by Pete Kahle
The dark parts of this reality were right where he needed to dwell, right where God thought he could make the most difference, and only through those dreadful avenues would he ever be able to reach, and appreciate, the inevitable light at the end all the more.
He wished Jo could understand what he understood, but she was on her own dark journey. So was their mother and he just prayed, like he always did, that they didn't get too lost in the process. Especially Jo, he wouldn't know what he would do without her. She was his lifeline to the outside world when he was awake.
As he rose out of the deepest levels of sleep that facilitated the art of traveling astrally, David tried to shake off the sticky residue of that house, but, as of late, he found it harder and harder to do. He had seen many dwellings that had either been accidentally tainted by negativity, or deliberately built by such forces, but this one in particular seemed to harbor malevolence so sharp, so eagle-eyed, that it sometimes unnerved him to know that it merely existed. Which begged the question, why did he continually have the desire to explore it?
If there was anything he had learned from being around places and people drowning in negative forces, it was that they exuded a powerful kind of attraction. Since his knowledge of these universal polarities were still limited to what he had direct contact with, he still couldn't be sure how the dynamics of that insidious attraction worked, or how they turned some people dark, and affected others minimally or not at all. All he could say for sure was that he had never had any desire to abuse, or want to be abused.
Perhaps, it all went back to Destiny, or the weakness and susceptibility of certain souls, or some relation between the two he wasn't yet able to understand. Nevertheless, that house, like no other, had some knowledge of where his Achilles Heel was, and that bothered him. Although, not enough to put a stop to his exploration. That was mainly because he couldn't get inside. Occasionally he encountered a home that was so engulfed in negativity it was impossible for him to slip into it. He wondered if it was a safety mechanism God had built into his ability, or something the house itself was projecting. At the moment, he was putting his money on the theory that the house itself was the problem, which would make more sense since negative forces don't function well once their disguises have been rent asunder, and all their schemes are rendered completely useless once they've been brought into the light.
When David finally managed to free himself from its mental grip, he rolled onto his side and shivered. Despite having seven thick blankets over him, he was still chilled to the bone. He peeked at the space heater and saw the knob was still set to ON and the thermostat was still set to High. Why then was it not working? He had a pretty good idea.
When Jo had set the heater up, secretly drilling a hole in the floor, trailing the cord down into a room below, and plugging it into an outlet that wasn't so easily accessible by a pregnant woman, or widely visible by one either, she had to be almost relentlessly diligent about making sure it stayed plugged in, otherwise, their mother's cruelty would rear its ugly head, and yank it out.
She probably did it last night when she killed Martin. Even though David wasn't present when it happened and therefore should have no knowledge of the incident, he still knew about it. Sometimes he could get a sense of when something terrible was going to happen. But it had to be the kind of terrible that brought death or extreme injury with the possibility of death.
Martin's death was felt three weeks prior, and he finally ended up "seeing" it happen last night. Over the years, though, he slowly learned to grieve quickly and move on. Yes, it was a tragedy, it always was when one of their siblings was killed, but unless he had the power to bring back the dead there was no point in expending crucial emotional energy on something that could never have been prevented, or fixed.
There were always more important things for the living to worry about.
Like what needed to be addressed right now, at this very fuckin' moment, which was impending death from lack of heat. It had been cold last night, and it looked like that cold was going to extend into the day. Getting that heater working was essential. When it did, the attic would always warm up even though the walls weren't insulated. And he and Jo had already addressed the insulation problem many years ago, when they nailed countless number of blankets up against the attic’s interior. But it was this particular heater that really did the job. The box it had come in stated that it could heat a small room to tropical warmth. That wasn't entirely false. Downstairs that might be too much heat, but up here it made life just this side of tolerable.
Only in the dead of winter did Jo have to be relentless about keeping that insufferable cord plugged in. He never complained about it either. Maybe, once, or twice, when he was in a really despondent mood. But for the most part, he tried to accept his life as it was. Today, however, wasn't going to be like that.
He curled up tighter in his makeshift cocoon and thought about what he wanted to do. With the kind of freedom he could revel in at night, sometimes the day was just a series of seemingly endless hours of monotony he had to endure. He tried not to look at it that way, tried desperately to not take anything for granted, but, even for him, there were times when he just wanted to get to the next thing, to get to the next moment, to get it over with so he could be that much closer to making it to sleep, and to eventual independence.
He thought about his books on the shelf on the other side of the room. Aside from reading about the paranormal, he liked fiction, so, dotted sparingly throughout his collection were novels and anthologies running the gamut from westerns and romances, to dramas and science fiction, which he had a lot of, (Harlan Ellison and Ray Bradbury being his favorite authors of this genre). He also liked movies, science fiction more than anything else, and he had a very healthy collection of Starlog magazines to back that up. But since he was only a fan of horror movies when they incorporated certain Sci-Fi elements, he only had a dozen Fangoria magazines, specifically ones that covered The Fly remake, its sequel, and other specific issues that covered the making of the original, the original's sequels, and interviews with the makers of all these classic films.
