by Неизвестный
Tears rolled down my face, and I scrubbed them away. No time for breaking down now. I didn't want Cindy or Sammy to see that my arm was already turning an ugly purple-black. I sniffed and hurried to the bathroom where I bandaged the wound in my arm. I wrapped the whole arm with a towel and taped that, too.
Ten minutes later, we were in the Jeep, headed for the airport. Max—for I couldn't bring myself to leave him behind—was in the front seat beside me, and the kids were buckled into the back seat. I'd rolled up and locked all the windows.
As I drove out of our cul-de-sac, I began to feel queasy. White-hot shards of pain shot up my injured arm, wringing a sharp cry from me. I slowed the Jeep but didn't pull over and stop. "Gotta hang on and get the kids to the airport. Just that long," I muttered.
I'd always loved the meandering roads that wound through our development. I hated them now. Navigating the twists and curves took too much precious time. I sped up again.
A low growl built in my throat. "Stop that," I snapped. The growl subsided. My arm burned all the way to my shoulder. I ignored the pain.
Just before we got out of the development and onto the main road, we came to a Chevy Suburban parked at an angle, blocking most of the street. Both the driver's and passenger's doors stood open. A man stood beside the vehicle, half in and half out of the driver's side. He was bent over, head-and-shoulders deep into the cabin of the SUV. I slowed the Jeep and blew the horn.
The man stood up. Bloody bits of something horrible fell from his mouth, and he took a few steps in our direction. Speeding up, I drove over the man, and then straight ahead, ripping off the open door of the SUV. Metal screamed. Sammy and Cindy screamed. I might have screamed a little, too, when I looked into the rearview mirror and saw the man scrabbling to his feet. His body was skewed sideways as though his spine was broken, but he stood.
We drove on. The trip wouldn’t have taken more than fifteen minutes or so on a normal day, but this wasn't a normal day. The whole city was on the move. I got off the main road and onto back streets where we made a little better progress toward the airport.
The day seemed to be growing darker. I looked up at the sky. No clouds. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Only 3:15. Still dark. Sweat ran down my face. I cranked up the air conditioner as far as it would go. Black spots swirled in my vision like dust motes in the air. A dull headache pounded in my temples. How long ago had I been bitten? Forty-five minutes? Oh, God, help me. I'd never prayed harder in my life.
Almost there. We crossed over Highway 52 and headed into a mostly Hispanic neighborhood. I hadn't driven through this area in a couple of years. Max's panting grew harsher, more painful. His tongue lolled from his mouth. He sprawled half on the seat and half on the floor.
"Hang on, Max," I tried to say, but my lips and tongue didn't work very well.
"What did you say, Mommy?" Cindy was hoarse from crying.
I grunted an answer and shook my head. A long stream of saliva dribbled down my chin. I swiped at the drool. I slobbered some more. I couldn't quite close my mouth.
I squinted at the road. A hump-backed bridge over the train tracks lay about a quarter-mile ahead. Smith-Reynolds was only a half-mile or so past that bridge.
"Mommy, what's wrong with you and Maxie?" Sammy had unfastened his seatbelt and leaned forward to put his little hand on my shoulder. My left shoulder. Pain lanced through me from the shoulder to my head. Quick as a snake, I jerked my head to the left and snapped my teeth, missing him by inches. He yanked his hand away and wailed.
"Sorry, Sammy, sorry." I beat my fists on the steering wheel. If we didn't get to the airport soon, I would lose control.
"It's okay, Mommy. I'll buckle him back," Cindy said. "Hush, Sammy. Don't make Mommy madder."
We were almost to the intersection right before the bridge when an oversized pickup, the kind with the doubled back wheels, squealed through the crossroads and crashed into the little gas station on the corner. The gas tanks exploded, sending metal and burning rubber flying.
