by Pete Kahle
She was positive she had lost consciousness for a short time. Not too long, though, for the weather and the time of day didn't seem to have changed much. The grass she was laid out on felt even colder than the air around her.
It was that initial clip across the top of the head that she wanted to assess first. She felt the area; it was swollen, tender and wet. She wondered if she might have a concussion. Wasn't a person supposed to keep themselves from falling asleep when they got something like that? Otherwise, they might fall into a coma?
The pail was lying on its side not too far away, leaking its filthy residue all over their nice, green grass. She even found some of it stained on her skin and clothes.
"Fuck," she muttered as she stood up. She limped back to the house, keeping a look out for the monster as she did. Her mother was nowhere to be found—that hit-and-run mentality, thankfully, hadn't changed. She went to the bathroom to see what kind of damage had been done to her face. Aside from some scrapes and cuts near her right temple, and some streaks of smeared blood from the wound on the back of her head, her face had come away unscathed.
After she cleaned herself up, dumped peroxide on her head, she went to the kitchen to get something to eat and drink. When lunch was over, she decided she had no choice but to carry on with her daily chores. Who else was going to feed Jeff and Geena and do the wash?
Certainly not her mother.
As she spent the next hour and a half doing the wash, she found herself growing more and more lethargic. She just needed to get her second wind; that was all. Jo decided to retire to her mattress until this happened, expecting to be down there for no more than a few minutes, but the instant her head touched down on the pillow, she blacked out.
# # #
IV
An hour and a half later, when the movie ended and the stress of his existence resumed—as he feared it would—David felt he had no other recourse but to resort to masturbation in getting himself under control.
It was a last resort method, usually saved for days such as these when the reality of his biological, emotional, and physical confinement became utterly too much to bear.
He took his leg braces off, took his pants off, laid on the bed and cranked out a particularly vicious orgasm that made him feel teary-eyed, euphoric and desperate all at the same time. It was this unusual feeling of desperation that had him most concerned. He didn't have to dig deep to find its point of origin; it surfaced during the act itself. As he thumbed through his mental collection of porn and erotic imagery, in an effort to find something he could spew a good tune to, he began to fantasize about performing desperate acts of sweaty intercourse on some faceless, walking orgasm of a beauty on the cold, hardwood floors of that house. It was a unique and rewarding experience that made the desire to physically walk the floors of that place much more tantalizing, and also, sadly, more futile because he knew he would never be able to do it imprisoned like he was in this attic.
Somehow, he had to find a way to physically get himself out of here. Could he do it? The mind was willing; he just wasn't sure about the body. And what might happen if he encountered his mother along the way? She would surely stop him, maybe, even kill him. Was he willing to take that chance just to get inside a crummy abandoned house that might be nothing more than a crummy, abandoned house?
David snatched a few sheets of tissue out of the Kleenex box he kept on the floor near the bed and cleaned the cum off his spread, then sat up and tossed it into one of the buckets. After that he put his pants back on, didn't bother reattaching the braces this time, just grabbed his crutches, walked himself over to one of the many layers of blankets nailed to the wall, and started to pick at it with two of his more agile, deformed fingers until a tiny hole was made. He then did the same to the next layer, and the layer after that, and the layer after that, until he reached the cold, bare wall they all covered.
He was leaning against an old mahogany office desk that was covered completely in a dingy, wrinkled and tan bed sheet. Like one of Seth Brundle's clunky telepods the character kept covered with a tarp in The Fly remake, David had turned this desk into his own version of that teleportation machine, making a door out of cardboard, using cardboard supports that copied, in a very rough, rudimentary form, the mechanism it moved back and forth on, and attached it over the open space where the missing desk's chair would have slid into.
When he played in it, he copied that scene from the movie where Seth Brundle takes that first fateful jaunt through the machine, and steps out, naked, with a baboon leaping into his arms. David even went so far as to get naked himself, while uttering the very same lines actor Jeff Goldblum uttered after he comes out, (an imaginary baboon standing in for a real one), "How are you doing? Now, you tell me, am I different somehow? Is it live, or is it Memorex?"
Except when David played the scene, he was stepping into the telepod as the freak he already was and pretending to come out as the fully functional, normal looking, human being he wished he had been.
However, this time when he uncovered the telepod-desk he had no intention of playing; he rifled through the drawers until he found a screwdriver, and then used it to work a hole into the attic's wall. Cold, unwelcome air and a shocking level of daylight flooded through that tiny aperture.
He shut his eyes, and backed away.
"Fuckin' hell!"
He reached for his kerchief and draped it over his head, then peeled back the layers of blankets, and tried one more time to withstand the daylight.
"Jesus Christ!" He quickly corked up the hole with a piece of blanket and covered the wall back up again.
There was no way he was going to be able to leave the house in broad daylight. It was going to have to be at night. But the only problem with that were the inevitable temperature drops that occurred during the sun's absence. He was very sensitive to the cold, and this was September, albeit early September, but what he was hearing from Jo lately about the weather was how unusually cool it was. And all he had to keep himself warm was his doctor coat. That wouldn't do, he would obviously need something thicker. But he would need Jo's help, and that meant telling her what he was planning to do. He briefly considered it, but he knew she would most likely end up trying to dissuade him, and seeing how useless words would be in that situation, he feared she might actually try to physically prevent him from leaving. Knowing how desperate he was to get out, his own response to that kind of action might not be good.
