by Michael Bray
“Well Mr Norton, why don’t cha go ahead and enjoy the fete as best ya can. When it’s all finished, we'll show ya to our 'ome. In the meantime, as soon as Jacob gets back, I’ll have Herb 'ere get in touch with a mechanic from Shadowlands and get him out here first thing to fix up ya car. Ya should be outta here after breakfast.”
Clayton moved to Herb’s wheelchair and readied to push him away.
“Come on Herb, I’ll take ya back to ya stall. Mr Norton, please enjoy the rest of the day.”
Clayton left, taking Herb with him. Norton still couldn’t shake the jittery feeling in his stomach, the feeling that told him that something was wrong with the entire situation. Like it or not, he was stranded there, and decided that although Clayton Candy was something of an oddball, he would still try as best he could to fit in, at least until he could put Candyland behind him.
For the rest of the afternoon, Norton grew more and more uneasy with Candyland. Outwardly, he made a show of enjoying himself, but inwardly he was ever desperate to leave. He started to notice little things, things that he probably wouldn’t have without the warning words of both Herb and Christine, who were both nowhere to be found, despite him trying to seek them out to get more answers. He had touched on it earlier, but now as he looked closer, he noticed that pretty much everyone in Candyland looked freakishly similar. Not all of them of course, but most of those he had seen certainly resembled Clayton Candy to a disturbing degree.
Maybe that’s why they keep staring. Because I look different.
Norton was starting to wonder just how much power Clayton had over the tiny town. Everyone he looked at had the same haunted eyes, the same sense of spirits being broken. Although the fete was in full swing, Norton got the distinct impression that the townsfolk involved were just going through the motions. He half considered running for it, just getting out of town and taking his chances on the road, but he wasn’t ready for that yet. There was every chance that the knot in his stomach could just be his own overactive imagination making more out of the situation than necessary.
One thing was for sure. He wasn’t looking forward to staying at Clayton Candy’s house. In fact, the idea filled him with dread. Either way, there was nothing he could do, and as the day drew to a close and the townsfolk started to head home, Clayton returned, along with his giant of a daughter and together the three of them made their way towards Candy’s house.
Norton took a longing glance at his disabled car, wishing for the umpteenth time that he had never made the decision to stop at Candyland.
Clayton’s house was on the far edge of town. It looked old and tired, its paintwork cracked, faded and in need of repair. The grass out front was sick and yellow. As far as Candyland homes went, it actually looked luxurious, but Norton saw it for what it was, a rundown ugly looking house.
“Come on in Mr Norton.” Clayton said as he walked up the creaking porch steps. Norton followed, and waited as Clayton opened the door.
“Come on in.” Clayton said over his shoulder.
Even though every instinct screamed at him not to, Norton followed, waiting just over the threshold as his eyes adjusted to the gloom.
The inside of the house was quite unremarkable. Old fashioned for sure, but still clean and tidy, which was a pleasant surprise to Norton, who had expected worse. The house was set up for simple living. There was no television. In fact, He hadn’t seen a single modern convenience at all during the tour of the house. The layout was simple, a modest kitchen and sitting room downstairs. Bathroom and three bedrooms upstairs. As he was shown around, Norton tried to gauge some kind of picture of who Clayton Candy was, but the house gave away no secrets. Everything was tidy, and even though the house had a dry, musty smell and showed some signs of age, the yellowed wallpaper and frayed carpets gave no indication of anything sinister.
Norton’s guest room looked out over a vast expanse of open desert, and in the very distance he could see the faint pencil line of the road, which was tantalisingly close. Clayton had told Norton to get some rest, and that supper would be ready at eight.
Alone for the first time, Norton had lay down on his bed, which creaked under protest, and closed his eyes, hoping to get a few hours’ sleep.
He woke to the sound of hushed voices outside his room. The sun had sunk low in the sky, and it had elongated the shadows in Norton’s room. As quietly as he could, he got up and crept to the door, placing an ear to the wood to try and better hear the heated conversation.
