by Aaron Dries
“I said, open them.” Wes lost his patience and pressed the end of the shotgun against the kid’s lips.
Michael felt its metal end bang against his teeth.
The ocean disappeared.
“That’s better. Now your eyes are open, aren’t they?”
Michael’s head spun. The gun tasted bitter, poisonous. His mouth hurt from where it was pushed against his lips. His jaws parted to make way for the barrels, even though every instinct told him to do otherwise.
“That’s it, put it in. As far as it’ll go in your pussy mouth. Do it or I’ll make a mess of you.”
His teeth chattered against the iron; the gun was a dark highway before him. On the horizon there was the father, surrounded by flowing clouds of curtain. “Now sing, faggot.”
There was utter silence except for the steady rain; even the storm held its breath.
Michael made a quiet wish. To whom, he didn’t know. I wish he would just pull the trigger. End it now. I’ve had enough. I’m already dead. In many ways this is better.
I deserve this.
Pull the trigger.
“Sing. You sing for my baby.”
From the other side of the room there came a voice. Thin and wavering, Reggie talked to the corpse. “Gee whiz, Liz. You need to wash your hair! You stink.”
An atom bomb of anger dropped from the sky and landed on Wes’s head. It detonated. His repulsion was an elixir he now welcomed. He ripped the gun from the kid’s mouth and turned it on his wife, flinging Michael to the floor, the corner of his mouth torn open. Blood gushed over his tongue. Sarah screamed.
“Woman,” Wes yelled at his wife. “Let her go!”
This was the moment Jack had been waiting for. His hands dove into the pocket of his jeans. They were warm and wet inside. His fingers grabbed the handle of the utility knife he stashed in there before being led from the bus. Anxious to cut, he watched the father stagger across the room towards the mother on the floor.
Wes threw the gun into his left hand, held it tight and with his right slapped Reggie across the face. He funneled his weight into the blow. With a squeak she slammed against the doorframe, hands flying up to her cheek.
Wes bent over and grabbed his daughter’s limp arm. The gun trailed the ceiling in abandon. With strength drawn from the last of his reserve, he dragged the corpse across the floor in three mighty tugs. He deposited her in front of the passengers. Her skinny arms slapped against the floor and the front of her shirt pulled open to expose a loose-fitting, pink and white bra. Her skin was blue.
Reggie slumped over until her head brushed the ground. It was invitingly cool. She wanted to close her eyes and let the ringing in her ears usher her to sleep. She knew it would be so easy just to give in to the dark, to let it sweep her up and take her to some better place. To her disappointment, shock kept her conscious.
Jack peered up at the father from within his bottom-of-the-well eye sockets. At his knees were the driver’s remains. They reminded him of The Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, after the winged monkeys had torn him to shreds. The thought made him sneer.
Wes turned the gun towards Jack.
I’ll wipe that grin right off your face, boy.
“You got a sorry for my baby girl?” The expression on his face changed with the ease and grace of a comedic mime. One moment he was serious and tortured, and the next he was all smiles. Only it was unlike any smile they had ever seen. His lips ripped back, revealing the shine and polish of his dentures. The loose skin around his mouth stretched and rippled. His eyes drew to thin slits surrounded by long crow’s feet. The laugh that came out of him was wheezy, full of running snot and spite. “This is a grin,” he said to Jack.
Twenty
Jed could hear everything happening downstairs. He was still in the bathroom, stepping into his jeans. They slipped over his jagged hipbones with ease. He didn’t bother with his underwear or shirt; they were in a wet, red pile in the corner. Water still ran from the showerhead. A single scarlet thread dribbled down the side of the tub, pooling on the tiles.
His fingers formed a net in front of his face, a dark lattice between him and the mirror. His heartbeat raced as though he had just gotten “wet”, but he was sure the drug was no longer in his system. It was hard to tell much of anything any more.
