Through the long night I pressed on, but by morning I could feel my artificial strength ebbing. Noon brought once more the insistent call of the contaminating curse, and I knew I must fall by the way unless I could once more experience that exotic intoxication that came only with the proximity of the loved dead. I had travelled in a wide semicircle. If I pushed steadily ahead, midnight would bring me to the cemetery where I had laid away my parents years before. My only hope, I felt certain, lay in reaching this goal before I was overtaken. With silent prayer to the devils that dominated my destiny I turned leaden feet in the direction of my last stronghold.
God! Can it be that a scant twelve hours have passed since I started for my ghostly sanctuary? I have lived an eternity in each leaden hour. But I have reached a rich reward. The noxious odours of this neglected spot are frankincense to my suffering soul!
The first streaks of dawn are greying the horizon. They are coming! My sharp ears can catch the far-off howling of the dogs! It is but a matter of minutes before they find me and shut me away forever from the rest of the world, to spend my days in ravaging yearnings till at last I join the dead I love!
They shall not take me! A way of escape is open! A coward’s choice, perhaps, but better – far better – than endless months of nameless misery. I will leave this record behind me that some soul may perhaps understand why I make this choice.
The razor! It has nestled forgotten in my pocket since my flights from Bayboro. Its blood-stained blade gleams oddly in the waning light of the thin-edged moon. One slashing stroke across my left wrist and deliverance is assured.…
Warm, fresh blood spatters grotesque patterns on dingy, decrepit slabs … phantasmal hordes swarm over the rotting graves … spectral fingers beckon me … ethereal fragments of unwritten melodies rise in celestial crescendo … distant stars dance drunkenly in demoniac accompaniment … a thousand tiny hammers beat hideous dissonances on anvils inside my chaotic brain … grey ghosts of slaughtered spirits parade in mocking silence before me … scorched tongues of invisible flame sear the brand of Hell upon my sickened soul … I can – write – no – more.…
The Idol of the Flies
Jane Rice
Pruitt watched a fly on the corner of the table. He held himself very still. The fly cleaned its wings with short, back-stroke motions of its legs. It looked, Pruitt thought, like Crippled Harry – cook’s husband. He hated Crippled Harry. He hated him almost as much as he hated Aunt Mona. But he hated Miss Bittner most of all.
He lifted his head and bared his teeth at the nape of Miss Bittner’s neck. He hated the way she stood there erasing the blackboard in great, sweeping circles. He hated the way her shoulder blades poked out. He hated the big horn comb thrust into her thin hair – thrust not quite far enough – so that some of the hair flapped. And he hated the way she arranged it around her sallow face and low on her neck, to conceal the little button that nestled in one large-lobed ear. The button and the narrow black cord that ran down the back of her dress under her starched collar.
He liked the button and the cord. He liked them because Miss Bittner hated them. She pretended she didn’t care about being deaf. But she did. And she pretended she liked him. But she didn’t.
He made her nervous. It was easy. All he had to do was open his eyes wide and stare at her without batting. It was delightfully simple. Too simple. It wasn’t fun any more. He was glad he had found out about the flies.
Miss Bittner placed the eraser precisely in the centre of the blackboard runnel, dusted her hands and turned towards Pruitt. Pruitt opened his eyes quite wide and gimleted her with unblinking stare.
Miss Bittner cleared her throat nervously. ‘That will be all, Pruitt. Tomorrow we will begin on derivatives.’
‘Yes, Miss Bittner,’ Pruitt said loudly, meticulously forming the words with his lips.
Miss Bittner flushed. She straightened the collar of her dress. ‘Your aunt said you might take a swim.’
‘Yes, Miss Bittner.’
‘Good afternoon, Pruitt. Tea at five.’
‘Yes, Miss Bittner. Good afternoon, Miss Bittner.’ Pruitt lowered his gaze to a point three inches below Miss Bittner’s knees. He allowed a faint expression of controlled surprise to wrinkle his forehead.
Involuntarily, Miss Bittner glanced down. Quick as a flash, Pruitt swept his hand across the table and scooped up the fly. When Miss Bittner again raised her head, Pruitt was regarding her blandly. He arose.
