by Weston Ochse
He threw himself to the carpet and pulled himself along. The nubs of his legs pushed as best they could, but as slick as they were with scar tissue, found little purchase. He found himself puffing and hyperventilating.
He made the wall. Hunching and squirming, he managed a sitting position. As he reached for the windowsill, he tried to remain calm. He’d beaten his demon. He was no longer afraid of Bernie or of the cross. Hadn’t he managed to drive to where that little boy had been dying and take him to a hospital? A Catholic hospital, nonetheless? So what was the big deal about a burning cross? Maxom calmed a little as reality held his old demons at bay with a shotgun.
He pulled himself up and peeked over the window sill. Twenty feet away a cross burned. In the evil halo of the cross’s glow stood five figures wearing the uniform of hatred. White sheets. Pointed hats. Shadowy eyeholes. Maxom heard the cackle of the flames. He heard laughter and remembered—the Vietnamese, the nurses, Bernie on his cross calling him to hell as if Maxom were a dog. Heeeerrreee, Nigger nigger nigger. Come here, boy. Come on.
For the second time that evening his astral self shot out of its host. Panicked as he was, he knew he had to stop them. It was either that or he’d go insane or he’d die. As fast as he’d departed, he merged with the first spark of life he saw that wasn’t human.
Suddenly, Maxom found himself three inches tall, long blades of grass blurring as he sped across the ground to the nearest tree. His conjoined mind was jerked a thousand different directions as fear and impulses guided his direction. What seemed like a straight shot became a series of frenetic jerks and spins as the creature maneuvered whimsically.
He was not within the haughty simplicity of a bird, no. It only took a few seconds before Maxom realized he’d descended into the mind of a squirrel—truly, one of God’s most possessed and psychotic creatures. The squirrel stared momentarily at the burning cross. Through the filter of the animal’s vision, it was less than terrible, even bearable. Yet even the squirrel shuddered at the sight, its tail flicking violently.
The cross was a towering immolation that split the night sky like a raw red scar, separating the world of the small creature into a left and a right. Each was equally mysterious in the darkness of the night, the only danger the spreading rent in the universe. Sparks popped free from the wood as sap superheated and sent small flares to the ground. Several spots in the yard were already smoking, as if the earth had split and hell had come home.
Maxom fought desperately to gain control of the squirrel’s mind. As it was, he found himself fighting the convoluted logic. At times he was almost in agreement with the creature’s incessant need for food, gauging the prospect of things edible and inedible, of things that could cause life or encourage death and all the degrees in between. Even now, an acorn lay a dozen feet closer to the conflagration and he felt the squirrel’s mind ticking off possible scenarios as it crept towards probable death—all for the want of a nut.
Clamping down hard on the squirrel’s mind, Maxom sent a single thought forward in an attempt to establish control. The squirrel screamed—the sound like a human child abandoned and in agony. The unceasing hunger shut down as did all rational thought. Suddenly, all Maxom could do was hold on as the psychotic rodent shifted into hyperactive overdrive and shot towards the fire. Raging in the face of the intense heat and a thousand possible deaths, it vaulted into the air, landing on the back of one of the dancing men.
The squirrel’s claws dug in and rent flesh. The man spun immediately, hands seeking the source of the pain, but the squirrel had latched itself right between the shoulder blades and was unreachable. The man spun and spun as the squirrel screamed, until finally, in one last wobbly twist, they both crashed to the ground.
The squirrel jumped free before the man could regain his feet and sought another target. One was running away, another seemed about ready to bolt and two stared uncertainly. If one of them had a shotgun under their robes, he and the squirrel were dead.
But that didn’t matter. This was life and death. He felt the rocky determination of the squirrel as it stared down the three upright creatures. It struck the figure on the left, front claws gripping the face, scraping and ripping. The man screamed and ran. Maxom and the squirrel fought to jump free, but its right foreleg was caught in the fabric of the hood.