My reflexes were shot. I lost control of the Jeep and skidded off the road into a ditch. My mouth worked much better than it had only a minute or two before, and I said a lot of things—words I'd learned from my Marine Corps father and 82nd Airborne husband, but had never said out loud in front of my children. They were shocked into silence. I climbed out of the Jeep. Left front tire flat. Great. We'd have to finish this trip on foot.
I opened a rear door and pronounced my words carefully. "Come on, kids. We'll walk the rest of the way. The airport's right past that bridge."
Two young men ran toward me from a small green-painted house. I pulled my .45 out of my pocket and aimed at them. The pistol weighed a hundred pounds, and I had to use both hands to point it more or less at the two men. They skidded to a halt and raised their hands, showing me their palms. One of the men yelled something in Spanish. My lips curled into a snarl. Max dragged himself, shaking and drooling, out of the Jeep to stand by my side. The two men backed away. I didn't know whether they were frightened of my gun or my condition. Or Max. I didn't care either as long as they left us alone.
Herding Sammy and Cindy ahead of me, we crossed the bridge. An infected man staggered toward us from behind an overgrown crepe myrtle, a pudgy, shirtless man in blue jeans. I shot him in the face without a second thought. The kickback nearly brought me to my knees. I groaned.
The infection raged up my arm which throbbed as though a huge nest of hornets had stung it. My head was crushed in an invisible vise. Breathing was like pulling hot steel wool down my throat. Both Max and I staggered and lurched. He kept up a constant, low growl, thick with phlegm, but he stayed with us, guarding, protecting. My good dog.
The day seemed to grow ever darker. Tunnel vision set in. I focused on the two small lives walking in front of me, on the backpacks bobbing with their strides, and kept shuffling on. We walked down the hill toward Patterson Avenue. The gravel under my feet shifted, and I fell on my face. I lay on the pavement and moaned.
Cindy and Sammy tugged on my hands, calling, "Mommy! Get up, Mommy!" Somehow, I did. I got to my feet. Unsteady, but vertical.
It was so dark. I shook with cold. I burned with heat. Teeth chattered. Sweat poured down my face. I tried to smile at my kids. My mouth wouldn't work right. Both kids gave me a look of such fear and horror I quit trying to smile. I pointed in the direction of the airport and grunted.
There! Just across Patterson Avenue was Smith-Reynolds Airport. Soldiers urged people onto the helicopters as we approached the field.
"You go. Over there. Love you . . . all heart." My tongue wouldn't work. My voice was thick and clogged with phlegm. I hugged Sammy and Cindy. Tears filled my near-blind eyes and spilled down my face. Oh, God, how would I bear it?
"Aren't you coming, Mommy?" Cindy clutched my good hand.
"No. Sick. Like Miz Summers. Max, too. Gotta stay. Don't forget. Love you. Ever. Always."
The children clung to me, sobbing. I pried their precious fingers off my waist. I pushed Cindy and Sammy toward the soldiers. A tall soldier in a camouflage uniform approached us.
For a moment, my tear-and-death-blinded eyes and fading mind confused me. "Maxwell?"
"Ma'am? Are you all right?"
No, not my husband. Of course not.
I concentrated on my words. "Bitten. Children clean." I couldn't feel my legs. So cold. So hot. I shook with chills, raged with fever.
The soldier picked up Sammy and Cindy and carried them to the nearest helicopter. My babies struggled in his arms, calling, "Mommy!"
I sobbed.
I sank to the ground, and Max leaned against me. His breathing was harsh, hitching, wheezy. He whined. I could barely see as the 'copter carried away my children.
I put my good arm around Max. "My good dog. Always my good boy." I thought I said it anyway. Max whimpered.
My good dog howled his grief into the afternoon sky. I buried my face in the fur of his throat as the Dark took us both.
> Mary Ann was born in Northern Virginia, USA, and has lived in five states, all below the Mason-Dixon Line.
She has been married to the same man since 1976. They have two sons of their own, one daughter-in-law, and one unofficial son. Where she is, there will always be pets and books. She will never give them up.