‘There’s some lemonade on top of the back porch icebox. Can I have some?’
‘May I have some, Pruitt.’
‘May I have some?’
‘Yes, Pruitt, you may.’
Pruitt crossed the room to the door.
‘Pruitt …’
Pruitt stopped, swivelled slowly on his heel and stared unwinkingly at his tutor. ‘Yes, Miss Bittner?’
‘Let’s remember not to slam the screen door, shall we? It disturbs your auntie, you know.’ Miss Bittner twitched her pale lips into what she mistakenly believed was the smile of a friendly conspirator.
Pruitt gazed at her steadily. ‘Yes, Miss Bittner.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Clara Bittner with false heartiness.
‘Is that all, Miss Bittner,’
‘Yes, Pruitt.’
Pruitt, without relaxing his basilisk-like contemplation of his unfortunate tutor, counted up to twelve, then he turned and left the room.
Clara Bittner looked at the empty doorway a long while and then she shuddered. Had she been pressed for an explanation of that shudder she couldn’t have given a satisfactory answer. In all probability, she would have said, with a vague conciliatory gesture, ‘I don’t know. I think, perhaps, it’s a bit difficult for a child to warm up to a teacher.’ And, no doubt, she would have added brightly, ‘the psychology of the thing, you know.’
Miss Bittner was a staunch defender of psychology. She had taken a summer course in it – ten years ago – and had, as she was fond of repeating, received the highest grades in the class. It never occurred to Miss Bittner that this was due to her aptitude at memorizing whole paragraphs and being able to transpose these on to her test papers without ever having digested the kernels of thought contained therein.
Miss Bittner stooped and unlaced one Oxford. She breathed a sigh of relief. She sat erect, pulled down the back of her dress and then felt with her fingertips the rubbery, black cord dangling against her neck. Miss Bittner sighed again. A buzzing at one of the windows claimed her attention.
She went to a cupboard which yielded up a wire fly swatter. Grasping this militantly, she strode to the window, drew back, closed her eyes, and swatted. The fly, badly battered, dropped to the floor and lay still on its wings, its legs curled.
She unhooked the screen and with the end of the swatter delicately urged the corpse outside.
‘Ugh,’ said Miss Bittner. And had Miss Bittner been pressed for an explanation of that ugh she, likewise, would have been at a loss for a satisfactory answer. It was strange how she felt about flies. They affected her much as rattlesnakes would have. It wasn’t that they were germy, or that their eyes were a reddish orange and, so she had heard, reflected everything in the manner of prisms; it wasn’t that they had the odious custom of regurgitating a drop of their last meal before beginning on a new one; it wasn’t the crooked hairy legs, nor the probing proboscis; it was – well, it was just the creatures themselves. Possibly, Miss Bittner might have said, simpering to show that she really didn’t mean it, ‘I have flyophobia.’
The truth was, she did. She was afraid of them. Deathly afraid. As some people are afraid of enclosed areas, as others are afraid of height, so Miss Bittner was afraid of flies. Childishly, senselessly, but horribly, afraid.
She returned the swatter to the cupboard and forthwith scrubbed her hands thoroughly at the sink. It was odd, she thought, how many flies she had encountered lately. It almost seemed as if someone were purposely diverting a channel of flies her way. She smiled to hersel
f at this foolish whimsy, wiped her hands and tidied her hair. Now, for some of that lemonade. She was pleased that Pruitt had mentioned it. If he hadn’t, she might not have known it was there and she did so love lemonade.
Pruitt stood at the head of the stairwell. He worked his jaws convulsively, then he pursed his mouth, leaned far over the polished banister and spat. The globule of spittle elongated into a pear-shaped tear and flattened with a wet smack on the floor below.
Pruitt went on down the stairs. He could feel the fly bumbling angrily in its hot, moist prison. He put his tightly curled hand to his lips and blew into the tunnel made by his thumb and forefinger. The fly clung for dear life to his creased palm.
