The Darkest Lullaby

by Jonathan Janz

  (that didn’t involve taking her into town)

  No goddammit, that didn’t matter! He felt like he’d been drugged lately, was still lost in the haze

  (she reaches town she’ll never return)

  but it was hard, so hard to think clearly, so hard to hear himself think through that ugly, buzzing static

  (can’t let that happen, have to keep her here)

  Dammit, why couldn’t he focus? The buzzing was growing louder, and it started in his mind but now was maybe in the house, the walls

  (here goddammit, here, it’s the only way)

  Leave me alone! he nearly shouted.

  He wanted to put his head on his wife’s belly, connect with the baby. And though he desperately wanted to feel Ellie’s skin, longed to draw back the blanket, he didn’t feel worthy of the gesture, sensed that if he touched his wife he would sully her, the wickedness overtaking him communicable, infecting her and her baby—

  “Our baby,” he muttered desperately, “it’s our baby.”

  You really believe that? a voice asked, and Chris stood rigid not only at the buzzing, malevolent rasp of the voice, but from the implication of the words as well.

  What the hell’s that supposed to mean? he demanded, but he knew already, knew it before the buzzing answer came, the voice like a chorus of flies trapped inside a glass jar.

  You never conceived before coming here, did you? You never could. You never could. You, Chris. You were the problem.

  She never conceived with her first husband, he argued.

  Jason, the voice buzzed. His name was Jason. Say it with me, Chris. JASON. She never tried with Jason, and had they tried, they would have succeeded, HE would have succeeded, JASON would have succeeded in sowing his seed, but you, Chris, you only shoot blanks because you aren’t the man he was, the man he is, which is why you stashed Ellie out here…

  “No, no, no, no, no,” he muttered. He was moving down the stairs now, hands tossing idiot gestures into the air.

  But it didn’t work, did it? It didn’t work because there are still others, Sheriff Bruder, to whom you know Ellie was attracted. You sensed it, didn’t you? The way she watched him, her eyes large and brown…

  “Stop,” he pleaded. “Please stop.”

  Or Aaron Wolf, you were threatened by him, he reminded you of a story you once read in college, “The Amish Farmer,” the wife in the story cheating on her husband because the farmer had possessed a raw virility that he lacked, and you identified with the husband, didn’t you, Chris? Even then, you identified with the cuckolded husband and not the farmer, because you’ve always worried about things being taken from you, being inadequate, because you ARE inadequate.

  His hands clutched his hair, yanking

  You can’t stop it from happening, you can’t keep Ellie from other men

  Tearing out his hair, the pain a distant coldness

  Even if you do stop Bruder and Aaron Wolf from sniffing round Ellie, which they’ll surely do, there’ll be others. Dr. Stone who had his hands inside your wife

  Pummeling his bleeding scalp

  The doctor has more money, Bruder has better looks, Aaron has more strength and you have none of it, you fucking pansy

  Staggering to the kitchen

  The baby isn’t yours, Destragis fucked your wife, like he did again last night, fucked her in your bed and left her like the flea-bitten slut she is

  No

  How else to explain it, do the math you faggot pussy, the first night you were here, she conceived. You didn’t fuck her, Destragis did

  Reeling toward the stove

  Now rectify it. Cut it out of her, cut that mewling filthy fetus out of her stinking whore’s womb

  Twisting on the burner

  Bring it to the clearing, feed it to Petey

  The coils reddening

  Let the dog’s jaws crunch through those hairline fetal bones

  Grasping the glowing orange coils, steam hissing

  Kill her Chris KILL THE BABY KILL YOUR WIFE

  Flames shooting up his fingers, the pain a shrieking holocaust—

  Chris bellowed in agony and lurched for the sink, plunged his hand under cold water, his teeth grinding and the tears streaming, the pain worse than any he’d ever felt, a hundred times worse. He pounded his forehead on the sink edge, wailing prayers to anyone who would listen, Please take away the pain, please forgive me.