Finally, the squirrel managed to free its leg and leapt free. Just in time, it watched as the man ran smack into the side of Maxom’s house where he bounced, hit the ground, and lay still.
The squirrel spun, ready to do battle yet again, but the yard was now empty. Maxom left the squirrel. Floating free, he noticed the bright spark of the figure upon the ground.
Good. The bastard wasn’t dead.
As Maxom rejoined his own body, he thought of a hundred things he would do to the man who’d dared to burn the cross.
CHAPTER 9
Saturday—June 16th
Ooltewah, Tennessee
Pain. Then pressure. Then more pain, stretching on towards agony. Danny gritted his teeth and whimpered softly. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from crying out. Tears squeezed free from the seams of his eyelids. He brought his hand up. Each of the twin marks carved by the squirrel was its own river of fire, erupting with fresh pain as his finger traced their lengths. His forehead throbbed with every heartbeat.
His thoughts were dull. Memories that should be fresh were hazy. His head felt as if it was twice its normal size—a pumpkin perched upon a too thin neck.
Danny concentrated on ridding himself of the buzzing noise in his ears. He turned his head slightly to the left and was suddenly able to hear better. The buzzing became the voice of his father.
“—if need be. One thing’s for sure, he isn’t an Einstein but he’s always been a hard worker.”
His father’s voice was joined by another, this one less recognizable.
“Not sure if…buzzbuzzbuzz…never had a young man… buzzbuzzbuzz…cooperate more.”
“I think you’re right, Mr. Phinxs. I appreciate you not pressing any charges. And as I promised, I’ll have him over every morning from here on in.”
“Then that’ll…buzzbuzzbuzz…pain in the ass.”
The voices drew closer.
“Is he awake?”
“I think so, he—”
And the effort to stay conscious became too much as Danny succumbed to the dark.
CHAPTER 10
Monday—June 18th
Chattanooga, Tennessee
“Daniel, wake up.”
“Hunnnnh—”
“Danny. It’s time to get up.”
Cracking open an eyelid, Danny spotted his mother standing in the doorway. By the set of her jaw and the whiteness of her pinched lips, he could tell she was still angry. His Dad had told her the entire shameful story yesterday and she’d fumed as he’d never seen her fume before. He’d felt sorry for it. She’d already lost a daughter. She was losing a husband. And all he’d done was make things worse. But was it really his fault? He’d been forced to take matters into his own hands only because nobody else would do anything. If only they’d listened to him. If only they’d realized how guilty the crazy black bastard was, then maybe all the crimes would be solved.
His sister’s disappearance…
Bergen’s assault…
Danny pulled his pillow tightly against his head and moved into a protective ball, his frustration sending him back into the comfortability of dreamland…if only, if only, if only, if only, if only, if only…
“Daniel! It’s time!”
Dr. Deeter, who’d been his doctor since he’d been five years old and received his first stitches, had come to the house yesterday afternoon and checked him over. The doctor had been angry at first. Not because of the house call—Dr. Deeter was about to retire and had only a small handful of patients left. His was the old way where people were more important than what type of insurance they had. What the Doctor had been angry about was the fact that Danny hadn’t been taken t
o the hospital. His father had made excuses, but Danny knew the real reason. He’d heard his mother and father arguing about it. A hospital meant questions and questions meant answers. And there were some explanations that Danny’s parents did not want to give. Like, for instance, that their son had been injured while in the act of a Hate Crime.
Still, the doctor had told his father that Danny should be in the hospital. “Boy needs a CT scan,” he’d said. “No telling what’s scrambled up in there. Stick your tongue out, boy. How long you say he was out?”
“Well, he’s been in and out for a while, but from the moment I got the phone call from his friend Doug to the time I got to where he was wasn’t but thirty minutes. So right around there.”
“Well, if it’d been more than an hour, I’d be real worried. Stick your tongue back out and smile this time.”