At the foot of the stairs Pruitt paused long enough to squeeze each one of the tiny green balls on the ends of the fern that was potted in an intricate and artistic copper holder. Then he went through a hallway into the kitchen.
‘Give me a glass,’ he said to the ample-bosomed woman who sat on a stool cracking nuts and putting them into a glass bowl. The woman heaved herself to her feet.
‘“Please” won’t hurt you,’ the woman said.
‘I don’t have to to say “please” to you. You’re the help.’
The cook put her hands on her hips. ‘What you need is a thrashing,’ she said grimly. ‘A good, sound thrashing.’
By way of reply, Pruitt snatched the paper sack of cracked shells and deliberately up-ended the bag into the bowl of nuts. The woman made a futile grab. Her heavy face grew suffused with a wave of rich colour. She opened her hand and brought it up in a swinging arc.
Pruitt planted his feet firmly on the linoleum and said low, ‘I’ll scream. You know what that’ll do to aunt.’
The woman held her hand poised so for a second and then let it fall to her aproned side. ‘You brat,’ she hissed. ‘You sneaking, pink-eyed brat.’
‘Give me a glass.’
The woman reached up on a shelf of the cabinet, took down a glass and wordlessly handed it to the boy.
‘I don’t want that one,’ Pruitt said, ‘I want that one.’
He pointed to the glass’s identical twin on the topmost shelf.
Silently, the woman padded across the floor and pushed a short kitchen ladder over to the cabinet. Silently, she climbed it. Silently, she handed down the designated glass.
Pruitt accepted it. ‘I’m going to tell Aunt Mona you took your shoes off.’
The woman climbed down the ladder, put it away and returned to the bowl.
‘Harry is a dirty you-know-what,’ Pruitt said.
The woman went on lifting out the nut shells.
‘He stinks.’
The woman went on lifting out the nut shells.
‘So do you,’ finished Pruitt. He waited.
The woman went on lifting out the nut shells.
The boy took his glass and repaired to the back porch. It spoiled the fun when they didn’t talk back. Cook was ‘on to’ him. But she wouldn’t complain. Aunt Mona let them stay through the winter rent free with nobody but themselves to see to and Harry was a cripple and couldn’t make a living. She wouldn’t dare complain.
Pruitt lifted the pitcher of lemonade from the lid of the ice-box and poured himself a glassful. He drank half of it and let the rest dribble along a crack, holding the glass close to the floor so it wouldn’t make a trickling noise. When it dried it would be sweet and sticky. Lots of flies.
He relaxed his hand ever so slightly and dexterously extricated his shop-worn captive. It hummed furiously. Pruitt pulled off one of its wings and dropped the mutilated insect into the lemonade. It kicked ineffectually, was quiet, kicked again, and was quiet – drifting on the surface of the liquid, sagging to one side, its remaining wing outstretched like a useless sail.
The boy caught it and pushed it under. ‘I christen you Miss Bittner,’ he said. He released his hold and the fly popped to the top – a piece of lemon pulp on its back. It kicked again – feebly – and was quiet.
Pruitt replaced the lemonade and opened the screen door. He pulled it so that the spring twanged protestingly. He let go and leaped down the steps. The door came to with a mighty bang behind him. That was the finish of Aunt Mona’s nap.
He crouched on his haunches and listened. A cloud floated across the sun. A butterfly teetered uncertainly on a waxy leaf, and fluttered away following an erratic air-trail of its own. A June bug drummed through the warm afternoon, its armoured belly a shiny bottle-green streak in the sunlight. Pruitt crumbled the cone of an anthill and watched the excited manoeuvres of its inhabitants.
There was the slow drag of footsteps somewhere above – the opening of a shutter. Pruitt grinned. His ears went up and back with the broadness of it. Cook would puff up two flights of stairs ‘out of the goodness of her heart’, Aunt Mona said – ‘out of dumbness’, if you asked him. Why’nt she let ‘Miss Mona’ fill her own bloody ice bag? There’d be time to go in and mix the nut shells up again. But no, he might run into Miss Bittner beating a thirsty course to the lemonade. She might guess about the fly. Besides he’d dallied too long as it was. He had business to attend to. Serious business.