Mary Ann has been writing, or at least making up stories, since she was a little girl. When she married, other obligations interfered with her writing. She began writing again in the late 1990s. She writes horror, paranormal, and humour. (Yes, she's got a tendency toward some British spellings. Too many imported British novels in her impressionable youth.)
She's a member of Alexandria Publishing Group and has been published in "An Alexandria Winter Anthology 2013." She's preparing a short story collection for publication.
SIN
by
C.W. LASART
"Forgive me Father, for I have sinned. It's been twenty years since my last confession."
"That's a long time, my son."
"I know."
"What has brought you in to my confessional after so long?"
"I want to confess my sin."
"Don't you mean sins?"
"No. I am only here to confess the one."
"Go ahead, my son."
"Me and my friends killed the Booger Man."
***
I don't remember who first decided to name him the Booger Man. It might have been Jimmy, but it could have been me. All I know is, the name stuck, and from that moment on, he was no longer Walter Simmons to us, only the Booger Man. You might think that I mean the Boogey Man, but you would be wrong. You see, the Boogey Man would be someone fearsome and threatening, whereas Walter was just tragic. There was nothing sinister about the vagrant, just a pathetic strangeness exacerbated by his disturbing gaze and obviously unsettled mind. He was definitely the Booger Man. I didn't know the situation behind his homelessness, whether it was voluntary or not, but I suspect my parents probably did. As far as any of us kids knew, he had just always been that way, and he was not a topic that would've been willingly discussed in any of our households. We were somewhere around ten or so when we started calling him that. Back then, it was a huge insult.
I often wonder if we would have treated him differently if not for our parents. They were never actively cruel toward the Booger Man like we were, but he was a taboo in the town, openly ignored the majority of the time or granted looks of distaste. My mother used to purse her lips and shake her head when we would see him staggering down Main Street or sleeping off his drunk on a park bench. If anyone had sympathy for Walter, I never saw it. I feel remorseful about that to this day.
Don't get me wrong, I don't blame our folks for their attitudes toward the town's only homeless man. It was still a nice town back then, nothing like it is now. People knew all their neighbors and no one locked their doors. As kids, we ran freely with no worries of abduction or molestation. We all went to church together on Sunday and class together in the fall. Backyard barbecues and block parties were every weekend events. The only scab on the perfect face of our town was Walter. He was an ugly reminder that not everything was status quo.
The five of us had spent the last twenty years trying to forget what happened on that Fourth of July. I almost had myself convinced that I could forget it, until a week ago. The past has a way of creeping up, and we all would pay the price for our crime, committed when we were twelve years old.
It all started with the dream. I had it on three consecutive nights, each time the same disturbing vision. The Booger Man was burning again, and he was screaming. After all these years, I still remember the horrible sound of his high pitched shrieking. He was on fire and coming towards me again, arms outstretched to give me a hug that would drag me down to hell with him. Only this time, Jimmy wasn't quick enough and no one was there to knock him down. I woke with a start each time his flaming arms wrapped around me. I should've known better than to tell Monica about my dream.
"Jesus Christ, Mike! We were just kids!"
"I know."
"Do you? Then why can't you just LET IT GO?"
"Goddamnit, Monica! I can't control what I dream!"
Monica is my older sister, only by fifteen minutes, but she takes her role as the first-born twin very seriously. She has bossed me around my whole life and I have just gone along with it. She was the one who convinced us all to keep quiet about the Booger Man, to let them think it was an accident. Even then, she had high aspirations and would have squashed anyone who got in her way. Monica is now one of the best defense attorneys in the state. I am just an auto mechanic, with a small house, an ex-wife and two kids.
"This makes sense to me now. How old are the twins?" Monica has no children of her own.
"Twelve last month."
"Well, no wonder you are dredging up old memories. And at this time of year too. Just forget about it, Mike. It was a long time ago and there is nothing we can do about it now." Those were her final words on the matter and the second to last time, I would speak to her. I tried to get a hold of her when I heard about Alex, and then again, when Mom told me about the grave, but both times I got her voice mail. I guess she didn't want to talk about it anymore. I saw the fear in her eyes when I described the dream. I couldn't help but wonder if she was having some dreams of her own.
