carwen grasped it and slipped it into her dark, wet tomb.
"He is risen," the reverend said with a pleased smile, and as Colin's bloodied hands rose from the stone slab to grasp the woman's buttocks, Madison fainted dead away.
SQUIRM
THE SUN WAKES me, the sound of sparrows outside the open window. A summer breeze blows in, cooling the sweat on my bare skin where I've kicked off the sheet during the night.
I find it difficult to sleep in the summer. The heat makes me uncomfortable in my own skin. Erratic breeze from the fan startles me awake as it blows past, fluttering my hair in my face. Noises outside rouse me too easily with the window open: raccoons rattling garbage cans, distant sirens, drunken partiers. I've always been a light sleeper, but so much more so since the children came. Bill could sleep through the Apocalypse...
I lie there for half an hour, just listening to him breathe and watching the birds outside our window. I've always envied his ability to turn off his brain and recharge for eight hours a night. The boys don't wake him, creaking their way down the hall to pee or get a drink of water. When they were babies, it was always me who would wake first to shake Bill awake for his turn to change them or shush them back to sleep. Even now, I'd be lucky to get a few hours uninterrupted before my brain started circling around things that didn't bear thinking about so late at night.
I roll over to watch Bill sleep. In the dead of night, I may begrudge him, but watching him like this in the morning makes me smile. I think of how lucky I am to have such a perfect family, a perfect life, and the thought makes my heart swell with joy, bringing me close to tears. Few better ways to start the day.
The alarm clock on his side of the bed tells me it's still too early yet to wake him. I consider creeping out of bed and heading downstairs to read a little of my book, but a tiny twitch in Bill's cheek concerns me--something like a facial tic. I've never seen him do that before. He usually sleeps so peacefully, never shifting, eyelids barely fluttering, just lying there on his back like a man in his grave. The tic is something different. I don't do well with different.
He rouses a moment later to find me watching him. His lips upturn in a smile as he takes in a deep breath of morning air through his nose. "Mmm morning, honeybear."
"Morning," I say. He kisses my closed lips briefly, before I pull back, not wanting to give him a face full of morning breath.
Bill leans in again and kisses me deeper. Watching me. Wanting me. I let my lips part, despite my breath issues. I watch him as his eyes close, getting into it. I imagine him getting hard in his boxers, and the thought turns me on.
It's been weeks since we've had alone time (it's hard for me not to think of it as "Mommy-Daddy time," despite how fully it kills the mood), with the kids in bed, at their grandparents, or sleeping over at one of their friend's houses. I feel a deep urge to be with him, to have him inside me, his hands roaming over my skin. Then my mind starts circling. Stupid things. It's so hard for me to just be in the moment sometimes.
Should shower first. Brush my teeth. But then the kids will wake...
Bill's eyes open. A hand slips over my clavicle, down to my breast. All thoughts dissolve. His eyes follow the progress of his fingers, widening in hunger as the rough pad of his thumb circles my areola, bringing blood to the surface.
He blinks then, but his eyes don't close. He's too engrossed in his stroking, fingers tracing my freckles, the mole above my nipple. He blinks, but a translucent film closes over his eyes instead, shuttering over them from side to side, like an animal's, keeping them moist but wide open.
This is not my husband.
I tear my lips away from him, certain I must have imagined it. Pulling back in horror, I try to blink the image away, to look at him from a distance. To study him.
"What?" he whispers. "The kids won't be up for another half hour..."
Even if I knew what to say, I can't speak. It's impossible. My lips won't form words.
Bill pouts like a little boy, his typical reaction when he feels scorned. No evidence of anything different in his eyes now. Of anything other. But I can't forget I'd seen it. The facial tic while he slept... had that been part of it? I'd been stressing myself out lately, looking for full-time work now that the boys were older, still doing my regular duties as a wife and mother. Trying to be the Supermom society expects of me. Compounded with the lack of good, solid sleep... is it possible I'd imagined it?
As I lie there considering how to reply, the boys come bursting into the room in their pajamas, all smiles, giving me the opportunity to separate from Bill without making it something to fight over.
"Mommydaddymommydaddymommydaddy!"
They leap onto the bed and climb in between us. Bill play-wrestles Dylan over his shoulder, making a monstrous growl. Dylan giggles uproariously, his laughter high-pitched, almost a squeal. Ryan climbs over Bill's legs and snuggles up between mine. Any other time I might have found the scene cute, but the image of Bill's eyes closing without closing has filled me with such confusion and dread I can't enjoy our morning routine like I normally would, his playful growl--the Mattress Monster, the kids call him--now vaguely sinister. Ryan crawls up my legs and cuddles into my lap, wrapping his little arms around my waist. He looks up at me with a wide smile.
"G'morning, Mommy," he says.
He sticks out his lower lip to blow shaggy brown hair out of his eyes, and translucent shutters close over them, just like his father's.
Ice cold fingers run up the nerves in my spine, despite the summer heat. I so desperately want to jump out of bed, to run screaming headlong down the hall and into the street, but then they'll know that I've seen them, that I know what they are. So I force myself to sit perfectly still, and it takes a concentrated effort of every nerve in my face to return the smile.
"Morning, honeybear," I say to the creature that used to be my youngest son.
❚❚
NICTITATING--THAT'S WHAT it's called. Translucent membranes below the eyelids that protect the eyes and keep them moist. Birds have it, snakes have it. Some mammals. I spent most of the morning on the internet after dropping the kids off at school, looking it up, hoping it was possible for humans to have it. Some sort of vestigial thing. A holdover from our ancient ancestors.
After kissing Bill perfunctorily on the lips--with my eyes open to watch his--and whisking him out the door, I'd packed the boys' lunches into their backpacks and their backpacks over their shoulders, and hustled them off to the car. Driving behind the school bus with them sitting in the back seat, I found myself sneaking peeks in the rear view, worried they'd blink their membranes while
I wasn't looking--or worse. I'd made sure they were buckled in tight, knowing I would hear the click if one or both of them decided to climb over the seat for a concerted attack while I had my hands on the wheel and couldn't defend myself without crashing the car.
I assured myself I was being crazy, a mantra I repeated in my head, one I hoped they couldn't somehow overhear. Thinking this, that they could possibly be able to hear my thoughts, I peered at them in the mirror again. Their brown eyes met mine instantly, as if they'd only been waiting for me to look. Their pale, gentle faces wore broad, innocent smiles. Loving smiles.
But when I looked away, I caught them turning their smiles on each other in my peripheral vision. And the smiles twisted into something menacing. Knowing. Their nictitating membranes flicked closed, and I swear I could almost hear a dry click, like a camera shutter.
It took all of my strength not to jerk the car into oncoming traffic.
I spent a lot of the day looking up postpartum psychosis, using terms like "delayed onset" and "late life" to narrow the search. Hoping desperately that what I'd seen was just a hallucination, something I could possibly suppress with pills or alcohol. I read that most sufferers experienced symptoms within the first six months after childbirth. Since Ryan, my youngest, was now five, postpartum didn't fit as a diagnosis.
Clearly I was hallucinating, though. You don't just wake up one morning to find your husband and kids have been replaced by humanoid reptiles. Things like that don't happen. This isn't Kafka. This is reality. There are rules.
Humans don't have nictitating eyes. That's something I know.
I look at the clock on the computer, and realize I've spent the whole morning sitting here fretting. My coffee cold, a skim of clotted cream on the surface. I erase the browsing history, and close the laptop. It's time to pick up Ryan from school.
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