  A long time later, he lifted his sweat-drenched face and stared at the glowing coils of the stovetop. He removed his quivering hand from the flowing water and ventured a glance at the livid maroon burn marks, the blood that flowed into the cracked, scorched skin. Then he thrust his face away, unable to bear the sight any longer.

  Returning his hand to its place under the faucet, his gaze wandered to the knife rack. He wondered which one was the sharpest, which would make the cleanest cut if he held out his arm, sliced the veins and tendons of his wrists. Or better yet, he could slit his throat, a smiling red curve from ear to ear, the underjaw a happy scarlet gush. Would he have time to make it to Ellie, to die beside her? It was a better fate than he deserved.

  The agony from his burned hand spread through his entire body. He couldn’t do this any longer, not today. He went slowly upstairs, gritting his teeth against the crawling rage of his roasted skin, and made it to the bathroom. There, he swaddled his hand in a towel, shook out a handful of sleeping pills. Before he swallowed them, he started to count but lost track at nine.

  No, a distant voice pleaded. Have to take care of Ellie. You owe her that at least.

  Chris flushed the pills and went up to the office.

  He’d been in there twenty minutes weeping over his hand and cursing himself when he beheld someone walking across the yard toward the house.

  Chapter Three

  Ellie heard voices, soft laughter.

  One voice belonged to Chris, of course. The other she couldn’t identify right away. It was familiar yet somehow alien. She closed her eyes and was back in her childhood home again, pretending to be asleep so her parents wouldn’t make her go to church. Now she heard her sister, her sister talking to Chris, laughing again.

  Ellie came fully awake. She opened her eyes but squinted at the harsh white light. She got out of bed, wrapped a blanket over her shoulders, and staggered to the stairwell. Out here the voices were clearer. Yes, it was Katherine speaking to Chris. That couldn’t be, but she’d recognize that voice anywhere. Hell, she was tortured by it every freaking day. She went downstairs.

  Chris and Katherine, seated at the little round table, looked up at her.

  “Decided to join the world of the living?” Kat asked her.

  “Come sit with us,” Chris said.

  Ellie noted the tightness in his voice, the artificiality of his expression, and wondered, What are you hiding?

  She sat down between them, Katherine on her left.

  “What time is it?” Ellie asked.

  Kat checked her watch. “Three-thirty.”

  Her sister’s hair was drawn back with its normal tortoise-shell barrette. As always, Kat looked pretty, but there was something else in her sister’s face, something strained around the eyes.

  Ellie let it go for the moment. “When did you get here?”

  “At your property or your house?” Kat asked, cocking an eyebrow. “You two might as well live on Mars. As if this place weren’t in the boonies already, there’s not even a bridge over your creek. I had to take off my shoes and wade across like Laura Ingalls Wilder.”

  Ellie felt her pulse quicken. “The creek is down?”

  Chris said, “It’s about waist deep now, but the current’s still fast.”

  “Then I can go see Dr. Stone,” Ellie said.

  Chris looked away.

  “Your husband needs to see a doctor, too,” Kat said. For the first time Ellie noticed the white dressing around Chris’s right hand.

  “What—” she began.

  “I was stupid,” he said. “I wa
s trying to heat you up a bowl of soup, but I tripped and grabbed the burner.”

  “Third degree burn,” Kat said. “I’m sure of it. He wasn’t even going to let me see it until I threatened to rip that silly towel off his hand.”

  “It’s fine,” Chris said, but Ellie could see the pain in his eyes.

  Ellie said to her sister, “How did you—when did you decide to come?”

  Kat gave her a sarcastic shake of the head. “I’ve been leaving messages for over a week, El, but you never call back. I thought about hiring a skywriter, but I doubt you’d have seen it through all these trees.”

  Ellie turned to hear Chris’s explanation, but he was studying the woods beyond the lane.

  No messages for you, she remembered him saying. Just one from my mom.

  You deceitful jerk, she thought.

  “Earth to Ellie,” she heard her sister saying.

  She looked at Katherine.

  “I said, why don’t we go to town tonight?”

  Ellie opened her mouth to respond, but Chris said, “Tonight’s not good. There’s a storm on the way.”

