Paper Tigers

by Damien Angelica Walters

  When she sliced the front door in two, a discordant ring sounded, dying as the paper separated. She set the scissors down. Flexed her stiff fingers.

  The pages rustled, lifted, and separated. Color burst forth, the tiger discarding its sepia cloak to show her so much more. Voices swirled. Whispers, pleas, begging, hatred. The growl of the tiger.

  And the photos:

  Rachel, her arms outstretched, bloody stumps gaping like red mouths with white bone screams tucked inside. The smell of copper bright metallic.

  “Please help me.”

  Thomas on the floor, a crawling, pitiful thing. A reek of human waste, a broken heart, and regret.

  “Alison?”

  Madeline, curled in a bed, her mouth parted in seduction, her limbs gnarled and twisted. The scent of lust and sweaty flesh.

  “I was first.”

  Josephine, a wraith, her bones clearly defined beneath her skin. A foul odor of vomit.

  “I’ll eat this time, I promise I will.”

  And more:

  Edmund, on the floor, blood leaking from his mouth, a poisonous stink seeping from his pores.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Eleanor in a bundle of mangled limbs at the bottom of the staircase. A woman weeping salt tears of sorrow.

  “Someone call the doctor!”

  Elizabeth, marble pale and still, in her tiny bed. A dark cloud of illness and despair beneath a powdery hint of talc.

  “Mommy?”

  William, on his back in a small cradle, his fists making frantic circles in the air.

  No words, only the pitiful sounds of choking.

  And Mary, a circlet of bruises around her neck, a stuffed bear at her side.

  “George, no. Stop. Please stop. You’re hurting me.”

  The house, grey and shadowed. Old boxes in damp rooms.

  “Come back.”

  The house, burned and broken. Charred wood and heavy smoke.

  “Come back.”

  The last photo—the clock. Spiderwebs nearly covering its face. The wood scratched. The glass cracked.

  “COME BACK! COME BACK NOW!”

  And underneath it all, the stink of mildew, rot, and decay.

  A chorus of children’s voices rang out, sweetly singing, far off in the distance. “One, two, three, tigers at a time, four, five, six, tigers in a line, seven, eight nine, stripes in the night, and when it’s ten, the tigers bite!”

  Alison picked up the scissors again, her smile a lunatic’s grin. Blisters erupted on her skin. Blood dripped on the counter and the floor and turned the handles of the scissors slick as the blades tore at the pages and cut away the faces, the smells, the voices, the tiger’s low, rumbling growl.

  And when she finally lifted the scissors away again, the cover lay open. An eviscerated paper corpse, its pages a pile of ruin.

  “I got you.”

  She put the scissors back in the drawer, bloody handles and all, grabbed a knife, and started on the cover, gouging and digging. A tendril of grey rose, hovered in the air, then sputtered out, leaving behind the stink of smoke and char. The knife slid and bit back into her skin, but of course she didn’t feel it (no feeling, no feeling at all for the Monstergirl), and she ignored the blood that dripped down onto the paper.

  She slashed and stabbed hard enough to leave marks in the counter beneath, raising her hand high and bringing it down and down, over and over again, each movement punctuated with “got you, got you, got you” until she’d reduced the cover to shreds of cracked leather and cardboard. She dropped the knife into the sink and held her aching hand, all swollen and red with a gaping wet mouth in the center of her palm, close to her chest, ignoring the blood spattering her shirt and the stink of sweat pushing out from her skin. She laughed until tears poured down her cheek, and when the laughter wound down to a hiccup, she fought against specks of light dancing in her vision, and wrapped paper towels around her hand. Roses bloomed on the white, and a throbbing sensation, not quite pain, hummed underneath her skin. Another wave of dizziness hit; a sharp stab of nausea sent her leaning over the sink, breathing through her mouth until it passed. She splashed cold water on her face, and the paper towels on her hand became a soggy pink mitten. Then she grinned at the chaos on her counter.

  I did it. I really did it. I destroyed it.