He could tell it was Clayton and his daughter, but what they were saying was inaudible. They were speaking in a near whisper themselves, and apart from the odd snatch of a word, he couldn’t make it out. All he knew was that they were in a disagreement over something. Clayton's tone was sharp and demanding, Christine’s was pleading and afraid. He half considered opening the door and making himself known, but wasn’t afraid to admit that he was more than happy to go along with things as anonymously as possible as long as it meant he could save his own skin and get out of Candyland in one piece.
He was about to go back to his bed, content to let the Candy family argue it out amongst themselves when he heard something which changed the entire complexion of his stay. It was Clayton, and the three words he said to his daughter were clear and sharp, and no doubt a little louder than planned. Norton heard well enough though, and that feeling of unease which had been niggling at him, became a full blown fear.
The three words hissed by Clayton to his daughter were a simple enough instruction, but one which raised even more questions about Clayton Candy and the town which bore his name, and it was then that Norton knew that if he wanted to leave Candyland again, then he would have to escape to do it.
Numb and unsure exactly what to do, Norton went to dinner at eight as instructed. Clayton sat at the head of the table, his chair oversized and higher than the others, probably to make up for his physical shortcomings. Norton didn’t think he would be able to eat, but the meal served up by Christine was spectacular to say the least. A delicious roast with all the trimmings. There was enough to feed a family of eight, and he piled his plate high, topping it off with delicious, thick gravy. The three of them ate in silence for a while, Norton very aware that Clayton was watching him with some amusement from the opposite end of the table.
“So, Mr Norton, whatcha think of Candyland?”
Norton took a moment to swallow his food and take a sip of water, ensuring he said the words in exactly the right way.
“It’s a nice place. Quieter than I’m used to, but the hospitality shown to me is second to none. Thank you again.”
“Ah, no need for thanks, that’s what the people of Candyland do. We are a very close community, just one big family working together.”
“Do you get many visitors from outside of town?”
“Not really. As I said earlier, we keep to ourselves pretty much. We don’t bother the outside world and they don’t bother us. We like it that way don’t we precious?” He said, looking at Christine and smiling.
She didn’t answer, and looked down at her plate, which was piled high with enough food for two people.
“You'll have to forgive ma daughter Mr Norton, it seems she's taken something of a shine to ya.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, or to the hopeful glance thrown at him by both father and daughter Candy. As before he took a mouthful of potato, chewing slowly and sipped his drink, giving himself time to compose his thoughts.
“I’m flattered, really. But I’m not looking to get into any kind of a relationship right now.”
He saw the hurt in Christine’s eyes, and felt bad. Clayton’s expression remained neutral as he watched Norton eat.
“How old are ya Mr Norton, if ya don’t mind me asking?” Clayton said, his piercing gaze doing a fine job of raising goosebumps on Norton’s skin.
“I’m thirty six. Thirty seven next month.”
“I see. I see no ring so I presume ya still unmarried following ya divorce. Do ya
have anyone in ya life right now?”
Norton hesitated, not liking where the line of questioning was going.
“No, as I said, I’m happy enough to be single for the time being.”
“But surely, ya ain't getting any younger. Don’t ya feel the urge to settle down, find a good woman to live out the rest of ya days with?”
He didn’t like this. Clayton was becoming pushy, and even at the best of times, Norton wasn’t comfortable discussing his personal life with anyone.
“Not really, I have a busy life. I work hard, and don’t feel ready to settle down.”
He allowed his irritation to show, just enough to give Clayton the hint that he was uncomfortable, but Clayton went on regardless.
“Now I don’t know about that, but ya seem to me like a man who would benefit from settling down with a good woman and maybe having a few kids whilst your seed is still good.”
Although he was still afraid, his anger took control.
“Look Mr Candy, I appreciate you putting me up and all, but I’m uncomfortable with this.”
“With what?” Clayton said, feigning surprise.