All that existed was pain and bleeding cuts and images of people flying apart in slow motion. His sister was running towards him with open arms. He remembered how she had come to him that morning to say goodbye. It was as if she had known she was going to die. He had seen that frightened and confused look on her face before, the day they had gotten high together in the shed and he’d lost control. He had slammed her in the face with the heel of his foot. She didn’t bleed until after she hit the ground. There was the sound of the punching bag rocking back and forth on its chain. It swung at him—only it wasn’t a punching bag. It was the body of the boy he had shot that afternoon, hanging at the end of a noose. It swung back into shadow. The twinkle of the chains. Then a shape emerged from the shadows. This time it was Liz. She was screaming, her eyes rolling back into her skull. She disappeared and then there was just the man who looked like him—but just couldn’t be.
Jed lashed out at the stranger.
The mirror shattered under his knuckles, sending slivers of his reflection to fall away from his sight.
Nineteen
Wes jabbed the twin barrels of the gun against the side of Jack’s head over and over. “You want to kiss my daughter, you disgusting piece of shit?” he hissed through barred teeth. “You gonna marry her? Did you fuck my daughter?”
Each blow hurt but Jack resisted pulling the knife from his pocket. This was one bet he was not going to blow until he was positive the timing was right. It was his last chance. The final smack of metal against scalp echoed loud and hollow. “Stop-stop it!” Jack said.
“Stop? You dare say stop to me?” Wes stared at him, incredulous. “Okay, you said it.” Wes recoiled then spat on the man before him. A heavy wad of phlegm stuck to the man’s brow.
He pointed the gun at the old woman who almost fell when the barrels settled on her. She stopped her fall by reaching backward, slamming her palms against the carpet. Her neck arched, exposing her throat.
“Why don’t you tell me to stop, lady?” Wes inquired.
Sarah felt no pain. Her body was contorted into a position no woman her age should attempt. Her kneecaps, tight underneath her weight, popped. She turned her head towards the window, which was the only source of light in the room. Through the curtains she caught a come-and-go glimpse of the green sky.
The silhouette of a man.
Lightning. Bright. The flash of the curtain.
The man was gone.
“Bill…”
It was the last thing Sarah Carr ever said.
The father reached down and yanked the crucifix from her chain. Its incredible weight left her body, and for the first time she did not feel naked without it. In fact she felt free. It landed on the floor beside Wes’s favorite chair.
The shotgun went off. There were fireworks of flesh. The recoil hurt Wes’s arms. “Bugger,” he said, the word hard to hear over Michael and Jack’s screaming.
Reggie called at her husband from the kitchen doorway. “God damn it, Wes, you got mud all over the floor.” Reggie stepped into the next room, grabbed at the sliding door and slammed it shut with anger. “You know how I hate it when you don’t wipe your shoes on the mat,” she called from behind it.
All Michael could hear after the gunshot was ringing. Behind this percussion, there was a dull, muffled roar.
Sarah was dead; it felt strangely natural, as though things were falling into place. It seemed almost a mercy; there was a little less misery in the room.
With absurd slowness the black eyes of the shotgun slid into his vision. From beyond the smoking tunnels came the voice of the man with his finger on the trigger. “Look what you did, boy,” said Wes.
Michael hea
rd, mmm-wahha-hhh-hhh-mwhh.
Without warning there was an enormous sucking sound, like someone slurping liquid through a long, wide straw. On the other end of it there was the drum of rain against the corrugated roof. He could hear the father’s wedding ring, tapping against the shotgun. Though his hearing had returned, there was still a warble that ran through everything.
Shoot me now, Michael thought. Only it wasn’t a thought. It was a prayer. This is how it ends and I’m ready.
“Are you a faggot, boy?” the father asked. The question stabbed him. It hurt so much more to be asked than to be told. Michael’s eyes were wide and pleading and brimming with tears.