He got up, stretched, scrunched his heel on the anthill and walked away in the direction of the bath-house.
Twice he halted to shy stones at a plump robin and once he froze into a statue as there was a movement in the path before him. His quick eyes fastened on a toad squatting in the dust, its bulgy sides going in and out, in and out. in and out, like a miniature bellows. Stealthily Pruitt broke off a twig. In and out, in and out, in and out. Pruitt eased forward. In and out, in and out, in and out. He could see its toes spread far apart, the dappling of spots on its cool, froggy skin. In and out, in and out, the leg muscles tensed as the toad prepared to make another hop. Pantherlike, Pruitt leaped, his hand descending. The toad emitted an agonized squeaking scream.
Pruitt stood up and looked at the toad with amusement. The twig protruded from its sloping back. In and out, in and out went the toad’s sides. In – and out, in – and out. It essayed an unstable hop, leaving a darkish stain in its wake. Again it hopped. The twig remained staunchly upright. The third hop was shorter. Barely its own length. Pruitt nosed it over into the grass with his shoe. In – and – out went the toad’s sides. In – and – out, in – and – out, in.…
Pruitt walked on.
The crippled man, mending his fishing net on the wooden pier, sensed his approaching footsteps. With as much haste as his wracked spine would permit, the man got to his feet. Pruitt heard the scrambling and quickened his pace.
‘Hello,’ he said innocently.
The man bobbed his head. ‘’Do, Mr Pruitt.’
‘Mending your nets?’
‘Yes, Mr Pruitt.’
‘I guess the dock is a good place to do it.’
‘Yes, Mr Pruitt.’ The man licked his tongue across his lips and his eyes made rapid sorties to the right and left, as if seeking a means of escape.
Pruitt scraped his shoe across the wooden planking. ‘Excepting that it gets fish scales all over everything,’ he said softly, ‘and I don’t like fish scales.’
The man’s Adam’s apple jerked up and down as he swallowed thrice in rapid succession. He wiped his hands on his pants.
‘I said I don’t like fish scales.’
‘Yes, Mr Pruitt, I didn’t mean to –’
‘So I guess maybe I’d better fix it so there won’t be any fish scales any more.’
‘Mr Pruitt, please, I didn’t –’ His voice petered out as the boy picked up a corner of the net.
‘Not ever any more fish scales,’ said Pruitt.
‘Don’t pull it,’ the man begged, ‘it’ll snag on the dock.’
‘I won’t snag it,’ Pruitt said; ‘I wouldn’t snag it for anything.’ He smiled at Harry. ‘Because if I just snagged it, you’d just mend it again and then there’d be more fish scales, and I don’t like fish scales.’ Bunching the net in his fists, he dragged it to the edge of the dock. ’
So I’ll just throw it in the water and then I guess there won’t be any more fish scales.’
Harry’s jaw went slack with shocked disbelief. ‘Mr Pruitt …’ he began.
‘Like this,’ said Pruitt. He held the net out at arm’s length over the pier and relinquished his clasp.
With an inarticulate cry the man threw himself awkwardly on the planking in a vain attempt to retrieve his slowly vanishing property.
‘Now there won’t be any more fish scales,’ Pruitt said. ‘Not ever any more.’
Harry hefted himself to his knees. His face was white. For one dull, weighted minute he looked at his tormentor. Then he struggled to his feet and limped away without a word.
Pruitt considered his deformed posture with the eye of a connoisseur. ‘Harry is a hunchback,’ he sang after him in a lilting childish treble. ‘Harry is a hunchback, Harry is a hunchback.’
The man limped on, one shoulder dipping sharply with each successive step, his coarse shirt stretched over his misshapen back. A bend in the path hid him from view.
Pruitt pushed open the door of the bathhouse and went inside. He closed the door behind him and bolted it. He waited until his eyes had become accustomed to the semi-gloom, whereupon he went over to a cot against the wall, lifted up its faded chintz spread, felt underneath and pulled out two boxes. He sat down and delved into their contents.
Cries of Terror Page 10