“With this entire matchmaking thing. I’m happy as I am, and as much as she seems like a lovely person, I have no interest in settling down here in Candyland with your daughter or anyone else.”
Christine’s lip began to tremble, and she stood and hurried across the room, ornaments shaking as she hurried out of the room and upstairs. Norton knew he had gone too far, and he looked at Clayton, who was gritting his teeth and glaring at Norton with the most pure and uncompromising fury he had ever seen. In fact, Clayton Candy looked about ready to explode.
“Excuse me a moment.” He hissed, tossing his napkin down on his plate and following his daughter out of the room. He heard Clayton ascend the steps and attend to Christine, who was wailing loudly.
He made his decision then to leave. The entire situation was all wrong. And besides, he had heard those three words hissed by Candy to his daughter, and he didn’t intend to stay around long enough for it to happen. He glanced to the kitchen door, knowing that beyond was the back door and freedom. He could get to the road if he went straight across the desert, and he was sure that neither of the Candy’s was in any sort of physical shape to give chase. He got to his feet and hurried to the kitchen, pushing through the door.
His intention was to head straight outside, but what he saw froze him in his tracks.
Herb was in the kitchen. Or more accurately, what was left of Herb. His upper torso was on the counter, the lower half absent. The over tray was on the kitchen table containing one of his legs, a huge chunk of the thigh missing which although he hated to acknowledge it, matched the joint that had just been served for dinner. He vomited, only just managing to get his hand up to his mouth, but his recently consumed meal still spattered on the kitchen floor. He realised then what Clayton had meant when he said the people of Candyland were entirely self-sufficient.
They were cannibals.
He staggered across the room, those three words he had overheard earlier made him even more afraid than he already was.
Just kill him.
That’s what Clayton had said, but whether it was meant to have been applied to him or a precursor of what happened to poor Herb, Norton wasn’t about to stick around to find out. He charged across the room, almost slipping over in his own vomit, yanked open the door and charged down the porch steps. It was cooler now, and he ran, the exhilaration of feeling the air against his skin reminding him of being back on the road, before Candyland even existed. He was moving across open land now, making for the road which was looming on the horizon. He looked behind, half expecting to see Clayton giving chase, but he was simply standing at his kitchen door, watching Norton run. He turned back to the task in hand. Keeping his eyes on the road and enjoying the physical exertion of running when his leg exploded in pain. He fell, screaming in agony, his calf feeling as if it were on fire.
The bear trap was locked in tight, its steel teeth embedded deeply into Norton’s flesh. Blood welled up and then spilled over, turning the sandy earth dark as it flowed. He had never known pain like it, and with shaking hands he tried to pry the jaws open, but even just to touch it sent waves of hot agony racing through him. He couldn’t move, and as he looked about him, he could see more of them. A minefield of bear traps set between Candy’s house and the safety of the road, all hidden and partially buried under the loose earth.
You ain’t never getting out of Candyland now.
Herb had been right. It seemed he knew well enough what happened in Candyland. Perhaps that’s why he was in a wheelchair; perhaps he had tried to escape from Clayton and had paid for it with a broken back, and eventually his life. Norton gritted his teeth and tried to drag himself across the desert, but movement of any kind reignited the fire in his lower leg, and he was forced to give up, lying there helplessly and watching as Candy strolled across the desert towards him. He was whistling and smiling, sidestepping on occasion to avoid one of his hidden traps. His shadow fell across Norton, and he was grinning that same lion’s grin, hands on hips as he breathed hard from the exertion.
“It didn’t have to be this way Mr Norton. I just wanted to make ma daughter happy. I know ya suspect what is happening here, but it ain’t like that. I love ma children, all of them. And you will learn to love ma daughter Mr Norton. I can guarantee ya that.”
“I just want to go home.” Norton said, feeling light headed from the agonising pain in his leg.
“You are home.” Clayton said with a sympathetic smile. “Ya will learn that eventually. They all do.”