Wes enjoyed seeing the terror in Michael’s eyes—it thrilled him. But he refused to be sidelined by it. He had not forgotten about the other man, and he reminded him with a quick wink.
“I asked you a question. I said, are you one of those faggots?”
“Kill me,” Michael said. “Please, just do it.”
“That’s not the answer to my question, boy.” He turned to the man with the goatee. “Was it, mate?”
Jack had been waiting for the right moment to pounce. All of his energy had funneled into his calculation. The question shattered his train of thought, his brow furrowing. “What?”
“Was it?”
“…No.”
“Damn straight it wasn’t.” There was a mean twinkle in his eye. “So, boy. Is you? Or ain’t you?”
Huge, body-wracking tears erupted from Michael. He brought his hands together and held them out to the father. “Please stop,” he said.
“IS YOU OR AIN’T YOU? ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION!”
“God no. No! No, I’m not.” It didn’t even occur to him to tell the truth. He had been lying to people for so long it came naturally.
“Oh you’re not, eh?”
“No!”
“You being straight up with me, boy?”
“Yes!”
“Then touch her pussy.” Wes gestured to Sarah. He loved saying the word. It was satisfying the way it puffed up his cheeks and pushed out of his mouth.
Wes smiled. Power coursed through him. He could make them do anything.
Michael was overwhelmed with disgust and horror at the father’s words. A mind was not supposed to even contemplate such actions, let alone direct another’s hand down to violate a dead woman. It made him despair that there were people like the father in the world, and Michael felt sudden empathy for the driver. How’d she grow up in this house without killing herself? Numbness had washed over him, the ocean having returned. He was lost in brine and salt, and for that, he was thankful.
Eighteen: Jed Bleeds
“Dad!”
Wes swung towards the staircase and the gun swung with him.
“Dad!”
Wes saw his eight-year-old son standing in the shadows of the hall. Above him was a line of paper dolls holding hands in a downward smile strung across the archway.
Wes held a carving knife, watched Jed crouch low. He wondered how such a yell could come from something so tiny and breakable. His anger mingled with disgrace. The kids had him wrapped around their little fingers, and sometimes they needed to be taught a lesson. And a lesson was what they were receiving. Just like his father had taught him. One day his children would understand. He would bleed the bad out of them if that was what it took, even if he struggled to recall what it was they had done to displease him so.
It was a father’s right to discipline his children.
Liz was sprawled on the ground at his feet. Shirt ripped open at the collar, one of the denim suspenders of her overalls unclipped.
Jed began to cry.
“Stop crying,” Wes told his son, who was huddled at the top of the stairs, arms folded tight across his chest and hands pushed deep into the crotch of his pants. He watched thick tears roll down his son’s clean cheeks and again told him to stop.
“I said, cut out the tears, boy.”
But the child’s sobs did not end.
Blubbering like a little girl, Wes thought. How did I spawn such soft, forgettable chickens? They both did wrong, so why do they have to fight me every time?
But Wes knew he enjoyed feeling angry. He relished and bathed in its glorious brightness.
The knife. It felt so powerful in his hand. He hoped they would never forget him like this, standing there in his prime.
He wondered why he should keep this rage locked away, just because his wife told him to. His rage could be useful.
Morality and character was not molded, this he had always known. His own father had taught him well. Character was carved.
“You can’t do this, Dad!”
Insolence! Wes stepped over his daughter, who reached out towards him but missed. Her hand landed next to a forgotten toy truck.
Am I invisible? Didn’t I tell them to put their shit away hours ago?
He crossed the room, knife before him as though it were an extension of his arm.
The gun was leveled at Jed.
Wes felt alive. Why had he resigned to living in the shadows for so long? He had energy now. It had been years since he felt this good. It was as though he were breathing new oxygen, as though he’d been wrapped in fresh, warm skin.
It was his new life.
Every step towards his fatherly right to discipline and shape his children into what he wanted them to be was a step closer to the happiness he thought he would never have.