  You annihilated it, Red said. And was Red smiling? Yes, indeed, grinning a cherry ice cream smile with all her might. And useless Purple, the voice of fear?

  Gone again.

  Alison swept some of the pieces into a trash bag and knotted it tight. More pieces went into another bag and more still into another. She ended up with five bags, all tied tight. Her kitchen reeked of blood, sweat, and vile.

  Unwrapping her hand, she poked at the wound. Possibly, probably, deep enough for stitches, but she had peroxide and butterfly bandages. They’d have to do. But later. She had more important things to take care of first.

  She shed her robe for a coat, boot, and gloves, knotted a scarf under her chin and headed out her back door with the bags hoisted over one shoulder. She kept her steps light as she went through the back gate. At the end of the alley, she deposited a bag in someone’s yard, replacing the trash can’s lid as quietly as possible. She crossed into another alley, picked another yard at random, and disposed of the second bag. The third went into a trash can a block away, and as she lowered the lid, a door opened in a nearby house and out darted a small, barking ball of fluff. She dropped the lid and retreated into the shadows.

  The fourth went into a dumpster behind the café where she’d lunched with her mother. Cold and tired, with her nose running and eye watering, Alison carried the last at her side until she came upon a pile, some split and leaking their contents of waste and rot, at the end of yet another alley.

  “I got you,” she said, and a gust of wind carried her voice away, out into the night.

  CHAPTER 22

  Come cry, child.

  Alison pecked out the words on her keyboard and flexed her hands. Dried blood crusted the wound on her palm; butterfly bandages held the edges together. She smiled, not minding the way the skin stretched. Her new poetry held a different flavor. A little more hope. A little less self-pity.

  Tick.

  Her brow creased. Her fingers hovered over the keys. The tiny noise did not return. She added a few more lines to her poem, her fingers moving far slower than the words in her head. After she wrote the last line, she nodded and stood, rubbing away the stiffness in her lower back. A few stretches later, she took her empty glass into the kitchen, turned on the faucet, and heard the tick again.

  It didn’t sound like a laptop or house noise. It sounded like a clock, but the only clock in her kitchen was the one on the microwave and it didn’t tick. Water spilled over her hand into the sink and she fumbled for the tap while a snippet of rhyme played in her head: Hickory dickory dock. By the tick of the clock.

  The heat whooshed on. She crossed her arms over chest and let out a ragged laugh. Nothing but house noise.

  Alison was reading in bed when she heard the soft thump of footsteps. She dropped the book on her lap. The sound came again, someone in heavy shoes trying to keep his steps light.

  She fumbled on her nightstand for her phone, her mouth dry and her hands trembling. Her fingers met only the rounded edge of her alarm clock and the base of the lamp.

  The footsteps paced back and forth.

  A few months back, there’d been several break-ins in the neighborhood, but those happened during the day when the homeowners were at work. The thief hadn’t been caught, but after a time, the break-ins stopped.

  She slid out of bed. She wouldn’t stay put and wait for the thief to creep into her room. A floorboard creaked under her foot. She froze in place, but the steps didn’t change to a shout or a rush up the stairs. With tiny steps, she crept into the hallway, her fingers shaking. The switch operated both the upstairs hallway light and one in the living room.

&nbs
p; She didn’t own a gun or a baseball bat, didn’t know martial arts, and didn’t have a phone handy. The fire extinguisher hanging on the wall would work as a weapon, but she doubted she had the necessary strength. The only thing she could do was lock herself in the bathroom or her bedroom and scream, hopefully catching her neighbors’ attention. But maybe…

  Maybe they didn’t think anyone was home. Maybe they’d run away. And if not, she could get in the bathroom and lock the door before anyone could run up the stairs.

  She flipped the switch. The footsteps ceased. Then she smelled tobacco. She staggered back, shaking her head, her hand still outstretched. No, no.

  Hearing things, I’m only hearing things. No one is downstairs. No one. Not George, not anyone. And he can’t be here. He. Isn’t. Real.

