Terrible Cherubs: Tales of Sinners, Mistakes, and Regrets

by Steve Wetherell

  Dyson tried to spit through his dry mouth. “Might make a nice change.”

  The man shook his head. “Nothing would change. Not really. And besides, this isn’t forever. We scrabble in the dark, but we move toward the light. A better world awaits us.”

  “Where? When?”

  The man shrugged. “Fuck knows, hombre.”

  Dyson stepped back, dizzy and tired. He sat down on the floor. “Why me?”

  The man knelt down, put his fingers to Dyson’s cheek. “Why anybody? Why anything? Things are the way they are. You aren’t being punished, Dyson. No more than any of us are. You didn’t do anything wrong. Your only mistake was breathing in and out.”

  “Is that a fact?” Dyson mused. “Was that my mistake?” He felt gears slide inside himself, clockwork that had run dependably for his entire life seizing and jumping. “And is that your mistake? Is that your mistake too? Here, let me fix that for you.”

  Dyson stretched out his strong, rough hands, catching the man by the throat. He squeezed, watching the one eye blue and one eye brown bulge in the man’s sockets, his face becoming a rubber mask.

  “Is this your mistake?” Dyson screamed. “Is this my mistake?”

  He tightened his grip, the face before him turned scarlet, then maroon. The eyes popped obscenely, but the mouth smiled. Even as a swollen purple tongue erupted like puss from a zit, the mouth was smiling. As Dyson squeezed harder his vision began to darken, his head began to lighten. For a moment he was nothing but a pair of grasping hands. Then he was nothing at all.

  +++

  Dyson was aware firstly of the ghost-lights wafting over his head, bulging and blurring from the bottom of his vision to the top before disappearing. Brief and complete darkness before the next light came and went. He was next aware that it was not the lights that were moving but him. He tried to open his mouth to comment on this, but could not. There was something keeping his mouth closed. He tried to reach for it, but could not. He had no arms. The lights came and went, and finally he became aware of the cold metal of the conveyor belt on his naked back. The scream in his throat was animal.

  +++

  If you wanted an easy life in Reclamation, you didn’t let the bodies pile up.

  Continue reading or return to table of contents.

  The Seven at Work

  Katrina Monroe

  A long line of cars glistened beneath the unforgiving sun. Wrath tapped the digital thermometer beneath a sputtering fan in his greenhouse-like box. It read a blistering ninety-seven degrees.

  “Think I could get my change sometime this century?”

  “Hmm?”

  Sweat framed the man’s wrinkled, tight-lipped face. He waggled his hand in frustration, dangling half his body out of his car window.

  “Nice day, isn’t it?” Wrath offered lazily.

  The man groaned. “Yeah. Sure.”

  Wrath slowly counted out three quarters and dropped them into the man’s outstretched palm one at a time. The gate lifted and the man’s car fishtailed as he sped toward the narrow onramp.

  “Asshole!” he called.

  The corner of Wrath’s mouth twitched.

  The man’s car collided with an oncoming mini-van, erupting in a volcano of crunched metal and body parts.

  Another car jerked alongside the stall. The driver stared ahead, gape-mouthed.

  “That’ll be one-seventy-five,” Wrath said.

  ##

  “Trick or Treat!”

  Jenny loved peanut M&Ms. Especially the red ones. She’d collected eight packages of them so far. After each house, she shoved her prizes to the bottom of her pillow case, hidden beneath fruit and boxes of bubblegum flavored toothpaste.

  She adjusted her mask and sprinted for the next block. Mom only gave her two hours and she was running behind.

  Greed ran alongside Jenny, pushing her when her pace slowed. They had to get more. A lot more. The pillowcase was barely a quarter full.

  “Shameful,” Greed said.

  Jenny agreed.

  She hit each house hard, flashing her best, toothiest smile and widening her already giant green eyes.

  Then The Princess showed up.