He would never hurt Jo, or want to hurt her, didn't know if he was even capable of it, but this was bigger than the both of them, and no one was going to stop him. It was clear, now, that he was going to have to rely on his own ingenuity to get himself out of one house and into another.
Speaking of Jo, where the hell was she? He was getting hungry. On any other day he wouldn't concern himself with her absence, it was par for the course, but, because of that lingering omen he had before she left, he worried that her nonappearance this time was due to something more terrible than her daily overload of chores. Had his mother struck again? Had she struck harder than usual? The question he really should have been asking, but was afraid to was, had she finally killed Jo this time?
David plunked himself down on the bed, and stared at the attic door, hoping he would hear his sister's light, muffled footsteps in the hallway below. There was nothing now he could do but wait until dark, and then leave.
Wait a minute. That sounded rather permanent when all he wanted to do was sneak out, like every other teenager had done since time immemorial, and then sneak back in once all the tomfoolery was done with. But he was forgetting he wasn't like every other teenager, and where he wanted to go wasn't just any ordinary place either. This was going to have consequences—serious ones! He just knew it.
"Fuck," he said to himself, looking around the attic, looking at his things, his space, his life. Come on, Jo, he thought. Come on up and stop me. I'm not sure I want to go anymore.
The time was three o'clock.
Swiping his kerchief off the bed, he crept up to the attic door, listened quietly for any hostile movement below, then draped it over his head and cracked it open. The squeak was minimal. Right across from him was the closet—maybe, there was a jacket, or something, in there he could wear tonight. He quickly glanced in both directions. There wasn't a single soul in the hall nor had there been since Jo left late this morning. He then took a more lingering glance at the closed door of his mother's bedroom, and one at the bathroom at the other end of the hall. The door there was open, the light turned off, as it normally was when there was no one in it. He gazed at the top of the stairs next to it to see if he could spot any shadows from down below, or hear any signs of life, or detect anything that might make him feel he wasn’t the only person alive in this goddamn place.
He shut the door and crept back to his bed. It was a quarter after three now. Roughly five hours before he would make his escape. If Jo was here, he could kill the time by chatting with her. But she wasn't here with him, never would be either. It was time he faced up to that somber fact.
During that long wait he wept; checked and re-checked the stability of his braces, and his crutches; looked his clothing over. He picked out a pair of jeans and a sweater, laid them over the corner of his bed; sat in front of his bookshelf and stared at all his reading material, did the same with his movies; thought about Jo some more, and wept some more.
The time was six o'clock.
The crying did the most time-killing, probably because when it happened he was in his own mind, reliving every conceivable moment he could ever recall regarding his sister.
The time was now eight fifteen.
When David looked back on those grueling five hours he had to endure, not once did he hear a peep out of anyone in the entire house. Last man on earth syndrome. He blamed his fuckin’ mother for that.
After dressing, donning his kerchief again, he went to the attic door, and as quietly as he could, opened it all the way up. The squeaks were horrendous, but not half as bad if he had simply kicked it down without restraint. He waited to see if the noise would draw any unwanted attention. When no one showed up, he got the rest of the stairs to unfold by pushing on it with one of his crutches. The noise generated here was more pronounced, but, again, the sound didn't draw a single soul.
Managing the door's stairs wasn't as impossible as he had assumed it would be. He just tossed his crutches, and his braces to the floor—thank God for wall to wall carpeting—braced his feet on the farthest step, scooted down on his butt, bending at the knees as far as he legs would allow, then reached for another step with his legs, and repeated the process until he had both feet planted firmly on the second floor.
The first thing he noticed about the rest of the house was how warm it was. And how soft and comforting it felt to have plush carpeting under his feet.
He quickly donned his braces and crutches, and opened the door to what he presumed was a closet, discovering it wasn't the kind he had been hoping for. This particular one stocked only bed sheets, blankets, afghans, and place mats. The coat closet was probably downstairs, which made more sense, didn't it?
David started to head for the stairs when he suddenly decided to turn around and go to his mother's room, just to see if she was there. Hoping she was, so he wouldn't have to worry about unexpectedly bumping into her while he was lurking around downstairs. Her television was on, he could already tell that, but when he reached the door and placed his ear up against it, he couldn't make out any other sounds.
Like the attic door, he negotiated the second floor staircase with more ease than he thought he could. And when he reached the ground floor, priorities changed somewhat. He decided to go in search of the basement, finding it with its door wide open. He badly wanted to call down to Jo, but he knew he couldn't risk making any more loud noises.
David continued to stand there at the top, trembling with anticipation, and sweating profusely from the rigors of his travels. He kept waiting, hoping she would suddenly appear, and show him he had been wrong, that she had just gotten waylaid, as usual, with her chores. But, if that happened, he would be forced to explain his appearance, and he couldn't do that. Not by a long shot. As much as he hated to do it, he turned around and left.
