by David Reuben
“So I’m sleeping alone tonight?” he said walking toward his wife, finding it easier to smile all of a sudden. “I always knew you’d trade me in for a younger man.”
She smiled back as they went inside, and that was real, too.
***
Monica was calling for him across the noisy midway. Machines roared, lights blinked and stuttered although there were no light-giving booths here, only rows of tents, and all of them offered Insults to Nature. “David, please Jesus Christ. David!”
He sat up, looking around the dark bedroom, feeling sleep drop away from him in large dizzying chunks.
“David,” Monica’s voice again, from down the hall. Not a dream.
He got out of bed and scrambled toward the spare bedroom, his heart pounding. The door was closed and Monica was beating on the other side. He meant to fling it open for her, find out what the matter was but he hesitated when he saw the jars, two of them, sitting just outside of the door.
“We need to get out,” Monica called. “Are you there?”
“Coming,” he called back, nudging the jars aside and grasping the doorknob. “Stand back.”
The knob turned easily in his hand. He had leaned on the door thinking it would be locked or stuck and when it opened he nearly fell inside.
The first thing he noticed was the smell, flowery and acrid, woefully familiar. The second was the image of his wife sitting on the small bed cradling the boy tightly, her hair and nightgown slicked with a clear, oozing substance. “He was throwing up in his sleep,” she said, “and the door, I couldn’t get the door open.”
“He’s still asleep?”
“Yes, Something’s not right. David, where are you going?”
He turned to her on his way out of the room, an explosion of wild uncertainty laying across his face like dark paint, “I’ve got to check something. Get cleaned up. We’re taking a drive.”
“David—”
His wife’s protests were lost as he pounded down the stairs, all but her insistent shriek of “—what are these jars for?”
He moved across the dark kitchen thinking how easily a jar lid could come off unheard beneath the drone of a moving car and the fading bleat of a child whining himself to sleep. And once the lid was off and the kid was quiet, there would be that tiny sleeping mouth, slightly open, unguarded in the dark. So easy for something to crawl up, so easy to slip in, make him drink…
He turned on the garage lights and took three bold steps toward the car. The trunk lid was unlatched and standing open a few inches. He heard himself make a grunt that was something like agreement, or confirmation. There was a shelf directly behind him covered with miscellaneous clutter and he pulled a small garden trowel from the tangle before moving around to the back of the car. He set the tip of the trowel beneath the edge of the trunk lid and gave it an upward push. It yawned open.
A single jar stood on the floor of the trunk. The lid was off, laying in the corner and gleaming like a dull coin. The jar was full of fluid but held no specimen. There was a shiny dribble of liquid on the car bumper, and another on the floor.
The door leading to the house slammed shut and he glowered in that direction feeling dumb and confused. Then Monica screamed his name from deep inside the house.
He burst back inside, trowel in hand, and flew through rooms. Monica met him on the stairs. Trey was dangling in her arms, his hair wet, a ring of suds round his neck like a beard. She had wrapped the boy in a towel and she spoke with a sick tremor as she walked.
“He’s not waking up. We’ve got to take him somewhere right away, David. My God, his legs. And his hands. When I put him in the tub I saw-”
“Lay him down over here,” David told her, guiding her down the stairs and switching on the living room lights.
“I got him right into the tub,” she said setting the boy down on the sofa, “clothes and all, and then started stripping off his pajamas. They were going into the wash, anyway. And then I saw his arms.”
She opened up the towel to show him.
David looked at Trey’s tiny arms and his heart sank. They had turned a grayish color, and they had shortened considerably. The small hands were shriveled like thin plants after a heavy frost. The legs were no better. David noticed Trey’s toenails were turning a septic black color.
“I’ve got to go back,” he heard himself say.
“To the car, you mean. Start it up so we can get to the hospital.”
“No,” he said brushing at his left cheek, “that’s not what I mean at all.”
Her gaze came to rest on the trowel clutched in his hand. “David, what’s happening?”