It must have been the dream that pushed Alex over the edge. He killed himself two days before that thing happened with the grave.
***
Come to think of it, it was Alex who dubbed him the Booger Man. I was almost an adult before I remembered that his real name had been Walter Simmons. We had pestered him for as long as I could remember, yelling taunts when our parents weren't around, and throwing rocks when no one was around, but he mostly just ignored us. His only interest was in his paper bag-wrapped liquor and whatever fantasies he lived in. Sometimes he would talk to himself, nonsense words and often tears. The only time he ever paid any real attention to our teasing was when the occasional projectile would actually hit its mark. Then he would shake his fists and yell at us, but never anything more, until Alex came up with Booger Man. That seemed to strike a nerve in the unkempt old man. Sometimes, cries of BOOGER MAN! could incite him to a half-hearted chase that left him panting with exhaustion, and us leaning on each other's shoulders, laughing until we cried. It was a game for us, and sometimes I wondered if he didn't enjoy the exchanges. Maybe just a little. At least we weren't pretending he didn't exist.
That summer we were all inseparable, stuck somewhere between the end of our elementary years, and the fearfully anticipated start of Junior High. Jimmy and Alex had been my best friends since nursery school, and Monica, well, not only had we shared a room most of our lives, we had shared a womb. I'm pretty sure that Todd only hung out with us because Monica was starting to get boobs.
It was Independence Day and our folks had gathered in my backyard for a barbecue. They had been celebrating since early afternoon, and now at twilight, our half-drunk fathers were lighting the fireworks while our mothers wrung their hands and verbalized their fears of 'those drunken fools' catching themselves on fire. The five of us had snuck away (as I said, we pretty much had free rein in those days) to have some fireworks of our own. Jimmy's pockets were stuffed full of Black Cats that he had stolen from his garage that morning. The Black Cats were cool for sure, but securely hidden in my back pocket, under a baggy shirt, was the holy grail of fireworks; at least as far as our twelve-year-old group was concerned. One beautiful Roman candle poked me in the back with every step I took. Of course, they all would have been worthless had Alex not swiped his mother’s lighter, as well as half a pack of Pall Malls.
As we entered the park, where the overhanging trees insured that we wouldn't be spotted from the road, we all lit a smoke, each of us coughing and choking except Alex. This wasn't his first smoke, and he looked way cooler than the rest of us. I was in a foul mood that night, having discovered Monica and Todd behind the shed earlier. They had
been kissing and he'd had his hand on her chest (as uptight as she was, I still can't believe Monica would've ever let a boy fondle her breasts). I didn't really understand why, but I wanted to put my fist through Todd's face. Had I not been so ornery, I doubt I would have let things go as far as they did.
"Hey look! It's the Booger Man sleeping off his drunk again." Alex motioned to one of the park benches where we saw the Booger Man passed out, his brown bag clutched in his filthy hand. Despite the July heat, he was dressed in layers of dirty rags and I could smell him from where we stood. It was hard to tell how old he was under the layers of grime; he could have been forty or four hundred. His long, greasy hair looked like it had never been washed, and in that moment, I allowed my anger towards Todd to bloom into a hatred for the Booger Man and his disgusting existence.
"Maybe he wants to celebrate The Fourth of July with us." I said, earning shocked looks from my friends. Then they saw the menace on my face, and one by one, smiled and nodded.
"Hey, Booger Man! Don't you know it's the Fourth of July?" I shouted.
Jimmy was the first one to throw a firecracker at him. It landed on the bench and blew up with a POP! that startled the Booger Man awake. Then we were all throwing Black Cats except Monica, who lit them for us and handed them off so we could bombard him. I don't know who threw the one that hit him in the face, but it caused him to lose his grip on the bottle, splashing what I now believe could only have been moonshine all over the nasty clothing. That was our big mistake.