Tears came, but he weathered them as he made his way to the front hall closet. There he discovered all kinds of coats and jackets, hats, gloves, shoes, and whatever-the-hell-else he might need. He tried on a jean jacket that just fit his frame. Must have been Jo's from a few years back. It would have to do. Everything else looked either too big, or too long, or both. Gloves and mittens? Would he really have a need for any? He wasn't sure, so he grabbed a pair of mittens that fit snuggly over his deformed hands. Some sort of footwear was obviously integral to this journey since he would be traversing wooded areas. The only thing he could find that fit his misshapen feet was a pair of narrow, leather boots, which were obviously too feminine for any male to publicly display, but just right for a creature such as he who was traveling by night into No Man's Land.
Perfect, he thought. Now let's get the hell out of here.
He slowly, quietly, opened the front door. When he peered outside, he grew frightened. Look how big it was out there. He wished he had Jo's hand to hold. Forget the fear. Just go. And, he did. Down the steps, pulling off his kerchief and stuffing it into the jean jacket's pocket as he disappeared around the back of the house. Here he rediscovered the Offal Pit. He had seen it many times in his astral travels, but, for some reason, that dank, forbidding hole looked more shocking though physical eyes. It reeked, too. Another thing he hadn't expected, but probably should have.
The fence didn't present much of a problem; all he had to do was go around at the very end. But there was something he wanted to do first. He wanted to pay the graveyard a short visit again, hoping maybe that Jo was there burying Martin. If she wasn't, then it was the final nail in her coffin. She never hesitated in getting a body into the ground.
When David finally ran into problems, it wasn't from the cold as he had expected, but from his own body. Even though he was able to see fine in the dark, and could clearly make out where the best possible spots were to plant his crutches so he wouldn't end up toppling head over heels, his body lacked sustainable endurance. He was sweating more and more, and growing more tired with every step he took. It might have been manageable had he brought along something to replenish the depleted water he was sweating out, but this type of setback hadn't even occurred to him.
He couldn't turn back now; didn't want to, either. He would rather die here in the woods than have to go back and live a second more in that attic, in that house, with that evil woman.
David forged on.
His next setback was just around the corner, and it was more of an emotional devastation than anything physical, but no less debilitating. When he came upon the graveyard, Jo wasn't anywhere to be found.
He slumped against his crutches and cried.
"Motherfucker…” he cursed at the very thought of his mother. "Motherfucking bitch! I wish you were dead!" David almost threw in the towel right then and there, but the house stepped in and held his hand. Its presence was warm and motherly.
He stopped crying, and gazed solemnly at the various mounds, with their rock headstones, and the name of each deceased child and their expiration date painted on them. Some of the mounds had flowers growing on them; the recent ones were still bare. The cemetery looked bigger than it had during his nightly escapades. He looked up the wooded hill directly in front of him and spotted even more raised earth and painted stones. How far did it reach? Did it go over? Funny, he couldn't remember. He was finding out that perception of the world in reality differed greatly from his perception of it in spirit. Why that should be was another great mystery he hoped he might live long enough to solve.
Spurred on by his newfound excitement, he left the graveyard and trekked into the field. The sweat continued to drain off him. He stopped half way through to shed himsel
f of the mittens and jean jacket, leaving them on the ground.
When he reached the woods again, more problems arose. This time it was the gradual incline of the landscape. It required him to use his arm and shoulders more than he ever had. And, again, he wanted to throw in the towel, and again, the house was there urging him on, reassuring him that he could make it, telling him that he could do it if he really wanted to.
Once again the landscape leveled out, and just as he was about to reach his limit once more, another field appeared on the horizon, except this one was a lot bigger, and it had an old, run down house in the middle of it, which was surrounded by strange burial-like mounds similar to the ones that made up his family's graveyard.
Jesus, how did he manage to forget this place?! The fatigue must be doing something to his mind.
This house in the field was exactly like the house he was journeying to. It, too, was encompassed in a force field of negative energy that refused to allow his astral form passage beyond its walls. But he had seen enough going on outside to get a pretty good idea of what was happening inside, and underneath it. As David stood there, trying to get his labored breathing under control, he abruptly had his senses knocked back into him. Now he could see how utterly blinded he was to his desire to reach a place that for all practical purposes was more detrimental to his well-being than the place he had just left.
He searched his mind, his feelings, for the presence of the house, but it had let go of his hand. Now he felt like a child whose mother had just lost track of him in a crowd. What made this happen? Was it something he did, something he thought? David thought back to what he had just been reflecting on, it was the murderous things he had seen in this field; of that boy escorting females into the house; of that awful black man who would appear later on, without his clothes, to take them out. But it was the boy he had focused primarily on. He felt sympathetic towards him, pity even, to what he had allowed himself to devolve into. He knew he shouldn't feel those kinds of things for a serial killer, but he did, and it harkened back to his theory about the laws of attraction, of how evil could make you feel something for it, how it could trick you into believing it was good. But the boy wasn't evil—that was the difference here. He had been good once. And that made David feel for him all the more.