“I don’t-”
Monica’s scream cut him off. She was looking past him, toward the doorway of the room and he turned to follow her gaze. The specimen from the jar in his trunk stood in the middle of Monica’s Persian runner, its flat head lowered, its black eyes glinting in the semi-dark. On either side of it stood one of the empty jars from the upstairs hall. The creature rose up on withered legs, a tiny pulse fluttering inside its chest and it turned its attention from Monica to David with a calculated, almost pensive action.
“My God,” Monica said, staring, “What is that thing?”
David crept forward, tightening his grip on the trowel, letting the facts come out as plainly as he could. There was no time for reason now. Just facts. “It’s part of what’s wrong with Trey. It’s part of a show at the carnival and I think that’s where we have to go tonight to straighten this out. And when we go,” he said quietly, moving gradually closer, “I want to take this little bastard back in pieces.”
The creature raised its sinewy arms as if commanding attention. Its hands, no more than withered nerve bundles, turned outward sweeping in an almost showman-like fashion. Its head swiveled left to right, addressing its audience, and its slash of a mouth worked into the makings of a smile. Four nubs of teeth glistened there. The jars trembled without being touched, then toppled over and began to roll, making slight whispering sounds across the carpet. The jars moved up to the couch where Monica sat tucking the towel protectively around Trey, and they stopped inches away from her, simultaneously, like trained animals. The creature snapped its arms upward as if expecting to gain applause for this feat.
Monica pulled her legs up and looked from the jars to David and then to the small gray creature on the living room rug, her eyes bright. She was trembling.
“You’re going back,” David said to the creature as he hefted his trowel.
The creature blinked as if in confirmation and then it pointed with a gnarled gray fist from one jar to Monica, then from the other jar to Trey. And then it smiled, its slash mouth bending, quivering.
“Oh no,” David said, finding all his suspicions confirmed. He bolted toward the Insult to Nature. “Not on my watch.”
The creature snarled. It thumped on its thin-walled chest, then extended an arm out toward David. He gasped. The plane of his cheek exploded with new pain as if teeth had found the flesh all over again. And in the back of his head, he heard the suited man speaking, “I believe that you, Mr. Jaeckel, have something for us…”
“No,” he said again, “You can’t have them.”
He descended on the creature and brought the point of his trowel down, hoping to pin the little form neatly to the floor if he could. It scuttled backward. The blade was going to miss, he knew, so he stretched forward as he came down and reached out with his free hand. He caught its leg, so much like rubber bands strung over a flimsy wooden dowel. The creature made a helpless screeching sound and swiveled its head, its brow lowering as if insulted over being handled in such a manner. Its arms flew apart, the unformed hands wiggling. From the corner of his eye, David saw a flash of reflected light as the glass jars began to move again.
He heard Monica make a sound back there, “nuh.” Then he rose to a squatting position, dragging the creature toward himself, making ready to stab at it again. The creature leaped into the air in an attempt t
o escape. David let the ascending weight of the thing guide his arm. It twisted in the air and fell on him, its cold arms clamping over his head, its mouth working open and closed trying to sink its teeth into his forehead.
He toppled over, dropping the trowel so he could pry at the thing with both hands. They crashed into a table. Something shattered. He sensed Monica was moving around behind him. Good, he thought, collect up that kid and get out of here.
Tiny teeth found the soft mound of flesh at his eyebrow and bit down. He screamed, digging into the slick body. Something traced across his fingers, lancing his knuckles with cold pain. He lifted upward and the creature came away, arms flailing. It was making that screeching sound again, its eyes wide and alarmed. He held it at arm’s length. Yellowish fluid was dripping down its sides, trickling from its mouth. The screeching elevated to something he understood as angry panic, then it dwindled, became bubbly, stopped altogether as the small body became limp.
He blinked. Monica was standing over him, holding a long shard of broken glass. “I’m sorry,” she was saying, looking from him to the heap of broken glass she’d made by smashing the two jars together, “I cut you when I stabbed it. I’m sorry.”