  Kat peered outside. “The sky is crystal clear.”

  “At the moment,” Chris said, an edge to his voice. “The bad stuff’s supposed to hit later.”

  Kat affected a country twang. “I don’t mind. Put on some clothes, girl. We’re headin’ to Ravana.”

  Ellie smiled, but it faded when she took in the grim set of Chris’s jaw, his eyes blazing at Kat.

  “That would be—” Fine, Ellie had meant to say, but a smoldering livewire of pain sizzled through her abdomen, cutting off speech.

  “El?” Kat asked, a hand on her shoulder.

  “It’s okay,” Ellie said. “Really, it’s—”

  “You need a doctor,” Kat said.

  Ellie gasped as another blaze seared her guts.

  Doesn’t want me to leave, she thought dimly.

  “Better not tonight,” she said with difficulty. “It’s probably… something I ate.”

  “You haven’t eaten anything,” Kat said. “You’ve been in hibernation the past fifteen hours.”

  “That long?” Ellie said, struggling to her feet.

  Kat got up with her. “Where are you—”

  “Bedroom,” Ellie explained. “I need to lie down till this passes.”

  “You need anything?” Chris asked, and she thought, You lying bastard, you know exactly what’s happening. Maybe you’re even helping it.

  “No,” she told him. “Kat’ll take care of me.”

  “You bet,” her sister said and put a steadying arm around her back.

  All of a sudden Ellie was very thankful Kat had come.

  An hour after that, Kat was sitting beside the bed stirring an ice cube in a hot bowl of chicken noodle soup. Ellie watched her sister move the diminishing cube around and wondered when they’d last been together.

  That’s easy, she thought. The wedding. She’d scheduled three or four visits to Ann Arbor since then, and many times Kat had asked when she and her family could come to Malibu, but it had never materialized.

  Because Ellie hadn’t allowed it to materialize.

  Kat finished blowing on the soup, handed it over. “Try it now.”

  Ellie spooned some into her mouth. “Mm,” she said, relishing the hot feel of it in her throat. “You make this?”

  “Straight from the can,” Kat said. “I’ll gladly take the credit though.”

  “I’m glad you came,” Ellie said quietly.

  “I got the impression you wanted me to leave you alone.”

  Ellie averted her eyes, took another spoonful of soup.

  “What?” Kat said.

  Ellie shook her head, all at once worried she’d break down bawling.

  Kat leaned forward, a hand on the blanket covering Ellie’s knee. “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on, kiddo?”

  “I’m such a bitch.”

  “Why—”

  “You’re the only one who put forth any effort,” Ellie said. “I’ve treated you so badly.”

  “C’mon,” Kat said and sat next to her on the bed. “You act like you took out a contract on my head or something.” She leaned closer. “You didn’t, did you?”

  Ellie laid her head on Kat’s shoulder and closed her eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Hey,” Kat said and put her arm around her. “You could never treat me badly enough to get rid of me forever.” Kat squeezed her. “You’ll always be my girl.”

  Ellie straightened and shoved a couple pillows between her and the headboard so she’d be more comfortable. She felt as though someone had lodged an axe between her ribcage and her left hipbone. The only advantage of pregnancy she’d so far experienced was her swollen breasts, though she suspected the novelty would wear off soon enough.

  Leaning against the pillows, Ellie said, “It’s been three years. We need to catch up before I spill my guts about my problems.”

  Kat scooted around to sit cross-legged on the bed facing her. “We’ll do girl talk later,” she said. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “You mean the stomach cramps?”

  “I mean everything. Purple bags under your eyes, you’ve lost weight—”

  “I needed to.”

  “Believe me, pregnancy wreaks plenty of havoc on your body. You don’t need any extra stress.”

  “I look stressed?”

  Kat tilted her head, eyes widening sardonically: Isn’t it obvious?

  Ellie sighed. “Okay, I’m stressed. It’s just…”

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t know… I’m afraid you’ll make fun of me.”

  “I won’t make fun of you. Much.”