  The Princess wore a sequined gown that ended in ruffle socks and pearl-white shoes. Her mother cheered from the sidewalk when she’d emerge from doorways holding more candy than was given to Jenny.

  “She’s prettier,” Greed said.

  “Shut up.”

  Jenny competed with The Princess at ten more houses. Each person to answer the door handed over two pieces of candy to The Princess, while Jenny got one. At the last house—Jenny’s two hours were almost up—a man answered, carrying a bowl of peanut M&M packages. Not the little ones either. The big ones, like the ones Jenny’s dad would sometimes buy for her from the gas station.

  Her mouth watered as she held out her pillow case. “Trick or treat!”

  The Princess copied Jenny’s flawless recitation and smile.

  “Well, aren’t you just the prettiest little princess I’ve ever seen?” The man dumped half the bowl into The Princess’s bag.

  Jenny’s smile faltered slightly.

  “And what are you supposed to be?” he asked her.

  “The green-eyed monster,” Jenny said.

  The man nodded. “I see it now.”

  Behind Jenny, Greed fluffed up like a proud papa bird.

  The man placed one package of Jenny’s most favorite candy ever into her sack. One.

  The Princess smiled at Jenny before skipping off toward her mother.

  Jenny’s stomach hurt. Her head throbbed. She didn’t want to cry, but she wanted to do something because it was all unfair.

  “Do it,” Greed said. “I’ll hold your candy.”

  Jenny dropped the bag and ran toward The Princess. She gripped a handful of The Princess’s perfect yellow hair and pulled until the girl screamed.

  ##

  With one hand, Lust reached between her splayed legs and spread herself open. With the other, she waved.

  A wall of cloudy, bullet-proof glass separated her from the clients. In her opinion, an unnecessary precaution. None of these men would ever hurt her. She controlled them.

  The boy hesitated before sitting down in a hard, plastic chair. White to hide the stains of previous visitors.

  “I’m Mickey,” he said.

  Lust guessed him to be no older than fourteen. Wearing a bright smile, she pushed her first two fingers inside and giggled as he blushed and his jeans tented.

  “Go on, sweetie,” she urged in a voice like honey.

  He fumbled with his button and unzipped, pulling his small, pink cock through the slit in his white briefs.

  Mickey looked to her for approval.

  She nodded. With little effort, her dainty fist was inside. She lifted and licked her taut nipple.

  Mickey tugged furiously.

  In another room next to Lust’s booth, a two-way mirror separated Mickey and another client. Chester was a regular with irregular tastes. Boys like Mickey wandered in occasionally, while men like Chester came every day, waiting patiently in their little room for a treat.

  As Mickey doubled over in climax, Chester caught a glimpse of the boy’s pale ass. He licked his lips, fist going to work.

  ##

  Tuesday was the busy night at the Down Home Buffet and Kitchen. If customers remembered to clip the Monday coupon, they could almost eat for free.

  Every table was full tonight. Every mouth chewing and gnawing and sucking. It was a chorus – a symphony!– that danced in Gluttony’s ears.

  An impish boy, as wide and round as a boulder, wheezed as he carried a plate of fried confections to a table where adult copies of the boy shoveled with gleeful abandon.

  Gluttony made a note to drop one of his special coupons at their table before their meal was over: good for two free meals. There was time. They were far from finished.

  ##

  There was no mistaking the frown on the cherub-
faced girl. She held her doll from its ragged arm, twisting it this way and that.

  Envy watched her from across the swing-set, cradling her own doll – pristine, porcelain face and soft, chocolate-brown curls. She cooed over it, cradling its delicate head and sneered at the cherub-faced girl.

  The girl scowled at her foul companion. Once desperately loved, now viciously disdained. She dropped the doll in the sand and ran crying to her mother’s skirt.

  ##

  Phil hated The View. A bunch of bitter old women who needed to get laid, bickering about shit nobody cared about.

  But the television was so far away and the batteries in the remote had long run out of juice. He had more somewhere. Probably.