Danny obeyed the command, but the effort brought fresh tears to his eyes as the freshly clotted wound threatened to reopen. To make matters worse, as if things could get worse, Dr. Deeter pressed firmly on the area of Danny’s forehead that had been injured.
“No need to jump like that. Just checking for crepitus, for a cracked skull, but you seem to have as hard a head as your Father. Looks like you did fine.” The Doctor pulled an opthalmoscope from his jacket pocket and turned it on. Shining the light in Danny’s eyes, he continued his dialogue. “Also checking for swelling on the optic nerve just to make sure no scrambling went on there. Nope. Looks good. A small bit of swelling, but that’s to be expected.” Winking, he added, “Next time you want to chop down a tree, I’d use an axe. Appears to have been an oak, by the pattern on your forehead.”
Danny actually found that funny and thought about smiling.
Then the doctor continued his exam, bringing out the small hammer to check his reflexes. Everything seemed okay, but Dr. Deeter told his parents to be sure to wake him up every two hours. Danny had thought it was over then, but he couldn’t have been more wrong. Things suddenly got worse than he’d ever anticipated.
The doctor had gone on and on about how he couldn’t be sure if the squirrel had been rabid or not, but by Danny’s description of its actions, it sure seemed that way. So, based on a definite lack of knowledge, the doctor produced a syringe from his old fashioned black bag.
“You know, we used to give these in the stomach with a foot long needle. Used to be real hard on folks. Things have really gotten a lot better, I think.”
Danny didn’t think so.
Sure, the doctor had spared his stomach, but he’d been stuck in the arm, first with a tetanus shot and then with a syringe full of Rabies Immune Globulin, the thick fluid like lead in his muscle, heavy and burning. Finally, as if the doctor was a master of torture instead of a master of medicine, the man had commanded Danny’s parents to hold the boy down while the Doctor injected more of the vaccine directly into the wounds.
* * *
“Daniel! I said get your butt out of bed. If I have to tell you again, it will not be with words.”
Both of his eyes shot open. He sat up, muscles he didn’t even know he had begging him to stop. Seeing that he was finally awake, his mother turned and headed up the stairs.
Danny stepped onto the cold tile of the bathroom floor and turned on the light. His hair shot every which way. His lids drooped from the tension and exhaustion of the two previous days. He’d never have guessed that pain was so hard to bear. Then again, he’d never been hurt so badly before. A few stitches here and there, a sprained ankle, bruised and battered knees.
He stared at his face in the mirror fighting back tears. The scratches were deep and oozed a green-brown puss. Parallel lines, about an inch apart, ran from the outside edge of his eyebrow to the curve of his jaw. The squirrel had barely missed scratching his eye out and carving a slice from his lip. Danny was finding it very difficult to believe it would heal without a scar, no matter what Dr. Deeter said.
* * *
Ooltewah, Tennessee
Danny stood on the small raised porch of the Maggot Man’s house. His mother and father had refused to listen. They’d ignored everything he’d said, instead throwing the shame of his act back into his face. Any attempt to defend himself caused a redoubling of their condemnation until even he’d understood this was a battle he couldn’t win.
They’d refused to call it punishment. They’d called it re-education. As his mother had ladled chicken noodle soup into him the previous night, his father had sat at the foot of his bed and explained their decision.
The fault was theirs. The fault was Doug’s. The fault belonged to the entire South. The fault was his own for not listening and not understanding. The age of the Klu Klux Klan had come and gone. Where once there was a small few who allowed their existence, now even the most diehard racist was scared to be named a member.
Blacks were equal to whites. His parents detailed the civil rights movement of the forties, fifties and sixties. Danny received remedial training on Martin Luther King. He learned of Selma. His father dragged out a Time-Life Photo Book and showed pictures of German Shepherds attacking young black children. One photo in particular would stay with him forever—a black boy about his age chained to a telephone pole, the chain so tight it had punctured the body.