Or, instead of reading about them, he could just watch their movies.
Jo had supplied him with a thirteen inch color TV, and a video player that only played, since he didn't record anything. Couldn't—his TV wasn't hooked into the cable. Anything he watched from a cable television was recorded downstairs by Jo and supplied to him on tape. His favorite show had been The Wonder Years. Too bad it had finally finished its run back in May. He had others, like Wings, Star Trek: The Next Generation (which had also ended for good back in May) and The X-Files.
Aside from having all the Fly movies, he also had a very modest movie collection which was mostly filled with classic science fiction films like Forbidden Planet, War of the Worlds, the original The Thing, Day of the Triffids, and the original Invaders From Mars, just to name a few.
So many choices, so hard to decide, especially when he had seen them all a million times over. No doubt about it now, despondency was surely hard at work trying to put a damper on the day. And it was being conveniently exacerbated by the growing hunger in his stomach. Since he didn't know when, or if, Jo was going to make it up today, he reached under his bed for his bowl of goodies. It was filled with snacks she had added to his meals that he chose not to eat but store away for a rainy day.
Suddenly the heater came back to life.
"Thank God. Way to go, Sis!"
He looked at the clock stationed on the bookshelf—it read eleven thirty. Jesus, he had slept late today. He had experienced such sluggishness many times in the past, always after encountering a vile domicile, though never to such a degree as this lately.
Eat your vegetables and get enough sleep, a good mother would likely tell him.
And so he would.
David was right at the point where he was about to rip open the Twix bar he had chosen from his bowl, when the door to the attic swung down. He heard the stairs
unfold and soon after Jo appeared with a delicious tray of food.
"Good Lord, are you just getting up?!" she asked.
"Guess so," he replied, uncovering himself and swinging his brace-encased legs onto the floor.
She set the tray carefully down before climbing up. Afterwards, she reached for the cord to add some light to their surroundings.
Like David Hedison's character in the original Fly movie, from which he also took his name, most of David Crespi's more obvious deformities were confined to his head. His hands and feet were deformed too but not to the extent that they couldn't be easily covered with footwear and gloves. His face, however, was another matter entirely.
It was his eyes.
He had seen an episode of The Outer Limits once, where through a natural occurrence on another planet this guy's eyes had become extremely enlarged, and he had to wear goggles to keep them a secret. David's, however, were much bigger than that. And even if they made goggles for eyes that huge, just the sheer size of them would still draw unwanted attention, because his were actually more like a fly's, where they literally took up ninety-percent of his skull. Aside from their freakish size, though, they were totally normal.
He also had oversized eyelids which functioned just as normally. Even his pupils, irises, and everything else that went into making an eye look like an eye was also identical to a normal human's. He even had some advantages, like having perfect 20/20 vision, and having exceptional night vision. Not counting their size, he only had one major disadvantage. He was extremely sensitive to bright light. Any light, actually.
Over time he found a way to counter that problem—another inspiration he got from his favorite film—by draping a large, black kerchief over his head. Jo had found this kerchief in a box of their mother's old clothes she had kept from the sixties and seventies. It was dense enough to filter out most of the ambient light around him but thin enough where he could see through. It worked wonders when it came to watching TV.
David always kept it right beside his bed, and he had it over his skull a nanosecond before Jo flipped the bulb on.
"Jesus Christ, you trying to blind me for good?"
"Whoops, sorry."
She picked up the tray and placed it on his lap, supplying him with the same food she had given Geena and Jeff. Eating for them was probably a bit problematic not to mention more than a little disgusting to watch, but in David's case it wasn't. He had a fully formed mouth, and normal teeth, and a regular tongue, and so on. If it just wasn't for those fuckin' fly eyes of his . . .
Jo started to tear up.
"I've got bad news."
He already knew what she was going say.
"She did it again, didn't she? Who was it this time?"
Jo knew absolutely nothing of his extraordinary gift to astral travel. But she did know of his vague precognitive ability to foretell death. He had allowed her to learn that much, at least. But if she happened to glean more from their debates in spirituality, destiny, and evil versus sickness, then so be it. He wouldn't discourage her expanding knowledge of what he was able to do in his sleep. He would simply fill in the blanks. He had never informed her in the first place because of her bent towards the practicality of existence rather than the extraordinary. She shied away from anything that wanted to pull her out of her comfort zone. Yet, just the same, she enjoyed reading the same paranormal books he did. He never understood that dichotomy. Maybe, subconsciously, she truly wanted to break out.
"Oh, yeah," she said, wiping her eyes, and reaching under her shirt. "Here's your magazine."
She showed it to him, laid it on top of his other Para-Scopes at the bottom of the shelf, then pulled up one of his rocking chairs to relax in.
"I knew Martin was never gonna make it."
"Yeah," David agreed. "Me, too." He had finished off his flakes and was now gobbling down the toast and jelly.
"I see the bitch got to the plug again," he commented, glancing at the heater.