  The token black woman laughed so hard her eyes rolled back in her skull, making her look like a Halloween decoration. Phil sneered. One more minute of this and he’d claw his own eyes out just for the distraction.

  It’s not that bad, Sloth whispered. You could be stuck watching an exercise program.

  Phil snorted. “Right.”

  His immense girth sank deeper into the already bowing couch. His favorite cushion was reduced to a strip of corduroy, but scooting to the other end seemed like a herculean task. Leaning forward to adjust a crick in his back, Phil put unexpected pressure on his bladder and the need to piss hit emergency level.

  It’s sterile, Sloth whispered. No need to get up.

  Phil separated his legs and released a hot stream that spread beneath his ass and down both legs. It smelled like onions.

  Sloth laughed. You’re considering number two, aren’t you?

  Phil shifted uncomfortably. He lifted a leg to release a cloud of noxious gas from beneath.

  Do it.

  It was only a little bowel movement. Barely smelled.

  In the morning, Phil’s mother found him as she’d left him the week before—head lolled back against the couch, television blaring over the sound of her thoughts.

  ##

  Pride sat beside Amelia as she shivered on a bench. The temperature had dipped too suddenly for October. No one at Bridge End was prepared for it. An extra garbage can had been found on the dock of the river and rolled into the clearing beneath the bridge, but only so many hands could fit over the meager fire.

  Pulling her coat tighter around her, Amelia considered going home. Pride nudged her, dislodging the thought.

  “Cold,” she said.

  Pride patted her leg. “I know, dear. It’ll pass.”

  Amelia nodded, though she wasn’t so sure. Without her daily web check of the weather, she was left to read the future in the cloudy sky. Her phone sat useless in her pocket. No charger. No outlet.

  “We’re proving a point, Amelia. Don’t forget that.”

  “What point?”

  Pride sighed. “That they need you.”

  “They need me,” Amelia repeated with renewed feeling.

  There was no money for a hotel, otherwise she’d have gone there. No friends to take her in. No relatives nearby. Amelia hadn’t realized how isolated she’d been until finally leaving the apartment and her ungrateful husband and children behind.

  I’m hungry.

  I have no clean socks.

  Where’s the toilet paper?

  Wipe my ass.

  Feed me.

  Clothe me.

  Fuck me.

  Love me.

  Too much.

  Pride wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders, which calmed the shudders wracking her bones.

  A woman with a haggard face framed by stringy black hair approached Amelia. In her hand, she held a small, unlabeled bottle of amber liquid.

  “You been here before,” the woman said.

  Amelia nodded.

  The woman grunted. “Family?”

  Amelia paused a moment before shaking her head.

  “Thought not. The way you huggin’ yourself like that… Anyway. This’ll help.” She handed Amelia the bottle.

  “Thanks.”

  The woman cackled. “Thank me in the morning. That is, if we both wake up. That’ll knock you out long enough to forget the chatterin’ in your teeth but there’s no substitute for a warm bed.”

  God, what am I doing?

  Amelia made to stand, but Pride pulled her back down.

  “One night,” Pride said. “That’s all they’ll need to come to their senses.”

  “One night,” she repeated.

  ##

  The Seven met at the end of the month, as usual, at Hell’s Kitchen—a favorite restaurant among them. Sloth was the last to arrive, cradling a pile of napkins.

  Pride sneered from the head of the table. He’d had his success stories bound and laminated.

  Envy and Greed were separated by Lust. She had a thing for Greed, for his bright green eyes. Lust admired the way his gaze found its target every time. There was nothing he couldn’t have. Well, except for her.

  “Where’s the waiter?” Gluttony asked. “I’m fucking starving.”

  “Oh, please,” Pride said.

  “Could someone sort these for me? It’s all just…” Sloth dumped his scribbled-on napkins over the table.

  Wrath slammed his fists on the table, sending glasses crashing to the floor. “Someone start already. Christ. It’s like we haven’t done this every month for all of eternity.”