He got to his feet and cast the thing away from him. It landed in a soft heap. His hands were slicked with something yellow and viscous. His flayed knuckles leaked threads of crimson. “No, you did good.”
Monica dropped the piece of glass, staring at the gray body with uncomprehending eyes. “What did you mean when you said it couldn’t have us?”
“Exactly what it sounded like. Get some clothes on and get him wrapped up.” he motioned toward Trey. “I’ve got to end this.”
The boy was still sleeping, still shrinking, his back becoming curved, his neck compressing into an insignificant stump. David offered him a mournful glance, then scooped to the insult to nature off of the floor and took it to the garage.
***
“You’ve got to promise,” he told Monica as he drove toward the fairgrounds, “to do whatever I tell you. Okay?”
He laid a bandaged hand on her shoulder. Dots of blood were seeping through the gauze. Trey was laid out on the back seat. The jar of fluid was in the trunk, the flayed corpse of its occupant floating near the top.
“Whatever you say,” Monica responded. “and then you’ve got to tell me what this is all about because as far as I’m concerned, we should be taking Trey to the hospital.”
“He’s not sick.” he told her glumly.
He turned down the dirt path that led to the fairgrounds. It was nearly midnight but lights still shone ahead, greenish ground lights that backlit the skeletal forms of the Ferris wheel and the Zipper and the flag-crowned crests of the roller coaster. “This is all on account of something I did, and I don’t know if I’ll be able to explain. I just hope I can make it right.”
Monica said nothing, just turned around to check on Trey.
There was no chain or gate to keep vehicles off the midway and he drove straight in, slowing down to maneuver through the narrow passage between locked-down game booths and shuttered food trailers. Ahead, a few tents glowed from inside. One of them was the Insults to Nature.
He stopped the car and spoke while he climbed out. “Get behind the wheel and leave the engine running.”
Then he went around to the trunk and took out the jar. He remembered with sudden clarity how the creature inside the glass had leapt toward him from the sawdust earlier that evening, and how its teeth had sank into his cheek, how its tongue had wormed into the gash, lapping blood but also going deeper, somehow sensing, groping, tasting his thoughts, relishing them like a hot feast. Tasting, and also infusing, injecting, infecting. He took the jar past the empty ticket booth and walked through the tent flap.
The jars waited on their shelves, each one catching the light in its thin amber liquid. The small tangled forms inside of each one shifted like startled aquarium fish, the flat faces of each occupant facing him, wondering who could be visiting at such an hour. Seated near the shelves was Mr. Black Suit. He was paring an apple. He put down his work and raised his arched eyebrows at David’s approach, the black hooks at the corners of his mouth flaring out with a broad smile.
“You’re early.”
David thrust the jar forward, making the dead thing inside rock like a small hollow boat. “Whatever you had in mind, I want you to call it off.”
The man stared at him blandly, spreading his narrow hands. “Not possible, I’m afraid. I told you before, there are no refunds.”
“You should rethink your policy,” David thumped the jar on the sawdust floor for effect. “He’s only a kid, for God’s sake.”
“Kid?” The man’s hands flapped in a beckoning motion and the jar at David’s feet skated forward obediently like a magnetic toy, leaving a furrow in the loose bedding of the floor. It stopped just in front of the man. “Who’s a kid?”
“My nephew. Whatever you’re doing to him, I want it to stop. I never meant for you to take him.”
“Interesting comment for someone who wanted to be shed of the little tyke a few hours ago. But I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“The kid is in my car right now and he’s shrinking. And turning gray. He’s turning into one of these things of yours. Don’t play dumb with me, mister.”
“It’s tempting stuff,” he man said, stooping to pick up the jar at his feet. He examined the contents briefly. “once you get close to it. The boy must have taken a taste. On the ride home, perhaps. Can’t say that I blame him. Let me stop it right now.”
“You’d better stop it.”
“Done.” the man said lightly, waving his fingers in the air as if to limber them.