Seventeen
Wes rushed towards the little boy framed by paper dolls.
Which will be easier to destroy? he wondered. He laughed a little, even though a part of him was sad.
He brought the knife up and before he knew what he was doing, lashed out to see his power enacted upon the world in the flesh of his son. Little Jed lifted up his hands to shield his face.
Wes saw the wounds winking at him and stopped, lowering the gun.
Jed’s slit wrists were crossed before his face. Behind them the eyes of an eight-year-old peered out.
“I’m sorry, Dad.”
The arm holding the gun fell to Wes’s side. He looked up the staircase. Along the walls, over the balustrade, were dark red smears and splashes.
Jed looked away from his father. He was growing dizzy. The pain was incredible—he never thought it would hurt so much. How long did it take for a person to die from slitting their wrists? He hoped he got the veins; he was positive he had.
When he slid the six-inch shard of broken mirror through his flesh, there had been an instant spray that freckled the ceiling. The thumping in his head was fast and constant, panic forcing his heartbeat on. He knew this was good. The quicker his heart forced blood through his body, the quicker he would bleed out. No more pain. No more screaming.
The confused look in his father’s eyes would only be important for a few more minutes—if he were lucky. Jed never thought he could embrace death; he loved life too much. But he knew this was not living.
Wes stood motionless, watching his son die. His thoughts shattered, he tried to form words. Nothing came. There was only hurt so dreadful and deep and final it numbed what little remained of his mind.
This was why he failed to hear the sound of feet running across the room.
Jack plowed into the father, forcing him into the face of a bookshelf and not the floor as he had intended. His aim was to get the man under his knees and then slash until there was nothing left to tear up. There was a clatter nearby, and Jack hoped it was the sound of the shotgun hitting the floor. With his left hand, he drove the extended blade of the utility knife up into the father’s upper half. He felt the blade slip in easily, but the man did not stop. Books rained about them.
Jed collapsed, his head slammed against the staircase.
Michael was still on his knees. How easy it would be to just remain there and let things play out. To let the inevitable happen. What’s worth fighting for any more, anyway? He had seen things that would scar him forever, if there even were hopes
of a forever.
Sixteen
Wes’s attacker raised a bloodied hand into the air. It whistled as it descended. Wes didn’t feel the blade slip inside his cheek and snap against his gums. He didn’t know that the blade remained there when the man pulled the utility knife away.
Wes reached past the books on the carpet towards the shotgun instead. His fingers latched on to the barrel and wrapped around the trigger. He pulled it up, but the bastard on his stomach caught the blur of movement and blocked the gun with his forearm.
An explosion of light and sound; a hole opened up in the ceiling. A huge cloud of plaster dust wafted over them.
The helix in-curve rim of Jack’s external ear disappeared, the wound almost cauterized by the incredible heat. His hand shot up to the side of his face, felt the part of him that was missing and yelled.
Wes dropped the now useless, empty gun. He started throwing punches.
Michael snapped from his reverie. The sound of the gun going off was a bullet through his brain, severing rationality from fear and fear from emotion. Now there was only adrenalin. Go now! He leapt to his feet.
Jack and the father rolled towards the front door. The curtains continued to fly in the wind. Licks of lighting threw bursts of silver light into the window. Thunder followed almost immediately, so vicious it shook the entire house. The hail had stopped and the rain was petering off.
The front door wasn’t an option. Jack and the father were fighting there. He pivoted, seeing the only other exit in the room, apart from the staircase. The door to the kitchen.
He flew across the room, dove over scattered books. Michael slammed against the sliding door, felt it heave against his weight. It tore from its runners and bent in the middle, a snapping sound amid the chaos and cartoon boings-and-donks from the television. His fingers grabbed at the handle and pulled. It wouldn’t open. Stuck. He forced his fingers into the gap. It was a cruel parody of the bus door after the car had slammed into it. He pulled hard and the door tore away with ease.