  She glanced over her shoulder, toward her bedroom. No, she wouldn’t run and hide. She headed downstairs, one hand tight on the railing. By the time she hit the landing, the smell was gone.

  And her living room was empty.

  A grey smudge on the floor near the window caught her eye. An oval at one end, a line at the other. The mark of a man’s shoe? And on the windowsill, a dusty handprint, too large to be hers, with five fingers, not three. A hollow cry escaped from her lips.

  George was here.

  No, it wasn’t possible. He was a ghost, trapped inside the album, the ruined album. He could not be in her house. He could not.

  Unless he’d escaped from his paper cage. What if, by destroying the album, she’d set him free?

  She stood in her living room for a long time, her thoughts chaos and storm. Finally, she removed the marks with the edge of her sleeve.

  She could call her mother, stay with her for a few days, but what tale would she spin? She was afraid of ghosts that went bump in the night? And staying there didn’t guarantee that he would go away.

  If he was even out. Maybe she was hearing things.

  “George?” she said, her voice loud in the quiet, and if it held a tremble of fear, it was understandable given the circumstances. “If you’re here, I’m not afraid of you. Do you hear me? I’m not afraid.”

  But her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

  When her mother called three days later, Alison was sitting on the edge of the sofa, putting on her boots. Those three days had been free from the hint of tobacco, the sound of footsteps, and the death-knell of a ticking clock. Those three days also held sleeping with her bedroom door locked, her phone in one hand, jumping at every shadow, and wincing every time the heat turned on or off.

  “Hi, babygirl. It isn’t too late, is it?”

  “Not at all. I was getting ready to go for a walk.” Balancing the phone between her cheek and shoulder, Alison fastened the laces into double knots.

  “Tonight? But it’s freezing outside.”

  “I’m bundling up. Trust me.”

  “I wish…”

  “Wish what?”

  “Well, I wish you’d let me get you a cell phone. It would make—”

  “Okay.”

  “What? You’re sure?”

  “I’m not going to stop taking walks anytime soon, and while I don’t plan on falling, it would be good to have one just in case.”

  “I’ll pick one up this weekend. Is that okay?”

  “Of course. And then maybe we can talk about my birthday, if you still want to take me out to dinner, that is.”

  A long pause, then her mother asked, “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  Her mother replied with a quiet sob.

  “No crying, okay? Please?”

  “I’m just very, very proud of you.”

  “I know,” Alison said, carrying her empty mug into the kitchen. “But…” How to explain that it made it so much harder when she made a big deal out of everything without hurting her feelings?

  “I can make a reservation tomorrow. Do you want seafood or maybe steak? There’s that nice place near you that renovated and—”

  She caught a flash of movement from the corner of her eye and spun around, her mug crashing to the floor in a scatter of porcelain shards.

  “Alison, what was that? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I just dropped a mug and it broke all over the floor. Let me go and clean up this mess and we can talk more about everything later.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  Alison curled her hand tightly around the phone and her boots crunched the porcelain to powder. Nothing moved in her dining room or living room. Nothing smelled out of place, either.

  Even with her steps light, her boots made small tapping noises on the stairs. She rifled through the clothes in her bedroom closet with one hand. Checked behind the curtains. Bent on her good knee and peered underneath the bed.

  There’s no one here, my dear.

  Once sure her bedroom was empty, she shut the door. For the spare bedroom, she did the same. The closet in her hallway contained the expected sheets and towels. In the bathroom, the only place someone could hide was the bathtub, concealed behind the shower curtain.

  No one here…

  Her shower curtain, a dark navy patterned with swirls of coppery-brown, hung perfectly still. One quick glance, that’s all it would take and yet, yet, what would she do if George stood behind the curtain, a pipe in one hand, the other reaching out to grab her and take her back? She could scream all she wanted. By the time anyone came to investigate, she’d be back in Pennington House, her memories slowly slipping away, dancing through a false party of promises while her body wasted away, feeding the tiger, turning paper to real.

  …but fear, my dear.