“Are you sure?”
“See for yourself,” the man offered but David was already peering out of the tent flap.
He could see Trey sitting up in his blanket. Monica was bent over the seat, laughing and kissing the boy and obviously telling him it was going to be all right. She turned for a second and smiled uncertainly at her husband. He raised his hand, she waved back.
“You’re very gallant, Mr. Jaeckel,” the man was saying to him, “bringing the boy back here, bringing what you felt was a casualty to my door, no doubt ready for a fight. But that doesn’t change anything.”
“Our business is done.” David told him and walked up to the tent flap.
The barrier he met stunned him. He saw nothing but the clear night and the quiet, cold midway, but he had struck a solid wall just the same. The shock of it seemed to swirl into a tiny vortex in the center of his left cheek. He dropped backward onto the tent floor. The entrance canvas flopped closed and the chain snaked through the metal grommets like a trained animal.
“We’re not done yet,” the man said. His voice was backed by the sound of numerous metal lids turning slowly off of glass tops.
“You can’t have my family,” David snarled at him.
“We don’t want them.” was the reply.
The man cradled the jar containing the dead creature in one arm. He had taken the lid off.
“But that thing,” David motioned to it, “It showed me what it wanted. It showed me the empty jars, and then it pointed out my wife and Trey.”
“Empty jars, Mr. Jaeckel.” the man said patiently as he took up a small tin cup and dipped it into the jar, “One can’t keep a specimen in an empty jar. You obviously don’t speak the language, yet. It was expressing their safety to you. Not that I can’t put the boy back into regression with a wave of my hand. I can, Mr. Jaeckel. Believe it. Safe depends on so many things.”
“It’s me you want.” he spoke it with dull conviction, sending a longing glimpse at the tent flap with its transparent barrier outside so much like a glass wall.
“Only you. You have something for us, you know-A strong contempt for many things. That makes you a good specimen. A great one, in fact. Here.”
The man held out the cup which was half full of yellow fluid. David looked at it, trying
not to inhale the acrid, flowery smell. It was a bitter odor, but somehow full bodied, perhaps a bit sweet underneath.
“No,” David stepped backward, his feet fumbling through the sawdust. His right hand came up, looking gray in the light. Gray and withered. “What’s happening?”
“You wanted to be away from them,” the man said, stepping toward him. “That’s why we chose you.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” he protested.
Small knotted shapes were dragging themselves out of open jars, pulling themselves up on arms of sinew, malformed mouths making wet, buzzing sounds, and all of them seemed to be saying “david, david jaeckel ...”
“Let’s not quibble over interpretations, shall we?” the man smiled and offered him the cup.
David backed away another step and found himself against the tent wall, pressing the canvas against the barrier outside. He held up his hands, wearily, looking at the fingers of his right hand which now resembled tattered gray strands of ribbon. His shoe swam around his left foot. He looked at the slick cup in front of him and wondered how bad the jar fluid really tasted. “It’s too late, isn’t it?”
“No refunds, Mr. Jaeckel. It’s either you or ...” a long finger aimed at the tent flap. The chain fell away and the opening gaped once again, showing the car where Monica and Trey waited, faces floating anxiously near the windows.
“I see,” he said and turned as gracefully as he could to stand in the opening and press himself against the barrier.
He waved, a sideways flap of the hand-his left hand-and he saw Monica’s face cloud with doubt. He scowled and gestured more strongly, waving her on and finally with a look of confused resignation she put the car in gear. She drew a small circle in the air with her finger, her concern one of those real looks he had missed so badly these past months. He knew the gesture. It meant she would come back in a while. He smiled and let his gestures fade to a wave as she drove away.
“Now drink,” the man said from behind him.
He turned and reached out with a shaking hand. His knees were losing their ability to hold him up. A lidless jar labored through the sawdust like a hunched worker, filled to the rim with fluid, and it came to a halt at his feet. “What if I said I didn’t want this, either? What if I’ve changed my mind?”
