12
The second page:
Dated one year later. Similar to the first. The same little girl, her outfit, her makeup, still woefully inappropriate for a child. Tammy Kearns next to her, the triumphant smile her whole face. The child, a gold crown resting on her teased bleached-blonde hair, smiling a practiced smile. Tammy Kearns holding another first place trophy, cradling it.
The third page; the fourth page; the fifth page:
More of the same, each subsequent page dated one year after its predecessor.
The sixth page:
Second place. The little girl is heavier. Tammy Kearns is smiling while she holds the second place trophy, but now she is the one who smiles with effort.
The seventh page:
Third place. The little girl is heavier still—her body starting to resemble Tammy Kearns’. The third place trophy stands alone on the floor, nearly out of frame. Tammy Kearns’ smile is a thin lipless smile. Her eyes have a leashed intensity behind them.
The eighth and final page:
Fifth place. It is now very obvious the little girl and Tammy Kearns are related. No trophy. No smiles. Tammy Kearns appears the embodiment of rage.
* * *
Tammy Kearns closed the photo album and stared at it while she spoke. “Mommy stopped putting pictures in after that last one. She said the contests were all rigged and that everyone was just jealous of me. She said the other girls were all cheating and using special diet pills. She was even going to throw the last couple of pictures away, but then she reconsidered. She said that the pictures should stay, so that everyone could see how wrong the stupid judges were. How they favored the girls who cheated. How I was still the best, the real winner.”
John Kearns looked on. He’d heard the explanations before, often varying in detail, but never in theme. He was never truly sure if what he was hearing from his wife was the product of her essence: a stubborn justification that could never be abated, even at the deepest possible level of suppression. Or perhaps it was some form of subconscious guilt, which harvested that justification in order to cope.
But did it really matter? The motives could be different, yet the end result was always the same. And the truth was that his wife had forced their daughter to dietary extremes (a single light meal every other day at one point). She had forced their daughter to take prescription pills.
None of it worked. His daughter had his wife’s impenetrable genes—exacerbated and unrelenting once puberty arrived. His daughter was one of the unfortunates that was eternally fixed in the chassis she’d been given. Detail work could be done, but nothing would ever change the frame that displayed it.
John dropped his head and wrung his hands, willing the truth away.
“Mommy said I was too pretty to be in stupid contests anymore anyway,” Tammy Kearns continued. “She said I was going to be a model. She even went to my high school and yelled at the gym teacher for making me play dodge ball with the other girls. ‘What if I got hit in the face?’ she said. The other girls laughed and made fun of me, but Mommy told me they were just jealous I was so pretty and that I had a mother who loved me so much.”
Tammy Kearns lifted her head and looked at the boy, eyes glassy. “I doubted things sometimes. People can be so cruel.” She wiped away a tear. “But when you asked me to the prom, I knew Mommy had been right all along. I was the prettiest girl in the whole school. This would be the most special night of my life.”
Tammy Kearns leaned in for a kiss. The boy instantly pulled away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
The boy said nothing, his torso still leaning away from her.
“Are you shy?”
The boy looked at John. John stood.
“Princess?” John said. “Would you excuse Josh and me for a minute?”
“Why?”
“Man to man stuff,” John said with a strained smile.
Tammy Kearns blushed and nodded.
John Kearns took the boy by the arm and led him out of the room. He made sure the door was closed before he fronted the boy and spoke in a firm whisper.
“This isn’t an option, son. Go in and get it over with.”
“Get what over with?”
John chewed his thumbnail, spoke while it was still between his teeth. “I think you know.”
“You want me to hook up with that lady?”
Without pause, John said, “Yes.”
“That’s crazy. This is all crazy. Who is that lady? Who was that little girl in the pictures? Why are you doing this? Why—”
John grabbed the boy’s face, bunching his cheeks. “I told you from the beginning—you don’t need to understand any of it; just do as you’re told.”
“You’re insane.”
John said, “If only. Now go on. This is a no-brainer for most men. Get laid or get shot.” John pulled the gun from the back of his waistline.
The boy’s eyes skittered all over the basement.
“You’re not going anywhere, son.” He then threw a thumb over his shoulder towards the door where Tammy Kearns was waiting. “And I’m sure you noticed that room had no windows—you’re not going anywhere once the two of you are alone either.”
The boy made a go at defiance. “How do you know I won’t hurt her once we’re alone?”
“Because there’s only one way out…” John pointed the gun in the boy’s face. “That’s through me.”
The boy’s defiance visibly drained.
“Get laid or get shot, son,” John said.
The boy stuttered. “I won’t be able…I won’t be able to…you know…perform.”
“Already taken care of,” John said.
The boy frowned, confused.
“Pink is for girls and blue is for boys,” John said.
The boy’s frown changed to a look of terrible revelation.
“Go in and get it over with.”
“Please.”
John cocked the hammer back on the pistol.
The boy started to cry again.
John felt a twinge of sympathy for the boy, then a powerful wave of self-loathing. He pressed the barrel to the boy’s forehead. “Go.”
The boy dropped his head, turned, and started towards the room. When he opened the door and entered, John caught a glimpse of his wife: she was already naked, waiting.