  With a grunt, she pulled back the curtain, the hooks clattering across the metal bar, and inside, no George, no ghostly hands, only porcelain white, shampoo, and bath gel. She sagged back against the sink, breathing hard, and scrubbed her face with her hands.

  She left the shower curtain and bathroom door open when she went back downstairs. Halfway down the steps, a shadow flitted across the wall, darkening the pale paint, and as it overlapped hers, a cold chill worked its way from the back of her neck to the soles of her feet. She let out a breathy cry and held tight to the railing.

  The cold ceased as the human shaped silhouette continued further down. Alison thumped down the staircase as it swept a trail across the front wall, through her sofa, across the floor, stretching and elongating along the way.

  She took a deep breath and followed as it went into the dining room and stopped in the middle, a blur of darkness on the wood, only a foot away from the tip of her boots. With a gust of cold in its wake, the darkness raced across the floor into the kitchen, over the tile, the face of the cabinets, the edge of the counter, and down into the photo album waiting there.

  Alison came to a halt in the doorway, and her jaw went slack.

  “No, oh, no. I threw you away.”

  But there it sat, whole and waiting.

  “I destroyed you.”

  The cover flipped open with a heavy thud, a puff of grey rising from the pages. Alison covered her mouth and shrieked behind her hands. And from the album came an answering laugh, a low, rumbling chuckle. Without another thought, Alison put on her coat and fled from her house, leaving the album behind.

  The cold turned her breath to icy gasps and reddened her cheeks. She blinked back tears before they could freeze into ice pearls on her lashes. Smoke plumed from chimneys; warm yellow light peeked around curtains and blinds. Her footsteps sloshed and splashed as she limped through snowmelt turned dark from exhaust. No one walked the streets save her. She tucked her gloveless hands deep into her pockets.

  With her cheeks burning, she approached the drugstore, the same one where she’d hid in the vestibule. The OPEN sign cast red and blue lights on the pavement. She paused as the lights flashed over her boots, then pushed through the doors. The girl behind the counter didn’t even bother to look up from her magazine.

  Seeing, but not seeing, Alison wander
ed through the aisles on heavy feet turned zombie slow until she came upon a display of fireplace matches, faux quick-burning logs, and lighter fluid. Maybe scissors weren’t enough. She held out her Monstergirl hands. In the fluorescent lighting, her scars were garish, the crosshatch pattern a grisly reminder of pain, suffering, and destruction.

  No, you can’t do this. Find another way, anything but this.

  She extended a hand.

  There is no other way. This way, you’ll be sure. Fire destroys.

  The matches rattled inside the box. “It destroys everything,” she said. She turned the box over in her hand and an orange and black striped cat’s face peered back from atop the brand name—Tiger Matches. A portent or random coincidence? She choked back a laugh and took two bottles of lighter fluid from the shelf. It didn’t matter. The name was fitting. She smiled.

  She could do this. She would do this. And then she’d be free.

  Her house reeked of tobacco. She dropped her bags on the floor and stripped off her coat and boots, ignoring the pool of scummy water spreading out across the wood. With her mouth set in a thin line, she put the lighter fluid and matches in the center of her coffee table—a tiny shrine of immolation—and after a moment’s thought, added the fire extinguisher she kept next to the sofa.

  The album still sat on the counter, the cover open.

  A tiny voice slipped out. “Alison?”

  And another. “Help us.”

  Then a chorus.

  “Please.”

  “Come back.”

  “Don’t you want to be whole?”

  Using the edge of a spoon, she flipped the cover closed, and swirls of grey curled out.

  “You can’t fool me,” she said. “I know what’s really inside. And I am whole.”

  She took a quick trip into the basement and flipped the lid to the small toolbox her mother insisted on buying her so long ago. “You might need it,” she’d said. “Every homeowner should have one.”

  Alison dug out a claw hammer and a pair of heavy duty gloves.

  “Please,” the album said again when she returned. Alison gave it her middle finger but didn’t bother with a glance. It was nothing but a paper mess of tricks and lies, and soon enough it would be nothing in truth.