Danny tried to explain, to show he wasn’t prejudiced, but they ignored him. Then, when he thought the worst of it was over, they explained their plan. He was to work for the Maggot Man, or Mr. Phinxs as they called him. He was to spend six hours a day there, six days a week, until school started up again. He was to clean and serve. Trying to explain that what they were making him do was the same as slavery brought a snort of derision from his father and a slap from his mom.
They just wouldn’t listen. So if they wouldn’t listen to him, he’d have to prove that he was right. Somewhere, somehow, he’d get that proof. He’d certainly seen enough movies to know that in the end, all Evil Masterminds felt a need to tell their story—to lord over all their conquests. So, in his backpack, Danny had put a tape recorder he’d taken from the top shelf of his sister’s closet. On one side of the tape was a recording of his sister trying to sing, her normally firm voice, tentative and struggling. He felt he should save it. As far as he knew, it was the only record of her voice and in the end, it would mean so much to his mom and father. So he used the other side, which was blank and just waiting for criminal evidence.
He smiled at the symmetry of his plan. His sister was helping him get the man who’d taken her. Buoyed, Danny knocked on the door.
Two minutes later as he was turning to go, the door creaked open. An eyeball peered at him from an opaque gloom. Danny stared back, mustering courage he didn’t know he had. Finally the eye disappeared and the door opened wide revealing a dark, musty room where shadow merged easily with furniture.
“Come in,” said the Maggot Man. Truly ugly, the man stepped back, his movements awkward. The metal leg extensions made him appear insect-like.
Danny stepped inside. He seriously doubted he’d find a book lying on the table titled Maggot Man’s Great Grand Evil Plan, but he needed to keep his eyes open. The proof could be anything—maybe he’d find a trap door or hidden spaces between the walls. Maybe his sister was still within the house, waiting to be rescued.
Danny halted in the middle of the room. All he had to do was be brave. The Maggot Man scared him and he wasn’t embarrassed to say so. But the bastard would be a fool to do anything to him, now. Both his parents knew where he was and what he was doing.
The Maggot Man slammed the door and stalked to within inches of where Danny stood. He hovered like a hungry mantis. Danny suddenly felt cold standing in the middle of the long dark room.
“Glad you could make it, boy. You and me, we’re gonna have a lot of fun.”
* * *
“You just gonna sit there like a bump on a log or are you gonna get up and make yourself useful.”
For an hour, Danny had been sitting on the couch with the backpack in his lap waiting for the Maggot
Man to leave the room. Much to his chagrin, however, the Maggot Man had pulled out a kitchen chair and sat staring back at Danny. And there they’d sat, like two cats waiting for the other to make a move.
“I’m talking to you, boy.”
Danny thought of a hundred things to say, none of them very nice. Instead of replying, he merely sat there staring at the way the light from the window played on the speckles of dust floating in the room.
“Fine. You just sit your skinny ass there on my couch all day long and when your daddy comes to pick you up and he asks me how you done, I’ll tell him the truth.”
“You won’t.”
“Won’t what? Tell your daddy?”
“Yes,” said Danny. Although, he was unable to meet the man’s gaze, riding the wave of his own anger allowed him to say what he had been holding back. “You don’t want people to know the truth. If they did, you’d be in jail. Or worse, dead.”
“What?”
Danny grinned. “That’s right. I know what you did. We all do—me and the other boys. Even Bergen knows. He’s still alive, you know. It didn’t work.”
Danny watched with glee as the Maggot Man shook his head as if he could shake the guilt away. Then, just as suddenly, the man stopped. The lines of confusion tightened and became anger. The Maggot Man leaned forward his voice low and mean.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing boy, but I don’t like it.”
Danny glanced from the door to the window, attempting to gauge which exit was the closest. He wondered how badly he’d be hurt if he dove through the window, because it looked as if that was his only hope for escape. The door meant he had to run right past the Maggot Man. Danny was sure he could outrun the ungainly cripple, but the man had a long arm; long enough to reach out and grab him before he was able to escape.