13
The door opened a half hour later. Tammy Kearns walked out, closed the door behind her. She was back in her prom dress, her blonde wig slightly mussed.
“Hi, Princess,” John Kearns said.
Tammy Kearns blushed, lowered her head and said, “Hi, Daddy.”
“I just spoke to your mother. Your surprise in the barn is ready.”
Tammy Kearns’ head shot up, excited. “It is?”
“Yup. Why don’t you go up to your bedroom and talk to Mommy. She’s up there waiting for you. She’ll bring you out to the barn when it’s time.”
“What about Josh?”
“Josh will be with me, Princess. All part of the surprise.”
Tammy Kearns said nothing else, just giggled and thundered her way up the basement stairs.
John Kearns took a deep breath, let it out slow, cheeks puffing, chest hurting. He withdrew the pistol from his waistline and entered the room. The boy lay naked on the bed, face-up, indifferent to his nudity. His eyes were glazed and lost.
“You okay?” John asked the boy.
The boy nodded but did not look at John.
“Everything go alright?”
Now the boy turned his head and stared at John. His eyes were still glazed, still distant, but close enough to convey the contempt for John’s words.
John nodded an unspoken apology. “Well it’s over,” he said. “You can get dressed.”
The boy’s eyes were still on John, contempt suddenly becoming hope. “You’re taking me home?”
John shook his head. “I meant this…” He waved a hand around the room as if fanning away a smell, and in a way he w
as; the room smelled of sex. “This is over. We’ve still got more to do.”
The hope in the boy’s eyes left as quickly as it had arrived.
He’s still defeated, John thought. More so. Still, he could not lower his guard. He needed to watch the puppet with scrutiny now more than ever—desperation could be dangerously unpredictable.
The boy rolled his head back and began staring at the ceiling again. “What more do I have to do?”
“Not much. We’re almost done. Put the tux back on.”
Eyes still on the ceiling, the boy asked: “You still going to let me go?”
“Yes.”
The boy’s head rolled towards John again. “I miss my mom. I want to see my mom.”
The boy’s words, regressing to the womb, his naked body and soulful eyes giving John Kearns the wrenching image of innocence lost—at his hand. It was a pile-driving punch to the gut, and John instantly thought he would vomit.
He turned his back to the boy, saw the trash can, picked it up, and spotted the used condom inside. The nausea immediately left. What remained was a familiar empty—the puppet master who took no joy in his craft, performed for a solitary audience member that was indeed his puppet master.
John Kearns set the trash can down. Sighed. Turned back to the boy and did not look at him when he said, “Just get dressed. We’re almost done.”
14
John Kearns led the boy out of the house and towards the barn. Outside, the barn was a barn. Inside, it was an extension of the basement—a replica of a senior prom. And while the décor was as fitting as it had been in the basement, one item in particular dominated the scene, a towering item, the purpose of relocating from the basement to the barn.
Ten feet high and six feet wide, an enormous arch adorned in pink and white flowers stood atop a small stage, the top of the arch hosting a gorgeous banner, its message making as much sense as the evening thus far:
CONGRATULATIONS HOMECOMING KING AND QUEEN 2006
John Kearns marched the boy towards the arch, holding the gun but not pressing it into the boy’s back as he’d been doing all night. He wondered if he even needed such strong-arm tactics anymore. And that was fine by him. They didn’t come natural—not from the very first time; not this time.
They climbed the small wooden stairs of the stage and stood beneath the flowering arch, the giant banner looming overhead. John handed the boy a crown—big and extravagant and gold. The boy surprised John by putting the crown on his head without question. He’s still defeated, John thought, but he’s also hopeful. He thinks the night is coming to an end. He’s doing as told without bother in hopes to get it over with. He thinks he’s going home.
“Looks fine,” John said.
The boy actually gave a smile in return. It was quick and small and thin, but it was there.
John looked away. “Looks fine,” he said again, dusting the boy’s tux down with pats and swipes of his hands.
“Where is…?” the boy asked.
“They should be here any moment now.”
The boy frowned. “They?”
John said, “You’ll understand when you see.”
“You assume a lot, sir.”
John genuinely laughed. “Touché, son.”
A heavy thud and a clank by the barn door. John stopped laughing.
“Here,” John said, positioning the boy beneath the arch. “Stand here and don’t move.”
He then jumped off the stage and waited for the barn door to open. When it finally did, and when Tammy and Samantha Kearns both entered, John heard the boy mutter: “What the fuck…?”
15
Tammy Kearns entered dressed as Tammy Kearns, her hair its natural brown. The prom dress she’d been wearing was now on a mannequin, its hair a familiar blonde wig. Tammy Kearns carried the mannequin as though it walked on its own, any grunt or inconvenience hidden behind a blazing smile from another world.
“Hi, Princess,” John Kearns said to the mannequin before motioning to the arch, and of course, the banner’s message. “What do you think?”
Tammy Kearns, holding the mannequin tight to her side, said, “Oh, Daddy!”