"I don't think she did."
"Why?" he asked, before setting his tray on the floor, fluffing the pillows and sitting back to enjoy his orange juice.
"None of the boxes were moved, and the TV wasn't pulled out."
"Oh, hell. That doesn't mean anything."
"I don't know. Every other time she's fucked with that plug, she's left the TV pulled out, and the boxes all fucked up. Don't forget she's fat, it's hard for her to do things sometimes."
“She's pregnant, Jo. Wish you would get your head out of your ass and see that sometimes. Besides, her fat ass didn't stop her from crawling down that ladder last night and laying waste to poor Martin. She just barely fit too. Bet she did some damage to that poor unborn baby. But what the fuck, she doesn't give a shit whether it's born dead, deformed, or whatever!”
She squirmed uncomfortably, "God, you're in a shitty mood today, aren't you?"
"I think I’m entitled, on occasion, don’t you think?"
"That house again?"
"Yeah," David replied as he belched. It was hard to keep the things he saw and felt when he astral traveled completely to himself. He wanted desperately to share them with her, and the way he did that was by masking them as vivid dreams.
"God, you've been dreaming of that place for a long time now."
"Since spring, I think."
"Every time you get in a bad mood, I can tell." She laid her head back and started rocking lazily. "You know, I think I had a weird dream too. I woke up thinking Mom had shouted something to me. I can't remember what it was, though."
David wasn't quite paying attention to her. He half heard that she had some kind of dream last night, but that was all he heard. He was thinking about that house again. About how if he wasn't so sensitive to light, and had the balls, he'd love to physically go there and have a look at it, and maybe, just maybe, try to get inside. He had to admit it was a clever way in trying to circumvent that inability he had in being unable to enter it astrally. Not a very practical or sane one, however. There were far too many obstacles he would have to overcome to even make it out of the attic, much less into the woods, and up that long drive it was on.
"Jesus, is that what time it is?"
Jo got up and proceeded over to his pail, of which he had four. Just a precaution she had set up in case she couldn't get to him for a few days. There was one pail full of water, a sponge, and some soap, for moderate hygiene control. She also dragged his hamper over to the attic's door.
"Going already?"
"Got to, Mom might be gunning for me today."
"Why? What happened?"
"Tell you about it if I make it back up today."
"You mean when you make it back up."
He cringed at the context she used the word if in. It frightened him so much he had to correct her, like that would somehow put an end to that putrid prognostication suddenly roiling in his gut.
When he was finally alone, he reached for his crutches, clipped them onto his forearms, and submerged the room back into darkness, then took a shit, cleaned up—reassuring himself Jo would be back, for she still had to dump his old bath water—and put on his special jacket—a physician's overcoat she had stolen for him many years ago. It was obviously too big, so she took a pair of scissors to it and made it fit. Now, he felt that much closer to doomed scientist, Andre Delambre. He planted himself in front of the television, and reached for the VCR's remote. Stress was the real enemy today, and the only way he knew how to combat it was to watch The Fly.
If there was anything about the Fly movies he hated—The Return of the Fly, and the remake's sequel notwithstanding—it was the endings. Why did the scientist always have to die?
# # #
III
As quietly as she could, Jo opened the attic door. She inspected the hallway for her mother, then dropped David's hamper on the floor. She then climbed onto the ladder before carefully hoisting his pail into her arms. Again, she checked the hall, this time listening for suspicious movement. This would b
e the perfect opportunity for an ambush; her hands were full and she was distracted.
Jo took a deep breath, climbed as quickly as she could down, folded the stairs back up, and shut the attic's door. All without being attacked. Phew! Her mother's bedroom was just a few yards away. She tip-toed across the carpet and put her ear to the door. She heard the television going, and could just about detect the faint sounds of her mother taking a restless nap on her a bed.
She carried the hamper to the cellar and his pail out to the Offal Pit. In her absence the sky had become overcast. The threat of rain seemed almost inevitable. She hoped it wouldn't. Martin still needed to be buried. It felt good, in a way, to be out here. It sometimes made her feel it was a place she could go where her problems couldn't follow. Even though her mother was known to come outside on occasions, she still wasn't the kind of person who liked the outdoors. That pleased her. And if she really wanted to get away, there was always the graveyard. Since her mother had passed her grounds-keeping responsibilities onto her, she had never once bothered to set foot in their family cemetery again, which was a further comfort.
Jo soaked up the cold air, and folded her arms as she decided to take a moment out of her troubled life to admire the cold serenity of the woods. She should have known better. But only through these kinds of mistakes would she ever become more efficient at detecting a potential attack.
It was David's pail her mother decided to use as a weapon this time.
Her arms took the brunt of the assault, so did her legs, and her back. Her head was what she sought to protect the most, and aside from that first strike, her mother was never able to get off another head shot. If she had, Jo feared she might have been killed right there on the spot. The attack lasted only ten seconds, but it did more damage than any other attack she had ever suffered before.