  Pride cleared his throat. “I’ll begin.”

  Gluttony stuffed a bread roll into his mouth.

  Lust teased the inseam of Greed’s pants with a fingertip while Envy looked on, scowling.

  Sloth sighed.

  “Amelia is my greatest achievement, to date,” he began. “Her death sparked an outright revolt of unappreciated housewives in the tri-state area…”

  Wrath fumed. Always thinking of himself, he thought. Only Wrath understood the bigger picture. What they were meant to accomplish. What it would all lead to.

  Continue reading or return to table of contents.

  Camp 24

  Robert Brumm

  They always held public executions first thing in the morning. Anxiety among the inmates ticked up a notch in that moment between roll call and breakfast. Most days it only took a second before one of the guards blew his whistle and we’d shuffle off for the mess hall like well-trained dogs. If that whistle didn’t come, the kitchen workers would be dishing out one less breakfast that morning.

  I’m sure at some point the countless bureaucrats who ran the camp held a meeting to discuss the best time to hold executions. I always pictured some overweight and balding junior officer raising a pudgy finger to suggest holding them before breakfast. His theory would be that reminding inmates of the consequences of betraying the State in the morning was an effective way of keeping order. He probably had a notepad of charts and graphs to back it up. Junior Officer Pudgy Finger probably earned a commendation for his suggestion. We earned the opportunity to see one of our comrades die on an empty stomach.

  That morning, no whistle came. The camp commander, flanked by a guard on each side, approached us holding a tablet. It wouldn’t have taken a psychic to figure out what was going through my head and the head of every other inmate surrounding me. One of our fates would be determined by the six digit number displayed on that electronic screen.

  The camp commander was Captain Renshaw, one of the coldest and most sadistic people I’d ever had the displeasure of meeting in my forty-one years. It made sense, I suppose. You don’t put a kind-hearted softy in charge of a prison labor camp. More of that bureaucratic think tank hard at work. Renshaw set the tone of the camp from the top and all his guards followed suit. Each one a bigger bastard than the last.

  Renshaw held the tablet up and read it out loud to the group. He told the unlucky person assigned to that number to come forward. We all kept our eyes forward like good little inmates, resisting the urge to look around. See if it was a friend or just an acquaintance. An enemy or a complete stranger. I knew I’d find out in a second anyway, so I didn’t give it much thought
. I was just glad it wasn’t me.

  You might ask why I would be relieved, assuming I was innocent of breaking any camp rules. I’d have a good laugh at your naivety if it wasn’t so depressing. It didn’t take much to earn an execution. At least half of the time, the accused probably hadn’t done a damn thing. It wouldn’t surprise me if Renshaw kept all our numbers in a hat by his bedside and picked them at random.

  The accused turned out to be a young woman I’d only seen a handful of times, since she was relatively new. She approached the captain slowly, head down and hands shaking. One of the guards grabbed her by the arm as Renshaw turned to address us.

  “Inmate 401586 has been found guilty of attempting to initiate subversive and disruptive discussions against the State in private!”

  Bullshit. She was young and pretty. Some guard probably knocked her up. Maybe even Renshaw himself.

  “She has also been found guilty of planning an escape attempt with several other inmates. The identities of these traitors have not been confirmed, but I can assure you they will be brought to justice.”

  More bullshit. Just an excuse for the next unlucky bastard to get called up there.

  “For these crimes against the State, inmate 401586 has been sentenced to death.”

  The guard pulled her over to the post in the middle of the yard. I guess we should’ve had a name for it, but nobody liked to talk about the post. It was only used for one purpose and we all had a sinking feeling we’d become intimately familiar with it one day. For the sake of the story I’ll go ahead and name it the Death Post.

  The guard pushed the girl up against the Death Post as another handcuffed her wrists behind her. Once that was completed, he used a belt to secure her legs to the post just above the knees. This prevented her legs from buckling, so she’d remain upright after she died. Another little detail probably decided on in a meeting.