John Kearns hit a switch on the wall as casually as he could. A round of cheers and applause boomed from unseen speakers overhead. There were even whooping shouts of Samantha’s name on the recording—John’s voice, recorded while projecting inside an empty fruit jar and with a cloth over the mic to make them sound distant and foreign.
John clicked off the switch and the applause died. He then told perhaps one of the biggest lies he’d told all night. “Don’t thank me, Princess. Mommy did all the work.”
Tammy Kearns acted as if the mannequin had suddenly pulled her into an embrace. Tammy laughed as they hugged. “Oh, Mommy! It’s so wonderful!”
John hit the switch on the wall again; the crowd erupted again.
“Second to none, Princess,” Tammy Kearns said over the noise, still hugging the mannequin tight. “The people have voted.” Tammy then took the mannequin by the shoulders, held it at arms’ length, looked into its lifeless eyes. “Second to none. Always and forever.”
John stole a glance at the boy. His expression now was the same one John had seen in all the others. It wasn’t fear, and it wasn’t confusion. It was an expression John had never seemed to be able to define. Until tonight. And ironically, it was the boy’s mutterings moments ago that defined it perfectly.
What the fuck?
The boy’s expression (all of the past expressions upon first witnessing both Tammy and Samantha in the same room together) now had a name. And John could think of no other name that was as blunt and as apt and…hell, as shamefully amusing, as What the fuck?
John killed the switch again. “Don’t keep your prince waiting, Princess.” He then popped a look of playful discovery. “Or should I say: Don’t keep your prom king waiting, prom queen.”
“Oh John,” Tammy Kearns said. “You’ve made her blush.” Tammy Kearns stroked the mannequin’s face.
John said, “Camera’s getting cold.”
Tammy Kearns assisted the mannequin on stage, stood it beneath the arch, next to the boy. She then extended her hand. “Hello, Josh. I’m Tammy Kearns; Samantha’s mother.”
The boy held out a limp hand on reflex, What the fuck? now stamped on every inch of his body. Tammy took hold of the boy’s hand and shook it vigorously.
“I believe,” John Kearns began, hopping on stage, “that a queen needs her crown.” He pulled a gold crown from behind his back, smaller and daintier than the boy’s, but no less magnificent. “Tammy, would you like to do the honors?”
Tammy Kearns took the crown and placed it gently on the mannequin’s blonde wig. She then put a hand to her mouth, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Princess, you look so—”
“Queen, Tammy,” John said to his wife. “Queen.”
Tammy Kearns wiped away tears. “Right you are, John. Tonight our princess is a queen.”
“Well then,” John Kearns said, brandishing his camera. “Shall we make it official?”
16
They were gone. John and the boy remained.
“It’s over now,” John said.
The boy nodded but showed no relief. He looked at John as if he wanted to ask something.
“What is it?” John said.
“Seriously? Do I really need to ask?”
John smiled, dropped his head and shook it. “No—I suppose you don’t.” He then raised his head, pulled the gun, and stuck it in the boy’s face.
The boy immediately raised both hands. “What are you doing?”
John pursed his lips. “Come on, son—you had to know.”
“You said—”
“Of course I did. What else was I going to say?”
The boy backed up, removed his crown and pulled it to his chest as though it might protect him from a bullet. “You promised.”
“It’s either you or her,” John said. “I think you know what her is like.”
The boy started to cry again. “Please…you don’t have to do this…I won’t tell…”
“I’m sorry.” He steadied the gun.
The boy shifted from pleading to desperate logic. “People will come,” he said. “People will look for me.”
“I’m sorry, son—but they won’t.” John flicked his chin towards the arch. “Five boys have stood beneath that thing before you. Five boys wearing the same exact tux you’re wearing now...”
The boy looked down at his attire, dumbfounded.
“I was certain someone would come looking for that first boy. I didn’t even bother burying him; just hid him. Figured the police had to eventually show up.” He splayed his hand and gun. “No one ever came knocking. Not once...not for any of ‘em.”
“You’ve done this before.” The boy’s words were a statement of disbelief, not a question.
“Unfortunately,” John said.
“Why?”
John chuckled to himself. And there it was. The elusive question he still didn’t have an answer to. He could tell the boy how. He could tell him what. And he could tell him when. But still no definitive answer to why. So John just shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yeah—so you keep saying,” the boy said. “Well it matters to me.”
John’s chin retracted, startled by the boy’s sudden assertion in the face of death.
“You’re gonna kill me anyway, right?” the boy said. “So fucking tell me.”
John could not fight a little smile. Goddammit if he didn’t admire the kid. Still he pointed the gun, cocked it. “I’m sorry.”
The boy whipped his crown into John’s face. John flinched away, the gun discharging, flying out of his hands. The boy dove at John’s waist, launching them off the stage, the pair thudding hard onto the dirt floor, John going oomph! beneath the boy, his wind knocked from his lungs. The boy scrambled to his feet, eyes frantic, searching for the gun. John struggled to his feet, grabbed the boy from behind in a bear hug. The boy kicked and flailed. John had weight on the boy, but the boy had youth. He needed to end it quickly; John could not afford a battle of attrition.
WARPED: A Collection of Short Horror, Thriller, and Suspense Fiction Page 21