Norton blinked, the memories of that day still fresh in his head. His leathery hands worked the grill, making sure the meat was cooked. He had long ago stopped questioning where it came from, and tried not to think about it when he ate it. His eldest son, Jed, walked over to him, asking if he needed any help. He shook his head, watching as the fifteen year old returned to looking after his brothers. Norton’s other seven children frolicked and played. He wasn’t convinced that they were all his. At least two of them looked like their grandfather, Clayton. But that was how things worked here in Candyland, and he had learned the hard way not to question it. He stood and stretched, watching as his wife, Christine waddled towards him, her weight now over four hundred pounds, and the years doing nothing to help her looks. Norton’s youngest son was held against her flabby stomach, clinging to her dress and watching Norton with eyes which looked remarkably like Claytons. She was in charge now, and although Clayton was still alive, he was on his way out, and when that happened, he would return to the group. There were no funerals in Candyland, because nothing went to waste.
He glanced down at his one good leg, then at the other, which was absent above the knee. That one was his own fault, he had tried to escape again, and that time when they caught him, they made sure he would never be able to try again. He set down his tongs, picked up his crutches and limped out of the green, moving towards the rusted shell of his Cadillac, as he always did on the anniversary of his arrival in Candyland, he then stared at the road, which cut across the horizon and looked open and full of possibilities for those who were free. Every time he saw a shimmer, a flash of metal reflected by sunlight, he prayed that whoever was driving paid no heed to the signs or the demanding way in which they were written, and drove past Candyland and onto wherever they were heading. Christine stood beside him, and linked her flabby arm through his thin one, and helped him back to the barbecue, back to his life in Candyland, which was now all that Bill Norton would ever know.
AUTHOR NOTES
I always used to like reading author notes in short story collections. I used to enjoy hearing a little bit about the thought process behind the stories and gain a little insight into the mind of the author. I wasn’t sure if I was even going to include notes of my own. They had been in and out of the book in various forms during the editing process, which actually took a hell of a lot longer to do
than I initially expected.
Even when I was young, I loved writing short stories. There is something about being able to leap straight into the meat of the story without waiting for two hundred pages for things to get going. Even though my first book, Dark Corners was a collection of short stories, they were interconnected, which meant that I wasn’t afforded the kind of freedom to pretty much go and do what I wanted to in the same way as a regular collection of stories.
It was during the process of working on my first (and only at the time of this writing) feature length novel, Whisper, that I started to think about putting a new collection of shorts together. I had plenty of them kicking around in the archives, stories which I thought people might like to read. During the early stages of editing Whisper, I took a closer look at what I had.
Some stories had aged well, others, not so much. I put together a rough manuscript containing eighteen stories, and gave it a name – Destination Nowhere. As edits to Whisper dragged on, I put it aside with every intention of coming back to it. Long story short, Whisper became a pain to edit, and I duly didn’t come back to Destination Nowhere until February of 2013. With eyes well rested and fresh, I looked over the manuscript which I couldn’t wait to get out to my readers…
And I hated it.
The problem was that, although the stories, which had seemed fine at the time of putting that first manuscript together, now looked less good in light of the fact that I had grown as a writer. Although it would have been easier (and, in hindsight, a lot less stressful) to just release it, I didn’t want to do that. Firstly, because I didn’t want to send out substandard work just for the hell of it, and second, because I wanted my reader to enjoy my work the way I enjoyed the short stories of my peers.
With much grumbling, I started to edit. Then cut out huge chunks of the various stories, then, inevitably, delete then in full. I trimmed the initial eighteen stories down to twelve, and the new edit became what I naively thought to be the final version of Funhouse. I set it aside again and dived into working on a new novel. It was sometime in May or June that I next looked at the manuscript, and found to my dismay that I still wasn’t happy with it. The simple fact was that some of the older works, even after a thorough edit, just didn’t hold up. I did what any self-respecting and slightly insane author would.