  Ellie blew out a tremulous breath. She knew how crazy it would sound, knew the chances were excellent Kat would roll her eyes and chalk it up to her overactive imagination. The one thing, however, Ellie was sure would strike a chord with her sister was the pain in her belly, the titanic, soul-ripping pain she experienced every time she tried to escape this place. And if Ellie wasn’t well enough to make it out, Kat was sure as hell persuasive enough to get Dr. Stone here to examine Ellie. Then she’d have the peace of knowing her baby was still healthy, still alive in her womb.

  She opened her mouth to tell Kat about that first night in the house, the grisly discovery of the razor blades; and then later that first week, the sensation of being licked on the fingers even though the dog had been outside; she opened her mouth to share everything that had happened, to unburden herself of the whole macabre tale, but a sudden tightness in her stomach stopped her.

  She gripped the swell of her belly.

  “What is it?” Kat asked.

  When Ellie didn’t answer, only bent forward as the tightness spread lower, her innards squeezed by an invisible vice, Kat rose to her knees and put her hands on Ellie’s shoulders.

  “Seriously, El, you’re scaring me.”

  You don’t know what scary is, she thought.

  “We’ve gotta get you into town,” Kat said.

  A rocket of heat shot through Ellie’s abdomen.

  “No,” she said in a tight voice, “I don’t need to go anywhere. I just need to—” Another wave of pain. “—stay here and—”

  “Ellie,” Kat said in disbelief, “you could be in real danger. If something—”

  Searing pain, stealing her breath.

  “—is wrong you need to see—”

  “Stop,” Ellie hissed through clenched teeth. “Just stop. Please. It’s…” A slight alleviating. “…not helping me.”

  Kat fell quiet. Ellie stayed leaned over that way for several moments, and gradually, by infinitesimal degrees, the pain dulled to merely an uncomfortable throb.

  “Better?” Kat asked.

  Ellie nodded.

  “I really think we need to—”

  Ellie grabbed Kat’s arm, stilled her with a warning look.

  “Okay,” Kat said. “I’m just trying to help.”

  H
er breathing grew slower, almost normal. “I know you are. But for now, let’s just hold off talking about it, okay?”

  Kat searched her eyes a long moment. Then she nodded. “Okay.”

  “So what kind of stuff do I have to look forward to?” Ellie asked later that evening as they sat on the front porch. “Health-wise, I mean.”

  She leaned against a post, her sister a few feet away sitting barefoot on the concrete.

  Kat leaned back on her palms, warming to the subject. “Oh, it’s a carnival of delights. I assume your back is hurting?”

  “Some.”

  “Just wait. Pretty soon your boobs’ll feel like bowling balls.”

  “They’re getting there.” Ellie frowned. “And my hair’s been falling out.”

  “It’ll get worse. Chris’ll think there’s something living in the shower drain.”

  “Ugh.”

  “It gets better. When you shed the hair on your head, the stuff down below starts growing like crazy.”

  “My pubic hair?”

  Kat nodded. “Everywhere south of the border. The first time I was pregnant my husband said I looked like I sat on a squirrel.”

  “That was sweet of him.”

  “Vintage Roland.”

  Watching her sister’s face, something Ellie hadn’t considered struck her like a stone. “Where are your kids?”

  Kat straightened her legs and regarded her toes. “Mom and Dad’s.”

  She felt a stirring of foreboding. “They’re not…with Roland?” After all this time, she still hated saying the man’s name. He didn’t pronounce it the way she’d always heard it, like Poland. He insisted on rhyming it with Holland, and somehow, that always seemed to summarize the man for Ellie.

  Kat opened her mouth, and Ellie could see she was debating how much she should share.

  Finally, Kat said, “Roland and I are separated.”

  Ellie could only gape.

  “Don’t look so stunned.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  “I’m relieved,” Kat said, some of her old brusqueness returning. “The last couple years we’ve been running on fumes. If it weren’t for the kids, things would’ve fallen apart long ago.”

  “I don’t…” Ellie began. “I mean, what happened?”

  “You mean did Roland cheat on me?’”